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This week's life note, celebrating halfway to being one years old for our podcast.

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Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17,

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a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,

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wisdoms and inspirations.

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As we navigate life's journey, post chas to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life journey.

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As well as those of special guests, contributors tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned wisdoms,

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gained experiences, had and inspirations shared.

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Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe.

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So you never miss an episode. Now enjoy this week's episode.

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All righty. Welcome back in friends to another episode of Life Notes from Chair 17.

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I am your host ch and as always,

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I thank you once again for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe.

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And as returning c 17 years know,

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I always like to start off each episode.

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Thanking you for your continued support and tuning in each week.

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And this does include our returning international listeners,

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really appreciate the support. And if you happen to be tuning in to us for the first time,

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maybe you just found us on one of the major podcast platforms.

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Or via our website out on life notes from Chair 17 podcast.com.

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A warm welcome in to you.

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Thank you for wanting to check us out. We hope you like what you hear and you will want to continue to tune in.

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So this episode is our 26th episode and I know it seems as if I keep saying recently that like every other episode is a milestone episode.

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I listen to them back and I'm kind of kicking myself going,

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ok. Every episode cannot be a milestone episode.

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And I just think that in these early episodes,

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you know, under 30 episodes, there's just a couple of numbers that come up and feel celebratory whether that was,

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you know, the 10th episode. Because according to our,

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our pod host, pod bean, you get a little badge thing for getting 10 episodes out the door.

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Obviously, our 17th episode was key considering the name of this podcast has 17 in it.

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20 is a nice round number. Episode 25 again is halfway to 50 or a quarter of the way to 100.

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And I really had intended to stop saying episodes were milestones until we got to,

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you know, 30 35 40 right,

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kind of like ages really. But as I sat down for this one,

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I realized 26 in terms of weeks and a year is halfway to one years old for us as a podcast because we are a weekly podcast and are releasing weekly.

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So by my math, this 26th episode puts us exactly halfway to 52 weeks,

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which would be our one year anniversary or being one years old.

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So happy half birthday to us as we've talked about in a previous episode,

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we do and have come up with the tradition actually of celebrating my own personal half birthday.

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So why not do it here on the podcast?

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And I thought I would take a few moments to reflect on this journey,

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uh which includes, uh really,

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I think an elongated thank you to you as,

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as our listeners for tuning in and giving you a little bit more backstory,

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potentially on not how or why I started the podcast,

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but just how I think about how I framed some of the episodes and what I think about going forward.

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So I really have enjoyed doing this and I like to say that it has returned me to what I'm calling my story telling roots however small they are because I have mentioned,

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I think I've mentioned it before, but I might have only done it briefly.

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And as those of you who actually do know me, I was a journalism major when I went away to university.

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And one of the jobs that I had while I was there was I was responsible for writing feature stories,

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feature profiles on various university staff.

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Now outside bar, I went to the University of Oregon and in the journalism school at the time that I was there.

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And I believe this is still mostly true.

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There are multiple tracks that you can major in.

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But your degree is journalism. That doesn't mean you are going to end up being a broadcast journalist or a beat reporter or a magazine writer.

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Even though I will say that I,

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I probably had some sort of dream back then that I would,

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you know, graduate and go off and write for a magazine because I really preferred and enjoyed the art of writing a really good feature story on someone.

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I had never had the desire to quote unquote,

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get the story, which the media sometimes doesn't have the best reputation for doing.

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And it makes people skeptical of anyone who says they are a journalist or they work in media.

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I really come out of the, I just like to sit down and read a good story and I like to feel good after I read that story and there are journalists out there and people that have come and given those kinds of stories to us under the guise of journalism.

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And likely that's how I ended up there because I do like to write or I had always enjoyed being able to write stories.

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And when I was in school,

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I had the job was work study. So part of my financial aid package and I got hired by the Office of the Communications at the time and the director at the time,

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wanted to start putting a staff profile like feature story in what was called the faculty staff newsletter.

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And uh like now I feel that that would be sort of a substack thing or uh you know,

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but back then it was actually printed a printed document that was distributed.

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I know not gonna date myself too much by sharing this.

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But actually, no, I am,

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but I won't go further to date myself. Let's say that.

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And because he wanted to focus on the staff,

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so these would be non teaching employees of the university,

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it was a unique opportunity to showcase or highlight people who had not necessarily had much or gotten the same amount of attention,

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as let's say, teaching faculty. And he felt it was really important to showcase their stories and their voice and I really loved that.

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But because it was new and we were starting it up basically as part of my role inside the office of communications,

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we had to cold call people and we had to literally pick up the phone and call them.

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It wasn't a mobile phone. We weren't using email quite like we are today.

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No social media, no texting,

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no nothing. And for baby journalism major that I was,

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that was, that was nerve wracking because again,

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I was not the I did not have let's call it the beat Reporter Gene where I had no problems calling people trying to press them for press them for information or get them to tell me something.

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I, I was much more of the hi,

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how are you? Hi. Yes, I'm,

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uh, I'm calling because which showcases the fact that I probably would not have made a very good beat reporter and I didn't go down that path.

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So everyone was spared that. But the,

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the funny part was, is because I wanted to have this not be off putting to people who were likely not used to being called to talk about themselves or even think that they were worthy of having a story on them.

