148 - State of Feeding Our Young® 2025-2026

After listening to a very special intro, join host Eric Miller as he gives thanks to those that helped make 2025 a success, touches on why 2025 was both a “glass half-empty” and “glass half-full” kind of year, celebrates how far the Feeding Our Young® movement has come, and casts vision for what lies ahead for the podcast, business, and movement in 2026!

Contact us:
thanks@feedingouryoung.org to send a note of appreciation to any of our honored guests - let them know how they touched you - I'll make sure they read your praises!
info@feedingouryoung.org all other inquiries, including having host Eric Miller speak to your nursing students or nurses!
+1 (509) 666-5636 text/voicemail line

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Many thanks:
Jon Holland (Jomarkho - found on SoundCloud, Spotify, and the like) Music - intro/outro/sting composition
10com Web Development Logo and website design
Jeff Burton (88 Creative) Planting and watering the seeds to start this podcast

Transcript

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Yes, yes, yes, my 80s self, my inner child, is doing leaps of joy when I hear music like that. Man, I just can't help but get ready to rock and get ready to just like, let's make some changes, let's make things happen, let's improve the nursing profession. Why does that music, why did that intro music sound a little different, might you ask? Well, those of you that are younger, what does it make you think of? Maybe a current show called Stranger Things, which is currently in its final season. or for those of us that might be a little bit older, and me in particular, it reminds me of one of my old favorite TV shows, absolute worth watching, totally will change your life, not really, called Knight Rider. uh And just a huge shout out to Mr. Jon Holland for once again stepping it up and just providing this podcast with the most amazing music. He and I had a discussion earlier this year saying, man, gosh, can we do something a little bit different with the music, that sort of thing. And he goes, let me think about some things. And he comes back and he goes, you know, I don't have anything to really change the original soundtrack there, but as far as variations, I've got ideas. And he's long wanted to do a holiday version, which you heard over this last month, the Christmas themed version of the Feeding Our Young® intro music. And now this one as well. He was like, also, I've got this really great 80s idea. You'll have to tell me what you think. And he just busts it out. I always tell him he's got a beautiful mind when it comes to that sort of thing. So thank you again, Mr. Jon Holland. But this episode, like the first and like every other episode in between, is not about Mr. Jon Holland, nor is it about the music. Really, it's not about me either. But This is the official State of Feeding Our Young® 2026 episode, really exiting 2025, heading into 2026. What is the purpose of this episode, you might ask? Well, you can go back and listen to the very first State of Feeding Our Young® episode, episode number 40, for those who wanna go back and give it a listen. I highly recommend you do, at least the intro. It doesn't have the sweet 80s synth vibe that this one did. In fact, it has a vastly more sentimental vibe. And I'm not going to give it all away, but you definitely want to at least listen to that intro. But what's the purpose of the State of Feeding Our Young® episode? Well, two main purposes, to be perfectly honest. To look back, what have we done? And to look forward, what are we going to do? But first off, before we look back and before we look forward, I have to live in the present and I have to say thank you. Thank you dear listener for listening to this podcast, Whether this is the very first episode you've ever heard, or you've caught a few episodes here and there, or if you have literally digested every episode we've put out so far, I can't thank you enough. You're the reason why this podcast exists. I'd also like to thank my dear, dear Honored Guests. I've said it before, I will say it again. I love each and every one of you. I cannot put into words what it means to me to have someone say, yeah. I want to contribute to the conversation that is nursing. I want to encourage nurses. I want to encourage nursing students. I want to add my two cents. I want to talk about my story. Man, I just, I love to say I'm doing this for the listener and dear listener, I'm so glad you're listening. But if truth is really being told, I do it for my Honored Guests. I want to share their story. I want to add to this mosaic of nursing so that we can all encourage each other, lift each other up. and strengthen each other during these, I mean, there's no bones about it, turbulent times, right? So thank you, dear Honored Guests. I love each and every one of you, regardless of whether I work alongside you or whether I barely know you or this podcast is the only reason why I know you. And then lastly, I'd like to thank three very special individuals in my life who have literally kept me sane this year and have