Two Overlapping Shows Nearly Broke Us | Here's What Changed | Episode 460

Two Overlapping Shows Nearly Broke Us | Here's What Changed | Episode 460

Everyone sees the camera and the microphone. Almost nobody sees the stress, the admin, the bills, and the repetition it takes to keep a mission driven podcast alive. We get real about what’s happening behind Voices for Voices, why the work can look easy from the outside, and what it actually costs in time, energy, and focus to publish consistently across platforms.

We also tell the honest story of our early setup: running two separate audio shows that often overlapped, paying for studio time, and pushing our bodies through nonstop “good stress” that still registers as stress. That pressure forced a hard but necessary lesson in sustainability, podcast production, and creator health. The shift came when we streamlined from two shows into one Voices for Voices TV show and podcast, tightened our workflow, and kept learning through trial and error so more people could watch or listen in the way that works for them.

Underneath the logistics is the reason we refuse to quit. We talk about purpose, faith, and positive energy, and why we’re committed to reducing stigma around mental health and suicidal thoughts. Our goal is massive: help and reach three billion people over a lifetime and beyond, and we believe that only happens if we keep showing up, even when it’s imperfect. If this conversation helps you keep going, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review. What’s one thing you can simplify today so you don’t give up tomorrow?

*Donate Today:  lovevoices.org

**Find our book here:

Amazon: https://voices-for-voices.org/3ZhJ6AW

Publisher: https://voices-for-voices.org/3LKL1uN

***Website: https://voices-for-voices.org/4byLXgb

Instagram: @voicesforvoices

TikTok: @voices_for_voices

Facebook: Voices for Voices

*Voices for Voices is a 501c3 nonprofit charity. All donations are 100% tax deductible.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And How To Support

