We Started a Podcast....and we're SUPER excited about it!
REACH THE STARS PODCAST
A COLLECTION OF CONVERSATIONS WITH COOL PEOPLE WHO DO COOL THINGS.
Each week, we’ll bring you inspiring stories of persistence, passion and purpose.
This project has been a long time in the making and it’s finally here!!
Inspired by my love of learning people’s stories and telling my own, I wanted to create a forum to collect those conversations and to share them with the world.
Starting on Saturday, August 1st, 2020, a new conversation with a special guest or a one of my own stories will be released on all major podcast platforms for your listening pleasure and on YouTube for all you videophiles.
I created a Patreon page to help share this project with the world.
For those who don’t know, Patreon is a special platform for creators to allow their fans, friends and family support their art through monthly memberships. There are several levels available and each tier comes with certain “Patron-Only” Perks!
I am hoping to get some more patrons to help fund the podcast before it officially launches on Saturday, August 1st, 2020. If you are able to contribute a few dollars each month in support of this special project, I would be so appreciative. Follow the link below to go to the Patreon page, learn more and sign up to be a patron. There is also a video of my own story in the “About” section. I would love it if you could take a few minutes to watch that to get a feel for why I get up in the morning…and how I got where I am today.
Where did the idea of Reach the Stars Podcast come from?
Often, as artists, we get so many ideas flowing through our heads and it’s hard not to be distracted by all the possibility. This podcast was one of those ideas that just wouldn’t float away and kept popping up again and again. Once COVID struck and so much more of our lives went digital, the thoughts about starting a podcast just became incessant. As an extrovert, being stuck at home, unable to go out and meet new people to connect and share with was almost unbearable. I began watching and participating in an live talk show hosted by Nico Tortorella on Instagram. I had been procrastinating on starting my own show because I thought it needed to have all this high quality audio and video equipment, special soundproofing for recording etc. and I just didn’t have the resources to do that. But seeing the wonderful community that Nico built by simply having real conversations over the internet with interesting people, without a lot of mixing and mastering, inspired me to just go for it!! Granted, I did buy a better microphone and webcam because I knew I would be recording all the conversations from my office and the Papercraft Miracles studio can be a bit loud and echoey with the 14’ ceilings…but other than that, I put together the “set” for my own videos using things I had around the office and set to work lining up interviews with some of my favorite people.
How the name came to be is a long story…but the short version is this. When I was in college in the early 2000s, I majored in Integrative Studies with a concentration on Entrepreneurial Business and Creative Art together as one major. I knew I wanted to create and I didn’t want to be a starving artist, so I spent my 4 years figuring out how to do that. The story of how Papercraft Miracles came to be is in the “About” video on the Patreon page, but I also created another brand way back then to encompass all the other creative outlets I have (poetry, performance, music, storytelling, etc.) and that brand was called Reach For the Stars. I had never really done much with it since graduation because well….life got in the way. When I went to pick a podcast name, I tried out many other titles that just didn’t feel right until one day, I looked across my office at the big blue binder with my thesis paper and business plan from college and it was like lightning had struck my brain…OF COURSE!!! With the impetus for starting my own business all those years ago being my love of sharing my art and words with the world, it just made sense for Reach For the Stars to reemerge. I Googled the name for podcast titles and one did come up, “Reach For the Stars…and Smile”… UGH! Great…back to the drawing board, I thought. But then I thought again…I don’t want this podcast to just reach towards something, I want to actually get there…so I took out the “for” and Reach the Stars Podcast was born and it just felt perfect. I knew my brand finally had a home.
"Always reach for the stars...even if you must stand on a cactus."
My big brother, Chris, wrote this little note on a gift tag in a book about bookbinding that he gave me many, many years ago. He died of leukemia in 2008 but this message has always inspired me to go forth towards my dreams, even when the way up is painful and arduous. I've been stretching through these growing pains for awhile now and finding the pockets of happiness amongst the hurt has been trying, to say the least. But I know that every step I take upwards is better than a step backwards and so I soldier on. Eventually all the climbing and struggle will be worth it and I feel like I'm on the verge of a precipice...not the top, but a definite vantage point where the way forward will become much clearer and I'm waiting for that ledge to appear.
I hadn't realized until today that the name and premise of my new podcast was exactly what my brother wrote in this note all those years ago.
Serendipity is my middle name.
So far, we have recorded 11 interviews with many more to come and each conversation seems to flow into the next with delightful, unintentional segues and serendipitous connections. I wanted this podcast to reflect real-life conversations so there is conversational language, “cuss” words and probably more “like”s than some people would appreciate, but I wanted the dialogue to feel authentic and not rehearsed. I didn’t let anyone know what questions I was going to ask ahead of time and we just let the conversation go where it went. There are also occasionally glimpses (and sounds) of kids in the background (or the foreground in some cases) because that is the reality of working from home with children. There may also be sirens or motorcycles in the background or other random interruptions. I am doing my best to edit the audio and video to be as succinct as possible but some of it, I leave in because it’s too hard to take it out. Also, the conversations happen via Zoom, and sometimes the person I’m talking to doesn’t have the best microphone, camera or internet connection. We’ve tried our best to troubleshoot before we start recording but again, in times of global pandemic, getting together in person is not happening. I’m learning to be ok with imperfection. You should too.
One really special thing that COVID has brought is the ability to feel closer to my friends who live far away. This podcast has allowed me to reconnect with many old friends, to reminisce together and share some stories we haven’t shared for many years…and for that I am eternally grateful.
I am so excited to share this podcast with you all on Saturday, August 1st, 2020. I hope to see some of you on Patreon. We have a private Facebook group community for all the patrons and guests of the podcast to interact with each other as well! See you there!
xoxo
Janna
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