Have you ever felt a wave of gratitude so powerful it stops you in your tracks? That's the heartfelt sentiment we're riding on as we reflect on the Two Fish Podcast's journey, and it's all thanks to you, our amazing community. From our first tentative steps in late 2020 to the growth that's spanned across a staggering 72 countries, we've been on quite the adventure. This episode is a celebration of that progress and the stories of personal growth that have come with it. We're blown away by how our episodes have traveled the globe, shared by word-of-mouth—proof that your support can truly work wonders.
Amidst updates and reflections, we also share a personal glimpse into the challenge of juggling family life with our passion for podcasting. This episode is about more than just numbers; it's about the spiritual nourishment we aim to provide and the inspiration we draw from the biblical tale of feeding the thousands. Looking ahead, we're excited to bring you a fresh perspective with a new series on the Book of Hebrews, diving into the text's richness and how its wisdom can shape our lives today. As we recount touching experiences and look forward to deepening our discussions, we're reminded that at the heart of it all is our unwavering gratitude for your presence on this journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
welcome back to the two fish podcast.
My name is nick, I'm aaron andthis week we're talking about
thanksgiving and gratitude.
Specifically, you guys, the twofish community.
That's where you go.
We're going to figure this outat some point.
(00:26):
We are, we were well.
First of all, we haven'trecorded in a hot second a very
while.
Yeah, we're guilty, we'reguilty.
We had a lot going on.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
No, yeah, yeah, you say that way too often we really
do.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
We get ahead and then what you guys don't know is
we're usually at least a week totwo episodes hopefully ahead.
So then we'll go oh, we gotsome in the bag to pull out,
we're fine.
And then we go two weeks notrecord, and then, well, we need
to, and then life happens and wedon't.
So for us sometimes it's wayover a month between recordings.
(01:08):
Sometimes we jip our fans, yes,yes we really do.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's you guys that suffer.
And then, uh, nick, and I feelguilty that is true for sure um,
but that's part of the point ofthis episode here is, uh, to to
reach you guys and to simplysit down and say thank you, yeah
, and um, the the amount ofgratitude and appreciation that
(01:32):
we have sitting here recordingand and seeing some of the
things we see, um, as justbeyond appreciative, even though
I would say this last yearespecially, we we have not been
consistent, we're struggled, butthe one thing that has been
(01:54):
consistent is our growth.
Yes, and you guys have beenconsistent.
We can look at numbers and seefrom week to week when we drop a
new episode, like the numbersare consistent and they are
growing, which tells us you guysare doing something on your end
and it's reaching people,because we're not doing a lot of
(02:18):
social media, we're notthrowing money into advertising,
we're basically just prayingand sending it out there to you
guys and you guys are doing whatyou do.
And Nick and I are both kind ofin sales and, as always said,
the best kind of sales is theword-to-word, mouth-to-mouth
(02:43):
type of sale, and I believethat's what we're seeing, uh,
from you guys and we just man soappreciative of that.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, I definitely don't want to use this episode
to say to hammer down, make sureyou like and subscribe, cause
we do that not all the time, wetry not to do that every episode
, but um, but you guysdefinitely have done that and we
can see that we've doubled ingrowth, probably this year,
Would you say we do that not allthe time, we try not to do that
every episode, but um, but youguys definitely have done that
and we can see that I, we'vedoubled in growth, probably this
year, would you say.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Close it's close to doubled.
It's it's been already thisyear to watch and like, we've
had conversations, um, like man,we got to be consistent, our
numbers are growing and like, sowe'll do that, we'll get the
two, three episodes ahead andthen, like, life just comes in,
hits us and it's like we can'tget together and record and, um,
(03:31):
but you guys consistently showup and it's just a huge blessing
it is.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I think we started this in 2020 um, probably
september, octoberish 2020 andhave I don't even know how many,
I think the first episode wasreleased in December?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Did it?
Yeah, okay, we might havestarted recording in September,
yeah, but the first episode hitthe airs.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I think we had five or six maybe ready to go and the
goal was just we're going tohit number seven, because that's
where all podcasts fall off,and we've had I know it's over
200 episodes it might not saythat because we've taken down a
lot of the original ones becausethey stunk.
The content was really good.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
We were not great.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The sound was terrible, yeah.
And so through this process, Ifeel like, for sure, our content
has gotten way better.
We've gotten way better atcommunicating and doing this and
obviously all of that.
You know the verse inColossians do everything you do
for the Lord, and I really thinkthat that's what we want to do
(04:40):
here on the Two Fish podcast andthat's what we want for the Two
Fish community.
I can look at numbers.
I don't actually look atnumbers very often anymore.
Um, I used to look at them likea lot you know, too much like.
There were times where I'm like,oh, we haven't gotten a
download, and that was my focus,rather than, hey, the content
is what's important, and so Ijust looked it up right before
(05:03):
we started.
Um recording here.
Uh, we we're in 72 countriesthroughout the world, which I
don't know how many countriesare in the world.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I have no that was a uh question for the prophet
google yeah and not aaron applecountries are there.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
There are 195 countries, so we've been played
and not quite half not quitehalf a third, a third, yeah,
about a third.
