Latest / Voices for Voices® / From 150 To 355: How A Mental Health Podcast Grew Across 90 Countries (Episode 357)

Transcript

From 150 To 355: How A Mental Health Podcast Grew Across 90 Countries (Episode 357) · Voices for Voices®

• 0:02
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Hey everyone, it's Justin with Voices for Voices.
• 0:04
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Thank you again for joining us on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
• 0:13
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I'm your host, Justin Alan Hayes.
• 0:16
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Thank you for being with us.
• 0:19
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We're well over 355 episodes, and we can't do this without you.
• 0:29
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Thank you for all the love and support you've given us from 90 countries, close to 900 cities across this beautiful planet Earth that we are uh grateful to be living on at this moment, and wanted to give a big shout out uh to all our viewers and listeners, uh especially as we uh turned a page and now being in the month of uh November of the year 2025, and as we were closing out the month of October 2025, uh we started to uh realize that it was a record month uh for our show.
• 1:30
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And just to give a little bit of insight of uh what that uh was, uh October, uh the month of October of 2025 was the highest single month of listenership uh on the show for over the two and a half years we've uh been on the air.
• 1:58
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And it's only because of you uh watching uh and in this instance listening, uh we were breaking records uh on the video side, the TV side as well.
• 2:17
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, but we uh just broke a huge, huge record.
• 2:23
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh that we just about uh we were close to doubling the amount of uh listeners uh in the month of October 2025 uh versus uh back in 2023 when we had uh our peak of our uh listenership uh up until that point.
• 2:54
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So uh again, we can't do that without you, we couldn't do that without you.
• 2:58
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so again, thank you for all your love and support.
• 3:03
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh also we uh sometimes uh and and you may be reminded of this as well on different social media profiles and channels where you know uh you know memories will pop up from a you know a certain day, a certain time, and in one of the days of October 2025, so again, a record uh month in uh listenership uh of our show in the month of October 25, 2025.
• 3:48
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We a year ago in 2024 in October, we had just dropped episode 150, and we're over uh three hundred and fifty-five now, so that puts us over uh a plus two hundred and five episodes uh from last year to this year, with with this year being the plus two hundred and five episodes.
• 4:30
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so not only did we have a record month that way, uh, but we also had that record month of uh listenership.
• 4:39
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh and it's it's uh yeah, it's uh it's it's really just amazing as we take a moment to take stock and where we're at.
• 4:54
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Um, and and so we want to say thank you for watching, thank you for listening, thank you for bringing Voices for Voices and the Voices for Voices movement into your homes, into your dorms, into your apartments, and your condos, your houses, uh, your hostels, hotels, motels, anywhere that you you may be.
• 5:23
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Thank you for allowing us the privilege uh to come into your your life at uh whatever whatever point uh that that uh that you're at.
• 5:40
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So we not only want to uh say you know God bless the United States of America, but we want to say God bless every single one of you uh all across the world, uh, because we are we are reaching uh 90 countries getting closer and closer to 900 cities.
• 6:08
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Um and so the 90 countries, so that includes uh you know provinces and territories uh.
• 6:17
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so again, thank you for uh looking to voices for voices uh as a uh a preferred way to uh not only get news um but really just hear about life, hear about life stories uh with the big underpinning of uh mental health.
• 6:51
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And that is how we were founded, um, and and that's how our shows are.
• 6:59
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so while some of our shows might not explicitly say the words mental health, they do indeed, because of my mental illnesses, uh, they all the shows, whether I'm doing a solo show, whether I'm doing uh a show with a guest or multiple guests, um they they all have that mental health uh kind of that main foundation and pillar as we uh walk through our uh our episodes.
• 7:38
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And thank you for your belief in in us.
• 7:43
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh it's just uh just this incredible, incredible feeling.
• 7:49
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We we start you know as you know, dreams and ideas and and then to actually execute against it to go against all odds, um, to go against hurdles, to go uh I mean we all face hurdles all all day, every day.
• 8:15
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We all face hurdles.
• 8:16
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh and and so that's something that's we all face.
• 8:25
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It's not just me, it's not just our organization, we all face them.
• 8:30
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh and we just thank you for letting us be an authority on on that.
• 8:36
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And again, uh we may not be experts on a lot of things, but we're experts on ourselves.