literally... Allowed me to continue to move forward and that of course is my wife Jenna and my best friends Mike and Jon the aforementioned Jon Holland. Mr. Michael Piper Jenna Miller like You are my people you are the ones that I look forward to seeing or talking to every day and I I Can't thank you enough um And that brings me to really kind of looking back Um, this, this episode is for the purpose of the podcast. It's not supposed to be about me. I'll shed a little bit of light, um, into 2025 and what has been the absolute hellacious, uh, year that this has been. We've had some incredible, amazing things happen, wonderful, exciting things. But man, when I look back at 2025, it's a year I want to forget. It's a year I cannot wait to get out of. It is a year that has hurt me in many, ways. Without getting into too many one of my children received a diagnosis that just totally wrecked our lives. And we had to navigate that. In the meantime, we also had, have a few cats for those that don't know. There's one of them, two of them are our podcast mascots and both of them are alive and ticking and well. We have quite a few cats and one of them had to cross that rainbow bridge this year after getting a tumor. It was the very first like pet loss that my children had to undergo. And at the risk of sounding callous after losing a child, hmm, a pet, it still hurts. It's still painful for me, but I recover from it pretty quickly because it's a cat. And I loved this kitty so much, though. He was my running buddy, Mr. Sparky. I'm gonna shout out to Sparky there. He was the... He always... Like, if a cat could have a smile on his face, he had a smile on his face. He's just the... He was the dumb, dumbest, lovingest, most amazing tabby feline you could ever have. He'd see you, walk... Drop down from the couch, walk to the middle of the floor, and flop over. like those, you know, the goats that get paralyzed when they get scared. That's exactly what he would do. And he would expect you to pet him. He was very friendly to everyone that came to our house. And so we were dealing with that amidst this diagnosis. And prior to all of that, uh my father died earlier in the year. Wow. What an episode, Eric. We are just going down into the depths. No, I am going to come out of that. But I just... The fact that this podcast is still up and running and still surviving. is no small miracle because this has been a brutal year. So under that note, again, I can't thank Jenna, Mike and Jon enough for being my people and walking me through all of that or walking through it together in the case of my wife. And uh it's been an amazing year. So that's a personal look back and a reason why some of our goals that we had for this year were not met. I've got a lot of dreams for this podcast and everything got shelved. Everything got put aside with good reason. so I could focus on the family, focus on myself, focus on the things that we needed to do. And that actually is going to inform some decisions I made moving into this year, 2026. So the last people I'd like to thank before I move on, and that is those wonderful human beings who have contributed financially to the cause. Again, this is all on my, like, I'm not going to get into, I'm not making money on this. We do not have the listenership, the viewership in order to get advertising. That's not my goal. My goal is to encourage nurses and nursing students. I don't care who's listening. I don't care where the money comes from. If it's all, you know, if it's just the podcast and I'm funding it, great. But man, when people contribute, it does take that burden off my shoulders. Those that wish to contribute, you can go to our website, feedingouryoung.org, go to the merchant support page. and on there has links to how you can contribute money. But the five individuals who have contributed this year, I want to thank so much. ah The wonderful, amazing, incredibly wise Katie Jones, Cassandra Kerle Margaret Miller, Sonja Winslett and Lynzee Hewett. Thank you guys so much for making this dream a real, real thing. And I just can't thank you guys enough. With all that gratitude, I can't help but now take a look back at what we've done here at Feeding Our Young®. And I am so excited. again, if you go back and listen to that, I'll call it SOFOY for short, State of Feeding Our Young®, S-O-F-O-Y, the SOFOY episode from last year, I'm like, who knows what 2025 will bring? This thing might go on through July or it might die on the vine. Because I was running out of Honored Guests and my connections were running short. uh you know, God and His faithfulness. You know what I mean? Like just people keep saying yes. And I am so grateful for that. uh this is where it gets interesting. Like if we look back at what I've done, we look forward at what we're doing, I can choose one of two roads. And that's kind of the theme of this episode, the theme of this last year. Do I focus on the negative or do I focus on the positive? And I'm going to be, this is confession time with Eric and Feeding Our Young®. Yeah, I'm a human being. Look at that. And so sometimes it's easy to look at some of