A third of the of the countrieshave someone in them listening.
And again, what we're trying todo here is not say, oh, look at
the two fish podcast, we're soawesome, no man.
(05:44):
Look at the way that the wordof God is spread.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, because, once again, like we've, we have done
very limited on Facebook and weI think we, partly because we're
not very good at it Right.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
We are not good at it .
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Well, we are not good at it, but we've also like so.
Other podcasts throw money inadvertising and we're not doing
that.
We're paying for a couple ofapps and doing a couple of those
things, but we're not throwingmoney in advertising for us to
show up on 72 countries.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I think we advertised twice ever and it's probably
been two years ago.
Spotify, I think the onebackfired and one we got before.
I got 600 extra downloads morethan normal on it like a day I'm
like.
This cannot be real it was somekind of fiverr thing.
Good too good to be true.
(06:50):
When you getting yeah so manyextra for five bucks, I'm like
okay, lesson no.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
That was not the way forward.
But, yeah, to be in 72countries.
And those might not all beconsistent all the time, but
they show up every now and then.
I know we are consistently ineight countries on every episode
.
I look at numbers more becauseI'm a desk jockey, um, so I get
(07:23):
to look at them more and seethose and, uh, seems like in the
first day an episode drops likewe got some people in germany,
we got some people in australia,yeah, and then obviously people
in the us that are immediatelyI don't want to say immediately,
but in that first day they theyshow up as they have downloaded
(07:44):
the new episode, which meansthey're subscribed.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
They follow whatever that button is on, whatever they
apple apple podcast is thenumber one yeah um I think
chicago is our number one city.
Which we're not far from.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Far from Chicago, so that could just be.
However, the cell phones bounceoff of towers.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Chicago and our home area is the number one.
But, the fact that it's morethan just that is amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah.
And then the really interestingone to me is um, so we host on
buzzsprout, which is a greatpodcast hosting website.
Um, we have moved into the top25 percent of podcasts with our
(08:39):
numbers, which is just thatblows my mind.
It makes me think the numbersare wrong honestly because I
just can't imagine that oh, I'veasked the prophet google, like
what, what are the numbersneeded to be?
Yeah, and as consistent so itit might not just be the top 25
(09:01):
percent of buzzsprout.
It looks like the top 25percent of podcasts.
Yeah, now there's like threemillion podcasts out there.
Yeah, so that puts us in theupper 700 thousands of podcasts
and I I can look back to when westarted, like you talked about,
and we're like man we got 10this month.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, right, or I think.
What can we do to get 25downloads in a week?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
What can we do?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, what would get us to that number?
And when we hit, it.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
we were so pumped that 25 people would listen to
our horrible at the time podcastlike oh, yeah, yeah, I'm not,
yeah, we're not that great, whowants to listen to us?
a couple guys that aren'ttheologians, and yeah um, I
think the hard thing for ourspace, religious space, is
(09:57):
there's a lot of message sermons.
So churches, whether they'remega or local, they download
their.
My church even does it.
They download their sermon as apodcast and so that's not what
we're doing and so I feel likewe're competing with these
churches, some of them hugeelevation, I think has the
(10:18):
number one church podcast.
It's just his messageinteresting yeah.
So that's what we're competingagainst, versus.
I feel like if it were tonarrow down into two separate
groups.
Hey, here's a, here's a group.
You're going to get the messagefrom last week that you missed
because you didn't go to church,or whatever.
You want to listen to it again.
(10:38):
And then there's another biblestudy category.
I feel.
I feel like we'd do so muchbetter if we were weeded out of
that.
Yeah, but to again to be at 25overall, yeah, that's all that's
not amazing, that's notchristian podcast.
That's all podcast, uh, but Ijust it's an.
It's incredible and we're sothankful and we're not, we're're
(11:01):
not, we're not charging anymoney for this, we're not trying
to get paid for this.
It was funny, though.
Aaron and I were talking justtoday on Marco Polo.
I'm going to throw out MarcoPolo.
If you don't use Marco Polo,you need to get it, cause it's
an awesome communication device.
It doesn't have all the extrasocial media part.
Um, that's how aaron and Imostly communicate, but we were
(11:23):
talking about I just completelylost my train of thought while
we were talking we were talkingabout quitting our jobs.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Oh yeah, that's right .
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Full time man I wish we could, because we just get so
busy and it's like gosh.
I wish we could just podcastfull time and not have to worry
about the monetary you got to dolife.
Obviously, we're nowhere nearthat and we're not necessarily
looking to do that.
We're not necessarily lookingout there trying to make money.
We're still pretty far in theblack to be able to win.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We're in the red for sure.
Oh yeah, red, not black.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
You know, we do have monthly subscriptions that we
put Buzzsprout costs us money.
There's another AIsubscriptions that we put
buzzsprout costs us money.
Um, there's a another um ai.
It helps us write ourdescriptions.
Um.
There's one that makes videos,helps make shorts and stuff for
youtube or instagram or tiktokor whatever, which we pay for
and we really don't use.
We need to get back to usingbecause it costs like ten
(12:16):
dollars a month.
