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Saving Lives with a Podcast: Jason Stone Is Raising Prostate Cancer Awareness Through Storytelling

• Josh Troche - Pedal Stomper Productions • Season 3 • Episode 3

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Jason Stone didn’t plan on becoming a podcaster… but after his diagnosis, sharing his story became a way to connect, educate, and advocate.

In this episode, we explore how Jason’s raw and unfiltered YouTube podcast became a powerful platform for patient advocacy, cancer support, and emotional healing. His story is one of resilience, honesty, and a commitment to changing the conversation around men’s health.

Jason shares how he built a thriving podcast community from his craft room, reaching thousands with messages about PSA testing, navigating a cancer diagnosis, and finding strength through shared vulnerability. Whether he's talking to fellow survivors, doctors, or walking along a river sharing his thoughts, Jason’s content is a masterclass in meaningful content creation.

You'll learn how early PSA testing can be life-saving, why male vulnerability and honest storytelling deepen audience connection, and what authentic community building looks like in a health-focused podcast. Jason also shares the mindset that fuels a mission-driven show and offers practical podcast advice for creators looking to blend personal story with meaningful impact.

If you're looking for real podcast inspiration, whether you're creating content in the health space or simply want to understand how a mic can drive massive impact, Jason’s story will resonate.

This is more than a health podcast, it’s a reminder that personal growth, cancer awareness, and storytelling can change (and even save) lives.



