The Big Little Podcast returns tonight, and I'm thrilled about it. Spacey and I started the podcast over three years ago, almost on a whim. We live several hundred miles apart, and miss each other all the time, and were looking for a way to spend more time together doing something meaningful.
He and I (and our polyamorous sister, Pene, collectively known as The Ghidrah) have taught classes together for years. We thought, "Wouldn't it be cool, fun, neat, and maybe really effective if we put those chops into making a podcast?"
We had no idea how well it would turn out, and what a big deal it would turn out to be.
When it first got going, we were obsessed with our "numbers", the amount of downloads we were getting per episode. That kept being a thing for me personally, until we took our first hiatus at the end of our first "season", and we tallied up the numbers for the season. The 52 episodes comprising season 1 had been downloaded over 875,000 times.
That blew us away. I won't say we NEVER look anymore, but at a certain point, we stopped worrying about being validated. Which is ironic, because not requiring validation is a major theme of the show.
The numbers really don't matter at all, anyhow. On a fairly regular basis, we hear from folks all over the world about how the show has helped them to love themselves, and grow. It boggles my mind that as far away as South Africa, or Australia, this thing we're doing is helping people. Honestly, I feel the podcast is among the most important things I have ever done in and with my life.
The show went on hiatus at the beginning of the summer, as brother and I needed time for some significant life stuff we each had going on.
The show returns tonight and I'm ever so grateful for that. It's time to get to work.