Podcast appearances and mentions of aaron did

It has been a while, so we're talking 4 Nations Cup, NHL Trade Deadline, and Aaron Ekblad, more like Aaron Did an Ekbad, amirite? We've also got PWHL fights, the death of the Canadian dollar and Elbows Up, Canada! Thanks for listening.  

Real estate investor, Ted Huntington, describes himself as a novice investor. Aaron Ivey sits down to ask Ted about his take on the current housing market and if he thinks we'll see a 2021 housing crash, and Ted shares what he's learned through his purchase of 6 single-family rental homes in Memphis, TN. Listen and subscribe at: https://epmrealestate.com/podcast/2021-housing-crash-chat-with-memphis-real-estate-investor-ted-huntington Aaron: So on today's show, we have a special guest. This is somebody who I would consider to be a friend, and he came into investment real estate... How many months ago was it Ted? Ted: I would say, you know, it's been a year at least, so pretty recently. Aaron: Yeah. And the cool thing, you know, hopefully for the listener about Ted as you enjoy our conversation, is that Ted is really smart. Early on in our conversation, Ted called me or we were connected through the realtor that was working with Ted that you've heard on this podcast and he said, hey, you've got to talk to this guy and I'm not going to give away to the listener hat it is that you do for a living, but I find what your line of work just really interesting and our initial conversation, I think lasted at least an hour. And then there was probably a follow-up 30 minute conversation after that and we just immediately clicked, I felt. So this is Ted Huntington. Could you tell the listeners what it is you do for a living? Ted: Yeah, I basically have a bachelor's degree in computer engineering and I work at the University of California, Irvine, in the library's I.T. department. So I do I.T. Aaron: But it's so much more than that, because, to me at least, I've had a lot of friends that worked in IT but they weren't I don't think managing access to the diverse range of information that you are managing. I feel like working inside of the live library information system is completely different than, say, working at a courthouse or working for a corporation. Am I wrong in that? Ted: No, that's accurate. I think the University, I love working in the University setting. There's a lot of intellectuals, a lot of people interested in learning and then in the library, there's just a ton of information and we help people to access that information. I mean, more and more of it is now in the electronic realm, but we still do have actual physical books and journals there. But yeah, we just seem really a massive transition from physical information books and so on to ebooks and electronic information. Everything now is electronic. It's just really an amazing change. Aaron: It has been a tremendous transition. I am married to a bibliophile, I think that is the word. Is that right? And we have several built-in bookcases all over our house and she is constantly acquiring more physical books for her to read, for the children to have access to, and to put down and pick back up again whenever she likes. So we're one of the rare families out there that I think are still purchasing actual, written books from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or whatever. Ted: I don't think you're alone in that. I am also kind of a book collector myself. I especially love old books that are important to the history of science in particular. To me I think that not only are they incredibly good reads and they only are in print, I mean some of them I suppose are now in Ebook, but some of them have been out of print for a long time, but also I think they will be collectors' items that some point because it's a bit of history.  The book and a lot of these more famous books and so some of them are lesser known but important. At least in my thinking. Aaron: Right, and I would agree. It's interesting to watch what it is that my wife will download on an e-reader or on a Kindle. It's almost always fiction or she likes a lot of mystery, like older mysteries, and she's very interested in certain histories. But the books she purchases for us to own are usually about early childhood development or teenager development. It's she wants to actually hold the things in her hands that influence the way that she interacts with the world in her daily life. And so it's been very interesting to see what it is and how she makes that decision and what she wants to hold and then what she wants to download.  Ted: Yeah, I still buy books, even real estate books because I want to have a book for before I go to bed and reading or something. It's nice to have a physical book. I don't want an e-reader, I don't know. It's something about it. A physical book is just a little bit more familiar to me, I guess.  Aaron: Well, do you happen to have a favorite real estate book that really inspired you to get involved more in investment real estate? Ted: I've read a lot of the more famous books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and you know, there's some that Bigger Pockets has produced a few good books. But there's also like, even some older, I can't remember the names, but like just old school real estate investors, even from the 1950s, and so on. I've read one of those books and I found it really fascinating how much cheaper houses were. They're talking about $20,000 and $10,000 houses and doing the fixer-uppers back then and how to find a good fixer-upper. I really don't have anyone in particular, but I tried to read all of them, especially where there are people who are doing their own property management, and their experiences and their hints. They always have helpful hints. Like, some people have found the free version of team viewer and so on, so they can remote desktop to their home computer when they're on the go. Little text tips and techniques about tax auctions - I didn't know that much about those - and dealing with auctions and other avenues. The many ways that people can get deals in real estate. There's just a ton of different techniques and strategies. My strategy of course, is very, very tame and it's kind of a lazy person's technique.  Aaron: What is that? What is your strategy? Ted: My strategy is mostly, I'm a buy and holder of mostly turnkey properties. I don't really do fix and flip or fix and rent, even though there's a lot more money in it. I just kind of like to get into a property and start collecting rent and with minor repairs. I'm willing to pay a little bit more for a nice property. So I'm kind of taking the easy way out, but for me, time is very precious. So I really don't want to be spending a lot of time with contractors and working with rehabs and things like that. I'm a little bit older, so I'm kind of more just hoping for the turnkey, all ready-to-roll type of investment property. Aaron: The amazing thing is you don't sound older. I'm not sure what you would qualify as older. You don't have to tell us your age, but you just come across as very energetic and optimistic about your view of real estate and your involvement and interaction with it, which is very refreshing.  Ted: Yeah. Thanks. I am 52. I won't hide it. But yeah, I think age also is just your perspective. I really am a lover of life and embrace challenges. So yeah, thank you. I try to keep a keen mind and keep my mind active and really interested in history and current events.  Aaron: Can you tell us about the experiences that you've had this far here in Memphis, just in general? How've they been? I would assume they've been positive. Ted: Yeah, let me tell you the story about how I got connected with you. I wanted to start investing in Memphis. I have seen another investor in Memphis who does a lot of stuff. He has a YouTube channel and he does a lot of Memphis investment and I thought, yeah, that really sounds like a good place to invest. I did a lot of research with Zillow data and found that Memphis prices had been appreciating and all the major zip codes there in the last 3 years and that the rent to value property ratio was high, and so it was a good place to invest. Also, I enjoyed the weather. I think Memphis is in the southern tier of the United States, so it's better. So I set about trying to find property managers and, I think I called and talked to every single property manager in Memphis, and I kind of sized them up on their different policies. There's a lot of different things and issues involved with property management. And, you know, they have to have good communication, they have to be on top of things, and I had a lot of different parameters. It's been so long that I don't really remember all of them. But I went through and I ranked EPM way up there. I thought you guys really have a good professional setup. Ultimately, I found Brett, who I enjoy and is basically my real estate agent in Memphis. I'm happy with him and your property managers, and so that really worked out and I'm very happy with you all. That's pretty much how I got started there and just started acquiring properties. Aaron: I really appreciate what you have just said about property management. I was speaking to another investor, who's about to come on with us. She's out of Utah, and we were just chatting about property management and investment real estate, and I was speaking to her about a specific topic, some of the challenges that we've had during covid with this sort of uncertainty as to, whether or not, there is a requirement of a tenant to pay their rent, if they're not able to pay their rent, we talked about the private contract that the landlord has with the tenant and should the CDC be able to step in and interrupt that if the tenant is, for whatever reason, be considered to be at risk for being displaced. We just had this incredibly detailed conversation about, you know, the federal government versus contract laws versus real estate ownership, and I finally just stopped and said, listening to myself, only a landlord would nerd out about this stuff. I think about this all the time, I send myself articles all the time that I find online, and so we really love what we do. And I'm grateful that you've picked up on that. Ted: I think it takes a certain kind of mindset to do what you do there and I think it takes somebody who's really good with management, in particular. Aaron: Thank you. There's definitely a translation that goes on for the homeowner. So for the listeners, I've never met Ted in person. I look forward to it one day, just coming out to Southern California and just kind of seeing what's there and meeting some investors. Ted is definitely at the top of the list just because I like you and I have already talked about meeting at one point. Having a cup of coffee or a beer, and just get to see your work, your world, which I think could be very interesting. Ted: Yeah, absolutely. Or in Memphis. I may find myself in Memphis at some point, please. Aaron: Yeah. I think if we can get through, you know, fall of ‘21 and past the Spring of ‘22 and sort of work our way through this new stage of the pandemic, then, I think we're going to be in a much better place next year. At least my fingers are crossed for that. Ted: Me too. Aaron: Can you tell me a little bit about the properties that you own right now? It sounds like you've worked with Brett before, to acquire them, and I think your financing strategies are actually very interesting. Ted: I pay all cash. I currently have 6 single-family houses. They're all rented out currently in Memphis and I tried to choose areas that I think are good up-and-coming, sort of gentrifying areas. Mostly it's around the Egypt area, kind of where Nike and Amazon are. Just single-family houses and they're all currently rented. I'm sort of a newbie to investing. I have kind of a funny story, I mean, in 2005 I was working in the business office in the library for a very astute business office manager who told me, with housing prices in 2005 going up so much, you should really go and buy a house. I said, well, you know, houses are so super expensive. I can't possibly afford one.  She said, buy a condo. Well what's a condo I asked? I don't even know. This is how clueless I was in 2005. I didn't even know that condos are like an apartment but you own it. That really kind of began my investing career. I bought a condo, and then ultimately years later I rented that one out and bought a house. Then I sold that and bought more rentals and bought my rentals in Memphis. So I'm still really an amateur rookie, newbie investor. But I wish I'd got into real estate in my 20s. I honestly was clueless for so long that now finally, I am starting to realize what a valuable thing investing in real estate is, especially in Memphis. Aaron: Absolutely, I do want to point something out that you've said that I think most people may be in a different place in their investing career than you are, and I'm gonna make this point. We know that the majority of our listeners, even if that majority is just 51%, are people who are considering getting started in real estate and they don't yet own investment properties and they haven't really, you know, that their listening, they're reading some books, they're reading some blogs, maybe they're getting their financing together, but they still haven't taken that leap. So something that you've done actually makes you at least an intermediate in investment real estate, and that you've actually done it. I mean what you've done does take risk and it takes a leap of faith, and the fact that you've actually acquired 6 properties in about a year? That is incredible.  Ted: Yeah, you have to step out of your comfort zone a little bit and I don't think anybody will ever get any gain if they're not willing to step out of their comfort zone a little bit to learn something new. I think that's really the key you have to work, you have to break a sweat, get on the phone, and start feeling it out. That's how. Through talking to the various property managers around Memphis, I started to feel more comfortable about going forward. I think you all answered every one of my questions, no matter how small. So, that's the key. Getting out of that comfort zone and giving it a try, even with just one property, and seeing how it goes. It's really a matter of doing a little bit of work, so you feel comfortable with what you're going to be doing and learning the process. There's a little bit of learning involved, you know, there's a learning curve, but it's I think ultimately worth it because there are so many people who are afraid of even starting up that mountain. Right? Aaron: Absolutely. You know, like it's kind of like what we talked about. No. I was talking to somebody else. Again this was another investor that I was speaking to today, right before speaking to you. Investing in real estate is a lot like something I did recently, which I know tons of people have done, it's not that big of a deal. About 4 weeks ago, my son and I climbed to Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, and the initial part of the climb, which is the first 6 miles from about 5,000 feet above sea level, all the way up to about 8,500 feet above sea level. It was pretty easy. Then as we continued to passed the halfway point, it became kind of difficult until we got to the top. It's 6.5 to 7 hours to do the whole length of it. Ultimately, we were at 14,500 feet above sea level, and the view was incredible. The headache was unbelievable, but it was so totally worth it. But that first step, like you're talking about, that's it. It might even be the most difficult step to take. Ted: Exactly. Aaron: You've said just now that you've even invested in California, you've had a condominium and a house, I don't know if you're in a house right now or not, but we know that you've got some experience there in California. How would you compare owning real estate in California versus owning real estate here in Memphis? Ted: Well, I personally only want to own real estate in California in which I will be living and occupying because I am only going to be investing in other states because there are big differences between California and Tennessee, and a lot of the other Midwest states. California is very sort of more tenant friendly and Tennessee is more landlord friendly just in terms of investing. But then also the ROI in California, well, for one thing, there really isn't one! I mean, the price of real estate in California is just so unbelievably high that it just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to buy investment properties, unless you're really a multi-millionaire. The Midwest is far more of a normal market for somebody with a smaller amount of income looking to get into and start investing in rentals. I far prefer Memphis. I learned a valuable lesson investing in California. I had my condo and the rent coming in could not even cover the property tax and the mortgage payment, and the insurance, and so on. So I was losing, I think, a couple hundred every month and it wasn't cash flowing in any way. It's really the exact opposite in Memphis. You know, you can get into a property without too much and the rent will be enough to make it cash flowing. Property taxes are not outrageous, insurance is not too high, so it's just all around a no-brainer. I tell people, and I have friends, who invest in California, have rentals in California, and I just think it's really a losing battle for most people who are not billionaires.  Aaron: Yeah. So we've found the same here. When I first got started in investment real estate here in Memphis, this would have been around 1997 or 1998 when my ear was to the ground, then I got my license in 2000, and really started assisting investors. One of the things that I really noticed about the Memphis area, is that there were more people from outside of the Memphis, Tennessee area that were investing in Memphis than there were people that lived in my own community, and I began to sort of learn why that was. I think that people from outside, especially and specifically Southern California - at least 40% of all of our investors live in Southern California - and I think that they've realized for a long time and had realized the same thing, which is that the value-to-rent or the rent-to-value is so much better in the Memphis, Tennessee area, even back before the boom. This most recent housing boom that we're in right now, which kind of started around 2015-2016, you were still able to get almost a one-to-one ratio. Let's say that you had a mortgage on the property and it was an 80% mortgage. You were still getting 10 to 20% above the total cost of ownership, and that would have been, your mortgage, your taxes, and any interest that you're paying: 10 to 20% above that. Now, what's happened, of course, here in Memphis, one of the things that's driving rents up all over the country, is that even though interest rates are at an all-time low that normal owner occupant is having such a difficult time, finding affordable property to purchase here in Memphis. So, they're resorting to renting, because they still want to have that homeownership experience. They're renting property instead of being able to purchase it, because they're honestly fighting investors for these same properties. On the rent growth point, I want to make sure that we get to today and have a conversation about tha. Again, homewire.com had an article that was released this morning and it talked about the rent growth capacity for the remainder of 2021. And it's almost exactly like that figure that I gave before about housing value growth being 12%, for the year and how this is the first time that a number like that has been achieved since 1979, and rents are the same way. We are experiencing what you kind of touched on earlier, that sort of inflationary factor. We're seeing nationwide projected rent growths, which will, in essence, put all of our rental properties at an annual rate of about 10 to 12% overall increase from January to December, 2021, which seems small. But as a property manager, here's a neat thing. One of the things I've been doing lately is just asking for more rent. These properties that are coming in the buyers will say, well I think I can get 12 or 13 hundred dollars per month for this property, and I'll say, you know what, why don't we go and ask for 1500, you know. Let's just go for it and see what the market will support. I'm finding that the market for now at least, is supporting these inflated rental amounts. Ted: Yeah. It doesn't surprise me. Absolutely rents are going up. I currently rent right now here in California. My rent just went up. So yeah, it's not strictly in Memphis. It's happening all over. Aaron: Did you say that you own investment properties in other locations other than Memphis?  Ted: No. Only Memphis currently. I am looking maybe to branch out sometime in the future, but pretty much Memphis is it for me right now. Aaron: That's awesome. Do you have a vision for next year? Like you're a well-read person? I know that you're a constant student. Just like me. You've got to have been reading articles projecting, you know what the real estate market is going to look like in 2022. Do you have any read on that personally? Ted: Yes, mostly it's the most important for me in terms of how home prices are going to look here in California...I'm really waiting. Is there going to be a correction or not? I think it will be revealed by 2022 if we are going to see any fallout really from COVID or not, and that's kind of what I'm thinking. I may get into a house or myself and I'm kind of holding off because it's going to be a big house payment and you know, it's going to take all my resources to buy a house at these prices. But yeah, I mean, my plan for 2022 is to buy a house for myself. Most likely, depending on market conditions, if there's no real serious change, I will be going ahead and buying a house. But if we see prices starting to correct, then I will wait and see how far they may go down if they do. But yeah, then probably I'll resume getting back into Memphis rentals. More Memphis rentals. That's kind of my plan for 2022. Aaron: Well, I think it's brilliant. We've had several investors this year that have done very different, more imaginative, financing techniques and strategies to improve their own home, you know, or apartment wherever it is that they're living or that they want to live on the back of the value growth that they've experienced with their Memphis properties.  Ted: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I can see doing, maybe some cash out refinancing on some of my properties. Currently I've only financed one. All the rest, I own, all cash, and they have appreciated. So yeah, that's a great option if you want to generate some cash for maybe another purchase. That's a great way to do that.  Aaron: Yeah, I really have no analogy for it but, for the listeners that don't yet own investment real estate, we've got a little bit of a story to tell you, a secret to tell you. Being in the game of investment real estate. Being in that world is what makes you money. You can't make money off of real estate unless you own it. For instance, a lot of my investors that owned property all the way back, purchasing it all the way back into 2002, 2005. These people who like Ted, purchased and held these properties, during more normal economies, they experienced all the benefits of investment real estate ownership, without seeing this massive value growth. So for investors looking to realize that cash, and take advantage of that value growth, that purchased say around 2014 through 2017. So many of those investors said, you know what, this has been great. I've really enjoyed the last 6 years of owning this real estate and I'm out. They sold, and man, they left the experience with smiles on their faces. They were so pleased that they were able to double their money in 6 years or in 8 years and, for my investors that purchased 20 years ago, of course, they've more than tripled their money. Ted, I totally think you should do that. I think you should cash out refi wherever you want to be, it's great interest rates, you've made great value growth on these things. You gotta do it! Ted: Yeah, absolutely. It's the smartest, smart move. Aaron: Yeah. And you know, that kind of dovetails back to what I said before. I actually said these words, I said investing in real estate is hard. And what I meant by that is, is this. I've got a mutual fund, right? And you probably do too. You've got some sort of employer funded investment because of where you work and they feed that maximum matchable amount into your 401k or your mutual fund, your simple or traditional IRA, whatever it is, and they do that every year. You never see it. They take it out of your paycheck and that's easy, right? I've got to tell you, even in the midst of this amazing economy, I've been looking at the Dow and watching these value growths, and then going over into my portfolio and looking to see how that's benefiting me, and really there's no major year-over-year benefit. It's not as you know, the high highs and the low lows that are possible in real estate. I do think that real estate is definitely an investment worthy of somebody like you, and your intellect, because you're able to engage it, manipulate it, imagine the possibilities of it, reorganize it if you want to, take out the value, infuse more value. So let's try to end on a sort of a visionary note if you will for 2022, 2023, and let me tell you what, I see, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. We do have a coming correction. There are several articles out there from the Washington Post, the New York Times, homewire.com, and politico etc. All kinds of different websites that are out there that are talking about the looming housing crisis. And so, from Memphis Tennessee, which there's only a million people here, what we consider what that housing crisis will look like, here's what we see. We don't necessarily see a correction in pricing. We do see a softening in the contract negotiation capacity of the seller. So basically, the sellers are not going to just be able to ask for whatever they want and get it. Sellers are going to have to have to accept negotiations that are at or around asking price or below asking price. Also, they're going to have to give concessions and maybe even make repairs. So that's new. Right now, what we've been saying nationwide is that sellers just get to ask for whatever they want, and they get it. So, the first thing is that the market is going to soften a little bit. The second thing, of course, is that as these eviction protection laws or whatever we want to call them expire, you're going to see foreclosures. You're going to see houses that are locked up by tenants not paying their rent, refusing to move, not being allowed in the courts to be evicted. They're finally going to be loosened up. There's going to be more liquidity in the courtroom and we're going to see so many more properties available for purchase. That's kind of what we're seeing happening starting in 2022, unless there's some sort of major change that we can't see coming. Ted: That's great to hear. So, do you think there's going to be price reductions? Or do you think prices are just gonna kind of hold and there's just gonna be softening in negotiation? Aaron: So I think real estate is stratified, if you will, right? Like, I can just imagine a property near UC Berkeley that you could be interested in purchasing. I imagine it being like a 1930s built bungalow or some sort of really awesome, older construction type property. I could be wrong. I don't know what Berkeley's like. Ted: Yeah, they have older buildings there that just go for exorbitant prices. Aaron: Right? And I'm sure they're gorgeous. Ted: It's in the eye of the beholder. I think it's older houses. Yeah, I'm sure some of them are. Yeah absolutely. Aaron: Yeah. So, if the same house there that you might be looking to purchase is in sort of the upper middle income to upper income strata, here in Memphis. So you asked if the average prices were going to drop or if there's going to be a softening in pricing, I would say on the lower income strata, absolutely. One of the reasons why. I know some of the properties you purchased. In your price range, sellers are able to get more for those properties than ever before and what I believe is going to end up happening, is that the actual real value of those properties is going to soften to where investors aren't going to be as willing to spend the full asking amount. They're going to go in with home inspections, there's going to be more time for the buyer to be able to get a feel for the property before they make an offer. Right now there's just no time, right? You have just got to jump in, you have to put out that repair contingency, an inspection contingency, and if the house is full of holes, then you say, you know what? I'm not even going to negotiate. I'm just going to walk away because that's the smart thing to do in this kind of market. So I think that the buyer is going to have more time and that's probably the most important thing and I think sellers are going to be willing to wait for the buyer to make decisions, because right now sellers are in a position to where if you don't purchase it and move quickly and have all cash, with no inspection contingency, and you just want to close in one week, that's the kind of buyer that sellers are looking for. So I think they're going to be more sellers that want to say, hey, you know, let me really kick the tires on this house and get a feel for it. I do think, you know, just talking about strata, I think that the upper income housing in Memphis and the surrounding areas, which really start around 750, three quarters of a million, all the way up to 2 and 3 million dollar properties, on average, and of course there are palaces that are so much more expensive. I think that is really where you're gonna see pricing soften because there's just not going to be as much of a demand for that type of construction and, in the middle income housing, it's going to be the same as it always is, just very competitive. So depending on what type of investor you are and how much money you want to spend, and all of that, you're going to  experience something different within that. Here's the good news! I want to end on a high note, and then if there's anything else you'd like to say, I'd love to hear it. The good news is this... History has proven that rent amounts and the amount of money that the average tenant is willing to pay for real estate, and in our case it's single-family income, is a trailing indicator of overall economic condition. Several articles that I've recently read talked about how rents are following the increase in property values, right? Because rent's are speculative; they are so much more speculative than housing value. You know, housing value is based on the recent sales, recent appraisals, recent refinancing, and recent financing, so that's a pretty set figure, how much that property's actually worth. Well, rents are speculative. They've got to either come up or drop based on what the buyer is willing to pay. So what's happening right now in the Memphis area at least, is that there is no product to rent. Basically you can almost ask for whatever you want. As it is a trailing indicator, even when there's a softening in the market 6 months, 12 months, to 18 months from now, rents should remain high for the next, I'm going to speculate, 18 to 30 months if there's a correction. So for people who, like you, own real estate, I would say let's renew that lease, let's increase that rent, let's really take advantage of this great economy. Ted: Yeah. That's the big question. Is this bull market going to continue in 2022? You know, one interesting thing if you look at the numbers, I'm really hoping that we see a lot more inventory coming online on to the MLS and for sale, because I was hearing somewhere that in 2020, a million people, like the number of people who list every year is very kind of constant, and there was sort of a shortage of a million people in 2020 who chose not to list their property and then add that to the number of people who have not been paying their mortgage who are in forbearance, which is maybe another million or something, just for the United States.  What are they going to do when they come out of this forbearance? Are they going to sell? What's going to happen? Are they going to get a loan modification or whatever? I think there's a good chance and I'm really hoping that we're going to see more inventory. Now, can this bull market of buyers absorb that? That's a good question. I mean there's a lot of demand, interest rates are very low and so, it may well be that yes, there's an increase in inventory, a lot of more houses come online, but the demand is so bullish and so high that it really will not even make a dent in housing prices. I think we'll see that in 2022 and 2023, hopefully. Aaron:  Yeah, I think we'll see it. I think when we get into the second quarter especially we're able to look back on Q4 of this year, 2021, and Q1 of next year, we will see a two-quarter trend of more properties on the market. I know you're probably reading this or watching this but listeners, I just want to encourage you to look up the National Association of Realtors data that's out there. It's free for you to get. They release it every quarter. For us realtors, they release it every month. They'll tell  how many new units were put on the market, listed and whether or not that's gone up and down. The same thing for new construction that's also very informative to a buyer for what the climate is right then, and to watch that. I actually agree with you that I think you're gonna see a ton of new property on the market and, on the matter of forbearance, another statistic that I read this morning was that right now anywhere from 0.9 to 1.9%, of all residences are in some form of forbearance. Ted: It's not a small number.  Aaron: No, it's massive. Ted: Yeah. Aaron: And so, just depending on how those people deal with the fact that they're no longer protected from foreclosure or from some sort of debt collection action against them, it will inform the open market very quickly. One last thing before we go. I hope that we can begin to talk about how to take advantage of the upcoming foreclosure acquisition opportunities that are there. You know, they won't be amazing deals with the foreclosures, but they could be 5 to 10, to 15% below market, and that there's a lot of room right there. So that's going to be fun to watch. Ted: Absolutely. Aaron: Well, thank you so much for your time. I know you said it's more or less on your lunch break, which is great. So, I apologize if you're clocking back in late, but, thank you so much for coming on. Ted: Sure, thank you for having me Aaron. Great to chat with you. Aaron:  Always a pleasure here as well and I look forward to talking to you more soon. Ted: For sure. Thank you Aaron. Have a good day.