• 8:45
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, and so just uh you know share that that uh you're an expert on your on yourself and only you know how you're how you're feeling and uh know that if you are somebody knows facing a mental health crisis, uh there's the 988 hotline here in the United States.
• 9:10
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: You can text, you can call, you can head over to the 988 hotline uh website, uh and you can chat there.
• 9:20
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, and so it's uh it's available uh for no charge.
• 9:26
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, there's people that actually have gone through trauma and gone through um gone through some tough times uh that themselves, not to say they're going through what you're going through, uh, but just know that uh you're not just talking to somebody that has the book smart, you're talking to someone with lived experience.
• 9:56
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And as we uh as we get rolling here with this episode or continue, uh you'll mentioned uh the the record um of the month of October 2025.
• 10:14
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We uh included in in those uh uh in those uh records in those analytics come geographies, the different countries and provinces and and and and that and some of the new ones uh want to be sure to call out uh because it's it's because of it's because of you, it's because of uh where uh where where you're at, where we live, and it's it's incredible to have you and so many others tune in, whether you're watching or listening, uh whether here in the United States, across the world, here in Northeast Ohio, or somewhere uh far away.
• 11:14
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And uh so I'm gonna I'm gonna just read off our most recent uh countries and and territories that have have tuned in to be part of uh the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast network.
• 11:32
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so we'll get started.
• 11:35
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: The first country is the most recent, and that is Morocco.
• 11:41
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Welcome to the Voices for Voices TV show Morocco, as well as uh the countries of China, South Korea, Brazil, Bangladesh, India, Israel, United Arab Emirates, or UAE, Japan, Malaysia, France, Russia, Russian Federation, Ireland, Kurzakstan, Sweden, New Zealand, Ukraine, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Finland, Nigeria, Tanzania, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Egypt, Sweden, already meant Sweden, uh, Oman, Cyprus, Uruguay, and Turkey.
• 12:47
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And there's many more countries and territories that uh have been tuning in for quite a quite a while.
• 12:54
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: These are uh these are the most uh the newest, the late, the latest that have uh have joined joined us.
• 13:05
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so we want to welcome one and all, whether you're from one of those countries or territories, the United States, or from any new country and territory.
• 13:16
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We do have a huge goal of uh wanting to help in some way, some shape, some form, uh, at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
• 13:35
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And uh we can't do it alone.
• 13:38
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And and so we are part of the uh the human race, and and so we all have a lot of a lot of things that we are uh very similar, uh, then we are dissimilar.
• 13:59
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And again, this is the voices for voices, TV show and podcast, welcome, one and all.
• 14:08
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, if you can give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, share, smash that subscribe button.
• 14:17
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Not physically breaking the subscribe button, uh, but uh you know pressing the mouse, pressing the key to uh to add yourself so you are kept in the loop of our uh most recent shows as well as uh the um the the first shows that we we've done.
• 14:41
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And what I like to tell our viewers or listeners, no matter how you're watching or listening at this very time, that uh you you don't need an app to uh listen to our our episodes, you can go to www.voices for voices dot org forward slash podcast.
• 15:13
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so that is www.voices for voices.org forward slash podcast, and just one more time, they say the power of three.
• 15:28
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: You can reach our podcast audio, all episodes, the most recent at the top of the list that you'll see.
• 15:36
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: You can find that.
• 15:38
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Lastly, for the third time, power of three, it's what they say with marketing.
• 15:45
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So that is www dot voices for, and this is spelled out for four voices.org.
• 15:58
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So that's voices, f o r voices.org forward slash podcast, and that gets you everything, uh, all the content that that we uh that we have.
• 16:13
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And we also uh make social media posts.
• 16:19
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, and so we're on uh TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X, uh maybe, maybe missing one uh here and there.
• 16:32
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And we also have blogs, uh blogs uh for each episode.
• 16:38
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh we have uh we have a lot of work to do to get those blogs uh up to date, uh, but you can find that at voicesforvoices.org and then the drop down uh you know of uh you know what we do, and then you can uh you can find the blog uh where it says B-L-O-G, click on that, and then all the all the blogs that we have um that are live are out there.
• 17:10
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And again, we uh uh there's so much work to do as as you know, uh if you're you work digitally um at any uh at any level, whether you're you're professionally uh work on social media or just you you work on your uh your personal social media that um try to uh oh I'm gonna add LinkedIn.