So, but we do do a couplethings that help make our lives
easier as we do this, but it's.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Which was meant to help us stay more consistent
right, yes.
And it has but life just like.
We both have young kids and afamily, and this is truly a
hobby.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
One that stretches us in our walk, and we greatly
enjoy what you guys do as fansin the two-fish community, but
it is a hobby at this point.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
For sure.
And hobbies cost money yeah, soyeah.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
For us to to sit here in a we record in a basement
room yeah, right, like you, lookat joe rogan, he's got a whole
production studio and yeah, um,for us to sit here in a basement
that we, we kind of built astudio and right now we had to
get out of that and we're justsitting in a couple chairs
recording, right, yeah, for usto be that high up the food
(13:26):
chain called a food chain, ifyou will, but is is remarkable
and um, our gratitude for thatis basically like our prayer for
the podcast was it would besimilar to the story of jesus
taking the two fish and the fiveloaves and feeding the five
(13:47):
thousand, yeah, and we'reliterally seeing it play out,
because we're not.
We're not throwing money atadvertising and gaining
additional listeners.
We're putting money intokeeping our life a little bit
simpler as we edit the podcastand try and get.
(14:08):
we want to get facebook backincorporated.
We started out with facebooklives and recording the podcast
and we went away from it.
We want to get back to that toand we're trying.
We'll get there, but we'repaying for some things to make
our lives easier so we can staymore consistent for you guys and
(14:30):
just keep an episode comingevery two weeks is our goal,
which we just missed it.
But I was out in the missionfield, as nick puts it.
Yeah, even though I wouldn'tconsider it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
You were, you were in a ministry, uh, you went to
arizona a men's retreat kind ofthing and and uh, I think you
said a guy it's a small group,but a guy gave his life to the
lord.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
So yeah, we so there's there's a team, and then
there's guests, and there arelike 16 guests and most of them
were involved in the church to adegree.
But there was one guy that hadkind of just started going to
church and it's a really coolstory.
He ended up giving his life toChrist and where we were, there
(15:16):
were names on the rooms.
Like every room had a name, andI don't remember the name of
his room, but he had gone intothat room with his table and
they went in there to pray andhe had commented like oh, this
name of the town I was born in,well, he ended up giving his
life to christ in there and,like nobody had thought about it
(15:38):
.
And then he thought about itlater and told somebody oh, I
was reborn in that town too.
That's awesome, like, and thejust the coincidence in that is
is all god like I don't know why, like that would happen, but,
um, for whatever reason thattriggered something in that guy
(16:02):
that like, hey, that's myhometown and that's where I got
saved, and it'll be quite thememory for him.
Um, but to me I looked at itand like no man can orchestrate
that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
No, like no man can orchestrate that because you
knew nothing about the guycoming in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
No, half the people on team were from Indiana and
this guy's from Arizona, yeah,and then like the people
planning the event like there'sno way they knew that guy was
even coming and he was born inthat town and like, yeah, it's
awesome.
And just God used that as agood reminder for us on team
(16:42):
that I'm real and I'm here.
Yeah, because look at what Ijust look at what I just did
yeah, and I think that I reallywant to go back.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
You had started to kind of set it and and I think
this can fit in that god can useanything, whether you know it
or not.
He's a work straight and stuffbehind the scenes and he'll use
anything.
The two fish podcast when wewere trying to figure out the
name for this thing, my wifethrew that out there.
She's like, you know, the fiveloaves and the two fish, jesus,
(17:12):
and we tell our wives theyshould start a podcast called
the five loaves podcast yeah,it's already trademarked.
Don't, don't try and take it butin luke, jesus said the
disciples said hey, sendeveryone away.
They're hungry.
And jesus said you feed themand they're like we didn't have
anything.
They weren't expecting to bethere that long, like they were.
(17:33):
Jesus said figure it out.
And all they had 5,000 men, notincluding women and children.
All there were was five loavesand two fish.
There's no way that can feedpotentially 10,000, 12,000
people.
No way Possible, Zero chance.
(17:55):
I think you might each get alick before it disintegrated and
went away and God prayed overit and started breaking it and
breaking it.
He didn't, it wasn'tadvertising, it wasn't saying
look what I'm doing.
He just kept praying and keptbreaking and at the end the kid
went home, which is anothermiracle.
Who knows, the kid's situationcould have been his last loaves
and bread, who knows.
And he went home with 12baskets full extra and I.
(18:19):
That was probably a wholenother miracle in those people's
lives anyway yeah and so godcan take anything.
God can take two guys who really, again, not theologians and
that's what I love about havingdone this for the past four
years is I'm reading scripturedifferently and you and you get
(18:41):
to understand.
Having a conversation the otherday about it's like you can go
to a church and the preacher canpreach the sermon and you can
get some good stuff in it, butif you don't go and dig in
yourself, you're going to missit.
You're going to probably missthe point of the message.
You're going to miss the pointof what God's got for you in the
Bible.
So, taking those small things,two guys who you had barely
(19:05):
become saved.
Not very long after that, westarted this if'm that's, yeah,
correct, and I just wantedsomething to do, like I wanted
to, um, produce some.