We start season 4 off by sharing the story of our first home birth. READ TRANSCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.[Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.[Aaron] And today we're gonna share our first home birth story. Welcome to the marriage after God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.[Jennifer] I am Jennifer, also known as unveiled wife.[Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as husband evolution.[Jennifer] We have been married for over 13 years.[Aaron] And so far we have five children under eight.[Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over nine years through blogging, social media and writing over 10 books.[Aaron] With a desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.[Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life...[Aaron] Love.[Jennifer] And power-[Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God.[Jennifer] Together.[Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.[Jennifer] This is marriage after God.[Aaron] Hey everyone, welcome back to Marriage After God.[Jennifer] Season four.[Aaron] We're on season four. Yeah, this is crazy.[Jennifer] Awesome.[Aaron] We've had a lot of episodes, but we're back for season four. So if you're tuning in, welcome. If this is your first time, we're so glad that you're here. Listening to the Marriage After God podcasts. We pray that it's an encouragement to you and a blessing, but if you've been listening for a long time, welcome back. We're so excited to have you here.[Jennifer] Hi everyone.[Aaron] Yeah, and we're recording this in our garage as usual and it's still locked down season. And I know that a little interesting for everyone. It's interesting for us. Jennifer, have you had any thoughts about the season we're in with lockdown COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented times.[Jennifer] Yeah, I mean, I've had some thoughts about it. I think what's been really a blessing is that we've been in postpartum season, so we had our baby and so we would have been kind of having a low key life anyways right now. Just with me resting, nursing is always usually an issue with our kids. Baby Edith had a tongue tie like several other of our children. And so the first couple of weeks was just basically me and her figuring that out. And so-[Aaron] I do feel like though we started self quarantine earlier because we were leading up to having the baby and then all of this stuff happened right around the same time as having the baby.[Jennifer] Yeah. I would say this we had a really good distraction from what was happening in the world. And so now we're kind of like coming up out of that we just hit the six week mark after having the baby. And I think the most important thing has been for me has been to communicate with you in navigating this pandemic and what the world looks like these days. And it gives me peace, being able to talk to you. It gives me a bit of relief and just knowing that I can share my thoughts, my concerns, whatever that I'm going through with you. What would you say?[Aaron] Well, same. We've been having a lot of conversations about it. We've also had a lovely conversation with our kids. It's kind of hard to like hide it from them cause why can't we hang out with our friends? Why can't we go out? And we're like, "Well, there's a lot of things going on the world." which is going on.[Jennifer] And as an encouragement to parents, I think it's so important that we really understand that our kids lean on us for security and support, especially in times like these. So when they have these big questions, we should be answering them. If they see us being able to have peace and hope and joy amidst the chaos it will give them guidance on how they can respond in times like these. if they sense in us fear and anxiety over the situation, then that could also influence them. So I think as parents, I think it's really cool to see that God has given us an opportunity with our kids to help them navigate this whole thing. And I think it's good for us to engage in conversation with them. It doesn't mean we have to explain everything, especially we can keep it age appropriate. But just being able to willing to have conversations with them.[Aaron] Well, and also being honest with them and letting them know that sometimes we don't have the answers. Like we don't know the appropriate way to respond to all this. We don't know exactly how this is going to turn out. We don't know... Like we just, there's a lot of answers we don't have.[Jennifer] And then we tell them, but our trust and our hope is in God. And so it's another opportunity to point them back to God and encourage their hearts to be able to trust God and I don't know, just to be able to move forward still in life and know that he has us.[Aaron] Yeah, and it's also been good to, I feel like in America we have a lot of comforts and this has shown us how dependent we might be on some comforts. And also brought us to a point that one of the other benefits to this is reminding us of our need for Christ, our need for his peace, his satisfaction, being satisfied in him alone. So one thing we've been trying to encourage our children, whether we catch it or not, whether we are always healthy, we don't know how this is going to turn out. We encourage them to know that God is good. God has us, he knows his plans for us and that we can't control all of those things, but what we can do is look to God who's in control.[Jennifer] Yeah, Aaron, you brought up comforts and especially living here in America. However this whole thing has also allowed us to see how people might be struggling. So you use the word comfort, but I also want to just mention that there's a lot people who've been greatly impacted by this whole thing in a negative way in a lot of different ways. So, I dunno if you want to speak to that.[Aaron] Well, yeah, we know that there's millions and millions of people that have lost their jobs. Some might not get them back. And so our hearts break for that situation. And we know that there's people that are sick. We know that there's people that are, that have other issues going on, that are not COVID-19 related and are having a hard time dealing with that. There's mental issues, there's abuse, there's a lot of things going on in this world that are being exasperated by this situation. And so-[Jennifer] As Christians, I think that we need to remember all of that especially if maybe we're in a different situation, but no matter what our hearts should be to be in prayer for everyone who's been impacted by it.[Aaron] And also been asking the Lord how we can be used.[Jennifer] Yeah, cause we're his body.[Aaron] We might know someone that needs some love, some reaching out, some help. And so we should be aware of that and ready for that. And we should be praying for each other. Praying for those that are going through hard situations and our prayers should not just be, "God, make their situation better."[Jennifer] Or even, "God let us go just back to normal."[Aaron] Right, because that's a thing that I have is like, "Hey, can we just go back to normal?" Our kids keep praying like God make this go away. They miss normalcy. But our prayer should be that hearts are softened. Hearts are turned towards the Lord, that people are brought back to the Lord, that people that don't know the Lord and find him, that families are healed and mended, that like these deeper things. That even if the body is broken, the spirit can be made whole. And so, yes, we should be praying for healing. Yes, it's good to pray for being taken care of financially and being taken care of in these ways. But right now, this is the time when man, the spirit of God catches hold of people. And so we should be praying that hearts are ready to receive. Hearts are open to hear the word of God are being watered and seeds are being planted. And that's, I mean, I don't know, more than anything. I want people to be saved in this time for eternity, not just for the season. So do you have any last thoughts on, I mean there's gonna be lots of thoughts.[Jennifer] I know we could probably do a whole episode on it. Two things. The first thing I was just thinking, if people are listening to this episode in the future. So like going-Yeah, after the-[Jennifer] After the fact, after all this has kind of settled down a bit. I just wonder what their thoughts would be just being reminded of this time. And then my other thought was just an encouragement and it's just for husbands and wives, it's an encouragement to be communicating with each other because no matter what your situation looks like right now you have someone right next to you who's going through it with you. And sometimes, I don't know those listening are like me, but sometimes I get caught up in my head where I'm having conversations in my head, even with you Aaron, and I'm like answering for you. But, then I realized I haven't actually talked to you in a couple of days about how I'm feeling or about what I'm thinking. So my encouragement is, especially in times like these that we are open and transparent and vulnerable specifically with each other.[Aaron] Yeah, I was also thinking, we are friends and families. Not being afraid to just come straight out and say, "Hey, how are you dealing with all this? "Hey, how's your heart? "Are you going through any sort of depression? "Is there any fears that you're like-[Jennifer] Yeah, are you okey?[Aaron] "that are just getting inside your heart." And just asking so that they can be maybe brought out of that darkness, maybe brought out of their shell and not be afraid to ask those questions. Cause I would imagine there's a lot of people dealing with hidden fears and anxieties right now.[Jennifer] And it's okay if you don't know how to answer them. It's okay if the greatest thing you can even say is I'm going to be praying for you or just stop and pray for them right then and there. But I think it was important that we just spend a little bit of time on that since this is such a huge thing going on in our lives right now. And our hearts go out to everyone. And we know this is just crazy, but God is good, like you said.[Aaron] And God's not surprised by any of this stuff. I just wanted to bring up a verse. James 1:12 says, Blessed is the the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Over and over again the New Testament speaks of steadfastness and continuing on and standing strong and standing firm. And I just want to encourage everyone, you believers out there, that we need to stand strong in the word of God and we need to remember who's got us, whose hand upholds us, who guides our steps and makes our paths and brings light into our life and it's God. And so we need to put our strength, our hope and strengths in him because they're not, and our hopes are not in the government. They're not in a vaccine, they're not in treatments, they're not in the, it just going away or those things are going to come and things happen, but we can't control any of this stuff. We just can't. And if we put our hope in those things that our hope is gonna fail. So let's put our hope in the only thing that's consistent, the only one that is a firm foundation and it's God and his word. And let's look to him for wisdom and guidance on how as believers we are to approach this thing that was going on. Cause he's the only, James also says, "If you lack wisdom, ask. "And we will be given wisdom as long as we do not doubt." And so let's ask him for wisdom. I need wisdom. We've been talking a lot about this man. Like how do we deal with all of these things? And we're definitely don't deal with it in fear, but we don't deal with it on our own strengths, our own wisdom. We lean not on our own understanding, but on every word, on God's wisdom. So that's what I just want to encourage everyone with is remain steadfast in these trials. And let's look to God for answers and our hope and for our courage and our wisdom.[Jennifer] And our peace.[Aaron] Oh, most importantly, our peace. So, that was just a bit of a encouraging word for everyone. We need it ourselves. I mean, he reminded ourselves, but I just want to invite everyone to, if you have children or if you're thinking about having children or if you're pregnant, we have something that we've created for you. It's a free resource and it's called the parenting prayer challenge. You can go to parentingprayerchallenge.com all one word and it's completely free to sign up and we will send you over the next 31 days, email with something to pray for and a reminder to pray for it. And it's pretty awesome. We've had almost a thousand people sign up for it and we would love for you to take advantage of it. We created it just for you. And man, it's an awesome thing and it reminds us as parents to pray for our children and there's awesome prompts in there to pray for all these different areas of your child's life. So yeah, we just, it's parentingprayerchallenge.com it's totally free and become part of the people that are going through that challenge.[Jennifer] All right, so today's topic is our first home birth story. No, it's not our first birth story. Obviously if you've followed us for any amount of time, this was baby number five. And, it's just kind of an interesting story and we're excited to share it with you guys.[Aaron] What's more interesting is that we actually fit every one of our kids and us inside of our explorer.[Jennifer] It's tightly, but it's good.[Aaron] It's tight. But that was just a fun little adventure that we figured out.[Jennifer] Aaron was surprised by that.[Aaron] I was a little surprised. They would fit without car seats. But the trick is as we have five car seats. We have actually we have-Four cars seats.[Aaron] four cars and two boosters or is it three car seats, two boosters.[Jennifer] Right.[Aaron] And just the way it's all arranged, we barely fit. It will be a lot better when some of them are out of their boosters. That'll make a big difference, but-[Jennifer] That's okay. Thanks for sharing. so the first four births were done in the hospital and we were happy with those experiences and we had the same, what's it called? It's not a goal. Same birth plan.[Aaron] Our plan was, we'd love to having children in the hospital, actually really love our local hospital here.[Jennifer] And food is so good.[Aaron] The rooms are just really nice and quite.[Jennifer] The people are so nice.[Aaron] It's been good. So we're not opposed to hospital births by any means.[Jennifer] No, we had that plan held in our hands. My whole pregnancy really, and the word changed that at the finish line.[Aaron] Pretty much, yeah.[Jennifer] And so it was our first home birth and I got gotta be honest, I was nervous. Even in the past I've been nervous to even consider a home birth, even though I know people and I've followed people online that have had them.[Aaron] And even though your pregnancies and labors have all been considerably like easy, not easy and-Easy is a funny word-[Aaron] It's safe, I should say.[Jennifer] Yes. Not emergency or anything.[Aaron] Nothing, you haven't had any big emergencies. It's like it just, it goes as planned usually.[Jennifer] Yeah. So anyways, I don't know. We just, we held our birth plan loosely as we believe people should and we submit it to the Lord. And really the last trimester is when all of the world started falling apart with the pandemic. And even more so in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Protocols at the hospital started changing.[Aaron] They started limiting the number of people that could be in the rooms.[Jennifer] We started seeing a lot more articles online being shown stories of that happening. And I came home from one of my last appointments and I was sharing with Aaron these changes that had just been made and we were about to have our baby and I, there was a part of me that just was wondering what is the hospital experience going to be like? And we're just sharing some of our thoughts with each other.[Aaron] And we also, because a big part of this conversation is what was going on in the world. It wasn't just like whether or not we wanted to have a home birth. It was what is our, what does this situation look like for us amidst all of like the virus that's going around. And so we were discussing this and I just wanted to let everyone know that our number one discussion was, are we afraid? Are we gonna be in fear? Are we gonna make decisions or are we gonna be going into this with any anxieties? Because those are realities like, "Oh my gosh, we got to go to like the hospital, "which is where everyone goes that has, "that gets the virus." So that was a part of this conversation was. We are not going to be afraid regardless. Like whether we are going to be exposed or not. We want to have no fear. We want to trust the Lord because he does know what's going on, so.[Jennifer] Totally. Yeah, and also so everyone knows Aaron has been an advocate for home birth for several of my pregnancies. You would ask me like, "Hey, are you interested this time?"[Aaron] I've been pushing for a while.[Jennifer] But you've always been supportive too of what we've decided together. And so, when I came home from that appointment, I shared everything with you. And you suggested it again. You're like, "What about a home birth?" And I'm like, I kind of laughed about it. I was like, no, no, no, no. Like if I'm too far in my pregnancy that's crazy talk, I would have to adjust mentally and it just seems-[Aaron] And I would even be able to get a midwife. How is this gonna work?[Jennifer] It seemed impossible. And you were so hopeful and you're like, "Why don't you just call them and just see what's going on? "Cause maybe they've talked to other people about this." And so I made the phone call and no one answered. And I said, "See, okay, so we're not doing that."[Aaron] Did you leave a message?[Jennifer] Yeah. So by the end of that day, I had been praying and it had been on my heart just to consider both a hospital birth or a home birth. And the Lord gave me so much peace and I was okay with either one.[Aaron] And the same, yeah.[Jennifer] So when I said earlier about having an open hand, having my birth plan and an open hand and open heart, it was this piece that I had that was like, no matter what happens or how I give birth, it's the Lord.[Aaron] I actually remember, I think it was a, I don't know the exact date, but it was about a week before this. You posted a picture of the kids or something on Instagram and you wrote this beautiful thing saying, "Hey, here's my birth plan. "We want to do this." And you said, "but open-handed of course."[Jennifer] Yeah, it was an infant story and it was right at the bottom.[Aaron] And I said, but open-handed of course. And you had this whole idea. And it was before everything started getting really crazy. News-wise, but I remember you got someone messaged you and said, "Please don't have it at the hospital." Cause they were so concerned that's where you shouldn't be. And there were, it was so loving and so concerned. And we saw that and we're like, huh. But we didn't like talk about it.[Jennifer] I didn't think about it.[Aaron] But looking back on it, I was like, "Oh, that was kinda cool. "It was like open handed." Someone was like encouraging you in that direction, but.[Jennifer] So anyways, we were praying about it, but we hadn't heard back from the midwife and until the next morning. Give me some questions and I think they were just being really nice given the situation of what was happening in our world and our state. But because I had established care throughout my pregnancy, I didn't have any-[Aaron] There was no flags.[Jennifer] There was, yeah, there was no red flags, there was no problems or issues that I had throughout my pregnancy. My past pregnancies have been healthy and my labors have been fine and I haven't needed interventions or anything like that. And so they said yes and they were willing to meet with me that day.[Aaron] Which is they never do.[Jennifer] I just felt-[Aaron] They were willing to do this in this season for you.[Jennifer] Yeah. It just felt like an impossible situation that God just said, "Here, this is what I want you to walk through." And I got off the phone almost in tears because I then I had to tell Aaron that it was a go and I was, I was like, okay but like, yeah, this is, I didn't know, I was speechless really. I don't know how to explain that.[Aaron] Did you want not to tell me?[Jennifer] No, no, no, no, but I, and there was a part of me that was really excited, like I have never done a home birth before. Like how cool that I get to do this now. And then my next immediate thought was, "Oh my gosh, are we prepared for this?" Because I didn't know. I hadn't been researching about what to have for a home birth. So that, the next thing-[Aaron] I know is a little weird to think about. Like, what am I supposed... Am I supposed to have anything?[Jennifer] Yeah. So the other cool thing is that we didn't really need much. I felt like what I had like in my hospital bag and things at home already we were prepared for. There's just a couple of other things that you went out to get like an extra set of sheets and I don't remember.[Aaron] Some pillows and something like that.[Jennifer] I don't remember.[Aaron] The midwife give you a list of things. We had like 90% of the things on the list already.[Jennifer] Yeah. And they provided-[Aaron] There was only a few things I had to get. So that was pretty cool.[Jennifer] Then I had to wrap my head around it mentally and that just took prayer and me so many into God and saying, okay Lord, help me transition.[Aaron] Yeah, I think you mentioned a little bit ago that I've tried, I've been a proponent for home births and you said you don't know and I was okay with you doing hospital births, but I remember you saying like, "I'll do it when I have to."[Jennifer] Yeah like if something's gonna push me to do it, then I will. Like I'm not opposed to it. I just, I'm not ready for that yet.[Aaron] And I was like, "Maybe this is the thing making you have to," but it was perfect cause it was what you had committed to in your heart was like, "Well, when I have to, I will." And this was kind of one of those situations where I was like, we didn't have to, it would probably would have been totally fine, but we had the opportunity.[Jennifer] Well that's the thing is at the end of that day, I just knew I had peace that, or I'm sorry that the day before I knew that God would help us through no matter what we chose, whether it was home birth or hospital. And I had so much peace about it and I think that's why getting off the phone with the midwife, I was excited and okay and yet nervous about it.[Aaron] Of course yeah.[Jennifer] It was so neat that God provided a way for that. And so we started preparing for that. We started telling the kids we were cleaning the house, we were making a way for that to take place. And it was just a really exciting time for our family. A very short time.[Aaron] Yeah. Though the week prior, I was on maybe five days before we had the baby, I took the, we do have a chalkboard in our kitchen I did a little game with the kids and I said, I want, so who, what day do you think mom is gonna have the baby? And we started doing this voting and I would put down like, do you think it's going to be Monday? And it was like, leading up to the due date. And so everyone put their little dates down, even Truett voted. And I'm just bringing this up because me and Elliot were right. And so, we actually voted for the due date, which was the 20th.[Jennifer] I actually remember coming out and you explaining this whole thing to me and Elliot looking up at me going, "Mom, the reason I chose your due date is because 'you haven't had a baby on your due date yet." And he just thought that would be so cool.[Aaron] Yeah, and that's why we actually voted that because I feel like all the babies have been either right before or right after and it wasn't like way after.[Jennifer] Yeah, well Elliot, our first and Truett our fourth, were both due, were both born a day before their due date. Olive was three days past. And Wyatt was eight days past.[Aaron] Yeah, he was a big baby. But so we voted for the 20th, which is pretty cool because you were having like on the 19th, I remember you were kind of having some contractions but it didn't like go anywhere. And then the 20th, when did they start?[Jennifer] So I didn't have any, like I wasn't feeling any contractions the day before, but I just felt like it was going to happen soon. Like I could just tell my body was getting ready. But contractions started at about 1:30 in the morning, on her due date.[Aaron] Oh, that's what that, okay. It was 1:30 in the morning. That when it was.[Jennifer] Yeah. And they started and they were pretty close together. I mean seven, eight minutes apart, pretty consistently for a few hours. And then we got disrupted. Truett woke up, which he never does with a huge explosion, poop explosion. I'm trying to keep it clean here.[Aaron] It was horrible. It was all over his bed. It was all over him.[Jennifer] I've never had an experience like with having five kids now, I've never had an experience like this. So to be contracting and have that, I'm like, wait a minute.[Aaron] What time was that?[Jennifer] It was like five o'clock in the morning.[Aaron] It was early. So I'm up, like we're putting him in the bath and there's like poop everywhere. It was like, so gross.[Jennifer] So I told Aaron, you go lay in bed with him and since I'm up anyways, I'll do the laundry and-[Aaron] We couldn't put him back in his bed. It was like a war zone.[Jennifer] It was crazy. So now that you guys are all grossed out, I know. I feel like that just distracted my mind and body or maybe that's just the way it was supposed to be. But contractions kind of slowed down and were more sporadic. So it was like 11 to 15 minutes apart for a long time. I mean hours and I have a cute story, another cute story about Truett. This one's cleaner. About 10 o'clock in the morning I came out of the bedroom and Aaron had been hanging out with the kids and you left to go to the bathroom or something. And I started contracting. I had a big contraction and so I threw two pillows down on the living room floor and I was kneeling in front of them because I was gonna kind of try and either lay down or hold them. And Truett comes up and lays down on the pillows looking up at me and I'm just like on my hands and knees looking down at him. But I'm like trying to breathe through this contraction and he's just smiling. It was like a little redemptive moment for us, but it was sweet. So I labored all day at home. And one cool thing that I wanted to share with you guys is, the night before I went into labor, I was doing a little bit of research and just reading people's home birth stories that they've shared on their blogs. And I can't remember exactly who's I read, but she said this, she said, "Through every contraction "I used the opportunity to pray for someone else. "My husband, my children, friends." And I remembered that as soon as I started contracting and I said, "Oh, I'm gonna do that." I was determined. I was like committed to it, to this idea of prayer throughout each contraction. And it was such a beautiful experience. You guys, every time a contraction came, I would quickly think of someone who I would want to pray for my family, friends, really random things that, I kinda just like allowed the Lord to bring to my mind in that moment, whatever he wanted me to pray for. And so I would pray from the beginning of the contraction, throughout to the end. And not only was it a good distraction from the pain, but what a cool experience to use that opportunity to draw closer to the Lord and to lift up others. Like it was just, I recommend that for anyone going through labor. It was so beautiful.[Aaron] Yeah, it was actually beautiful to watch because you told me you're like, I'm using contractions to pray. And I was like, "Oh, that's awesome."[Jennifer] Yeah. What was actually even crazier was there was this one contraction that I was determined to pray for kids who during specifically this pandemic and stay having stay at home orders who have experienced abuse at home. And I had seen something on social media, maybe Facebook about this. And I hadn't thought about it before then. And so it stood out to me. And so, the contraction started and I started praying for these kids who are at home and possibly experiencing abuse. And as I was praying, you guys, the contractions started building up and becoming more intense and more painful. And it hadn't been like this in all the other contractions and it lasted the longest. And I just kept praying for these children. And by the end of it, I remember telling you, Aaron, that I felt like the Lord was showing me like almost like in relation to their pain, how bad my contraction was. It was kind of really interesting, but my heart just broke for that.[Aaron] Yeah, I think I remember you were crying a little bit in that one.[Jennifer] So, anyways, if you guys are pregnant or if you are gonna have a baby and you're thinking about contracting. I don't know, just remember this, pray, use that time to pray for other people. It's really cool.[Aaron] It's a similar experience to fasting. Like the point of fasting is when the hunger pains come on. When your flesh wants to be fed or to be consoled, we pray. It's the trigger point to pray. I wanted to just bring up a verse real quick, just talking about this whole experience because we have so many plans in life, we have this, we set in our mind how we want something to happen, how we want something to go. I mean, I don't think it was in anyone's mind that the world was going to change the way it's changing, but guess what? It changed. And things are changing every day. And, Proverbs 19:21 says, Many are the plans in the mind of a man but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. And so it's awesome. I mean, in this situation, we got circular, whatever your purposes, we want that to stand. We'd get, of course we have plans. We're going to make plans, there's many of them. But are we gonna be irritated when our plans get foiled? When our plans don't come true and we get blinded to see like, well, what is God doing? Like, God apparently wants something else to be happening right now. That's contrary to my own plans. And so when we can say, "Okay, Lord, like yes, we've made plans, "but what we want more is your purposes to be, to stand."[Jennifer] That's really good.[Aaron] So that's kind of what we saw happening here. And there's other things that God had in store for this, but I just wanted to point everyone back to God's purposes.[Jennifer] Awesome. So as my contractions progressed, they got a little bit closer together and, but nothing really was like showing us that delivery was soon. So this was probably around nap time. So I remember Aaron coming in the bedroom after he laid the kids down and, you just started praying for me and you weren't telling God what to do because we don't do that. But you were like, let's get the show on the road. I want to meet my daughter. And you were really excited for things too.[Aaron] Well, I remember you told me, like, you're not, you don't know why it's slowed down. You're like, I feel like we were getting somewhere. Cause we were, it was getting, they were getting closer and closer and closer and consistent. And then it was like, they just totally like tapered off and slowed down. They were still there, but, and you were just like, I don't know. And I was like, "Well, let's pray about it."[Jennifer] Yeah, and it was kind of a sporadic day, like a very, like when I think about my other four and I even told the midwives this, when I first met them that with my other four kids, once contraction started, they would-They don't stop.[ Jennifer] they don't stop and they just keep going. And then I have the baby and they're generally short labors and this was not like that. This was just different and-[Aaron] Maybe being home made you much more relaxed.[Jennifer] I don't know. I don't know what it was, but I do think this, something that was on my mind. And I remember sharing this with you after you prayed for me, was that I love end times, when we think about Christ return and all of that, and there's a verse, people probably know what I'm referring to, but it's in Matthew 24. And one of the disciples asked when the end of the age is going to come and Jesus goes off explaining the Wars and rumors of Wars and famines and all these things that are hard. And then at the very end, he said, all of these are, but the beginning of the birth pains. So they're like contractions and-[Aaron] He points out the world chaos as contractions, just like in labor.[Jennifer] Yeah, until the delivery of our King.[Aaron] Which showed off light and distant and they get more and more aggressive and closer together.[Jennifer] But sometimes they also slow down. It's kind of like, we get these moments of peace and everything's great. And everything in the world seems to be going fine. And then you get this really big contraction or you get this really painful one, or you get this really long one. And you're like, "Wow, this is not stopping." And so I felt like the Lord kind of gave me this picture with what I was physically and experiencing and enduring, with how sporadic the day was with my contractions and showing him a picture of the world and saying, sometimes it feels like you're about to have that baby. And then it slows down and stops. And there's this rest period.[Aaron] Well, and I wanna expound on that encouragement a little bit, because I think as the church at large, would it be valuable for us to continue to remember that we do have? The Lord is returning. And the things that he's shown us in scripture, like what we see going on in the world, the Wars, the rumors of Wars, the pestilence, the massive earthquakes, the volcanoes, all these things, like everything. Like the chaos in the world, there birth pains. And so it could look scary, but for the believer for the one who has our faith in Christ.[Jennifer] We know it's to come.[Aaron] There's something good coming on the other end. The Bible says, that in birth, the woman is in pain, but once the baby comes, she's forgotten the pain. And the point is of course you don't forget the pain, but the thing that you've been waiting for and going through the pain for is now here.[Jennifer] I think there's a version of the Bible that says that she's in anguish. Is not even just pain. It's like emotional and physical and it's draining.[Aaron] So church believers, we can look at the world and these things that we see going on the world shouldn't cause fear in us, it should bring us hope. And that's what even Jesus has. He says, I tell you these things that you might have hope because when we see these things, as the believer, we know what they mean. Just like when I see my wife going into contractions, I don't think, what's happening? I think, "Oh man, the more painful "and the more close these get together, "the sooner I'm gonna meet my daughter." And so even though it's painful and it's a struggle and it's a trial, it's temporary. And we even know that Paul says, "I know that our current struggles "are nothing to be compared with the coming glory." So I just want to encourage you believers out there that, the Bible, Jesus and the Bible gives us this idea of birth pains for a reason, because the example we get in birth of the contraction starting far apart, we get to look at the things going on the world and say, wow, the more that we see these, the closer they get together, it should turn our eyes up to look for our savior.[Jennifer] Yup. That's good. So, I feel like right after you prayed over me during that nap time, the Lord must have heard because things started picking up-[Aaron] Pretty quick.[Jennifer] pretty quickly. The contractions started getting closer together, more painful and just really the signs of labor were just all converging. And what was really cool was Olive's home. And so she got to participate. I remember so many times-[Aaron] Another benefit of having the baby at home.[Jennifer] Yeah, our four year old little daughter, almost five, was so thrilled to be able to participate in it. And she would, I would be on that big, the big bouncing ball, through contractions and she'd be sitting in front of me on my bed and she'd reach out and put her hand on my leg and encourage me. She'd rub my arms.[Aaron] Shoulders.[Jennifer] She'd look up at me and she go, "Mom, you can do this." Or she'd caught pretty much copy Aaron, anything that Aaron did, she'd do five minutes later. So she'd say, mom, she'd see a contraction coming. She goes, "Mom, just breathe." And then she breath with me-[Aaron] Yeah cause I kept reminding you like breathe, open your mouth.[Jennifer] Yeah, so that was really sweet. There was a handful of time. She prayed for me.[Aaron] What was that thing she told you? There was a moment as you got closer and you were just like, I think you said, I can't do this. Or I don't think I could do this. That's what it was. I don't think I could do this. What did she say?[Jennifer] She said, "You could do it, mom." I don't remember.[Aaron] It was really powerful. She was like, "You can do it mom. "And actually you have to do it the baby is coming."[Jennifer] Yeah. She's serious.[Aaron] She was good.[Jennifer] She's so funny, but such an encourager. And actually now she would love to be a midwife when she grows up after realizing what they do, handling mamas and babies all day.[Aaron] She wasn't freaked out by any of it.[Jennifer] No, she was such so strong. So yeah, things started picking up and I knew I was getting closer. So we called the midwife to come check on us and my friend Angie, who was going to be present at the birth. And another thing that I wanted to share with you guys is one of my desires from the beginning of this pregnancy was-[Aaron] Plans.[Jennifer] I mean, yeah. Was to praise my baby out. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but I've heard other phrases of like breathing the baby out or just letting your body kind of push the baby out. But my heart was that I would worship God throughout the whole experience. And I wanted to be like highly aware that I was able to do this during labor and delivery. And not only did Olive remind me to be singing very loudly because she was doing that. We had a specific playlist that we were playing and the songs like Waymaker and I Will Wait For You by Shane and Shane, like just some really great songs.[Aaron] Did you have in Christ alone in there?[Jennifer] In Christ alone, it was my Anthem throughout pregnancy. I just, I played that song every day. I just, I love that song and it was actually the song she was born too, which is really cool.[Aaron] It came on, and then-[Jennifer] She came.she came.[Jennifer] It was so cool you guys. And also Angie, cause I have a really close relationship with her. She knew this was a desire of mine. And towards the end specifically, I remember hearing her voice saying, "Jen remember to praise," like remember to sing, remember to worship and as hard as it was because I was giving birth and it's hard to even breathe at that time to be able to sing. It was like, my flesh was like, I don't want to do that right now. And then I heard the words of the song playing and I would just jump in and start singing. It was such a cool experience.[Aaron] I think you were singing it while you were pushing her out. Like it was that-[Jennifer] I was saying, "God you're good, " I feel so good."[Aaron] Yeah, it was pretty powerful and what's awesome is, another one of your plans and your heart's desire was to be like ministering and you wanted your labor to be a witness and a blessing to the nurses at the hospital.[Jennifer] I was just gonna say to the nurses at the hospital, it was one of my prayers throughout the pregnancy. I was praying for their hearts. I was praying for whoever was present at the birth to see God in it, whether it was in our relationship and the way we were interacting or in the actual birth. But my heart was that God would use this labor and delivery in a purposeful way in the hearts of those who were experiencing it alongside me, but what I didn't know was, I had been praying for the nurses and doctors. And then at the last minute we changed to a home birth.[Aaron] But God knew.[Jennifer] But God knew who was going to be there.[Aaron] And I remember that, I mean, you're singing worship songs. You're like are just the way we were interacting was really peaceful, really strong, really calm. And with our daughter there and just, I feel like the whole experience was very worshipful. It was really peaceful, really cool. And I know that it impacted the midwives that were there.[Jennifer] I hope so.[Aaron] First of all, they were awesome.[Jennifer] They were amazing.[Aaron] Really quiet, really calm like just really in control.[Jennifer] But also attentative.[Aaron] And attentative, yeah. And I remember afterwards, one of the midwives was saying, what did she say? We are truly honored to be a part of this. It almost looked like she's gonna cry. I don't know if she was or not, but it looked like they were truly like blessed if anything, by your labor, babe, like you did such a good job.[Jennifer] I praise God.[Aaron] Yeah it was awesome.[Jennifer] So little Edith joined us at five on the dot.[Aaron] Five o'clock yeah.[Jennifer] 5:00 PM on her due date with bright copper red hair. It's so beautiful.[Aaron] Yeah, we're praying really hard right now. And if you want to pray with us that she keeps that hair.[Jennifer] Oh, it's okay. It's just, all of our kids are blonde, so I'm assuming it'll change, but it's such a sweet color, especially in the side.[Aaron] Olive came out with really dark hair.[Jennifer] Yeah, it wasn't as red, but it was-[Aaron] It wasn't as red, Wyatt came out with like a-[Jennifer] Well, he was bald and so it was Truett.[Aaron] But its cute when it grew and it was a little red.[Jennifer] It was like a strawberry blonde. He's still kind strawberry blonde.[Aaron] But she is like, you were looking at it right now. It's super, she's super red.[Jennifer] She's sleeping. So anyways, all to say this, you guys, it was a really neat experience to be able to have a peaceful home birth. I thank the Lord that my past pregnancies and history was there. They were fine. And there was no interventions or-[Aaron] No complicated ones.[Jennifer] Yeah, there was no complications or anything like that. And that the Lord gave me the confidence to be able to say yes to this and that we were able to lean on each other, Aaron, to be able to do that.[Aaron] Do you feel like it was what God wanted?[Jennifer] I do. I feel like he had a plan from the beginning that he just didn't reveal to me until the end. Maybe he knew that's what I needed. I don't know.[Aaron] And we have no idea what God's doing in the hearts of those ladies that were with us and we need to keep praying for them because we don't know where they're at.[Jennifer] Or a daughter.[Aaron] Or a daughter. Yeah, But I mean-[Jennifer] I mean we know what's going-[Aaron] She's gonna become a midwife nurse.[Jennifer] She had all kinds of questions afterwards, but she just, she was thrilled to be able to participate in that way. I know it made her feel super special.[Aaron] So here's a question, probably all the pregnant ladies are thinking, would you do it again?[Jennifer] I remember texting a friend that later that night and she goes, so how was it? And I'm like, I'm a fan.[Aaron] Cause we have several people be like, "You can do this, you can do this." Cause we have a lot of friends that have done home births, almost all their kids, I think. And so they've been, they were really cheering you on another excited that you're like switched. And we know it's not for everybody.[Jennifer] But here, it's also something that I just keep telling myself as it's open. So like, even if we ever had another baby, I would be okay with having it in the hospital or at home. So it's just really submitting that to the Lord and saying, what do you want? This is for you.[Aaron] So babe I know there's probably a lot of women that are considering a home birth. If they've never had one before, how would you encourage someone who's already considering this?[Jennifer] Well for someone that's already considering it, I would just say again, pray about it and submit it to the Lord. Talk about it with your husband and do what research you need to do. All the questions that you might have surrounding it, go ask them, ask your friends, ask your care providers. Whoever's looking after you. But don't be afraid of it. I had a good friend tell me, like having a baby is not an emergency. It's a natural thing that God built our bodies to do.[Aaron] It's a good encouragement.[Jennifer] And we need to be able to trust that God's design works. Now there's a lot of cases out there where for whatever reason, someone needs to give birth in a hospital or someone needs an intervention and that's okay, too. So even for someone who's already planning a home birth or someone who desires a home birth, even they have to hold that birth plan loosely in their hands and submit it to the Lord and say, "God, what do you want from me?" And he might even change their plans to be a hospital birth. And I think the greatest thing is to just have peace no matter what that plan is and say, God, it's yours.[Aaron] Yeah, something I just want to remind everyone also is, and if you're not having caught it yet, we talk a lot about how our lives are to be ministry. It's not just like we have ministry over here. Like, "Oh, I work at this church "or I have this job over here. "That's some sort of ministry which no, those are bad." But when we realized that when Christ comes into us, when we have the Holy spirit, our life now is a ministry being poured out. We're being poured out into the world. We're lights set up on a hill. And so even in our home birth, we are doing ministry. Our life and the way we present ourselves and the way we react to each other and interact with each other and interact with the midwives and those around us is how the gospel is spread in the world. It's by our words and our actions, it's not by this thing set over here. And that happens once a week or every other week or once a month. It's everything we do. And if you're wondering what that looks like, ask God, say God, "How's my life? How is the things that we're pursuing, our labors, our work, our at home life, our schooling, our jobs, our everything? Our hobbies. How are we representing you everywhere we are? Because we are the body of Christ. Where we go, Christ goes. And so that's what we, our heart was for this labor. And it's what our heart is for this podcast, is what our heart is for our books, for our home, for our neighborhood. And so if you haven't thought that way, our parent hope is that your mind would be changed and that you would start to realize and recognize that every bit of your life is the Lords. And he desires it to be a offering to him. He desired, he calls us to be living sacrifices. And so, that's, what's amazing is we can be at home doing home birth, something that we don't need, didn't plan and say, "Okay, Lord, how are you gonna use this for you? "What do you want from us? "How can we participate in what you're doing "in the lives of those that are going to be here? "And also, what are you gonna do in us?" Cause there's a lot that God did in us, challenging us and changing our minds about things and showing us how to trust him more. So that was a little bit about our home birth story, which we think it's, God's story of course, all of our births. I wouldn't say this birth was any better than any of the other ones. Cause they all were amazing. I love meeting my children, but I did love a lot doing it at home. I really enjoyed it.[Jennifer] I really did too.[Aaron] So husbands out there, it was a pretty awesome experience if your wife is considering it, just know it's pretty awesome. You're home, it's more comfortable you're in your bed. If you have other children, they get to participate and see how it and know what's going on. And it was a really cool thing anyways. Yeah, that was our story, is there any last thing you wanna add?[Jennifer] I feel like, no, I think that what we shared was really cool and I'm, I just want everyone to hear me say that I love you and that I'm really proud of you. You're a really awesome support for me, especially during that time of labor and delivery and managing our other four kids during the whole thing. I just really love doing life with you and I'm excited that the podcast is back up and we're in season four. So I'm excited to be doing this with you.[Aaron] Awesome. Well, that was really nice. Thank you babe. I love you too and ditto and all of that. And bonus baby Edith this year and she is awesome.[Jennifer] She's doing really great.[Aaron] She's starting to smile and she's, I want her to cue a lot more, but she's just barely started.[Jennifer] She likes open's her mouth like she's gonna and then she just sit there and wait, she doesn't do it.[Aaron] She teases us, but she is so sweet. All right. We love you all. My hope that was an encouragement to you and a blessing. We're praying for you. We pray that God just moved mightily in your marriages and uses you for mighty things for his kingdom, wherever you're at. And during the season of chaos and craziness, just remember God's our peace and our hope.[Jennifer] And he is good.[Aaron] And he is good. And if you have been wavering in your faith in the Lord, I pray that you would just ran to him like, like you've never ran to him before and that you would surrender everything. He's the only thing worthy of giving your entire life to, and one day we're gonna be able to spend eternity with him.[Jennifer] One day soon.[Aaron] Birth pains.[Jennifer] Yeah.[Aaron] So-[Jennifer] We'll just pray through those contractions.[Aaron] As usual, Jennifer will you pray's out?[Jennifer] Dear father, you are the giver of life. Thank you for the gift of children. We pray we would have a deep understanding of children and we pray for a strong desire to bless the children in our lives. We pray, we would understand our purpose and role in raising children that know you. May our examples of life and marriage and everything show them the way that honors and glorifies you. Lord we also pray and ask for your peace to be in all of our hearts and in all of our homes, especially when the world seems to be lacking peace. Help us to be confident in trusting you for everything. In Jesus name. Amen.[Aaron] Amen. We love you all. If you haven't left us a review, would you take a moment and do that today? Those reviews help us rank in all the podcast apps and it also lets people know what the podcast is about and what other people think. If you have a lot to review, you are awesome. Thank you so much. Don't forget to get the, to take the challenge. It's parentingprayerchallenge.com. We talked about in the beginning of the show. We love you and we'll see you next week.[Aaron Voiceover] Did you enjoy today's show? if you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Physical touch is such a powerful and amazing gift from God. He designed us for it. We need it. And it is physically, spiritual and emotionally damaging when we avoid it or do not get enough of it. In this episode, we discuss why Physical touch is so important and we give some practical tips on how to touch and be touched more.Embracing each other says “I trust you and need you in my life.”A comforting hug says, “I’m here for you.”A kiss says, “You are mine! And I love you!”Holding hands lets your spouse know you like them and like spending time with them.Tickle rubs, massages, running your fingers through their hair says, “I want to make you feel good.” ...And most times lets them know you desire more physical touch.Being married and living in that sacred space of physical closeness, embrace, touch...there is no other relationship like it on Earth. Make the time to send those messages of love to your spouse through touch. READ TRASCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, with "Marriage After God." [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna talk about "The Power Of Touch In Marriage." Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer also known as unveiled wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron also known as husband revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life. Love. And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is "Marriage after God." Well, welcome back, everyone. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Marriage after God, we're super excited to have you. You're looking at me funny Aaron, why are you looking at me funny? [Aaron] I was wondering if everyone knows that you're still pregnant. Or if they're waiting to hear about the baby 'cause I don' know if everyone knows the exact I'm still pregnant? [Aaron] March 20th is the due date? [Jennifer] Creeping up on us. [Aaron] More like, almost there. Also soon along with the baby coming, we have the end of our season coming. Season three of the "Marriage After God" podcast. [Jennifer] You're just prepping their hearts. [Aaron] I'm prepping their little hearts. [Jennifer] Will come back don't worry. [Aaron] Yeah, we have this episode and I think three more episodes. To finish up this season. [Jennifer] It's actually really great timing you guys. And it was intentional, because postpartum is the real deal. And so I need time. [Aaron] We're gonna take a break during the postpartum season and then will come back. Right before summer starts. We're super excited about that. [Aaron] Which always want to take these breaks gives you enough time to go back to all the episodes you haven't listened to yet, or haven't fully listen to. [Jennifer] Or relisten listened to your favorite one. [Aaron] Or relisten to your favorite ones. [Jennifer] I wanted to before we get into today's topic, I wanted to start off this episode with an encouragement of something that happened. But Aaron, when I mentioned that's what I wanted to share about, you're like, "No, let's just do the whole episode on that." I'm not gonna share it right now. That's what the whole episodes gonna be about. Enjoy it later. [Aaron] Right, but what we can talk about is so everyone, we've talked about how we're going through what's it called? "My Family 24 Ways". [Jennifer] "Our Family 24 Ways". That's what's it is. By Sally and Clay Clarkson. [Aaron] It's a family devotional and it's 24 weeks long. We did it twice. The first time we did it. We did it in a quarter of the time because we just kind of took each day was a-- [Jennifer] Each day was a new way. And they come with these coloring pages. Those are really great kind of quick overview of what it was about and gave us time to wrap our heads around it and get familiar with the content. And that was super fun for the kids. We did that last summer and then kicking off the new kind of school year in September. We're like let's do the whole week. And we'll use the was it a devotional or resource? We'll use it the way that they wrote it-- [Aron] Which is every way is a five day-- Process. Process, yes. Every day, there's another verse you're reading, another idea, there's another question, but it's all in the same family way. And we just finished that a couple of weeks ago. There's a couple of weeks we didn't do because of travel or different things. But we just finished it and it was great. The kids loved it, we loved it. [Aaron] Yeah, and we're bringing this up to just to kinda recap that we told you we were going through we gave it as an example to you all, on a great way to start doing a family bible time. It was a lot of fun was really easy. I had a lot of prompts for the parents to walk through it gives you the questions to ask. But Jennifer, what are we doing now? We finished our family 20 or 23rd, "Our 24 Family Ways". [Jennifer] "Our 24 Family Ways". [Aron] By Sally and Clay Clarkson. You should go pick that on Amazon. But when we're done with that and we love that. But what are we doing now? [Jennifer] There was that question creeping up to the end of that resource that were like, Hey, keep in mind, what are what are we going to do next? And there's lots of different things that we could have chosen. [Aaron] Now we've done before, where we just like read through some of the Bible, read just whole chapters. [Jennifer] I proposed to Aaron, I said, "Why don't we focus "on some of the kind of major Bible stories?" Our kids are still pretty young, and they know a lot of the stories but just clarifying for them, what actually was taking place during those stories, and what are the details and so we'll take a whole week on one story. And what I didn't share with Aaron was, my heart behind it was and let's focus on how Christ is pictured in these stories, which I just thought would be a really cool perspective, but I didn't share that part with you for some reason. I just said the Bible story thing really short and brief. And so I started making a list of the different Bible stories and I put them up on our chalkboard and you love the idea, and that first day that we started out with creation and Adam and Eve. You're like, and guys, because you're like, basically laying out what they can expect from how Bible time is gonna change for us. And you told the kids, "so we're gonna dive into these Bible stories, "one story a week, but we're gonna see how Christ "is at the center of each one." And I love that you did that we are totally like on the same page without even having talked about it. [Aaron] And it's been really good. Elliot's been loving them, because He loves learning about these stories. And also the questions and the digging in and how those correlations to Christ and Adam, or these stories that we all know of. [Jennifer] Just in simple things like in Genesis when it says, "we're gonna make them in our image" and get the kids to really like, focusing on what that one is. Like who is the hour. Who is us, who's talking here about Adam and Ellie is like, "Oh, it's God and Jesus in the spirit." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] He got the idea in the beginning. And just an encouragement for those that are listening. You're probably thinking like, okay, like all of our kids know these stories, but you're actually surprised at the stories that you kind of know because you grew up in Sunday school, or how if they don't ever get brought up, your kids aren't gonna know them. They're not gonna know the story of Noah's Ark. They're not gonna know the story of Jonah and the whale. They're not gonna know the story of Joseph and Abraham and Isaac and Adam and Eve and creation. We have to do that. We have to teach our children these stories, and not just stories, their history. [Jennifer] Yeah, and my encouragement would be for our sake, as adults, going back to some of these stories have been encouraging because then we either see things we never saw before, or somehow it's relevant to something that we're going through that we can apply. That's just an encouragement. [Aaron] It's just getting back into the Word of God always and remembering these powerful, testimonies that God's given us of who He is, His plan for redemption and His story for us. Awesome, before we get into the topic, as usual, we have a free thing for you. If you haven't taken the marriage prayer challenge yet, we dare you. Take the marriage prayer challenge. It's marriageprayerchallenge.com. It's a 31 day email series where you're gonna get emailed every day with, something to pray about, and a reminder to do that. So you're gonna be praying for your husband or your wife every day for the next 30 days, 31 days, and we just wanted to get you jumped in. It's almost 50,000 people who have now taken this challenge. That's incredible. Yeah. If you're not one of those 50,000 I just wanna encourage you to go right now and take a break from the podcast even go sign up marriageprayerchallenge.com, It'll take you like one minute, and then come back and finish the episode. [Jennifer] Alright, so today's topic is on The Power Of Touch. And again, this is something that happened recently in our marriage that impacted me so much that I told him and I'm gonna share about that in the next podcast and he was like, "No, we're doing "the whole episode on this." [Aaron] And you went, "we don't need to do a whole episode "it's just a little passing idea." I did I was like, "No, this is actually really important "'cause of how much value you got out of it." [Jennifer] Yeah, so, and we understand that sometimes our episodes go quite long. And we're just gonna jump in, we're gonna dive in and give you the tips and tricks that you can do-- Up front. Right now we're gonna just do them up front. [Aaron] That way if you don't listen the whole episode, you're gonna walk away with the best tips for touch. [Jennifer] Yeah, I like that. [Aaron] What's the first tip they can get real quick. [Jennifer] I mean, I'm just thinking like, when you're passing by each other in the kitchen, you both have these tasks on your mind that you're trying to get done. Just give a little, elbow to the gut and let that let that spouse know that you're there next to them working alongside side them. [Aaron] It also might get them out of their way for a second. Another little tip is like when you guys are laying in bed and like just just right before your spouse is falling asleep, just to remind them that you're there and that you love them. Just giving them ,a wet finger to the ear. Or like a little like tap on their neck to like tickle them a little bit. [Jennifer] Maybe a pinch. [Aaron] Pinch. Those kinds of things that let your spouse know, "Hey, I know you're just we're almost falling asleep "but I love you." I love me so much. One of my favorite ones is when you're like out on family excursion, and your spouse is wearing a backpack And you're kind of walking, a little bit behind them just give that backpack a little push to the left or right. And it really throws them off. But it reminds them, hey, I'm here with you. [Aaron] It's almost like gets them to like flip around a little bit and then they could see you. [Jennifer] The whole point of touch really is to interrupt what's going on. It's to interrupt the day and to say, I love you. [Aaron] Everyone's thinking are they serious right now? We are totally playing. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] We're being playful. These are funny ways. Don't don't actually go by and especially if your wife's pregnant. Or go and hit the stomach. Don't do that. Don't do that. [Jennifer] No , we're just kidding. [Aaron] No, we actually legitimately wanna talk about the power of real loving touch, and what it means and how it works and why God's given us this gift of touch and the benefit from what we've seen in our own life. Something that Jennifer's gonna talk about in a second, an experience that she had with me. And then we're just gonna talk about that and encourage you the listener, you husband and wife who are in your car or in bed or at home, walking around the house, whatever you're doing listening to this, to just remember to touch more. It should be obvious but it's not. [Jennifer] I'd even say evaluate how long it's been since you've intentionally touched your spouse or what does that touch look like, either throughout the day or in the morning or at night, and just let the Lord inspire you today, when it comes to touching your spouse. [Aaron] And this isn't just for those that one of their love languages is physical touch, because every human actually every organism in the world requires touch for that stimulus for healthy growth, especially for human beings. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. But so this isn't just for those that the love language's physical touch. Every single one of us need to focus on this and if it's not your natural tendency to do so then we just gotta work a little harder. [Jennifer] Yep, okay, so this is what happened. I was having an off day. I felt rundown, I felt tired. [Aaron] Super pregnant. [Jennifer] I mean, just physically I just was not doing well. And yeah, just super pregnant. And I mean, everyone listening right now you're just thinking about that off day you've had and you're like, "Okay, I can relate to that." But I felt overwhelmed. And I was getting ready to jump in to school time with the kids. And I just had already felt exhausted. And so I was-- [Aaron] It was like the morning we hadn't even gotten our routine going. [Jennifer] Nothing had started yet. And I was already feeling down. And I didn't say anything about it. I just was trying to do what I knew I had to do, right that saying, "Do the next right thing." And so I'm in there with the kids. And Aaron, usually your routine is, after Bible time you get a cup of coffee and got out to the garage, that's were you work. But you didn't do that. You came in, you came straight to me your like Beeline right for me. [Aaron] Which is not normal for me. [Jennifer] No, usually there's just this space where you like maybe even question like, "Hey, how are you?" "What's going on?" You didn't do any of that. You just opened the door, walked over to me had me stand up. And you just wrap your arms around me and you just held me and I was like in tears over it because I didn't realize that I even needed that in that moment. And even though I felt like sobbing in that moment, I think I might have even chuckled 'cause it was like so refreshing, it was like that. Oh, okay that I think-- [Aaron] Also like, why are you doing this? [Jennifer] Definitely questioning that. But it was such a beautiful moment. And such a beautiful experience. I had to share it. And I wanted to share it with you guys, because it really impacted me and nothing needed to be said. Nothing needed to be more than that. It was just "hey," like there was so much said in the action itself of, "I'm here for you. "I love you, you can do this." And I remember at I had climbed up on the desk. And he was just staring at us probably wondering like, what are they doing? He's still literally a year and a half. [Aaron] And all that PDA is going on. And he's like, What's happening here? [Jennifer] But it really made me feel so good to be embraced. And I just I loved that moment. I love that you had a heart that was soft enough to know what I needed and to not let anything distract you from comforting me in that way. [Aaron] Well, and I'll all admit to everyone listening. I'm sure other men are much better at this. There's some people that are just naturally prone to like oh, like gentleness and comforting and recognizing weaknesses and others and wanting to go love on them. But that is not my natural position. I'm not naturally gentle, I'm not naturally sensitive. [Jennifer] I would say that you're more so you'd like to communicate about it. Like tell me what the problem is. And this is how-- How can I fix it. This is how I can fix it. which I think a lot of people probably think that way. [Aaron] And then on the negative side, I was in my worst way of dealing with this is feeling inconvenienced by someone else's weakness feeling inconvenienced by you're feeling down or because all I'm thinking is like we have this routine. You just got to move forward. And what's happening right now is like stop halting all that and that's my I would say that's my natural position. But you have been praying for me for a long time for this. Others have been encouraging me and rebuking me at times about my lack of sensitivity, my lack of gentleness. And it's something that I've been praying for myself. Because I'm a dad, I'm a husband, a leader in my church. And it's important in every aspect. I just been praying that God would help me be that way. This is not uncommon event, but that morning, I just felt like, Oh, she probably just needs a hug. [Jennifer] And it was perfect. And I just feel like I have to say this, logistically I know that this can't happen like this in every marriage. Schedules are different. Soldiers that are gone, for a long time People are deployed. Yeah, there's a lot of different types of scenarios or situations where in marriage where maybe you can't comfort them in that way with the power of touch, but it can be done still in a phone call or a text message or any opportunity where you are together, right? [Aaron] I would say, yeah, the physical touch is still important. I would say more important in those very little amounts of time that you would have. If anything, I would just, the encouragement for some one who's not around their spouse often, should make sure they take that focus more seriously. I got a question for you. I again, this is a new year-- [Jennifer] For me or for them? [Aaron] For you, Jennifer. It's not normal. But in that moment I came in and I surprised you by doing something out of the ordinary. And just holding you not trying to give you solutions not trying to ask you questions. Not feeling annoyed by the inconvenience. I just genuinely came to hug you and hold you and love you. What message is this into your heart? [Jennifer] It was really powerful for me. I felt like in that moment, there was this. Just first of all rush of peace. I feel like you reminded me that I'm loved. That I am cared for, that I'm thought of, that I'm not alone. Even though I'm alone with the kids currently trying to do school. You we're reminding me in a physical way that you're there and you're supporting me and you're encouraging me. And that how I'm feeling physically in that moment yet sucks and it's hard, but that I can continue on and that I have to, basically. but it was immediate comfort. [Aaron] It gave you something that you didn't have before? [Jennifer] Reassurance. [Aaron] How did it make you feel toward me? Was there like anything you thought, Or like, "wow, like this about my husband?" [Jennifer] Well specifically just that we are on the same team that you're there for me even when you can't take over for me like you just couldn't take over and do school that day, like you had work to do you needed to go get to it. But that you were supporting me in a comforting and encouraging way by letting your presence be known. And just that embrace. Did it make you, 'cause you've seen plenty of times in the past my annoyance, my dissatisfaction with a scenario like this. [Aaron] Did it make you feel more confident in my love for you to see the opposite of that? [Jennifer] Oh, totally, it really affirmed me and to think that you stopped your routine. You stopped your day, you stopped what was habitual, of going out to go to work. For me that was super thoughtful. And it was an immediate affirmation of this man loves me and cares for me and wants me to be okay today. And it did that like my perspective, my attitude, everything kinda just shifted in a more positive direction. And I was able to get through that time with the kids in a much better way. [Aaron] And I remember it drastically changed your perspective of the day-- As you see my countenance. Your countenance, by the end of the day, like I feel like you were more accomplished. At the end of the day, like you at the house clean. You had the, like you felt like a winner. Everything was done that you probably were in the morning thinking none of this is getting done today. [Jennifer] Yeah, and it feels so weird talking about it. Because in this way, 'cause I feel like we're sharing, like in depth, what the impact was, but it was such a small thing. It really was. It was it was such a small moment of physical touch that happened in our marriage. That really changed the whole day around. Imagine what would happen if that was a more consistent event Yeah, for both. For both of us. [Jennifer] I have a question for you. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] Are there any standout moments of when I have randomly touched you or that have impacted you? [Aaron] Yeah, when I saw this question I immediately was thinking about the times in the past where we're sitting somewhere, maybe in church or at a friend's house or just out in public. and you'll put your hand on my back and just start tickle rubbing my back or rub your fingers across my hair, or the back of my neck or those little things even if they're only for like a split second. It instantly makes me feel like wow, that felt really good. My wife touching me wanting to connect with me that way. It also gives me this boost of confidence because in public when you're around people, I don't know if other men feel this way. But there's a confidence boost of like, my wife, my woman loves me. And like is showing it, isn't afraid to show it is-- [Jennifer] It's basically like earlier you asked me, what message did it send to my heart what you did to me. This would be what message is a couple when they're showing physical touch and affection. What message is it sending to others? [Aaron] Well in it, but the message to others sends a message to me, it makes me feel powerful, makes me feel respected. Like it's a little thing but like, my wife not being afraid to show affection to me in public means that she loves me that much that she's willing to show others that love publicly. And there's that there was a confidence boost in that. Other times, just like if we're laying in bed and you just, reach over to hold me or to play with my hair or to scratch my back like little things like that, that have been really like oh, immediately makes me feel really close to like, we're together. We're on the same page. Because what, when you're like, and everyone can relate to this. when there's like a fight or disagreement that there's conflict in the marriage. The last thing you want to do is touch. And so usually not touching is that is a common signal for distance for like we're not on the same page. That reaching across the bed, that reaching across the table, that reaching over to your spouse getting close drawing near. Is the symbol of unity. Is that proof of we're here together? I'm with you like your mine. And it's not obligated it's not like, "Hey, can you scratch my back? "Hey, I need a back massage? "Hey, can you rub my feet?" Which is not bad things to ask, but the unprompted, the desire, the actual desire, I'm going to reach out and put my hand on my spouse in a gentle way and for the purpose of touching them, knowing them and feeling their the warmth of their skin. It does a lot for that spiritual connection, that unifying nature of being one. [Jennifer] So, when I was thinking about ways that I'm intentional with trying to be, physical with you. I wanted to share this. Just as a tip for anyone listening is for me, getting in the car is a trigger, because I know I can reach over and hold your hand. Whether you're driving or I'm driving One of one of our hands is free. And so for me, I know it's such a simple thing, but just reaching over and grabbing each other's hands for a couple seconds, even if it's not long lasting. Is just really good too. [Aaron] Something that just another tip, another trigger when we're out to eat, I know I'll put my hand on your knee. When we're close together. A date night. [Aaron] Or we'll hold hands under the table. Things that keep us connected. And then another thing you're bringing up these trigger things to remind us of when we can touch and where. When we're in battle, because often we're both really hot. We don't cuddle too often because we get-- Temperature hot. Yeah, we're temperature hot. but like it could be easy to just get in bed do you thing forget and then you're rolled over and no touchings happening, no connection. But reaching over and like playing with your hair, or putting my hand on your shoulder or holding hands with you. I love all of that. Even though we can't cuddle because we're too like temperature hot. [Jennifer] More so during pregnancy. [Aaron] But I'm just a hot sleeper, it's hard for me to just want to cuddle for hours. But that doesn't mean there's not ways that we can connect. [Jennifer] And Would you say that there's any ways that I've failed in this area? I just wanna be honest with people. [Aaron] That's a big question to ask. [Jennifer] I know. [Aaron] Well, of course we've both failed in this area. Because selfishness creeps in, and when we're selfish. And usually it plays out. On "oh, I'm not getting what I want, "I'm not getting what I deserve." So I'm not going to give, what they deserve what they want or what they think they deserve. until I get mine. And we do that to each other. And we have in the past, we gotten way better at it. I would say we're talking about just non sexual touch right now. I mean, sexual touch is so important. We're gonna talk about that in a little bit. [Jennifer] I'm just on this side note. Any sort of physical touch will not just lead to sexual intimacy, but definitely cultivates that environment where you want more. [Aaron] Not negative physical touch, we're talking about actual, intensional-- Positive. Positive touch. [Jennifer] Affirmative. [Aaron] I would say just over the years, and it's something that God's been growing us both in is sexual touch, yeah, like initiating, reaching out and saying, "hey, I want to be with you, "I want to experience this time with you." But that's something that we've been both growing in. [Jennifer] Something that is required in order to grow in this area is communication. This is just an encouragement to our listeners, if they struggle with, I wish my spouse would touch me and they're not, and not wanting that bitterness to grow, you gotta tell them, you gotta tell them how it makes you feel or that you want to be encouraged in your relationship that you want to have more. when you say that's really important to be able to talk about it. [Aaron] Not just 'cause we sometimes get into this mode of, if I say something, then it's gonna devalue the reset receipt of it. [Jennifer] I've done that before, don't do that. [Aaron] If I tell my wife what I want, and then she doesn't, then it's devaluing it. It's almost like no, they just got to know. Rather than, like, I'm gonna communicate, maybe they don't know, maybe they have a way of thinking because of the way they're raised that just totally makes them disregard things that I want, or need. [Jennifer] Or maybe their mind just hasn't been on it. And by bringing that message in a positive way, "Hey, I think we like we've done this before, "hey, I think we need to kiss more," or, "hey, I think we need to hold hands more" or whatever the thing is that would feel you fill you up. Talk about it in that sense, where it's like, let's both make a commitment to do this more. [Aaron] I totally agree. And I think just having this desire to... We'll talk about the actual like, touch is just so much more than just it's a good thing to do. And so we'll talk about that more. The Bible talks about touch a lot. Jesus touched people a lot. And so we get this idea of the savior of the king, the Lord the Creator. come the earth himself, God Himself coming to earth in the form of man to touch us, right? There's a famous painting of God touching Adams finger right? There's this idea of Jesus coming to earth and in the flesh is like the ultimate intimacy active saying, God's saying "I'm gonna go, "come to touch you and and to heal you "and to make you be with me forever" and so we get to see this picture and Why don't you read John 13:5 of this super intimate moment that Jesus had with his disciples. [Jennifer] Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. So that was, like really simple. And I just like you said, it's just a really beautiful picture of intimate touch. [Aaron] Right, and it's this story shows us the servanthood of Christ. him girding his loins wrapping the towel around his waist, getting on his hands and knees. [Jennifer] And everybody was probably quietly-- [Aaron] Beneath his disciples. He lowered himself even beneath his disciple to wash their feet. And then he tells them go and do likewise. Essentially which is go wash each other, go touch each other, go embrace each other, go walk in such a way that you guys are unified, and do and do what I'm doing. Look I'm lowering myself as a servant, go lower yourself as servants for the sake of washing each other and embracing each other. [Jennifer] I wish that the Bible was more descriptive in this situation because I would love to hear what was going through the disciples mind when Jesus is getting ready to do this. And while he's doing it. [Aaron] But we only get Peters response, which is he's like, "No, don't do it." He's like, "unless I do this, "you have no part of me." He's like wash my whole body. Oh wait do it, do it. But also how were they impacted by this experience? I wanna hear more of that. But they walked with Jesus and I'm sure they had even more physical interactions with him as far as just arms touching or hugging or shaking hands or whatever, probably took part in their relationships as they spent that time together. But just thinking, how was this touch different? And what message did it send to each one of them about their relationship with Jesus? [Aaron] What I think is awesome is, you have Jesus called our high priest, and this is just a thought I was having right now we're talking about this. And the high and the priests in the Old Testament had to do all the ceremonial washings for themselves so that they can atone for the sins of everyone else. They first had to wash themselves we learned that Jesus did not have to do this because he was perfect. We have perfect Jesus, already perfectly like did not need to be washed, by any means, because he was perfect. Getting down to actually touch the dirt of his brothers, of his disciples. And also how powerful it is because God's created us in such a physical way to need touch. [Jennifer] Where he designed our bodies with the ability to receive it, right like we have nerve endings, and we can feel and I used to think that's fascinating. [Aaron] We have this perfect God in human flesh touching other men's feet and touching the flesh of others. And so there's a physiological response happening, a spiritual response happening, an emotional response happening. All of these things are happening at the same time with the king of the universe. But we get to experience that in little ways, and in everyday life with our spouse, and with others. 'Cause this physical touch thing, we shouldn't just end at, "Oh, I'm not a very touchy person, "and I'll try and touch my wife more. "But I don't touch others." The Bible tells us to embrace each other and how important touches, just gentle, loving touch in everyday life actually has a physiological healthy response in the body. That helps us with many things, but spiritually, it reminds us that we're close. And that we're together and that we're unified and that we care, [Jennifer] Which is so important in marriage, right? Really important infinitely. [Jennifer] Do you remember the time that I washed your feet when you came home from Brazil so we didn't have this, as pre-kids, probably-- My feet were pretty dirty. [Jennifer] Second year of marriage. I wanna say, we're living in Florida at the time. And I had a job. I was working in a preschool and you felt encouraged to go to Brazil, we were missionaries. I just happen to have a job to support us while we were working in Florida. But we were working for an organization that was preparing a trip to go to Brazil, I think it was for two weeks, three weeks? [Aaron] It's two weeks on the Amazon River it's pretty awesome. [Jennifer] And so you went and I missed you like crazy. But I had been reading this Passage about Jesus washing his disciples feet. And I just felt so encouraged when you got home. I think it was like three o'clock in the morning. It was like the middle of the sleep hours. And, and I remember you came home and you went to go take a shower, and I'm like, take a bath. And let me wash your feet. Yeah. Do you remember this? I do, I mean, two years in our marriage where we were already starting to experience some of those-- Hardships. hardships. and relational struggles and it wasn't as bad as it was later on in our marriage, but it was already there, but it was events like this, which I think helped elongate our process of not falling apart sooner. Those little bits of surrender that those acts of like, well, "we don't know what to do. "We're gonna try this like," you're praying and you see this, you're like, "I'm gonna try and walk in this." You tell God, "Jesus says to do this, "and I'm my husband's gonna get home, "I'm gonna wash his feet." [Jennifer] When I remember specifically thinking like, I wanted to feel close to you. I wanted to send that message to you that, "hey, I'm your wife, I'm your helper, "and I want to do what Jesus did and love you in that way." And I saw this what Jesus did as a very intimate thing. And so I just told myself, I'm gonna have the courage and just asked him if I could wash his feet. [Aaron] And I remember it made me feel really close to you. It made me feel really loved, it made me feel really honored. Also, it just surprised me. It was a surprising It was like wait, what? It was a very impactful moment for us. we actually put that challenge in our 30 day devotional for husbands and wives, for them to wash each other's feet. [Jennifer] While we're talking about Jesus, my mind's always, I feel like I'm always going back to "Marriage After God". But if you haven't gotten a chance to read it, you guys should definitely get a copy. It's the book that Aaron and I came out with last year. But there's a section of we're talking about how a marriage after God is intimate. And it talks about Jesus and I just wanted to read it really quick. It's on page 65. If you do have the book. "And marriage after God relentlessly "pursues and embraces intimacy "with each other, and with God, "our greatest example of this level "of intimacy is of course, Jesus. "He put his hands on people "who no one else would dare to touch." And there's a reference there to Luke 5:13, "He reached down and held a dying little girl's hand "giving her life again." Mark 5:41, "He broke cultural taboos to talk to people." John 4:9, "And he wept over the death of his close friend." John 11:35, "That's our Savior, he embraced intimacy. "If we are not intimate with God, "we cannot be intimate with other people. "We cannot weep with those who weep or mourn with those "who mourn or laugh with those who laugh. "We must look to the example of Christ and be willing "to embrace intimacy with God, and inner marriage." And I was just brought to remembrance of that section of the book because of how intimate Jesus was that he was willing to do all those things when I think about him, holding that little girl's hand and it's like, no matter what hardships we face in marriage, we can think to his example and go, "I can reach over and hold my spouse's hand." [Aaron] Well I think the example of Christ touching like the lepers and the sick and the bleeding and the things that a priest wasn't allowed to touch otherwise would make them unclean. Jesus was willing to touch unclean people, because in reality all are unclean. And so he's, he's touching these lepers. He's touching these these sick, he's touching these blind, these people that were outcasts that desire to be healed, to be desire to be known to desire to be reconciled to the community. And it's kind of like this picture in our marriage. Like, are we only going to touch when everything's perfectly right? Or are we going to in the midst of our pain and our hurt and our ugly, our smelly and in our dirty times? Are we gonna touch? Are we gonna embrace? Are we gonna hold? Are we going to reach out our hands and draw our spouse closer to us? Because even though often in our vows, we say, for better or for worse, it's often just for the better, and when it's in the worst is like, I don't have the energy right now. All right, until you change or unless this happens when it's those times that it's the most necessary. Jesus said it this way, he said, "I didn't come "for the healthy I came for the sick." [Jennifer] And I would even say most impactful, when you're either at odds with each other or there's tension or there's hardship [Aaron] Or you don't deserve it. [Jennifer] Or you don't deserve it and your spouse reaches across the table and touches you in that way. Oh my goodness. It's powerful. It's impactful. And I think that that's exactly what maybe one, maybe a lot needed here today. I mean, I just feel like that was really encouraging and even to me. [Aaron] It's encouraging to me, it's something I have to continue to be to remember. You're, you're having a hard time today. And my flesh is like-- [Jennifer] Get up, Jen. [Aaron] It's like, I don't know if I can handle you having a hard time again today. Because I mean, which is totally my selfish flesh, because I'm not experiencing what you're experiencing. So it's hard for me to just empathize right away. But when you walk in the Spirit, so my choice to be like, like, I'm gonna understand my wife right now I'm gonna walk in an understanding way as the Word tells me to do. I can realize this is hard season for you, I'm gonna have this hard season with you. And so just go and hug you and hold you and-- [Jennifer] Tickle me with your beard, which didn't help Aaron. [Aaron] Funny, touching is good to be playful. [Jennifer] It was really sweet. And again, I do appreciate that you came to my level and you saw me were I was at and you had compassion on me. And for the husband's out there who are similar to me, go against your flesh, and walk in the Spirit and and do this for your wife. To be honest some of you men that are listening, are probably thinking like, "Man, I don't ever do that." She'll probably not know what to do. You'll go and you'll try and like draw close to you, and you're gonna feel super awkward and she's gonna tense up and you're gonna pull her closer and you're just gonna say, "I know, it's kind of weird, I just wanna hug you." And then what's gonna happen, she's gonna realize it's real. And then you'll, you'll probably feel her melt. And so don't be afraid to do it the first time, it gets easier, and ask the Lord to help you do it to sort of help you physically encourage your spouse with that physical touch with the gentle the loving, the caring, the caress, the just that softness. [Jennifer] It's good. So we've said it a couple times, but just this idea that physical, physical touch sends a message to your spouse and there was just a kind of handful of ways that I was wanting to share with you guys about what those messages might look like. This isn't like, 100% perfect. It's just some encouragement. [Aaron] When you do this kind of sends these messages. [Jennifer] Embracing each other says, "I trust you and I need you in my life." A comforting hug says, "I'm here for you." A kiss says, "you're mine and I love you." Holding hands, let your spouse know, you like them. And you like spending time with them. Tickle rubs, massages, running your fingers through their hair says, I wanna make you feel good. And most times lets them know that you desire even more physical touch. [Aaron] It's true, and for those that are afraid of that last part, if I do this, then it's going to make them want more. I think that's something that should be prayed through. Your heart of like, you're avoiding touching your spouse because you are afraid that that will make them want more from you sexually. And if that's a fear you have and that's an negative thought you have which is something that keeps you from reaching out and touching your spouse. I think that's something you should pray about, that God would change in you. And there's a scripture specifically about this. [Jennifer] Real quick, I just have to say, there's a flip side to this of when your spouse is giving you physical touch, and you don't want it to lead anywhere that you're not just doing while they're touching you thinking they better not they better not. And then the moment it starts leading somewhere that you don't want it to go. You're thinking, "See, I knew they were just doing it "to get that thing." But, you guys God designed marriage to be physical, and-- [Aaron] It's the pretty much the only confines for Biblical healthy physical touch. [Jennifer] Yeah, like we need to be there for each other in that way. Now, if there's a specific reason why you don't want it to be led somewhere, you got to speak up, you got to let them know. Otherwise, your heart's just going to wrestle. [Aaron] And there's a loving way. It's like, "Hey, I'm really enjoying, "you reaching out you touching me playing with my hair, "you rubbing my back, I know, "you might want something more. "And I just wanna let you know that It may not work. "And so can we plan it for tomorrow night? "Can we can I reach out? "Can I let you know tomorrow?" [Jennifer] Yeah, or the other way is to set aside whatever justification you're rolling around in your head and go for it and enjoy it. [Aaron] Oftentimes, you get to the end of it, you're like, "Oh, I'm glad we did that part." "Oh, I needed that." Exactly. [Jennifer] Okay, so why don't you read that? It's 1st Corinthians 7:3-5. [Aaron] And this is this is a scripture that challenges both husbands and wives. On the actual obligation, we have to physical intimacy. It says this, "The husband should give to his wife, "her conjugal rights," and we all know what conjugal means. "And likewise, the wife to her husband, "for the wife does not have authority over her own body, "but the husband does. "Likewise, the husband does not have authority "over his own body, but the wife does. "Do not deprive one another except perhaps "by agreement for a limited time." I like how first of all says it says, "except perhaps." So it means like, if this is going to happen in the rare occasions of depriving each other, it's going to be by agreement and only for a short period of time. Like don't let there be long periods of time that this stuff happens. That's what almost destroyed marriage. Was long periods of time of not-- Me avoiding-- Yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That you may devote yourselves to prayer but then come together again so satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control. There's a very stark warning of the temptation that comes from avoiding each other sexually. And there's also at the command that my body is not my own. It's hers and her body is not her own, it's mine, right? Which has tons of implications and we can have another episode about this. But just just as an encouragement, you shouldn't be withholding sexual intimacy from your spouse. If there's a good reason then you need to discuss that and come to an agreement on it. If there's infidelity, which is a good reason to have a break from sexual intimacy. [Jennifer] Not just a break, it's a break being prayerful. [Aaron] It's a prayerful break from purpose of reconciliation, for the purpose of building trust, for the purpose of coming together against stronger than before, if that's where you're at. And so there's there's a stark command on the Word of God that whose bodies ours, are my bodies is not my own, I don't get to just make decisions for my own body. I have my responsibility to my wife, and vice versa. [Jennifer] And we shouldn't be using, sexual intimacy as a tool and withhold it from each other or anything like that. We can't, we can't let division and disunity and that kind of heart to seep into the marriage relationship which is so beautiful, the way that God designed, being married and living in this sacred space of like there's no other relationship like it on Earth. I receive from you, Aaron you receive from me. There's physical closeness, embrace touched, like there really is nothing like it on Earth and to be aware of that and the opportunities that we do have to come together. And again, this is just another place where I wanna assert that if distance or timing doesn't work because of work schedules or something, that is key be circumstances that are keeping you guys from being physically close, that you're affirming one another with your words, words are really powerful. And as much as this whole episode is about touch, you need to be affirming to each other and encouraging each other. Like, "we can't be together right now. "But I'm gonna make this a priority as soon as I see you." Right? [Aaron] Yep, and I want to talk about some of the way God designed us. And created us to for touch for that human connection. Not just verbal, but actual physical. And there's a story that we've been told from friends of ours that have adopted in China. And they went to China, and they walked into the orphanage, and it was silent. [Jennifer] There's babies. [Aaron] There's babies everywhere, but it's silent, no, no crying no. Like you would imagine in a room full of lonely babies. [Jennifer] They said it felt eerie. [Aaron] It was what's wrong. And this has actually been researched by a lot of people. There's several orphanage systems around the world that this is kind of a case where the babies aren't touched. They're not held on a hug. They're not cuddled, none of that stuff. And the babies very quickly learn that they're not going to be comforted. So they don't cry. They need it, they want to be comforted, but the only way they can communicate does nothing so they don't communicate. And it actually stunts their their neurological growth, it stunts their physical growth, it stunts a lot of things in them just because they're not being touched. I remember hearing a story a while ago, of an old man who's single, his wife died years prior, and he wanted to find something to do with his life. And so he started going to the NICU in his local hospital, just to hold the babies. He would go in there and he'd sit in a rocking chair and he'd hold babies that didn't have families, or that they were sick or whatever it was and he would just hold them for hours. Rock them sing to them talk to them. And he had this ministry of going and just holding babies which is amazing. When he gets to heaven one day, God's gonna hug him for doing that. Human touch is fundamental to our communication, to our bonding, to our physical health. There's been tons of research on how physical touch on even little mounts of levels. It brings healing to your body physical healing, like it helps you with your immune system helps you with your neurological development. What human touch does is there's a chemical that God's put in our bodies called oxytocin. And it's released during sex. It's released during hugs, [Jennifer] It's actually released during breastfeeding while a mom is bonding with her baby. [Aaron] Yeah, it's called the bonding drug. When you have an orgasm and during sex, and oxytocin is released in both of your bodies. It actually causes you to physically, emotionally, mentally bond closer with your spouse, which is also why it's prohibited to be having sexual relationships outside of your marriage. Because you're bonding in this way with other human beings that you're not married to. And this is this should be only happening within the context of marriage. But that oxytocin release that hormone is actually so good for so many things. It relieves stress. It combats what's the stress hormone, it's cortisol. It combats that. So you have too much of that in your body and you have all this stress and oxytocin being released through a hug, through a kiss, through an orgasm through that these things that are that release oxytocin in your body, and then boom, you're actually helping your body do what God made your body to do. Which makes it even stronger, healthier, more excited, more fit, less sad, right? It helps with depression, it helps all these things. And these are all just the just the biological function of touch in your in your life why it's so important. So again, like I said in the beginning, regardless, if you're love language's physical touch, every human being on the planet needs physical touch for healthy growth, healthy living. You could have access to this on a daily basis with your spouse. Think about how much more joyful, and secure, and confident and happy you'll be if physical touch's more consistent like healthy, loving, gentle physical touch. A caress here, a hand holding there, a kiss, a hug, caressing the neck, touching the ear, playing with the hair. All these things, that are so good for us and make you have to be so close. And it releases all these good things in your body. And it actually it's a spiritual thing. It's an emotional thing, it's a physical thing. [Jennifer] That's really good. So often, I think that as humans, we become contingent on the other person in the marriage to step up and do something-- [Aaron] Transactional. [Jennifer] And I think it's important to speak to that for just a moment Aaron, and maybe you can share on this but Just as an encouragement to those listening. That we shouldn't be waiting to initiate, waiting to insert ourselves and be physical, for our spouse to do it first or to take that first step or especially if there has been distance or time between, a season of no physical touch. What would you say to encourage them? [Aaron] Well, I first want to talk to those that, like, maybe I'm imagining a husband has a hard heart. There's something, wherever they are in their marriage. And like I said, we talked about earlier touch is the last thing they want. And I would imagine a wife is afraid to like to reach out and hold their hand because they're gonna pull away and reject them. [Jennifer] Or maybe the couple who they have tried to openly Express and communicate that they want more or that there's they're hurt because it's not happening and then they get shut down. And so that kind of like what you're saying about the baby's crying, not crying in the orphanages. They've learned to not speak up and to not say anything. [Aaron] 'Cause they're not gonna get it. [Jennifer] That makes me sad just thinking about that in marriage. [Aaron] So my encouragement to those is to do it anyway. Even if even if they reject you, even if you, you lean over and you go to caress your wife's neck and she swats your hand away, or you reach over to put your hand on your husband's shoulder, and he shrugs it off. It hurts. I'm not gonna pretend that that doesn't hurt, I'm not gonna tell you to pretend it doesn't hurt. But you can hand that to the Lord and say, "Lord, that hurts me. "But I want to love my husband, "I want to love my wife." And, and maybe it's the next time you're walking by them, to the kitchen you just for half a second, rub your hand across their back. They can't stop you. Whether they say a word to you, they're gonna think like, she touched me. [Jennifer] You're sending them a message still. [Aaron] You're sending them a message still. And you do that over and over, and over again. They they look frustrated. You go up and you get close and say, "Hey, I'm praying for you." Just put your hand on their shoulder. They look sad. So you say, "can I give you a hug?" Even if they say no to you, do it. Reach out to touch someone like the song goes, "I reach out" and go to your spouse and just don't give up. Don't give up doing good for in due season you will produce a harvest, you will reap a reward. And I mean think about it's like what Christ did. He reached out and touched a lot of people. And so be Christ in your home to your spouse, reach out and touch them, pray for them. Put your hand on them. Try and grab their hand, touch their lower back, put your hand on their shoulder, put your hand on their forearm. Whatever it is, just let them know that you want to touch them. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's beautiful. We hope that this episode encouraged you guys. And this really brought you to a place where you're evaluating physical touch in your marriage. And I would say our charge to you would be an encouragement to be the initiator. I know we already mentioned that but to be the initiator of physical interaction, in your relationship with your spouse. And don't let your flesh, your insecurities, or your frustrations get in the way. Be courageous enough to reach out and see how that touch impacts your spouse. [Aaron] And ask Christ to give you the strength and the courage to do it in a supernatural way with your spouse. [Jennifer] All right, Aaron, you wanna close us out with prayer? [Aaron] Yep. Dear Lord, we praise you for the gift of touch. We thank you for the way you created our bodies and gave us the ability to fill and touch. We pray that we would be husbands and wives who use the power of touch to affirm each other in marriage and let one another know we are near. We pray we would have the courage to reach out and hug or hold each other's hand. Even when it feels hard to do that or inconvenient. May our marriage be a priority in this way. May our touch remind our spouse that we love them and that we support them. We pray touch with encourage intimacy and closeness like we have never experienced in our marriage before. In Jesus name, amen. We love you guys. We thank for listening to episode, we pray that you would touch more and that if you haven't already would you just take a moment, leave us a review. Just scroll down to the bottom of your app, hit a star rating that the easiest way to do it, you just tap a star. Or you can leave us a text review. We love those and also blesses other people when they're coming to check out the show for the first time. It also lets iTunes and other podcast apps know how to rank our podcast based off her reviews. So we love you all. We thank you and we pray that God moves mightily in your marriages and draws you closer to him and your spouse and see you next week. [Narrator] Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. 