• 17:43
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We also have a voices for voices LinkedIn uh profile as well, as well as adjust an Alan Hayes uh profile.
• 17:54
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so we try to try to cater to everybody as best as we uh best as we can.
• 18:02
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh and we know there sometimes those fall through the cracks.
• 18:07
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so if you could help us out and do uh do us a big favor and and again subscribe, like, follow, share, give us a thumbs up that helps uh our uh our show uh reach as many people as uh it's as humanly possible.
• 18:28
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And for those of you that don't know, Voices for Voices is a charity.
• 18:33
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It is we are a 501c3 nonprofit charity organization, so we do accept donations of any denomination, and uh we do accept volunteers, individuals that want to help uh share our mission of uh sharing uh stories, events of mental health, mental illnesses like myself, which is how voices for voices got started.
• 19:08
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So every episode, every bit of content you see and hear from Voices for Voices, it has again that underpinning, that foundation, that pillar of mental health and mental illness.
• 19:24
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh and I realize that uh we do have similarities as humans, but we also have uh non-similarities.
• 19:37
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, and so just because I'm going through something or I've been through something, or one of our guests has been through something, uh, doesn't necessarily mean that every single one of our viewers and listeners and supporters and sponsors and donors are uh what that means is that we're all going through something.
• 20:04
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh we've heard the heard the uh you know the tagline, you know, everybody's going through something.
• 20:12
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: You know, we don't know uh if we look next to us, if we're in public, uh don't know what the person next to us is going through, uh as well as they don't know what we're going through.
• 20:26
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so we're really really excited to be able to share these updates to kind of give a little status up update on on this particular show because we have again a lot of growth uh with uh with the episodes, with the shows, with guests.
• 20:48
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, we do have five five books that uh we have under Voices for Voices Publishing.
• 20:55
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: More to come very soon.
• 20:58
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And you can find those on our Amazon.com uh voices for voices publishing page.
• 21:08
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And uh we uh we're we're ecstatic to be able to uh go into defin the different areas but still maintain that mental health, uh again, that mental health underpinning foundation of voices for voices.
• 21:30
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And you're gonna be seeing and hearing uh many more to to come as the the days and weeks and the months go by.
• 21:40
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh and and so we're we're excited to be able to be in a position to do that.
• 21:46
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, and uh we're excited to be able to share uh share those with uh with with the world.
• 21:54
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Um and we are uh very closely, very closely tied together with mythical creatures around the world, uh, Facebook page, uh which shares folklore, uh stories, uh artwork uh from all over the world.
• 22:18
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so we we invite you not only to follow the Voices for Voices Facebook page, but also uh follow the mythical creatures around the world Facebook page, uh, because you'll you'll be finding some uh similarities as as again we we move forward in the coming days, weeks, and months uh that you will um potentially see uh the the folklore, the the artwork uh that was or is on mythical creatures around the world in a more commercial setting.
• 23:06
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so for the masses, so for uh for the people, all the people, no matter where where you're at.
• 23:18
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So uh this is a little bit of a shorter episode, but I think it's a uh it's a good one just to kind of refresh and and uh talk about our uh talk about our records.
• 23:35
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so uh just in case you're you're not aware of of that, that again, October 2025, uh we had the most uh listeners uh almost doubling the next highest month in 2023, and a year ago, we were on episode 150 in 2024, and we uh are well have surpassed now episode 355.
• 24:13
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so we have uh just a lot of a lot of things that you know where we get into weeds a lot and and to really like pull back and to look at like where we've been and where we're at, uh it puts the puts things in perspective of um yeah where we've been, where we're at, and and that where we are continuing uh down this journey.
• 24:49
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So thank you for joining us.
• 24:51
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh one and all, if you're near, you're far, you're watching and you're listening.
• 24:56
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: If you're for a show, if this is uh if you've been with us from the beginning, uh we again we ask that you follow, share, subscribe, thumbs up, uh, comment, reach out if you if you uh are interested in being a guest on the show.
• 25:18
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh we'd love to hear from you.
• 25:20
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So please reach out.
• 25:22
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And until next time, I am uh Justin Alan Hayes with Voices for Voices.
• 25:30
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh let's celebrate the voice in all of us and please be a voice for you or somebody in need.
• 25:38
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Bye bye for now.