I wanted to do something,whether it be youtube or this.
We settled on this, but andthat's all we had and a bible,
(19:26):
here we are yeah, didn't you?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
you bought this equipment and this is really
funny like if you want to godown a rabbit hole you can
search for this video.
But nick bought this equipmentand he was getting dog collar
shocked yeah, shocked by his sonfor answering questions wrong
(19:48):
my, one, of my, my- oldest sonand I decided we're gonna start
a podcast.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
We didn't even get to seven episodes.
We were one of those failurepodcasts.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
But one of the.
You got electrocuted.
One of the one there was.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
There's a radio show on in our area and they ask
trivia questions and whoever'swrong or something, they get a
shot caller and I thought that'shilarious.
We'll do that, and cohen and Ico Cohen didn't have a great
reaction, but right in themiddle of me talking he's shy.
It's funny.
I don't know if the video isstill out there or not, but I
(20:19):
bought all this stuff for apodcast that we didn't.
I didn't even know I wanted todo something.
And then we connected, and herewe are.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I think I tried to write a song which, just so you
know, I got kicked out of bandbecause I can't keep a beat.
I know nothing about music.
After being saved, like I knewI was supposed to do something,
I didn't know what it was, andthen, somehow or another, we
ended up on a podcast, which hasbeen great.
(20:50):
You were sharing the story ofJesus feeding the 5,000, and I
just thought of that, as I'mthinking of that, like the
underlying message in that thatI don't think I've ever heard
anybody talk about is that weare to feed the people now.
We are to give them thespiritual food, and I think,
(21:13):
like that was a large display ofthat, jesus was feeding them,
but he was doing it with hisdisciples.
He was passing the bread to hisdisciples and they were feeding
the people.
His disciples have passed thebread to the people and the
people are now supposed to befeeding the world.
Right, and that is what we'resupposed to be doing, and I
(21:35):
think that is the prayer for ourpodcast is that we are giving
people spiritual food.
That at least stretches you andmakes you have a conversation
with a friend we often campsitefire right Sitting down and just
opening up your Bible anddiscussing it with somebody is
(21:56):
such a huge blessing and a bigpart of what we get from this
for ourselves is just that theaccountability of opening the
Bible, reading it and talkingthrough it.
Sometimes you can open it andyou can read it and like not
have a clue what you just read,right, but you're like, oh,
checked, I read the bible today.
(22:16):
Um, but when you sit down readit and discuss it, I'm not one
that can like memorize songs orremember movie lyrics and I
can't read the bible andmemorize scripture.
But a lot of times if I end upin a conversation, I can be like
, oh man, that's somewhere inJames.
(22:37):
I can't tell you right whereit's at, but I can tell you it's
in James because we sat down,we read it and we discussed it.
I know I've read this Give melike five minutes and I'll find
it right has been huge for mywalk, as Nick shared, like 2018
is when I truly gave my life tochrist and I became a christ
(22:57):
follower and I was like what doI do with this and this is part
of my story is this podcast andhow it helps stretch me yeah,
overall shorter episode.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
What we want to do is just say thank you.
You guys have tremendously,tremendously helped us to help
scripture spread, and we're notalways going to get it right and
if we get it wrong we're goingto correct it.
Thank you for being around onthis ride with us.
The verse go out into all theworld and preach good news to
all creation.
We're over a third there andthat is because of the two fish
(23:27):
community.
You guys have been sharing,following, subscribing, passing
it around, um, telling yourfriends word of mouth, yep, so
we want to thank you so much,seriously, from the bottom of
our hearts.
Um, I guess business here.
Again, make sure you're sharingit.
Um, you can go totwofishpodcastcom.
You can listen to the mostrecent episode.
(23:48):
If this is the first one you'rehearing, go there, click on the
newest episode it'll probablybe this one and um, hit that
follow or subscribe button andshare it and you can sign up,
for we have an email list youcan sign up for that.
There's not a lot that comesthrough there.
Again, we're not great at theback end, we're great at
(24:08):
recording.
We love sitting down andrecording together.
So, hey, if there's someonethat wants to help us reach out
to us.
I think the email is two fishpodcast at gmailcom.
Two fish podcast dot com is thewebsite.
There's fan mail now onbuzzsprout.
If you got some fan mail, giveit to us.
We love reading the encouragingthings.
Every once in a while you'llsee me a screenshot of something
(24:29):
that someone text or saw onfacebook or something, and I'm
like man, that is so encouragingoh yeah, I just I just recently
had.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I mean, we're worldwide, so maybe people won't
realize but I just had an amishguy come up to me and was like,
man, I listened to your guys'spodcast, it's so good.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
I just appreciate what I'm like for people that
don't know.
Amish don't use electricity, soI'm like I didn't know we were
coming across on the telephonebut oh my goodness, I'm guessing
he listens to it at worksomehow.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But um, it is a huge blessing to get those emails or
or even a facebook messengerthing.
So we greatly appreciate it.
Um, our gratitude and ourthankfulness for you guys is
unmeasurable and, uh, we, justwe appreciate you tuning in and
continuing to stick with us eventhough we struggle yeah, I man,
(25:25):
I think back when we did anepisode a week, I think how in
the world did we do that?