Helpful links from the episode: MozCon ticket giveaway Whitespark's new Local Search Service FULL SHOW NOTES:[music]00:10 Aaron: Episode six. Competitors, obsessed or don't care?00:16 Speaker 2: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast. Sharing the adventure of leading and growing a bootstrapped SaaS company. Hear the experiences, challenges, wins and losses shared in each episode from Aaron Weiche of GatherUp and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.[music]00:45 Aaron: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast. I'm Aaron.00:48 Darren: I'm Darren.00:49 Aaron: And today, we are going to dive into the topic of competitors. But before we get into the main course of this episode, Darren, I'm excited to hear about all the prep you had to go into the Brighton conference and your travels over to England. I'd love to hear how both the conference went for you and did you get a chance to do some touristy and fun things? How did all that go? 01:16 S2: Yeah. Totally, yeah. So, it a was pretty great trip. It was grueling trying to get ready for it, actually, because prior to giving my presentation, the day before, I was giving a full day of local search training which I had never done before, just everything up to... You could imagine with local search, so covering the full gamut and...01:39 Aaron: Did they get a certificate that says "Darren Certified," when they were done? 01:44 Darren: No, no.[laughter]01:46 Darren: I should have that though. I should have a nice stamp to give everybody. Yeah. But it was seven hours of training, so my slide deck ended up been 530 slides of just trying to get everything I could think of. It's basically, "Darren does local search brain in one massive presentation." It was crazy. Also, my flights got messed up. So, I was supposed to fly in the morning on Tuesday and then, I basically fly all day and arrive on Wednesday at 10:00 AM. But then, they bumped my flight from Edmonton to Toronto to leave at midnight. So, I left at midnight, Edmonton time, arrived in Toronto at 6:00 AM, and then, I ended up getting a hotel, so I stayed in Toronto in the hotel so I could get some sleep from 6:00 AM until about 1:00 PM. And then, I was just working in the airport waiting for my flight to leave at around 10:00 PM. While I'm working at this local pub, this pub in the airport, I dumped a beer on my laptop.02:44 Aaron: No.02:45 Darren: I totally fried my laptop and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm getting on my flight in two hours and I still have so many slides to make." So, I raced to the little electronic store, I buy a new laptop, I'm trying to get everything loaded on to the laptop before my flight takes off. They're calling my name and I'm watching the ton download of PowerPoint probably has to get a load on my laptop. They're like, "Last call for Darren Shaw to board flight to London." And it's like, I got 1% left and I'm holding the laptop, ready to close it, and ready to run into the gate. It was insane. So I finally got on my plane, worked a little bit on the plane, slept a little bit on the plane. It all worked out in the end, but man, it was stressful.03:28 Aaron: Oh my gosh, that sounds one of my worst nightmares like, "Holy cow."03:33 Darren: Yeah, it was really bad. But yeah, the presentation was great. I thought it was fun, and it's a cool case study I'm doing. I'm just taking a business that had zero local search presence and then, slowly stepping through each sort of thing that you would do in a local search, and measuring the impact of that like, "Okay, they got five new reviews. What impact did that have on local search?" We did other citation building, then we did a whole bunch of citation indexing. So, each step, I was like, "What impact did that have on the rankings?" And so, it was cool to do the study and I'm gonna continue that study as I go to MozCon in July.04:09 Aaron: Yeah, I'm super excited to hear about that. That sounds like such a great piece of research and everything you put into it. And also, if you and I, when we hang out next, if we're gonna have beers, I'm keeping my computer away from you.04:23 Darren: Seriously, keep it in your backpack. Do not get that anywhere near the table.04:28 Aaron: Oh, man.04:29 Darren: Yeah. I did a little touristy stuff, too. In Brighton, they have this i360 thing which goes... It looks like a UFO that goes up on a big stick, "Bzzzzz". Goes like way up high so you can see all the way out to the ocean, all of Brighton, which is kind of touristy and interesting. It was alright. And then, I went to visit a friend. I went up to London, ate some great meals. Yeah, Brighton's a beautiful spot, and London, of course, is awesome. I did a couple of days there. After that grueling work, I just wished I had gone home instead of taking a couple of days in London, actually. I felt like I'd rather be with my family than trudging around London by myself.05:11 Aaron: Yeah, I can see that but I almost always get like this. I don't know if it's like a high or just relief after when you have something that big and then, it's off your plate. It is such a... There's a lot of decompressing that you have to do. That was something for a long time that I think even my wife struggled with when I would come home from certain conferences or events where you had big talks and things like that, where I was like, I just need to check out for a few days and I feel really great about it but I have no... I don't have any purpose to accomplish big things right now, professionally or personally, so I'm just gonna be happy, have a beer, and walk around without a care in the world for a couple of days because I just had way too many.05:58 Darren: I totally get that. I feel the exact same. I love it when I go to a conference, say, something like MozCon, and I speak on the first day, because then, I got the next two days to just like, "Yey, I'm having the best time hanging out with all my industry friends and having some drinks and learning some new topics." And I'm just like, "I'm not checking my email for two days." Yeah.06:16 Aaron: That's awesome. Well, good. I'm glad it went well even though you threw the biggest curve ball at yourself ever, but way to overcome.06:25 Darren: Yeah, sucked. What's up with you? 06:28 Aaron: Well, on company-wise, I'm really excited. We just hired a new VP of Customer Success.06:35 Darren: Awesome.06:36 Aaron: Yeah. It's someone that I've known for a long time, has a great background and really, we already have a great customer success team. We have three direct reps, and we have had one that served as a lead. But I was directly managing or overseeing our lead customer success rep, and in the 100 ways I'm at, like I'm not giving him enough support. I'm not giving enough guidance to the team. And it just really became aware to me that, even though this wasn't like our number one need, that I knew the right person for this job, and that would be a great fit culturally for us and within our mission and a bunch of other things, and it would really help this team have more experience to draw from and more time with somebody to help both what we do and them individually grow.07:27 Aaron: I'm really excited about that. One of the things... We already have for, especially our multi-location clients, five locations to into the thousands, we have a really great onboarding process that we've developed and put together and communicate and everything else, but we almost like, Launch is like the finish line. And once they're up and running, then we kinda turn reactive again, and then we're like, "Okay, if you need something, let us know," where we should be...07:54 Darren: Not checking in on them. Yeah.07:55 Aaron: Yeah, we should be hands-on. What's their week one look like, what's month one, what's the first 90 days? How are we ensuring they're getting off to the right start, to really be successful? That's kind of one of our main high-level goals to get going, and I'm excited with how this hire is gonna plug in and help make that happen for us.08:13 Darren: How big is your customer support team? 08:16 Aaron: So total of four now with this hire. So we have three direct reps that those guys are handling everything from email tickets, phone calls. We do a live chat during normal business hours, on-boarding, all of those different things. We have four in total dedicated to that now.08:36 Darren: Right. And so, this made me think about one thing you could do is measuring engagement and then if you see a client fall off of engagement, they're not logging in, they're not sending out requests, then you could algorithmically send an alert to your customer service team and say, "Hey, you should check in with this customer."08:55 Aaron: Totally... Maybe that's another podcast. We talk about that, but we're definitely looking at a combination. We're just starting to do a deeper install with the product called Heap Analytics. We're gonna do a lot more event tracking in the app and things like that. So yeah, definitely a combination of we wanna be proactive and digging into accounts and looking for things. We wanna develop some systems that are kinda giving us those warning signs or being able to really high level kind of spot check where they're at.09:25 Darren: Yeah, totally. And I say that as just suggestion for you, but it's like, "Damn, we should do that too."09:30 Aaron: No, totally. And it's a great thing to talk about. And as we get further down, I'd love to talk about where we're getting with it, but it really is like, How do you have this prescriptive path that you know that they need to achieve and we know certain things based on how often they're logging in, often they're engaging with the feature, and then some of the metrics that are coming out. Those are key performance indicators that we really need to ratchet down on.09:58 Darren: For sure. What else is going on? Anything new? 10:01 Aaron: Excited that we landed our first customer from... If you remember back a couple of months ago, we did that IFA conference.10:07 Darren: Yeah, we talked all about ROI on that. So you got a good customer? 10:11 Aaron: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a good customer that basically, zeroed out our investment, right? We'll make money back on this customer in under a year from our investment on that. We signed them to a two-year deal. And then I still have a number of other conversations in addition to the exposure we got and everything else. I feel really, really good about that. Yeah, that's all I wanted out of our... Again, our first time. You have to understand these things that you're not gonna go in and shock and awe people first time in a giant conference like that, so it's like, "Can you just get a little traction? A lot of visibility, a lot of conversations." We're already signed up for the next one, next year, so excited about that.10:50 Darren: Yeah, and I think it's a good point. You definitely zeroed out. So you know you've got that exact measurable impact from the conference, but you did better than zeroing out because there was all that exposure of people that are coming to you because they saw you at the conference and you have no idea that you have a new customer, you didn't know that it was because of IFA.11:09 Aaron: Yeah.11:10 Darren: So you're definitely getting more than just this one big client, for sure.11:13 Aaron: Yeah, absolutely, but it's great to be able to go to the team just because some of my partners weren't always on board with doing these types of events and conferences and be able to say like, "Hey yeah, dollar-to-dollar. We got our money back and now here's all these other intangibles that continue to pay off, right? It's like anything in marketing. You have to look at it as an investment and some investments, they are short-term payoffs and some are more mid and long-term and you need to keep going back on it to get where you need to go.11:42 Darren: Yeah, and then you also get the lifetime value of that customer so it's more than just whatever the contract is that you sign, it's into the future. And then, a new customer and all the referrals that can potentially come from that customer.11:54 Aaron: Yeah, you just hope it's... You planted a seed with it and then it starts to grow and branch out and everything else, and you reap all those rewards.12:03 Darren: Totally, great. And I saw you guys were sponsoring MozCon.12:04 Aaron: Yeah.12:05 Darren: And I got to see all the tweets. Everyone's excited about giving away tickets.12:08 Aaron: Yeah, yeah, giving away a ticket, which is awesome, 'cause a MozCon ticket is expensive, like face value.12:15 Darren: And it's a great conference.12:17 Aaron: Yeah. Of like 1700 bucks and great speakers like yourself and Will Reynolds and Cindy Krum and things like that, where it really is awesome. And interesting enough, I saw in one of those side benefits, right? I was just on site a couple of days ago with a new customer that we're onboarding and kicking off with, that has hundreds of locations. And our main contact there was like... She's like, "Hey, can I ask you a question? I'm like, Yeah, totally she's like... Well, I was just looking into 'cause I need to get out to some conferences, and whatever. And lo and behold, I came across MozCon kinda looks great. And then I saw you guys are sponsor. So I thought you'd be able to give me really good insight on the... Is this a good conference and should I go to it? 12:58 Aaron: And to me, it was like one of those, it reinforced in other reasons why to sponsor conferences and things like that, 'cause even your customer see like, "Oh these guys are active in the space and they're part of these things and whatever else. So, that was kind of a cool full-circle moment there.13:10 Darren: There is no conference I've ever been to, I've never seen a better opportunity for vendors than the MozCon setup because at MozCon, they only take on eight to 10 exhibitors really, and they have these nice little, they call them partner hubs, and they're right as you walk into the conference. It's not like in a separate room like an exhibit hall that you have to go to. They're right there so your visibility is amazing and when people come out from the conference sessions to go and get a coffee or a snack, or they go off for lunch, they have to walk right past you. And so, all these people are mingling about and the snacks are right next to where all the vendors are. It's amazing. It's the best visibility I've ever seen at a conference. It's a good one.13:52 Aaron: Nice. I hope we can capitalize on that. Maybe we can even book like, Darren Shaw's in our booth for an hour and you can get photos and autographs.14:01 Darren: [chuckle] It's not just me, there's some great local people coming so Joy is gonna be there too, and Greg Gifford got a community spot. Oh, maybe I'm supposed to keep that on the down low. Well, it's out there now. [chuckle] It's definitely out there now.14:14 Aaron: Well, we'll have a handful of our team. Mike Blumenthal will be there as well, so we'll have a good crew.14:21 Darren: Yeah, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be fun. Can't wait.14:23 Aaron: I think maybe we do a thing where, for an hour, you will dump beers on people's laptops.[chuckle]14:29 Darren: You would get so many people lined up for that. Yeah. [laughter]14:33 Aaron: Oh, see I love these ideas. And other than that, man, I just... I know you know what this is like, too, but I've been on a plane every week the last five weeks. Monday, I leave for a local U in Austin. I go directly from there to North Carolina to one of our new clients and their internal conference for franchisees, so it's just been really hard to get time at my desk and to keep the other things moving forward when you don't have that focus time gap.15:02 Darren: And that's where this new hire comes in, right. Someone that can just... "Okay, you manage the customer support initiatives that we wanna run with? Like all this stuff that I don't have time to stay on top of."15:12 Aaron: Yeah, totally. Anyway, that's a normal struggle. You know what that's like, but man, it's crazy sometimes when it is. I'm going on week five of a trip, of multiple days every single week, and it's like I need a week just no calls, no emails, get caught up, get directions set on some things.15:32 Darren: I do not envy that. I know that feeling of just feeling like you're getting further and further behind with all the traveling and speaking, and all that kind of stuff. It takes a lot of time and I am really looking forward to this next stretch I have where I don't have anything until Moz... Oh, have a little one, a local U, in June and then MozCon so... But yeah, I'm basically free and clear for a while and I love it and I'm not gonna book anything. I've got so many initiatives that we have on the go here, I'm really excited about, and I'm so happy to be involved with.16:03 Aaron: No, that feels so good.16:05 Darren: One other new item for me, actually, is we launched a new service so I'm excited about that. It's called the local search service and we basically... You can kind of think of it like a Google My Business management service. We really tried to build a great productized service that we can scale, and I'm really excited about it and getting a lot of interest from it and I think there's great potential. We have so many customers that come to us that are like, "Okay, I don't even know what a citation is. What am I supposed to do? Can you help me?" And we're like, "Yes." Now, we can say, "Yes, we can help you. Sign up for this. We will basically manage all of the local pieces of search for you and so we can now meet the needs of all those clients, so I'm excited about that.16:47 Aaron: Yeah, you should be. That's really cool. And once again, it's usually when we talk, that totally sounds like an episode I'd love to do a deep dive on because I have some ideas around some productized services that we can bolt on top of what we're doing, especially with some of the features we have coming out in the next three to six months. So, that's really interesting. And yeah, let's put that on or our dock of notes on something 'cause I'd love to hear how all that unfolds for you more and what you understand as this rolls out and the success...17:17 Darren: For sure, yeah. There will be lots to talk about. Yeah, I'll be interested to hear more about your productized services. But now, let's get into the meat of it. We're gonna talk about competitors, right? 17:24 Aaron: Good old competitors.[chuckle]17:26 Darren: Yeah.17:27 Aaron: It's like an opinion, everybody has one, right? 17:30 Darren: Yeah, totally. Totally. You have lots, actually. Your space is pretty saturated and I suppose I have even more because we do everything so, yeah. How do you deal with your competitors? Are you like... Do you have alerts set up? Do you have a team member that's, it's their job to watch what the competitor is doing all the time? How do you deal with it? 17:51 Aaron: Yeah. I definitely fall into the camp where I pay attention and I think about them. I'm not as far... I know people who obsess about it and things like that. I think that's really unhealthy 'cause it derails the direction you're going.18:07 Darren: Yep.18:07 Aaron: But, especially when you're young, when you're a start-up and... Alright, I've been with GatherUp for just a couple of months shy of four years now, but in the earlier stages when I was there, especially when you haven't carved out where you are and you're not as secure in where you are, or confident, then you pay a lot of attention to it, right? And I think that can be a really hard evolution in just figuring out what the right balance is for you because it's smart to pay attention to them and understand what they're doing but when you obsess, then you start going backwards and the other way with it and that becomes really, really dangerous.18:47 Darren: How do you deal with feature parity? So one of your customers will be like, "Hey we used to be with this... We're currently with this competitor. We're thinking about switching to you. Do you also do this thing that my competitor does? Like is that something that you're like, "Ooh, we should really get that on a roadmap," or you're like, "No, we have our roadmap. We're staying the course. We don't care if this other competitor has this feature that this one customer wants."19:13 Aaron: It depends so much. I think if you go back to my first statement, I'm like knowing who you are and where you're going. A lot of times we're really easily able to say, "Does that feature even fit in with our vision and our direction or doesn't it?" And there are certain features, though, that you consider these are standard things that are needed in what we're doing, and that becomes the really tricky part in kind of parsing that out sometimes.19:41 Darren: Yeah.19:41 Aaron: We have certain competitors that I call  "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink" competitor where no matter who builds what in the space, they have enough of an engineering team where they will basically copycat everyone's feature. And they really don't ever innovate anything or bring out something that's really strategic. They're just gonna say, "Hey, we have 250 features. We're never gonna lose a deal on a feature," and as a bootstrap company, we can't afford to do that. We have to align very tightly with our strategy and our vision with it. So that's the big thing that we always use is like, "Does this align with what those are?" And then we have to give the consideration like, "Is this an expected across the board?" So an easy example in our space would be like if we didn't have review monitoring, right, people would be like, "That's great that you helped me get more reviews and all these other things, but you're not letting me know when new reviews happen when I get them and giving me a notification about it."20:40 Aaron: That would be an issue no matter how our focus of like, "Well, we wanna help you connect with your customer and that's a reactive thing, and we only wanna do proactive things." So, definitely pieces like that. How do you look at it just as you talked about... You have this feature set that's so broad that you then hit all kinds of people that just focus on one of your features, but that's all they do is that one? What does that look like for you and your competitive landscape? 21:09 Darren: Yeah. So for us, I feel frustrated about competitors often because it's like I have this broad vision about what we wanna do. But we're kinda small, actually. Our company is not huge, and then competitors seem to always be a step ahead of us. We're like, "Damn it, we were gonna launch that." And then they put it out like a month before us. Things like that often come up that are frustrating. So there is, obviously, in my space, one major competitor which is BrightLocal, and it was funny because at Brighton SEO, that training I did, there were ten attendees for my full training session, and five of them were employees with BrightLocal 'cause apparently they're based out of Brighton. And so, I basically was training Myles and [21:56] ____ how to do local search, which was good times. [chuckle] And...22:00 Aaron: That's so crazy... Like did part of you just kind of feel like... Asking them to walk out of the room like, "This is not for you." [chuckle]22:07 Darren: Well no, 'cause it wasn't really like... We weren't really talking about our software and our services. We were just talking about local search in general, so it was totally fine. And I did my best to try and train them up as well as I could. And then the next day I actually went for lunch with my top competitor, Miles Anderson, from BrightLocal. And yeah, we had a great, great lunch, we chatted about things. I feel like we were both pretty open and it was interesting to hear about their business and what they're working on and tell him a little bit about what we're up to. And it's funny because you have some competitors that totally seem like assholes and you're like, "I would never go for lunch with that guy, [chuckle] but then I have BrightLocal and Whitespark, we're friendly competitors.22:51 Darren: I feel the same way about Moz, Moz has their Moz local product, but I love them all over there. It's a great group and so I don't really... I don't worry about the competitors, and I don't, I don't hate my competitors, but sometimes I'm frustrated about their ability to release faster than us. But other times, I just don't obsess about it either because, like you said, we have our road map, we have our style, people choose us because of who we are and what we do and how we do things because they just... It feels like more of a fit for them than this other product. And so, we just have to be clear on who we are and what we're doing, and I think that there's room in the industry for lots of competitors. If you think about how many email marketing systems are there? You got Mail Chimp, you got... I'm drawing a blank [chuckle], what are some of the other ones? Campaign Monitor.23:47 Aaron: Campaign Monitor, AWeber, Constant Contact. [chuckle]23:48 Darren: There's probably 30 of them and they are all making money. So it's like, to some degree, spaces will eventually merge to like a top winner but... And I would love for that to be Whitespark in my space. And you would love for that to be GatherUp in your space. But I don't worry too much about the competition. I'm not worried about my business... My business continues to grow, your business continues to grow and so.24:16 Aaron: And you have to look at it that way. If you're in a space you can see there's enough business for all kinds of people. And there's just so many different... It becomes interesting to me, based on who we're selling into, we might have a different set of two or three competitors. And that always becomes really interesting as you get into those. And I can kind of, like, for the three main segments we work in, there's kinda two competitors in each of those segments, that that's who we bump into in a comparison process, more often than not with it.24:51 Darren: I was just gonna say, speaking of comparison like, how do you handle all those questions where people are like, "Well what makes you better than competitor X?"25:01 Aaron: Yeah. I think, going back to the other things I hit upon, the thing that we always look at is, strategically, right, we really rely on like, "Hey, you have some of the people who have cared a long time about local search, people who care about business and reputation and communication. We understand all those angles, and we're not giving you... We're not the Walmart of SaaS products, where every feature's on the shelf and you grab what you want. We are this honed experience, that if you come in, we have the right things that you need, and we also can help you with the right ways to use them.25:34 Aaron: And I think that's really important coming from that angle, we point that out all the time as a difference, and we also use the fact that like, "Hey, we are hard-core focused on helping connect you to your customers." So at the end of the day, we're not gonna be creating a bunch of other things around local listings or some of these other things. And I get customers want... When they find like, "Alright, I can get one bill and one provider and there's some overlap." I get all of those are wins, but we really look at it as like we wanna be the best option with what we're trying to do, more so than, we have more things to sell you and, all across the board, we can make it so you don't have to need three people, you just need one. But we have our own ways that we make that happen.26:22 Darren: Yeah, that's interesting, our approach is a little bit different. We are kitchen sink for sure, and we continue to expand, and add new things like, "Oh, customers need this, we're gonna build it." So, I don't know, I feel like we're kinda stuck there now because we already offer so many different products and services around the whole range of local search that we can never get out of that, but I do think your approach is really smart, from a competitor perspective. And I think there's a service behind it too. It's like, "Hey, we are subject matter experts on customer experience, customer feedback, reviews, you come to us and we're not just like a software you're gonna sign up for, we're gonna actually help you get the best results that you can from that review process, and feedback process." So, I think it's smart to... The way you have honed in on that.27:10 Aaron: Well, hopefully, 'cause... But it's also you have to make the most of what you have to offer too. I don't have 100 engineers building every last feature, so I can't be in that arms race, I'm not gonna win that. So, we have to build really great, well-thought-out strategical features that align with things we understand. SEO, and local SEO, and communications between business and customer, and really dial those in so that we can show them like, "Hey, here's a really great repeatable process that your business can prosper with." Rather than, "Hey, spread yourself super thin trying to do all these things." And more and more, I'm hearing customers come back to that just because I think there is such an explosion in the ebbs and flows of software, and SaaS and that explosion where there is that feeling of adding more features, adding more features, adding more features. And I've actually had some clients say, "What I like about you is you are laser focused on this, and that other stuff is just kind of fluff to me, or thrown in or whatever else. And we don't need it, we're likely not gonna use it, we need to put our focus here."28:19 Darren: Yeah, and you also end up with feature bloat, where someone logs in to the system and they're like, "Wow, this is insane. I don't know how to do anything. Do you have a two-day training course for me to figure out how your software works?" And so staying focused and not building every damn feature can really help to make your customer experience of using the software better too.28:40 Aaron: Yeah, you always wanna find it. And this is something we are constantly battling 'cause sometimes I think we're getting that, as we offer so many customizations and configurations, or whatever else where, to me, it's always figuring out this top-down approach of how can I do the easiest things up front and right away, and then I have easy pass to go into second, third, fourth level advanced type settings, and I can dig deeper if I want to, but I don't have all that depth thrown in my face right away, and that's something I'm...29:08 Darren: Yep.29:09 Aaron: Really trying to philosophically work into our user experience. Let's not expose everything right up front, I get that makes sense when we're creating it 'cause we understand everything. But when the first time user comes in, that's the last thing you want them to be, it's like, "Where do I even start?" You don't want that.29:25 Darren: Yeah, totally. You got a dropdown with 30 different options and it's too much.29:30 Aaron: I'm interested, Darren in yours, how often do you see customers switching from one provider or another, and how hard is that switch for someone to pick up and leave BrightLocal, and come to Whitespark or something like that? 29:43 Darren: Yeah, interestingly it depends on what they want. So, BrightLocal has a couple of things that we don't have and so, but there are a lot of people that have a Brightlocal account, and they're paying for all this extra stuff that they don't actually use. And so we did recently make it pretty easy to switch to us. We've added some features that make it easy to switch, and we will support people that wanna switch too. So, if they wanna switch, we're gonna do all the work to try and make it as easy as possible for them. And that's been pretty successful for us, and we find that our customers that do switch are like, "Wow, this is a whole new world, we really love it." And that gives us some confidence in what we're doing. But we also see people go the other way too. When people cancel, one of the options they can choose is moving to a competitor. And then, of course, we ask for more details. Yeah, we do see people switch over to BrightLocal, and they list their reasons, and we think about those reasons, and we figure out whether or not we need to make any changes based off of what the feedback we're getting. And then there's so many people that are switching one way or the other, you never hear from. You don't know if they're switching.30:51 Aaron: Would you ever consider... Do you market that switching process? I think about, I've seen this for a long time with banks, they will actively put out content on their website saying like, "Hey, here's how you switch to our bank and we make it easy. And here's what's involved." Do you do any of that or would you consider doing that? So people know like, "Hey, it's not super painful, and we actually will guide you through it, and make it easy."31:14 Darren: Yeah, we've recently built these features to make it easy to switch. And we are going to definitely market them. We're just putting it on the landing page and saying, "Hey listen, if you're currently with this competitor, it's so dead simple for you to switch. We move everything over for you, contact us today." So we definitely wanna market it, we're not gonna do a blog post and tweet about it, and be like, "Hey, anyone that's with BrightLocal definitely come to us." [chuckle] We're not gonna do that, it just feels kind of douchey. But we will let... We wanna let people know that it's easy to switch. And we're putting it into our welcome email. So, someone signs up for that, we're like, "Oh hey, are you with BrightLocal? If you are... " Just a line that says, "Hey, it's easy to switch."31:56 Aaron: Nice, very, very smart.31:58 Darren: And it's not just BrightLocal, we've made it easy to switch from other providers too.32:01 Aaron: Yeah, so in your space, and I can't remember if BrightLocal has taken any funding at any point or not, but do you have...32:10 Darren: They have not.32:10 Aaron: Okay, so are most of your competitors in your space bootstrapped or do you have... Are there certain ones that are big VC-funded, and on a different trajectory? 32:21 Darren: It depends on what you're looking at. For someone that is pretty close to almost exactly what we do, it's BrightLocal. But then we have competitors in different areas like business listing management. You've got Moz Local, and then you have Yext. So Yext, of course, massive funding, Moz Local, massive funding, and so they are different. And then we have some that are a little bit more agency, but also a little focused on business listings, and that would be, Advice Local is one that comes up here and there. And I think they might be funded too. It's an interesting thing like that, bootstrapped versus funding.32:57 Aaron: Yep.32:58 Darren: I feel like I don't know why, but we have a market advantage and maybe it's just because of the speaking and stuff that I do, but I feel like people look to us as experts and that helps drive business for sure, for us.33:10 Aaron: Yeah. As you know, we're in that same boat where we wanna be thought leaders in the space, especially when it comes to search. We're the only one of our competitors that are at a MozCon or talking at search conferences where our competitors especially like BirdEye or Podium, that these guys have taken $30 million rounds of funding those guys are talking at SaaS conferences and VC conferences and things like that, and we definitely use that to our advantage on how well we understand the space and what Google is doing and what they're up to, and that we even have relationships there that are productive strategic ones. But there's such a gap in our space, 'cause we really have a competitor that's just, "Hey, they got a couple of million dollars in funding and it's allowed them to accelerate." We have these behemoths that have taken on tens of millions of dollars or you have us, that have not taken on any money. And so, that discrepancy that divide is so large and you see it in size of engineering teams and size of sales teams. It's like...34:18 Darren: Yeah. For sure. Yeah.34:19 Aaron:  I'm the only one that does outbound sales. I'm hoping that changes in the coming months, It's been top of my priority list for a while. We still haven't found the right fit. But I wanna grow an outbound sales team because our product is good enough for it now, and we're doing very well just through inbound marketing and all the things we do there, but it's really time for us to scale up those efforts. And those guys already have sales teams of 50, 100, and every last...34:45 Darren: That's insane, I know.34:47 Aaron: Yeah.34:47 Darren: Yeah, it's totally insane. So what kind of outbound sales do you do? Who are you talking to you? 34:51 Aaron: Yeah, I focus all on multi-locations. So I wanna talk if your... For me, I'm probably targeting anyone like 50 locations, and up. So yesterday, I saw one of my contacts is friends with the COO of a 200 location coffee shop. So I asked for an introduction.35:08 Darren: Right. That's smart.35:09 Aaron: I'm looking at brands that have size, continue to grow. And I can usually pretty easily see from even their own website. Are they using something to streamline feedback and reviews, are they displaying reviews on their site or location pages. So it's like this, three to four item checklist where I can see like, okay, they're either doing one of the five things we offer or two of the five, or none or I see they're using two different services, where I know we could help them consolidate.  I'm reaching out and try to start a conversation. I'm gonna put some of our case studies in front of them or some thought leadership articles from our blog or, "Hey, are you gonna be at this event that we're speaking at or we're sponsoring." And try to spark that up that way. And I would love to have one, two, three, four, five people duplicating my efforts there, just because those relationships are so much demand... It's one thing to get the conversation started, but then it's the calls, the demos, the meetings staying on top of it, keeping it moving, all of those things that you gotta have a team for.36:10 Darren: Absolutely, I find like... Sales are great, I can do the sales, but it's all the work that comes after that. Great, I've started a conversation I have a client that's interested, and then it's like managing that relationship is really time-consuming. You definitely need to build a team or it'll end up taking up all your time.36:27 Aaron: Yup, absolutely, I'm with you. Anything in closing, Darren I think we've ran our course, but do you have any final takeaways or a statement that you'd offer advice to anyone when... How they're thinking about or watching their competitors, researching them, what would you put out there to our listeners? 36:45 Darren: Yeah, I think it is important to keep an eye on them. You wanna have... I do have [36:51] ____ what they do and I keep tabs on it and I keep looking at what they're doing, but also, having that mentality that you touched on which is making sure that you understand what you're about and what your mission is, and not getting pulled off course for this feature, or that feature, 'cause competitors are always gonna be doing things slightly different from you but understanding what value you're bringing, and if that feature contributes to that value, then it's something that you might wanna include or if whatever marketing thing they're doing makes sense that it might be something you wanna do. But knowing who you are and what you're providing, and what your value differentiator is against that competitor is really important to get nailed down, so that you're not always just chasing every little thing that the competitors are doing.37:36 Aaron: Totally agree with you, self-awareness of your product and your company, is so important for people to be as soon as you can find that way, to be secure with that. You can't be over confident where you bury your head in the sand, you still need to be aware, but you need that self-confidence so that you can build your own path. And the cautionary tale, I tell people all the time, is if you build yourself to be so alike a competitor. Now there isn't just as you hit about there isn't this unique distinction on why someone would choose you or the other one.38:08 Darren: Yeah totally.38:09 Aaron: And it's like, Oh, you're both the same. Alright, well, which one's cheaper, now? Which is the last comparison that you want.38:16 Darren: Exactly.38:16 Aaron: I never wanna win, because I'm the cheap option, I wanna win because I'm the best value that's there. So I'd tell people to really be thinking about that. When you are paying attention to your competitors, you're not obsessing but how do you carve out the value that you have in comparison? 38:31 Darren: Yeah, and I would add one little thing. It's very valuable to hear, as customers are coming in when they do switch over, to touch base with them and find out what was happening over with your competitor that you had problems with? And then being able to speak to some of those things and trying to amplify your benefits against those perceived problems over there. That's one thing that we try to do over here.38:54 Aaron: Yes, yep. Now we have that going on in our reseller space right now, and we have a number of resellers, coming to us from our biggest competitor there that are like your feature set is better, your interface is better, your customer service is way better, and those are all things that we need to just be a little bit more touting and put out there so the people understand that there is that difference and that makes up for, "We are a little bit more expensive than they are." But as everyone that switches said, "You're 10X the value because of those things." And we need to do a better job of bringing that...39:29 Darren: Yeah laying that out for them. When you're onboarding new clients or when you're prospecting in the sales process, that's where that stuff should come out, where you can speak to those things. So yeah, that's where I really think the greatest value of keeping your eyes on your competitors is in that, in the sales process.39:44 Aaron: Yep. Nope, you're completely correct, I agree. Alright, well...39:47 Darren: Alright.39:47 Aaron: Thanks everybody. That concludes another episode. Hopefully, we've had about three, four weeks between our last one, just because of, as we touched upon travels and conferences and everything else, hopefully Darren and I, in the next couple of weeks will be sinking again to get you out another episode of the SaaS venture. Please feel free to reach out to us on Twitter. We've had some questions in the past we love to answer listener questions, or topic ideas and if you have the time, leaving us a review in iTunes is super helpful, helps with the visibility of our podcast, as we continue to reach more 100 people and have more listeners interact with us. Love doing that.40:26 Darren: Alright, yeah, what Aaron said.40:29 Aaron: Have a good one, until we talk again, Darren.40:30 Darren: Yeah, we'll schedule another one and we'll talk again soon, thanks Aaron.40:34 Aaron: Alright. You bet. Keep your beer away from your laptop and we'll talk soon.40:38 Darren: I will. Okay bye.40:39 Aaron: Alright. See you everybody.

Join the marriage movement and order our new book today. Marriage After God. https://marriageaftergod.com Today we interview some old friends of ours who have been on a faithful journey with money and business together. They even host Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University groups at their home to help others join their journey. Quote From Chapter 7 Of Marriage After God "The goal for every marriage after God is to build a healthy and biblical financial foundation so as to be good stewards and good servants with everything God entrusts to us." Quote from Marriage After God... “This may seem elementary, but often the simplest things produce the most powerful impact over a lifetime, and it is those very things that often get neglected.” *Dear Lord, Thank you for giving us the resources we need to accomplish the mission you have for us. Thank you for showing us in your word how to be good stewards with what we have. We pray that as Christian husbands and wives we would walk in wisdom when it comes to our finances. May we be on the same page in marriage, and may we communicate well with each other as we submit to you. We pray that we would not waste the things that you have given to us but instead we pray we would invest them for your kingdom. We pray that we would see everything that we have, our marriages, our children, our assets, our time, all of it, as gifts you have given us to steward well. Please help us to be an example in this world of how to live righteously. Help us to be an example to our children and to teach them your ways. Lord, help us to steward this life well for your namesake. In Jesus’ name, amen!* READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're in part seven of the Marriage After God series. And we're gonna be talking with Josh and Priscilla Millsap about being good stewards with our finances. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as UnveiledWife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as HusbandRevolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life, [Aaron] love, [Jennifer] and power [Aaron] that can only be found by chasing after God [Jennifer] together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Thank you guys so much for joining us this week. We just wanted to take a moment and just encourage you to leave us a review on the Marriage After God podcast. This is just a great way to get the message out there that the podcast is live and that this message is for every marriage. So we just wanted to ask you to go to the bottom of the app and just leave a star-rating review or a comment review. [Aaron] And also, we want to invite you, the whole reason were doing this 16-part series and all these interviews, is to talk about the Marriage After God book that we wrote together. It's how you can support this podcast, and we'd just love to get a copy in your hands. It's called Marriage After God, and you can go to shop.marriageaftergod.com and pick up a copy today. We'd love for you to get a copy. [Jennifer] So today we have Josh and Priscilla Millsap. Thank you guys so much for being with us today. Hi, you're welcome. Hey! Thanks for having us. [Jennifer] Would you just take a moment and just let everyone know who you are, how long you've been married, how many kids you have, what you do for work, that kind of thing? [Josh] Well, we are Josh and Priscilla Millsap. We are, let's see, it's gonna be 14 years here in June. We have four kids aging from 13 to four-- [Aaron] Wow, awesome. [Josh] And we do quite a few things when it comes to work, everything from our own business that is Pristine Solutions, where we do window cleaning, screen repairs, and few other little odd-end things as well, and then also I have an outside sales position with a company called Hunter Engineering. [Aaron] Awesome. [Priscilla] And I stay home, and I home school, and I help run the business, the window cleaning business as well. [Aaron] Awesome, so you guys work together and have some other side work. We love that because that's kind of our story a little bit too. Awesome, so how do we know you guys? How do you know us? Where did we meet? [Priscilla] I met Jen through my sisterhood Bible study. I think she came with a friend one time, and so we met through then and kinda connected and just via social media have kinda stayed in touch. [Jennifer] Yep, I've been following you for a while. You have such great encouragement too. I always get refreshed when I see your stories up, so I appreciate that. [Priscilla] Oh, praise God, thank you. [Aaron] Yeah, and one of the reasons we wanted to interview you guys is because we see you guys as a marriage after God, and that you guys use your talents and resources in many different ways to serve God, so we're excited to kinda dig into some of those things. But before we do that, we have an icebreaker question. [Jennifer] A fun question. [Aaron] Yeah, and since we thought of a question that was around money because we're gonna be talking about being stewards, and this is a funny one because this has nothing to do with stewardship But if you were given, and both of you gotta answer this, if you were given $100 today, and there's not gonna be any shame or guilt in what you spent it on-- [Jennifer] No strings attached. [Aaron] What would you spend it on? [Priscilla] Oh, well, easily either date night, but selfishly, probably just more Lululemon. [Aaron] I love that story. [Jennifer] That's awesome. [Priscilla] But go ahead, babe. [Aaron] They have the best gym shorts. [Josh] Yeah, it would definitely be a date night. We have one of our favorite restaurants that we haven't been to in quite a while that we would, that I would definitely use that for. [Priscilla] Yeah, that'd be fun. [Jennifer] That's so awesome, you guys. I love that. Okay, so we're gonna move on to the quote from Marriage After God from chapter seven. It says, the goal for every marriage after God is to build a healthy and biblical financial foundation so as to be good stewards and good servants with everything God entrusts to us. [Aaron] Yeah, so how does that, just real quick, when you hear that, do you feel like that is something that is encompassed in your guys' marriage and life, something you guys are striving towards? What do you guys think? [Josh] Yes, yeah it is, absolutely. Being a good servant towards God as well as stewards of everything He's given us is a huge calling as a Christian husband, but also as we grow closer to God, that is definitely what He's calling us all to do. [Priscilla] Yeah, and I would say it doesn't really matter what place you're in, whether you're struggling or you're maybe more, your foundation is a little more secure financially or you're prospering, whatever you have can be used to help build up the kingdom. I mean, whether your house is big or small, you can still use that. I think sometimes we think we have to have so much more to be a good steward, but technically, whatever you have, and so, no matter where we've been at in our process of getting out of debt or whatever, we try to use what we have to benefit others or bless others or build up the local church or stuff like that. [Aaron] I love that perspective, and it's exactly what we're trying to get across in this chapter of the book, being a good and faithful steward is. We sometimes, and I remember, there's been times in our life, Jennifer, that we would say, well, if we had a little bit more, then we'd give more. If we had a little bit more, we'd save better, or we'd be able to do that one thing that we know that we've been desiring to do for God, but you're right. As long as it's something out there, we'll never do it, but if it's something that we have now, we can be a steward with it and be faithful with the little, or whatever it is now. I love that. [Jennifer] Yeah, I remember that we were tempted to think that way, but it didn't take very long for God to kind of prick your heart and get you to lead in a way that encouraged us to be good stewards with even the little bit that we had. [Aaron] I remember the spirit just saying, hey, if you're not gonna do it now, why do you think you'll do it later? [Priscilla] Exactly, yes, that. [Jennifer] And Priscilla, I really liked what you said about it doesn't matter what you've been given, whether you're prosperous or not, because that right there is so relatable to everybody listening right now. So everybody's accountable and responsible for what they have today, so I just love that we're starting out the episode with that. [Priscilla] Yeah. Yeah, 'cause we've definitely had-- [Aaron] So-- [Priscilla] Oh, sorry, go ahead. [Aaron] No, you go ahead. [Priscilla] Oh, I was just gonna say we've definitely had times where it's like, we're living out of boxes, and we're living in someone else's house, but still even having community with people. I don't know. We kinda make excuses sometimes for why we don't jump out there and do more. But that's a huge encouragement. You don't have to have a lot to really just bless someone or reach out or have community. [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] Yeah, you just have to have what God's given you and then steward it well. Use it for Him, use it for your family, and not squander it. So how would you define being a good and faithful steward over what God has given you guys? We've mentioned some of it, but how do you define that in your life? [Josh] Well, being a good and faithful steward, if we look at Matthew chapter 25, when he actually talks about the talents, the story of the talents, it really has to deal with resources, not necessarily a monetary thing, so learning how to use everything that God has given us in a proper perspective of a Christian not owning anything but being in charge of what everything God has given us in total resources, family, friends, influence, whatever it may be, understanding that our role is not to own but to simply manage on God's behalf is a huge thing for me. [Priscilla] Yeah. I think just using that perspective-- [Aaron] That was a really good quote real quick. [Priscilla] With all of our, it's easy to grip on tight to what you have, but stuff comes and goes, right? [Josh] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, always. I love that quote you said, what was it? I almost forgot it. Oh, we don't own things, we manage things. [Josh] Yeah. [Aaron] And I love that. [Jennifer] So how does our stewardship affect what God is inviting us to do, whether that's good or bad? [Aaron] If we steward well or steward poorly, how does those actions affect, how when we're being invited by God to do something, when we're chasing after God, does it matter? [Josh] Yes, it does. [Priscilla] Yeah. [Josh] Especially in that Matthew 25 section is, while you can see that God honors and blesses the good and faithful stewards with more, and yet the one who decided he was not going to do anything with it and basically be a sloth with it or lazy with it was punished. So he really does value those that make sure that they have a proper mindset about how God has blessed their life versus those who just sit on it and take advantage of it and not use it to bless God. [Jennifer] Was there a point in your guys' marriage when you guys looked at your finances and said, we have to change? It wasn't going in the direction that you wanted it to go, it wasn't lining up biblically, and you just knew? [Priscilla] Oh, girl. [Josh] Yes, yes, yes, yes. [Priscilla] Let me tell you. [Aaron] Tell us, tell us, yeah. [Priscilla] Yeah, we struggled. I mean, I think we just kinda saw the way our parents lived, but obviously, they're 25 years or so ahead of us, but we're seeing the way they live, and we're trying to match that with making nothing-burger amounts of money an hour. And so we really got into a lot of debt, including like he already had student-loan debt before I came in the picture, so when we got married, we were already about $100,000 in debt, which is crazy 'cause I was 19, and he was 23. So that's how we started off our marriage. Also, not to mention, I was pregnant, so that's a story for another day. So there is already just so much going on there, and it just made it really stressful, so we really limped along for about two-and-a-half years, and had someone not stepped in and gave us some resources, we probably would be divorced. But my dad actually gave us The Total Money Makeover for Christmas. [Aaron] From Dave Ramsey? [Priscilla] Yes, yes, Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, and we literally sat and read it on New Year's Eve, and then that new year we just decided to change our life. And we were what he would call gazelle-intense, and sell everything but the kids, have garage sales. So that was like, okay, this is a real plan and a real hope for us, 'cause I think we knew the direction we wanted to go. We just felt like we couldn't get there or didn't really know what to do or have a steady plan in place. So that was a real game-changer for us. [Josh] Yep. [Jennifer] Awesome. So, when you started to make those changes in your life, did you have little victories that encouraged you and motivated you? Can you share a little bit about that? [Josh] Yeah, those were kind of fun because when we were in that so much debt, there was so much tension built around just about every aspect of life because, as a husband, my wife was so stressed about the money and the bills were coming in, and as a husband you kind of feel like a failure when your wife is in such a stressful position in something that you should be able to handle, finances with work. And so it was, when we finally got on the same page and saw a future in the direction that we wanted to move in, when we would pay off those off little bills and we would get those things out from underneath us, the weight that was lifted off was just huge, and we could finally feel victory and direction in a way that we knew was God-honoring as well. [Priscilla] I think I remember-- [Jennifer] That's so awesome. [Priscilla] Yeah, like our first garage sale we had, we made $500, which was so exciting, but we were trying to get that first step of get a little $1,000 emergency fund, so that was even a very real, tangible victory there. And yeah, our whole life shifted pretty fast. So there was a lot of things. Obviously, the tension between us lifted, like you said, and we actually went back to church 'cause we hadn't been to church in a while, and we started giving. So there was lots of little shifts that happened very quickly. [Aaron] So you guys started giving during this season of, this gazelle-like sprint? [Priscilla] Oh, right away, right away. Now, I wouldn't say it was high. We hadn't even been in church regularly, and so we were like, oh, well this is telling us we need to give, so I guess we should go back to church if we're gonna do that. [Jennifer] That's awesome. [Aaron] Go, Dave Ramsey. [Priscilla] We go back to church, and we just were like, okay, Lord, we're gonna just step out in faith and do $25 a week, which was a lot for us at the time, 'cause we were drowning in debt. And then, I think probably a few months in we went to $50 a week, and probably six months into this journey we were at a full-blown tithe, but yeah, God really just honored even that little bit of just stepping out in faith. [Jennifer] Wow, that's so awesome, you guys. I think I said "awesome" already so many times already in this episode, but I really appreciate your guys' transparency, and I think that the first thing that comes to my mind as you were sharing is that a lot of people are gonna understand that weight that you felt underneath that debt, and there's probably even people, couples listening who are under that weight of debt. But how encouraging it is to hear that even something like a garage sale and getting your feet, jumping in or running like a gazelle, like you said, toward that to accomplish it, those little victories matter so much. So I just wanted that to be a note and an encouragement for them to hear. So I just appreciate you sharing that, because I think that if they, hopefully, this excites them so that they start making action steps toward their debt and getting free. [Priscilla] Yeah, that's so, so important, yeah, little victories to motivate you. [Aaron] So, I got a question. Are you guys debt-free? We are not Not yet. [Priscilla] currently debt-free, no. [Aaron] Okay, which is totally fine, but my second question to this is do you guys live now in a, what we call in the book, a debt-free mentality? [Josh] Yes. [Priscilla] Yeah, so just to be totally transparent, we got very, very close on our journey. We did pay off all those student loans. We paid off all our credit-card debt. We were driving paid-for cars. [Aaron] Awesome. [Priscilla] So we got there. Last year, we made some career changes that did, we did make the decision together to take on a little bit of debt. That was really, really hard for us to do because of the journey that we've been on, but we really felt like this was the path forward. And there's been so many crazy, cool things since making that shift 'cause we really had to, yeah, we had give up some things. There was a lot of sacrifice there, so but it's been really cool to see what the Lord's doing with that. So but now, yes, we're back on that track, so it kinda feels like we've gone back to square one, but we've done it before, and we're gonna do it again. [Josh] Yep. [Jennifer] That's so awesome to hear. [Aaron] So I love that 'cause I want everyone listening, 'cause most of the country is in debt-- [Millsaps] Yeah. [Aaron] And our heart in this chapter in this part of the book is to say just because everyone's doing it doesn't mean we should do it. [Priscilla] Exactly, totally. [Aaron] And so, that debt-free mentality is, whether you're in debt or not, that you begin to act like you would be when you're out of debt. Right. Yes. [Aaron] Meaning you don't overspend, which is Dave Ramsey's model anyway. It's like, spend within your means, save, pay off your debt. But I wanna ask you guys, the getting out of debt is awesome, and I don't wanna over-spiritualize getting out of debt, but why does it matter that we get out of debt? Why does it matter that you guys are faithful and good stewards with your money? It's not just for the sake of being debt-free and, oh, good for us, we're debt-free now. Why is it? What's the big deal? [Priscilla] Oh man, okay, so I don't know where this verse is in the Bible. Maybe someone can find it later. But the one where it talks about running the race and laying aside every weight, you know what I mean? Being in debt isn't necessarily a sin. I mean, there's sin at the core of that, and that's how you got there or whatever, but it's just running the race for the Lord and having a healthy marriage and a healthy family, it just creates so much stress, and you kinda have, if a lot of your focus is there, and it could be an indicator of where your heart is at, and it's different for each person, I suppose. But if your focus is on your financial woes, and oftentimes, seven to eight out of 10 people are living paycheck to paycheck. That's stressful, and a lot of that is because we have gotten ourselves in these monumental piles of debt, and we can't think straight. We can't focus on other things, or you're having to work so much to pay all this off. When you're mentally spent, and you're physically spent on just trying to pay for your lifestyle, you can't really focus on the things that are the most important, like discipling your kids, and building up the local church, and loving on people around you. And you're also, there's a lot of opportunities you're gonna have to say no to because financially you just don't have the means, or things you want to support, so it just becomes a weight, really, like a noose around your neck that you can't, you have very limited freedom on the opportunities and things you're able to do. [Josh] Yeah. I was gonna, to piggyback on that, that we are the example to our kids that, as we deal with money, as we deal with stress, as we deal with debt, our kids are watching how we behave, how we deal with, how do we overcome the struggles of something may not go our way for a month or something. How do we deal with that, and are we faithful to God in prayer? Are we understanding that He provides everything for us and that ultimately we're gonna trust in what He has planned for us? Or are we gonna sit there and blame each other, blame the world? How are we gonna deal with things that don't go our way? And our kids are always watching, so as we have a proper perspective of our role as Christians within the confines of what God gives us, they are watching, and they are learning. [Jennifer] Gosh, Josh, that is so good, and I just love that you went there because we all, as parents, need to be reminded about the impact we're having in our children's lives and the foundation that we're setting them up for, and I just, that is so good and so right on, which kind of leads me into this next question. Because I follow Priscilla on social media, I saw a picture of her daughter recently with a bunch of bottles in front of her, baby bottles filled with money. So I want you guys to explain that and explain kind of that example that you're setting for your kids and how you're incorporating them into what you guys are doing. [Priscilla] Yeah, so, I mean, we really try to keep it super simple for them. That actually was our Bible study got together and collected some money for a local organization here called Corona Life Services, which is basically a pregnancy crisis clinic, and so that was really cool. But they actually were the ones, my kids actually were the ones that even went around our neighborhood, just talking to people about Corona Life Services. And I think-- [Aaron] That is so cool. [Priscilla] Yeah, it was really, really cool. And who's gonna say no to kids? So that's a great way-So, I mean, it's like, some money, send your kids. No, I'm just kidding. But, so we-- [Aaron] It's good strategy. [Priscilla] Yeah No, but it's funny, actually, because we just got, you get, at the end of the year you get your giving statement from your church or whatever, and each of our kids actually had one because they go and they put their money in, they fill out the little envelope. [Aaron] That's really cool. [Priscilla] But we had just basically taught them spend, save, give, like, what you're earning, 'cause our kids are hustlers, man. They've seen us just hustle for the last few years, and they're like, we want to hustle. What could we do? So they've done all kinds of things. And so, they have their own bank accounts, and we go to the bank, they fill out their own thing, and so, once they have so much in a little stockpile, it's like, okay, this you get to spend, this we're gonna take to the bank, and this you're taking to church on Sunday. So we just keep it simple and just hopefully forming those good habits now 'cause I mean, I literally remember getting my first paycheck, and I'm like, I'm going straight to Guess and buying a pair of jeans. But already our kids are like, I'm not spending that kind of money. They're very frugal. Well, one of them is not, but we won't put her on blast. So But for the most part, yes. [Aaron] But those skills are amazing for them to learn now. Like you said, you're building habits that we necessarily didn't have growing up. I'm sure maybe our parents tried in some ways, but just the intentionality of saying it's not just money and that we use it for ourselves, but this is actually something that's God's giving us, and how are we gonna manage it? [Priscilla] And they're learning to hold it loosely at a young age, you know what I mean? [Men] Yes. [Priscilla] I actually saw my son do something that sort of blew my hair back, and then I was convicted that it blew my hair back 'cause I'm like, that should be everyone. But we were doing a gift for someone, and we were kinda pulling some money together. We made this cute little thing with it, and just for a family we wanted to love on, and a bunch of people came together and did this. And I'm like, hey, I asked my kids, I'm like, you guys wanna participate in this? And it's not like, hey, we've got some money, and you have to participate, but I want them to want to? And my son, I was like, just a couple bucks we could tie on there or five bucks. And my son comes in with a $20 bill, and I'm like, baby, you know what I mean, it's fine, just grab a five or something. This sounds horrible, right? Maybe we should make this podcast anonymous, but-- [Aaron] Yeah. [Priscilla] He's all, well, I don't need it. He's like-- [Smiths] Aww! [Priscilla] And I was like, oh my gosh. Why did I just try to talk my son out of giving? What's wrong with me? But it just blessed me so much. [Aaron] Are you sure you want to give that much? [Priscilla] How much do we have? And it's like, we have stuff we don't really need, but anyways, it's cool to see them forming those habits and holding it loosely and not being. I think it's easy to just want to hold onto everything you have, but and you just don't know, what the seasons come and go, and so. [Jennifer] Well, good for you guys. We commend you for teaching your children rightly and righteously, and I just hope that this is an encouragement for all of us parents today to be leading our children the way the Bible calls us to. [Aaron] Yeah, and I have another question for you guys. We're getting down to the end. But again, going back to what we were talking about. The whole purpose of all this is we're not just good stewards for the sake of good stewardship. We're not just savers for the sake of having more money. We're not just debt-free mentality just for the sake of getting out of debt. God's got something for us to do. He's got a ministry for his body to be working in, and we're a part of that body. And I noticed in your Instagram feed that you guys, I don't know if you guys are still doing this, but you've hosted Financial Peace University classes at your home for other people. What motivated you guys to do that, not just for yourselves, but now you're like, hey, let's bring other people into this? [Priscilla] That's exactly it. We just wanted to see people have victory in their financial lives. I mean, really for us, it turned our whole life around. [Josh] Yeah. [Priscilla] It wasn't just turned our bank account around. [Josh] No. [Priscilla] Our marriage was struggling. Our finances were struggling. We were just struggling, all of it, spiritually, we were struggling big time. So it really just, it was a catalyst to get us on the right track. And not everybody's in that dire of a circumstance, but for sure-- [Aaron] But many are, financially. [Priscilla] Yeah, and really, accountability for us, continuing to do that, and then just yeah, really wanting to see people's eyes open to the possibilities of when we're giving like we should, when we're saving like we should, and when we're managing our money like we should, there's opportunity there. [Josh] Yeah, but I mean, and you kind of alluded to it a little while earlier. In high school and in school we're not taught how to deal with money for the most part. We go to school, we learn what we need to learn, but we're not really instructed on how this world works around money, and so going these Financial Peace or the Dave Ramsey, we actually got an understanding of how money works. And so we saw frustration and stress on a lot of other couple's faces, and it wasn't that they were struggling with anything necessarily huge, but you could just see that desire to want to get beyond where they were at, but not have the knowledge or the ability to really understand what they needed to do. And so, we would kinda just make the suggestion, like, hey, well, this really helped not only our marriage, but an understanding of a direction that God really wanted us to go with our money. [Aaron] I love that, and it's you guys ministering to other couples and helping them mature, helping them grow, walking with them as you are also walking in these things. And what's funny is that, or not funny, but what's amazing is when we walk in obedience in little areas, and I see money as a little area, even though it feels so big, but it's a little area because, once we figure it out and get control of it and start walking rightly in it, it just starts happening, making more sense and working better. It doesn't mean we're gonna be wealthy, but if we're out of debt, we're already wealthier than 90% of the country, right? [Millsaps] Yeah. [Aaron] Just because you're out of debt, even if you only made a minimum-wage job. [Priscilla] Totally. [Aaron] But I just love that we serve God in those little things, and it makes it easier for us to serve God in bigger things. And I'm sure as you guys do this it's easier for you to open your homes for other things. It's easier for you to go, and like you said, you gave a little bit each week, and then you gave more. That's a perfect example of us walking in faith, being faithful with a little, and being able to be faithful with much. [Jennifer] Yeah, and what I think is cool is that in your obedience to managing your finances well, you experienced those mini-victories-- [Aaron] Yeah, those little wins. [Jennifer] or large victories, and that motivated you to say you can do it too, and you reached out to other people. [Millsaps] Yeah. [Jennifer] And that's a large part of the message of Marriage After God. The book is to inspire couples to say, what have we experienced, what have we walked through that we can then encourage other people with? [Aaron] You can do it too. [Jennifer] And say you can do it too. So I just, I think that's so awesome that you guys have done that and are still continuing to do ministry together as a team for God in even other ways. So, super awesome. [Aaron] So I got two more questions for you. The second-to-last one is this. If you can encourage our listeners right now with two things that they can do that'll help them gain victory in the area of finances and just being good stewards, what would you say? [Priscilla] Oh, gosh, two things. Well, one, get on a budget. Get on a budget. Get on, write down a budget. That would be, you need to start there, knowing how much you're even spending and what you've got coming in, going out. We can't just walk around in the dark. [Josh] Yeah, it's hard to imagine, but there are couples out there that either one or both really have no idea how much comes in and how much is going out. [Priscilla]Yeah. And then, gosh, I would just say start giving. I think that stepping out in faith is so important, and really just trusting the Lord to, just trusting the Lord with that. It's so tempting, especially when you're in a tough spot, to want to hold on to what you have. And like I said, you don't have to be like, okay, 10% right away. Start with just something that you're gonna be committed to and yeah, I would say give. [Aaron] Right, which is practicing generosity, practicing obedience of giving to those that are teaching you and maturing you. I love that. [Josh] Yeah, it also feels literally intuitive. [Jennifer] Awesome, guys. [Josh] You want to, in the moment when you're trying to save and pay off debt, it doesn't make sense to give something away in that kind of a setting. But as we're obedient to what God's word calls us to do, and that's something that he puts a great importance on, then he sees that as that step of faith, and that's a good thing. [Aaron] I love that. I think of, when you just said the world obedience, and I think of the story of the rich young ruler going to Jesus and saying, Jesus, how do I get to heaven? And He says, follow the commands, and he's, I've done all these commands. And He says, one thing you lack. And He says, go and sell all that you have, give to the poor, and follow me. And I think a lot of people have taken that, the poverty gospel, and saying, oh, if you have things, you're not holy. If you things, you're not, but that's not what's actually happening. [Josh] No. [Aaron] Jesus has given a command to this man, and he disobeyed it. [Priscilla] Yeah. [Josh] Yeah. [Aaron] So, the problem, He says, the thing you lack is obedience to me. He says, sell all you have, give it to the poor, and follow me. And he walks away sad because he's got much wealth. He would rather enamored and enveloped in his wealth than be obedient to Christ. [Josh] Well, and his wealth-- [Aaron] And so, like you said, that obedience-- [Josh] His wealth had given him a comfort level that he was really used to, and he was fine with attaining righteousness along with his wealth, but he didn't understand what that cost was really going to be, and it was hard. He didn't want to do it. [Aaron] Yeah. And the cost is, like I was getting at, is obedience. Christ wants obedience. And so, like you said, you practice that obedience. It may be counterintuitive-- [Priscilla] Yes, exactly. [Aaron] But He wants generous hearts in His body. He wants generous givers. He wants people that trust Him, and I just love that. Thank you for that. [Jennifer] Okay, you guys, we're moving on to the last question, and it is this. In your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Josh] In our words, a marriage after God. It's really understanding your role as a Christian, as a husband, as a wife, to know that we are servants. We are, again, we don't control, we don't own anything, that God has put us here as servants to manage what He has given us, and as we are found faithful with what He's given us, He can trust us then with more, day in and day out, not only with money, finances, but resources, what we have at our disposal to do things to influence our friends, to bear each other's burdens, to really be able to dive into people's lives and be able to help and lift in a way that's practical as well as spiritually helpful. [Aaron] Mm, I love that. Amen, wow. Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, go ahead, 'cause-- [Priscilla] Oh, I was just, my word for the year is surrender, and so, really just, I mean, me personally, but just really surrendering, kind of our ideas of what our life should look like, and we've, man, we've had a rollercoaster of a year, and we just couldn't even have anticipated what all that was gonna look like, but really, just continue to press into the Lord and press into each other and keeping short account, staying vulnerable, really challenging ourselves to really be praying together often. So just really seeking the Lord together and being on the same page. [Jennifer] Mm, that's good. [Aaron] Praise God. Well, Josh, Priscilla, we are so happy to have interviewed you guys, and we thank you for your guys' honesty and openness in sharing your guys' journey, because that's where, I mean, everyone's on a journey. And the goal is, as marriages after God, that we're all chasing after God, and it doesn't mean that we're all at the same place in our walks, but that we're all going the same direction. [Priscilla] Yeah. [Aaron] And we say this throughout the book, unity, one mind, one heart, one spirit, with one mission, and so I just, I thank you guys, I commend you guys, and I pray that you guys would continue on that journey of getting out of debt so that you guys can just continue to serve more and more and give more and more, and we love that, so thank you. And so, what we're gonna do is we're gonna end in prayer, and then I'm gonna close us out, so join us. Dear Lord, thank you for giving us the resources we need to accomplish the mission you have for us. Thank you for showing us in your word how to be good stewards with what we have. We pray that as Christian husbands and wives we would walk in wisdom when it comes to our finances. May we be on the same page in marriage, and may we communicate with each other as we submit to you. We pray that we would not waste the things that you have given us, but instead, we pray we would invest them for your kingdom. We pray that we would see everything that we have, our marriage, our children, our assets, our time, all of it, as gifts you have given to us to steward well. Please help us to be an example in the world of how to live righteously. Help us to be an example to our children and to teach them your ways. Lord, help us to steward this life well for your name's sake. In Jesus' name, amen. [Jennifer] Amen. [Millsaps] Amen. [Aaron] All right, so hey, we just thank everyone that's been listening to this interview. We hope you were blessed by it. We pray that you have some things to talk about as a couple, and this is episode seven in our 16-part series, and so we look forward to having you over the next episodes. See you next week. [Aaron] Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Order Your Copy Of Marriage After God Today! https://Shop.marriageaftergod.com We interview Dale + Veronica Partridge from Real Christianity Podcast Quote From Marriage After God Chapter 2: The War On Your Effectiveness "If the enemy can get you to question the things that you know to be true, then he can get you to doubt what you are doing." - Aaron & Jennifer Smith, Marriage After God “If the devil can divide you and your spouse, then he can conquer your marriage, stripping away your effectiveness for God” - Aaron & Jennifer Smith, Marriage After God Dear Lord, We pray nothing would hinder our effectiveness in ministering to each other in marriage. We also pray nothing would hinder our effectiveness in sharing the gospel in this world. We pray you would defend us against the enemy. We pray his plans to divide us and destroy marriage would not prevail. Protect us from the enemy’s schemes! Thank you for equipping us with armor so that we can stand firm in our faith. We pray our flesh would not get in the way of our effectiveness. Help us to have self-control and walk in wisdom. If we do experience attacks or hardships may you be our strength, hope, and endurance to run this race with perseverance. If our flesh does hinder us may we confront our sin and repent so that we may be vessels of your glory as we share with others the power of salvation in our lives. We submit our marriage to you and ask that you Use us to do all the wonderful things you have prepared for us to do. May your name be glorified. In Jesus’ name, amen! READ: [Aaron] Hey we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're in part two of the Marriage After God series and we're gonna be talking with Dale and Veronica Partridge about The War On Our Effectiveness. Welcome to The Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage. Encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Aaron] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one. Full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Thank you everyone for joining us today. We just wanna take a moment and just encourage you to leave us a review. That's just one way that you can support this podcast and get the message out about the podcast that helps other people find the Marriage After God podcast and it's real quick, you just gotta leave a star rating review, or you can leave a comment review which always encourages us. [Aaron] Also we just want to encourage you to get a copy of our new book, Marriage After God. It's what this entire series is based on and we'd love for you to read through that as a couple. You can go to shop.marriageaftergod.com and support us in that way. [Jennifer] So today we have Dale and Veronica Partridge, which are some of our closest friends, thank you for being here. [Veronica] Hi thanks for having us. [Dale] We are excited. [Veronica] We're excited, [Veronica] To be here. [Dale] Yeah, this is, I think ten years in the making. [Veronica] Just about. [Dale] In terms of our relationship. [Aaron] This episode. [Aaron] Oh relationship I gotta. [Dale] This episode probably, too, I guess. [Jennifer] Awesome, well, could you just take a minute, and just introduce yourself to everyone listening. [Dale] Yeah, I'll start here. We've been married, next week, will be nine years, and together-- [Aaron] On Valentines day. [Dale] On Valentine's Day. [Veronica] That's right, on Valentines day. [Dale] We got married on Valentine's day. Long story short, but we didn't intend to get married on Valentine's Day. It just happened which is, again, part of a bigger story that we'll have to tell later. But, yeah, we got three kids, five, three and one. And we are in ministry. Also, we run a podcast, and house church, and are in the thick of it in terms of trials in 2018. And it seems that they're bleeding into this year as well. So, it's something that we're excited to share about, and talk about what it's like to be in ministry, and also suffer persecution, and resistance, and illness, and some of the things that come with it. [Jennifer] So, could you just mention a little bit more about your guys' podcasts? Just, I'm sure people listening have already either been listening, or have known about it, but just in case they haven't, share a little bit about it. [Veronica] Yeah we have a podcast. It's called Real Christianity. Where Dale and I talk about all aspects of walking the Christian life. [Dale] Yeah and I think it's, we really try to come at it from a biblical perspective. I'd say that the number one review that people leave is that it's just bold, and they don't have that many places I think that, the number one crossover, is your guys' podcast. So everybody, you'd go just scroll to the bottom and it's like suggested podcasts, and it's Marriage After God. And so I think people are really looking for truth. Not watered down truth delivered gently, but truth. And I think that's what makes the episode, or the podcast little bit different. [Aaron] Awesome. [Jennifer] Awesome. Well we're excited to get to hear that boldness on this episode with you guys, and, yeah, we're just excited to jump in. [Aaron] So here's an icebreaker question, I don't know if Veronica has read this beforehand. It's, what do you think is one thing that your spouse likes best about you? [Dale] We can. [Veronica] This is a family show right? What do I think Dale likes best about me? I think he likes that I'm a submissive wife. [Jennifer] Oh wow bold. [Veronica] And not in a bad way, like. [Jennifer] That's good. [Dale] She is, she's incredibly humble and [Jennifer] Supportive. [Dale] Supportive, and she plays that helpmeet role that the Bible talks about, naturally. It's not something that she actually has a fleshly thing against. She really, the Lord has blessed me with that, in terms of just a wife who just falls into that role really well. And the evidence of that, is that she's been able to, you know, teach our daughter what that looks like, and teach some of the other women, who might not naturally fall into that, just by her example. [Jennifer] Wow, as in our own friendship, Veronica. you've been a huge testament to me, of what it looks like, and an encouragement, so, [Veronica] Thank you. [Jennifer] Yeah, I can say yep. [Dale] It's a ministry. [Veronica] Praise God. [Jennifer] Yep. And yeah Dale, what does she like about you Dale? [Veronica] What do I like about you? [Dale] What do you like about me? I think I would say vision, the ability to tell us as a family where we're going, to understand through the lens of Scripture. [Veronica] Yeah, give us direction. [Dale] And I would say joyful. [Veronica] Yeah, he is generally a very happy person. [Dale] Which I didn't know about myself really, until I was married. I just thought I was a normal person. [Aaron] Maybe you weren't joyful before you were married right? [Aaron] Dale's so much happier now. [Veronica] He's always been very happy, and joyful, and positive type of person to be around. [Dale] Yeah like in the morning I'm up, smiling, excited, jump out of bed, and Veronica is like-- [Veronica] I'm just more of a slow riser, need my time. [Dale] Give me a half hour. [Jennifer] Awesome, well, thank you for letting our listeners know a little bit more about who you guys are. We're gonna jump into a quote from this chapter, chapter two of Marriage After God. It says, if the enemy can get you to question the things that you know to be true, then he can get you to doubt what you are doing. [Aaron] Yeah and the reason we have this chapter in the book, The War On Our Effectiveness, is because you guys are actively pursuing God, and his ministry for your life, and using your gifts and talents for him. And we are too, and our encouragement to everyone listening is that they would do the same, in whatever that looks, whatever that looks like. And when we do that, there's, well, even when we don't do it, there's something keeping us from doing it. keeping us from being effective for the kingdom of God. And one of them is our enemy, you know, the devil, confusing us and convincing us that things that are true are not true. And so, we just we hope in this episode, it's not too heavy, but we wanna show the realities of the things in this world, and in us, that are keeping us from doing what God wants us to do. [Jennifer] And what our response should be. [Aaron] Yeah, and then, but also to encourage us that, hey, we all, all of us get to fight the same war, and get to take ground for God, despite it. [Dale] Yep [Aaron] So, that's what I hope to get out of this episode. [Jennifer] Yeah, so, going back to that quote, and you know the enemy trying to get you to doubt you know what you're doing. Have you two ever wrestled with doubt about what God has you doing? And if you did, how do you navigate those times as a couple? [Veronica] I'd say yeah, definitely, especially within this last year of 2018 going into 2019. We pretty much said yes to full-time ministry in January of 2018 and, within that week, we just kinda had attack after attack after attack after attack. Do you wanna expand on that more babe? [Dale] Yeah I mean we have had so much resistance. The first response in your flesh is to go, I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe I should just stop doing ministry. [Veronica] Maybe this is a no. [Dale] Maybe this isn't what God wants us to do. And if that logic is true, then the Apostle Paul was outside of God's will, because his entire life was resistance. I mean, it's listed off in Second Corinthians, it's just like, yeah. [Aaron]Yeah right. [Dale] It is a, I think this year was a purifying of a true understanding of what the gospel really is, and what ministry really is. I wrote a scripture down, John chapter 9, verse 3, it's when the disciples are looking at this blind man that Jesus is about to heal. And everybody's coming up with their own ideas of why he's blind. And they asked the question like oh, so, was it him that sinned? Was it you know his parents that sinned? Is this a generational thing? Is this just like a curse on this man? Is he outside of the will of God? You know these are the types of questions that his disciples are asking, and he responds, neither this man nor his parents sinned. But that the works of God should be revealed in him. And so that the purpose of this man's blindness, his literal illness, at this point, was to glorify God. That he would be able to glorify God. Maybe in this specific moment, but maybe in other ways, post this moment. And so, that was a really, this is becoming, the natural reaction. Like in the book of Job, is that, oh we've done something wrong. The friend that's saying, oh maybe you've sinned, and you need to repent, or maybe you're not doing enough work for the kingdom. Maybe you're not reading your Bible enough. Like, what is it, why you guys are getting this many trials? And, just to go, hey you know what, we didn't do anything wrong. At this point in terms of, the Lord's happy with us, but it's that we would actually glorify God in our trials and our suffering, in our illnesses. [Aaron] Right. [Veronica] When we are weak he is made strong. [Aaron] Yeah I love that. So going, talking about this idea that there's a war on our effectiveness, you know, we're talking about ministry, we're talking about preaching the gospel, we're talking about living the Christian life, moving his kingdom forward, his will be done on earth as it in heaven, right? You're talking about trials, which could absolutely be one thing that makes us ineffective for God. But, it's not the trial that makes us ineffective. What, would you say, is the thing that makes us, because we all go through trials. That doesn't necessarily mean we're being ineffective, but we can be made ineffective in the trial if, what happens if we, how we respond to that that makes us ineffective? [Dale] I mean, I think that, just, there's so many ways that you can fall away from the truth. And, you know, we need to be walking. It says, I believe it's in Galatians, you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh, or walk in the spirit you will not fulfill the desires the flesh, and I think that when you get beaten down in your flesh, from illness, from trial, from emotional strain, if you don't stick into the truth, I'm talking labor over it, let it pour and wash your mind with it, it's really easy that you'll lose your effectiveness, because you're walking in your flesh and not in your spirit. [Veronica] You become so discouraged that, yeah, if you are walking in the flesh you almost just kinda give up. [Dale] You live in your emotions. You live in worry. You live in discouragement. You live in pain. And without the truths perspective on those emotions, you'll fall apart. And so, it's a constant replacing the lies of the enemy with the truth of God. And that is a practice that I say you need to do before the trials come. You don't build a defense you know when the attacker-- [Aaron] During the battle yeah. [Dale] When the attacker is there. You need to be prepared for that, and that's something that we've wished we did more of, but you know it's training, training for these times. [Jennifer] So what would you say for all those listening, are some practical ways you can do that. Getting into the word. What did your guys' daily life look like? [Dale] Go for it. [Veronica] Currently? [Jennifer] Um-hm. [Veronica] For us with just being attacked and attacked we've been so worn down. We've been having to say no to a lot of things. Way, I mean we were generally very much yes people when it came to having people over, going out, just, we like being with people, and so having to say no a lot has been very norm, our new normal. Sticking to our routines, making sure we're getting to bed on time, and then just making sure we're in the word, as well. [Dale] And we're praying together and keeping a consistency there. I think that, you know, the Ephesians six chapter, verse on you know the armor of God. It's one of these, you almost like think of it as, oh what a really cool metaphor. When life starts to get real hard, that doesn't, it loses its metaphorical sense, and you go, I'm gonna make this very real in my life and I'm gonna read that passage just real quick. Not the whole thing but just the idea. He says in Ephesians six, 10 through 13, he says finally, my brother, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, this is a command that he's saying right there. Put it on. [Aaron] Yeah the believer puts it on. [Dale] You gotta put it on. It's not just sitting over there in the corner. That you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And, in other words, if you don't put it on, you won't be able to stand against them. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age. Against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. This is clarity. It's really easy to go, what am I doing wrong? Why like why is this person mad at me? Why is this trial happening? Why are we fixing this thing in our church right now? I can't believe they think that about us, like you can easily make this thing about an earthly matter. Like, oh, I didn't exercise enough, I didn't eat right enough, like, whatever it is. [Aaron] Yeah. [Dale] That's causing that. Verse 13, it says, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. And then he ends this little section a couple verses later, and he says, for which I am an ambassador in chains. And he's meaning that literally. This is one of the prison epistles of Paul. [Aaron] Yeah, he's literally in house arrest. [Dale] So you put this little picture together, and you go, this guy says put on the armor of God, yet this dude is straight-up persecuted and in chains. And, so it's not like put on the armor of God, then everything's gonna be great, prosperity gospel here we come. Life's good, I'm going to the beach. [Aaron] Yeah. [Dale] It's put on the armor of God, and boom, I'm in jail. And so, it's a pretty interesting, counterintuitive thing to think about. [Aaron] Veronica what are some of the things that you guys, 'cause they're listening, they're hearing that you guys are going through trials, and attacks, and stuff. Would you guys just list some of the things that you guys have been going through, not that it makes you special, because, the Bible tells us that we are all going to go through trials, that there will be suffering in this world. You guys just currently happen to be going through quite a bit in your life, and I wanna talk about something about that, after that, but would you guys just share what you mean by these things? [Veronica] Yeah, so, literally, like I said earlier, the week we entered ministry, last in January of 2018, we got hit with influenza hard. [Aaron] It's like months wasn't it? [Dale] Like hospitalization. [Veronica] It was 21 days. 21 days of a fever in our house, Jen took me to the hospital at one point to see if had pneumonia. And during that time, my son, my youngest, was six months old, so I pretty much completely lost my milk supply, because I was so sick. After that, the next month, all of our kids got RSV, which is a terrible respiratory virus. One of our children has asthma, so this was before we knew he had asthma. So he ended up in the emergency room probably three times within that sickness, just because he could not breathe. [Aaron] Those were scary moments. [Dale] Um-hmm. [Veronica] Yes. We got the stomach flu for two weeks, you know, kind of scattered throughout everybody. Then our second son was diagnosed with asthma, because he is continuing to have these asthma attacks. You had skin cancer, I was bit by, likely, a tick, and contracted Lyme disease, and so, that's something new that we're navigating. The week after I got bit by the tick, we had a miscarriage. [Dale] Then Veronica came down with appendicitis in the middle of the night, I had to rush her to the hospital, the antibiotics from the Lyme actually prevented her from, the surgeon and didn't have to take it out. After that, I passed a kidney stone for the first time in my life which was, it was so painful, that I called an ambulance on the way in, someone was driving me, to see if they could give me some sort of pain relief, just to get to the hospital. And then. [Veronica] We almost had a fire evacuation, the day Jen gave birth to Truitt, cause I'm trying to run out to the hospital to be with you, but at the same time I'm like. [Dale] Yeah, that was like a raging fire. [Veronica] Grab that, grab that because there's a fire, just a few streets over from our street. [Dale] Our son almost drowned in a pool. [Veronica] Our youngest son almost drowned. You had bronchitis, or you had a cold that turned into bronchitis, and they were also checking you to see if you had pneumonia. [Dale] And then we got I came down with gastritis. [Veronica] Gastritis, and that's been months of-- [Dale] It's just been tough, it's been a-- [Veronica] Being healed. [Aaron] Tough's a little, a little light of a word. [Jennifer] I know I feel like everyone's just thinking back right now, taking the weight of what all that means. [Veronica] And that's, yeah, that's not everything, just last week our daughter, you know, our daughter had a cavity, and I was supposed to take her in to just to get that filled, and then, when I go to take her in, all of a sudden, literally within a week and a half of the last time we were there, it became infected, so they had to pull her tooth out, which was unexpected. And not that that was like a big tragedy, but it was just like one more thing, I'm just like, oh okay, so we're dealing with my daughter getting her tooth pulled out today. [Aaron] Well a lot of those smaller things, they are much larger when they're compiled with all of the other things. Now, in this season, 'cause you're still in some of this. [Veronica] Yeah, we just had the stomach flu last week. [Aaron] So, you know, but I'm thinking about like the bigger things, like you're still dealing with Lyme, and you probably gonna have that the rest of your life, and you guys are spiritually, and mentally, and emotionally navigating that stuff, and has there been times in over the last year and a half that you thought to yourselves, God we're doing all this for you, why is all this happening? Like these questions of like, almost well, like we don't deserve this? [Veronica] Yeah I actually just said those words to Dale yesterday. I was crying because I had already known that, we've already kind of known that I have Lyme, but to get the final diagnosis, I just got that yesterday. And so we kinda knew that but it also came back with, I also have a co-infection, which we didn't expect, and so I was emotional, and I was upset about it. And I told Dale, I was like, don't you think we've gone through enough? Like haven't we gone through enough? Why is this happening? And then I just have to take a step back, and be, like you know, I have to have a bigger picture perspective right now. It's not, this isn't happening to me, it's, something is going on to glorify God. I don't maybe necessarily know what that looks like right now. [Dale] The thing that I'm learning, is that you can't yearn for heaven, if the place that you're staying is great. And, that's been something that we've, when you read the passage in Revelation about, that all the tears will be wiped away, and there'll be no more pain and no more suffering. That doesn't really hit you, when you're on the beach in Hawaii and things are great. But it does hit you, when you're sick in bed, and you're just trial, after trial, after trial, and so. [Veronica] And not only just sick in bed, but we have three little kids. Like our oldest just turned five last month, and so we have three of them, and they're all very needy you know, you guys have young kids. They all still very much need us, and so being sick and dealing with our own trials, on top of just taking care of the day-to-day of being a parent, it can be exhausting. [Dale] Yeah, so it is just a hard, it's like the Lord is ripping out every false part of the gospel that we've ever believed, and telling us what it really is. It's it's not about prosperity or comfort, or blessing, or healing, and those things, they're in there, but the gospel is sent, the central part of the gospel is to glorify God, but it's sanctification, it's holiness, it's witness, it's eternity. Like these are the elements of it. Because, you know, and it needs to be universal. This gospel must apply worldwide. And when you have people that have cancer, and have AIDS, and have that are kidnapped, and taken away, and martyrs, you know that gospel's gotta to be true there, as well as it is on the guy that's sitting on the beach in Hawaii. And so it's just a, there's a quote, I forgot who said it but it says, it goes along the lines of, Jesus, it's hard to understand that Jesus is all you need, until Jesus is all you have. And that is where I think we've been, is it, you just go, oh, Lord like, I feel like it's the only thing I have on certain days, and so-- [Veronica] Totally I completely agree with that, and there have been definitely moments within this last year, where I am like, I need to read my Bible, like I need that time with him. Like, I need God, I need Jesus, and I need his Holy Spirit to speak to me through the word, just to get me through this day. Because, it really has been all we have many moments throughout this last year. [Jennifer] I wanna commend you guys, because for that list that you just gave us of everything that you've walked through in this last year. I mean, pick one, and everyone listening would be like, that's hard enough to make me ineffective, like, I, that's hard, and yet through as you're listing these things, I'm thinking on my end of all the times you guys still showed up for us. Served us, gave us, you know, meals, when I was postpartum with Truitt, or you know, just, you were there, and not just for us, but for a lot of people in the community. And, I just wanna say thank you, that despite the hard things that you guys have been through, you still live your life biblically, and through serving, and I think that's bold. [Veronica] The only through the strength that the Lord's given us. It's the only way we are able to do these things. [Dale] Yeah thank you I mean it's we teach, one is that we don't wanna become hypocrites, and so we've when you you read the word and you teach these things you see that Jesus did so much while suffering. And participatory community is difficult, it's difficult when it's when everything's good and so we've, we teach that, and I think the Lord's brought us through a season of going, well do you really believe it? [Aaron] Yeah, I mean, it just shows that God loves us. That he's willing to let us go through trials, and that he tests our faith. The Bible teaches us that, he tests us. And not unlike how we test our children. We give them opportunities to act a certain way, to believe a certain way, to respond a certain way. And so you know we're talking about trials currently, things that we have no control over, right? And how they could make us ineffective and, by what you said, if we're walking in the flesh, those trials will definitely make us ineffective 'cause we will crumble under them. You know that test, we'll fail it. But it sounds like if we, and the Bible teaches us this, if we walk in the spirit, we are not gonna gratify the desires of the flesh, and we can actually become more effective, by allowing the trial to do what it's meant to do. Sharpen us, train us, refine us. [Jennifer] And glorify God. [Aaron] And glorify God. So what are some other ways that the enemy tries to make us ineffective for the kingdom of God as in our marriages, like, what are some things, that if they're unchecked and if we're not aware, could totally destroy our effectiveness, remove us from what God is doing in us and through us? [Dale] I mean, I think about, the enemy is all about division. And we know that that's just the chief element and you know, Jesus says in John 17, Father I pray that they are one as we are one, so that the world may know that you sent me. And so just the his desire is unity in his church in his bride. And, in marriages, oneness, and the two shall become one flesh. And so there's just this division element of marriage that, when we become divided, it is, I think, a tactic of the enemy, how does a wolf catch a sheep? He divides them. [Aaron] Yeah. [Dale] From the flock. And so you know us keeping a really close communicate, you know what, it's not really exciting to talk to your spouse when things are all bad. And so, it's really hard to actually wanna go and have a conversation about our crappy life. Like that's how it feels like you know? Hey, let's go talk about this bad thing right now. And so, keeping a discipline, and I've always defined discipline as doing things you don't necessarily like, because it's something that's right. And so we have a discipline just to go I ask her several times a day how you doing? And sometimes she just gives me the quick answer, but sometimes she'll give me the full answer. And, so we work hard to try to stay unified. If we fight, get in a tiff, and we don't fight that often, this year's been harder, because it's just a harder year, but if we do get in an argument, we always pray. 'Cause if you can't pray together with your spouse after you're done arguing, then you're not unified. And, so there's things like that that we do, that we work hard to be unified. And then, I also I don't know if you wanna talk about just, community. Just making sure that we're in community with other people, not just ourselves but. [Veronica] Yeah, I think that's been a really important aspect for us this last year. Proverbs 18:1 says a man who isolates himself seeks his own desire, and it's very easy to want to isolate when you've gone through everything that we've dealt with this last year. But, we're making sure that we are in community in daily talking to somebody in our church, and then also, looking into the, looking to the needs of the body, in the people in our church, and ministering to them in the ways that we can, because it takes the focus off of us, and it actually helps you work into some, work in somebody else's life, and minister to them, and glorify God. And it gives you perspective, as well, of whatever is happening in your own circumstances. [Jennifer] Gosh, that's really good. Thank you guys so much for sharing that. So, how would you encourage those listening right now, to say yes to God, despite knowing that there will be opposition, despite knowing that hard circumstances will come, how do they, how can they say yes to God and, you know, have that courage to continue on, to keep serving people, to keep loving? [Veronica] I think you need to take a step back, and have a bigger picture perspective. Because, if you're stuck and you're focused on your current circumstances and trials come, it's really hard to get through. You need to put on the whole armor of God and have an eternal perspective. [Dale] Kingdom perspective. [Veronica] Legacy. [Dale] There's like multi-generational, like thinking about the kingdom of heaven. [Veronica] Like, yeah, I'm looking back at this last year I'm like, you know how many more people we're able to minister, and relate with, and empathize with, because we walk through so many different things in such a short amount of time. Yeah, I mean, God's gonna be glorified no matter what. [Dale] I think about, you know, there's a passage in scripture that the Lord, I feel like, delivered to me. I was praying and asking for a scripture, and I was like God you need to give me something. I was like in tears, and I flip open my Bible, and I put my hand down straight on Second Corinthians 12:9 through 10. And it's the verse of Jesus' reply to Paul after begging for his trial to leave him, and he says my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness, and he ends that section with, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Jesus' kingdom is counter-intuitive. Who's first? The one that's last. Who's strong? The one that's weak. And so, our perspective right now, is that we are the most effective we've ever been in ministry. Yet, we are the weakest we've ever been, and that is the, that perspective is so opposite of what our flesh wants to think. The alternative, for those that are worried about going into ministry because of trials, and or because of you know opposition, or because you might be persecuted for standing up for truth, I just go, I always tell people, what's the alternative? We have to remember that we are the beneficiaries of God's obedience, like, being obedient to God's Word. Not God, like, it's actually for the safest and the most joyful place that we'll be, is in God's will, under his word and under his ways. And I just go, you know, if you think being obedient is hard, try being disobedient. Try being outside of God's will. See what that feels like. [Aaron] Well yeah, and even if disobedience makes us more comfortable temporarily, it eternallydamns us, like we don't want that. We want to be with our Father in heaven right? I love that, so the idea is that our perspective, the encouragement to those listening, is have a heavenly perspective. Like the picture is not about us, it's that we're a part of what God's doing in this world, and he's invited us to be a part of that. And when we say yes to God, it doesn't mean you know butterflies and rainbows, for some it might, but it means effectiveness for the gospel, it means that we are obedient, wherever that leads us. And to some, it's much more suffering than others, and for some, it's much more prosperity than others. That's why, you know, we don't believe in the prosperity gospel, because it's not universal. But that doesn't mean some might not have, might have prosperity or not. [Dale] Sure. [Aaron] That's not how the gospel works. It's God's providence it's what God wants, and saying yes to him is the best thing we can do. [Dale] I mean, Paul, [Aaron] Yeah, trusting him. [Dale] Paul talks about that he's been in times of abundance and times of very little and we have to remember. [Aaron] We learn to be content in both. [Dale] Be content both, and we've been that way too we've had abundance and we've had the place that we're at now. But we we always like to pick our Bible character and go yeah that's like me. And I go I like to remind people, well, you know that 11 of the 12 apostles were martyred, right? You know that, like, the, all the prophets, not all, many of the prophets are martyred for standing for God's truth. Jesus himself is killed. The idea is that, do we really want to be like these people? Do you really identify with John the Baptist? You know, do you really identify with James and Thomas who was said to be crucified in India? [Aaron] Or Stephen stoned in public. [Dale] Or Stephen you know and so these are, I think that the gospel that we have in America, or in some of the developed countries, we've become so comfortable, and that's why the church has actually diminished. And where are you seeing the church growing? Wherever there's the most suffering. And so Afghanistan, Iran, you know, Brazil, parts of middle of the Middle East. [Aaron] North Korea, China. [Dale] North Korea, Southeast Asia, and so I think that there is a turning of the tide that's occurring here, that there is a political persecution, for sure, and we're seeing this. And so, yeah, your fear of effectiveness, well, the big question is, are you willing to stand for truth? I think that's the big thing that couples have to think about in their marriage going forward. [Jennifer] I think that's a great question for them to talk about. So, the last question that we have for you guys is, in your own words what is a Marriage After God? [Dale] You wanna read it? I have a little note here that I wrote down. It's a quote we say all the time so it's not an awkward thing. [Veronica] Yeah, we say it in our own podcast pretty frequently. It's two people who love God more than they love each other. [Jennifer] Perfect. [Aaron] Concise, I love that. And it's true, and when you love God and you wanna say yes to him, we're gonna receive, like just like a son with a good father. Like, we're gonna receive whatever our father has for us and we're gonna be okay with it. And you know we just wanna thank you guys for joining us, the insights, and you guys sharing vulnerably this season you're in, and how you guys are still pursuing God and not just turning your faces away from him, because he's not giving you what you deserve. Because, luckily, we don't get what we deserve, and he gives us grace instead. So, we just wanna thank everyone for listening today, and we want everyone to take a moment and go check out the Real Christianity podcast. Just go search for them that's Dale and Veronica's podcast. We love them, you're gonna be totally encouraged by the boldness, and the scripture, and just the way they are trying to share their life with the world and, yeah, so we're gonna close in prayer, and, yeah, you wanna pray first, Jennifer? [Jennifer] Dear Lord, we pray nothing would hinder our effectiveness and ministering to each other in marriage. We also pray nothing would hinder our effectiveness and sharing the gospel in this world. We pray you would defend us against the enemy. We pray his plans to divide us and destroy marriage would not prevail. Protect us from the enemy's schemes. Thank you for equipping us with armor, so that we can stand firm in our faith. We pray our flesh would not get in the way of our effectiveness. Help us to have self-control and walk in wisdom. If we do experience attacks or hardships, may you be our strength, hope, and endurance, to run this race with perseverance. If our flesh does hinder us, may we confront our sin, and repent so that we may be vessels of your glory, as we share with others the power of salvation in our lives. We submit our marriages to you, and ask that you use us to do all the wonderful things you have prepared for us to do. May your name be glorified, in Jesus name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen. [Veronica] Amen. [Aaron] So, we just wanna thank everyone for listening today. This is part two of the 16 part series for our book, Marriage After God. Please go pick up a copy of our book today, you're not gonna want to miss out on this book. It's shop.marriageaftergod.com, and also, stay tuned we have 14 more episodes and 14 more interviews, so, we'll see you next week. [Aaron] Did you enjoy today's show? if you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