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How do you take a diagnosis and turn it into a community? This week's guest is going to dive into that. This one really interesting, really heartfelt. And if you're a guy, you definitely. Need to watch this. Stay tuned. It's. This week's guest is Jason Stone, who is the host of Prostate Cancer The Road to Recovery. Jason, thanks for the time. Thanks for coming on, I appreciate it. A few years ago, diagnosed stage four prostate cancer. You started a YouTube channel, I mean, to help others that have received that same diagnosis. I believe if I remember right, it was when you had your first radiation treatment, when you said, I'm going to make a podcast. What was the I mean, what was the decision that was like, yeah, you know what? I just had radiation podcast. I was I was absolutely in shock is dealing with months of being in shock. And I kept thinking to myself, this shouldn't have happened. I should have known what to look for. I should have known what to monitor. There were things that could have prevented my situation where it's metastatic disease. Moved on to my L1 vertebrae in my spine and that could have been prevented. And it's things that men aren't talking about. It's getting a PSA test. And I sat down after that first radiation session and I said, I've got the equipment because I was an adjunct at a college. And so when Covid hit, I had to go buy a camera. I had to go buy a microphone. I had to go get set up for remote teaching. And so I had all this gear here, and I just sat right here in this craft room where I build my rockets. I love it, I love it. And, and do my leather work and stuff. And I turned on the camera and I just figured out what I was going to say and started saying it. And, I it has grown. It has turned into quite the journey with, I think I made episode 39 of a full episode, but I have over 100, long form content videos. Sometimes I just record thoughts that were. I'm just speaking to men and saying, hey, this is how I'm feeling today. Sometimes I go walk along the river and I just record on my phone. And I just got done with, this test at the hospital, and this is what I found out, and this is what I learned, and this is what I'm thinking. This is how my treatment plans changing those kinds of things. And it's worked really well. And then, yeah, then, of course, is podcast is have a YouTube channel. You also got to do the reels. So I have a bunch of, short form like over 300, but it, it's turned into a community. Is I think the biggest surprise to me is I thought I would just be recording information when I sat down that first day. Sure. I'm just going to record information so men can have a resource to go learn, and hopefully somebody goes and gets their blood test. The gets a PSA test on a blood test. But then I interviewed somebody and then I interviewed somebody else, and then I interviewed somebody else. And then, you know, it's guy from work. Kelly. Rob. Hey, I've got prostate. I don't know if you knew this, but 12 years ago I had prostate cancer and I had the surgery in the bowel blind. Your your videos made me go get read my PSA test because I didn't know I needed to keep getting tested. And it looks like there might be recurrence. He says, dude, you might have saved my life. There's, you know, and then I did another video and another video, and I talked to a radiation oncologist, and I talked to, but primarily I talked to other men that are going through it. And what I've tried to do is hit every different type of scenario, not everybody is stage four. Not everybody, you know, is does radiation, not everybody does chemo, not everybody does surgery. And so I've met these people along the way that does each of these. And one of the one of the first guys I interviewed was a friend I met through that through my channel. Adam. And we we hit it off right away. We've done like, three videos. He was this. He was a Navy guy like me and, well, not like me. He was a target sailor. Adam, if you're watching this bubble rule, the. Yeah. The. But it's been a fantastic way of building a community of people. The the men that come in and comment and hey, yeah, I agree or I don't think, I think you're missing something here. And it's been fantastic because anybody who start start searching prostate cancer, anybody that gets that diagnosis and starts trying to figure out what to do when they're looking on YouTube and my videos come up, there is a wealth of information there now, and it's because of the community of men that have been brave enough to come onto my show and be absolutely vulnerable with all the details. I love that you say that because, I mean, there's kind of two things that I want to touch on is one is the the community that you've built. And I think part of that is you started this very much from a giving mindset. You you wanted to give people information. And I, I love that because when you do that, other people have a tendency to to chime in. The other piece about that as too is, is that like men, we do not talk about stuff like this. The, the fact that you have gone at this with like full, like full transparency, has been really cool because I've seen, like in the episodes that I've watched, there's other men that have just come on to me like, look here, is this me at my most vulnerable like eight or 10s into the episode and I'm like, I mean, like literally hanging on to my desk when like, is it the community like that building in that information? Do you think that has been the growth, the giving mindset with that and how everyone's involved? I mean, have you nurtured that involvement with people? I guess would be the question that I have with it. Yeah, I try to. Now, I didn't realize that at first. I thought I was like I said, I was just recording information, but now I get in the comments, I try and respond to just about every comment, and I look for people with interesting stories, and I reach out to them and I say, hey, you know, I sometimes they're not on the show, sometimes they're not interested in being on the channel. And we just establish a relationship through email, and we chat and we do check ins and we do. Hey, how are you doing? I I've got a couple standing texts out there to to a couple guys saying, hey, checking in, how you doing? And it's been, that, that kind of growth. Yeah. I, I'm