1:29 Why Podcasting Only Looks Easy

4:45 Two Shows Became Too Much

8:08 Paying For Studio Time On Zero Budget

14:51 Streamlining Into One TV Podcast

18:22 The Three Billion People Mission

23:06 Purpose Faith And Not Quitting

25:12 Stigma Roadblocks And Choosing Yourself

28:00 Final Encouragement And Sign Off

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Transcript

Welcome And How To Support

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin. Thank you so much for being here on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Whether you're watching, listening here in the United States or any other point across the world, thank you for demanding Voices for Voices content. We love you or thinking about you and thank you for your love and support. If you can do us a few quick, easy, free favors, if you can give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share. And if you're able to, please reach out to maybe 25 or 50 of uh the contacts in your in your phone. Let them know about voices for voices, TV show and podcast. Uh we'd uh we'd love to have uh love to have your friends, family, colleagues, teammates, uh fellow coaches uh join us uh on this journey to help and reach over 300 to help and reach over three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Again, nobody's perfect, and I am a good example of that. Uh so yes, thank you for being with us. Uh on the on this episode, uh, we're gonna really just break it down on the uh on the organization, Voices for Voices on the show, predominantly the show, uh, but uh really everything voices for voices related. Uh we get comments and feedback all the time, and some of it has been to the tune of oh, it it's so easy for you to sit there and talk about experience one, two, three, and and so when we get that feedback, we do we take it in and we look at it. Um but the fact of the matter is it's not it's not easy. So it's really there's really two parts we're gonna talk about. Uh the first part is oh, it looks so easy. All you have to do is sit in front of a camera and uh film your episodes. And as we've said before, there's a lot of administrative work that is behind the scenes, it doesn't get seen by a lot of people, it's not fun. Is it easy? It's not hard, so I I guess it would be easier than uh other projects, other tasks. And to the average person, again, it looks easy. It looks like hey, anybody can do it, and anybody can let's just say that anybody can put together, start, continue a podcast and or TV show, you can do it, and that's part of what keeps us going here at Voices for Voices is we want to be a light in so many different ways, and one of those ways is well Justin's doing it, so maybe I can do it. That's that's why not give it a try, see how it goes. And you're not gonna know until you try it. We could have did you know ten episodes and called it a day and say, okay, well, that's a that that's enough. Now, what we did do for each of you who have been with us from the beginning is at the very, very, very, very beginning of the podcast and TV show, we did we did two podcasts. We did the House of You podcast, and we did the Voices for Voices, and we ran into few few issues, few problems. One is our body doesn't know the difference between good stress and bad stress, and so I was basically stressing my body to do two two separate two separate shows. So that was thing one at the very beginning. Thing two was we were paying for studio time times two. So before I learned and went through the process of researching, doing my due diligence and coming to the point we are today, I was taxing my body so much because of what I would do is I'd film one actually, and these were hold back, these were just audio shows, so there was no TV, there was no video. So that's the old school voices for voices, the TV Sean podcast came from, and so what would happen is I would film an episode, maybe I'd film two, right? Because I'd have to do one for each, one for the house of you and one for voices for voices, and that was only part of the process again. Then thing two was I was paying double the studio time because I was in a studio, and even to this day, we're doing we're doing this on our own dime. We'd love donations, we would absolutely love. We're we're a nonprofit, we're a 501c3, we accept donations all day, every day at lovevoices.org. But we haven't gotten to that point, even after all the shows that we've done, all the things that we've done. And you may wonder, well then, well, well, why are you doing it? Easy. I feel this is what God wants me to do, and so that's why I'm doing it. That's why I'm continuing it. I feel called to do this work, and so yeah, it's work. But where we're at now is so much, even though there is quite a bit of administrative work behind the scenes to do, titles, descriptions, hashtags, just to name a few. Finding links for every single platform that our show's on. I do it because I feel like that's what I'm called to do. And so find what you're called to do. Maybe it's the same. Maybe it's different, maybe it's similar, maybe it's not. But we don't know until we try. So back in the day again, I had to learn I couldn't just do things myself. So I was in a studio paying 60 bucks an hour, not just for the recording. So let's say I did a show or did two shows. And let's say they were and and at the outset I didn't really have an amount of time that I wanted to strive for for our shows. So there were some that were 32 minutes, some that were fifty, some that were an hour. And so those days that I was filming two episodes, one for the House of You, one for Voices for Voices, that's 60 for hour one, another sixty for hour two, that's a hundred and twenty dollars, and at least another sixty for the engineer, the producer. That's a hundred and eighty dollars for an organization that for all intents and purposes, again, we're working off a zero dollar budget. And so that was the one of the beginnings of reaching into reaching into areas and and that money to pay for these types of things. And at the beginning it started as I'm doing this thing, I'm doing this podcast, and I guess I was more of a I don't say a fan person, but like, well, you know, why not? And I was only doing the audio, so there's a whole audience of you and others just didn't have a chance if that was how you consume podcasts and TV shows. So I was realizing that I needed some way, somehow, to reach you, they're watching, no matter how you're watching. And then I was looking at again doing two episodes which were very similar, many times are very similar. So I started thinking to