the more negative things that I perceive to be negative, uh challenges, that sort of thing, and go, gosh, you know, I just, I don't know. I don't know if I can keep doing this. Not from a personal standpoint, but I just, don't know if it's gonna keep going. I don't know. And then those are the, you know, those few quiet moments where those happen. And then when I look at the positive, I'm like, my gosh, there's so much I want to do more. There's so much I wish I could do. What do we focus on? And I guess that's the theme of life, right? Are you gonna focus on the negative or the positive on any given day in any given moment? And I'm a generally positive guy. But as you heard, like, this year has done its best to just cut my legs out from under me and you know what? I'm still standing and so are you. So without further ado, let's look backwards. What have we done? According to Riverside, the studio that I love to use, we have 108 hours of content recorded. Total, 108 hours of me sitting down with incredible human beings talking about nursing, nursing school, and life in general. And it's just been an amazing journey. At the State of Our Feeding Our Young®, episode number 40, at the end of last year, I had mentioned that at that time we had 29 Honored Guests that had been published and 40 episodes, constituting 40 episodes at that time. We are now as of right now at the end of 2025, beginning 2026, we've had a hundred Honored Guests. The last Honored Guest being that a hundredth Honored Guests serendipitously for whatever reason, being the one at the very end of 2025. So crazy. And those hundred guests have produced 146 episodes total. So that represents growth. Very excited about that. I am not big into numbers and I'm going to tell you why. First of all, because we just don't have a lot. And so I'm going to drop some of these numbers and those that are into podcasting and or whatever, they're going to be like, you know, those aren't super big again. Am I going to focus on the negative or I'm going to focus on the positive? As far as I'm concerned, people who listen to this episode, listen to this podcast, I'm so grateful for you. And every one of these numbers represents someone who took a little bit of their time, at least to listen to part of an episode or a whole episode. So in 2024, had a podcast or measured in downloads and there were 2,600 downloads, 2,607 downloads in 2024. Last year, 2025, a total, and this is being recorded currently on December 15th. So there'll be a few more by the end of the year, but as it stands right now, 6,046 episodes downloaded in 2025 for a total of 8,653 episodes downloaded. Again, for a lot of podcasts, like, eh, this is a drop in the water. And for a lot of others, man, I mean, maybe they wish they could have that longevity. I don't know. I love living in the middle of the pack. I don't want to be in the front. I don't want to be in the back. I love, like, having the comfort of knowing, you know what? People are listening. People are listening. That's the bottom line, the takeaway that I have from that. I mean, 8,600 episodes downloaded. Multiple downloads of each episode. 146 episodes. 100 people. Here's really where it's at. 100 Honored Guests getting their story heard, having their encouragement out there, and bringing other people up. That is all that matters to me. We had three goals, if you go back and listen to that episode. We had three goals for 2025. Did we meet them? Getting less than an F on that one. We'll call it 33 % success rate there. So there were three main goals. One was to get a merchandise line started. I guess I sorta met that goal, because it has been started, but it's not released out there yet. That's where I have weakness. I am not a businessman, nor do I, and I've made no bones about this. Self-published a book and I hate self-promoting it. I hate promoting things. I don't know why. I don't know what's wrong with me in that regards. I should be proud of this, which I am, but proud enough to go out there and, hi, can you, know what, selling things, parting people with their money. I know. I don't like it. I don't like it. But I got to get over that and we'll talk about that in the looking forward part. But in the meantime, I did start that whole merchandise process. The amazingly talented. No, we're going to talk about them looking forward. So no, no merchandise line set up as of yet. Second goal, having an international guest. And that was achieved in relatively short order. Had the awesome privilege of speaking with one Janelle Clausen from Australia. Thank you, Janelle. Shout out to you. And you guys are going to want to check out her episode. And so very excited. That one, check mark. Yay. And then the third goal was trying to get some sort of presence in every state, whether it's promoted in one school or having an Honored Guest from one state. Anyway, whatever the case may be. have not reached that goal for the aforementioned reasons uh in regards to my own personal life. And so that remains very much a goal that I have in effect. So what other things did we do though that we didn't necessarily have goals