at a loss for words for sure. Partly because of my treatment and the brain fog. Sure. Oh, I get it. It's. I can't find the right word. I don't know if there necessarily is one for that. It just because it is that powerful of a thing. Is there? If you think back, is there a moment where you're like, Holy cow, this this is this is very different. I mean, you started it just to get the information out there. Is there a moment when you're like, this is a thing? Yeah. When I was talking to Adam, I think it was the second video I did. I did a first video with Adam when we really just hit it off. We connected. Sure. And it would, it turned. It was. We got such great response from other people watching that, and they just enjoyed us talking about our situations and our cancers. And it was on that second video where we started exploring other ideas, in the future. And what, you know, what is helping us? The, the, one of the things was the positivity mindset. And that's a, that's a commonality. Commonality across all the videos. Something my mom just commented on. The last video I did was, he she commented that she's seen she watches them all. Thank you mom. And, she said, the thing that's common is everybody you interview is positive. Everybody is hopeful. Everybody is looking toward a long future. And that matters. And. So I end up finding those people in the comments. And I was once in a while somebody will reach out to me through email. And I've built up, I hate to say, a fan base rate. To community. But because it's a community, it really has. And there's there's usually a couple dozen guys that I reach out to all the time, and they reach out to me and it's, yeah, I'd like if this continues to grow, I don't know how I'm going to I, I'm at risk for being overwhelmed. Sure. I'm at risk for being completely overwhelmed by the support that. That is it that I guess I would say that is a good problem to have in so many ways, because that it is one of those ones that's that's, I don't want to say easily solvable, but it's better than some of the other problems in terms of you can just sprinkle some other people in and, and with the community you have, I know there's going to be other people that want to help. You said one of the, the biggest things that you've learned is that it's just important to start. Have there been days where you're like, and I mean, every podcast goes through this. So I kind of asked this question as a as a loaded question, I guess you would say. But have there been days where, like, I don't want to record, but you do it anyways. It and and what, what gets you to do that. Yeah. So I went through when I, when I started this, I wasn't doing it with the goal of having a regular show or a I didn't have a schedule. I just when I felt like recording, I recorded and I went, like I would do a recording in one week and then do a recording the next week. And then I went three months without anything. Three months. Nothing. Because my goal wasn't the podcast, my goal was the information. Sure. And so after, at that second interview with Adam, I realized, Holy cow, this is really actually this is helping people. I need to I need to keep doing regular content. And so now, now, like you say, I do have those times where I'm like, I don't feel like recording. And you see it in my videos when I get on there. A lot of times I'm propping myself up. I'm just kind of saying, okay, I got to be. And then sometimes I just, I'm laying in my recliner and I've got my phone and I'm just holding my phone up there and saying, yeah, I'm not feeling today. And I just talk about had that talk about how I feel, how I don't feel good, how I'm not motivated, the lack of motivation, the lack of energy from the the stupid drugs. And, yeah, it becomes part of the content. That that 100% makes sense as this is grown. I know you said like, look at the the community is at risk of a bit of overwhelm, which I totally get what I mean, what do you see? Like, are you looking towards the future of this? I mean, you've mentioned a mindset of positivity, and I love that because I think that helps in just so many ways. But what are you looking for towards the future of this? Or is this just like, look, I'm just going to keep putting out information and hope people find it? Well, I think I'm in the middle of, I'm in a transition phase where up to, up to recently I was very much. I'm just going to keep going until I'm done. And then when I'm done, I'll. I'll be done. And then this thing just exists out there and that's it. But I find myself looking for more ways to get the word out. I find myself looking for, I printed up these little business cards that just, you know, they're not like. But they're they're. I call them business cards, but it's about cancer. And it's got this, little bit on there, like men over 41 and they get cancer and it's got a QR code. So I find myself looking for more ways to get this information out there. And it's it's because men have reached out and said, hey, I found your channel or my oftentimes it's my wife showed me your channel or my girlfriend showed me your channel. And the information has helped me. And I went and got this test or I got a second opinion or this is how you changed my treatment plan. The information you have, put me in a better place, and I want to keep doing that now. So that's awesome. I don't know if. I answered your question. No, it it really it really did, because it's it's the, the there's always new information coming. There's always I mean, there's always updates. Plus there's that, like, as algorithms work in that it's if you're just leaving the old stuff out there, it does tend to get buried a little bit over time to have these new bits, these new pieces of information. The other thing that I love is too, is the new stories. That's I mean, every news story you tell is going to resonate with someone in a different way. And to me, that's it's one of the reasons why I love podcasting as a, as a medium. It's just every news story is it's going to grab someone, it's going to it's going to teach someone something, even if it's not directly to them. I, I love that, we ask one big question, at the, at the end of all the interviews that I truly love, and it's if you could give one piece of advice to anyone that's looking to start their podcast or whether it be for personal