We just have to pray for kovatto come back.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
But yeah, thank you so much, seriously, from the
bottom of hearts.
Thank you to fish community,thank you for being a part of
the community and that's it.
Make sure you stay tuned andwe'll have another.
I think we're starting hebrews.
Hebrews is where we're going,which is and I started.
We started reading ahead andstarted studying it, and it's a
different book than the oneswe've done before.
(25:53):
So, yep, we're super excitedabout it.
Stay tuned, thank you guys.
welcome back to the two fish podcast.
My name is nick, I'm aaron andthis week we're talking about
thanksgiving and gratitude.
Specifically, you guys, the twofish community.
That's where you go.
We're going to figure this outat some point.
(00:26):
We are, we were well.
First of all, we haven'trecorded in a hot second a very
while.
Yeah, we're guilty, we'reguilty.
We had a lot going on.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
No, yeah, yeah, you say that way too often we really
do.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
We get ahead and then what you guys don't know is
we're usually at least a week totwo episodes hopefully ahead.
So then we'll go oh, we gotsome in the bag to pull out,
we're fine.
And then we go two weeks notrecord, and then, well, we need
to, and then life happens and wedon't.
So for us sometimes it's wayover a month between recordings.
(01:08):
Sometimes we jip our fans, yes,yes we really do.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's you guys that suffer.
And then, uh, nick, and I feelguilty that is true for sure um,
but that's part of the point ofthis episode here is, uh, to to
reach you guys and to simplysit down and say thank you, yeah
, and um, the the amount ofgratitude and appreciation that
(01:32):
we have sitting here recordingand and seeing some of the
things we see, um, as justbeyond appreciative, even though
I would say this last yearespecially, we we have not been
consistent, we're struggled, butthe one thing that has been
(01:54):
consistent is our growth.
Yes, and you guys have beenconsistent.
We can look at numbers and seefrom week to week when we drop a
new episode, like the numbersare consistent and they are
growing, which tells us you guysare doing something on your end
and it's reaching people,because we're not doing a lot of
(02:18):
social media, we're notthrowing money into advertising,
we're basically just prayingand sending it out there to you
guys and you guys are doing whatyou do.
And Nick and I are both kind ofin sales and, as always said,
the best kind of sales is theword-to-word, mouth-to-mouth
(02:43):
type of sale, and I believethat's what we're seeing, uh,
from you guys and we just man soappreciative of that.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, I definitely don't want to use this episode
to say to hammer down, make sureyou like and subscribe, cause
we do that not all the time, wetry not to do that every episode
, but um, but you guysdefinitely have done that and we
can see that we've doubled ingrowth, probably this year,
Would you say we do that not allthe time, we try not to do that
every episode, but um, but youguys definitely have done that
and we can see that I, we'vedoubled in growth, probably this
year, would you say.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Close it's close to doubled.
It's it's been already thisyear to watch and like, we've
had conversations, um, like man,we got to be consistent, our
numbers are growing and like, sowe'll do that, we'll get the
two, three episodes ahead andthen, like, life just comes in,
hits us and it's like we can'tget together and record and, um,
(03:31):
but you guys consistently showup and it's just a huge blessing
it is.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I think we started this in 2020 um, probably
september, octoberish 2020 andhave I don't even know how many,
I think the first episode wasreleased in December?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Did it?
Yeah, okay, we might havestarted recording in September,
yeah, but the first episode hitthe airs.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I think we had five or six maybe ready to go and the
goal was just we're going tohit number seven, because that's
where all podcasts fall off,and we've had I know it's over
200 episodes it might not saythat because we've taken down a
lot of the original ones becausethey stunk.
The content was really good.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
We were not great.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The sound was terrible, yeah.
And so through this process, Ifeel like, for sure, our content
has gotten way better.
We've gotten way better atcommunicating and doing this and
obviously all of that.
You know the verse inColossians do everything you do
for the Lord, and I really thinkthat that's what we want to do
(04:40):
here on the Two Fish podcast andthat's what we want for the Two
Fish community.
I can look at numbers.
I don't actually look atnumbers very often anymore.
Um, I used to look at them likea lot you know, too much like.
There were times where I'm like,oh, we haven't gotten a
download, and that was my focus,rather than, hey, the content
is what's important, and so Ijust looked it up right before
(05:03):
we started.
Um recording here.
Uh, we we're in 72 countriesthroughout the world, which I
don't know how many countriesare in the world.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I have no that was a uh question for the prophet
google yeah and not aaron applecountries are there.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
There are 195 countries, so we've been played
and not quite half not quitehalf a third, a third, yeah,
about a third.
A third of the of the countrieshave someone in them listening.
And again, what we're trying todo here is not say, oh, look at
the two fish podcast, we're soawesome, no man.
(05:44):
Look at the way that the wordof God is spread.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, because, once again, like we've, we have done
very limited on Facebook and weI think we, partly because we're
not very good at it Right.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
We are not good at it .
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Well, we are not good at it, but we've also like so.
Other podcasts throw money inadvertising and we're not doing
that.