for? We did have some incredibly amazing accomplishments. We had our first question and answer episode where we submitted to our students some questions that they may have and two incredibly other gifted instructors and then my little old self. the three of us chatted about them and answered those questions. ah so I just, Izzie Wilkes, Jennifer Evans, thank you guys. That was just an incredible time. And I hope to do more of those in the future, whether it's with a couple of students, couple of new grads, couple instructors, whatever the case may be, those Q and A episodes, we got a really good response from that. We also obtained our officially ®egistered trademark with the United States government, just making this official. That was a goal of mine from the very onset. because I wanted to A, protect the brand and B, make this legitimate and also put enough money behind it that I'm like, I can't let this sink or swim because we got to make it happen. We can't waste all this money. So it's not a cheap process. I'll tell you that right now. But very honored to have that registered trademark symbol behind the Feeding Our Young®name. But that pales in comparison to some of the other amazing things that uh this last year brought. not the chief of which is my guest speaking opportunities. I had my first two guest speaking opportunities and I cannot tell you how much that just lit me up and I just, ugh. So we were able to, I was able to travel to Alabama and to speak at one Bevill State Community College. Melissa Mays, Mary Bec Brown, the rest of your staff, your students, thank you so much for welcoming my wife and myself with open arms. I cannot even thank you. There was a wonderful little gift basket. I just, I cannot tell you how I, when we flew out of Alabama coming back home, I just was so energized, so jazzed up and like so excited to contribute to your nursing students in particular, but also to catch a glimpse of what I hope to be the future of the Feeding Our Young® movement. And then on the back heels of that, come fall semester, I had the honor of speaking to students at Washington State University. And I'm just so grateful, Dr. Tiffanie Rampley, thank you so much for allowing me to come in and to do the same for your students. These were what they called J1 students, junior year, coming into that first nursing school experience and able to just kind of hopefully, provide some wind. Oh, yeah, I almost went there. There's an old song that drove me nuts, the Wind Beneath My Wings. But you know what? Cliche as it is, or as much as I can't stand hearing that song, I'm so sorry. I did enjoy being able to hopefully provide a little bit of wind beneath your students' wings. So very grateful for those opportunities this year. And then lastly, of course, just within the last week, you heard the 100th honoured guest. I cannot. That sentence to me blows my mind. cannot believe that we've had 100 Honored Guests and counting. which brings me into the very last part of this episode, which is where are we going? So as you've already heard, man, those goals that I had from last year are still in effect. I wanna get a merchandise line up and running. Not because I'm looking for money, not because I'm trying to, see, I'm just, there I am. I don't wanna part people with money. But I would also, and I think my wife would too, like me to support this, people support this business outside of my income. And so, I need to get that going. I also, the reason why, the person I want to talk about here is one incredibly talented, Monya Mollohan. Monya, we had the pleasure of meeting Monya many, many, many years ago when our uh story about Micah was featured in a little magazine, local magazine here called The Heartbeat. It was released kind of in the, it's kind of a community magazine and it was made in conjunction, if I recall correctly, with Sacred Heart Medical Center where I work. But anyway, she was one of the graphic designers and all the things. And so we've maintained that relationship ever since we met her then. And she is just an incredibly talented, gifted visual designer. she just cut, anyway, I can't even, I'm so excited for you to see the designs she made. I, Monya, official apology to you in front of everybody else that your stuff has not made public yet, but it's happening. 2026, it's gotta happen, right? And so. That is very much still in place. Also, I'd still love to expand our reach, right? And on that note, again, is the glass half full or half empty? I'm going to focus on half full because, oh my goodness, as of the State of the SOFOY episode last year, this podcast had been listened to people in 13 countries and 261 cities per Buzzsprout, which is who hosts our podcast. And that is mind blowing in and of itself. And I made a joke about the fact that, you know, there were a couple of countries that maybe accidentally downloaded an episode because they only were represented by one episode. so, uh, you know, 13 countries, 261 cities. Where are we now? Now this podcast has been listened to in 36 countries and 673 cities. I can't even, my mind cannot wrap around it. Anyone's