myself, why am I doing two episodes? I get it, there's the House of You and there's Voices for Voices, but why am I doing two shows that are very similar? And again, I went through the payment structure of 60, 60, 60, 60, sometimes running up a bill of 240. And I wasn't even reaching the video, the viewers. I was only reaching the listeners, and I was taxing my body twice. I was basically like repeating a lot of none of that content. And so as time went on, I talk about always learning that I always like to learn and continue to learn. So at some point I started to learn and learn and learn and learn. And it's probably right around COVID, a little earlier than that. I'm trying to think exactly. And so it took a lot of practice for the whole process, not just the filming part, the entire process that I mentioned. You know, the title, the description, the hashtags, the tag. There's all there's there's a myriad of things that have to do for each episode. And we talk about it over and over and over again. The reason I do that is because it's true, it takes extra time. Our bodies don't know the difference between good stress and bad stress, just no stress. So when I learn to invest in myself and the organization, I found myself migrating from the House of You and Voices for Voices podcast to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast to where we are today. A lot of trial, a lot of error. I wouldn't have any any other way. You know, at the outset of the show, it talked about the body doesn't know the difference between positive stress and negative stress. And why are you doing this? And I said, Well, I believe that God wants me to do this. This is part of part of why I'm alive. Probably a big part of why I'm alive. There's been so many different times across my life span thus far. Where it's like, how did I make it through? And the answer is God, for me. You don't have to be a believer, you don't have to be a believer at all. I'm just sharing my experience and experiences, and so once I streamline from two podcasts to one, came across the opportunity to film at a TV studio. And so for quite a while we would we would film, you can see on on this uh virtual background, you can see that's the look through one of the cameras straight on camera one. And then things happen. And I could I could have packed it in at that point. I could have just been forget it, it's not worth it. But for those that know me know that that that wasn't that wasn't even an option. Absolutely was not an option. You know what was an option and what is an option? Put my head down, and we're just knocking out episodes. Sharon being so transparent, tackling hard hard topics, tackling easy topics. And now we find ourselves with a lot of episodes and our um call it our voices for voices vault triple V. The voices for voices vault. And you can find TV video episodes so you can watch and you can listen. Even as recent as maybe a month ago, I'm still learning, finding ways to reach more and more people. We have we have this huge goal, right? We want to help and reach at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. That's a huge goal. We're not gonna reach it or even get close if we just pack it in. I streamlined from two different but very similar podcasts, the one. So that reduced my stress. Different program software that reduces my stress. And just knowing that knowing and believing that this is what I am what I'm called to do. Maybe it'll change one day. Maybe something else will come up. But for right now, I do this even with the stress, knowing that we're we're reaching so many people. It's one thing to talk about a goal and and to dream. There's been a lot of dreams for a lot of people that have gone by the wayside for one way for one reason or another. Same for me, but I continue to dream. And one of those dreams is to help and reach at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. And that right there, on top of less stress. From two shows to one show. And because I believe that this is what God had and has in store for me. And this isn't for me. This isn't for voices for voices. Yes. I'm the name, Justin Allen Hayes. Voices for Voices is the brand behind Justin Allen Hayes. It just means that we're going to keep going. We're going to take the positives, the negatives, the neutrals, the in-betweens. And we're going to continue. And we're going to help. We're going to be there for the person to help them off the ledge. We're going to be there for that person who has made a plan to end their own life. To let everyone know there is a purpose for each and every one of us. And so I hope that I am a light and that we are lights at voices for voices. Saying you can't do that. You can't do that. Nobody's watching. Nobody's listening. Nobody's watching me play my games. Nobody's coming to my cheerleading competition. Yes, they are. And more people than we can think. So let's stay together. Let's work through whatever may be going on. Let's reduce those stigmas. It's the very people, I believe, that created these stigmas because they don't want other people to not just survive but thrive. I think I truly think that. So I really think from the outset, whenever that was, people want to keep power, they want to keep money, they want to, they don't want other people to succeed. And that's that's just coming to my mind right now in real time. How do you stop people from succeeding? You keep putting those obstacles up. And then yet on the other side go, oh, let's help reduce the stigma. Let's help reduce the stigma. Well, some of these are the very same people, potentially that put those roadblocks up, that put those stigmas in place. I know it's easy to say, and again, easy for Justin to say, look, I'm not living some lifestyle of rich and famous over here. I'm living because I think God wants me here, needs me here. And whether you're a believer or not, even if you're not a believer, there's some kind of positive energy for each of us. And so let's find that positive energy. And let's do what that positive energy is guiding us towards. It's gonna take trial and error. So much trial and error. But don't ever give up. Don't give in. Don't listen to the naysayers, the haters, the people who are judging. Be yourself, be kind, be generous, and be the person that you want to be. Not what others want you to be, but what you want to be. So have a great day. Let's celebrate all voices across the world. And let's be a voice for those of us and those who are in need of needing a little help of being a voice for them. So we'll see you on the next show. Have a great day, everybody.