We will be interviewing, marriages about what it means to be a marriage after God. https://Marriageaftergod.com and order our new book Marriage After God Our friend Lara Casey, Author of Cultivate and Make it Happen said this about Marriage After God: “ There is a short list of books I’m stashing away for my three small kiddos to read when they are older—Marriage After God is one of them.” Also, would you take a moment today and follow us on Instagram https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod "Belief propels people from a place of dreaming, to a place of doing." - Jennifer Smith, Marriage After God Book Dear Lord, We pray for the husband and wife reading this book. May Your Holy Spirit use this book to inspire their hearts to boldly chase after You and say yes to the extraordinary invitations You have prepared for them. We pray this couple will grow in their understanding of the power and purpose of their marriage. Reveal to them the specific plans You have for them. We pray You would use this marriage to do incredible work to build Your kingdom. In this dark world, may You protect this couple from the attacks of the enemy! May You cleanse them from sin and continue to shape them into the husband and wife You created them to be. May they realize they bear Your image and that they are a light in this world and a beacon of hope to the lost and lonely. We ask You to guide this couple and unite them as a team to carry out the unique purposes You have for them in Jesus’s name. Amen! In Jesus’ name, amen! READ: [Aaron] Hey we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're kicking off our 16-week Marriage After God series. [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast. Where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage. Encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one. Full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Guys I am so excited for this. I feel like as exciting it is to launch a new book, this podcast series is just as exciting. I feel like we need to celebrate. I feel like we need-- [Aaron] Ice cream. [Jennifer] Ice cream and cake and confetti. Or I don't know what to do [Aaron] Yeah, birthday cake, cake, ice cream. [Jennifer] I'll take any of it. [Aaron] On birthday cake cookies. [Jennifer] I'm just so excited for this series and we have some really exciting stuff for you guys. Thanks for joining us. [Aaron] Before we talk about the series and get into it. We just want to ask you if you've been following along in this podcast and you love the content, you love just the things that we're bringing up. How we're sharing the vulnerable areas of our life. And things that God's teaching us, would you please just take a moment and leave us a review. The reviews are how podcasts get seen by new people. They get ranked based off of how many reviews we get. If you would love to, we'd love to have you write a review. And the easiest way to do that is to leave a five-star review. It can be a four-star I guess. [Jennifer] Be honest. [Aaron] Yeah, a star review, be honest, is easy. Just tap the star at the bottom of the podcast app. But leaving a text review is the most powerful way you can help support this podcast if you want. When it comes to iTunes and how they rank this podcast. [Jennifer] Another way to support this podcast is to shop on our store. If you go to marriageafterGod.com, you can check out our resources and help support us through buying through our store. One of the books that we want to highlight, is our new book, which this series is based off of. And that's Marriage After God. Go to marriageafterGod.com and go order our new book. I also want to share with you guys our friend, Lara Casey, author of Cultivate and Make It Happen, said this about Marriage After God. "There is a short list of books I'm stashing away for my three small kiddos to read when they're older. Marriage After God is one of them." [Aaron] What a cool idea. [Jennifer] I know, I love that idea, and I wanted to share that because I think it's such a neat idea and I want to do that for my kids. I wanna have a list of books to give. [Aaron] It's good, because how many times you're like, "man what books should I read, or what books are out there." 'Cause we can't read every book. Having a stack of books and hey, we've read these. [Jennifer] And they matter. [Aaron] These books matter, they've blessed our lives. Here you go and handing that off as a wedding gift to your kids. We actually should start that. [Jennifer] Cool, and I also want to encourage you guys to take a minute and just go follow @marriageafterGod on Instagram. [Aaron] Yeah, that's our new page. Jennifer has her Unveiled Wife page. I have my Husband Revolution page, but our Marriage After God Instagram account is where we both come together and we share stuff and we share stuff about our podcast and things that are coming up. And it's a community for husbands and wives. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to our ice-breaker question. [Aaron] What was the hardest part about writing our new book, Marriage After God? [Jennifer] I felt like the thing you kept saying over and over again is, "I really just wanna quote scripture." Throughout the whole thing. [Aaron] That was what's hard for me, because I kept comparing what I was writing to what the Bible already said. [Jennifer] The Bible's so much better. We just need to tell them-- [Aaron] I'm writing this thing, and the Bible already said this way better than I could ever say it. That's what it felt like. But what was hard for you? [Jennifer] I think for me it was figuring out how to write it together. We done it in the past, but-- [Aaron] Never to this extent. [Jennifer] Not to this extent. You wrote most of this book and I just helped I feel like. [Aaron] You wrote a lot. [Jennifer] Oh, I know, but-- [Aaron] I feel like we actually wrote pretty equal amounts. In the beginning I did a lot of the writing for the initial draft and then you added so much more color in the edit. [Jennifer] I feel like you did a lot of the teaching aspect. And I added the stories and things like that. But it was a really good balance I think of both of our voices. I did enjoy that about writing this book. I would say the other hardest part was, we started writing the book when we had three kiddos and I was pregnant and then we started the editing process after having four. [Aaron] I feel like we are always writing a book while we're pregnant or just having a baby. [Jennifer] Yeah, we like to keep things interesting. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] That was, just logistical finding time to be able to do that. [Aaron] Yeah, and the other thing for me, not just that I kept comparing what I was writing to the Bible, which is good, because the Bible is everything anyway. And all we're trying to do it point people to the Bible. I think the hardest thing for me is this is the most I've ever written ever. And I've never written a book like this. It was challenging spiritually. It was challenging technically, 'cause I've never done it. But I'm really surprised at what we're able to pull off in this book. It had to have been Holy Spirit driven. [Jennifer] I'm excited about it. [Aaron] I'm really excited about it. I'm glad that we're starting this 16 week series to talk about the concepts that are in the book. The book is why the podcasts exist. The podcast came out of, we did the contract for the book, and we're like, "hey, let's do a podcast so we can actually start talking about it now. This idea of a Marriage After God." And encourage marriages with all this free content leading up to the book. And we're not gonna stop it after the books, this is our new thing. Doing a weekly podcast together, we love it. It's kind of funny, the Marriage After God book, the podcast, and now we're gonna be talking about the book more to pull the concepts directly out of the book and talk about them. We'll get into a little bit more about that in a minute. But, before we start, Jennifer, would you like to share a quote from the Marriage After God book? [Jennifer] Sure, this quote is found in the introduction, which this kind of kicking off the series is going to be centered on the introduction of Marriage After God. That's what we have for you guys today. This is a quote from the introduction of Marriage After God. "Belief propels people from a place of dreaming to a place of doing." [Aaron] Yeah, if we don't truly believe something, we're not going to act on that belief. No one ever does that. A belief is what causes us and propels us forward to do the things that we actually believe. I love that, "belief propels people from a place of dreaming to a place of doing." Instead of sitting back like, "oh, that'd be wonderful if it was true, or that's be wonderful if I could, but I can't so I'm not gonna." [Jennifer] Yeah, and I love that we're starting out with this quote because I feel like it's the whole purpose of why we wrote this book was to encourage couples to believe and do. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] To believe what God can do with their marriage and then do it. [Aaron] Well and believe what God already says about us. Believe what the Bible says about us. Believe what is the truth. To open our eyes to what God has for us. [Jennifer] Okay, as we jump into the introduction of Marriage After God, which, are we gonna read for them? [Aaron] Yeah, I think we will read the whole introduction from the book. Not right now. [Jennifer] Okay. We're gonna do that in a little bit. But first we're gonna answer some questions. These first few questions are just ones that I came up with that I think will help you guys understand where we're coming from. From in writing Marriage After God. And then we're gonna also, after we read the introduction, answer some questions that they had, right? [Aaron] Yeah, I spent some time today on your Instagram. I don't know if you knew this or not. [Jennifer] I didn't know that. [Aaron] And on my Instagram doing live videos and asking our followers if they had any questions about the book. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] Man some good questions came out of it. I wrote down as many as I could and some of them are similar so I think we complied them into a general question. And we're gonna try and answer your questions about the book, in the hopes that you guys get so excited about this because it's a book for you. We wrote this book for you, for all of the followers that have been following us since the beginning. [Jennifer] Well hold on, that's one of the questions I have. [Aaron] Oh, okay. [Jennifer] Let's jump in. Why did we write the book? [Aaron] For all of you. [Jennifer] No, why. [Aaron] We wrote the book, we wrote the book out of a necessity that we saw in our own life. We saw what God was doing with us and we saw where God had taken us. And I think we realized that there was some people that thought that we were special or that people like us are the only ones doing something and should be doing something and not everyone has something to do that God doesn't have a part and a role to play for everyone in the body. And our heart was like, "no, we're just being faithful with what God's given us, but we want you to be faithful with what God's given you." [Jennifer] Um hum. [Aaron] I think that's where it came from. It's why we did the Marriage After God gathering a couple years ago. [Jennifer] Um hum. [Aaron] Was like hey, how can we have an intimate gathering. We had 12 couples come and we're like how can we inspire these couples to just go and just chase after God boldly. Chase after his will for their marriage and to be used as a marriage in unity to move his message in his kingdom forward. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's our hope and desire for this book is that people would recognize that we are all part of his body building his kingdom. [Aaron] Yeah, there's no one part that, oh those are the people, 'cause they have something special that God's gonna use them. Actually the Bible tells us something very different. It says that we're all, all parts of the body, and not one part can say to another part that you don't belong. And that's what it is. This Marriage After God is that we belong to the body of Christ and that there's power in our unity. In our oneness. [Jennifer] Another reason we wrote the book was because we were actually walking out some of the things that we share over the last decade of time being together. The things that God revealed to us, little treasures and-- [Aaron] Things we're still learning of course. [Jennifer] Exactly, that's what I was getting to, is that we're even still learning what it means to be a Marriage After God, but the things that we have learned or the things we've overcome, or the victories we've had. We wanted to share about it as a catalyst to encourage marriages out there because we all need that encouragement. We all need to be reminded that we're here to do something and that our marriage has great purpose. We wanted to kind of come alongside them. I have this picture in my mind of holding each other, linked in arms and marching forward. [Aaron] Yeah, Christian marriages all over the world being used to glorify God, to spread the message of his goodness and it comes down to like this one sentence. The idea of the book. God has meant for more for our marriage than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] Um, hum. [Aaron] That our health in our marriage, our strength in our marriage, our joy in our marriage. All of those things are not just for us to enjoy. But that they're there to push us forward and be used for God. It's not just so that we can be like, "oh we're good, we reached it. Now we're like happy and this is all we need to focus on." We're excited. That's why we wrote the book. That's the big why. [Jennifer] Awesome. Okay, why did we title it Marriage After God? [Aaron] Ooh. See questions that I didn't know were coming. Why did we title it-- [Jennifer] The first thing that comes to my mind is we had originally wrote the devotionals which we shared about in the last episode, but Wife After God and Husband After God were 30-day devotionals that we really felt strongly were purpose to encourage husbands and wives to kind of chase after God in their individual role. Being a husband and wife-- [Aaron] His picture for them and what he wanted for them. [Jennifer] Right and to draw them closer to God and closer to each other. When we thought about this book, we wanted it to be unifying. The natural progression was Marriage After God and it's the idea and picture of a marriage chasing boldly after the purpose that he has for a marriage. [Aaron] There's mighty power in a husband chasing after God for their family even if his wife's not. There's mighty power in a wife chasing after God and serving him and loving him and being an example to her husband even if he's not. But man, the power of a husband and a wife chasing after God together and wanting his will for their life. Right there is the depth of this book. Is what we're trying to get at is, no no no. It's not just be happy where we're at, what does God have us together for? Why did he bring us to unity? Why did he make us one? 'Cause there is a meaning. There is a purpose behind it and we talk about it in the book. [Jennifer] Um, hum. That's so good, okay now that all of their ears are itching and they want to get their hands on this book, who's it for? [Aaron] This book is specifically for Christian married couples. I would not hesitate for a second to give it to someone who's not a believer. Because we preach the Gospel in the book quite a bit. [Jennifer] Even marriages who feel like maybe they're hanging on by a thread or maybe there's just some conflict there that they can't seem to get over. It doesn't have to be for a marriage that is mature, or is already chasing after God together, or both are equally yoked. It literally is for every marriage. [Aaron] Yeah, and the idea is that it's meant to be read together. It could totally be read separately, but I would totally encourage anyone who when they get the book, to read it with their spouse. Reading out loud together, or having their own copies and then talking about it as they go. But, it's for marriages. Also, I would see engaged couples reading this to prepare themselves where God wants their heart to be for marriage, so that they're working toward it now and they're praying about it now and they're saying, "okay Lord, we're gonna come together and we want this to be for you." It could totally be powerful for engaged couples as well. [Jennifer] For any age. For any however long married. [Aaron] Yeah, absolutely. [Jennifer] It doesn't matter how many kids you have. There is no prerequisite to read this book. [Aaron] Yeah, we didn't write it for a specific, the millennial Christian marriages. We wrote it for Christian marriages. Again, if they're not believers, this would be a great book to put in the hands of someone who doesn't believe yet and say, "hey, you want to see what God has for your marriage? Read this book." [Jennifer] Okay, so what do we hope the impact will be for the Marriage After God book? [Aaron] I hope that it sparks power and excitement in the hearts of husbands and wives around the world. [Jennifer] Um, hum. [Aaron] To say, wow, wait wait. God's good and he loves us and what he's doing in our marriage is awesome, but he wants us to move forward. He's got a plan for us together in how we're gonna use our talents, resources and gifts for his kingdom. And that we actually see action come out of this book. [Jennifer] That's what I was gonna say is action. [Aaron] Yeah, I think the other thing, and this is gonna go into some of the questions is, marriages leading and inspiring and encouraging other marriages. [Jennifer] Yeah, the same hope that we desire for this book to become a catalyst in your life, our hope would also be that then you become a catalyst in someone else's life. [Aaron] Oh absolutely, it's not just to point people back to us at all, actually. It's to point people to God. To His Word and to His will for their life. There's a few questions right around this idea and these are questions that people asked me in the live Instagram videos we did today. [Jennifer] Cool, okay, last question before we read the introduction and then we'll get into those questions from our listeners. It is, how can those listening right now join us in becoming a movement starter? This goes back to our hope of what we hope this book does. They might here the word movement starter and go, "what's that?" What can we encourage them to do right now? [Aaron] We called it a movement starter 'cause there's people that have been following us and are excited for what God's doing in marriages around the world and in their own marriage and for the kingdom of God. We hope that people are gonna take this book and they're gonna be like, "hey, we wanna spread the message of what God's doing, we wanna encourage other couples." The first thing I'd say is start praying. If you want to be a movement starter with us, start praying for the people that God is calling. That he wants to light a fire in. That he wants to draw out. The second thing I would say is pre-order a book. It's online right now, pretty much anywhere you buy books. Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I would suggest Amazon because they have a pre-order price guarantee where if the price lowers at any point during the next few months that you get the lowest price and they refund you the difference, which is awesome. [Jennifer] And I just want to note for people coming back to this episode or listening to it past the date and it's not necessarily for pre-order anymore, just ordering the book helps spread the message. [Aaron] Yeah, thank you for the ever greenness of that. Getting the book. And then I would say the last thing, and this is something you should start praying about now, is start praying about the two or three or four couples in your life right now that God might want you to invite over to your house to do a study with. Going through this book together. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I wanna add too, one way that they can also participate in being a movement starter for this message of being a Marriage After God. Earlier we asked them to go follow us on Instagram @marriageafterGod and I wanna encourage you to post your Marriage After God story. Post a picture of you and your spouse together and share a little bit about what it means to you to be and have a Marriage After God and use the hashtag Marriage After God. Because we see those and it is such a powerful testimony of what God is doing in this world and when we share our testimony of what God's doing, his heart is revealed to the world. And so we want to utilize the power of social media to also further this message. And so if you do that and you tag Marriage After God, we see it, we're gonna repost as many as we can, and I just want to say thank you right now for those who already have been sharing their Marriage After God story and the ones that will. [Aaron] Now, whether we're allowed to or not, I don't know. We're gonna read the entire introduction. It's a few pages, it's not very long. And this is from the book, Marriage After God. What if I told you that your marriage has a purpose far beyond happily ever after? What if I told you that the unity between you and your spouse was created for something extraordinary? God, your Creator and your Savior, has created you and your spouse with complete and perfect thoughtfulness. God, your provider and your heavenly Father has unlimited resources in immeasurable creativity. God, who is patient and loving, is pursuing you and your spouse every single day. Inviting you to participate in the extraordinary things He is already doing. Do you believe God wants more for your marriage than for you to just make each other happy? Do you believe God can do anything? Move mountains, open doors and part seas to get you to the place where he wants you the most? Belief is powerful. Belief propels people from a place of dreaming to a place of doing. Belief in God is confidence and trust in Him. Believing God made you and your marriage with great purpose is the beginning of an incredible adventure you will never regret. When Jennifer and I consider what spurred us toward a desire to serve God together, we agreed that it was our belief that God could and would use us as team for His glory. And that belief gave us the courage to say yes to Him over and over and over again. Even and especially during the hard times of our story. We said yes to God when we decided to stay together when it felt easier to walk away. We said yes to God when we chose to love each other even when we didn't feel so in love. We said yes to obeying His word when we did everything we could to get out of debt. We said yes to God when he showed us ways we could serve His body. And we said yes to God when he invited us to share our story. Not all of our yes' to God were easy, however, our mutual desire to please God is what helped us to say yes and to persevere. When Jennifer and I got married, we had a united desire to serve God together. We didn't know exactly what it would look like, but we were willing to explore the opportunities He had for us as a married couple. Throughout our time of dating and being engaged we prayed we would have an extraordinary marriage. However, we didn't stop there. We didn't only ask God for an extraordinary marriage, we also prayed God would use our marriage to do extraordinary things to build His kingdom. Since we said, "I do." And committed our marriage to the Lord, we have been on a journey of saying yes to God. A journey we both agree has been quite extraordinary. Not only because of the experiences we have had, or the accomplishments we have reached, but because God is extraordinary. And he longs to bring his extraordinary into our lives. He is the reason we have been able to endure this journey together. We have experienced both poverty and abundance. We have traveled to different parts of the world as missionaries motivated to share the Gospel with others. We have started businesses and ministries. We have overcome destructive sin patterns. We have grown our family size intentionally striving to leave a legacy with our children. And we continue to participate in God's plan for our lives as He invites us to do all that He prepared for us to do together. But it is all because of God. He gets the glory in our lives. [Jennifer] Our journey has not been void of the enemies attacks to thwart God's purpose for our marriage. In fact, the enemies flaming arrows in combination with our own sin almost destroyed our marriage. Pornography addiction, emotional eating, irrational jealousy, foolishness and constant battles of selfishness and pride have all been difficult areas of our marriage that we have had to battle. The hardships we have encountered in marriage have been painful. We have often wrestled with doubt and insecurities about our relationship with each other and with God. Yet no matter what we faced, and no matter what we will face in the future, we continue to pray that God will give us an extraordinary marriage and that He will use our marriage for his extraordinary purposes. [Aaron] In 2011, Jennifer and I launched our online marriage ministries, husbandrevolution.com and unvieledwife.com. To share with husbands and wives what God was teaching us about marriage. When we began these ministries, we had no idea what they would become. Motivated by a perspective that our lives are a ministry for God to work through. We said yes to God when he invited us to share our story with the world. In a way we were already familiar with, blogging. [Jennifer] Through these two sites we share daily marriage prayers, encouragement, biblical teaching on faith and marriage, date night ideas and reviews of Christian books and movies. We share personal stories of what we have experienced in our own marriage and how God continues to transform us into the husband and wife he created us to be. Since the first day we created these ministries, our desire has been to encourage married couples to turn their hearts toward God and trust in Him with their marriage. With the few tools we had in our tool belt we got started and this adventure quickly grew into an unimaginable reach into the hearts and homes of couples all around the world. With the influence we were gaining in the lives of other married couples, we asked the Lord to use us to encourage them to be biblical men and women. We were confident that if we could inspire them and challenge them to be people who read God's Word and desire His will for their lives, that God would move in these marriages and use them for the marvelous work He desires His people to do. We imagined hundreds of thousands of strong, thriving marriages reflecting God's love story and impacting the lives of others as they faithfully live out all that God has called them to. We envisioned husbands and wives being unified in their relationship and in their parenting, full of joy and contentment. We could see communities being blessed by the lives and examples of these couples. We could see relationships being healed. Needs being met. Talents being used. Businesses and ministries being started. And the lost being saved. Because husbands and wives said yes to God. Working together to build his kingdom. [Aaron] Eager to see husbands and wives embrace what God has for them, we wondered how we could inspire them to start considering the purpose of their marriage and help guide them to set the foundation necessary to fulfill that purpose. We wanted to point them to the Word of God and prompt them to answer some challenging questions. We felt led to write two devotionals that would lead a husband and wife through God's Word and invite them to consider how they can actively pursue an extraordinary God-centered marriage. We co-authored and self-published Husband After God and Wife After God. 30-day devotionals that have been read by 1000's of men and women. Not long after publishing our devotionals, we began to receive messages from couples asking what they could read next to encourage them on their marriage journey. So we began to consider what resource we could provide next to inspire husbands and wives to consider chasing after God. This is the seed that would grow into the message of Marriage After God. We knew God wanted more couples to pray the same prayer we have been praying and to experience his extraordinary purpose for their lives. Yet, we believed it was also a message God wanted us to experience in our marriage for ourselves. He wanted us to mature in our relationship with each other and with Him. We wouldn't say we are done experiencing what it means to have a Marriage After God. In reality, this will be a message we will continue to live out and pursue until Christ returns or we are called home. However, God has given us an incredible opportunity to present this message to others through this book. To inspire husbands and wives who want to chase after Him. And to do His will together. And we are eager to see how God uses this book to do His work in all of our lives. [Jennifer] A Marriage After God is an extraordinary journey of making ourselves known to God, knowing God and being willing to let Him use our marriages for His purposes. And Marriage After God is one that can faithfully say what the people of Israel said in Exodus 19:8. "All that the Lord has spoken, we will do." Happily ever after is a nice thought and a good thing to hope for. But it should not be your end goal. There's an amazing purpose for your marriage. More than just making each other happy. We desire you to pursue kingdom purposes with your marriage. To be a testimony to others of God's love and amazing grace. This world we live in has been tainted by darkness, but you are called to be the light of the world. It is you and your marriage that should be the light people long to experience. But you cannot be a light for others if you are allowing your marriage to be overrun by darkness. Those who belong to God have been created for so much more. You have been created for so much more. And your spouse has been created for so much more. Our vision for this book is to get you and your spouse excited about using your marriage for God. We desire that you two experience the incredible intimacy of unity as you boldly chase after God's will and purpose for your marriage. [Aaron] This book is for the marriages who are ready to finally see what God brought them together for. Maybe you and your spouse have been having conversation about what is next. What you should be investing in, or how you can be used by God to effectively fulfill the purpose he created you for. The purpose he brought you together for. You have been in a great place in your marriage and with God, but there is a tugging on your heart to do something more. You picked up this book because you don't want to be stagnant. You want to experience this extraordinary. Our hope and prayer is that this book takes you on a journey of discovery, inspiration and affirmation as God invites you to work together as a team for His glory. [Jennifer] If you and your spouse are in a different place, a broken place where you are barely hanging on, our hope is that this book will be the very thing to convince you to turn your heart back toward God and have the courage to change your perspective of your spouse and your marriage. Maybe it'll be the very thing your marriage needs to push you closer to the only one who can help you put it back in order. [Aaron] So we welcome you. No matter what condition your marriage is currently in and we challenge you to take this adventure with us to commit your marriage to God. And see how he moves in your life, your spouses life, and the many other lives he will impact because you were willing to say yes to Him. Everything begins with a first step. Reading this book is your first step. We pray it won't be long before you and your spouse are running with your hearts aligned with God's toward the extraordinary good work God has already prepared for you to do. [Jennifer] You were created for this. Ephesians 2:10 confirms this declaring. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." You and our spouse were made by God and your marriage relationship was designed by Him to do good works for His name sake. Works that he had in mind long before you were created. You can believe this truth and so be empowered to walk in the extraordinary purpose you have been uniquely created by God to do. [Aaron] So that was the introduction to Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Who's read to jump in? [Aaron] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, it's convicting reading our own books sometimes. [Jennifer] Yeah, we have tears in our eyes every time we have the chance to read it, which has been several times now. We get this stirring in our hearts and this question of what do we do next? What are we gonna do for Him? [Aaron] What we're gonna answer some questions that people from the community have given us about the book. And then we're gonna close with the prayer that was at the end of the introduction. It's actually in the book. There's a prayer that we put in there. The first question is, will there be questions in the book, journal or discussion questions? [Jennifer] Yeah, at the end of every chapter, there are a set of one to three questions that have to do with that chapters topic. [Aaron] There's another question that goes along with this. Is it a book or is it a devotional? A devotional is smaller chunks of content with questions to discuss. But we wanted to clarify that this is a 16 chapter, 50 plus 1000 word book with questions at the end. It can be used like a devotional, but it is definitely a book. It's a hard cover book with a jacket. It's definitely distinct from a devotional. Especially like our Husband and Wife After God devotionals. Which are like a hundred pages. This is significantly [Jennifer] Larger. [Aaron] Larger, yeah. [Jennifer] Okay, so the next question is, can the questions be done as a couple? [Aaron] Oh, absolutely. Our hope is that this book is done-- [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] With your spouse. [Jennifer] Our recommendation is that you actually use the questions in the back as discussion questions going into a date night, or maybe you guys have time set aside to read the book together. Maybe you read that chapter and then you use the questions to stimulate that conversation. [Aaron] Yeah, maybe it's like a nightly routine. You guys read a chapter together. Discuss the questions together and that was the intention of them. But yes, there'll be questions at the end of each chapter. Yes, you can do them separately and then maybe talk about them together. But we totally always encourage couples to do them together. [Jennifer] Can small groups go through the book? [Aaron] We said this in the beginning. Our heart is that [Jennifer] You do. [Aaron] You do. Yeah, this would be so awesome if when we started hearing testimonies of couples saying, "hey we invited two of our married friends over and we're doing this every week now." 16 week Bible study would be amazing and just reading a chapter kind of like a book club. Read a chapter as a group and then come together and discuss the questions maybe. Some of the questions might be too intimate to do in a group, but hey. [Jennifer] You never know. [Aaron] Yeah, that would be amazing. I'm excited to hear about that. This is kind of along the same lines. Someone says would you recommend a husband and wife go through the book first and then do a group? [Jennifer] I would say yeah, just so that you can wrap your head around what the message of a Marriage After God is. And then jump into it. I feel like you would have a better experience overall facilitating a group like that. [Aaron] Yeah, but if you are wanting to do this right away. Let's say you have a bunch of friends or like hey let's just do this together and get-- [Jennifer] You absolutely could do that. [Aaron] Absolutely. Either or, but if you are the only one that got the book and your friends don't know about it yet, maybe go through it first. And then invite them. Yeah, absolutely if you wanted to do it together right away, that should probably be really fun because you'd be experiencing the book at the same time. [Jennifer] Cool, okay so the next question is. I can never say these two words together. [Aaron] Will there [Jennifer] Will there be video lessons with this book? [Aaron] Probably eventually. Definitely not when the book launches. Unless we like hustle. But yes, there's gonna be eventually a workbook. There'll eventually be videos to go along with it. [Jennifer] That was one of the questions too. Is there a study guide to go along with it? [Aaron] Yeah, those will come later. My wife and I do all those together. And it's pretty much just us, so we will produce stuff eventually. This was a really cool question I got. Someone said we'd love to know if there's gonna be other groups doing it together? And they said it in a way like it'd be scary doing it on our own, like being the only group doing it. And they said it'd be awesome if we knew that hundreds of other groups were doing it at the same time. Or doing it so you'd be like, "oh, we're not the only ones doing this together." [Jennifer] It's a global community, kind of doing the same thing. [Aaron] I don't know how we're gonna do this, but I think we, Jennifer, should think about how we can have some sort of sign-up where people can say, "hey, we're doing this just so that other people know that it's being done." [Jennifer] I love that and I know this. With so many people on social media, if you take a picture of your group and-- [Aaron] That's exactly what it should be, yeah. [Jennifer] Use the hashtag Marriage After God. When that posts and we see it, we'll repost that and then people will start to see it happening. [Aaron] That's a great way of doing it. If you're meeting with a group, every single time you meet, take a picture. And post it and we'll post about it. And what that'll do is, that'll encourage other people like, "hey, we got the book, let's do a group." That's a great idea. [Jennifer] Okay, you mentioned this already, but can engaged couples get the book and read it? [Aaron] I say yeah. I don't feel like that there's any content in it that's inappropriate for an engaged couple. [Jennifer] The only thing I will say is depending on the questions in the back of the book, if there's intimate ones or one's that maybe you can't relate to because you're not married yet, save them to discuss till after you're married. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Because if they're engaged, they usually have a date. [Aaron] What might also be cool, is if the couple wanna go through the book separately and then after they get married discuss the questions on how they thought they might answer or-- [Jennifer] Oh that's cool. [Aaron] Some sort of fun, like go through the book during the engaged season. [Jennifer] Maybe use them as journal questions. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Write about it. [Aaron] Talk about how I might answer that after I'm married, or after I'm a wife, after I'm a husband. And then come together and go through it together again and see how your answers match up maybe. That'd be a really fun exercise. Here's a question that someone asked. Will there be a bundle discount for churches, for groups? [Jennifer] First of all, what is a bundle discount? [Aaron] They buy a bunch of books, 20 books, 25 books, and they get a discount as a group discount. Yes, I don't know what that looks like and it's gonna definitely happen after the book launches and I don't know when, but we will definitely let people know how that'll work so churches can definitely get bundle discounts. [Jennifer] Okay, the next question is. Does it have our personal testimony as a marriage in it? [Aaron] That's what's cool about this book is much of the book is principles and ideas and concepts that the Lord taught us through very specific times in our life. [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] Difficulties, successes. [Jennifer] Conversations. [Aaron] Conversations, relationships we've had. You did the chronological story thing in the Unveiled Wife. [Jennifer] Yeah, which there's way more detail about our marriage story in there. [Aaron] But from your perspective. [Jennifer] And just from my perspective. [Aaron] Where this is the last 12 years of our marriage and it's lots of stories, lots of relational things. [Jennifer] And it's both of us. [Aaron] And it's both of us. [Jennifer] A lot of stories that I couldn't have shared in the Unveiled Wife because they happen after the fact. [Aaron] Exactly. Yes it does, but they're used as illustrations for the ideas that we're trying to convey, so yes and yes. What can a single person expect to get out of this book? This is kind of along the lines as the engaged thing. [Jennifer] I think that a single person reading this book will get really fired up for the desire of marriage. Which they probably already have. But they'll be really excited to jump into marriage with that heart of prayer to have an extraordinary marriage to use their marriage for God to build his kingdom. I think their perspective of marriage will be have a Godly and biblical foundation. [Aaron] Yeah, singles are definitely not the intended audience for this book, but if someone read it, that's thinking, "man, I wanna prepare for marriage, I wanna be preparing my heart and my mind." It'll definitely, introspectively point them to say, "wow, am I actually thinking this way?" What am I thinking marriage is gonna do for me versus what is our marriage gonna do for God? I think it'd be really powerful for someone thinking about marriage, preparing for marriage to go through it, although it's not the intended audience. That was a handful of the questions that we got. I love the group questions that people are excited to do them in groups and I can't wait to start seeing photos posted. I think that was a great suggestion. [Jennifer] I know. If someone wants to be a movement starter, a Marriage After God movement starter, remind them what they can do. [Aaron] Pray, just pray for the hearts that God's calling that who's gonna get this book. Pray for us. [Jennifer] Pray for marriages, because they're under attack just by the enemy. [Aaron] Pray that God's will just be done in this world through us. Get a copy of our book. [Jennifer] Go order right now, please. [Aaron] Amazon.com, search for Marriage After God. You'll find that it's a big read book. [Jennifer] With pretty sparkles of gold. [Aaron] Then start praying and asking what couples in your life God might want you to invite to do a home group at your house with this book. I hope that answered some questions for you guys. I hope you guys are excited like we are for the book Marriage After God. It comes out June 4th. And before we close today. Oh you know what we never told anyone? [Jennifer] What the series-- [Aaron] What the series is gonna be like [Jennifer] Okay, brace yourselves. [Aaron] Okay, the next 16 episodes of the Marriage After God podcast are all gonna be geared around topics from the Marriage After God book. [Jennifer] But how cool is this guys? We have awesome people coming on. We're gonna interview them about being and having a marriage after God. [Aaron] Yeah. We haven't done any interviews on this podcast. It's not every, actually no every-- [Jennifer] It's every episode. [Aaron] Is gonna be an interview. That's so cool. The next 16 episodes are gonna be interviews with friends of ours. People that we've done ministry with in the past. All sorts of cool people. You should be excited about that. We are excited about it. Before we close, I'm gonna read the prayer from the end of the introduction of our book. Would you join us in prayer? Dear Lord, we pray for the husbands and wives reading this book. May your Holy Spirit use this book to inspire their hearts to boldly chase after you and to say yes to the extraordinary invitation you have prepared for them. We pray this couple will grow in their understanding of the power and purpose of their marriage. Reveal to them the specific plans you have for them. We pray you would use this marriage to do incredible work to build your kingdom. In this dark world may you protect this couple from the attacks of the enemy. May you cleanse them from sin and continue to shape them into the husband and wife you created them to be. May they realize they bear your image and that they are a light in this world and a beacon of hope to the lost and lonely. We ask you to guide this couple and unite them as a team. To carry out the unique purposes you have for them. In Jesus name, Amen. [Jennifer] Amen. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on the first episode kicking off our Marriage After God series on the Marriage After God podcast. [Jennifer] So much Marriage After God. [Aaron] Yeah, lots of Marriage After God. We hope you're being inspired. We hope you're getting excited. God's got huge plans for you. We know it. He's got plans for us. It's not like he's only got plans for us, that's why we wrote this book. He's got plans for all of us. We're part of his body and we just pray that you would know that. That you would know that he wants to show you why he created you and why he brought you and your spouse together. We love you. We thank you for joining us and I pray that you look forward to the next 16 episodes and we'll see you next week. [Aaron] Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources @marriageafterGod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