We're paying for a couple ofapps and doing a couple of those
things, but we're not throwingmoney in advertising for us to
show up on 72 countries.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I think we advertised twice ever and it's probably
been two years ago.
Spotify, I think the onebackfired and one we got before.
I got 600 extra downloads morethan normal on it like a day I'm
like.
This cannot be real it was somekind of fiverr thing.
Good too good to be true.
(06:50):
When you getting yeah so manyextra for five bucks, I'm like
okay, lesson no.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
That was not the way forward.
But, yeah, to be in 72countries.
And those might not all beconsistent all the time, but
they show up every now and then.
I know we are consistently ineight countries on every episode
.
I look at numbers more becauseI'm a desk jockey, um, so I get
(07:23):
to look at them more and seethose and, uh, seems like in the
first day an episode drops likewe got some people in germany,
we got some people in australia,yeah, and then obviously people
in the us that are immediatelyI don't want to say immediately,
but in that first day they theyshow up as they have downloaded
(07:44):
the new episode, which meansthey're subscribed.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
They follow whatever that button is on, whatever they
apple apple podcast is thenumber one yeah um I think
chicago is our number one city.
Which we're not far from.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Far from Chicago, so that could just be.
However, the cell phones bounceoff of towers.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Chicago and our home area is the number one.
But, the fact that it's morethan just that is amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah.
And then the really interestingone to me is um, so we host on
buzzsprout, which is a greatpodcast hosting website.
Um, we have moved into the top25 percent of podcasts with our
(08:39):
numbers, which is just thatblows my mind.
It makes me think the numbersare wrong honestly because I
just can't imagine that oh, I'veasked the prophet google, like
what, what are the numbersneeded to be?
Yeah, and as consistent so itit might not just be the top 25
(09:01):
percent of buzzsprout.
It looks like the top 25percent of podcasts.
Yeah, now there's like threemillion podcasts out there.
Yeah, so that puts us in theupper 700 thousands of podcasts
and I I can look back to when westarted, like you talked about,
and we're like man we got 10this month.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, right, or I think.
What can we do to get 25downloads in a week?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
What can we do?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, what would get us to that number?
And when we hit, it.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
we were so pumped that 25 people would listen to
our horrible at the time podcastlike oh, yeah, yeah, I'm not,
yeah, we're not that great, whowants to listen to us?
a couple guys that aren'ttheologians, and yeah um, I
think the hard thing for ourspace, religious space, is
(09:57):
there's a lot of message sermons.
So churches, whether they'remega or local, they download
their.
My church even does it.
They download their sermon as apodcast and so that's not what
we're doing and so I feel likewe're competing with these
churches, some of them hugeelevation, I think has the
(10:18):
number one church podcast.
It's just his messageinteresting yeah.
So that's what we're competingagainst, versus.
I feel like if it were tonarrow down into two separate
groups.
Hey, here's a, here's a group.
You're going to get the messagefrom last week that you missed
because you didn't go to church,or whatever.
You want to listen to it again.
(10:38):
And then there's another biblestudy category.
I feel.
I feel like we'd do so muchbetter if we were weeded out of
that.
Yeah, but to again to be at 25overall, yeah, that's all that's
not amazing, that's notchristian podcast.
That's all podcast, uh, but Ijust it's an.
It's incredible and we're sothankful and we're not, we're're
(11:01):
not, we're not charging anymoney for this, we're not trying
to get paid for this.
It was funny, though.
Aaron and I were talking justtoday on Marco Polo.
I'm going to throw out MarcoPolo.
If you don't use Marco Polo,you need to get it, cause it's
an awesome communication device.
It doesn't have all the extrasocial media part.
Um, that's how aaron and Imostly communicate, but we were
(11:23):
talking about I just completelylost my train of thought while
we were talking we were talkingabout quitting our jobs.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Oh yeah, that's right .
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Full time man I wish we could, because we just get so
busy and it's like gosh.
I wish we could just podcastfull time and not have to worry
about the monetary you got to dolife.
Obviously, we're nowhere nearthat and we're not necessarily
looking to do that.
We're not necessarily lookingout there trying to make money.
We're still pretty far in theblack to be able to win.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We're in the red for sure.
Oh yeah, red, not black.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
You know, we do have monthly subscriptions that we
put Buzzsprout costs us money.
There's another AIsubscriptions that we put
buzzsprout costs us money.
Um, there's a another um ai.
It helps us write ourdescriptions.
Um.
There's one that makes videos,helps make shorts and stuff for
youtube or instagram or tiktokor whatever, which we pay for
and we really don't use.
We need to get back to usingbecause it costs like ten
(12:16):
dollars a month.
So, but we do do a couplethings that help make our lives
easier as we do this, but it's.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Which was meant to help us stay more consistent
right, yes.
And it has but life just like.
We both have young kids and afamily, and this is truly a
hobby.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
One that stretches us in our walk, and we greatly
enjoy what you guys do as fansin the two-fish community, but
it is a hobby at this point.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
For sure.