like, how can you look at the, how is that negative, Eric? And again, it's like, well, if I can, know, you always make yourself feel bad by looking up and you can always make yourself feel better by looking down and comparison kills what's comparisons the thief of joy, right? All of those things. How is that bad news? It's not bad news. You know what I mean? Like, again, I was talking about having 12, 20 episodes sitting out there for all of time and probably nothing more and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm so excited because that also represents growth. So the top 10 countries, of course, the United States, the lion's share for sure. What surprised me was what country jumped into the number two slot. Singapore. Singapore. Yep. Uh-huh. And then Mexico, Canada, the UK, Australia. Then followed by a few episodes in Uganda, the Russian Federation, the Philippines, and Brazil. I don't know what to tell you. I love it. I'm grateful for it. I'm glad that we have that sort of presence, even if it's just a tiny one, in certain countries. And then cities, the top 10 cities. Not much change in those top three again compared to last year. Spokane, Washington, where I live, 27 % of downloads are there. Seattle, Washington, 11 % of the viewership there. So this is just clicking for me. If you take that 27 and 11, what, 38%, right? Less than half. I mean, it's almost, it's just over a third of the listenership of this podcast is in my home or former home city. And then number three, of course, Jasper, Alabama. I think that was helped, of course, by being able to travel. to Alabama and to meet the amazing students there and all the things. But Jasper, you guys are right up there. We love you so much. And then number four on down, Phoenix, Arizona, Fort Worth, Texas, Portland, Oregon, Tacoma, Washington, Rathdrum, Idaho, Newark, Illinois, and then North Bergen. Is that Bergen? Bergen? North Bergen? New Jersey? My apologies to anyone living in that town. And I'm totally mispronouncing the name of your city. Maybe I should have done some research before I recorded this. Yeah, that would be a... Probably would have been a smart thing. Ah, that's okay. All right, so moving along, I still would love to increase our presence. And I have some ideas on how to do that. I had said last year that my goal was to, know, cold call universities, try and get in there, get this podcast promoted, again, just to support the students in those communities. And I genuinely don't have the time for that. Which brings me to some things that are changing over the course of this next year. I've got a two-pronged attack for this. One, I'm dropping my bedside hours. I've been a .9 full-time, what we consider a full-time .9 FTE, meaning I work 36 hours a week. And then I also teach as an adjunct clinical instructor, so that takes up a fourth day of my week. And that's a lot of work, which leaves me with three days off. Yay! But then there's life. You know what mean? Real life that gets in the way and all the things. And this podcast, which takes up time out of those three days. My time is very, very valuable and therefore in order to try and free up a bit of that time, I'm taking the scary step of stepping back just a little bit instead of having six shifts every two weeks. I'm gonna have five shifts every two weeks. Doesn't sound like a lot. Financially, it's a lot. The Mrs. is not excited or let's just say not as excited as me, but I will be making sure that we're okay on the financial side of things. But the main reason why I did that. is so that A, I can kind of pour a little more energy into this podcast and encouraging nursing students and B, to chase my dream of, again, uh reaching more nursing students in another fashion. I'm not going to get into the details there, not because I'm afraid of it not coming to pass. It very well might, it very well might not. There was another major development that, a positive major development that I was going to undertake starting fall semester and did not. because of the family stuff that cropped up and no regrets whatsoever. My family comes first and I will. Yeah, this podcast will fold before I allow myself to not be accessible to my family. so regardless, that is an interesting development moving forward to allow me the opportunity to hopefully reach out to other schools and universities and to uh the other pronged attack on that too is someone has suggested to me maybe reaching out to marketing students ah in universities who may need a project or something and see if I could not utilize some resources there. Don't know if that's even a thing, so I'm excited to find out here in 2026. With that, The other thing's coming up this year, we might be able to, assuming this podcast continues. again, I know this, keep beating this drum. Eric, glass half full, glass half empty. What are you doing there, buddy? Come on now, pull it around. But the truth of the matter is, again, last year was a lot easier to say, I don't know if it's gonna keep going. But at the time that I recorded the SOFOY episode from last year, we had already had enough material to get us through