NOTE: We don't share any graphic detials in this episode but this is not an episode to listen to around children. To support this podcast please pick up one of our marriage books at https://shop.marriageaftergod.com In this episode, I share my history with an addiction to pornography and how it affected Jennifer. Jennifer And I both discuss how it made her feel and how it affected every aspect of our marriage but ultimately how the Lord freed me from this sin. Our prayer is that by being open and vulnerable about this sensitive and taboo subject that a light would be shown and that many other men and women would find freedom and healing. READ: [Aaron] Hey we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God, [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna share our personal journey with pornography in our marriage. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith everyday. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. Love. And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Thank you all for joining us this week on our podcast and we just wanted to invite you to leave us a review. This is just one way to help us get the word out about the Marriage After God podcast and let's other people find us and we really appreciate it, it just encourages our hearts. We love 'em. [Jennifer] So if you could just scroll to the bottom of the podcast app and leave us a review. [Aaron] Yeah a star rating is the easiest way to do it. All you have to do is hit a star, but if you have extra time we'd love a text review as well. [Jennifer] Thank you guys. [Aaron] Hey we wanna thank you for joining us and we also want to invite you if you've been enjoying the podcast to consider supporting our podcast. And the way that you do that is go to shop.marriageaftergod.com and pick up one of our books that we've written. The ones we wanna talk about today is our 31 Prayers for My Husband and 31 Prayers for My Wife bundle. We call it our prayer challenge and we encourage couples to do it. Thousands of couples have already gone through the challenge and they've loved it. They go through it multiple times actually a year so go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, pick up a copy of our 31 Marriage Prayers Challenge and that would support our podcast, thank you. [Jennifer] Okay moving right along, we are gonna jump into our icebreaker question, which is which one of you said I love you first? [Aaron] That's an easy one. [Jennifer] Give them a second to guess. You guys guess. Jennifer. Who is me. I couldn't wait any longer. [Aaron] Did I actually say I love you back? [Jennifer] So what happened was we were, I don't know if we were on a date or just hanging out but I remember I was getting out of your car-- [Aaron] I'm up in front of your house by your red mailbox. [Jennifer] No, actually Aaron has a terrible memory. [Aaron]Oh, it's not right there? -We were-- Where was this at? [Jennifer] It's okay honey. I'm not mad. We were in the church parking lot. Oh, oh. I was getting out of your black Honda, and I was getting into my car. And I got out, and I stood up-- I remember now. [Jennifer] And then I leaned back in, and I said, "Oh, by the way, I love you." 'Cause I was waiting, waiting-- Did I skid away, and the door slammed shut, or? [Jennifer] No, that didn't happen. But you did let a very long pause happen before you said anything, and it made me feel super awkward, and I said, I might have even said, "Okay, I'm gonna go now," or something like that, and then you were like, "I'm just kidding." You start laughing and you're like, "I love you too." Almost as if I had already known, but you never said it. [Aaron] Well, you did already know. [Jennifer] Yeah, I did. But it was-- That's really funny I made you wait. It felt good to have said it, and I'm glad I said it. I don't remember-- Yeah and we say it a lot now. Yeah, I do love you. And I won't make you wait. I'll tell you all day every day. [Jennifer] All day every day? [Aaron]Yeah. Oh good. So Jennifer said I love you first, and then I made her wait a few seconds-- [Jennifer] Super awkward. Super long seconds. And then you laughed, and then you said I love you back. [Aaron] Yeah. All right. So why don't we do a quick quote from a book. Okay. And this book is your book. [Jennifer] Yeah, we chose one from The Unveiled Wife, so it's not a typical quote that we've kind of been sharing with you guys. It's a little bit more personal. Okay this is found in The Unveiled Wife on page 153, and it says, "We were devoted to making ourselves "known to God and known to each other. "I finally felt free from the bondage "that was holding me captive. "I could breathe deeply without fear "of someone finding out who I was "because I had chosen to make myself known." [Aaron] And this was a part of our story where we were divulging to each other our deep dark secrets. Where we were sharing our sins, things we were struggling with. Actually, divulged everything. Talked about everything in our hearts. That was a pretty pivotal moment in our marriage. And that goes into what we're gonna be talking about, that's why we picked the quote because we're gonna be talking about that season of our marriage, we're gonna be talking about a pretty large season actually, of my life, and it has to do with pornography. [Jennifer] Yeah, which I actually, well we both didn't wanna do this episode. [Aaron] We've been putting it off for months. [Jennifer] Because I don't know why, it's just, I think it's one of those topics that's hard to dive into and expose, but like that quote said, I chose to make myself known, in our marriage, you've chose to make yourself known, and I've, I believe that that created a safe place for trust to be built, and I think it's really important for husbands and wives to hear our story and to hear, just to hear how we've exposed our hearts to each other, and hopefully they could do that too. [Aaron] And not only have we exposed it to each other, but we've exposed it to others. We've exposed the things that we've gone through, our dark secrets to other believers and through our platforms, there are ministries of the world. And one of the things that I love about how we are, you use the word expose, I love that word. The Bible tells us to drag that which is in the darkness into the light because that which is in the light becomes light. And that was our sin. The more it was hidden, the easier it was to keep doin' it. And so we've been draggin' it out ever since and keeping it out in public, keeping it out in the light so that it doesn't live in us. So I wanna start off by reading a scripture. And it's in Ephesians five verse three. It says, "But sexual immorality and all impurity "or covetousness must not even be named among you, "as is proper among saints." Paul's telling the Ephesians, you're saints, you're saints of the most high, and sexual morality and impurity and covetousness, they should not even be named among you. Meaning not even a little bit. In other translations it says there shouldn't be a hint of sexual morality. That's insane. Because in our current culture, in our current world, in my own life experience, I had not just a hint of sexual morality in my life, I was drenched in sexual morality. And Ephesians five verse three is very clear and it's, this isn't the only scripture that talks about this, that there shouldn't even be a hint of it among Christians. [Jennifer] Which is so weird because I mean, through our online platforms, we've shared about the topic of pornography before, and people even Christians, have shared their acceptance of it. And I think we're living in a culture, in an age where it's widely accepted even if people aren't talking about it. [Aaron] Yeah, we're desensitized to the grotesqueness of our sin. [Jennifer] Which is another reason why we knew we had to do this episode. We need to be willing to talk about it. [Aaron] Yeah, pretty much every time we've ever posted about pornography and how it's wrong, and shouldn't even be in a marriage, and how, and not that we're coming from perfection, we're coming from, well actually no, we've experienced this, it's wrong, and the Bible says we shouldn't do it, and God hates it. Christians, people claiming to be Christians in our comments will say, "Well, you're wrong actually, it's fine as long as." And then fill in the blank. And I'm like blown away. But we shouldn't be surprised by that 'cause the world's being, the world's gonna be deceived. So our heart today is to expose our story, and I hope my, our prayer we just prayed before this is that you listening, if this is your story, would begin to walk in freedom today. So that it, that sexual morality and impurity and covetousness might not even be named in your marriage. That there would be no hint of it. And so let's start, we're gonna start with my experience, and there's a bunch of questions I'm gonna answer and, but before we go to some of the questions I'm gonna answer about my experience with pornography and where it came from and how I walked in it and my story behind that, I just wanna read a letter I wrote to pornography in 2014. And it's on my blog, and it says this. "Dear pornography, "We have known each other since I was a child "and I feel as though I can tell you things "that I can never tell anyone else. "You know all my secrets and all my fantasies, "and you have been by my side "in the good times and in the bad. "You spent time with me when I was lonely or bored, "and you comforted me when I was angry or hurt. "It feels like you have always been there for me, "but I need to get a few things off my chest. "You promised me that after I got married, "I wouldn't need you anymore. "You made me believe that what we had was just a fling. "I realize now that you never loved me. "I am finally seeing your endgame. "You have stolen a piece of me like a master thief. "You wanted everything from me, not just my eyes, "but also my mind, heart, soul and strength. "You have promised a world to me that doesn't exist. "You have threatened my marriage and my children. "You have hurt my friends and family, "you have destroyed the lives of girls, boys, men and women "all over the world and used me to help. "All the while assuring me that no one would get hurt. "Our relationship has been nothing but lies. "You are not, nor have you ever been my friend. "You are the reason I have lived "with so much shame and embarrassment. "You are the reason my wife has been so hurt. "You have warped my perception of women in the world. "I needed to write you this letter "to let you know that it's over. "I would tell you in person, "but that would give you too much satisfaction. "I have found a true friend, his name is Jesus." I wrote this letter a long time ago and posted it. It resonated with a ton of people. It got 4,000 shares. And it was just me verbalizing out loud the relationship I had with pornography, so that I made it real. I was like oh, I don't wanna pretend like, oh, I'm just struggling and this that, like I actually verbalized what it was that I, how I related to it. [Jennifer] It actually makes me really sad just hearing you read it out loud, 'cause it makes it even more so feel like such an intimate thing, such an intimate relationship that you had with this thing, and I just, I, makes me heartbroken over the many people who are doing it, who are addicted to it, who have this kind of relationship with it. [Aaron] And it's true it's a lie. And it, in reality, it destroys us, it leads to death, and it destroys the people that, were, are being consumed by it, in the images. And it, do we care about those people? Do we care about ourselves, do we care about our families? And we need to consider those things. So I'm gonna be getting into some information about kind of where it started with me, and if you have questions as we go, Jennifer, you can ask me. How old was I when I was exposed first to pornography? I actually don't know. I feel like maybe seven, eight years old. I can't, I don't have a very good memory of my younger years. But I do remember one of the first experiences I had with it was I was walking home from school and I found a, it was like a playing card on the ground with a nude woman on it, and I remember keeping it. And I remember that being my first experience with it. I don't remember how I got connected on the internet with it, I don't remember how I've seen it on TV, but I've been exposed to pornography for many, many, many years. And not just exposed to it, but I've exposed myself to it and craved it, and sought after it since a very young age. And it went with me, I literally thought when I was younger that all I need to do is get married and it would fix my lustful cravings. 'Cause it, what they did was they, being exposed so young and right at that, puberty, when I'm already gonna be naturally more hormonal, and more testosterone, and all those things that come with puberty, I, it was heightened, extremely from a young age. And it just continued on until even, into marriage. [Jennifer] I actually remember before we got married, we did talk about that aspect of feeling like, 'cause you admitted to me that you struggled, pornography, and I also wrote it off as like well doesn't every guy do that? That was my perspective of it. And we both believed that it would be like a non-issue when we got married, that it would just go away. [Aaron] Right, so while we were dating, you had no red flags about it. [Jennifer] I mean, I hated it then and it hurt me then, but I figured marriage would be the solution. [Aaron] Well what you said was that you thought, well, I guess every guy struggles with that, and we'll just, when we get married we'll walk together and we'll figure it out, and it'll be fixed. And I actually believed that too, but I was so entrenched in it that I couldn't imagine men not struggling with it, and I think there was two reasons I did that. One, pretty much everything I heard from other believers, and pastors, and mentors was like, well yeah, everyone struggles with that and there's that book, Every Man's Battle, like we, that's the thing we've heard about this, so I just believed literally every man struggled with it and it was normal. Yeah, it was wrong, and we shouldn't do it, and I felt shameful, and I should be better at it, but I wasn't actually ever told by anyone that I didn't have to do it, that I wasn't slave to it, that as a believer I could walk in freedom from it, and that it was gonna destroy me. I don't remember hearing that ever. I remember how it made me feel. [Jennifer] How did it make you feel? [Aaron] Well,it made me feel gross. I hated that I couldn't stop it, probably like any addict. Like why do I keep doing this? Why can't I stop? I feel like I have no control. But then at the same time, I wanted it, I enjoyed it, I loved it, I couldn't say that out loud. When I would talk about it, it was always like, "I hate this, I don't wanna do this anymore." But internally, I really did love it, even though I didn't recognize that back then. And I can't remember ever having a real conversation about sexual purity. I remember being told I shouldn't have sex before marriage, I remember being talked about it a little bit, but I don't remember purity discussion. I remember being caught a few times with pornography and having a short discussion of how it's not good and we shouldn't do that, but I couldn't, I don't remember having these serious discussions of this can't happen. It is going to destroy you. You need to stop. I don't remember that. And it maybe did happen, but I don't remember it being, it wasn't memorable for me. It wasn't something that changed my direction from anyone, my parents, from pastors-- Youth pastors, yeah. [Aaron] Friends. In reality, even when I would try and, ways I would try and deal with it was just abstinence. Like, well I'm just gonna try and go, oh, I went a month. And I didn't mess up, was my term. I would have accountability partners. That's what we all do. But all my accountability partners also struggled with pornography and weren't changing. So all we would do was come together and commiserate and say, "Well, God's good, grace of God." Those kinds of things, but no one ever changed, no one ever had authority in my life to say like, "Hey, I'm walking in purity, you should too." I didn't, I actually didn't know anyone. I've never met someone back then that walked in purity, that didn't struggle with pornography, which gave me a very small world view actually. 'Cause I thought, I literally thought everyone struggled with it. And I'm sure there's people listening right now thinking like, "Well doesn't everyone?" No, everyone doesn't struggle with it. Many do, but it's a lie from Satan to believe that it's just the thing that everyone's gonna struggle with. [Jennifer] Well if we believe that everybody struggles with it, it just makes it more normal and then, like it's just-- Yeah, why change? [Jennifer] It's another justification for it, yeah. [Aaron] I would confess to God all the time, and just remember that God loves me, and remind myself. I would read scripture that would make me actually feel more shameful because I'd be like, "Wait a minute, why don't, why doesn't my life "line up with what the Bible says?" Like shouldn't it? Shouldn't, when I read this, oh, that's what a believer is. I would have to in round about ways work around what the Bible says to be who I was, as a quote unquote, Christian. Which is wrong, 'cause we're supposed to align our lives with what the Bible says not with how we feel, and then try and make the Bible fit into that, which is what I had to do because it, my life didn't line up with it at all. [Jennifer] So then we got married, and it didn't stop. [Aaron] No, it actually, I feel like at times, it got worse. [Jennifer] Well just to catch people up on our story, the first four years of our marriage, actually it's kind of humorous now that I think about it with your addiction, our biggest struggle was-- Sex. Sex. And-- Yeah, I remember telling God like, "God, just give me a wife, "I just wanna be able to have sex with my wife, "and I'll stop doing this." And then,gettin' married, and it's literally-- [Jennifer] The hardest thing possible. [Aaron] The thing that we can't do. [Jennifer] So I experienced excruciating pain every time we tried, and so for four years, our marriage just got tougher and tougher as far as our relationship because of this issue. And because we weren't coming together and being, experiencing that part of our relationship, you dove even further into-- I-- Pornography. [Aaron] Definitely used it as a excuse and a justification. 'Cause I thought to myself, like well I can't even have the one person I should be able to have, so, I got this over here. And it was wrong, completely wrong. But looking back, God absolutely used our struggle with sex to show the depravity in my own heart, and yours-- I was gonna say both of us. About lust, pornography, and these things-- [Jennifer] I'm like a lot of that is sin. Sexual, yeah lots of things. But He's, He was definitely saying like, "I don't want any of this." And He was willing to discipline us, and I believe that's what it was. I believe that that season of our life was discipline because He's like, "You're My children." And He says, "I discipline those who I love, "and I love you." And I, He was done with us walking our own way, and walking in that sort of sin, and, now I can't say like, we walked free from it, and then boom, we were healed. It was much more complex than that. But looking back, I know that's what God was doing in us. [Jennifer] So are you saying that we struggled with sexual intimacy because you struggled with pornography? [Aaron] I believe so, I believe that God was disciplining us, He was disciplining me. I told Him, the one thing I wanted was a wife I can have sex with, and He's like, "That's not gonna fix it." And it, and He, and I should be able to walk in freedom with Him, regardless if my marriage is perfect. I, it's not a justification, having a broken marriage, having a broken sex life, having these things that I think give me permission to break His heart, and His laws, and walk opposite of how He's called me to walk, when my greatest relationship should be with Him, which is what I've always said I have, like no, everything is about God, and I love God. And He's like, "Well," as Jesus says, "if you love Me, you'll keep My commands. "If you love Me," In 1 John, He says, "Those who practice righteousness "are righteous." And I wasn't practicing righteousness, I was, I had no integrity. When I was alone, I knew what I was gonna do, and you knew too. [Jennifer] I didn't trust you. [Aaron] No, I didn't trust myself. [Jennifer] I'd just go back to that point though, I wanna talk about trust, but I wanna go back to you saying that our, let's call it a drought, 'cause that's what it was, it was a sexual drought, and our marriage was correlated with this addiction to pornography, 'cause as much as I see that, I also know that it was layered because He used that time for so many other things, to reveal a lot to us. And I don't want that, I don't want them listening just to go, oh, that's kinda strange, but a cool little revelation, there was a lot more that-- [Aaron] Well of course, like God is infinite, and He orchestrated a lot of things in our life, for many purposes, to put us on this journey with this ministry, to make us, our unity and our oneness stronger, to use us in the lives of others, like lots of things to teach us things. [Jennifer] To teach us things, yeah. [Aaron] But it tells us that the, in the Bible that that our Father in Heaven disciplines His children. And if He didn't discipline us, we'd be illegitimate children. But because we're His children, He disciplines us. I just wanted to highlight that to show that we, in going through those things, that what our heart should be is to recognize what God's doing and that He loves us, and that He cares for us. It's that quota, He loves us the way we are, but loves us too much to leave us there, and so He changes us. And He draws us to Himself, and He makes us more like His son, Jesus. [Jennifer] He definitely used that time to do that in our life. [Aaron] Yeah. What for you, Jennifer, 'cause I brought this into my marriage, and I didn't know if you struggled with anything at the time, early in the marriage, but what did my addiction to pornography, how did it make you feel? How did you deal with it? What were some of the highlights, or lowlights, I should say-- [Jennifer] Yeah, I'm like, there were no highlights. [Aaron] From our, from that's part of our story? [Jennifer] Knowing that you struggled with this was painful, and I felt betrayed, as your wife. And there was a lot of deep hurt, a lot of pain, but what's interesting is also wrapped up in a lot of insecurity, and I felt like it was pointed back at me, as if I wasn't good enough for you. And so on top of the pain of betrayal and mistrust, there was also this layer of, "I'm not good enough for you and it's my fault." [Aaron] Right, like you're causing me to like, well, if I was prettier, or if could give him this-- [Jennifer] Or if my-- Part of my body. Yeah, if my body actually worked-- Yeah. [Jennifer] And we were experiencing an awesome sex life, maybe he wouldn't, maybe marriage would have fixed it. So then I felt at fault for it, and that was really painful. And so anytime that you confessed to me, or that the truth was exposed, I felt just as at fault for it. [Aaron] Yeah, and I remember you would say those sorts of things and I would try and like comfort you, and be like, "No, no, no, not at all, not at all." But what's unfortunate is I was only comforting you back then and trying to help you back then for the sake of my own shame. Like I didn't like that I made you feel that way, I didn't like that you responded that way, but instead of changing, I just tried to help you cope with it. Which is wrong of me, I wasn't a very good spiritual leader back then. [Jennifer] Well we didn't know back then, where I feel like spiritually, we were so immature that we didn't know how to navigate this right. [Aaron] We didn't have much close fellowship back then. We've talked about that in past episodes. Which would have helped us see it sooner probably, if we had people closer to us, knowing us. Not just people but spiritually mature people. People who would challenge this area of our life. But again, we have to expose it and we have to tell people how we're struggling if we want that kind of correction. Yeah, and we kind of-- Which most people don't. [Aaron] Kept it to ourselves. [Jennifer] So I also remember anytime that you would say, "Hey we have to talk," my heart would drop, 'cause I'd be waiting for the bomb, the truth bomb of like, "I have to confess again." And I hated that feeling, and my heart also ached with anxiety every time I left you at home alone because I just knew. [Aaron] You knew it was gonna come when you got back, yeah. [Jennifer] And when I did come home, and you told me you messed up, like you said you would say, it just affirmed my distrust in you. [Aaron] Were you ever surprised? No. Yeah, 'cause you knew I was gonna, which is such an unfortunate thing to make my wife only know that about me. That I'm not a trustworthy person, that I have no integrity, and she's gonna feel small, and insignificant because of something I'm choosing to do. And I think the reason, no I don't think, the reason we are getting real with this stuff, is because these are the things that aren't said to us. And so we can easily minimize what we're doing. I minimized it a lot with you. I would just be like, "Well it was only for a little bit here, "I, it was, like, it was nothing, it was not a big deal." And like, all I ever tried to do when I was apologizing to you was minimize the shame and the guilt that I saw in your face. And I deeply regret that part of our marriage, and the things that I walked in, that I didn't believe the truth that I've seen and read in the Bible that I thought that was for other people, not myself. I believed I was still trapped by it, even though I was a believer. I believed that I was still trapped in my sin. I believed that it had power over me that it didn't actually have. And I let it into our marriage. And in the Bible it tells us to keep the marriage very pure, and I didn't. And so I thank God that He showed me these things and He was patient with me because half the time, you feel like, "Man I'm surprised God just didn't strike me down." 'Cause like He's sovereign, He's a good God, but He's a just God, and man I justly deserved not what I've been given. The patience, and the reconciliation, and a wife who remained with me when you probably had a good reason and a good right to leave me, for breaking our vows so many times. Because the next truth we wanna make everyone listening realize is that pornography's not just, like oh, this little sin that I did over here, and like it's not a big deal, it's not attached to anything. The Bible tells us clear that sexual sin is special. It does something different to us because it's against our own bodies, and especially in marriage when you and your wife are one. [Jennifer] I was gonna say, it's against your oneness. [Aaron] It's against your body. It's against my wife, and this is the truth bomb, pornography is adultery. It's adultery. I was a cheater on my wife. I broke her trust time and time again. I broke faithfulness with her, and that's the reality, and if anyone's, that's listening right now is walking in this and is telling themselves, "Well, it's only every once in awhile. "It's not that big of a deal. "I can stop anytime." Whatever we, words we use, we are committing adultery on our spouse, and we are not practicing righteousness, and we are not walking in light as He is in the light. And those are truths that we need to say out loud, and we need to recognize them for what they are. [Jennifer] I just wanna be honest, this episode has been so hard for me, and I just feel like I, there's things that I wanna share, and then I get this lump in my throat, and my eyes start watering. We've had to stop three times just to pause so I can breathe. But pornography hurts. Pornography kills, and it kills oneness, and unity in marriage, it kills trust, it kills love, it kills-- [Aaron] Faith. [Jennifer] Faith, and-- [Aaron] It severs our relationship with the Father. [Jennifer] Yeah, it severs our relationship between husband and wife. Like our relationship was crumbling because of this. And I just, I feel so emotional I think, even sitting here listening again to our story because I know we're not the only ones who have been hurt by the pain of pornography. There are so many husbands and wives, maybe them listening right now, have walked this, or experiencing it, or maybe just last night, they had that hard conversation where they're in tears over it because they want it gone so badly, and it just keeps coming, and keeps coming, and keeps coming and it's gonna keep coming-- Or if they're about to have the conversation-- The enemy-- Today. The enemy hates marriage. The enemy hates what we're doing, and it's going to keep coming because he knows that it will destroy what we have. [Aaron] And I wanna, your words are powerful, but I wanna remind us that our words are powerful. And you keep saying "Pornography, it's coming, it's coming," as if it's something coming at us, and this is one of the lies I believed, that pornography was something happening to me. And when something happens to us, it's out of our control. Pornography was not happening to me. Yes, the same issue kept coming up and we had to keep dealing with it, but, and I'm not correcting you, Jennifer, but I want the people listening to not take anything we say and say, "See? "There it is, it's coming at me." [Jennifer] No, and when I said it's coming, I mean the enemy is dangling that temptation in front of us because he knows our flesh is weak. And we have to be willing to stand strong against it. [Aaron] And so if we think it's something happening to us, we'll never walk strong. It's something I believed. I believed it was a outward force that I had no control over. But it is not. 'Cause if that was the case, then no one's free. And the things that the Bible tells us are lies. Our encouragement to those listening is to believe the truth. Proclaim the truth, so confession, which is saying what's going on. Saying what you're doing. What you are choosing to do, which is the key. Not coming like, "Oh, it happened again. "Oh, I messed up again. "Oh, "I slipped and fell into this thing again now." Confessing that you chose again to cheat on your spouse, that you chose again to walk in unfaithfulness with your God. That's true confession. And then repentance is to turn the other way. I am no longer gonna choose to walk in that. Because if it's something that we accidentally fall into, if it's something that happens to us, then there is no need to repent because you don't know if you're gonna slip. You're walking on this journey, and you're just gonna fall into the pit by accident, and that's just your destiny. But that's actually not true because that goes against everything Jesus came to do on the cross. He came to set us free from the bonds of sin and death. And the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that will bring life to our mortal bodies. That's what the Bible tells us. And in a little bit, we're gonna get through more scripture just so you listening can hear the truth about this. And I wanna bring up something, you said, Jennifer, that pornography hurts us, and it destroys us, and I wanna highlight one more truth, it was something that I never realized until I started walking in purity. And God was revealing to me who I was, and the things I was doing, is that pornography doesn't just hurt us, the ones consuming the pornography. We are literally condoning and cheering on, and paying for things that we would never condone, or cheer on, or pay for a Christian to do. And a lot of these men, women, whoever's in these videos or photos, many of them are forced into it. And even the ones that choose it, were literally saying, "Yeah, keep doin' that. "Keep doin' that." We're choosing to hold hands with someone to Hell, by the thing we are consuming. And if Christians would realize that, if I would have realized that earlier, would I have stopped? Maybe. If I woulda realized like, man, I'm actually like, partaking, participating in someone's journey, to a journey away from God. And it's easy for us to think like, well they're just things, it's just a video. Well no, those are people in those videos. Real people that are made in God's image. And I just hope that this is hitting home with those listening, I hope that people are hearing our hearts of concern and love, and are also being, having their eyes opened, and their hearts opened, and that true Godly repentance would come from this. [Jennifer] So I remember there was two pivotal moments in our marriage, that stand out to me. I think you'll know what I'm talking about, but they are pivotal because they helped you change in this area. And so I wanna share 'em so that those listening can be inspired by it and hopefully it, this, hopefully this moment right here becomes a pivotal moment for them. [Aaron] Amen, yeah. [Jennifer] So I remember it was just after we had Elliot, he was just a little baby, and I was sitting in a rocking chair midday, trying to rock him. And you were sitting at the desk in our bedroom, and you started telling me and confessing how you had-- -Again. [Jennifer] Messed up again. And normally, I mean, list an emotion, and I've expressed it. Tears, uncontrollably, like just all of it. Sadness-- All rightfully so, 'cause of what I've done to you. [Jennifer] But this time, I just sat pretty much gripping Elliot's little body, and patting his back, and my heart was just so burdened for you. And I remember-- It was actually your first time thinking about me in that way, because of what I was going through. [Jennifer] Yeah, yeah, like if tables were turned, yeah, putting myself in your shoes, but I just, I questioned you on your faithfulness to me. Because on the outside, we were Christians moving forward in our marriage and at this point, we actually had already been reconciled and determined to stay together. And you messed up again, and I questioned you on your faithfulness and I reminded you what scripture says about it being adultery, and I know you have already mentioned that today, but I remember just reminding you in this, in that moment that you were committing adultery against me. And I questioned how you would want our future to go, I questioned how you would want our son's future to go. [Aaron] I remember all this. You asked me if I actually feared God. You asked me if I actually loved God. You were challenging me at the core of what I was doing. Not just this one event, oh, I forgive you for the event, you told me like, you need to realize what you are doing Aaron. And I remember it was like, shocking. It was like oh my gosh. This is different first of all, 'cause usually I'm like looking forward to you, not looking forward to it, but I'm expecting an outburst, a reprimand-- A reprimand, yeah. [Aaron] "What, you did it again? "Don't you know how this makes me feel?" But you went from, you actually loved me, selflessly, 'cause even though you were totally hurt, you instead told me the truth in love. You said, "Aaron, you are committing adultery." And I think that was actually the first time I, we recognized that's what I was doing. I'm laughing 'cause I'm embarrassed. That was a pivotal moment, and that began actually, over the next few years, me walking in-- [Jennifer] The start of the true change. [Aaron] Like it, I did still have-- [Jennifer] A weakness. [Aaron] I still fell back into it, I don't wanna say fell back in it, I still chose it, but it was, it became much less, and much less, and then what the next event that happened was the straw that broke the camel's back. Like the, the like it was the thing like, so you opened my eyes to like, "Man, I have to change. "This is not okay what I'm doing." And then this next moment, I'm sitting in my car with our pastor and mentor, and he's, and we just had dinner and we were hangin' out, and he said, "Aaron, are you walkin' in purity?" And I said, "Well, no, recently I did this." 'Cause I wanna be honest, that I'm tryin' to walk in repentance and openness and light. And he says, "Well Aaron," he's like, "nothing's gonna change "until you believe the truth." He's like, "You need to believe the truth." And I said, "Well, what do you mean?" Because the way I talked was, oh, it happened to me again, I fell into, I stumbled into, oh, woe is me, like as if something was happening to me, so, 'cause I was still not thinking clearly about this even though you challenged me correctly. I still wasn't thinking clearly. And he said, "You are not a slave "to your addiction to pornography. "Pornography is not something that has control over you." Which I didn't believe when he was saying it, 'cause I believed it controlled me. And then he said, "And also, Aaron, "you need to admit and confess that you love your sin." He said, "You need to say it because you do." And I said, "I don't love it." And he's like, "Well, your actions are proving different. "You say with your mouth that you don't, "and then you say with your actions that you do." And it went right into my heart. And it was the first time in my life that I was able to say with my mouth out loud, that I actually loved pornography. And what that meant was is I actually was able to fully confess, 'cause before I was confessing about the fruit of my sin, not confessing the sin that I loved my lust. [Jennifer] Which if people are wondering, my response is I hate hearing it, I hate knowing it, I hate, I hate all of that, but I think it's necessary in order to overcome-- [Aaron] Well, a true confession is necessary, I had to be able to admit the truth, 'cause I was walking in lies. And the lies were keeping me in the darkness, and the lies were keeping me trapped, when the trap was my lies, it was, there was no trap. There was no chains, 'cause God broke those chains on the cross. And he's like, "You need to recognize that, "that that is the truth. "You have not stopped sinning because you love your sin." And so I, once he said it out loud and once I said it out loud, I realized, wait a minute, I don't want to love my sin. And so I confessed, "Lord, forgive me for my love of my sin, "and change me." And that was the last time. I think there was one other little time after that, that was, and I'm not trying to minimize, significantly different kind of sinning, but in the same area. And I confessed that out loud to Matt, and to you, and that was it. And it's been how many years now? [Jennifer] Five. [Aaron] Five. But those are the pivotal conversations, was you telling me the truth in love, and then another brother telling me the truth in love. Not, "Aw, sorry, yeah we all, we're all gonna struggle. "Let's just get back up, "and let's just try harder next time." But that's not, that is not what God's asking us to do. He's not asking us to try harder, He's asking us to walk in the truth. And the truth is, let's read some of these verses. The truth is, Galatians 5:1, "For freedom Christ has set us free; "stand firm therefore, "and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." And that's what I was doing, I kept submitting to a yoke of slavery that didn't exist. I was allowing a yoke to be put on me that didn't need to be there. So I'm free. That's what Christ came for, freedom. Would you read Romans 6:6? [Jennifer] "We know that our old self "was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin "might be brought to nothing, "so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin." [Aaron] Oh, so it's not that I have to try harder, I am not enslaved to sin. So I need to walk in the actual truth-- [Jennifer] Which is 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. "The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." [Aaron] So am I walking in this old self while pretending to be a new self? [Jennifer] Talk about a marriage fixing things. [Aaron] Yeah, and the marriage doesn't fix it, Christ has already fixed it. [Jennifer] No, the marriage of Christ, the being one. Oh, yeah, we're being one with the body of Christ, we're His bride, and it says that He's gonna come back to a pure white, and without blemish bride. That's who, that's what I'm a part of, that's who I am. That's who you are listening. [Jennifer] Yeah, how dare Him come back to a bride that's been-- [Aaron]Dancing in the mud, with her dress. [Jennifer] Sad. [Aaron] So those listening, your old self has been crucified. It's been crucified. Christ set us free on the cross. Ephesians 4:17 through 24, "Now this I say and testify in the Lord, "that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, "in the futility of their minds. "They are darkened in their understanding, "and alienated from the life of God "because of the ignorance that is in them," that was my life, I was walking as, He's telling Christians to not walk as Gentiles were, I was walking that way in my ignorance. "Alienated from the life of God "because of the ignorance that is in them, "due to their hardness of hearts. "They have become callous "and have given themselves up to sensuality, "greedy to practice every kind of impurity. "But this is not the way you learned Christ, "assuming that you have heard about him "and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, "to put off your old self," Aaron, put off your old self. "Which belongs to your former manner of life "and is corrupt through deceitful desires," I, that's crazy that it uses the word deceitful desires. They trick us, they're desires that are deceitful. "And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, "and to put on the new self, "created after the likeness of God "in true righteousness and holiness." So my trying harder is actually just putting on the new self. Christ's likeness. 1 John 2:1, "My little children, "I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. "But if anyone does sin, "we have an advocate with the Father, "Jesus Christ the righteous." What's awesome about that is when we're walking in righteousness, and we stumble because we've chosen to, or we haven't, we weren't walking in the, we weren't walking in the Spirit, but we were walking in the flesh, we have an advocate. But the things that we're reading right now have been written so that we won't sin. So that we will actually walk in the truth. 1 John 2:28 and 29, "And now, little children, "abide in him, so that when he appears "we may have confidence and not shrink from him "in shame at his coming. "If you know that he is righteous, "you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness "has been born of him." I love that it says practice first of all, 'cause that that means is that we are not yet righteous, but we are becoming righteous. And as we practice it, we get better at it. So am I practicing my sinful desires and getting better at those things, or am I practicing righteousness and getting worse at my sinful desires? And that was, that's my life now, is I'm getting worse at my sinful desires and I'm actually getting better at avoiding temptation, and knowing what temptation is, and being strong under the temptation, and fleeing from the temptation, and talking about the temptation. And now encouraging others to do the same. [Jennifer] So actually I was gonna mention that, how you walk in authority now and challenge other believers, and I can be confident that you're gonna walk our children through these things, that you can teach them, and I don't know, I just, I love that you have this authority that you can say, "I've overcome this, you can too." [Aaron] Which is amazing, because when we see other people overcome something, it makes it that much more believable that we can. And so you're listening to this, and if you're thinking, "Man, I can't do that." Stop believing the lies, you have been set free by Christ. You have the power of the Holy Spirit in you. You've been given everything that pertains to life and Godliness, just like I have. I'm not special, I haven't been giving, given something that you haven't been given, Jennifer hasn't been given something that you haven't been given. We have Christ in us. We have, we could put on the new self, created after the likeness of God. [Jennifer] Something that we mention in our book coming out, Marriage After God, is that Jesus didn't come back to kind of save you, He came back to save you. [Aaron] He came back to fully save us, today, when Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, He says, "Thy will be done on Earth, "as it is in Heaven." Which is cool because we can actually have His will on Earth, in our life. Now we haven't, our bodies are still gonna decay and we're gonna still see death, and these bodies are gonna fall apart because they're not yet redeemed. But you know what is fully redeemed? Our spirit. And He's renewing us day by day, and He's giving us a new mind, and new spirit, and He's, and through His word, and through walking in community, and through being, walking in light and truth, we can actually walk the way God has enabled us to walk. It tells us in Malachi, that He will write His laws on our hearts, on tablets of flesh. They're no longer on stones that can be broken, they're on hearts of flesh. His laws are written on our hearts, and not only has He showed us in our hearts how we can, how we should walk, but He's empowered us to do so through the power of His son and His spirit. I don't know, I hope that was vulnerable enough, and again, our prayer is that those listening, you, would not be freed from this addiction, and this struggle with sin, and pornography, but that you would recognize that you are free, and that you do not have to choose to be submitted to it. You don't have to choose it. You can choose actually to walk away, you could choose actually to turn the computer off, you can choose actually to put your phone down, you can choose to run away as fast as you can. We can choose that, and we are empowered to do so through the Holy Spirit. [Jennifer] So if this episode encourages them to go have a conversation, and there's confession and reconciliation, do you wanna share some things that we've learned over time that could help them? [Aaron] Yeah, I will say on my part, or for those that are going to do the confessing, and we talked about confession in one of our episodes, and they should go back and listen to that actually, don't minimize, meaning, well, it was just this, it wasn't as big as deal you think, it was only for a moment. Just say I did this. And then the second thing I would always try and do that I shouldn't do, was I tried to control your reaction. Please don't be mad, I know that I was wrong, please don't be sad, please don't be frustrated-- Or why are you crying. [Aaron] Or why are you crying. And so I, when I started walking in purity, I purposed that if I was gonna confess to you, I was just going to tell you what I did, when I did it, and then I was gonna be quiet. [Jennifer] And so on my part, I mean, as the person receiving the confession, something that I've learned is, well the first thing is, God created us with a lot of different range of emotions, but He created us with emotions. And so the first thing is acknowledging that you feel, and the second one is you're still called to have self-control in those feelings. And-- And you're allowed to have the feelings. And you're allowed to have those feelings, so you may cry, you may get angry, you may get all of the things, but you still are required to have self-control in them, and that doesn't mean that you just shut it off and you don't express those emotions, it just means that you don't sin in your emotions. And so I just wanted to share that as the counterpart to what you-- [Aaron] And on the person receiving the confession, the other spouse, your job is to not just love your spouse, but to speak truth in love. Like you did that day. You very calmly and lovingly said, "You are walking a very dangerous line. "You are committing adultery, "and you are harming our marriage, "and what you're doing will destroy us. "And you must change." [Jennifer] And then the biggest thing after all of that, is reconciliation. It should always be for the purpose of reconciliation and we hope that it's for reconciliation in your guy's marriages. [Aaron] And reconciliation can happen even though trust is still broken. Because the reconciliation is knowing that hey, we are still one, but we are going to work on this trust thing. Because you have hurt me and we're gonna walk it out together, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna avoid being healed, but it's going to take time and that's gotta be okay. Because it's not like a switch that gets flipped. There's been unfaithfulness, there's been brokenness, there's been sin, and there's consequences to that sin. But as a team, you walk towards healing and restoration, on both parties, and you do that by prayer, you do that by fasting, you do that by walking faithfully-- [Jennifer] And abiding in the word of God. [Aaron] And abiding in the word of God, and you also do that in community. You don't do it alone. If you're a brother dealing with this, you find other brothers that are gonna say, "Dude, stop it." That have authority in your life because they walk in purity also. If you're the wife, you find girls that are gonna be like, "You can't do this. "You need to walk in purity." And the goal is oneness, unity, healing, righteousness, holiness for the purpose that we always go back to is that God has a job for our marriages. He's got a ministry for us to do, and we will not be able to do it if we're stuck in sin. [Jennifer] Yeah, we need to be pure, and we need to present His bride, pure. [Aaron] And that's what we get to do, we get to purify ourselves, we get to practice righteousness, and we get to chase after God every day, and I just pray that this brings freedom today. I pray that hundreds, thousands of couples today would find not just healing, but realize the freedom that they have. And that they would be the ones that people look at and say, "I didn't know you could walk in freedom like that." And then they'll say, "Actually, this is what the Bible says." And they'll be able to help other Christians walk that way as well. [Jennifer] What an incredible ripple effect for the body of Christ. Oh yeah. [Jennifer] Well thank you guys so much for joining us on this episode. It was, it was vulnerable, and I appreciate you sharing, Aaron. And I can see that there's probably gonna be a lot of questions, probably come up from this. Probably. [Jennifer] And we might have to do another episode, but that's okay. But we do wanna invite you guys to pray with us, and close out the episode with this prayer from Aaron. [Aaron] Dear Lord, thank You for Your loving patience and kindness towards us. Thank You for Your mercy and forgiveness. Lord, I pray as Christian men and women we would practice walking in righteousness. I pray we would pursue purity, as You are pure. I pray that as Christian men and women who proclaim You to be Lord in our life, that we would not walk in this sin anymore. Change us, transform us, and cut out any dead flesh and wicked way that is in us. Help us to fear You and love You. Help us to see the truth about pornography, that it is destructive, sinful, immoral, and that it is adultery. Your word tells us that there should not even be a hint of sexual morality named among us as Christians. Help us to live with integrity, help us to be transparent and honest in marriage, help us to choose reconciliation over isolation in marriage. We are Your saints, and I pray we would walk in a manner worthy of Your call in our lives. In Jesus name, Amen. Thanks for joining us this week, and we look forward to what the Lord's gonna do in your life. And the testimonies that are gonna come from the truth that people heard today. [Jennifer] We'll see ya next week. [Aaron] Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Aaron Watkins was just 18 years-old when he vanished from New Jersey on November 11, 2007. Aaron had a tough childhood going from a home with his mother and siblings into foster care and eventually being adopted by a very strict, religious family. Before he disappeared, he was struggling to figure out where he fit in this world and who he belonged with. On November 11, 2007, he made a series of phone calls to those close to him and then the Jeep he was driving was found abandoned on the Driscoll Bridge. What happened to Aaron? Did he jump that day? Did take off and start over somewhere else? Did someone make his disappearance look like a suicide?