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I really had to refine my pitch and I really had to make sure that it was coming from a place of uh friendliness of encouragement,

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maybe curiosity and not from a place of I'm trying to get something out of you.

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And I am proud to say that I,

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I got pretty good at it and I did not ever have anyone turn me down or have anyone go.

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I don't really want to do that. That doesn't sound really good.

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I was able to craft the pitch to make them initially from our first point of contact,

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feel like this was going to be a good thing and it was going to be a good space.

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And it went from when I first started out where no one knew anything about this.

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And so you'd call people and they'd go,

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I'm sorry, who are you again? Why are you calling me to?

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Oh, I read that. I love that.

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Oh, but there's no way I'm not, I'm not that interesting.

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I could not possibly be a profile and I always used to say to them.

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No, no, no. You don't think that way.

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We're just going to have a conversation and I guarantee you there is a good life story in you and we're just gonna bring that out.

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And if I think back on framing this podcast really around,

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what are these four pillars of lessons and experiences and wisdoms and inspirations?

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This still really is very much the truth of what I'm trying to do.

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I'm not trying to get at anything or get at anyone by inviting my share,

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the share guests on. It's to help them have a place in which to share their journey that might help those of you who are listening,

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maybe it inspires you to try something new to try something different.

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And I, I keep being reminded of that time of writing those staff profiles in university and kind of what I'm doing here and this idea of sharing stories across groups or within communities that oftentimes helps us not feel so alone or it potentially can help buoy us through a really tough time.

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Maybe it helps us celebrate our life wins,

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right? And that is really the goal of the podcast.

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And I think it stems from a similar vein of what I was trying to do when I wrote those staff profiles,

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which I will have to probably dig up.

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They're probably ancient now. But some of the best profiles I wrote were people that I remained in good contact and friends with for many decades after I graduated.

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If that is any indication of coming at something from a good place in a genuine place can oftentimes lead to greater things beyond what you had originally imagined.

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And this podcast was never going to be one that focused on news or politics or daily events.

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Because for me personally, that's not where I want to spend my energy.

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There are a lot of podcasts out there.

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Some of you may already subscribe and listen to those podcasts where that's their focus and that is totally fine.

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That is their jam, that is the host's jam.

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That's what they want to do. That was never me.

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I didn't want to be a beat reporter and get into the,

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you know, nitty gritty of whatever was going on.

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I wanted to tell and share more life,

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inspiring stories. And here on this podcast,

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I continue to be focused on really creating what I would call an inclusive space where you can come as you are,

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as you were as you want to be. Shout out to Nirvana.

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And you know, there could be an episode here that really hits home for you.

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It gives you clarity on something that is going on in your life or maybe it's gone on in your life.

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It may be, you hear something here that again as you go and check off a bucket list item or it brings you a laugh when you really are at maybe a tough point or even if you're not at a tough point,

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it just makes you laugh or maybe we just keep you company.

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Well, you know, you're on a walk or on a run or you're having a power hour at work and you have to punch through a bunch of tasks and not need to be interrupted.

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So you put on your headphones and you just focus all of these things and probably others that I haven't thought about yet.

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That's all part of this podcast community that I'm trying to build.

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And the fact that there are those of you out there that have been enjoying this space makes me very,

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very grateful and very humbled.

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I know that I have certainly changed a little bit since the last six months or so when I started it.

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And one of the quotes that I am leaning into pretty heavily at the moment is one from,

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he was the sixth officer on the R MS Titanic.

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Yes, that Titanic, his name was James Moody and I studied him for a while back in school.

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But that is a whole other podcast episode,

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I digress, but he wrote a letter home once this was prior to I believe his assignment on Titanic.

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And in the letter, he said,

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what a lot has happened since then and what a distance I have covered.

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And right now that really does hit home for me.

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And there have been some interesting life minefields to navigate since starting this podcast,

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personal loss, job loss.

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But there has also been some wonderful stories to share and to bring to a broader scale which I have thoroughly enjoyed whether that is our friend Gail and her journey to recovering from brain surgery.

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That was our glass half full episode.

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It could be Colleen Coleman's journey uh to becoming a medium and sort of redefining how she sees her life work.

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That is an inspiring episode.

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If you've not listened to it, Nathan Waldvogel,

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another one of our good friends and his journey to becoming a yoga therapist that really landed with quite a few people because I think we have quite a few folks who have and are or were practicing uh Yogis and also potentially learning what is the difference between just doing yoga and doing yoga therapy.

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I also have a few upcoming guests.

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So small spoilers that I'm really excited about to bring on and talk through their journeys,

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whether it's an artistic one or a professional one.

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And one of those is gonna be somebody who I have been inspired by for a really long time.

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So I'm pretty excited about that. All of these to say that whether they are my own stories of my own experience in a moment in time or whether they are our guests and our contributors,

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stories, they all are part of what is making the fabric of this podcast a good space.

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Hopefully to all of you a positive space and uplifting space.

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And so allow me to thank you all once again for being on this journey with me each week,

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for lending me your ear each week and for being curious and being interested in the life stories that we are telling because as we like to say,

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we are continuing to navigate life one story at a time.

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As always, I ask you to be kind to yourself,

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take it one hour at a time,

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one day at a time and I'll see you next time.

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Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Life Notes from chair 17.

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Remember to follow and subscribe. So you never miss an episode.

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We'll see you next time.