July of 2025. A lot easier to talk more confidently from that position than the position I'm sitting at this year, which is the content I have enough content to carry us through about February or so, which is literally uh less than two months ahead. so uh that's glass half full, glass half empty. I don't care. Again, maybe 2026 is where the weekly releases turn into something a little more sporadic. Or people continue to say yes. And this is another area where it's just, again, this theme of struggling with being human, focusing on the negative, harnessing the positive, moving forward. I've got Honored Guests that are like, oh yeah, Eric, I am definitely gonna do it. I'll tell you when I'm available. I can do it. Some people have been on that hook for, a year. And I'm not, this is not anything where, this is a peek behind the scenes. Not upset, not anything like that. By golly, I am grateful for every person who has said yes and recorded. And I'm equally as grateful for everyone who says, yes, I just can't do it right now. That aforementioned Dr. Tiffanie Rampley, she was one that was on a hook for almost a year before she was able to finally sit down and record. And that's no shade on her. ah She, she's, man, she was so worth the wait. every single person will be worth the wait. But it does weigh on my heart. The real fact is I look at that and go, gosh, you know, I don't know. Like maybe I am bugging people. Maybe I'm, you know, those doubting voices that we talk about so often on the podcast, I'm not immune to them either. And so anyway, all that to say this year may bring, if it continues and it doesn't die on the vine, et cetera. ah then we may be able to have, start initiating another idea that I had from very early on, which is kind of having these Where Are They Now episodes. I've got a few, especially nursing student grads, who were like, my gosh, Eric, I wanna come back. I wanna come back like a year plus later, talk about how that transition was, and that's why I'm like, let's go, let's do it. And so hoping to maybe roll that out this year. And then uh in the international guest category, I've got another international guest on the hook. uh Looking forward to sitting down with her. You are not going to want to miss what she has to say. She's already, she and I have, she's filled out her conversation starter form. I've seen some of the things she wants to talk about and oh my gosh, she's already influenced me. And I haven't even sat down with her yet. And so, just an incredible woman, as are all the Honored Guests. So with that, you know, again, glass half full, glass half empty. Gosh, Eric, you started off with this incredible, powerful, you know, encouraging music. You're so excited. And then, but the fact is life is real, you guys, you know, you feel it. There's tragedy out there in the world. There may be tragedy in your personal lives, but there's also joy. There's also the wins. There's also the successes. And I tell you right now, coming out of this year, if it's just me standing on my feet, ready to take another step forward. After what we faced, that is a win enough for me. And yet, there is so much more to be thankful for. So much more to be grateful for, for you, the Feeding Our Young® community, the listeners, the Honored Guests, everyone who has made this movement what it is so far. And then just thinking about the things we want to do moving forward. Hmm. Yeah, we're gonna end this episode on a glass half full. Kind of a feel. So yeah, guys, thank you so much for taking this journey with my Honored Guests, with me being encouraged along the way. um Please, I cannot thank you enough. Share the word, tell people about it. uh Anyone you know that might be interested in listening to people just talking about nursing, nursing school, and about life in general. How we get through these challenges, how we embrace the successes, what motivates us. I can't be more thankful for each person whose story I've been able to tell, and I cannot wait to share your story, future Honored Guest. So thank you for listening. Tune in next week. One week from today, we'll have the first Honored Guest of 2026. You don't want to miss her. This woman is so freaking inspiring. She one Jamie Clark. I got to tell you, I met her. was a nurse educator in our hospital. She was a hospital nurse educator. And that's where I first got to meet her. And there are people just like nurses, just like how we feel every once in while. You sometimes we're our best selves and sometimes we're not. And there are people who are doing a job and they're doing a good job. But then there are those people whose passion is evident, whose passion lights up a room, who after you talk with them, you're like, I want to do what you do. I want to do what I do better. I want to, you know, and she is definitely that for me. She was then, she continues to be. And so she's a wonderful two-part episode. Next week, find out about Jamie Clark, her farm, what? And all the nursing discussion we get to talk about. So thanks again, you guys. And here's to hoping that we get to do another one of these. A year from now.