My guest this week is professional audio engineer Ryan Monette. Ryan graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Music Production & Engineering. For the last 4.5 years he's been the Post-Production Audio Engineer on staff at Elevation Church, in Charlotte, NC, where he mixes their global TV show, and has many other responsibilities (boom operator, field recorder, sound designer, audio editor, etc.). You may have heard some of his work, as he sound-designed and mixed the opener video for the Circles conference for the past two years. He even had his own podcast for a short while (TheQueuecast.com). I asked Ryan to come on the show to share his journey towards becoming a professional audio engineer (a job that I've always wanted), and to get him to share some tips for anyone interested in working in audio/video professionally. Highlights, Takeaways & Quick Wins: Think long term and dream big. If you want to do anything with audio, start by getting a cheap USB microphone. Take advantage of free online courses to learn more about audio engineering. Get started with whatever you have. Your mix may sound completely different in a different environment, so listen with different headphones/speakers in different locations. Master the basics and keep going back to them. If you're mixing a podcast, make sure your levels are consistent. When mixing, always use a reference track. Show Notes Aaron: You graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in music production and engineering. For the last five years, you've been the post production audio engineer for Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. You have a lot of jobs there: boom operator, field recorder, sound designer, audio editor, and you mix their global TV show. Do you mix that live? Ryan: Not necessarily. We can get into that later. There's a process for that. Aaron: Some of the creative people here might have heard of some of your work. You sound designed and mixed the opening videos for the past two years of Circles Conference, which I was at. Have you been there for the past two years? Ryan: I haven't been personally, no. I have wanted to go. I love it from afar, and I want to go in person. Aaron: I wanted you to come on this show because when I first got started, I had dreams of being a professional audio engineer. I thought, “How cool would it be to work in audio and get paid for it? That'd be awesome!” I fell backwards into it by doing podcast editing as a hobby first, then for money, then I met Sean McCabe and ended up working for him full time. I edit podcasts and help out with a ton of other stuff. I asked you to come on the show to share your advice for anyone who's interested in working in audio/video professionally, and to talk about how you got there yourself. So tell me a little bit about how you got into audio. When did you first realize that this was something you wanted to do? Ryan's Journey to Becoming a Professional Audio Engineer Ryan: I love listening to your podcast, Aaron, and what I love about it is I feel like you and I have a lot of similarities in our backgrounds. You're a musician, a drummer, and I'm also a musician. I play several things. My primary instrument is bass, but along with that, I started on piano. I picked up bass, and with the bass I picked up guitar. I took some drum lessons here and there as well. I sing as well. I dabbled in a little bit of everything. I'm kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. I'm okay at a lot of things, but I'm not superb at one thing. Anyway, right around junior high or high school, I started playing the bass. I started playing in little bands here and there. When it came time for college, I had no clue what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I loved music. Aaron: Same here! Ryan: I was living in Las Vegas at the time, so I decided, well, everyone has to have that college experience, and I didn't want to go to college in the same city, so I decided that I needed that “being away from home” experience. I went to the University of Nevada, Reno. I took your basic, general classes, not knowing what I wanted to do. At this time, for my high school graduation, I had received a graduation present of a Macbook Pro. With that, of course, you get the wonderful iLife suite, including Garageband. As a musician, a whole new world was opened up to me. When I was in a band in high school, I was the gear head—I loved the PA and putting cables together. I was drawn to that. Once I had this Macbook Pro with Garageband and I had my bass and my guitar in my dorm, I was like, “I can create music!” I figured out how to work it and record myself. I bought a USB microphone, and that world was opened up. When I was there, I had a friend, and her brother went to this school where all they learned about was music. I was like, “Wait, you can do that? You can go to school for just music?” That's how I found out about Berklee School of Music. I applied, and you have to audition as well. I applied and auditioned, and the first time I tried, I actually didn't get into the music school I wanted to go to. Aaron: This sparks something in my mind. I feel like I might have read an article about Berklee or looked into it and thought, “No, they're really strict on who they accept, based on your performance.” That was intimidating to me at the time, because I never felt like I was that good of a drummer. Ryan: It was intimidating for me, too. Clearly, I wasn't up to par. Aaron: Yet you went for it. That's more than a lot of people would do. Ryan: Yeah. After I finished my first year at UNR, I moved back to Vegas and went to UNLV, the University of Nevada Las Vegas. I took all music classes, forgetting the general ed stuff you need to get a degree. I took all music classes—music theory, because I had never had actual music theory classes, so I thought I needed that. With that, there were some audio classes that I took as well. I was like, “Hey, I like this audio thing.” At the University of Nevada Las Vegas, I had my first exposure to a formal audio class, where I learned all the proper techniques. Later on that year, I applied and auditioned again for Berklee. I got accepted, and the next year, I moved to Boston and went to Berklee for about three and a half years. Then I graduated. When I went to Berklee, the only thing that drew me as a major was Music Production and Engineering. I naturally loved the gear side of things. I fell in love with recording. I was like, “This is what I want to do.” Aaron: You got to spend three and a half years there, studying and learning? Ryan: It is non-stop, 24/7, music, audio, and to be honest, I miss being in that environment so much. Aaron: That sounds fantastic. I always love setting aside time to take online classes, read books, and listen to interviews about audio. Think Long-Term Aaron: You were drawn to the audio engineering stuff, and then you graduated. Ryan: I can remember a specific time in my life, and I'm pretty sure it was my last semester at Berklee. They went by semesters instead of years. It was in one of my capstone classes. Our instructor asked us the typical, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” question. Aaron: I love that question now. I hated it when I was 22. ** Think long term and dream big** Aaron: Plan out where you want to be, because if you can envision it, then you can figure out how to get there. But you have to start by saying, “I want to do this thing someday.” For me, it was, “I want to do work from a laptop. How do I get there?” Now I'm there. So you were 22 and someone asked you, “Ryan, where do you want to be? Where do you see yourself in five years?” Ryan: At that moment, I was trying to figure that out, naturally, as you do when you're approaching the end of college. While I was at Berklee, I loved music. I loved recording music, but my absolute favorite class—they only had one of them, but it was the class I yearned for, that I wanted to take and put in all these extra hours for—was audio for visual media, audio for video. By far, that was my favorite class. The whole class, we were working toward our final project. You choose a five to seven minute clip from a well known movie, and all the audio is completely stripped. You have to recreate everything. That's all the dialogue, all the foley, all the ambient background, all the hard effects, and so on. You have to connect with a film scoring student there at Berklee, and they have to provide the score. I absolutely loved every aspect of that project and the process. When it came time to decide what I wanted to do with my life, it was between audio engineering at a recording studio, working at Disney as an Imagineer, or doing audio at a church. I have always been involved with church, playing on worship teams and whatnot, so I also saw myself doing audio for a church. Long story short, I was really privileged to dip my feet in all of those things after college. After I graduated, I moved back to Las Vegas. Eventually, I found an incredible recording studio, probably one of the top two recording studios in Las Vegas, and I landed an internship. First Audio Engineering Jobs Ryan: I say “internship” loosely, because your typical studio internship is all the stereotypical grunt work—taking out the trash, doing the coffee, and whatnot. I showed up, and they were like, “You went to Berklee? Berklee guys are cool. Here, hop in this session and help us out.” It was open to me, thrown at me, and next thing I knew, I was assisting on sessions with huge clients, I won't name drop. Aaron: You can drop a couple of names if you want. Ryan: I had a pretty fun time helping out with a session with the famous engineer Eddie Kramer, who is engineering for Carlos Santana. Aaron: Dang, man! That's awesome. Ryan: That was pretty incredible. But while I was there, I had this gut feeling inside of me saying, “This isn't it.” Aaron: It's fine, but it's not quite right? Ryan: I could see myself staying there and working my way up, but it didn't feel right. A few months after I realized that I didn't want to stay at the studio, I applied and was offered a job at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I packed my bags, moved to Orlando, and I was working as a stage technician at the Epcot park. There, they found out that I was an audio guy, so they pushed me toward the live audio side of things. I was mixing shows and bands at Epcot and what was at the time Downtown Disney, now Disney Springs, area. Same thing. Almost as soon as I got there, the same gut feeling came in. I was like, “This isn't it. I'm more of a studio engineer. I definitely don't want to do live stuff.” Although I love Disney, it just wasn't sitting right. I was only there three months before the next great opportunity came up, which is where I am right now. One of my friends told me about a job opening for this church in Charlotte, North Carolina, Elevation Church. I had actually been following them because of their podcast. At the time, I was kind of like, “I've got a job, whatever.” For some reason, I ended up on their website, looking at the job. I was reading, and I was like, “Wait a minute, they're looking for someone to do audio for video. That's what I really want to do!” On a whim, I threw out my resume. Next thing you know, I've been here going on five years. Aaron: Did you mention that you were a podcast listener when you sent in your resume? Ryan: Yeah. Aaron: The connections you can make through podcasting is really incredible. Ryan: It is. And I've been working there for 5 years now. How to Get Into Audio Engineering Aaron: I want to jump into what you do at your job at Elevation, but let's pause and do a section on what advice you would tell someone who's wanting to get started. I wrote a couple of things down here. I think it's hilarious that you got a Macbook and your first microphone was a USB microphone. Ryan: Which was the Blue Snowball, by the way. Aaron: That's the worst microphone! Ryan: I had no idea how to use it, either. If I find some of the earliest recordings I did, there are times I'm clipping to the max, square waves. Aaron: Probably bad mic technique, too. But hey; it got you started! If you want to do anything with audio, start by getting a cheap USB microphone. Any USB mics will work for getting started. I like the Blue Yeti, but it's like $100. The ATR-2100 is fine, too. You just have to get something that can record some audio and start playing with it. Start playing with Garageband. Start playing with the free programs. Learn how to enable recording on a track, how to set your input device to the microphone, how to set your output device to wherever your headphones are plugged into, whether that's your mic or your computer. It took me so long to figure that stuff out. I was like, “Why can't I hear the audio in my headphones? What is going on?” Ryan: Same here. Aaron: You have to set input and output, then you have to record enable or do the input monitoring, all that stuff. But start with the USB microphone. Take some basic classes. There are so many great online classes. If you don't have any money at all, if you're super broke like I was when I started, watch some free YouTube videos. Read a book. Ryan: If you go to Coursera.org, they're a website where you can pay to take online courses and get certifications and whatnot, but they also offer free online courses. They even offer free online courses from Berklee. I've seen a music production class there. I've taken a free online song writing class. Check out free online courses, because they can be a pool of incredible knowledge. I took a photography class on there. Coursera is a great place. They're great if you want to take free online courses. Aaron: There are places where you can learn all this stuff. You just have to invest some time. You really just have to start: Don't wait until you have $500 for an interface and $200 for some professional headphones and microphone. Whether you want to start a podcast, start recording audio for a video, or record and mix a demo for a band, start doing something. Stop spending all your time thinking about how you can't do anything because you don't have certain gear or you're not in the right place. You'll learn as you do, especially in audio. You're going to make a ton of mistakes. Ryan: That's how you learn, though! That's one of the most valuable things I've learned in life. You learn from your mistakes. Aaron: You don't really learn when everything goes well. Just Start Aaron: Any other advice you would give somebody, thinking back on how you got to where you are right now? Ryan: Honestly, you hit the nail on the head with “just start.” It's as simple and cliche as Nike, “Just do it.” There is always going to be the next latest craze, the gear, and we've all been susceptible to that. We say, “Oh, well, I could do this if I had X.” It starts with the drive and determination, wanting to do it. There's knowledge out there everywhere. You just have to dig for it. Chances are, you have at least something you can start with. Record something on your phone. Aaron: I have a friend who makes some awesome music on his iPhone. Ryan: Oh, totally. It's as simple as getting an adapter. You can plug your guitar or whatever into your phone. Aaron: Kids these days have it so easy! Ryan: You have Garageband on your phone. I remember when I was figuring this out in high school, and we actually had a four track tape recorder. That was my first start. Get started with whatever you have. Aaron: What kind of stuff do you do at the church? What's your day to day life like? Are you there every day, or is it just a couple of days a week? Ryan: Oh no, I'm definitely there every day. It has been a whirlwind for sure. In the past five years, I have probably played every audio role that there is to be played here. My main thing now is audio for broadcasts, pretty much anything that leaves the church. Our biggest output is the sermon, which goes to a lot of places. It also goes in the TV episode, which we talked about, which goes locally, nationally, and, I believe, globally as well. That's a lot of what I've done. We also create a lot of films, short films, for our worship experiences, anything you can imagine that's video and audio related. Audio post production, like we talk about. I'm constantly on video shoots using field recorders, the boom op, anything you can think of. Audio for video, I've done it. The Gear Ryan Uses Aaron: Let's talk about your gear a little bit. What kind of stuff are you using most in everyday life? I'll do a quick recap: I have the Shure Beta 87A Mic as my main podcasting microphone. It's attached to a Scarlett 18i20 USB Interface (update: I'm now using my Zoom H6 exclusively), which is plugged into a quadcore iMac that's a couple years old. Nothing super fancy, but I'm really happy with where I am. I remember wanting all this stuff back in 2011, thinking how awesome it would be to have it. I have a Zoom H6 portable recorder and a couple of SM58 microphones. I've been pairing down my gear collection because I'm planning on moving in the spring. What kind of stuff are you working with? I use Logic Pro X for editing, and then Izotope iZotope RX 5 for cleaning up background noise or fixing clipping. What about you? What's your day to day favorite gear? Ryan: We use a lot. There's a bunch of gear for field recording and then in my office, which is where I'm at right now. I'll start with my office. Right now, I'm talking into my personal mic, which is a Rode NT1A. It's very affordable. The Rode NT1A is a nice beginner mic which works and sounds great, and I use it for a lot of voiceover projects. Aaron: I like those mics. Ryan: I'm talking into that right now. We also use the Shure SM7B. We have a nice Neumann that we'll use for bigger projects. We like to use Universal Audio Interfaces, so I've got one of those. They're great. They're rock solid. You really can't beat them. At our main recording/editing audio work station, we use Pro Tools. That's very standard, and I've been using that for years and years. I use a lot of plugins. I use a lot of the Waves Plugins. I do use RX as well, and that's the bulk of it. I do a lot of processing, depending on the project. I have a really huge sound library for if I'm doing narrative pieces that involve sound design, sound effects. I have a great app called Audio Finder, which a lot of electronic musicians use to help them find sounds. I use it to help me find sounds. It's a nice way to catalogue sounds if you're a sound designer or anything like that. You can basically tag all these audio files with meta data, and you can search for sounds by their title. Or, if you type in a word in the search bar, it can pull up things based off the the metadata. If you have notes on something, it can find it. Audio Finder is a great way to find sounds. I have some other things in here. I have the Artist Mix Controller made by Avid. I use those if I'm automating stuff. I use those a lot, actually, when I'm mixing the sermons. I do a lot of automation for that. If I'm mixing a piece with a music bed or something, I like to automate the music by hand. It feels more natural, as opposed to clicking and making little dots. That's the bulk of it here in the office. All of our audio engineers have a nice pair of Focal monitors. I also have another set of monitors I built myself. When I mix TV episodes, I have an output routed to a TV here in my office so I can hear how it translates on TV speakers. Recording Audio for Video Ryan: On the front end of things, if we're doing shoots for videos, we use Sound Devices field recorders. We have three different models: the Sound Devices 788T 8 Channel Recorder, a 702 2 Channel Recorder, and then a 633 6 Channel Recorder. That last one is one of their newer models, which is great. Sound Devices are steep in price, but they are rock solid. One of the most trustworthy, well known field recorder brands on the market. That's what you'll see on pretty much every big budget shoot in some way. I do a lot of freelance on the side, which gives me the opportunity EPK shoots or BTS shoots for, recently, a show on HBO called Outcast. Aaron: Outcast? I've been seeing that (I watch Westworld). Ryan: I'm pretty sure it's the same writers or producers or something. I know it's the same writer as The Walking Dead. They shoot here in North Carolina, so with a local production company, we've done some interviews with some of the cast and crew. It's been really neat to be on set and see what they're using. It's cool to see how similar their world is to what we're doing day to day, just with more money and more resources. It's the same thing. Most of their audio guys have some sort of Sound Devices. A lot of them use the 788 as a backup recording rig, and they've got larger multitrack recorders as well, that are also made by Sound Devices. Sound Devices is a great brand. They're crazy expensive, but when you buy that, you know you've basically got it for life. Aaron: Yeah, I'm looking at the Sound Devices 788T SSD 8 Channel Portable Solid State Audio Recorder. It's almost $7,000. I love that! So fancy. Ryan: That SSD does have an internal hard drive. Ours has a hard drive as well, so it's great, because it has the internal hard drive, but you can also use CF cards. You can record on two different mediums. In case something runs out of space, you have it in two places. Aaron: This is super professional stuff. Ryan: Yeah. It is. It's top of the line. Aaron: Fantastic. For all the rest of you, just go with the Zoom H4N or the H6. Ryan: Hey, we do have a Zoom H4N, and we do use that every now and then. Before I came on staff, our first field recorder was the Zoom H4N. Aaron: If I could start over and go back to before I had any kind of interface at all, I think I would buy myself an H4N or an H6. Not only are they portable field recorders so you can walk around with them—they have little stereo condensor mics on them—but they work as audio interfaces, too. You can plug it into your computer with a USB cable and record straight to your computer if you do any kind of podcasting or stuff like that. It's good for the price. Otherwise, the little two channel interfaces are great. They're about $100 for a good one, but they aren't portable. You can't take them to a show or out to a video shoot the way you can an H4N or an H6 or something. Ryan: Speaking of Zoom, they've recently come into the more professional field recording market. About a year ago, they releases the F8, I believe, which is an 8 channel field recorder with 8 mic pres. It's $999 for something very comparable to a Sound Device. It's not quite as high-fidelity, but for anyone starting out, you're really not going to notice the difference. Mixing On Expensive Headphones or Monitors Aaron: I was going to ask you this earlier. You mentioned that you had Focal monitors. Did you listen to the episode I did a few episodes back where I talked about mixing on headphones (Episode 69: Do You Need Expensive Headphones to Mix a Podcast?)? Ryan: Yes, I did. Aaron: I mix on $10 Panasonics. What do you think about that? You can be totally honest with me. You can tell me that it's a stupid idea or that it's okay. Ryan: I agree to a certain extent. I agree that you should be listening to what you're making on whatever the majority of people are going to be listening to it on. For a lot of audio engineers mixing music, that's iPod earbuds, those standard earbuds you get. Something like that. When I mix TV, I have an output routed to a TV in my office, so I can hear it on TV speakers. I do also believe in mixing on something with some sort of higher fidelity type of monitoring environment, whether that's nicer speakers or nicer headphones. Naturally, you're going to hear things differently. The main thing to take away is how things translate. If you're listening to something on one source and you make it sound good there, that's great, but in a different environment, it may sound completely different. iPhone earbuds may not have the bass that a car stereo has. You want to hear how it translates from one thing to another. That's why it's good to at least listen to it on two different sources and not just narrow yourself down to one cruddy thing. That's good in theory, but again, the key takeaway is translation. Aaron: Maybe it's a little bit different for me and I can get away with it because of the consistency of the microphones and the recording environment set we use. Ryan: Yeah, totally. Aaron: I think if I was doing more stuff like you are, with videos and clients and all that kind of stuff, I would absolutely be using my higher fidelity headphones. Ryan: Very true. The bulk of your work is dialogue, podcasts. Aaron: Yeah, that's really it. Just dudes talking into a microphone. Ryan: Yeah. I have done a lot of work here where I'm working in a small studio, but a lot of my mixes have played in auditoriums and arenas. If you're working on projects like music or film that have different audio frequencies and spectrums, remember that sound will be perceived differently in different places. Aaron: How do you even test for that? Ryan: Here, I at least have a sense of how our auditorium sounds, so I've trained my ear to hear in advance and understand how it's going to translate. For something like when we did a live recording in the biggest arena here in Charlotte, we had a video opener piece. I was on point for mixing that, so basically, I had to work with tech and production to find a time after setup where I can bring my session, copy it onto a laptop, and play it through the PA. Then I can make any final mix tweaks there in the auditorium or the arena. I perfected it in my studio, and any small tweaks I was able to do in that actual environment. Granted, a lot of the times, we may not have that luxury. There are also great plugins you can buy that simulate different monitoring environments, like Sonarworks. If you have certain pairs of headphones, you can tell the program, “I have these headphones, now make my mix sound like it's coming through these headphones or these speakers,” so you can hear how it might translate. In that program, they have a final output like the Beats headphones. You can hear how it might sound on there, super bass heavy. Aaron: I hear they're getting better, but I still have never bought any Beats headphones. I probably should (just for testing purposes). Ryan: There are definitely programs out there to help you see how things translate to different monitors. On Location Gear Ryan: We were talking about the gear we use for on location recording. Sound Devices would be our main recorders. For our mics, we use Schoeps. It's a shotgun microphone, so it's a narrow polar pattern with good off axis rejection. Schoeps is a great brand. Again, you'll see this on professional movie sets. That's the mic we use. We have some Sennheiser shotguns as well, the ME66, we have a couple of those, which is more their entry shotgun mics. Recently, I rented some of the MKH416. Aaron: I would like one of those. The Sennheiser 416 is well known as the classic TV shotgun mic, right? Ryan: Exactly. I rented those out because I wanted to try it out for that reason. The Schoeps is very good and very well known on set as well, but so is the 416. I rented it to try it out. It's a trusted mic that a lot of people use for these professional things, and it doesn't really break the bank for what it is. Aaron: They're like $1,000, I think. Ryan: Yeah, and it sounded great. Aaron: The next mic I get is either going to be that or the Rode NTG 3. Ryan: I've heard a lot of great things about that. I haven't tried one myself. Aaron: That's the shotgun mics we shot my podcasting courses with. Ryan: Yeah, I know that Sean uses that for all of his videos. Aaron: I'm excited about getting to go work with those (I'm moving to San Antonio in March or April). Master the Basics Aaron: That's a pretty good run through of your gear. I'm sure you could keep going and discuss a lot more, but I don't think we need to go into that. It seems like you guys are at a super professional, high quality. You have made big investments in professional gear, which is fantastic. I encourage everyone to strive for that, to aim for that, but like we said earlier, use what you have right now. I don't have anything close to what you guys have, but I'm still doing my podcast. I'm doing the best I can with what I have. Ryan: It still sounds great. Aaron: Thanks! It's mostly just knowing how to set gain levels and not having a noisy room. It's crazy how far the basics will get you— everything else is just icing on the cake. I've been watching this video course called Zen and the Art of Work, which I really recommend to everybody. It's mindfulness training mixed with productivity training, which is such a great combination. In this course, he says, “So many of the masters continually revisit the basics.” Mastery is staying on a path. It's not reaching some final goal, it's more about being with the work and investing in getting better, but also revisiting the basics. He was talking about playing piano. He was like, “A lot of times, I just start by touching the keys, pressing the keys, and then doing basic scales over and over again.” It's true. When you get so good at the basics that you don't have to think about it, that's when you start to expand and get to that level where people say, “Wow, you're so good at that. How did you get so good?” You're like, “That was just doing the basics. It's not anything fancy.” It's so important to master the basics and keep going back to them. Learning More Aaron: What's next for you? How do you invest in yourself and improve? Or are you working so much that you always have more learning opportunities? Do you buy books or courses or follow any websites to learn more about this audio stuff? Ryan: Honestly? We had a shift at work to where my role has shifted to mainly just broadcasts. That has enabled me to have a little bit more flexibility and free time, so I've been doing a lot more freelance work. That's great, because it energizes me and keeps me engaged. It keeps me from routine. Routine is great. I love routine, that's very much my personality, but freelance work keeps things interesting. For me, it's all about where and how I can get inspired and constantly feeding that. It's about feeding my desire for creativity. We're all creatives. We like to create. We were designed to be creators, really. Everything I try to do is about how I can become a better creator and what I can create next. It's about finding things that inspire me, really. We touched lightly on a few of the resources that I like, things I've learned and places I've picked things up. If you're interested in audio for post production, there are a couple of great books by Ric Viers. I have two books by him that are really great. The first one is The Sound Effects Bible, and it's not just sound effects in there. He talks about everything from gear to microphones, basics, setting proper gains, compression, some mixing techniques, etc. He also has The Location Sound Bible. There are a lot of similarities, but there's also a lot of talk about gear, shotgun mics, lop mics, recorders, and then he also dives into some of the basics when it comes to mixing, proper gain staging, and so on. Those are a really great pool of knowledge in book form. There are a lot of other books out there, but I have found those two to be really helpful. Other than that, when it comes to audio for video, it's a very small, niche field. There isn't a crazy amount of stuff out there, like there might be for mixing music. For that, you've got tons. You've got Pensado's Place, all these people on YouTube putting out channels on mixing, mixing from home, mixing on a budget, etc. There's plenty of that. Aaron: Graham Cochrane and Joe Gilder are pretty awesome resources for anyone who wants to start a home studio. Ryan: YouTube can be a pool of knowledge for anything and everything, too. You have to dig a little bit and do some searching. On the inspiration side, for me, since I love audio for video, Sound Works Collection is a great place. They'll do mini videos interviewing the sound people that did sound for X movie. Whether it was the last Harry Potter or anything and everything, big budget films, they'll sit down with the recording people, the sound designers, the mixers… It's really cool, because they'll show footage of them doing stuff on location or the foley artists. It's cool to see their process. For me, that helps me stay inspired. It gives me ideas to do other things. They have a podcast as well, and that's great. The videos can be kind of short, maybe 10 minutes or so, but the podcast will go on at length, talking to the audio guys who have made sound for videos possible. It will also be music composers for movies as well. That's really great. I found that great not only as inspiration, but to know what and how audio professionals for big budget films get inside their minds, how they're thinking, and what their process looks like. It's neat to see stuff about sound engineers for big movies and realize that we're not so different. Dealing With a Broad Loudness Spectrum (Dynamics) Aaron: I have a nerdy question here. This is about normalizing and compression, I think. Aiya had asked, “I'm so torn about normalizing sound clips. If I'm working on a longer project in segments, would it be better to adjust my peaks manually for the sake of consistency? It's for a video project.” I'm hearing that there are differences in video volumes. How do you deal with that? Do you do compression? Do you do automation for the different parts? How do you deal with dynamics? Ryan: It depends on the project. I'll talk about how I would mix a sermon, because that's very dynamic. Our pastor will go from whispering, holding his handheld mic close to his stomach, to screaming, holding the microphone, cupping the capsule. Power and respect to him, because it creates a certain atmosphere, which has a powerful effect. That's what I'm dealing with on a weekly basis. That dynamic range is tremendous. Keep in mind, this is going to TV eventually. TV has very strict restrictions. It's not so much on level, but on perceived level. There's a difference between what you see meter and what you're hearing. I can talk at length about that, too. Aaron: Could you give us a super short version? I'm kind of aware of that, but since I just mix in Logic, I'm not sure how to measure it. Is there a way to measure it in Logic? Do you know? Is there a plugin you use? Ryan: I use a plugin from Waves. It's a loudness meter, and its just that. It has a lot of presets, so I'll use the TV standard preset. I'll use it for ATSE85, and I'll use it for a dialogue bus. They've also got one for a master bus. The standard right there is your average level around -24 dB LUFS, so that's full scale. If you have a classic meters, your peak would be zero, so that would average metering right around -10. At least for TV, I've got a hard limiter at -10 dB, to where nothing can go above that. The difference between levels on a meter vs. perceived loudness is the differences between what we hear and the actual energy. In our TV program, we'll have the sermon, but we'll also have a talking heads segments, which is dialogue and a music bed. We'll also go into segments where they'll go into worship from our live album, which had been mixed and mastered as an album. That thing is slammed. If you look at the wave form, it's a sausage. If I'm setting all that by the meters alone and they're all hitting -10, it may look right, but if I look at my loudness meter, that worship segment is going to be off the charts. There's so much more content in there. There's so much going on with all the different frequency ranges as opposed to a dialogue track, which is a narrow field in the frequency spectrum. That's the gist of it. When it comes to my technique for controlling dynamics, for something like mixing a sermon, if I'm going down my plugin chain, the first thing I naturally have is a high pass filter. I'm rolling off those unnecessary lows that are hogging energy. The next thing I'll do is use a compressor, and I'll set the attack to right in the middle, so not fast or slow, and I'll have the release time at fast. We don't want to hear it pumping, letting go. That's catching my peaks. It's not doing a crazy amount, but it kind of is. That's helping do a lot of the bulk compression. Before anything really hits the compressor, I will go through, and as I work my way through the mix, I will clip gain the wave form, so that, say, if he's whispering somewhere, I might keep that, depending on how I have my compressor set. Then, if we go up to a part where he's screaming and my wave form is huge, I will take that down and create those nodes, those dots in the wave form, and drag the actual clip volume down, that gain down. That way, it's not going into the compressor at this high gain level. It's hitting the compressor evenly as the rest of it would. That way, it's not driving the compressor crazy. Then I'll go through and do some EQ and DSing and whatnot. I might add some more compressors in there, just to grab some of those little things coming through. After that, it's subtle, just smoothing it out. Aaron: It is a little bit of both. If she has access to an audio editing program—I don't know what she's using for editing. If you can put a compressor on the track, do that. It's not exactly the same, but I did a YouTube video about how I process podcast vocals, and it's very similar. For podcast vocals, I start with a Logic noise removal plugin. Ryan: I actually have my noise suppressor, and I'll use that later on down in my signal chain. My way of thinking is that if I've got all this compression going on, the compression is narrowing that dynamic range, so it's bringing up that noise floor. I tend to do my noise suppression after the bulk of that compression, because the noise floor is higher and it's easier to work on a supressor. If that makes sense. Aaron: I've thought a lot about whether you should do the noise removal before or after you add a bunch of gain with a compressor or something, and I can't think of a good reason that it matters. You can take out the noise before you add a bunch of gain, or you can add a bunch of gain and take out the noise afterwards. Which is better? I don't know. Anyways, after the noise removal plugin, I put an EQ with a high pass filter, a peak compressor, an RMS or an average level compressor, and then a limiter. Ryan: Like I mentioned earlier, before I had my long-winded answer, it also depends on what it is you're mixing—whether it's music, or a podcast, or something for film. When it comes to dialogue for film, you want it to sound as natural as possible, but you also want to be able to hear if someone is whispering. When it comes to that, I'll still use a compressor, but it will be very, very light. If there's anything I need to do to meet loudness, that I will automate the volume on my dialogue bus. I'll bring that up. That way, it sounds a little bit more natural, instead of solely relying on a compressor to do all the work for you. Aaron: That makes sense. For podcasts, if I notice that there's a section where someone was talking much quieter, like if a guest backed away and talked like that for four or five minutes and then went back to the normal distance from the microphone, in Logic, I'll turn that into its own clip. I make a cut on either side of the quiet part, and then, in Logic, you can double click on it and change gain by hitting Control G. Then you can add 3, 4, or 5 dB to it. That works out pretty well. If it's every five seconds or I have to do it more than five or six times in an episode, I won't do the clip gain changes, I'll just use a compressor. Look at the overall audio file and see if there are long stretches where you can use automation to change the gain, or change the clip gain. Common Audio Mistakes Podcasters Make Ryan: You asked a question that I think would be good to talk about in regards to podcasting. You had asked, “What do you like about podcasts? What common mistakes do you hear people make?” Initially, I read this and thought, “I don't know,” but I spent some time thinking about it. This is great, because it piggybacks off the loudness thing. A lot of the mistakes that I hear when it comes to podcasts in regards to audio is the levels and loudness aspect. I'll listen to some podcasts that sound great, and I'll put on another podcast where the whole thing is super quiet. Then they start laughing, and it's really loud. There are some, like mine, where they have a music bed underneath the entire thing, and then sometimes the music bed is so quiet that you hardly know it's there. You're like, “What the heck is that noise in the background?” Sometimes, it's the opposite. Sometimes, the music bed is way too loud. That's a few of the things I've noticed. A lot of the fixes relate to what we just talked about. It helps to have knowledge of levels and perceived loudness. If you're mixing a podcast, make sure your levels are consistent. One of the biggest things I can recommend for anyone mixing anything, whether it's music, movies, a podcast, is the importance of having a reference track. Aaron: Yeah, I don't talk about that enough. Ryan: That is huge. Professional audio engineers who mix platinum records still do this. They will pull in a track from a different song that is mixed well and is mixed how they want theirs to sound, and they'll have it muted in their session. When they want to have a reference to listen to or train their ear, they'll un-mute it, and they'll go, “Oh, okay.” I'm sure you've done the same thing as me, where you'll be so involved in a mix, you're in it, and you think it sounds great, and then maybe you go away. You go home, sleep, and maybe you come back, and you open it up and you go, “Woah! What was I thinking!” You can get so involved in it that the blinders go up. You get tunnel vision, and you're not aware to some things. It's good to have a reference track or get an outsider's opinion on a mix. The main takeaway here is the reference track. That would help with anything, whether it's the timbre, how you're EQing, or the loudness. You pull in their track and it's far louder than yours, and you automatically know that you need to do something about it. Aaron: That's a great idea. You can kind of do this before or after. You go through and you edit your whole podcast, get everything set up the way you want, create an extra track, and then find a podcast that sounds really good—This American Life or pretty much anything by NPR—download an episode, drop it into your editing program, and play it, mute it, and see what the difference is. Maybe you need to add some gain with an adaptive limiter or with a compressor, or maybe you can tell that your track sounds way sharper or harsher. Are there are too many high frequencies or too much bass compared to your reference track? You can adjust those things. I'm so glad you mentioned that. I've never thought of that before, and that's such a good idea. Ryan: It's one of those things you don't think of much, but once you do it, you're like, “Oh my gosh!” It's really eye opening and really helpful. You can find Ryan online at ryanmonette.com, and follow him on Twitter @RyanMonette.

My guest this week is professional audio engineer Ryan Monette. Ryan graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Music Production & Engineering. For the last 4.5 years he's been the Post-Production Audio Engineer on staff at Elevation Church, in Charlotte, NC, where he mixes their global TV show, and has many other responsibilities (boom operator, field recorder, sound designer, audio editor, etc.). You may have heard some of his work, as he sound-designed and mixed the opener video for the Circles conference for the past two years. He even had his own podcast for a short while (TheQueuecast.com). I asked Ryan to come on the show to share his journey towards becoming a professional audio engineer (a job that I've always wanted), and to get him to share some tips for anyone interested in working in audio/video professionally.Highlights, Takeaways & Quick Wins:Think long term and dream big.If you want to do anything with audio, start by getting a cheap USB microphone.Take advantage of free online courses to learn more about audio engineering.Get started with whatever you have.Your mix may sound completely different in a different environment, so listen with different headphones/speakers in different locations.Master the basics and keep going back to them.If you’re mixing a podcast, make sure your levels are consistent.When mixing, always use a reference track.Show NotesAaron: You graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in music production and engineering. For the last five years, you’ve been the post production audio engineer for Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. You have a lot of jobs there: boom operator, field recorder, sound designer, audio editor, and you mix their global TV show. Do you mix that live?Ryan: Not necessarily. We can get into that later. There’s a process for that.Aaron: Some of the creative people here might have heard of some of your work. You sound designed and mixed the opening videos for the past two years of Circles Conference, which I was at. Have you been there for the past two years?Ryan: I haven’t been personally, no. I have wanted to go. I love it from afar, and I want to go in person.Aaron: I wanted you to come on this show because when I first got started, I had dreams of being a professional audio engineer. I thought, “How cool would it be to work in audio and get paid for it? That’d be awesome!”I fell backwards into it by doing podcast editing as a hobby first, then for money, then I met Sean McCabe and ended up working for him full time. I edit podcasts and help out with a ton of other stuff. I asked you to come on the show to share your advice for anyone who’s interested in working in audio/video professionally, and to talk about how you got there yourself. So tell me a little bit about how you got into audio. When did you first realize that this was something you wanted to do?Ryan’s Journey to Becoming a Professional Audio EngineerRyan: I love listening to your podcast, Aaron, and what I love about it is I feel like you and I have a lot of similarities in our backgrounds. You’re a musician, a drummer, and I’m also a musician. I play several things. My primary instrument is bass, but along with that, I started on piano. I picked up bass, and with the bass I picked up guitar. I took some drum lessons here and there as well.I sing as well. I dabbled in a little bit of everything. I’m kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. I’m okay at a lot of things, but I’m not superb at one thing. Anyway, right around junior high or high school, I started playing the bass. I started playing in little bands here and there. When it came time for college, I had no clue what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I loved music.Aaron: Same here!Ryan: I was living in Las Vegas at the time, so I decided, well, everyone has to have that college experience, and I didn’t want to go to college in the same city, so I decided that I needed that “being away from home” experience. I went to the University of Nevada, Reno. I took your basic, general classes, not knowing what I wanted to do. At this time, for my high school graduation, I had received a graduation present of a Macbook Pro.With that, of course, you get the wonderful iLife suite, including Garageband. As a musician, a whole new world was opened up to me. When I was in a band in high school, I was the gear head—I loved the PA and putting cables together.I was drawn to that. Once I had this Macbook Pro with Garageband and I had my bass and my guitar in my dorm, I was like, “I can create music!” I figured out how to work it and record myself. I bought a USB microphone, and that world was opened up. When I was there, I had a friend, and her brother went to this school where all they learned about was music. I was like, “Wait, you can do that? You can go to school for just music?”That’s how I found out about Berklee School of Music. I applied, and you have to audition as well. I applied and auditioned, and the first time I tried, I actually didn’t get into the music school I wanted to go to.Aaron: This sparks something in my mind. I feel like I might have read an article about Berklee or looked into it and thought, “No, they’re really strict on who they accept, based on your performance.” That was intimidating to me at the time, because I never felt like I was that good of a drummer.Ryan: It was intimidating for me, too. Clearly, I wasn’t up to par.Aaron: Yet you went for it. That’s more than a lot of people would do.Ryan: Yeah. After I finished my first year at UNR, I moved back to Vegas and went to UNLV, the University of Nevada Las Vegas. I took all music classes, forgetting the general ed stuff you need to get a degree. I took all music classes—music theory, because I had never had actual music theory classes, so I thought I needed that. With that, there were some audio classes that I took as well. I was like, “Hey, I like this audio thing.”At the University of Nevada Las Vegas, I had my first exposure to a formal audio class, where I learned all the proper techniques. Later on that year, I applied and auditioned again for Berklee. I got accepted, and the next year, I moved to Boston and went to Berklee for about three and a half years. Then I graduated. When I went to Berklee, the only thing that drew me as a major was Music Production and Engineering. I naturally loved the gear side of things. I fell in love with recording. I was like, “This is what I want to do.”Aaron: You got to spend three and a half years there, studying and learning?Ryan: It is non-stop, 24/7, music, audio, and to be honest, I miss being in that environment so much.Aaron: That sounds fantastic. I always love setting aside time to take online classes, read books, and listen to interviews about audio.Think Long-TermAaron: You were drawn to the audio engineering stuff, and then you graduated.Ryan: I can remember a specific time in my life, and I’m pretty sure it was my last semester at Berklee. They went by semesters instead of years. It was in one of my capstone classes. Our instructor asked us the typical, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” question.Aaron: I love that question now. I hated it when I was 22.** Think long term and dream big**Aaron: Plan out where you want to be, because if you can envision it, then you can figure out how to get there. But you have to start by saying, “I want to do this thing someday.” For me, it was, “I want to do work from a laptop. How do I get there?” Now I’m there. So you were 22 and someone asked you, “Ryan, where do you want to be? Where do you see yourself in five years?”Ryan: At that moment, I was trying to figure that out, naturally, as you do when you’re approaching the end of college. While I was at Berklee, I loved music. I loved recording music, but my absolute favorite class—they only had one of them, but it was the class I yearned for, that I wanted to take and put in all these extra hours for—was audio for visual media, audio for video.By far, that was my favorite class. The whole class, we were working toward our final project. You choose a five to seven minute clip from a well known movie, and all the audio is completely stripped. You have to recreate everything. That’s all the dialogue, all the foley, all the ambient background, all the hard effects, and so on. You have to connect with a film scoring student there at Berklee, and they have to provide the score. I absolutely loved every aspect of that project and the process. When it came time to decide what I wanted to do with my life, it was between audio engineering at a recording studio, working at Disney as an Imagineer, or doing audio at a church.I have always been involved with church, playing on worship teams and whatnot, so I also saw myself doing audio for a church. Long story short, I was really privileged to dip my feet in all of those things after college. After I graduated, I moved back to Las Vegas. Eventually, I found an incredible recording studio, probably one of the top two recording studios in Las Vegas, and I landed an internship.First Audio Engineering JobsRyan: I say “internship” loosely, because your typical studio internship is all the stereotypical grunt work—taking out the trash, doing the coffee, and whatnot. I showed up, and they were like, “You went to Berklee? Berklee guys are cool. Here, hop in this session and help us out.” It was open to me, thrown at me, and next thing I knew, I was assisting on sessions with huge clients, I won’t name drop.Aaron: You can drop a couple of names if you want.Ryan: I had a pretty fun time helping out with a session with the famous engineer Eddie Kramer, who is engineering for Carlos Santana.Aaron: Dang, man! That’s awesome.Ryan: That was pretty incredible. But while I was there, I had this gut feeling inside of me saying, “This isn’t it.”Aaron: It’s fine, but it’s not quite right?Ryan: I could see myself staying there and working my way up, but it didn’t feel right. A few months after I realized that I didn’t want to stay at the studio, I applied and was offered a job at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.I packed my bags, moved to Orlando, and I was working as a stage technician at the Epcot park. There, they found out that I was an audio guy, so they pushed me toward the live audio side of things. I was mixing shows and bands at Epcot and what was at the time Downtown Disney, now Disney Springs, area. Same thing. Almost as soon as I got there, the same gut feeling came in.I was like, “This isn’t it. I’m more of a studio engineer. I definitely don’t want to do live stuff.” Although I love Disney, it just wasn’t sitting right. I was only there three months before the next great opportunity came up, which is where I am right now. One of my friends told me about a job opening for this church in Charlotte, North Carolina, Elevation Church. I had actually been following them because of their podcast.At the time, I was kind of like, “I’ve got a job, whatever.” For some reason, I ended up on their website, looking at the job. I was reading, and I was like, “Wait a minute, they’re looking for someone to do audio for video. That’s what I really want to do!” On a whim, I threw out my resume. Next thing you know, I’ve been here going on five years.Aaron: Did you mention that you were a podcast listener when you sent in your resume?Ryan: Yeah.Aaron: The connections you can make through podcasting is really incredible.Ryan: It is. And I’ve been working there for 5 years now.How to Get Into Audio EngineeringAaron: I want to jump into what you do at your job at Elevation, but let’s pause and do a section on what advice you would tell someone who’s wanting to get started. I wrote a couple of things down here. I think it’s hilarious that you got a Macbook and your first microphone was a USB microphone.Ryan: Which was the Blue Snowball, by the way.Aaron: That’s the worst microphone!Ryan: I had no idea how to use it, either. If I find some of the earliest recordings I did, there are times I’m clipping to the max, square waves.Aaron: Probably bad mic technique, too. But hey; it got you started!If you want to do anything with audio, start by getting a cheap USB microphone.Any USB mics will work for getting started. I like the Blue Yeti, but it’s like $100. The ATR-2100 is fine, too. You just have to get something that can record some audio and start playing with it.Start playing with Garageband. Start playing with the free programs. Learn how to enable recording on a track, how to set your input device to the microphone, how to set your output device to wherever your headphones are plugged into, whether that’s your mic or your computer. It took me so long to figure that stuff out. I was like, “Why can’t I hear the audio in my headphones? What is going on?”Ryan: Same here.Aaron: You have to set input and output, then you have to record enable or do the input monitoring, all that stuff. But start with the USB microphone. Take some basic classes. There are so many great online classes. If you don’t have any money at all, if you’re super broke like I was when I started, watch some free YouTube videos. Read a book.Ryan: If you go to Coursera.org, they’re a website where you can pay to take online courses and get certifications and whatnot, but they also offer free online courses. They even offer free online courses from Berklee. I’ve seen a music production class there. I’ve taken a free online song writing class.Check out free online courses, because they can be a pool of incredible knowledge.I took a photography class on there. Coursera is a great place. They’re great if you want to take free online courses.Aaron: There are places where you can learn all this stuff. You just have to invest some time. You really just have to start: Don’t wait until you have $500 for an interface and $200 for some professional headphones and microphone. Whether you want to start a podcast, start recording audio for a video, or record and mix a demo for a band, start doing something.Stop spending all your time thinking about how you can’t do anything because you don’t have certain gear or you’re not in the right place. You’ll learn as you do, especially in audio. You’re going to make a ton of mistakes.Ryan: That’s how you learn, though! That’s one of the most valuable things I’ve learned in life. You learn from your mistakes.Aaron: You don’t really learn when everything goes well.Just StartAaron: Any other advice you would give somebody, thinking back on how you got to where you are right now?Ryan: Honestly, you hit the nail on the head with “just start.” It’s as simple and cliche as Nike, “Just do it.” There is always going to be the next latest craze, the gear, and we’ve all been susceptible to that. We say, “Oh, well, I could do this if I had X.” It starts with the drive and determination, wanting to do it. There’s knowledge out there everywhere. You just have to dig for it.Chances are, you have at least something you can start with. Record something on your phone.Aaron: I have a friend who makes some awesome music on his iPhone.Ryan: Oh, totally. It’s as simple as getting an adapter. You can plug your guitar or whatever into your phone.Aaron: Kids these days have it so easy!Ryan: You have Garageband on your phone. I remember when I was figuring this out in high school, and we actually had a four track tape recorder. That was my first start. Get started with whatever you have.Aaron: What kind of stuff do you do at the church? What’s your day to day life like? Are you there every day, or is it just a couple of days a week?Ryan: Oh no, I’m definitely there every day. It has been a whirlwind for sure. In the past five years, I have probably played every audio role that there is to be played here. My main thing now is audio for broadcasts, pretty much anything that leaves the church. Our biggest output is the sermon, which goes to a lot of places.It also goes in the TV episode, which we talked about, which goes locally, nationally, and, I believe, globally as well. That’s a lot of what I’ve done. We also create a lot of films, short films, for our worship experiences, anything you can imagine that’s video and audio related. Audio post production, like we talk about. I’m constantly on video shoots using field recorders, the boom op, anything you can think of. Audio for video, I’ve done it.The Gear Ryan UsesAaron: Let’s talk about your gear a little bit. What kind of stuff are you using most in everyday life? I’ll do a quick recap: I have the Shure Beta 87A Mic as my main podcasting microphone. It’s attached to a Scarlett 18i20 USB Interface (update: I’m now using my Zoom H6 exclusively), which is plugged into a quadcore iMac that’s a couple years old.Nothing super fancy, but I’m really happy with where I am. I remember wanting all this stuff back in 2011, thinking how awesome it would be to have it. I have a Zoom H6 portable recorder and a couple of SM58 microphones. I’ve been pairing down my gear collection because I’m planning on moving in the spring.What kind of stuff are you working with? I use Logic Pro X for editing, and then Izotope iZotope RX 5 for cleaning up background noise or fixing clipping. What about you? What’s your day to day favorite gear?Ryan: We use a lot. There’s a bunch of gear for field recording and then in my office, which is where I’m at right now. I’ll start with my office. Right now, I’m talking into my personal mic, which is a Rode NT1A. It’s very affordable.The Rode NT1A is a nice beginner mic which works and sounds great, and I use it for a lot of voiceover projects.Aaron: I like those mics.Ryan: I’m talking into that right now. We also use the Shure SM7B. We have a nice Neumann that we’ll use for bigger projects. We like to use Universal Audio Interfaces, so I’ve got one of those. They’re great. They’re rock solid. You really can’t beat them.At our main recording/editing audio work station, we use Pro Tools. That’s very standard, and I’ve been using that for years and years. I use a lot of plugins. I use a lot of the Waves Plugins. I do use RX as well, and that’s the bulk of it. I do a lot of processing, depending on the project.I have a really huge sound library for if I’m doing narrative pieces that involve sound design, sound effects. I have a great app called Audio Finder, which a lot of electronic musicians use to help them find sounds. I use it to help me find sounds. It’s a nice way to catalogue sounds if you’re a sound designer or anything like that.You can basically tag all these audio files with meta data, and you can search for sounds by their title. Or, if you type in a word in the search bar, it can pull up things based off the the metadata. If you have notes on something, it can find it. Audio Finder is a great way to find sounds.I have some other things in here. I have the Artist Mix Controller made by Avid. I use those if I’m automating stuff. I use those a lot, actually, when I’m mixing the sermons. I do a lot of automation for that. If I’m mixing a piece with a music bed or something, I like to automate the music by hand.It feels more natural, as opposed to clicking and making little dots. That’s the bulk of it here in the office. All of our audio engineers have a nice pair of Focal monitors. I also have another set of monitors I built myself. When I mix TV episodes, I have an output routed to a TV here in my office so I can hear how it translates on TV speakers.Recording Audio for VideoRyan: On the front end of things, if we’re doing shoots for videos, we use Sound Devices field recorders. We have three different models: the Sound Devices 788T 8 Channel Recorder, a 702 2 Channel Recorder, and then a 633 6 Channel Recorder. That last one is one of their newer models, which is great.Sound Devices are steep in price, but they are rock solid.One of the most trustworthy, well known field recorder brands on the market. That’s what you’ll see on pretty much every big budget shoot in some way. I do a lot of freelance on the side, which gives me the opportunity EPK shoots or BTS shoots for, recently, a show on HBO called Outcast.Aaron: Outcast? I’ve been seeing that (I watch Westworld).Ryan: I’m pretty sure it’s the same writers or producers or something. I know it’s the same writer as The Walking Dead. They shoot here in North Carolina, so with a local production company, we’ve done some interviews with some of the cast and crew. It’s been really neat to be on set and see what they’re using. It’s cool to see how similar their world is to what we’re doing day to day, just with more money and more resources.It’s the same thing. Most of their audio guys have some sort of Sound Devices. A lot of them use the 788 as a backup recording rig, and they’ve got larger multitrack recorders as well, that are also made by Sound Devices. Sound Devices is a great brand. They’re crazy expensive, but when you buy that, you know you’ve basically got it for life.Aaron: Yeah, I’m looking at the Sound Devices 788T SSD 8 Channel Portable Solid State Audio Recorder. It’s almost $7,000. I love that! So fancy.Ryan: That SSD does have an internal hard drive. Ours has a hard drive as well, so it’s great, because it has the internal hard drive, but you can also use CF cards. You can record on two different mediums. In case something runs out of space, you have it in two places.Aaron: This is super professional stuff.Ryan: Yeah. It is. It’s top of the line.Aaron: Fantastic. For all the rest of you, just go with the Zoom H4N or the H6.Ryan: Hey, we do have a Zoom H4N, and we do use that every now and then. Before I came on staff, our first field recorder was the Zoom H4N.Aaron: If I could start over and go back to before I had any kind of interface at all, I think I would buy myself an H4N or an H6. Not only are they portable field recorders so you can walk around with them—they have little stereo condensor mics on them—but they work as audio interfaces, too. You can plug it into your computer with a USB cable and record straight to your computer if you do any kind of podcasting or stuff like that.It’s good for the price. Otherwise, the little two channel interfaces are great. They’re about $100 for a good one, but they aren’t portable. You can’t take them to a show or out to a video shoot the way you can an H4N or an H6 or something.Ryan: Speaking of Zoom, they’ve recently come into the more professional field recording market. About a year ago, they releases the F8, I believe, which is an 8 channel field recorder with 8 mic pres. It’s $999 for something very comparable to a Sound Device. It’s not quite as high-fidelity, but for anyone starting out, you’re really not going to notice the difference.Mixing On Expensive Headphones or MonitorsAaron: I was going to ask you this earlier. You mentioned that you had Focal monitors. Did you listen to the episode I did a few episodes back where I talked about mixing on headphones (Episode 69: Do You Need Expensive Headphones to Mix a Podcast?)?Ryan: Yes, I did.Aaron: I mix on $10 Panasonics. What do you think about that? You can be totally honest with me. You can tell me that it’s a stupid idea or that it’s okay.Ryan: I agree to a certain extent. I agree that you should be listening to what you’re making on whatever the majority of people are going to be listening to it on. For a lot of audio engineers mixing music, that’s iPod earbuds, those standard earbuds you get. Something like that. When I mix TV, I have an output routed to a TV in my office, so I can hear it on TV speakers.I do also believe in mixing on something with some sort of higher fidelity type of monitoring environment, whether that’s nicer speakers or nicer headphones. Naturally, you’re going to hear things differently. The main thing to take away is how things translate.If you’re listening to something on one source and you make it sound good there, that’s great, but in a different environment, it may sound completely different.iPhone earbuds may not have the bass that a car stereo has. You want to hear how it translates from one thing to another. That’s why it’s good to at least listen to it on two different sources and not just narrow yourself down to one cruddy thing. That’s good in theory, but again, the key takeaway is translation.Aaron: Maybe it’s a little bit different for me and I can get away with it because of the consistency of the microphones and the recording environment set we use.Ryan: Yeah, totally.Aaron: I think if I was doing more stuff like you are, with videos and clients and all that kind of stuff, I would absolutely be using my higher fidelity headphones.Ryan: Very true. The bulk of your work is dialogue, podcasts.Aaron: Yeah, that’s really it. Just dudes talking into a microphone.Ryan: Yeah. I have done a lot of work here where I’m working in a small studio, but a lot of my mixes have played in auditoriums and arenas.If you’re working on projects like music or film that have different audio frequencies and spectrums, remember that sound will be perceived differently in different places.Aaron: How do you even test for that?Ryan: Here, I at least have a sense of how our auditorium sounds, so I’ve trained my ear to hear in advance and understand how it’s going to translate. For something like when we did a live recording in the biggest arena here in Charlotte, we had a video opener piece. I was on point for mixing that, so basically, I had to work with tech and production to find a time after setup where I can bring my session, copy it onto a laptop, and play it through the PA.Then I can make any final mix tweaks there in the auditorium or the arena. I perfected it in my studio, and any small tweaks I was able to do in that actual environment. Granted, a lot of the times, we may not have that luxury. There are also great plugins you can buy that simulate different monitoring environments, like Sonarworks.If you have certain pairs of headphones, you can tell the program, “I have these headphones, now make my mix sound like it’s coming through these headphones or these speakers,” so you can hear how it might translate. In that program, they have a final output like the Beats headphones. You can hear how it might sound on there, super bass heavy.Aaron: I hear they’re getting better, but I still have never bought any Beats headphones. I probably should (just for testing purposes).Ryan: There are definitely programs out there to help you see how things translate to different monitors.On Location GearRyan: We were talking about the gear we use for on location recording. Sound Devices would be our main recorders. For our mics, we use Schoeps. It’s a shotgun microphone, so it’s a narrow polar pattern with good off axis rejection. Schoeps is a great brand. Again, you’ll see this on professional movie sets.That’s the mic we use. We have some Sennheiser shotguns as well, the ME66, we have a couple of those, which is more their entry shotgun mics. Recently, I rented some of the MKH416.Aaron: I would like one of those. The Sennheiser 416 is well known as the classic TV shotgun mic, right?Ryan: Exactly. I rented those out because I wanted to try it out for that reason. The Schoeps is very good and very well known on set as well, but so is the 416. I rented it to try it out. It’s a trusted mic that a lot of people use for these professional things, and it doesn’t really break the bank for what it is.Aaron: They’re like $1,000, I think.Ryan: Yeah, and it sounded great.Aaron: The next mic I get is either going to be that or the Rode NTG 3.Ryan: I’ve heard a lot of great things about that. I haven’t tried one myself.Aaron: That’s the shotgun mics we shot my podcasting courses with.Ryan: Yeah, I know that Sean uses that for all of his videos.Aaron: I’m excited about getting to go work with those (I’m moving to San Antonio in March or April).Master the BasicsAaron: That’s a pretty good run through of your gear. I’m sure you could keep going and discuss a lot more, but I don’t think we need to go into that. It seems like you guys are at a super professional, high quality. You have made big investments in professional gear, which is fantastic. I encourage everyone to strive for that, to aim for that, but like we said earlier, use what you have right now. I don’t have anything close to what you guys have, but I’m still doing my podcast. I’m doing the best I can with what I have.Ryan: It still sounds great.Aaron: Thanks! It’s mostly just knowing how to set gain levels and not having a noisy room. It’s crazy how far the basics will get you— everything else is just icing on the cake.I’ve been watching this video course called Zen and the Art of Work, which I really recommend to everybody. It’s mindfulness training mixed with productivity training, which is such a great combination.In this course, he says, “So many of the masters continually revisit the basics.” Mastery is staying on a path. It’s not reaching some final goal, it’s more about being with the work and investing in getting better, but also revisiting the basics. He was talking about playing piano. He was like, “A lot of times, I just start by touching the keys, pressing the keys, and then doing basic scales over and over again.”It’s true. When you get so good at the basics that you don’t have to think about it, that’s when you start to expand and get to that level where people say, “Wow, you’re so good at that. How did you get so good?” You’re like, “That was just doing the basics. It’s not anything fancy.”It’s so important to master the basics and keep going back to them.Learning MoreAaron: What’s next for you? How do you invest in yourself and improve? Or are you working so much that you always have more learning opportunities? Do you buy books or courses or follow any websites to learn more about this audio stuff?Ryan: Honestly? We had a shift at work to where my role has shifted to mainly just broadcasts. That has enabled me to have a little bit more flexibility and free time, so I’ve been doing a lot more freelance work. That’s great, because it energizes me and keeps me engaged. It keeps me from routine. Routine is great.I love routine, that’s very much my personality, but freelance work keeps things interesting.For me, it’s all about where and how I can get inspired and constantly feeding that. It’s about feeding my desire for creativity. We’re all creatives. We like to create. We were designed to be creators, really. Everything I try to do is about how I can become a better creator and what I can create next. It’s about finding things that inspire me, really. We touched lightly on a few of the resources that I like, things I’ve learned and places I’ve picked things up.If you’re interested in audio for post production, there are a couple of great books by Ric Viers. I have two books by him that are really great. The first one is The Sound Effects Bible, and it’s not just sound effects in there. He talks about everything from gear to microphones, basics, setting proper gains, compression, some mixing techniques, etc. He also has The Location Sound Bible.There are a lot of similarities, but there’s also a lot of talk about gear, shotgun mics, lop mics, recorders, and then he also dives into some of the basics when it comes to mixing, proper gain staging, and so on. Those are a really great pool of knowledge in book form. There are a lot of other books out there, but I have found those two to be really helpful.Other than that, when it comes to audio for video, it’s a very small, niche field. There isn’t a crazy amount of stuff out there, like there might be for mixing music. For that, you’ve got tons. You’ve got Pensado’s Place, all these people on YouTube putting out channels on mixing, mixing from home, mixing on a budget, etc. There’s plenty of that.Aaron: Graham Cochrane and Joe Gilder are pretty awesome resources for anyone who wants to start a home studio.Ryan: YouTube can be a pool of knowledge for anything and everything, too. You have to dig a little bit and do some searching. On the inspiration side, for me, since I love audio for video, Sound Works Collection is a great place. They’ll do mini videos interviewing the sound people that did sound for X movie. Whether it was the last Harry Potter or anything and everything, big budget films, they’ll sit down with the recording people, the sound designers, the mixers…It’s really cool, because they’ll show footage of them doing stuff on location or the foley artists. It’s cool to see their process. For me, that helps me stay inspired. It gives me ideas to do other things. They have a podcast as well, and that’s great. The videos can be kind of short, maybe 10 minutes or so, but the podcast will go on at length, talking to the audio guys who have made sound for videos possible.It will also be music composers for movies as well. That’s really great. I found that great not only as inspiration, but to know what and how audio professionals for big budget films get inside their minds, how they’re thinking, and what their process looks like.It’s neat to see stuff about sound engineers for big movies and realize that we’re not so different.Dealing With a Broad Loudness Spectrum (Dynamics)Aaron: I have a nerdy question here. This is about normalizing and compression, I think. Aiya had asked, “I’m so torn about normalizing sound clips. If I’m working on a longer project in segments, would it be better to adjust my peaks manually for the sake of consistency? It’s for a video project.” I’m hearing that there are differences in video volumes. How do you deal with that? Do you do compression? Do you do automation for the different parts? How do you deal with dynamics?Ryan: It depends on the project. I’ll talk about how I would mix a sermon, because that’s very dynamic. Our pastor will go from whispering, holding his handheld mic close to his stomach, to screaming, holding the microphone, cupping the capsule. Power and respect to him, because it creates a certain atmosphere, which has a powerful effect. That’s what I’m dealing with on a weekly basis.That dynamic range is tremendous. Keep in mind, this is going to TV eventually. TV has very strict restrictions. It’s not so much on level, but on perceived level. There’s a difference between what you see meter and what you’re hearing. I can talk at length about that, too.Aaron: Could you give us a super short version? I’m kind of aware of that, but since I just mix in Logic, I’m not sure how to measure it. Is there a way to measure it in Logic? Do you know? Is there a plugin you use?Ryan: I use a plugin from Waves. It’s a loudness meter, and its just that. It has a lot of presets, so I’ll use the TV standard preset. I’ll use it for ATSE85, and I’ll use it for a dialogue bus. They’ve also got one for a master bus. The standard right there is your average level around -24 dB LUFS, so that’s full scale. If you have a classic meters, your peak would be zero, so that would average metering right around -10. At least for TV, I’ve got a hard limiter at -10 dB, to where nothing can go above that.The difference between levels on a meter vs. perceived loudness is the differences between what we hear and the actual energy.In our TV program, we’ll have the sermon, but we’ll also have a talking heads segments, which is dialogue and a music bed. We’ll also go into segments where they’ll go into worship from our live album, which had been mixed and mastered as an album. That thing is slammed. If you look at the wave form, it’s a sausage. If I’m setting all that by the meters alone and they’re all hitting -10, it may look right, but if I look at my loudness meter, that worship segment is going to be off the charts.There’s so much more content in there. There’s so much going on with all the different frequency ranges as opposed to a dialogue track, which is a narrow field in the frequency spectrum. That’s the gist of it. When it comes to my technique for controlling dynamics, for something like mixing a sermon, if I’m going down my plugin chain, the first thing I naturally have is a high pass filter. I’m rolling off those unnecessary lows that are hogging energy.The next thing I’ll do is use a compressor, and I’ll set the attack to right in the middle, so not fast or slow, and I’ll have the release time at fast. We don’t want to hear it pumping, letting go. That’s catching my peaks. It’s not doing a crazy amount, but it kind of is. That’s helping do a lot of the bulk compression. Before anything really hits the compressor, I will go through, and as I work my way through the mix, I will clip gain the wave form, so that, say, if he’s whispering somewhere, I might keep that, depending on how I have my compressor set.Then, if we go up to a part where he’s screaming and my wave form is huge, I will take that down and create those nodes, those dots in the wave form, and drag the actual clip volume down, that gain down. That way, it’s not going into the compressor at this high gain level. It’s hitting the compressor evenly as the rest of it would. That way, it’s not driving the compressor crazy. Then I’ll go through and do some EQ and DSing and whatnot. I might add some more compressors in there, just to grab some of those little things coming through. After that, it’s subtle, just smoothing it out.Aaron: It is a little bit of both. If she has access to an audio editing program—I don’t know what she’s using for editing. If you can put a compressor on the track, do that. It’s not exactly the same, but I did a YouTube video about how I process podcast vocals, and it’s very similar. For podcast vocals, I start with a Logic noise removal plugin.Ryan: I actually have my noise suppressor, and I’ll use that later on down in my signal chain. My way of thinking is that if I’ve got all this compression going on, the compression is narrowing that dynamic range, so it’s bringing up that noise floor. I tend to do my noise suppression after the bulk of that compression, because the noise floor is higher and it’s easier to work on a supressor. If that makes sense.Aaron: I’ve thought a lot about whether you should do the noise removal before or after you add a bunch of gain with a compressor or something, and I can’t think of a good reason that it matters. You can take out the noise before you add a bunch of gain, or you can add a bunch of gain and take out the noise afterwards. Which is better? I don’t know. Anyways, after the noise removal plugin, I put an EQ with a high pass filter, a peak compressor, an RMS or an average level compressor, and then a limiter.Ryan: Like I mentioned earlier, before I had my long-winded answer, it also depends on what it is you’re mixing—whether it’s music, or a podcast, or something for film.When it comes to dialogue for film, you want it to sound as natural as possible, but you also want to be able to hear if someone is whispering.When it comes to that, I’ll still use a compressor, but it will be very, very light. If there’s anything I need to do to meet loudness, that I will automate the volume on my dialogue bus. I’ll bring that up. That way, it sounds a little bit more natural, instead of solely relying on a compressor to do all the work for you.Aaron: That makes sense. For podcasts, if I notice that there’s a section where someone was talking much quieter, like if a guest backed away and talked like that for four or five minutes and then went back to the normal distance from the microphone, in Logic, I’ll turn that into its own clip. I make a cut on either side of the quiet part, and then, in Logic, you can double click on it and change gain by hitting Control G. Then you can add 3, 4, or 5 dB to it.That works out pretty well. If it’s every five seconds or I have to do it more than five or six times in an episode, I won’t do the clip gain changes, I’ll just use a compressor.Look at the overall audio file and see if there are long stretches where you can use automation to change the gain, or change the clip gain.Common Audio Mistakes Podcasters MakeRyan: You asked a question that I think would be good to talk about in regards to podcasting. You had asked, “What do you like about podcasts? What common mistakes do you hear people make?” Initially, I read this and thought, “I don’t know,” but I spent some time thinking about it. This is great, because it piggybacks off the loudness thing.A lot of the mistakes that I hear when it comes to podcasts in regards to audio is the levels and loudness aspect. I’ll listen to some podcasts that sound great, and I’ll put on another podcast where the whole thing is super quiet. Then they start laughing, and it’s really loud. There are some, like mine, where they have a music bed underneath the entire thing, and then sometimes the music bed is so quiet that you hardly know it’s there.You’re like, “What the heck is that noise in the background?” Sometimes, it’s the opposite. Sometimes, the music bed is way too loud. That’s a few of the things I’ve noticed. A lot of the fixes relate to what we just talked about. It helps to have knowledge of levels and perceived loudness.If you’re mixing a podcast, make sure your levels are consistent.One of the biggest things I can recommend for anyone mixing anything, whether it’s music, movies, a podcast, is the importance of having a reference track.Aaron: Yeah, I don’t talk about that enough.Ryan: That is huge. Professional audio engineers who mix platinum records still do this. They will pull in a track from a different song that is mixed well and is mixed how they want theirs to sound, and they’ll have it muted in their session. When they want to have a reference to listen to or train their ear, they’ll un-mute it, and they’ll go, “Oh, okay.”I’m sure you’ve done the same thing as me, where you’ll be so involved in a mix, you’re in it, and you think it sounds great, and then maybe you go away. You go home, sleep, and maybe you come back, and you open it up and you go, “Woah! What was I thinking!” You can get so involved in it that the blinders go up. You get tunnel vision, and you’re not aware to some things.It’s good to have a reference track or get an outsider’s opinion on a mix.The main takeaway here is the reference track. That would help with anything, whether it’s the timbre, how you’re EQing, or the loudness. You pull in their track and it’s far louder than yours, and you automatically know that you need to do something about it.Aaron: That’s a great idea. You can kind of do this before or after. You go through and you edit your whole podcast, get everything set up the way you want, create an extra track, and then find a podcast that sounds really good—This American Life or pretty much anything by NPR—download an episode, drop it into your editing program, and play it, mute it, and see what the difference is. Maybe you need to add some gain with an adaptive limiter or with a compressor, or maybe you can tell that your track sounds way sharper or harsher.Are there are too many high frequencies or too much bass compared to your reference track? You can adjust those things. I’m so glad you mentioned that. I’ve never thought of that before, and that’s such a good idea.Ryan: It’s one of those things you don’t think of much, but once you do it, you’re like, “Oh my gosh!” It’s really eye opening and really helpful.You can find Ryan online at ryanmonette.com, and follow him on Twitter @RyanMonette.