And hobbies cost money yeah, soyeah.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
For us to to sit here in a we record in a basement
room yeah, right, like you, lookat joe rogan, he's got a whole
production studio and yeah, um,for us to sit here in a basement
that we, we kind of built astudio and right now we had to
get out of that and we're justsitting in a couple chairs
recording, right, yeah, for usto be that high up the food
(13:26):
chain called a food chain, ifyou will, but is is remarkable
and um, our gratitude for thatis basically like our prayer for
the podcast was it would besimilar to the story of jesus
taking the two fish and the fiveloaves and feeding the five
(13:47):
thousand, yeah, and we'reliterally seeing it play out,
because we're not.
We're not throwing money atadvertising and gaining
additional listeners.
We're putting money intokeeping our life a little bit
simpler as we edit the podcastand try and get.
(14:08):
we want to get facebook backincorporated.
We started out with facebooklives and recording the podcast
and we went away from it.
We want to get back to that toand we're trying.
We'll get there, but we'repaying for some things to make
our lives easier so we can staymore consistent for you guys and
(14:30):
just keep an episode comingevery two weeks is our goal,
which we just missed it.
But I was out in the missionfield, as nick puts it.
Yeah, even though I wouldn'tconsider it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
You were, you were in a ministry, uh, you went to
arizona a men's retreat kind ofthing and and uh, I think you
said a guy it's a small group,but a guy gave his life to the
lord.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
So yeah, we so there's there's a team, and then
there's guests, and there arelike 16 guests and most of them
were involved in the church to adegree.
But there was one guy that hadkind of just started going to
church and it's a really coolstory.
He ended up giving his life toChrist and where we were, there
(15:16):
were names on the rooms.
Like every room had a name, andI don't remember the name of
his room, but he had gone intothat room with his table and
they went in there to pray andhe had commented like oh, this
name of the town I was born in,well, he ended up giving his
life to christ in there and,like nobody had thought about it
(15:38):
.
And then he thought about itlater and told somebody oh, I
was reborn in that town too.
That's awesome, like, and thejust the coincidence in that is
is all god like I don't know why, like that would happen, but,
um, for whatever reason thattriggered something in that guy
(16:02):
that like, hey, that's myhometown and that's where I got
saved, and it'll be quite thememory for him.
Um, but to me I looked at itand like no man can orchestrate
that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
No, like no man can orchestrate that because you
knew nothing about the guycoming in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
No, half the people on team were from Indiana and
this guy's from Arizona, yeah,and then like the people
planning the event like there'sno way they knew that guy was
even coming and he was born inthat town and like, yeah, it's
awesome.
And just God used that as agood reminder for us on team
(16:42):
that I'm real and I'm here.
Yeah, because look at what Ijust look at what I just did
yeah, and I think that I reallywant to go back.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
You had started to kind of set it and and I think
this can fit in that god can useanything, whether you know it
or not.
He's a work straight and stuffbehind the scenes and he'll use
anything.
The two fish podcast when wewere trying to figure out the
name for this thing, my wifethrew that out there.
She's like, you know, the fiveloaves and the two fish, jesus,
(17:12):
and we tell our wives theyshould start a podcast called
the five loaves podcast yeah,it's already trademarked.
Don't, don't try and take it butin luke, jesus said the
disciples said hey, sendeveryone away.
They're hungry.
And jesus said you feed themand they're like we didn't have
anything.
They weren't expecting to bethere that long, like they were.
(17:33):
Jesus said figure it out.
And all they had 5,000 men, notincluding women and children.
All there were was five loavesand two fish.
There's no way that can feedpotentially 10,000, 12,000
people.
No way Possible, Zero chance.
(17:55):
I think you might each get alick before it disintegrated and
went away and God prayed overit and started breaking it and
breaking it.
He didn't, it wasn'tadvertising, it wasn't saying
look what I'm doing.
He just kept praying and keptbreaking and at the end the kid
went home, which is anothermiracle.
Who knows, the kid's situationcould have been his last loaves
and bread, who knows.
And he went home with 12baskets full extra and I.
(18:19):
That was probably a wholenother miracle in those people's
lives anyway yeah and so godcan take anything.
God can take two guys who really, again, not theologians and
that's what I love about havingdone this for the past four
years is I'm reading scripturedifferently and you and you get
(18:41):
to understand.
Having a conversation the otherday about it's like you can go
to a church and the preacher canpreach the sermon and you can
get some good stuff in it, butif you don't go and dig in
yourself, you're going to missit.
You're going to probably missthe point of the message.
You're going to miss the pointof what God's got for you in the
Bible.
So, taking those small things,two guys who you had barely
(19:05):
become saved.
Not very long after that, westarted this if'm that's, yeah,
correct, and I just wantedsomething to do, like I wanted
to, um, produce some.
I wanted to do something,whether it be youtube or this.
We settled on this, but andthat's all we had and a bible,
(19:26):
here we are yeah, didn't you?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
you bought this equipment and this is really
funny like if you want to godown a rabbit hole you can
search for this video.
But nick bought this equipmentand he was getting dog collar
shocked yeah, shocked by his sonfor answering questions wrong
(19:48):
my, one, of my, my- oldest sonand I decided we're gonna start
a podcast.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
We didn't even get to seven episodes.
We were one of those failurepodcasts.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
But one of the.