reasons, whether it be for medical reasons, whether it be for their business, what would be like the the biggest and I guess I would say there's there might be two from you here. If they're on the fence about starting it and what would be the biggest pitfall that they should avoid starting it? Okay. I do have to I do have two answers to this. First, don't let the gear hold you back. Love it. Love that. Let the gear. If you are shooting on a camera or a phone, just get your phone out, put in some air pods or you know it. Get a $20 Amazon lavalier mic, plug it into your phone and just start recording. The second is, don't get into the trap of starting a podcast just to have a podcast. Just having a podcast isn't what people want. They don't want. No, you know, there's so much there's a lot of noise out there and it's getting harder and harder to filter through the podcasts to find relevant good content. So it has to be think about what you're absolutely passionate and knowledgeable about or willing to learn about. You don't have to already be knowledgeable about it and make that your subject, because when you are interested in it, people will. People will show up. I absolutely love that. To me that is an amazing place to. And Jason, I really, really appreciate your time today. Me and the audience, we all wish you the best. I've got some surprises for people. We're obviously also going to have all of your information in the show notes. Guys get tested. Get. Your blood test. Out. Yes, yes, yes, yes. We'll talk about that more in the summary. Jason. Thank you. Once again, I really, really appreciate it and love what you're doing. I thank you, thank you very much. I enjoyed being on the show. To me, what Jason has built is first off, it's an amazing resource for men. Second off, if you have not gotten your PSA checked, do it please. He actually and this is one of the things that tells me like authenticity wins every single time. He basically wouldn't let me off the call until I made sure that I was going to go get my PSA test. It also, to me, that's just a wonderful, wonderful way to be with things like that. With that, once again, there's a couple of lessons that I've pulled from this, that first off, I mean, are going to be able to be applied to your podcast, and especially if it's a business podcast, it seems like this is a personal one, but this is very much I mean, there's some applicable lessons there. The one the first one is, is that once again, it's in service. A podcast cannot be like anything, but in service to others. That is where that is how you connect with people. That is how you find people. That is how you work with people. You have to do it in service of others. That's part of the reason why we've kind of changed. What we've done too, is we want to give people a platform to talk. We want to give people really, the information on how to do these things better. It's that giving mindset. It is huge with it. The other piece that he's talked about is the passion piece that I love, and I love that piece, too. If you find that niche thing that you truly enjoy talking about and granted, I don't know if I want to say he enjoys talking about this, but he does in a way. If you find that niche thing that you really, really fit into, you're going to find an audience, you're going to find a community that's going to support what you're wanting to support. It's going to support what you're doing. That could be having I mean, working your way or living your life with prostate cancer. That could also be building your business, that could also be reaching like new people to market, to reaching new people to support. There's all sorts of components that kind of fit into that, that once again, when you talk about that piece that you really, really like, it makes a huge, huge difference. Another piece of that is just with the enthusiasm that people are going to see, you're going to deliver it with that enthusiasm. You're going to you're going to show up and people are going to know that you're into it. The fact that he shows up on days where he's like, I can't get out of the recliner, that says something that says something about not only his commitment to it, but how much he truly enjoys reaching out, educating people, and also talking to people and and helping them. That to me, it makes just such a huge difference in how things come across. Absolutely. I love that the other piece too, that is to is when he said, don't worry about the gear. Everyone's first podcasts are gonna suck. Even if you come into our studio and do the podcast, guess what? Your first ones may have some awkwardness to them. That's oh, okay. I love the shout out that he gave to his mother. I choke in so many of like the classes that we teach and things of that nature. Your first ten podcasts. The only people that are going to watch is probably going to be your mom. The fact that he says, shout out to my mom because I know she's probably gonna watch this to me was absolutely, absolutely cool. It's that support. It's also probably the only person that watched the first 8 or 10 episodes, and that's wonderful in its own way, too. The last thing that I want to conclude with here is, first off, pure guy, go get your PSA. Act. Like I said, he made me promise that I was going to get my check before, before we were able to hang up the call. And I absolutely love that he did that. Second off men, we need to talk to each other. The fact that he has done that and he is me. I mean, he's put himself out there in a very vulnerable state. And when you go watch his podcast, you will see that other people are just showing up. And with eight seconds that vulnerable, that that vulnerable about stuff, man, this is why we need to talk. I just implore you, go follow Jason's journey. I would tell you where he's at on his journey, but I think you really need to go see for yourself. So do me a favor. Go follow his journey, see where he's at, learn about what he's working with, what he's dealing with, and once again, how he can help you. Because that's truly where his podcast from. And that is where yours come from. To, as always, to your family, take care of yourself, can take care of someone else too. I will see you very, very soon.

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Josh Troche

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