Dan Powell is one half of Dead Signals Production, creator of the popular Archive 81 and Deep Vault found sound, radio drama podcasts. In this episode, we talk about his recording process, how he designs sound, and his editing process. He shares some of the hurdles he overcame while producing podcasts and what advice he'd give to anyone interested in making a modern radio drama. Key Takeaways: Don't buy your gear new—if you buy the best gear used, it'll last you forever. The hardest part of any narrative creative medium is the transition between two parts. Make sure you understand what's happening in your environment before you choose a space to record in. What you make should be in conversation with your audience, but don't make something just because it'll get a lot of downloads. Find people who are established in your field, reach out to them, and ask for some direct advice. Think about how the ambience and background noise where you're recording can contribute to the story and the feel of your whole piece. Aaron: Hey Dan, thanks for joining me today. Tell me a little bit about yourself—where you're from and where you are now. Maybe a little bit about what your path to audio and podcasting has looked like over the course of your life. Dan: I was born in Rome, Georgia and I was there until I was about 18. It was a medium/small size town in the middle of the woods. I spent a lot of time by myself alone with my thoughts, which is probably what caused me to gravitate to sci-fi, horror, and secular fiction. I began making radio dramas at the age of eight or nine. I used Window 95 Sound Recorder to make these one-man shows. Sometimes it would be me and sometimes it would be my friends, and we would get in front of a microphone and see what happened. That's really what introduced me to audio editing and creative sound design. From an early age, I was interested in what would happen if you slowed down, sped up, or changed the pitch of your voice. I went to Syracuse University for college and majored in English. I loved reading and still really do, but I realized I was spending all my free time in studios recording my friend's bands (or recording myself), and that working with audio might be a good career path. I'd always been interested in creative writing, but I thought it might be good to develop a more technical skill or trade that I could have on the side while writing. I ended up really enjoying working with audio and I decided to make that my primary creative and career pursuit. After school I moved to New York City. I interned, I did some odd jobs, I worked at an Apple store, and I eventually got my first job in the sound industry at Soundsnap, a commercial sound effects library. I did that full time for about two years and then transitioned to working there part time while making more time for freelance work, sound engineering, and working on my own podcast on the side. That's where I'm at now. Aaron: You met Marc (the other half of Dead Signals) in college? Dan: Yeah, Marc and I met his senior year and my post-senior year. I stayed after I graduated to do a fellowship in audio engineering and sound design. One of the cool things about Syracuse is they have this program where if you get to the end of your four years and you decide you want to do something different than what you studied, you can apply for a fellowship that will let you stay an extra year. You basically get a free year of credits that you can do what you want with. I did that after I finished studying English so I could build up my portfolio and get some more one-on-one mentoring strictly with audio stuff. That's where Marc and I met. Aaron: Then you guys formed Dead Signals Productions. Dan: We formed Dead Signals this time last year. Marc came and visited me in New York and we were talking about ideas we had. The project we worked on together in college was Marc's senior thesis project, a radio play he wrote and produced. I was just acting in it, playing the lead. More recently, starting last year, was when we started collaborating and both giving equal input for the project. Recording Radio Drama Podcasts Aaron: Let's talk about Archive 81 and Deep Vault, the recording process and the tools you use to handle the editing. Marc said you guys recorded Archive 81 in a bedroom. Do you remember which mic you used for that? Dan: It was the Sennheiser MKH 8040. I got this mic because it's a really good all-purpose sound design mic. It's good for all-purpose folio recording, like footsteps, fabric movements, and every day objects you want to record. It's also really good for ambient field recording. We recorded the dialog with this mic and another mic called a Sennheiser MKH30, which is a bi-directional stereo mic. The two of these things together form a really good pair for mid-side stereo recording. What I was really interested in when I bought these mics was, one, it was the best deal I found on eBay, and two, I was interested in doing more ambient field recording. Living in New York City there's so many interesting sounds everywhere. There are neighborhoods, parks, and subways. You can turn a corner and be in an entirely different sonic landscape than you were just in. I wanted something that was good for capturing my environment, but when it came down to produce Archive 81, after doing some tests, we realized that these mics would work just as well for dialog recording. I personally would have liked to use a wider diaphragm AKG microphone, but I still think the mics we used worked well for recording dialog. It's good gear and it's what we had available at the time. Aaron: I know a lot of podcasters who use $60 or $70 USB mics and there's a big difference in quality between those and the MKH. What do they run used, close to $1,000? Dan: Close to $1,000. The mic I'm on right now goes for about $1,200 new, but I'm a big Craigslist and eBay deal-hunter. When I was first getting into audio, one of the best pieces of advice I got was when I was talking to someone five years my senior who's successful and established in the music production scene here in New York. He said: Don't buy your gear new. Even if you buy the best gear used, it'll still last you forever. He told me, “I've made a spreadsheet of every piece of equipment I've purchased from when I first started out. Collectively I've saved about $30,000.” That really stuck with me, so now I only buy used gear. I got the mic I'm talking on now for about half of what it would cost new. Aaron: I'm currently on a Shure BETA 87A, which costs $250 new and I think I paid $120 for it used at Guitar Center and it's an awesome sounding mic for podcasting. Dan: I like the richness of it. In general, I really like dynamic mics for podcasts. I like the rich low end and the proximity effect you can get. I use the mics I use because I want to have a lot of applications for things like sound design and field recording, but I don't want to make it seem like you have to buy a $700 or $1,000 microphone. I've seen people get fantastic results with an SM58, which I use when I do event recording gigs. You can get one of those used on Craigslist for $50 in most cases. In many cases, it's probably more ideal if you're at home instead of a treated acoustic space because dynamic microphones do a better job of isolating the sound source and not picking up your refrigerator, your roommate, or your neighbors yelling at each other. Aaron: I agree. I love the large diaphragm condensers, but you do need a quiet, treated room to make them sound good and not pick up a bunch of sound. Alright; let's talk about sound design. Here's a clip of episode one of Deep Vault, which has some dialog with some reverb on. I wanted to ask you about that, and about the part in the music where the footsteps transition into the beat of the song. First, let's talk about the ambience and reverb you used. As I'm listening to it, there's some kind of ambient sound in that. I'm not sure if it's reverb in the space you recorded it in or if it's reverb you added afterward. There's also an air conditioning kind of “swoosh” background ambience. Can you describe how you achieved those effects? Dan: None of that reverb is natural. It's all added in post. I exclusively use impulse response reverb, which is basically the ability to capture the sonic snapshot of a real, indoor space by going in and blasting a sign wave or white noise in it and then recording the echo that comes afterwards, then notching out the original sign wave in post. This gives a ghost emanation of what a space actually sounds like. There's two reverbs fading out and in. There's the outdoor reverb, which I have a light touch on. It's meant to evoke the sense that the space is outdoors and then there's the echo-y underground reverb of the vault they're about to go into. If you listen prior to them entering the vault, you can hear how it evolves from one space to another. I think very visually when I'm working on it. I've said this a lot in various interviews, but because I'm working with Marc on the scripts from the beginning, I don't really think of this as post production. I'm always thinking about space and sonics as I'm reading the first draft of a show. I usually visually map out or make a flow chart of what the space looks like and how things need to transition from one stage to another. That helps me focus better. In the background, we have a desert ambient sound. It's a field recording of a desert that's near an urban area. You have some wind and outdoor air atmosphere, called the air tone, which is the outdoor equivalent of a room tone. If you search Soundsnap for air tone, you'll find a bunch of ambient recordings of outdoor air spaces that don't have crowds, people, or traffic. It's more a general wash like you hear in that clip. There's the air tone and then there's the vault sounds—the ambient sounds of the space they're going into, which is a field recording by a field recordist named Stephan March. I think it's some recordings of some abandoned bomb shelters on the Danish coast. It's some industrial room tones with some distant waves, but they have an underground low-fi industrial roominess to them. Those things blend together to create the atmosphere of the vault. Aaron: I'm embarrassed to say it now, but I was thinking these were effects you could achieve with something like the reverbs that come with ProTools or Logic Pro X. What program do you use to do all this stuff with? Dan: I use ProTools for editing, mixing, and basic sound effect placement. For what's referred to as composite sound effects design—designing a sound effect that needs a lot more depth to it than what you can pull from a library as is—I use Logic. I do that for two reasons. One, I think it's good to have separation between sound effect editing and show editing. I like to be in two different programs when I'm creating the sound of a robot or a door and when I'm editing the show. Having the different software environment helps to streamline that. The other reason is, though I do think ProTools is great, I think it's very flawed for making things creatively from scratch. I would never write a song or demo a song in ProTools because I don't think the user experience is tailored toward composition, whether that's composing a song or compositing a sound effect from scratch. It's great for editing and taking material that's aesthetically already done—like you recording a guitar through an amp—but if you're trying to dial in the tone of a guitar, I prefer to use Logic, something a little more built for making music from scratch. For this scene, I used pretty much all ProTools because I wasn't designing anything beyond simply layering things together and the reverb that goes along with that. I wrote the music in Logic. Dan's Favorite Editing Programs and Plugins Aaron: Are there any stock plugins you use inside of Logic or do you have any favorites? Dan: I use Logic's modular synth plugin, the ES2, a lot because I know it really well. It has a very particular sound but I've been using it for many years, and I can dial in the sound I want pretty quickly with it. I probably should learn some more synth plugins so I don't get set in my ways. Aaron: What about reverb or special effects? I know there's like 50 stock plugins inside Logic. Dan: Space Designer Plugin for Logic Pro X is incredible. It's a great impulse response reverb plugin. I use Waves IR1 for the reverb in this scene, but it could have as easily been achieved with the stock Logic Space Designer plugin, probably easier even, because they have a larger native sample library. Any sound designer you talk to will say that Space Designer is the best free stock plugin of anything. That's a big one. There aren't a lot of other stock Logic plugins I use for sound design in terms of compositing. Although I do really like the basic Chorus and Phaser modulation stuff for voice processing for robot voices. Aaron: You wrote the music for the show. Is the music going to be available somewhere else later? Dan: Marc and I would really like to release an album of the music from our shows. It's something we want to do and there's a few reasons we haven't done it yet. One reason is time. I'm very skittish about making sure everything is mixed properly. I wouldn't want to release the music stand alone unless I was absolutely sure it was put together well. The other reason is that I write most of the music for our shows, but we do have some songs that are done with side collaborators and I would want to make sure it's done legally and copywrite-wise we were in the clear. I want to sign some kind of licensing or formal distribution agreement to make sure everyone is happy money-wise. The song from episode one was me ripping off Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I'm a big fan of their scoring work. Music & Sound Effect Creation for Podcasts Aaron: Let's talk about how you achieved that effect for the song in the sample clip I played earlier. I'm guessing you had the sound of the footsteps on a ladder. Is that something you recorded yourself or is that something you got out of the sound library? Dan: I used several different libraries for that. There's a mixture of some simulated ladder movement in there, like arms reaching and hands grabbing the rungs of the ladder. There's also some pure metal footsteps in there. When I was originally putting that together, there were six or seven tracks, three of which were cloth movements and body motions and three of which were footsteps. Some were more foregrounded, like when one character named Jeremy is counting his steps. His footsteps are louder because he's drawing attention to the fact that he's counting them. The others are more off to the side to evoke the sense of space and depth, because presumably, they're going down a circular enclosure to a vault. That was a real pain to put together. Aaron: I can't believe you recorded clothes rustling to make this realistic. Dan: I can't speak to film, tv, or video, but part of what makes the footsteps convincing in audio dramas is the footsteps being good, but also having cloth movement and fabric rustling. Aaron: With headphones and soundscapes, you have left and right channels, obviously. What do you do when you're trying to make something seem like it's coming from above or below. Is there any way to achieve that affect? Dan: In episode two of Deep Vault, where two characters crash through the floor of the room their in, they're down there for a bit, and then you hear them crawling up through the crash hole to the other characters that are above them. I think it worked pretty well. I think the sequence of the narrative and that you hear them crash through the floor first and the space change around them helps to establish that. It's just a matter of having more reverb and/or more delay on the voices that are further away than the voices that are close to you. I'm still figuring out what my philosophy on panning things is for the Deep Vault. It's an ensemble cast with four actors talking at once, I have them panned around the clock—some are hard left, some are hard right, and some are close to the center. Usually if characters are interrogating or trying to get information from another character or recording, I'll try to have whatever recording or character they're talking to in the center to give the sense that they're gathered around this new source of information they're trying to learn. As far as making things sound far away or from above or below, it's a matter of adding more reverb to the things that are farther away and hoping the sense of space translates. Aaron: I think it does most of the time, but it's something I'm curious about. I'm thinking about the future with virtual reality and how they're going to handle the different angles of sound. Have you had a chance to try VR yet? Dan: No, but I have some friends who told me I need to do it and I really want to. I have some friends who say Google Cardboard alone is incredible. I'm curious what that technology is like, but also what it's going to mean for sound. I'm curious what sound for VR is going to be like and how it's going to differ from the old guard, but also how it's going to use some of the same techniques to make a realistic experience. Aaron: I used the equivalent to Google Cardboard, not even one of the great ones, and it blew my mind. It's going to be a game-changer. Maybe we'll both have future careers in sound design for VR applications. Dan: I'm just trying to stay ahead with what's new for sound design because I'm afraid of being replaced by robots. It's something I think about regularly. Am I doing something that will still be done by a human in 20 years? I feel ok about it most of the time, but you never know. Aaron: I like to think that you'll still have a job because you're being creative and you're doing things that take a human. I guess we'll see. Let's talk about then music a little more. You did this transition where you have this music playing over the sound of the footsteps, and the footsteps blend into the beat of the music. Did you write the beat first? Were you listening to the pattern of the footsteps or did you go back and match those things up later? Dan: They were matched up later, but my choice of percussion samples definitely made them more easily blendable. With the exception of the kick drum, which is more of a classic, electronic bass-pulse kick drum, everything else is found percussion—everyday objects being tapped on. Things like chairs, bags, or plastic silverware. I like working with low-fi sound percussion samples. I think the fact the percussion track in the song isn't a real snare drum recorded in a studio helps serve as the connective tissue between the footsteps and their percussiveness and the song's percussion, and it's driving the melody forward. The hardest part of any narrative creative medium is the transition between two parts. It glues two things together that work well on their own. Sonically, that could be a good example of choosing the right percussion sample in the context of this being a score rather than a stand alone song. Perhaps if this was just a song released on an EP and it wasn't meant to score anything, it would sound better with a non-found percussion or some other type of sound. Sound Proofing vs. Sound Treatment for Podcasts Aaron: Let's jump into some mistakes or hard times you came across when you started doing Archive 81 and the Deep Vault. What are some of the things you struggled with? Dan: I do have one thing about recording in a bedroom. The bedroom we recorded in sounded really good as far as bedrooms go, but we had only ever tested the sound in the room at night when everyone else in the house was really quiet. When it came to production time, we were recording during the three most blizzardy weeks in January when every person was holed up in their apartment in New York City. Above my friend's bedroom is a family with five teenagers, so we had to pause all the time because there were so many footsteps, running water, and cooking sounds. We didn't plan for all of that. I realized that, even though acoustically the room sounded very good, there was no isolation from what's above and outside. That was definitely an error I made in trying to plan the space. The next time, we paid for a real studio, because as cool as it is to record in a good-sounding bedroom for free, it's worth that money to not have to stop every take for outside noise. When you're pausing takes like that for noise coming from upstairs or outside, you're losing the groove you have with the actors. The actors might move around if you have to wait for 10 minutes between a scene and you might have to reset levels, which makes it harder to set levels in post and mix. That was a real learning experience. Make sure you understand what's happening in your environment before you choose a space to record in. Aaron: That applies to regular podcasting too. Someone asked me the other day, “How do I soundproof my room?” They're actually asking two different questions: “How do I make the sound of my room less noisy?” and, “How do I keep outside noise from coming in?” First, you have to stop noise from computers, air conditioners, refrigerators, and the sound of your voice from bouncing off the walls and being recorded by your mic. Then you have to soundproof the room so that the external sounds aren't picked up by your mic. For me, I have three windows directly in front of me and it's an old house, so the windows aren't soundproof at all. If someone was running a lawn mower outside of my window, everyone would hear it. Soundproofing is making sure noises from outside don't come in. Sound treatment is making sure there aren't noises inside your room causing problems in your audio. Know Your Limits Aaron: Any other mistakes or things that stood out throughout this process? Dan: There are so many. The question is what's a useful mistake to talk about, and what's one I perpetually torture myself about at night? I'll talk about casting. With Archive 81, we didn't have a system for how we went about casting it. We put the character notices out on Craigslist one at a time and auditioned and chose people piecemeal. It worked out for the most part, but there were some characters where we were in a real bind because we didn't have enough people in time, so we had to choose the best option. I would have liked to have more options. I pretty much did all the casting for the first season and I didn't go about it systematically, so for the Deep Vault, I wanted to make sure I did it more systematically. I spent a whole weekend auditioning people and planned in advance the characters they were auditioning for and allot time slots throughout the day so I could do it all at once. That was good and it was organized, but I packed too many people in one weekend, so by Sunday afternoon it was too much. I'm pretty introverted by nature and I think I chose my line of work in the technical side of audio production because a lot of times, it's just you and the machine. You do need other skills and to be able to talk to people professionally, but you also spend a lot of time alone, which I'm fine with. I definitely love socialising, like on this interview, but I'll be glad to go back to my little audio hole. That Sunday after three eight-hour days of auditioning and reading lines in character for these people, I was totally depleted. I think I've learned I need to be more systematic about it, but that I also need to spread it out over a few weekends in advance as opposed to trying to do it all in one weekend. Aaron: I'm a productivity nerd when it comes to planning out my days and making sure I have stuff to do. There's a lot I want to accomplish, but when you first get into that, you tend to overestimate what you can accomplish. You think you can do meaningful work for 12 or 14 hours and you don't realize that you can take on too much and say yes to too many things. Half way through, you've given it all you have for six hours and you're worn out and you feel guilty because you didn't do all the things you said you were going to do. It's good to plan and try that stuff so that you know next time not to plan 12 hours of work for both Saturday and Sunday. Maybe you can do that, but you don't know until you try. Start by planning and make notes about how it goes and you'll have a better understanding about yourself and your stamina for the next time. Dan: That speaks to the more general philosophy that doing it is the only way you'll know what your own patterns are, what works for you, and what doesn't work for you. Be open to some trial and error for your own personal workflow. It's easy to look up to certain human accomplishments and think, “This great musician practiced for 12 hours a day, so I must have to do that to be the Rachmaninoff of podcasting,” but at the same time, there are successful and accomplished people who have more human and normal working hour regimens. Trent Reznor is one of those people and it's obvious from his output that he's someone who never stops working. That works for him, but some people need more time to unwind and not get burnt out on things. Dan's Advice for Aspiring Podcasters Aaron: What kind of advice or tips would you give to someone who's interested in doing something like Archive 81 or Deep Vault—a found sound or radio drama podcast? I've noticed in the last year or two they're skyrocketing in terms of popularity. I think there's a lot of people who might be turning the idea over in their mind. What would you say to those people? Dan: The first thing is the writing and acting has to be really good. Have people you can trust give you feedback and critique who you can run things by. If the source material and story doesn't work, then everything that follows isn't going to work either. If you've never done a podcast before, be prepared for many ours of sedentary work. Doing this kind of work takes a lot time and it's a lot of time you have to spend alone in front of a computer. I lost count of the number of times this summer my friends said, “Hey, we're going to the beach. Want to come?” or other things I wanted to do and I had to blow them off because I was editing or doing revisions. Be prepared for that and make sure you're ok with that. If you need a lot of time outside of the house and you really need a social life, maybe this particular kind of podcasting isn't right for you. Interviewing is a very different thing. I don't like to be preachy about exercise, but I do think it's good to exercise if you're doing sedentary creative work because it makes the mind work better and for me, it puts me more at ease. Aaron: I'm with you on that, so two out of two podcasters recommend exercise and good sleep. Dan: Go out there and do it. Work hard and tell the story you want to tell. Don't make anything because you think it'll sell or bring an audience. Marc and I made Archive 81 because we thought it was a cool idea. What you make should be in conversation with your audience, but don't make something just because you think it'll get a lot of downloads. I still feel like I'm learning a lot and trying to figure all this stuff out. Keep an open mind and stay open to learning new things as you go along. I still study sound design with a mentor because there's always new levels I can push myself towards and I don't want to get too comfortable. Sound Design Resources Aaron: Are there any books, websites, or online courses for someone who's a total beginner, or someone like me who is relatively familiar with recording, mixing, and producing music and podcasts but hasn't really gotten into sound design? Dan: Transom.org is a great resource. Although it is geared towards beginners in radio and podcasting, I still find articles on there I can learn from. I think it has a good intro overview to things like sound design. I can't name anything specific, but for a few years now, when I want to learn more about a subject, I find someone I like and relate to who's established in that field and I reach out to them asking for some one-on-one mentoring lessons. That's something I think is worth paying for. Most people will take $50 for a few hours to talk about it. No matter what artistic discipline you're in, it's helpful to find people who are established in your field, reach out to them, and ask for some direct advice. That's what's been the most helpful for me. If there's a sound designer, composer, or radio producer you admire, reach out and see if that's an option. I don't think Ira Glass is capable of doing private lessons with as busy as he is, but I'm sure there are other people who are really good at what they do who are capable. Aaron: There's people at all different levels on this journey. We're talking about audio specifically, but it's true for anything. There are famous people you've heard of and then there's people in the middle who have more experience than you but maybe aren't quite so famous yet. Surrounding yourself with people who share your passion and interests on your skill level is great, but try reaching out and offering to pay for some consulting. Chances are they like talking about that stuff, but it is good to pay people for their time. That makes sure they're invested and they're not feeling like you're taking advantage of their time. Audio engineers have to make money to buy gear! Field Recording Gear and Tips for Podcasters Aaron: Diana asks, “What's your setup for mobile recording?” She's about to start a podcast and will be doing some traveling. I know there are times where you take microphones out into the real world to do field recordings. What's your setup? Is it the same mics and a portable recording device? Dan: A Sennheiser MD421 or a Shure SM58 will work great because most dynamic microphones are good at sound isolation. Another good option to consider would be the Sennheiser ME66 Shotgun Mic, which is a great short shotgun microphone. That's good for both ambient sound and interview recordings in a live setting. It's in the $200 to $300 range and you can find it on eBay, Craigslist, Guitar Center, or Reverb.com for much cheaper. Aaron: What device do you record into? Dan: The Zoom H5 or H6 is a fantastic piece of recording equipment. You can find that new for $300 or used for way less. It's a solid improvement over the H4N in many ways. There's less handling noise, it's less noisy, and the majority of people looking into podcasting would do great with one of those. Aaron: I think this is a situation a lot of people will get in. When you're out and about and recording, you have to think about the noise in the room and the ambient noise, and if there's a possibility of a lot of noise where you are. Coffee shops and crowded restaurants aren't going to be great for getting clean audio. You'll also want to set input gain levels correctly, so you can be sure the levels coming into the microphone doesn't hit zero and clip. You want to keep the highest peaks coming in around -12 DB. What's your thought on that? What do you aim for? Dan: I aim for -12 to -6 at absolute highest for both studio and in the field. I always stuck by that as universal truth of audio, but when I was doing some sound design training this summer with the person I was mentoring under, for sound effects recording, he was advising me to capture things at as high of a signal level as possible without clipping. Being able to focus and isolate the sound source that way really is much more beneficial when you're trying to make a sound effect at non-dialog level. Aaron: Did you have limiters on in that situation? Dan: I usually keep the limiters on, but I try not to hit them. I record on my rooftop a lot. Sometimes I get up at 6am and record the morning rush as it starts to unfold and I usually need the limiters to catch a truck horn or a plane that flies overhead. If you're in a noisy environment, that's another good case for using a dynamic microphone because it does isolate the sound source pretty well. When I was in school, I did a student radio project for a radio podcast production class where I was riding the campus buses and I was on one of those buses on a Friday night when it was filled with drunk kids going from one frat house to another. You can imagine how quiet that was. I was using a dynamic mic and it worked pretty well when I was cutting the interviews together. It had that loud, crazy ambience in the background, but if I held it pretty close to the speaker, I could still isolate them in a way that worked for the final product. Think about how the ambience and background noise where you're recording can contribute to the story and the feel of your whole piece. Dan: With all the woes that came with recording Archive 81 in a bedroom with loud upstairs neighbors, I do think the fact that it felt like an apartment helped the actors get the vibe. I'm not sure how much of that translated sonically, because it's hard for me to be objective about it at this point, but I do think that background worked for that piece. In theory, I would like to do more location recording for audio dramas. If something takes place on a busy street corner, I'd like to get out there with a more formal production sound rig and record it, but Marc and I work at a pretty intense pace and it's not always easy to coordinate that. Many times it makes the most sense to do it in the studio and create the atmosphere after the fact, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't. Aaron: Do what your gut says and plan for it. Last week, Marc said one of the hardest thing for him is the time constraints. I definitely feel that too. My podcast isn't anything complicated but it still takes a few hours to produce. When you have a full-time job, other projects, and people you want to hang out with, you really have to focus on what you want to say yes to and what you have to say no to. _Huge thanks to Dan and Marc for taking time out of their busy schedules to talk with me. If you've enjoyed these interviews, head over to their Patreon page and support these guys. Links: Dead Signals Productions Archive 81 Deep Vault Podcast: https://podcastingwithaaron.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/aaronpodcasting Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/aarondowd Blog: https://www.aarondowd.com Recommended Gear: https://kit.co/PodcastingwithAaron

Dan Powell is one half of Dead Signals Production, creator of the popular Archive 81 and Deep Vault found sound, radio drama podcasts.In this episode, we talk about his recording process, how he designs sound, and his editing process. He shares some of the hurdles he overcame while producing podcasts and what advice he’d give to anyone interested in making a modern radio drama.Key Takeaways:Don’t buy your gear new—if you buy the best gear used, it’ll last you forever.The hardest part of any narrative creative medium is the transition between two parts.Make sure you understand what’s happening in your environment before you choose a space to record in.What you make should be in conversation with your audience, but don’t make something just because it’ll get a lot of downloads.Find people who are established in your field, reach out to them, and ask for some direct advice.Think about how the ambience and background noise where you’re recording can contribute to the story and the feel of your whole piece.Aaron: Hey Dan, thanks for joining me today. Tell me a little bit about yourself—where you’re from and where you are now. Maybe a little bit about what your path to audio and podcasting has looked like over the course of your life.Dan: I was born in Rome, Georgia and I was there until I was about 18. It was a medium/small size town in the middle of the woods. I spent a lot of time by myself alone with my thoughts, which is probably what caused me to gravitate to sci-fi, horror, and secular fiction. I began making radio dramas at the age of eight or nine. I used Window 95 Sound Recorder to make these one-man shows.Sometimes it would be me and sometimes it would be my friends, and we would get in front of a microphone and see what happened. That’s really what introduced me to audio editing and creative sound design. From an early age, I was interested in what would happen if you slowed down, sped up, or changed the pitch of your voice.I went to Syracuse University for college and majored in English. I loved reading and still really do, but I realized I was spending all my free time in studios recording my friend’s bands (or recording myself), and that working with audio might be a good career path. I’d always been interested in creative writing, but I thought it might be good to develop a more technical skill or trade that I could have on the side while writing.I ended up really enjoying working with audio and I decided to make that my primary creative and career pursuit. After school I moved to New York City. I interned, I did some odd jobs, I worked at an Apple store, and I eventually got my first job in the sound industry at Soundsnap, a commercial sound effects library. I did that full time for about two years and then transitioned to working there part time while making more time for freelance work, sound engineering, and working on my own podcast on the side. That’s where I’m at now.Aaron: You met Marc (the other half of Dead Signals) in college?Dan: Yeah, Marc and I met his senior year and my post-senior year. I stayed after I graduated to do a fellowship in audio engineering and sound design. One of the cool things about Syracuse is they have this program where if you get to the end of your four years and you decide you want to do something different than what you studied, you can apply for a fellowship that will let you stay an extra year. You basically get a free year of credits that you can do what you want with. I did that after I finished studying English so I could build up my portfolio and get some more one-on-one mentoring strictly with audio stuff. That’s where Marc and I met.Aaron: Then you guys formed Dead Signals Productions.Dan: We formed Dead Signals this time last year. Marc came and visited me in New York and we were talking about ideas we had. The project we worked on together in college was Marc’s senior thesis project, a radio play he wrote and produced. I was just acting in it, playing the lead. More recently, starting last year, was when we started collaborating and both giving equal input for the project.Recording Radio Drama PodcastsAaron: Let’s talk about Archive 81 and Deep Vault, the recording process and the tools you use to handle the editing. Marc said you guys recorded Archive 81 in a bedroom. Do you remember which mic you used for that?Dan: It was the Sennheiser MKH 8040. I got this mic because it’s a really good all-purpose sound design mic. It’s good for all-purpose folio recording, like footsteps, fabric movements, and every day objects you want to record. It’s also really good for ambient field recording. We recorded the dialog with this mic and another mic called a Sennheiser MKH30, which is a bi-directional stereo mic. The two of these things together form a really good pair for mid-side stereo recording.What I was really interested in when I bought these mics was, one, it was the best deal I found on eBay, and two, I was interested in doing more ambient field recording. Living in New York City there’s so many interesting sounds everywhere. There are neighborhoods, parks, and subways. You can turn a corner and be in an entirely different sonic landscape than you were just in.I wanted something that was good for capturing my environment, but when it came down to produce Archive 81, after doing some tests, we realized that these mics would work just as well for dialog recording. I personally would have liked to use a wider diaphragm AKG microphone, but I still think the mics we used worked well for recording dialog. It’s good gear and it’s what we had available at the time.Aaron: I know a lot of podcasters who use $60 or $70 USB mics and there’s a big difference in quality between those and the MKH. What do they run used, close to $1,000?Dan: Close to $1,000. The mic I’m on right now goes for about $1,200 new, but I’m a big Craigslist and eBay deal-hunter. When I was first getting into audio, one of the best pieces of advice I got was when I was talking to someone five years my senior who’s successful and established in the music production scene here in New York. He said:Don’t buy your gear new. Even if you buy the best gear used, it’ll still last you forever.He told me, “I’ve made a spreadsheet of every piece of equipment I’ve purchased from when I first started out. Collectively I’ve saved about $30,000.” That really stuck with me, so now I only buy used gear. I got the mic I’m talking on now for about half of what it would cost new.Aaron: I’m currently on a Shure BETA 87A, which costs $250 new and I think I paid $120 for it used at Guitar Center and it’s an awesome sounding mic for podcasting.Dan: I like the richness of it. In general, I really like dynamic mics for podcasts. I like the rich low end and the proximity effect you can get. I use the mics I use because I want to have a lot of applications for things like sound design and field recording, but I don’t want to make it seem like you have to buy a $700 or $1,000 microphone. I’ve seen people get fantastic results with an SM58, which I use when I do event recording gigs. You can get one of those used on Craigslist for $50 in most cases. In many cases, it’s probably more ideal if you’re at home instead of a treated acoustic space because dynamic microphones do a better job of isolating the sound source and not picking up your refrigerator, your roommate, or your neighbors yelling at each other.Aaron: I agree. I love the large diaphragm condensers, but you do need a quiet, treated room to make them sound good and not pick up a bunch of sound. Alright; let’s talk about sound design. Here’s a clip of episode one of Deep Vault, which has some dialog with some reverb on. I wanted to ask you about that, and about the part in the music where the footsteps transition into the beat of the song.First, let’s talk about the ambience and reverb you used. As I’m listening to it, there’s some kind of ambient sound in that. I’m not sure if it’s reverb in the space you recorded it in or if it’s reverb you added afterward. There’s also an air conditioning kind of “swoosh” background ambience. Can you describe how you achieved those effects?Dan: None of that reverb is natural. It’s all added in post. I exclusively use impulse response reverb, which is basically the ability to capture the sonic snapshot of a real, indoor space by going in and blasting a sign wave or white noise in it and then recording the echo that comes afterwards, then notching out the original sign wave in post. This gives a ghost emanation of what a space actually sounds like.There’s two reverbs fading out and in. There’s the outdoor reverb, which I have a light touch on. It’s meant to evoke the sense that the space is outdoors and then there’s the echo-y underground reverb of the vault they’re about to go into. If you listen prior to them entering the vault, you can hear how it evolves from one space to another. I think very visually when I’m working on it. I’ve said this a lot in various interviews, but because I’m working with Marc on the scripts from the beginning, I don’t really think of this as post production.I’m always thinking about space and sonics as I’m reading the first draft of a show.I usually visually map out or make a flow chart of what the space looks like and how things need to transition from one stage to another. That helps me focus better. In the background, we have a desert ambient sound. It’s a field recording of a desert that’s near an urban area. You have some wind and outdoor air atmosphere, called the air tone, which is the outdoor equivalent of a room tone. If you search Soundsnap for air tone, you’ll find a bunch of ambient recordings of outdoor air spaces that don’t have crowds, people, or traffic.It’s more a general wash like you hear in that clip. There’s the air tone and then there’s the vault sounds—the ambient sounds of the space they’re going into, which is a field recording by a field recordist named Stephan March. I think it’s some recordings of some abandoned bomb shelters on the Danish coast. It’s some industrial room tones with some distant waves, but they have an underground low-fi industrial roominess to them. Those things blend together to create the atmosphere of the vault.Aaron: I’m embarrassed to say it now, but I was thinking these were effects you could achieve with something like the reverbs that come with ProTools or Logic Pro X. What program do you use to do all this stuff with?Dan: I use ProTools for editing, mixing, and basic sound effect placement. For what’s referred to as composite sound effects design—designing a sound effect that needs a lot more depth to it than what you can pull from a library as is—I use Logic. I do that for two reasons. One, I think it’s good to have separation between sound effect editing and show editing. I like to be in two different programs when I’m creating the sound of a robot or a door and when I’m editing the show. Having the different software environment helps to streamline that.The other reason is, though I do think ProTools is great, I think it’s very flawed for making things creatively from scratch. I would never write a song or demo a song in ProTools because I don’t think the user experience is tailored toward composition, whether that’s composing a song or compositing a sound effect from scratch.It’s great for editing and taking material that’s aesthetically already done—like you recording a guitar through an amp—but if you’re trying to dial in the tone of a guitar, I prefer to use Logic, something a little more built for making music from scratch. For this scene, I used pretty much all ProTools because I wasn’t designing anything beyond simply layering things together and the reverb that goes along with that. I wrote the music in Logic.Dan’s Favorite Editing Programs and PluginsAaron: Are there any stock plugins you use inside of Logic or do you have any favorites?Dan: I use Logic’s modular synth plugin, the ES2, a lot because I know it really well. It has a very particular sound but I’ve been using it for many years, and I can dial in the sound I want pretty quickly with it. I probably should learn some more synth plugins so I don’t get set in my ways.Aaron: What about reverb or special effects? I know there’s like 50 stock plugins inside Logic.Dan: Space Designer Plugin for Logic Pro X is incredible. It’s a great impulse response reverb plugin. I use Waves IR1 for the reverb in this scene, but it could have as easily been achieved with the stock Logic Space Designer plugin, probably easier even, because they have a larger native sample library. Any sound designer you talk to will say that Space Designer is the best free stock plugin of anything. That’s a big one. There aren’t a lot of other stock Logic plugins I use for sound design in terms of compositing. Although I do really like the basic Chorus and Phaser modulation stuff for voice processing for robot voices.Aaron: You wrote the music for the show. Is the music going to be available somewhere else later?Dan: Marc and I would really like to release an album of the music from our shows. It’s something we want to do and there’s a few reasons we haven’t done it yet. One reason is time. I’m very skittish about making sure everything is mixed properly. I wouldn’t want to release the music stand alone unless I was absolutely sure it was put together well. The other reason is that I write most of the music for our shows, but we do have some songs that are done with side collaborators and I would want to make sure it’s done legally and copywrite-wise we were in the clear. I want to sign some kind of licensing or formal distribution agreement to make sure everyone is happy money-wise. The song from episode one was me ripping off Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I’m a big fan of their scoring work.Music & Sound Effect Creation for PodcastsAaron: Let’s talk about how you achieved that effect for the song in the sample clip I played earlier. I’m guessing you had the sound of the footsteps on a ladder. Is that something you recorded yourself or is that something you got out of the sound library?Dan: I used several different libraries for that. There’s a mixture of some simulated ladder movement in there, like arms reaching and hands grabbing the rungs of the ladder. There’s also some pure metal footsteps in there. When I was originally putting that together, there were six or seven tracks, three of which were cloth movements and body motions and three of which were footsteps.Some were more foregrounded, like when one character named Jeremy is counting his steps. His footsteps are louder because he’s drawing attention to the fact that he’s counting them. The others are more off to the side to evoke the sense of space and depth, because presumably, they’re going down a circular enclosure to a vault. That was a real pain to put together.Aaron: I can’t believe you recorded clothes rustling to make this realistic.Dan: I can’t speak to film, tv, or video, but part of what makes the footsteps convincing in audio dramas is the footsteps being good, but also having cloth movement and fabric rustling.Aaron: With headphones and soundscapes, you have left and right channels, obviously. What do you do when you’re trying to make something seem like it’s coming from above or below. Is there any way to achieve that affect?Dan: In episode two of Deep Vault, where two characters crash through the floor of the room their in, they’re down there for a bit, and then you hear them crawling up through the crash hole to the other characters that are above them. I think it worked pretty well. I think the sequence of the narrative and that you hear them crash through the floor first and the space change around them helps to establish that.It’s just a matter of having more reverb and/or more delay on the voices that are further away than the voices that are close to you. I’m still figuring out what my philosophy on panning things is for the Deep Vault. It’s an ensemble cast with four actors talking at once, I have them panned around the clock—some are hard left, some are hard right, and some are close to the center.Usually if characters are interrogating or trying to get information from another character or recording, I’ll try to have whatever recording or character they’re talking to in the center to give the sense that they’re gathered around this new source of information they’re trying to learn. As far as making things sound far away or from above or below, it’s a matter of adding more reverb to the things that are farther away and hoping the sense of space translates.Aaron: I think it does most of the time, but it’s something I’m curious about. I’m thinking about the future with virtual reality and how they’re going to handle the different angles of sound. Have you had a chance to try VR yet?Dan: No, but I have some friends who told me I need to do it and I really want to. I have some friends who say Google Cardboard alone is incredible. I’m curious what that technology is like, but also what it’s going to mean for sound. I’m curious what sound for VR is going to be like and how it’s going to differ from the old guard, but also how it’s going to use some of the same techniques to make a realistic experience.Aaron: I used the equivalent to Google Cardboard, not even one of the great ones, and it blew my mind. It’s going to be a game-changer. Maybe we’ll both have future careers in sound design for VR applications.Dan: I’m just trying to stay ahead with what’s new for sound design because I’m afraid of being replaced by robots. It’s something I think about regularly. Am I doing something that will still be done by a human in 20 years? I feel ok about it most of the time, but you never know.Aaron: I like to think that you’ll still have a job because you’re being creative and you’re doing things that take a human. I guess we’ll see.Let’s talk about then music a little more. You did this transition where you have this music playing over the sound of the footsteps, and the footsteps blend into the beat of the music. Did you write the beat first? Were you listening to the pattern of the footsteps or did you go back and match those things up later?Dan: They were matched up later, but my choice of percussion samples definitely made them more easily blendable. With the exception of the kick drum, which is more of a classic, electronic bass-pulse kick drum, everything else is found percussion—everyday objects being tapped on. Things like chairs, bags, or plastic silverware. I like working with low-fi sound percussion samples. I think the fact the percussion track in the song isn’t a real snare drum recorded in a studio helps serve as the connective tissue between the footsteps and their percussiveness and the song’s percussion, and it’s driving the melody forward.The hardest part of any narrative creative medium is the transition between two parts.It glues two things together that work well on their own. Sonically, that could be a good example of choosing the right percussion sample in the context of this being a score rather than a stand alone song. Perhaps if this was just a song released on an EP and it wasn’t meant to score anything, it would sound better with a non-found percussion or some other type of sound.Sound Proofing vs. Sound Treatment for PodcastsAaron: Let’s jump into some mistakes or hard times you came across when you started doing Archive 81 and the Deep Vault. What are some of the things you struggled with?Dan: I do have one thing about recording in a bedroom. The bedroom we recorded in sounded really good as far as bedrooms go, but we had only ever tested the sound in the room at night when everyone else in the house was really quiet.When it came to production time, we were recording during the three most blizzardy weeks in January when every person was holed up in their apartment in New York City. Above my friend’s bedroom is a family with five teenagers, so we had to pause all the time because there were so many footsteps, running water, and cooking sounds. We didn’t plan for all of that.I realized that, even though acoustically the room sounded very good, there was no isolation from what’s above and outside. That was definitely an error I made in trying to plan the space. The next time, we paid for a real studio, because as cool as it is to record in a good-sounding bedroom for free, it’s worth that money to not have to stop every take for outside noise.When you’re pausing takes like that for noise coming from upstairs or outside, you’re losing the groove you have with the actors. The actors might move around if you have to wait for 10 minutes between a scene and you might have to reset levels, which makes it harder to set levels in post and mix. That was a real learning experience.Make sure you understand what’s happening in your environment before you choose a space to record in.Aaron: That applies to regular podcasting too. Someone asked me the other day, “How do I soundproof my room?”They’re actually asking two different questions: “How do I make the sound of my room less noisy?” and, “How do I keep outside noise from coming in?” First, you have to stop noise from computers, air conditioners, refrigerators, and the sound of your voice from bouncing off the walls and being recorded by your mic. Then you have to soundproof the room so that the external sounds aren’t picked up by your mic. For me, I have three windows directly in front of me and it’s an old house, so the windows aren’t soundproof at all. If someone was running a lawn mower outside of my window, everyone would hear it.Soundproofing is making sure noises from outside don’t come in. Sound treatment is making sure there aren’t noises inside your room causing problems in your audio.Know Your LimitsAaron: Any other mistakes or things that stood out throughout this process?Dan: There are so many. The question is what’s a useful mistake to talk about, and what’s one I perpetually torture myself about at night? I’ll talk about casting. With Archive 81, we didn’t have a system for how we went about casting it. We put the character notices out on Craigslist one at a time and auditioned and chose people piecemeal. It worked out for the most part, but there were some characters where we were in a real bind because we didn’t have enough people in time, so we had to choose the best option. I would have liked to have more options.I pretty much did all the casting for the first season and I didn’t go about it systematically, so for the Deep Vault, I wanted to make sure I did it more systematically. I spent a whole weekend auditioning people and planned in advance the characters they were auditioning for and allot time slots throughout the day so I could do it all at once. That was good and it was organized, but I packed too many people in one weekend, so by Sunday afternoon it was too much.I’m pretty introverted by nature and I think I chose my line of work in the technical side of audio production because a lot of times, it’s just you and the machine. You do need other skills and to be able to talk to people professionally, but you also spend a lot of time alone, which I’m fine with. I definitely love socialising, like on this interview, but I’ll be glad to go back to my little audio hole.That Sunday after three eight-hour days of auditioning and reading lines in character for these people, I was totally depleted. I think I’ve learned I need to be more systematic about it, but that I also need to spread it out over a few weekends in advance as opposed to trying to do it all in one weekend.Aaron: I’m a productivity nerd when it comes to planning out my days and making sure I have stuff to do. There’s a lot I want to accomplish, but when you first get into that, you tend to overestimate what you can accomplish. You think you can do meaningful work for 12 or 14 hours and you don’t realize that you can take on too much and say yes to too many things.Half way through, you’ve given it all you have for six hours and you’re worn out and you feel guilty because you didn’t do all the things you said you were going to do. It’s good to plan and try that stuff so that you know next time not to plan 12 hours of work for both Saturday and Sunday. Maybe you can do that, but you don’t know until you try. Start by planning and make notes about how it goes and you’ll have a better understanding about yourself and your stamina for the next time.Dan: That speaks to the more general philosophy that doing it is the only way you’ll know what your own patterns are, what works for you, and what doesn’t work for you. Be open to some trial and error for your own personal workflow. It’s easy to look up to certain human accomplishments and think, “This great musician practiced for 12 hours a day, so I must have to do that to be the Rachmaninoff of podcasting,” but at the same time, there are successful and accomplished people who have more human and normal working hour regimens. Trent Reznor is one of those people and it’s obvious from his output that he’s someone who never stops working. That works for him, but some people need more time to unwind and not get burnt out on things.Dan’s Advice for Aspiring PodcastersAaron: What kind of advice or tips would you give to someone who’s interested in doing something like Archive 81 or Deep Vault—a found sound or radio drama podcast? I’ve noticed in the last year or two they’re skyrocketing in terms of popularity. I think there’s a lot of people who might be turning the idea over in their mind. What would you say to those people?Dan: The first thing is the writing and acting has to be really good. Have people you can trust give you feedback and critique who you can run things by. If the source material and story doesn’t work, then everything that follows isn’t going to work either. If you’ve never done a podcast before, be prepared for many ours of sedentary work. Doing this kind of work takes a lot time and it’s a lot of time you have to spend alone in front of a computer.I lost count of the number of times this summer my friends said, “Hey, we’re going to the beach. Want to come?” or other things I wanted to do and I had to blow them off because I was editing or doing revisions. Be prepared for that and make sure you’re ok with that.If you need a lot of time outside of the house and you really need a social life, maybe this particular kind of podcasting isn’t right for you. Interviewing is a very different thing. I don’t like to be preachy about exercise, but I do think it’s good to exercise if you’re doing sedentary creative work because it makes the mind work better and for me, it puts me more at ease.Aaron: I’m with you on that, so two out of two podcasters recommend exercise and good sleep.Dan: Go out there and do it. Work hard and tell the story you want to tell. Don’t make anything because you think it’ll sell or bring an audience. Marc and I made Archive 81 because we thought it was a cool idea.What you make should be in conversation with your audience, but don’t make something just because you think it’ll get a lot of downloads.I still feel like I’m learning a lot and trying to figure all this stuff out. Keep an open mind and stay open to learning new things as you go along. I still study sound design with a mentor because there’s always new levels I can push myself towards and I don’t want to get too comfortable.Sound Design ResourcesAaron: Are there any books, websites, or online courses for someone who’s a total beginner, or someone like me who is relatively familiar with recording, mixing, and producing music and podcasts but hasn’t really gotten into sound design?Dan: Transom.org is a great resource. Although it is geared towards beginners in radio and podcasting, I still find articles on there I can learn from. I think it has a good intro overview to things like sound design. I can’t name anything specific, but for a few years now, when I want to learn more about a subject, I find someone I like and relate to who’s established in that field and I reach out to them asking for some one-on-one mentoring lessons. That’s something I think is worth paying for. Most people will take $50 for a few hours to talk about it.No matter what artistic discipline you’re in, it’s helpful to find people who are established in your field, reach out to them, and ask for some direct advice.That’s what’s been the most helpful for me. If there’s a sound designer, composer, or radio producer you admire, reach out and see if that’s an option. I don’t think Ira Glass is capable of doing private lessons with as busy as he is, but I’m sure there are other people who are really good at what they do who are capable.Aaron: There’s people at all different levels on this journey. We’re talking about audio specifically, but it’s true for anything. There are famous people you’ve heard of and then there’s people in the middle who have more experience than you but maybe aren’t quite so famous yet. Surrounding yourself with people who share your passion and interests on your skill level is great, but try reaching out and offering to pay for some consulting.Chances are they like talking about that stuff, but it is good to pay people for their time. That makes sure they’re invested and they’re not feeling like you’re taking advantage of their time. Audio engineers have to make money to buy gear!Field Recording Gear and Tips for PodcastersAaron: Diana asks, “What’s your setup for mobile recording?” She’s about to start a podcast and will be doing some traveling. I know there are times where you take microphones out into the real world to do field recordings. What’s your setup? Is it the same mics and a portable recording device?Dan: A Sennheiser MD421 or a Shure SM58 will work great because most dynamic microphones are good at sound isolation.Another good option to consider would be the Sennheiser ME66 Shotgun Mic, which is a great short shotgun microphone. That’s good for both ambient sound and interview recordings in a live setting. It’s in the $200 to $300 range and you can find it on eBay, Craigslist, Guitar Center, or Reverb.com for much cheaper.Aaron: What device do you record into?Dan: The Zoom H5 or H6 is a fantastic piece of recording equipment. You can find that new for $300 or used for way less. It’s a solid improvement over the H4N in many ways. There’s less handling noise, it’s less noisy, and the majority of people looking into podcasting would do great with one of those.Aaron: I think this is a situation a lot of people will get in. When you’re out and about and recording, you have to think about the noise in the room and the ambient noise, and if there’s a possibility of a lot of noise where you are. Coffee shops and crowded restaurants aren’t going to be great for getting clean audio. You'll also want to set input gain levels correctly, so you can be sure the levels coming into the microphone doesn’t hit zero and clip. You want to keep the highest peaks coming in around -12 DB. What’s your thought on that? What do you aim for?Dan: I aim for -12 to -6 at absolute highest for both studio and in the field. I always stuck by that as universal truth of audio, but when I was doing some sound design training this summer with the person I was mentoring under, for sound effects recording, he was advising me to capture things at as high of a signal level as possible without clipping. Being able to focus and isolate the sound source that way really is much more beneficial when you’re trying to make a sound effect at non-dialog level.Aaron: Did you have limiters on in that situation?Dan: I usually keep the limiters on, but I try not to hit them. I record on my rooftop a lot. Sometimes I get up at 6am and record the morning rush as it starts to unfold and I usually need the limiters to catch a truck horn or a plane that flies overhead. If you’re in a noisy environment, that’s another good case for using a dynamic microphone because it does isolate the sound source pretty well.When I was in school, I did a student radio project for a radio podcast production class where I was riding the campus buses and I was on one of those buses on a Friday night when it was filled with drunk kids going from one frat house to another. You can imagine how quiet that was. I was using a dynamic mic and it worked pretty well when I was cutting the interviews together. It had that loud, crazy ambience in the background, but if I held it pretty close to the speaker, I could still isolate them in a way that worked for the final product.Think about how the ambience and background noise where you’re recording can contribute to the story and the feel of your whole piece.Dan: With all the woes that came with recording Archive 81 in a bedroom with loud upstairs neighbors, I do think the fact that it felt like an apartment helped the actors get the vibe. I’m not sure how much of that translated sonically, because it’s hard for me to be objective about it at this point, but I do think that background worked for that piece. In theory, I would like to do more location recording for audio dramas.If something takes place on a busy street corner, I’d like to get out there with a more formal production sound rig and record it, but Marc and I work at a pretty intense pace and it’s not always easy to coordinate that. Many times it makes the most sense to do it in the studio and create the atmosphere after the fact, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.Aaron: Do what your gut says and plan for it. Last week, Marc said one of the hardest thing for him is the time constraints. I definitely feel that too. My podcast isn’t anything complicated but it still takes a few hours to produce. When you have a full-time job, other projects, and people you want to hang out with, you really have to focus on what you want to say yes to and what you have to say no to._Huge thanks to Dan and Marc for taking time out of their busy schedules to talk with me. If you’ve enjoyed these interviews, head over to their Patreon page and support these guys.Links:Dead Signals ProductionsArchive 81Deep VaultPodcast: https://podcastingwithaaron.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/aaronpodcastingYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/aarondowdBlog: https://www.aarondowd.comRecommended Gear: https://kit.co/PodcastingwithAaron

Everyone has a story, but few people take the time to tell it. My guest today started a podcast to tell his story, despite having little experience with podcasting. As a result, he’s growing an audience, making new friends, and learning a lot along the way.Brian Sanders is a project manager and app designer who formed a startup to build a new podcast app and platform called Nexcast. He’s joining me today to share what he’s learned in his startup and podcasting journey so far, and how podcasting is helping him learn more about his target audience and his product.Key Takeaways:People will reach out to you if you take the time to share your story.People relate to struggles. Don’t be afraid to share yours.It’s important to go make things happen—don’t wait for good things to happen to you.If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing.Podcasting, videos, and blogging all come back to opening up, sharing your experiences, and telling your story—that’s how you build community.You don’t always have to have the best equipment—use what you have and start telling your story today.Aaron: Joining us today is Brian Sanders from Nexcast. Brian, you’re trying to build a podcast app and maybe a platform. What’s your backstory?Brian: I grew up in Hawaii and I got into UCLA for mechanical engineering, so I came to LA and I’ve been here ever since. I started in the engineering world where I actually got to design some rides for Universal Studios and Disneyland. So I was doing engineering, but I didn’t like it that much. The company I was working for went out of business during the recession and I went to another similar company.That’s actually when I found podcasts, when I was sitting at a computer working on 3D models all day. It was kind of boring, so I was listening to podcasts eight hours a day. I would be laughing in my cubical and none of my coworkers even knew what podcasts were. I realized I wanted to be more entrepreneurial—I liked to design and be creative—so I started doing that on the side.I started doing design for other people and getting paid for it. I joined up with a developer and we started building whole products for people in LA, New York, and Chicago for a couple of years. It took a while to figure it out because I was learning on my own, but eventually I got a job. One of my clients hired me on and we started working at a tech company in Santa Monica where I got to learn a lot more about the processes of building technology and managing an engineering team.I still had projects on the side. I had an app that was like Instagram for writing, where you could post a photo with stories and you add chapters. People could comment and follow you. I decided to sell it to a private company, quit my job, and started working on a podcast app idea that had been in the back of my mind for awhile.Overlapping & Taking Your Side Project Full TimeAaron: So you worked your day job for a few years and saved up money and stripped back your expenses so that when you quit, you could support yourself doing your own thing.Brian: Exactly. The biggest thing is to start pretending you’re not making a lot of money (even if you’re working a good job), and save as much money as you can.Aaron: That’s very long-term focused. I think a lot of people struggle with that.Brian: It takes a lot of discipline. I pretended like I was making minimum wage, but I was really happy. I had a couple of roommates from Hawaii that I grew up with and we still had a great time. You can get a lot out of life even if you aren’t spending much money.Aaron: If you’re trying to go freelance or do anything that doesn’t guarantee you a steady paycheck, it’s important to practice for that while you’re working a day job. I know that’s not related to podcasting, but it’s important. Living cheaply is why I’m able to do what I do—podcast editing and helping people make podcasts. I learned in my twenties to save money and to really think about what was important for me to spend money on.There are a lot of things that you can spend money on, but sometimes it’s better to not spend money so that later you can pursue your dreams. For example, you quit your job and you had this idea to work on a podcast app, maybe even a platform. Was that your plan when you quit your job, or was that a more recent development?Brian: I didn’t pursue it fully until I put that platform bigger picture together. I wondered if we could listen to podcasts in a more interactive way or have more features. Why isn’t anyone building a better podcast app? The problem was that I couldn’t figure out how to make it a business and it seems like not many other people have either. The podcast industry is weird, but it’s growing. It’s hard to put together the business model. The day I figured out the business model, I started focusing on it for real and I put everything else to the side.Your Life is a Story – Document ItAaron: When did you start your own podcast to tell the story of what you’re doing?Brian: It started about five months after I got the idea for the app. Now that it’s happening, it’s like, “Of course we should be doing a podcast. We have to tell our story and get people involved.”Aaron: There are so many people who have stories, but they don’t document or share them. If you’re not writing, publishing blog posts, or even journaling, you’re going to regret that in the future. Brian, you’re going through a period in your life where you’re trying to start a company and you’re documenting the process so anyone who’s interested can hear it.12:43 Aaron: You’re seven episodes into your podcast so far. Do you have a background in working with audio?Brian: No, but in high school I worked a little bit with video. That really helped. I haven’t done anything with video since then, but I always think I can teach myself anything, and anyone can learn. It’s easy these days with all the tools and resources online. You just have to start.Getting a Team TogetherAaron: You’re trying to build a team to help you create this podcast app. How’s that going so far? I know you’ve been struggling to find a new CTO.Brian: We had an interesting process of getting a team together. As a non-developer, it’s always really hard to get developers on your team. It’s the #1 goal of your life. You don’t want to hire people from other countries because that never really works out well, and great developers always have jobs and are very expensive. Sometimes it seems like there are no options.Aaron: Do you have funding or enough money to pay a full-time developer’s salary?Brian: Well, Troy has a good job, so he’s busy all day and he has some money, but we’re not paying anyone. We have to find people who are in it for equity. Our next episode is about this crazy battle with some teens in the Philipines that have my Twitter handle (we’ve been in this crazy journey for nine months trying to get it back from them). After that, there’s going to be an episode about getting our new CTO.Aaron: I usually want to be paid for work I do, but at the same time, when I started editing podcasts, I was working for free. I started a podcast with some people I knew online and they needed someone to edit the show, and because I was interested in becoming a podcaster and podcast editor, I was willing to do the editing without getting paid. I’m glad you found someone though, because that can be really hard. Did he listen to your podcast?Brian: He didn’t initially, but the fact that we had a podcast helped. I could point him to it so he could see we were legit. But other people who listen have been getting in touch. There’s another developer who wants to join who happens to be in LA who found us by listening. That guy just wants to be part of the journey. It’s huge, having a podcast has been great.Share Your MistakesAaron: It’s one thing to be a stranger randomly emailing people on the internet saying, “Hey, help me with my project.” It’s a whole different thing if you open up and you share your journey, what you’re struggling with, who you are, and where you’re planning to go—sharing your story rallies people around you. This is not just for startups or businesses. You will make connections and people will find you. You’ll build a community.People will reach out to you if you take the time to share your story.Brian: Looking back, I can’t imagine not doing a podcast. There were different routes to go down and it was important to us to share the shortcomings and the mistakes. We didn’t want to be startup bros saying, “We’re killing it! This is going awesome! Everything we’re doing is cool!” I edited the first episode and people don’t realize I left all the bad parts of the pitch. I made it sound worse than it probably was.Aaron: So you went to pitch an investor. You recorded the conversation and included it in the first episode of your podcast. You left the rough parts in because people relate to struggles—winning all the time isn’t interesting to most people. The first episode really grabbed me and I’m pretty picky about podcasts. I’m choosy about what I listen to and I really enjoyed your show.Brian: I’ve only had one bad podcasting experience. All the other podcasters I’ve talked to have been amazing. This one guy thought I was the worst sales guy ever because he listened to that first episode and he heard me stumbling my way through that pitch. When I was interviewed on show, he said, “So, you’re the worst salesman ever. What do you do? You don’t build the technology and you couldn’t even get through a simple sales pitch.” I guess he didn’t realize that I edited that episode and chose to put that stuff in.Aaron: Did you find it hard to put out those imperfections and mistakes?Brian: Yeah, I regret it sometimes. I worry that it makes us look like idiots. There could be VC’s listening and they might be discounting us now. It might make a better story, but I might be losing my chances at investment. Sometimes I wonder if I can pull the episode, re-edit it, and put it back.Get UncomfortableAaron: You told me on the phone the other day that you’re trying to get on Planet of the Apps. Can you explain why and give a brief overview of what that is?Brian: Apple hasn’t released all the details yet, but they’re producing a show with some big names like Will.i.am, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Gary Vaynerchuck. They haven’t told us the exact format of the show, but it sounds a little bit like Shark Tank, or a reality show about app developers. The developers who are accepted to the show get access to mentoring, funding, and marketing and promotions.Aaron: It sounds like a great opportunity for you. So you drove across town to audition?Brian: Yeah, there was an event. Will.i.am was there and he talked about what he wanted to see. There were a bunch of casting agents there. There was this one casting area that no one was paying attention to. Everyone was wanting to talk to Will.i.am or nervously milling around, and I told my partner we needed to just charge these casting guys. We needed to sound like we had something really cool, and eventually we did that.We found the lead casting agent and got him to sit down with us. We said, “We’re building something cool. Podcasts are awesome.” He didn’t listen to podcasts, so we had to make sure he knew how big podcasts are. We told him, “They change peoples’ lives, and we’re going up against Apple, who has their own podcast app already. This is good tv! We’re taking on Apple and we’re already doing a podcast about us building this app.”He said, “I’m going to skip you ahead of the casting process. Make me a 10-minute video.” So we made the video and they emailed us the next day and wanted headshots. They wanted to see the app, but I had to tell them it wasn’t ready yet. We’re hoping to hear back from them soon.Aaron: The takeaway here is that you could have just said, “Our app isn’t ready yet. We’re probably not going to win this,” and you could have stayed home, but you drove across town and you showed up. You tried to talk to people and make stuff happen. I just wanted to highlight that.It’s important to go make things happen. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you.Brian: There was as a specific moment where we were nervous and it could have gone either way. We had a choice; either just turn in our 1-minute audition video like everyone else and hope we’d get noticed, or go talk to the casting guy and try to make something happen. I’m happy we chose the latter.Aaron: It’s scary, but if you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing.What’s Next for You?Aaron: What do you see in the future for yourself and your startup?Brian: We had a few hiccups, but now we’re finally moving and things are back on track. Our overarching goal is to make podcasting better for everyone. We’re working on an app that brings the content right into the app. For example, you’ve got show notes and you send people to your site, but not everyone is going to do that, so we want to put that stuff right in the app.It will show the visual content, photos of guests, promotions, links to your products, etc. It’s all right in the app. We’re also working on discussions and comment threads.There are different comment areas on the internet that aren’t so great, but podcasts audiences are passionate and enthusiastic. It seems to me like the best place to have discussions.Aaron: Having the ability to have a discussion about a podcast episode and go back and forth with other people inside the app would be really interesting. It sounds like you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, though.Brian: It’s just the beginning, but I think we’re positioned in a good way. All of my team members have their own jobs, which could be seen as a down side, like they’re not focused or it’s not a career, but that’s what’s going to help us last a long time without investment. We’re going to see what happens and get advice from the community we’re in to see what features they want. It could take years, but I’m ready for that.Aaron: It make take even longer than that, but you’re learning in the process. You’ll make some mistakes but you’ll document them for others to learn from, which is great.Q&A:Alex Castro asks: “Should I document the development of my brand, maybe on YouTube or a blog instead of podcasting? Sharing the journey as I go seems super scary.”Brian: It is scary. YouTube might fit better if you’re doing a lot of visual things or if you’re already good at doing video. Why not? It will be scary, but you’ll realize that it doesn’t really matter. I’ve had 99.9% positive feedback, except for one weird guy on a podcast. He was just a hater who hasn’t really built anything of his own.Aaron: Alex is a phenomenal visual designer, and I think sharing your story in a video format or blogging with pictures is fine. The lines between blogging, podcasting, and video are all starting to blur for me.I’m starting to think of these just as sharing a message or telling a story, instead of separate things. They are separate things, but if you start off by writing a blog post, you’ve got words that can be recorded and that’s a podcast. Or you could record a video of yourself saying those words. There’s different formatting and editing you can do, but it’s really all the same thing.Podcasting, producing video, and blogging all come back to opening up, sharing your experiences, and telling your story.That’s how you build community. That’s how you attract like-minded people and make friends. Opportunities will come from it. Even if you don’t think you have an interesting story yet, start telling it. You’ll find your story if you dig.Brian: Just start doing it. It took us a few months to put everything together before we even went live with it. You figure it out as you go and you write ahead. No one has ever regretted putting their story out there.Links:Podcast: https://podcastingwithaaron.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/aaronpodcastingYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/aarondowdBlog: https://www.aarondowd.comRecommended Gear: https://kit.co/podcastingwithaaron