You got electrocuted.
One of the one there was.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
There's a radio show on in our area and they ask
trivia questions and whoever'swrong or something, they get a
shot caller and I thought that'shilarious.
We'll do that, and cohen and Ico Cohen didn't have a great
reaction, but right in themiddle of me talking he's shy.
It's funny.
I don't know if the video isstill out there or not, but I
(20:19):
bought all this stuff for apodcast that we didn't.
I didn't even know I wanted todo something.
And then we connected, and herewe are.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I think I tried to write a song which, just so you
know, I got kicked out of bandbecause I can't keep a beat.
I know nothing about music.
After being saved, like I knewI was supposed to do something,
I didn't know what it was, andthen, somehow or another, we
ended up on a podcast, which hasbeen great.
(20:50):
You were sharing the story ofJesus feeding the 5,000, and I
just thought of that, as I'mthinking of that, like the
underlying message in that thatI don't think I've ever heard
anybody talk about is that weare to feed the people now.
We are to give them thespiritual food, and I think,
(21:13):
like that was a large display ofthat, jesus was feeding them,
but he was doing it with hisdisciples.
He was passing the bread to hisdisciples and they were feeding
the people.
His disciples have passed thebread to the people and the
people are now supposed to befeeding the world.
Right, and that is what we'resupposed to be doing, and I
(21:35):
think that is the prayer for ourpodcast is that we are giving
people spiritual food.
That at least stretches you andmakes you have a conversation
with a friend we often campsitefire right Sitting down and just
opening up your Bible anddiscussing it with somebody is
(21:56):
such a huge blessing and a bigpart of what we get from this
for ourselves is just that theaccountability of opening the
Bible, reading it and talkingthrough it.
Sometimes you can open it andyou can read it and like not
have a clue what you just read,right, but you're like, oh,
checked, I read the bible today.
(22:16):
Um, but when you sit down readit and discuss it, I'm not one
that can like memorize songs orremember movie lyrics and I
can't read the bible andmemorize scripture.
But a lot of times if I end upin a conversation, I can be like
, oh man, that's somewhere inJames.
(22:37):
I can't tell you right whereit's at, but I can tell you it's
in James because we sat down,we read it and we discussed it.
I know I've read this Give melike five minutes and I'll find
it right has been huge for mywalk, as Nick shared, like 2018
is when I truly gave my life tochrist and I became a christ
(22:57):
follower and I was like what doI do with this and this is part
of my story is this podcast andhow it helps stretch me yeah,
overall shorter episode.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
What we want to do is just say thank you.
You guys have tremendously,tremendously helped us to help
scripture spread, and we're notalways going to get it right and
if we get it wrong we're goingto correct it.
Thank you for being around onthis ride with us.
The verse go out into all theworld and preach good news to
all creation.
We're over a third there andthat is because of the two fish
(23:27):
community.
You guys have been sharing,following, subscribing, passing
it around, um, telling yourfriends word of mouth, yep, so
we want to thank you so much,seriously, from the bottom of
our hearts.
Um, I guess business here.
Again, make sure you're sharingit.
Um, you can go totwofishpodcastcom.
You can listen to the mostrecent episode.
(23:48):
If this is the first one you'rehearing, go there, click on the
newest episode it'll probablybe this one and um, hit that
follow or subscribe button andshare it and you can sign up,
for we have an email list youcan sign up for that.
There's not a lot that comesthrough there.
Again, we're not great at theback end, we're great at
(24:08):
recording.
We love sitting down andrecording together.
So, hey, if there's someonethat wants to help us reach out
to us.
I think the email is two fishpodcast at gmailcom.
Two fish podcast dot com is thewebsite.
There's fan mail now onbuzzsprout.
If you got some fan mail, giveit to us.
We love reading the encouragingthings.
Every once in a while you'llsee me a screenshot of something
(24:29):
that someone text or saw onfacebook or something, and I'm
like man, that is so encouragingoh yeah, I just I just recently
had.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I mean, we're worldwide, so maybe people won't
realize but I just had an amishguy come up to me and was like,
man, I listened to your guys'spodcast, it's so good.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
I just appreciate what I'm like for people that
don't know.
Amish don't use electricity, soI'm like I didn't know we were
coming across on the telephonebut oh my goodness, I'm guessing
he listens to it at worksomehow.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But um, it is a huge blessing to get those emails or
or even a facebook messengerthing.
So we greatly appreciate it.
Um, our gratitude and ourthankfulness for you guys is
unmeasurable and, uh, we, justwe appreciate you tuning in and
continuing to stick with us eventhough we struggle yeah, I man,
(25:25):
I think back when we did anepisode a week, I think how in
the world did we do that?
We just have to pray for kovatto come back.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
But yeah, thank you so much, seriously, from the
bottom of hearts.
Thank you to fish community,thank you for being a part of
the community and that's it.
Make sure you stay tuned andwe'll have another.
I think we're starting hebrews.
Hebrews is where we're going,which is and I started.
We started reading ahead andstarted studying it, and it's a
different book than the oneswe've done before.
(25:53):
So, yep, we're super excitedabout it.
Stay tuned, thank you guys.
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