Charli Prangley is a designer by day and a content creator by... well, pretty much the rest of the time. In addition to her day job, she produces two high-quality Youtube videos and a podcast every week, and also runs an online apparel shop. I was so impressed with the consistency and quality of her output that I knew I had to get her on the show to share how she creates so much while still working a full-time job. If you've ever struggled with creating consistently or trying to get everything 100% perfect before shipping, you need to listen to this episode. Key Takeaways: You don't have to have the best camera or microphone to get started. Use what you have or what you can afford, and upgrade later. If you want someone to invest time in what you're creating, show them a little bit of your personality but make sure you share content they'd be interested in. Sometimes you do have to “beat people over the head” to get them to check out a link. You might have to post a link multiple times in a week before someone actually sees it and clicks on it. Look for communities and people to collaborate and work with. It's a great way to share and grow audiences. If you want to be successful in video or podcasting, make creating content a habit and not just something you do when you have “free time”. Don't try to fine-tune your content to perfection; give yourself a deadline and ship it. Aaron: It seems like you're constantly putting out content. I always see you tweeting about editing vlogs or your latest podcast episode. You post two videos to your YouTube channel every week in addition to your weekly podcast, Design Life. How do you manage to create so much while still working a full time job? Charli: When you create a lot of content online (like I do), everything in your life becomes an opportunity to create content and tell a story. If I go to an event, I think about what I'm going to learn that I can share with other people. This provides a constant stream of ideas that I can share in my videos or podcast episodes. Aaron: So you put a lot of content out consistently, and you're seeing results; you're almost to 25,000 subscribers on Youtube. Can you take us back to the beginning and share how and why you got started? Charli: I started my Youtube channel back in 2013 because I wanted to see into the lives of other designers, but I wasn't finding the kind of content I was looking for. There were a lot of tutorials, but I wanted to get to know the people behind those tutorials. I decided to start my own YouTube channel so I could create lifestyle content from the perspective of a designer. Other designers discovered my channel because they were looking for the same thing. Having that unique point of view from the start really helped my channel grow. Aaron: So you made the show you wanted to watch, and it turned out that there are a lot of other people who wanted that show as well? Charli: Exactly. I try to think about what I would have found valuable in my early days of getting started as a designer, and then I create that content. It's really rewarding when I hear from young designers who tell me how my content is helping them. Charli's Gear Setup Aaron: What kind of gear were you using when you started back in 2013? Charli: When I first started, I was using a Nikon D5000. It's a DLSR but it can only record video for 5 minutes at a time and only in 720p. It didn't have a flip-out screen or auto-focus in video mode, so there were a lot of challenges to overcome to get my video content made, but I stuck with it. It was about a year before I could afford an upgrade. Aaron: I started a video show recently, and I've been using my iPhone and a Shure MV88 mic, and I've already got better gear than you had (because I've got the front-facing screen to see myself). With smart phone cameras being as good as they are now, anyone can shoot video. What did you end up upgrading to? Charli: I got a Canon 70d which I really like. It's a great all around camera for the price. You don't have to have the best camera or microphone to get started. Use what you have or what you can afford, and upgrade later. Charli's Tips for Growing an Audience Aaron: When you started producing video, did you have any kind of online following? Charli: Not really. I think I had around 1,000 followers on Twitter because I was pretty active in my design and tech scene in Wellington, NZ, so I suppose that's where my first views came from. Aaron: Did you have a strategy for growing your audience? Charli: I knew a little bit about search engine optimization (because I was doing it at my job), so I thought about how I could apply that to my videos, but it was mostly trial-and-error. I paid attention to what worked, what thumbnails people preferred and what content they were interested in. But something I've done from the start was to make sure my videos were tagged well so that they come up in search. Today, about half of my views come from people searching YouTube. Don't underestimate the value of SEO. Aaron: SEO is important. The way I like to explain it is just think about what people would search Google or Youtube for, and then use those words in your podcast or video title, or in headlines on your blog post. There's a lot more to it than that, but that's a great place to start. How to Get People to Pay Attention to Your Content Jordan Newhouse asks: I produce new content every week. How do I get people to realize the content is there and get them to check it out? Charli: Start by looping in all of your social media to the content you're creating. You don't want to be talking about yourself non-stop online, that's not the way to have an interesting account. If you want someone to invest time in what you're creating, show them a little bit of your personality but make sure you share content they'd be interested in. You have to share your content more than once. You can't send out a tweet and expect everyone to notice. Some people might not be paying attention or they might be half-asleep; you have to share it anywhere and everywhere you can, in different ways. Try different titles to see what works. I create so much content so often that by the time I'm finished with a video, I'm already thinking about the next one, but I should be thinking about how to best promote the video I just made. Aaron: I used to feel weird about sharing links to my content more than once. I used to think people would be annoyed if they saw me post multiple links to content. I finally realized that most people just aren't paying that close of attention to their social media streams. Sometimes you do have to “beat people over the head” to get them to check out a link. You might have to post a link multiple times in a week before someone actually sees it and clicks on it. How to Promote Your Content Charli: One of the best ways to promote your content is in response to questions you see your audience asking. If one of your followers is discussing a topic you covered on your podcast, send them a link to that episode if you think they'd find it valuable. Aaron: I love doing that. Some of the podcasters I follow have their own hashtags, so I'll use Twitter search to find people who are asking podcasting questions and send them links to my episodes where I answered their questions. If someone wants to learn, you would be doing them a disservice by not sending them a link to your content if it answers their question or would help them in some way. Participate in Your Community Aaron: I talk a lot about the importance of participating in your community, inviting guests on your podcast and collaborating with other people. You participate in an active Youtube community, right? Charli: That's something I love about Youtube, there's a very active community there. Everyone's very collaborative, it's easy to create video with other people and combine your audiences. Look for communities and people to collaborate and work with. It's a great way to share and grow audiences. Create Content in Multiple Mediums and Build a Creation Habit Aaron: You started a podcast recently. Did you find it easier since you've been creating video for a couple years? Charli: There was definitely a learning curve, just like getting started with video. There were all these new things to learn like what kind of microphone to buy, how to record and edit, and how to get your show into iTunes. It seems like it should be easy, just hit record and make a podcast, but it's really not that simple. Aaron: One of my friends wants to start a podcast, but he wants to get everything perfect right away. That's just not how it works; you have to be willing to jump in and create something, give yourself a deadline, and ship it. Otherwise you're going to be talking forever about how you want to do something but you'll never actually finish anything. You have to be ok with not being awesome at something for awhile. You'll get better over time. Charli: That's really the key to producing content consistently; get used to not being perfect and learn as you go. You could wait until you know everything and get everything absolutely perfect, but then you wasted time you could have been building the habit of producing content. If you want to be successful in video or podcasting, make creating content a habit and not just something you do when you have “free time”. Charli: People ask me, “You've put out a video every Saturday for two and a half years, how do you do it?” I don't even think about it anymore; it's non-negotiable. A video will go up every Saturday because it's just a habit. Aaron: Do you find yourself getting faster and more efficient as time goes on? Charli: Definitely, but you don't want to settle in a rut. Your audience will get bored if they see the same thing every week. When things are getting too easy, that's when I try to learn something new to add to my process. Tips for Getting Started with Your First Videos Aaron: We got another question from Jordan. She asked, “I'm about to make my very first video ever (it's going to be part of my product launch). What are some things I should keep in mind?” Charli: Think beforehand about what the content of the video is going to be so that you can get all the right shots for it. You might even want to make a storyboard. You might end up needing to reshoot a few scenes because that's just how it goes. You might get to the editing part and realize that you need another shot or you need to re-record something. That's ok, it's just part of the process. Aaron: Do you create storyboards for your videos? Charli: Not all the time, but sometimes, usually if I'm doing a fashion video that requires a bunch of different angles, I'll just draw some rough sketches on a notebook to help me make sure I get all the shots. Aaron: I saw my friend Alex Cespedes (sorry I butchered your name in the show, dude) post a really interesting picture on Instagram showing how he outlines his podcast episodes on paper. I think that's a great way to plan a show or podcast episode. Charli: People plan in different ways. I create a rough script or outline for my video in the notes app on my phone and that's enough to get my mind thinking about what I'm going to say and how I need to say it. How to Create Consistently Aaron: What are your biggest struggles with creating consistently, and how do you overcome those? Charli: Time is always going to be a struggle. Even if you want to put something out every week, not every week is the same. In my life, I've got my day job, but that's also things to do in the evenings and I travel a lot, so I have to make sure I make enough time to create a video I'm proud of. It's always a struggle, but that's where building the habit comes in. Planning definitely helps with the time constraint as well; I break the process down into little steps so I can get things done whenever I have time. Don't try to fine-tune your content to perfection; give yourself a deadline and ship it. Aaron: One of my struggles is that there are always more projects that I want to do. I shoot myself in the foot by taking on too many things and not giving any one thing the focus it needs to be as successful as it can be. I try to do six things in a week and because I'm trying to work on all of them, I don't make much progress on any of them. Charli: You have to pick which thing is most important to you and make sure that one gets done. Then you can worry about the other things. Collaboration Can Help You Produce Consistently Aaron: You've got a co-host for your podcast. Does that help you get the show done every week? You do a lot of videos by yourself, so you'd probably be ok on your own, right? Charli: I don't think I would, no. I would not have a podcast if it wasn't for my co-host Femke. Since I do two videos every week, we split up the duties so that she does the editing and I do the show notes and our newsletter. But she does a lot more work than I do, which is really helpful. Aaron: It is really helpful to have someone hold you accountable and help you do the work that it takes to put a show out every week. Podcasting is a lot of work and there's nothing better than having a co-host who is really invested and willing to help with the work and keep you on track with producing. Q&A: Adina asked: How do I avoid looking awkward or sounding boring on camera? Charli: That's a question that everyone asks and something that everyone goes through.. The answer is just practice. You're going to make a lot of awkward videos before you start to feel comfortable. I don't know if I can pinpoint the exact moment where I started feeling comfortable talking to the camera, but it happened. After I made enough videos, it stopped being a weird thing. Vlogging really helped for me, just picking up the camera and talking to it as I went through my day. It felt more casual and less stressful then sitting down in front of lights to film. Aaron: It's the self-imposed pressure, right? We want to be as good as someone else we've seen. We see all these people making videos and podcasts and they always seem so fluid and cool and they've always got funny things to say. They've got 600,000 views and 300,000 likes and we think that's the level of quality we have to achieve, but it doesn't happen overnight. You won't get there in the first couple tries. Also, being a better speaker and communicator is something you can teach yourself. Unless you slow down and think critically about the way you talk and how you can improve, you won't improve. You can improve the way you talk. You can change the way that you talk and it will start to become the natural way that you talk with practice and time. Charli: When you first started podcasting, did you find listening to your own voice awkward? Aaron: Definitely. Charli: When I started making video, it was hard for me to watch and listen to myself, but now, I feel like I sound exactly like I do in my head. I don't know what changed, but it's not awkward anymore. Aaron: Part of it is just getting comfortable hearing yourself on recordings. You just get used to it after awhile. But I listen back to old episodes I've done and there are things I don't like about the way I sound, so I think about what I could have done differently to sound better. I try to learn from my mistakes and improve, and I have, slowly over time and with practice. Charli: When I listen back to my first 6 months of video, I don't sound like me; I sound like someone trying to make a video. Now I feel like I just sound like me, like I sound when I'm having a normal conversation. Aaron: We got a followup question: What about filming in public? I feel painfully embarrassed when I shoot video in public. I absolutely know what that feels like. I feel super weird about holding a phone or camera out and shooting a video in public. I don't even like people seeing me taking pictures of other people or myself in public. But I'm going to let Charli talk about this since she's gotten comfortable with recording video in public. Charli: I still feel awkward sometimes, like if I'm going to be sitting on a train with people on the way to work, I won't pull out my camera and talking to it. But if I'm walking down the street, I'm probably never going to see any of those people again. If I know I need to get a shot to explain something in my vlog later, then I just have to get over feeling weird and get the shot that I need. And it comes back to practice. Aaron: And really, what's the worst thing that could happen? Someone makes fun of you or looks at you like you're an idiot? Charli: Exactly, and don't think of it as you're talking to your phone or camera, you're talking to the person on the other side who is watching you later. You're not really talking to yourself, even if it looks like you are. Aaron: Now I'm thinking about how funny it would be to make a show where you just walk around in public all day, talking to yourself and catching people looking horrified or disgusted in the background. Charli: Even if you do feel self-conscious, do it anyway and at least you'll have all the shots you need. You can find Charli online at CharliMarie.com. Her Youtube channel is Charli Marie TV, and you can find her on Twitter and Instagram as well. She is also the co-host of Design Life, a fantastic podcast about design and side projects for motivated creators. Links: Podcast: https://podcastingwithaaron.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/aaronpodcasting Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/aarondowd Blog: https://www.aarondowd.com Recommended Gear: https://kit.co/podcastingwithaaron

Charli Prangley is a designer by day and a content creator by... well, pretty much the rest of the time. In addition to her day job, she produces two high-quality Youtube videos and a podcast every week, and also runs an online apparel shop. I was so impressed with the consistency and quality of her output that I knew I had to get her on the show to share how she creates so much while still working a full-time job.If you've ever struggled with creating consistently or trying to get everything 100% perfect before shipping, you need to listen to this episode.Key Takeaways:You don’t have to have the best camera or microphone to get started. Use what you have or what you can afford, and upgrade later.If you want someone to invest time in what you’re creating, show them a little bit of your personality but make sure you share content they’d be interested in.Sometimes you do have to “beat people over the head” to get them to check out a link. You might have to post a link multiple times in a week before someone actually sees it and clicks on it.Look for communities and people to collaborate and work with. It’s a great way to share and grow audiences.If you want to be successful in video or podcasting, make creating content a habit and not just something you do when you have “free time”.Don’t try to fine-tune your content to perfection; give yourself a deadline and ship it.Aaron: It seems like you’re constantly putting out content. I always see you tweeting about editing vlogs or your latest podcast episode. You post two videos to your YouTube channel every week in addition to your weekly podcast, Design Life. How do you manage to create so much while still working a full time job?Charli: When you create a lot of content online (like I do), everything in your life becomes an opportunity to create content and tell a story. If I go to an event, I think about what I’m going to learn that I can share with other people. This provides a constant stream of ideas that I can share in my videos or podcast episodes.Aaron: So you put a lot of content out consistently, and you’re seeing results; you’re almost to 25,000 subscribers on Youtube. Can you take us back to the beginning and share how and why you got started?Charli: I started my Youtube channel back in 2013 because I wanted to see into the lives of other designers, but I wasn’t finding the kind of content I was looking for. There were a lot of tutorials, but I wanted to get to know the people behind those tutorials.I decided to start my own YouTube channel so I could create lifestyle content from the perspective of a designer. Other designers discovered my channel because they were looking for the same thing. Having that unique point of view from the start really helped my channel grow.Aaron: So you made the show you wanted to watch, and it turned out that there are a lot of other people who wanted that show as well?Charli: Exactly. I try to think about what I would have found valuable in my early days of getting started as a designer, and then I create that content. It’s really rewarding when I hear from young designers who tell me how my content is helping them.Charli’s Gear SetupAaron: What kind of gear were you using when you started back in 2013?Charli: When I first started, I was using a Nikon D5000. It’s a DLSR but it can only record video for 5 minutes at a time and only in 720p. It didn’t have a flip-out screen or auto-focus in video mode, so there were a lot of challenges to overcome to get my video content made, but I stuck with it. It was about a year before I could afford an upgrade.Aaron: I started a video show recently, and I’ve been using my iPhone and a Shure MV88 mic, and I’ve already got better gear than you had (because I’ve got the front-facing screen to see myself). With smart phone cameras being as good as they are now, anyone can shoot video. What did you end up upgrading to?Charli: I got a Canon 70d which I really like. It’s a great all around camera for the price.You don’t have to have the best camera or microphone to get started. Use what you have or what you can afford, and upgrade later.Charli’s Tips for Growing an AudienceAaron: When you started producing video, did you have any kind of online following?Charli: Not really. I think I had around 1,000 followers on Twitter because I was pretty active in my design and tech scene in Wellington, NZ, so I suppose that’s where my first views came from.Aaron: Did you have a strategy for growing your audience?Charli: I knew a little bit about search engine optimization (because I was doing it at my job), so I thought about how I could apply that to my videos, but it was mostly trial-and-error. I paid attention to what worked, what thumbnails people preferred and what content they were interested in. But something I’ve done from the start was to make sure my videos were tagged well so that they come up in search. Today, about half of my views come from people searching YouTube. Don’t underestimate the value of SEO.Aaron: SEO is important. The way I like to explain it is just think about what people would search Google or Youtube for, and then use those words in your podcast or video title, or in headlines on your blog post. There’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s a great place to start.How to Get People to Pay Attention to Your ContentJordan Newhouse asks: I produce new content every week. How do I get people to realize the content is there and get them to check it out?Charli: Start by looping in all of your social media to the content you’re creating. You don’t want to be talking about yourself non-stop online, that’s not the way to have an interesting account.If you want someone to invest time in what you’re creating, show them a little bit of your personality but make sure you share content they’d be interested in.You have to share your content more than once. You can’t send out a tweet and expect everyone to notice. Some people might not be paying attention or they might be half-asleep; you have to share it anywhere and everywhere you can, in different ways. Try different titles to see what works.I create so much content so often that by the time I’m finished with a video, I’m already thinking about the next one, but I should be thinking about how to best promote the video I just made.Aaron: I used to feel weird about sharing links to my content more than once. I used to think people would be annoyed if they saw me post multiple links to content. I finally realized that most people just aren’t paying that close of attention to their social media streams.Sometimes you do have to “beat people over the head” to get them to check out a link. You might have to post a link multiple times in a week before someone actually sees it and clicks on it.How to Promote Your ContentCharli: One of the best ways to promote your content is in response to questions you see your audience asking. If one of your followers is discussing a topic you covered on your podcast, send them a link to that episode if you think they’d find it valuable.Aaron: I love doing that. Some of the podcasters I follow have their own hashtags, so I’ll use Twitter search to find people who are asking podcasting questions and send them links to my episodes where I answered their questions. If someone wants to learn, you would be doing them a disservice by not sending them a link to your content if it answers their question or would help them in some way.Participate in Your CommunityAaron: I talk a lot about the importance of participating in your community, inviting guests on your podcast and collaborating with other people. You participate in an active Youtube community, right?Charli: That’s something I love about Youtube, there’s a very active community there. Everyone’s very collaborative, it’s easy to create video with other people and combine your audiences.Look for communities and people to collaborate and work with. It’s a great way to share and grow audiences.Create Content in Multiple Mediums and Build a Creation HabitAaron: You started a podcast recently. Did you find it easier since you’ve been creating video for a couple years?Charli: There was definitely a learning curve, just like getting started with video. There were all these new things to learn like what kind of microphone to buy, how to record and edit, and how to get your show into iTunes. It seems like it should be easy, just hit record and make a podcast, but it’s really not that simple.Aaron: One of my friends wants to start a podcast, but he wants to get everything perfect right away. That’s just not how it works; you have to be willing to jump in and create something, give yourself a deadline, and ship it. Otherwise you’re going to be talking forever about how you want to do something but you’ll never actually finish anything. You have to be ok with not being awesome at something for awhile. You’ll get better over time.Charli: That’s really the key to producing content consistently; get used to not being perfect and learn as you go. You could wait until you know everything and get everything absolutely perfect, but then you wasted time you could have been building the habit of producing content.If you want to be successful in video or podcasting, make creating content a habit and not just something you do when you have “free time”.Charli: People ask me, “You’ve put out a video every Saturday for two and a half years, how do you do it?” I don’t even think about it anymore; it’s non-negotiable. A video will go up every Saturday because it’s just a habit.Aaron: Do you find yourself getting faster and more efficient as time goes on?Charli: Definitely, but you don’t want to settle in a rut. Your audience will get bored if they see the same thing every week. When things are getting too easy, that’s when I try to learn something new to add to my process.Tips for Getting Started with Your First VideosAaron: We got another question from Jordan. She asked, “I’m about to make my very first video ever (it’s going to be part of my product launch). What are some things I should keep in mind?”Charli: Think beforehand about what the content of the video is going to be so that you can get all the right shots for it. You might even want to make a storyboard.You might end up needing to reshoot a few scenes because that’s just how it goes. You might get to the editing part and realize that you need another shot or you need to re-record something. That’s ok, it’s just part of the process.Aaron: Do you create storyboards for your videos?Charli: Not all the time, but sometimes, usually if I’m doing a fashion video that requires a bunch of different angles, I’ll just draw some rough sketches on a notebook to help me make sure I get all the shots.Aaron: I saw my friend Alex Cespedes (sorry I butchered your name in the show, dude) post a really interesting picture on Instagram showing how he outlines his podcast episodes on paper. I think that’s a great way to plan a show or podcast episode.Charli: People plan in different ways. I create a rough script or outline for my video in the notes app on my phone and that’s enough to get my mind thinking about what I’m going to say and how I need to say it.How to Create ConsistentlyAaron: What are your biggest struggles with creating consistently, and how do you overcome those?Charli: Time is always going to be a struggle. Even if you want to put something out every week, not every week is the same. In my life, I’ve got my day job, but that’s also things to do in the evenings and I travel a lot, so I have to make sure I make enough time to create a video I’m proud of. It’s always a struggle, but that’s where building the habit comes in. Planning definitely helps with the time constraint as well; I break the process down into little steps so I can get things done whenever I have time.Don’t try to fine-tune your content to perfection; give yourself a deadline and ship it.Aaron: One of my struggles is that there are always more projects that I want to do. I shoot myself in the foot by taking on too many things and not giving any one thing the focus it needs to be as successful as it can be. I try to do six things in a week and because I’m trying to work on all of them, I don’t make much progress on any of them.Charli: You have to pick which thing is most important to you and make sure that one gets done. Then you can worry about the other things.Collaboration Can Help You Produce ConsistentlyAaron: You’ve got a co-host for your podcast. Does that help you get the show done every week? You do a lot of videos by yourself, so you’d probably be ok on your own, right?Charli: I don’t think I would, no. I would not have a podcast if it wasn’t for my co-host Femke. Since I do two videos every week, we split up the duties so that she does the editing and I do the show notes and our newsletter. But she does a lot more work than I do, which is really helpful.Aaron: It is really helpful to have someone hold you accountable and help you do the work that it takes to put a show out every week. Podcasting is a lot of work and there’s nothing better than having a co-host who is really invested and willing to help with the work and keep you on track with producing.Q&A:Adina asked: How do I avoid looking awkward or sounding boring on camera?Charli: That’s a question that everyone asks and something that everyone goes through.. The answer is just practice. You’re going to make a lot of awkward videos before you start to feel comfortable.I don’t know if I can pinpoint the exact moment where I started feeling comfortable talking to the camera, but it happened. After I made enough videos, it stopped being a weird thing. Vlogging really helped for me, just picking up the camera and talking to it as I went through my day. It felt more casual and less stressful then sitting down in front of lights to film.Aaron: It’s the self-imposed pressure, right? We want to be as good as someone else we’ve seen. We see all these people making videos and podcasts and they always seem so fluid and cool and they’ve always got funny things to say. They’ve got 600,000 views and 300,000 likes and we think that’s the level of quality we have to achieve, but it doesn’t happen overnight. You won’t get there in the first couple tries.Also, being a better speaker and communicator is something you can teach yourself. Unless you slow down and think critically about the way you talk and how you can improve, you won’t improve. You can improve the way you talk. You can change the way that you talk and it will start to become the natural way that you talk with practice and time.Charli: When you first started podcasting, did you find listening to your own voice awkward?Aaron: Definitely.Charli: When I started making video, it was hard for me to watch and listen to myself, but now, I feel like I sound exactly like I do in my head. I don’t know what changed, but it’s not awkward anymore.Aaron: Part of it is just getting comfortable hearing yourself on recordings. You just get used to it after awhile. But I listen back to old episodes I’ve done and there are things I don’t like about the way I sound, so I think about what I could have done differently to sound better. I try to learn from my mistakes and improve, and I have, slowly over time and with practice.Charli: When I listen back to my first 6 months of video, I don’t sound like me; I sound like someone trying to make a video. Now I feel like I just sound like me, like I sound when I’m having a normal conversation.Aaron: We got a followup question: What about filming in public? I feel painfully embarrassed when I shoot video in public.I absolutely know what that feels like. I feel super weird about holding a phone or camera out and shooting a video in public. I don’t even like people seeing me taking pictures of other people or myself in public. But I’m going to let Charli talk about this since she’s gotten comfortable with recording video in public.Charli: I still feel awkward sometimes, like if I’m going to be sitting on a train with people on the way to work, I won’t pull out my camera and talking to it. But if I’m walking down the street, I’m probably never going to see any of those people again. If I know I need to get a shot to explain something in my vlog later, then I just have to get over feeling weird and get the shot that I need. And it comes back to practice.Aaron: And really, what’s the worst thing that could happen? Someone makes fun of you or looks at you like you’re an idiot?Charli: Exactly, and don’t think of it as you’re talking to your phone or camera, you’re talking to the person on the other side who is watching you later. You’re not really talking to yourself, even if it looks like you are.Aaron: Now I’m thinking about how funny it would be to make a show where you just walk around in public all day, talking to yourself and catching people looking horrified or disgusted in the background.Charli: Even if you do feel self-conscious, do it anyway and at least you’ll have all the shots you need.You can find Charli online at CharliMarie.com. Her Youtube channel is Charli Marie TV, and you can find her on Twitter and Instagram as well. She is also the co-host of Design Life, a fantastic podcast about design and side projects for motivated creators.Links:Podcast: https://podcastingwithaaron.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/aaronpodcastingYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/aarondowdBlog: https://www.aarondowd.comRecommended Gear: https://kit.co/podcastingwithaaron

Ever wondered how to make a living with just your voice? Interested in becoming a professional voice-over artist? This week I'm joined by professional voice-over artist Jay Britton, who has done work for companies like HBO (Game of Thrones!), Marvel, Amazon, and more. He built his voice-over career from scratch in his late 20's, and in this episode, Jay shares everything you need to know if you want to be a professional voice-over artist too. We talked about how he got started, what gear he recommends for beginners, how to find work if you're just starting out, how to get your first agent, tips for improving your speaking voice, and so much more. Key Takeaways: You don't need the fanciest mic or a ton of knowledge to sound good. Just make sure you aren't clipping and do some basic treatment to your audio. Not every mic is right for your voice. You'll need to try some different mics out to see what pairs with your voice the best. If you want to make a living from voice-over work, you have to think about yourself as a business. If you're just getting started as a voice-over artist, a voice coach is one of the best investments you can make. You can make a living in voice-over without an agent. You don't need an agent to be successful. It doesn't matter how you start, it just matters that you start. You're born with the voice you are born with, that's it. You can't change that. All you can do is learn how to use your own voice to its best abilities. You're not going to get many scripts that you can read in advance, so the ability to read ahead while performing a script is essential. How Did You Start Your Career as a Voice-over Artist? Aaron: How did you get started doing voice-over work? Were you born with a golden voice, did you know from an early age that you were going to be a voice actor? Jay: Golden voice? Not exactly. I don't really have a special Barry White kind of voice. I did know from an early age that I wanted to do something with my voice. I blame the Animaniacs and all those kinds of shows for the inspiration. I just wanted to do voices; I was that guy in school who did the funny voices. Like so many people, I decided to do something sensible after college. I left college and went straight into an IT job for 10 years or so. But I got to a point in my life where IT work was just too boring; I knew I couldn't do it for the rest of my life. I asked myself what I wanted to do, and knew that it was voice-over. So I slowly started to take some steps towards getting started. Those first steps are always the scariest. The first thing I did was look for a voice coach. I booked a workshop in London and got some coaching and recorded some demos. Then (slowly) I started to try to find voice-over work. There was a long journey from then to what I have now; I definitely had a false start, kind of kept it on the sidelines for awhile. I kind of dabbled, I didn't commit to getting my voice-over business off the ground. After about 3 years of dabbling, I had a really bad day at my job (still IT) and I was talking to my wife afterwards about how much I hated it. She said, “Why don't you do the voice-over thing properly?” So that's when I started taking it seriously. I went over to the states and got some more coaching, got some real recordings done, got some new kit (that's gear), and really worked hard to make it my full-time business. So it started off slowly, but when I made my mind up that it was possible and starting applying myself, that's when it all started coming together. Aaron: So how old were you when you started dabbling? And how long did it take you to go full-time? Jay: I'd just got married… so 27? I'm 31 now, so I got started around four years ago. And I kept my job until recently. My hours at the job decreased as my voice-over work increased, and eventually I ditched the day job altogether. But in the beginning I'd work the day job Monday-Friday, 9am to 5pm, and as I got more bookings for voice-over work my schedule got a little crazy. So the transition was hard but it was worth it. What Kind of Gear Do You Need to Get Started as a Voice-over Artist? Aaron: What kind of gear did you have when you were starting out? Jay: I had (and this is terrible)… a $30 USB microphone. It had a built-in pop shield. For my booth (my entire sound treatment), I had two pieces of foam stood up in a “V” behind the microphone, and a blanket over my head. Not terribly professional, but it got me started. Aaron: Did you actually do some paying gigs with that setup? Jay: Oh yeah, I booked a lot of work on that mic. I booked and recorded a Marvel gig on that kit. I was supposed to do the voice of Jarvis for some Avengers promo stuff. That's when I started feeling a little bit of imposter syndrome. It was just me in my little pop-up booth in my house in England with my $30 USB microphone. But they had no idea; I was just a voice on a microphone and I did the job, and that was that. Who Handles the Post-Production for a Voice-over Artist? Aaron: How much did you know about things like setting input gain levels and EQ and compression and all that post production stuff? Was that handled by you or did your clients do it? Jay: At that point I knew very little about it. I was flying by the seat of my pants. Most clients at that stage didn't require much, just a bit of cleanup and normalizing. I knew that I didn't want to go over the red line on the meters; if you're chopping the top off, dial it down. But that was about it, I really didn't know much about recording and post-production when I was getting started. Aaron: I think a lot of people will be relieved to hear that. I talk about sound quality and post-production a lot because I hate to see podcasts ruined by poor audio quality, but that's something you have to learn through trial and error. You can't let it keep you from getting started. Jay: Absolutely. I'm a big believer in simplicity. I'm talking to you on a USB microphone right now because my home studio is currently being put back together. You don't need the fanciest mic or a ton of knowledge to sound good. Just make sure you aren't clipping and do some basic treatment to your audio. Jay's Favorite Gear for Voice-over Work Aaron: So which USB mic are you using currently? And what other gear do you have in your home studio? Jay: I'm recording this episode with a Rode NT USB mic ($170), which is really nice. It's not a very “hot” mic, so it's good if you're in a noisy environment. It's kind of my backup/travel mic. In my main studio I use a Sennheiser 416 shotgun mic ($999). It's a beautiful mic. I also have the “voice-over standard”, the Neumann TLM 103 ($1299). I record everything through a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 interface ($180) (with a 2i2 as a backup). Not every mic is right for your voice. You'll need to try some different mics out to see what pairs with your voice the best. Jay's Tips for How to Get Started Doing Professional Voice-Over Work Aaron: What advice would you give to someone interested in making a living doing voice-over work? Jay: The first thing I'd recommend is forgetting about the creative side of it when you're first getting into it. You are starting a business. You have to get your head around that. You're going to be pretty isolated as a voice-over artist; most of your work is going to be done from home. You have to approach it like you're starting a business. You have to think about things like your vocal training, where you're going to invest your money, how you're going to brand and market your voice, what your competition is like, what the market wants at the moment… You have to think about things like that. If you think about those things you'll have a massive advantage over someone who just buys a mic and records some stuff. If you want to make a living from voice-over work, you have to think about yourself as a business. I'm a huge believer in voice coaching as well. I've had four different coaches since I got started. Each genre has particular requirements, and a voice-over coach can help you understand those things and also the industry as a whole. If you're just getting started as a voice-over artist, a voice coach is one of the best investments you can make. How to Find Voice-over Work if You're Just Getting Started Jay: After you get a simple home studio setup, you can start looking for work. And there's really only three ways you can get work: First, through an agent. Second, through “pay to play” websites, where you pay to become a member and you get access to auditions. And third, through direct marketing; reaching out directly to production companies. You phone them up and say, “Hey, I'm a voice-over actor, do you guys needs voices? Here's my demo reel.” Start building relationships, and if you have a plan and you hit all three of those, you'll start booking work. Aaron: Can you share how you got started? Which did you do first, and what worked best for you? Jay: I had some pretty awful reels (demos) when I first started, but I signed up for a pay to play website called Voice 123 and I got a couple of gigs there. That was where I dabbled for awhile; I stayed on that site and picked up a bit of work here and there. When I decided I was going to do it properly, I put about $15,000 on a credit card to train with a commercial coach, an animation coach, and a promotion coach, and I flew out to Los Angeles to get some proper reels done. Once I had those, I hit all the pay to play websites again and started doing direct marketing. I started doing research on Twitter and Google, finding the production companies and phoning them up, giving them my reels and my website and stuff like that. I also started networking, meeting other voice-over actors, meeting game producers, going to events and getting my name out there. Once I had a decent offering, that's when I went to the agents and said, “Here I am, this is what I've got. Represent me, dammit!” Aaron: Sounds like a fantastic strategy. And hey, it worked. Do I Need an Agent to Find Work as a Voice-over Actor? Jay: There's a common misconception that you get your work through an agent, and these days that's just not the case. Thanks to the internet, anyone can find your website and hire you. Agents will always have their place because many of them look after the niche and “big” jobs, things like Coca-Cola advertisements and huge triple-A games. But so much work is now on the pay to play websites and through production companies. You can make a living in voice-over without an agent. You don't need an agent to be successful. I love my agents, but they don't make up the majority of my income. You don't need to worry about getting an agent when you're just getting started. In fact, agents won't take you on until you've got a lot of stuff to offer them. Voice-over Gear for People on a Budget Aaron: I know earlier you mentioned that you got started on a 30 dollar USB microphone. Do you have any gear recommendations for new voice actors who don't want to spend a ton of money to get started? Jay: That was 6 years ago and USB mics are way better these days. There's a starter kit that I recommend from Focusrite. It comes with a microphone, a Scarlett 2i4 interface, and some headphones. Basically everything you need to get started for around 200 dollars (you will need to buy a pop filter and a mic stand, though). A basic setup like that is all you need, and then just sit in a closet with some pillows and a duvet over your head. I'm a big fan of simplicity. Just get started. You can always buy a better microphone later once you've made some money. It doesn't matter how you start, it just matters that you start. You can always buy a better microphone, you can always build a voice-over booth. But the sure-fire way to make sure nothing ever happens is to never start in the first place. It doesn't matter how you start, just start. Note: If you're interested in learning more about affordable gear for voice-over or podcasting, check out https://kit.com/thepodcastdude/podcasting-gear. Jay's Tips for How to Be a Better Speaker Aaron: Are people born with great voices, or is that something you can teach yourself? What are your tips for improving your voice and the way you talk? Jay: Some people are both with a voice that makes a nice sound. Is that relevant, does that directly relate to their potential success as a voice actor? No. Not in the slightest. Like I said earlier, I don't have an amazing voice. I have a standard voice that sounds like everyone else's, and so do most of my colleagues. You've got guys like Don LaFontaine who have a deep and boomy voice (the “In a world…” movie trailer voice), but you wouldn't book him to do a corporate voice-over gig. His voice just wouldn't sound right. You're born with the voice you are born with, that's it. You can't change that. All you can do is learn how to use your own voice to it's best abilities. I'm proud of the fact that I'm able to do a broad range of characters with my voice. I can go high, I can go a little low, I can do accents and I can make my voice sound funny. But I'm never going to book a movie trailer; I don't have the right voice for it. That's ok. Part of working in voice-over is understanding that you might book work in genres that you don't necessarily want to work in. You might want to do movie trailers but if you don't have the right voice for it, you won't get the gig. This is why you need coaching. You need to understand things like, if you're reading a promo script for a TV show, you need to know how to make the read less funny, or how to change the inflection. So much is based on melody. Knowing how to play with your voice is so much more important then the voice you were born with. One of my coaches said, “As far as booking a job goes, 95% of it is how well you understand the copy and how well you perform the copy, and the last 5% is genetics.” Rather than worry about how your natural voice sounds, worry about what you do have control over, which is how you use the voice that you have. How to Get Better at Reading Scripts Out Loud Jay: Want to get better at reading scripts? Read out loud every day. It's not good enough just to read, you need to read out loud everyday. One skill that is absolutely critical is being able to read ahead of what you're currently saying out loud when you're reading a script. You'll make less mistakes because you'll know what words are coming, and you'll very rarely mess up the intonation of a sentence. You're not going to get many scripts that you can read in advance, so the ability to read ahead while performing a script is essential. Reading ahead will feel unnatural at first, but after you do it for awhile it will get easier and you'll start making less mistakes. This is especially important for video games because you'll often get thrown into recording sessions without a chance to read the script or even get a full idea of what your character is like. It's an immensely helpful skill because no one in this business has any time. If you can nail something on the first take, then you'll do great. Another tip is go and do some improv and learn how to ad-lib. It'll speed up the auditory part of your brain, you'll learn how to come up with words and get them out quickly. That's a great skill to have. Increase that “brain-to-mouth” speed. Q&A: Tobi asks: What are your thoughts about working with unions? Jay: It really depends. If you're just starting out, there's no reason to join the union, and more and more work is going non-union in the US. So if you're in the states and you're trying to do voice-over work, don't join the union until you're forced to join the union. You can actually book your first union job without being a part of the union, and it's $5000 to join after that, so at the start of your career, it's not really necessary. Richard asks: What are some of the best methods to get in front of casting agents? What elements are they looking for in a vocal reel? Is sending in a vocal reel the best way to get hired for voice over gigs/start a relationship with casting agents? Jay: There's two sides to this. There's casting agents (or as we call them here in the UK, casting directors), and then there are agents. An agent will represent you and present you to a casting director (who will then consider you for a job). If you want to get yourself an agent, the best way to do that is by referral. So make sure you have a great sound reel (demos) and do lots of networking with other voice actors, especially the ones who work with agency you'd like to work with. Don't be weird, but develop relationships with other voice actors and agent. If you're good, they'll notice. Thousands of people want to be voice actors and work with these agents, so you've got to find a way to stand above the crowd. Doing great work and getting referred by another successful voice actor is one of the best ways to get an agent. In terms of working with casting directors, generally they are “behind the scenes” people. They're not the most receptive to being bombarded by voice actors. The best way to get to know them is to organically get a job for them and just start a relationship with them. Another way to meet casting agents is on Twitter. Social media in general is a great tool for growing relationships, just don't be salesy about it. If they tweet a funny picture of their cat, don't reply with “I'm a voice actor, please hire me!” Ultimately, people work with people. Don't smash your voice reel in their face; take the time to build a relationship. That's the way I play it. Aaron: Relationships are so important if you want to be successful as a freelancer. When I was getting started as a podcast editor, most of my best clients came from referals. I always made sure I was friendly and I did a good job and if I saw an opportunity to provide some value, I'd do that. Eventually people grew to trust me, and if they knew someone who needed my services, they'd send them to me. So I got a ton of work that way, and I think that works in almost any industry. Jay: Exactly. I've done voice-over work for 22 games in the past 2-3 years, and something like 80% of those jobs came through networking. Another tip is give it time. It's natural to want everything to happen yesterday, but it takes time to develop those relationships. I'm going to be working on a big game project pretty soon, and I only got the gig after talking with the casting director for over eight months. That's a long time to pursue a lead, but things don't happen overnight. You've got to be prepared to play the long game. Eric asks: Do clients expect you to do post-processing on your recordings, or is that something they typically handle? Is it important for you to know how to master your own recordings? Jay: It's usually a 50/50 split. If I book something through my agent, I'm usually going to a studio where they have professional audio engineers to handle everything. If you record something at home, the client will most likely expect you to handle the mastering. If you're booking work through the pay to play websites or through direct marketing, they're probably going to expect you to do the post-production. Quite a few of my clients also want me to match the audio to the video as well. In general, most clients just want the audio to be clean and pretty level in terms of dynamics. So you do need to be comfortable with editing audio and doing basic treatment (equalizing, compression, normalizing). Find Jay Britton Online: You can find Jay's website at VoiceOfJayBritton.com, and follow him on Twitter @voicejaybritton. If you'd like to make a living as a voice actor, I highly suggest hiring Jay for coaching. It's an investment that will pay off 10x in the long run. Cool Stuff to Check Out: Recommended Gear: https://kit.com/thepodcastdude Podcast: https://thepodcastdude.simplecast.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodcastdude Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/thepodcastdude Successful Podcasting: http://successfulpodcasting.com Simplecast Blog: http://blog.simplecast.com/

Ever wondered how to make a living with just your voice? Interested in becoming a professional voice-over artist? This week I'm joined by professional voice-over artist Jay Britton, who has done work for companies like HBO (Game of Thrones!), Marvel, Amazon, and more. He built his voice-over career from scratch in his late 20's, and in this episode, Jay shares everything you need to know if you want to be a professional voice-over artist too. We talked about how he got started, what gear he recommends for beginners, how to find work if you're just starting out, how to get your first agent, tips for improving your speaking voice, and so much more. Key Takeaways: You don’t need the fanciest mic or a ton of knowledge to sound good. Just make sure you aren’t clipping and do some basic treatment to your audio. Not every mic is right for your voice. You’ll need to try some different mics out to see what pairs with your voice the best. If you want to make a living from voice-over work, you have to think about yourself as a business. If you’re just getting started as a voice-over artist, a voice coach is one of the best investments you can make. You can make a living in voice-over without an agent. You don’t need an agent to be successful. It doesn’t matter how you start, it just matters that you start. You’re born with the voice you are born with, that’s it. You can’t change that. All you can do is learn how to use your own voice to its best abilities. You’re not going to get many scripts that you can read in advance, so the ability to read ahead while performing a script is essential. How Did You Start Your Career as a Voice-over Artist? Aaron: How did you get started doing voice-over work? Were you born with a golden voice, did you know from an early age that you were going to be a voice actor? Jay: Golden voice? Not exactly. I don’t really have a special Barry White kind of voice. I did know from an early age that I wanted to do something with my voice. I blame the Animaniacs and all those kinds of shows for the inspiration. I just wanted to do voices; I was that guy in school who did the funny voices. Like so many people, I decided to do something sensible after college. I left college and went straight into an IT job for 10 years or so. But I got to a point in my life where IT work was just too boring; I knew I couldn’t do it for the rest of my life. I asked myself what I wanted to do, and knew that it was voice-over. So I slowly started to take some steps towards getting started. Those first steps are always the scariest. The first thing I did was look for a voice coach. I booked a workshop in London and got some coaching and recorded some demos. Then (slowly) I started to try to find voice-over work. There was a long journey from then to what I have now; I definitely had a false start, kind of kept it on the sidelines for awhile. I kind of dabbled, I didn’t commit to getting my voice-over business off the ground. After about 3 years of dabbling, I had a really bad day at my job (still IT) and I was talking to my wife afterwards about how much I hated it. She said, “Why don’t you do the voice-over thing properly?” So that’s when I started taking it seriously. I went over to the states and got some more coaching, got some real recordings done, got some new kit (that’s gear), and really worked hard to make it my full-time business. So it started off slowly, but when I made my mind up that it was possible and starting applying myself, that’s when it all started coming together. Aaron: So how old were you when you started dabbling? And how long did it take you to go full-time? Jay: I’d just got married… so 27? I’m 31 now, so I got started around four years ago. And I kept my job until recently. My hours at the job decreased as my voice-over work increased, and eventually I ditched the day job altogether. But in the beginning I’d work the day job Monday-Friday, 9am to 5pm, and as I got more bookings for voice-over work my schedule got a little crazy. So the transition was hard but it was worth it. What Kind of Gear Do You Need to Get Started as a Voice-over Artist? Aaron: What kind of gear did you have when you were starting out? Jay: I had (and this is terrible)… a $30 USB microphone. It had a built-in pop shield. For my booth (my entire sound treatment), I had two pieces of foam stood up in a “V” behind the microphone, and a blanket over my head. Not terribly professional, but it got me started. Aaron: Did you actually do some paying gigs with that setup? Jay: Oh yeah, I booked a lot of work on that mic. I booked and recorded a Marvel gig on that kit. I was supposed to do the voice of Jarvis for some Avengers promo stuff. That’s when I started feeling a little bit of imposter syndrome. It was just me in my little pop-up booth in my house in England with my $30 USB microphone. But they had no idea; I was just a voice on a microphone and I did the job, and that was that. Who Handles the Post-Production for a Voice-over Artist? Aaron: How much did you know about things like setting input gain levels and EQ and compression and all that post production stuff? Was that handled by you or did your clients do it? Jay: At that point I knew very little about it. I was flying by the seat of my pants. Most clients at that stage didn’t require much, just a bit of cleanup and normalizing. I knew that I didn’t want to go over the red line on the meters; if you’re chopping the top off, dial it down. But that was about it, I really didn’t know much about recording and post-production when I was getting started. Aaron: I think a lot of people will be relieved to hear that. I talk about sound quality and post-production a lot because I hate to see podcasts ruined by poor audio quality, but that’s something you have to learn through trial and error. You can’t let it keep you from getting started. Jay: Absolutely. I’m a big believer in simplicity. I’m talking to you on a USB microphone right now because my home studio is currently being put back together. You don’t need the fanciest mic or a ton of knowledge to sound good. Just make sure you aren’t clipping and do some basic treatment to your audio. Jay’s Favorite Gear for Voice-over Work Aaron: So which USB mic are you using currently? And what other gear do you have in your home studio? Jay: I’m recording this episode with a Rode NT USB mic ($170), which is really nice. It’s not a very “hot” mic, so it’s good if you’re in a noisy environment. It’s kind of my backup/travel mic. In my main studio I use a Sennheiser 416 shotgun mic ($999). It’s a beautiful mic. I also have the “voice-over standard”, the Neumann TLM 103 ($1299). I record everything through a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 interface ($180) (with a 2i2 as a backup). Not every mic is right for your voice. You’ll need to try some different mics out to see what pairs with your voice the best. Jay’s Tips for How to Get Started Doing Professional Voice-Over Work Aaron: What advice would you give to someone interested in making a living doing voice-over work? Jay: The first thing I’d recommend is forgetting about the creative side of it when you’re first getting into it. You are starting a business. You have to get your head around that. You’re going to be pretty isolated as a voice-over artist; most of your work is going to be done from home. You have to approach it like you’re starting a business. You have to think about things like your vocal training, where you’re going to invest your money, how you’re going to brand and market your voice, what your competition is like, what the market wants at the moment… You have to think about things like that. If you think about those things you’ll have a massive advantage over someone who just buys a mic and records some stuff. If you want to make a living from voice-over work, you have to think about yourself as a business. I’m a huge believer in voice coaching as well. I’ve had four different coaches since I got started. Each genre has particular requirements, and a voice-over coach can help you understand those things and also the industry as a whole. If you’re just getting started as a voice-over artist, a voice coach is one of the best investments you can make. How to Find Voice-over Work if You’re Just Getting Started Jay: After you get a simple home studio setup, you can start looking for work. And there’s really only three ways you can get work: First, through an agent. Second, through “pay to play” websites, where you pay to become a member and you get access to auditions. And third, through direct marketing; reaching out directly to production companies. You phone them up and say, “Hey, I’m a voice-over actor, do you guys needs voices? Here’s my demo reel.” Start building relationships, and if you have a plan and you hit all three of those, you’ll start booking work. Aaron: Can you share how you got started? Which did you do first, and what worked best for you? Jay: I had some pretty awful reels (demos) when I first started, but I signed up for a pay to play website called Voice 123 and I got a couple of gigs there. That was where I dabbled for awhile; I stayed on that site and picked up a bit of work here and there. When I decided I was going to do it properly, I put about $15,000 on a credit card to train with a commercial coach, an animation coach, and a promotion coach, and I flew out to Los Angeles to get some proper reels done. Once I had those, I hit all the pay to play websites again and started doing direct marketing. I started doing research on Twitter and Google, finding the production companies and phoning them up, giving them my reels and my website and stuff like that. I also started networking, meeting other voice-over actors, meeting game producers, going to events and getting my name out there. Once I had a decent offering, that’s when I went to the agents and said, “Here I am, this is what I’ve got. Represent me, dammit!” Aaron: Sounds like a fantastic strategy. And hey, it worked. Do I Need an Agent to Find Work as a Voice-over Actor? Jay: There’s a common misconception that you get your work through an agent, and these days that’s just not the case. Thanks to the internet, anyone can find your website and hire you. Agents will always have their place because many of them look after the niche and “big” jobs, things like Coca-Cola advertisements and huge triple-A games. But so much work is now on the pay to play websites and through production companies. You can make a living in voice-over without an agent. You don’t need an agent to be successful. I love my agents, but they don’t make up the majority of my income. You don’t need to worry about getting an agent when you’re just getting started. In fact, agents won’t take you on until you’ve got a lot of stuff to offer them. Voice-over Gear for People on a Budget Aaron: I know earlier you mentioned that you got started on a 30 dollar USB microphone. Do you have any gear recommendations for new voice actors who don’t want to spend a ton of money to get started? Jay: That was 6 years ago and USB mics are way better these days. There’s a starter kit that I recommend from Focusrite. It comes with a microphone, a Scarlett 2i4 interface, and some headphones. Basically everything you need to get started for around 200 dollars (you will need to buy a pop filter and a mic stand, though). A basic setup like that is all you need, and then just sit in a closet with some pillows and a duvet over your head. I’m a big fan of simplicity. Just get started. You can always buy a better microphone later once you’ve made some money. It doesn’t matter how you start, it just matters that you start. You can always buy a better microphone, you can always build a voice-over booth. But the sure-fire way to make sure nothing ever happens is to never start in the first place. It doesn’t matter how you start, just start. Note: If you’re interested in learning more about affordable gear for voice-over or podcasting, check out https://kit.com/thepodcastdude/podcasting-gear. Jay’s Tips for How to Be a Better Speaker Aaron: Are people born with great voices, or is that something you can teach yourself? What are your tips for improving your voice and the way you talk? Jay: Some people are both with a voice that makes a nice sound. Is that relevant, does that directly relate to their potential success as a voice actor? No. Not in the slightest. Like I said earlier, I don’t have an amazing voice. I have a standard voice that sounds like everyone else’s, and so do most of my colleagues. You’ve got guys like Don LaFontaine who have a deep and boomy voice (the “In a world…” movie trailer voice), but you wouldn’t book him to do a corporate voice-over gig. His voice just wouldn’t sound right. You’re born with the voice you are born with, that’s it. You can’t change that. All you can do is learn how to use your own voice to it’s best abilities. I’m proud of the fact that I’m able to do a broad range of characters with my voice. I can go high, I can go a little low, I can do accents and I can make my voice sound funny. But I’m never going to book a movie trailer; I don’t have the right voice for it. That’s ok. Part of working in voice-over is understanding that you might book work in genres that you don’t necessarily want to work in. You might want to do movie trailers but if you don’t have the right voice for it, you won’t get the gig. This is why you need coaching. You need to understand things like, if you’re reading a promo script for a TV show, you need to know how to make the read less funny, or how to change the inflection. So much is based on melody. Knowing how to play with your voice is so much more important then the voice you were born with. One of my coaches said, “As far as booking a job goes, 95% of it is how well you understand the copy and how well you perform the copy, and the last 5% is genetics.” Rather than worry about how your natural voice sounds, worry about what you do have control over, which is how you use the voice that you have. How to Get Better at Reading Scripts Out Loud Jay: Want to get better at reading scripts? Read out loud every day. It’s not good enough just to read, you need to read out loud everyday. One skill that is absolutely critical is being able to read ahead of what you’re currently saying out loud when you’re reading a script. You’ll make less mistakes because you’ll know what words are coming, and you’ll very rarely mess up the intonation of a sentence. You’re not going to get many scripts that you can read in advance, so the ability to read ahead while performing a script is essential. Reading ahead will feel unnatural at first, but after you do it for awhile it will get easier and you’ll start making less mistakes. This is especially important for video games because you’ll often get thrown into recording sessions without a chance to read the script or even get a full idea of what your character is like. It’s an immensely helpful skill because no one in this business has any time. If you can nail something on the first take, then you’ll do great. Another tip is go and do some improv and learn how to ad-lib. It’ll speed up the auditory part of your brain, you’ll learn how to come up with words and get them out quickly. That’s a great skill to have. Increase that “brain-to-mouth” speed. Q&A: Tobi asks: What are your thoughts about working with unions? Jay: It really depends. If you’re just starting out, there’s no reason to join the union, and more and more work is going non-union in the US. So if you’re in the states and you’re trying to do voice-over work, don’t join the union until you’re forced to join the union. You can actually book your first union job without being a part of the union, and it’s $5000 to join after that, so at the start of your career, it’s not really necessary. Richard asks: What are some of the best methods to get in front of casting agents? What elements are they looking for in a vocal reel? Is sending in a vocal reel the best way to get hired for voice over gigs/start a relationship with casting agents? Jay: There’s two sides to this. There’s casting agents (or as we call them here in the UK, casting directors), and then there are agents. An agent will represent you and present you to a casting director (who will then consider you for a job). If you want to get yourself an agent, the best way to do that is by referral. So make sure you have a great sound reel (demos) and do lots of networking with other voice actors, especially the ones who work with agency you’d like to work with. Don’t be weird, but develop relationships with other voice actors and agent. If you’re good, they’ll notice. Thousands of people want to be voice actors and work with these agents, so you’ve got to find a way to stand above the crowd. Doing great work and getting referred by another successful voice actor is one of the best ways to get an agent. In terms of working with casting directors, generally they are “behind the scenes” people. They’re not the most receptive to being bombarded by voice actors. The best way to get to know them is to organically get a job for them and just start a relationship with them. Another way to meet casting agents is on Twitter. Social media in general is a great tool for growing relationships, just don’t be salesy about it. If they tweet a funny picture of their cat, don’t reply with “I’m a voice actor, please hire me!” Ultimately, people work with people. Don’t smash your voice reel in their face; take the time to build a relationship. That’s the way I play it. Aaron: Relationships are so important if you want to be successful as a freelancer. When I was getting started as a podcast editor, most of my best clients came from referals. I always made sure I was friendly and I did a good job and if I saw an opportunity to provide some value, I’d do that. Eventually people grew to trust me, and if they knew someone who needed my services, they’d send them to me. So I got a ton of work that way, and I think that works in almost any industry. Jay: Exactly. I’ve done voice-over work for 22 games in the past 2-3 years, and something like 80% of those jobs came through networking. Another tip is give it time. It’s natural to want everything to happen yesterday, but it takes time to develop those relationships. I’m going to be working on a big game project pretty soon, and I only got the gig after talking with the casting director for over eight months. That’s a long time to pursue a lead, but things don’t happen overnight. You’ve got to be prepared to play the long game. Eric asks: Do clients expect you to do post-processing on your recordings, or is that something they typically handle? Is it important for you to know how to master your own recordings? Jay: It’s usually a 50/50 split. If I book something through my agent, I’m usually going to a studio where they have professional audio engineers to handle everything. If you record something at home, the client will most likely expect you to handle the mastering. If you’re booking work through the pay to play websites or through direct marketing, they’re probably going to expect you to do the post-production. Quite a few of my clients also want me to match the audio to the video as well. In general, most clients just want the audio to be clean and pretty level in terms of dynamics. So you do need to be comfortable with editing audio and doing basic treatment (equalizing, compression, normalizing). Find Jay Britton Online: You can find Jay’s website at VoiceOfJayBritton.com, and follow him on Twitter @voicejaybritton. If you’d like to make a living as a voice actor, I highly suggest hiring Jay for coaching. It’s an investment that will pay off 10x in the long run. Cool Stuff to Check Out: Recommended Gear: https://kit.com/thepodcastdude Podcast: https://thepodcastdude.simplecast.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodcastdude Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/thepodcastdude Successful Podcasting: http://successfulpodcasting.com Simplecast Blog: http://blog.simplecast.com/