How Podcasting Transformed My Life: Jody Maberry's Story

This episode of Starve the Doubts dives into Jody Maberry’s remarkable podcasting journey and its impact on his life. Jody and host Jared Easley explore the following key themes:

• The Spark of Podcasting: Jody recounts his early days on Starve the Doubt, which was instrumental in launching his successful podcast, Park Leader Show. He discusses overcoming self-doubt with Jared's encouragement.
• The Disney Connection: Jody's collaboration with Lee Cockerell (ex-Disney executive) led to their podcast Creating Disney Magic and the Cockrell Academy, fueling personal and professional growth and lasting relationships.
• The Influence of Dan Miller: Jody pays tribute to Dan Miller, sharing valuable life lessons about relationships, marriage, and kindness. This underlines Dan's impact on both Jody and Jared.
• Unexpected Opportunities: Jody highlights how podcasting opened doors to speaking, consulting, and travel, demonstrating its power for building authority and creating unforeseen possibilities.
• Personal Connection and Innovation: Jody's daily podcast for his son exemplifies how the medium can creatively foster connection.
• Reflection and Gratitude: Jody and Jared reflect on their growth, the impact of their work, and their enduring friendship. Jody acknowledges Jared's pivotal role in his journey and exudes optimism for the future.

Key Takeaway: This podcast transcript showcases how podcasting can lead to profound personal and professional growth, foster connections, inspire others, and open doors to unexpected opportunities.

Transcript

This show has been a great gift to me over the years, and I will note, to brag on myself for a moment, I do believe I was the very first person, other than Jared Easley, to solo host an episode of Star of the Doubt. Yes. 

Welcome back to 

 Star of the Doubt. It's been a minute, and I hope you caught my recent episode where I explained a long pause, but I couldn't be more excited about chatting today with a long-time friend of the show, Jody Mayberry. Jody, welcome back to Starved to Doubts. Jared Ely, I am so glad to hear you say welcome back to Starved to Doubts.

That just makes me happy and I'm not just a friend of the show, I am a fan of the show from way back in Hey, my goodness, 2013 is that when it started? You know, there are many, many stories of you and I related to this particular podcast and I'm proud of them and I don't take any credit whatsoever for your success in podcasting.

But I can say for people that don't know, some will, but most may not know that your podcasting journey did partially play a role in your involvement with Star of the Doubts. So. You know, that is a fact. And Jared is, is underselling it for sure. Jared is underselling it.  And I'll even tell that's the very origin story.

I think I became a fan of star of the doubts. I barely remember how I even found it back then. There weren't nearly as many podcasts, and I used to just look for new shows and try them out, listen to an episode or two. I found Star of the Doubt, I really enjoyed the host, and I reached out just to say hello.

And Jared is not like normal people, and he said, hey, let's have a call. So we did, and we became fast friends. I recommended a guest for the show, and Jared is not like other people, and Jared said, I'll do it, so long as you are the guest. Co-host,  and that was radical for that time. I don't know if that's a big deal now, but  Yeah, that was something, and I admit. I did. Terrible. Jared was such a good podcaster back then. We had our questions ready. Jared would give his question like it was a normal conversation. When it was my turn to ask a question, I just blurted it out. What's your favorite color?

I was terrible. And Jared still invited me back more than once. And that led to me starting my own podcast because I realized, hey, this, this is a, the, the way to go podcasting is it. And I started my first show in, well, I launched it in 2014. I recorded six episodes in 2013. And then I was too concerned that they weren't good and my voice was bad and I held on to them until 2014 and finally launched the Park Leader Show in April 2014, all because of Jared Easley.

Man, and it is a miracle, I don't know how in the world you've been able To do this, but that show is still going strong, still going. And I'm proud of this. I'm very proud of that, Jody, because for somebody to keep a show going that length of time, you got to be really committed. Not only have you kept that show going, you've had multiple shows in between now and then.

Maybe we can hit on some of those here in a minute, but let's start with park leaders. Okay. We talked about the genesis of it, you know, okay. I wanted to start this show and you know, I got this. Encouragement from this, you know, encounter you had in, in the Star of the Doubts world. You tried a few episodes, weren't real sure, but finally you, you know, you hit the.

The button, let them be published. And now we fast forward 10 years, a whole decade. And my goodness, the knowledge that you've gleaned that the relationship you've built, which has led to other podcasts, which has led to other businesses, I don't think either you or I could have imagined what would have become from just that.

Act of faith and just you putting yourself out there and saying, I'm going to go ahead and try this crazy idea of doing a show about, you know, park rangers and park leadership. It's just crazy, Jared. There is no way, even if I had come up with a plan of what could be created after launching that show. I wouldn't have even thought to include some of the things that eventually happened.

But I think the same is probably true for you. When you started Starve the Doubts, I'm sure you never thought, I'm going to team with some other people and start the largest podcast conference in the world. That probably never crossed your mind. Which is just another example of. Amazing things happen when you're just willing to show up. 

As you well know, it isn't just showing up, but man, it is, it is a miracle just to look back and be like, wow, I can't imagine ever having the opportunity to speak to some of these people and that have been guests on the show. And I'm sure you can agree to that, you know, with your own experiences, relationships that have formed.

I want to kind of touch on that for a little bit. Some of these relationships that you've been fortunate to, to foster through podcasting have actually turned into close friends, in some cases, business partnerships that have been life changing for you and your family. So, you know, you know, kind of talked about this here and there in the past, and so there'd be some people that know about it, but for those that might not know, let's just kind of tell some of those stories.

Well, I, I think the big one that Jared is hinting at would be Lee Cockerell because that one has been incredible and Jared's going to ask, so I'll just walk you through it. I wanted to talk to someone from Disney about how parks, natural parks, like state parks, national parks. How natural parks could learn from themed parks, like what Disney does.

I had no connections at Disney. I found a book called Creating Magic on Amazon, written by Lee Cockrell, who had been the Executive Vice President of Walt Disney World. He ran the whole place for 10 years.  I reached out to him and asked him to come on the show, really expecting to not even hear back from him.

Because why would the guy who ran Disney World come and be on a show for Park Rangers? What I didn't know is Lee Cockrell's sister in law at that time had been a park ranger for 30 years. And Lee responded right away. He said, Oh, I love park rangers. I'll come and talk to you. Now he claims he didn't even know what a podcast was at the time.

That may or may not be true, but he came and talked to me. And then we did a second episode, and then by the end of 2014, we launched a podcast together, creating Disney Magic, which now we're, we're closing in on 500 episodes. It's had millions and millions of downloads. It's, it has done very well. And that has led to Us doing a lot of events together.

We do live events together. We do the Cockrell Academy together, which is a bunch of courses about leadership, management, customer service. All of that has been great, but Lee has also. Just become someone very special to me. There's no one that doesn't have the last name Mayberry that I'm closer to than Lee, Lee Cockrell.

And it's just been an extraordinary life-changing friendship. He's just an incredible guy. And it all came from podcasting. 

That's such an amazing story. And it doesn't stop there. Like those. Relationships just compounded because of, you know, your kindness and working with Lee and then his good experience and, you know, positive interaction with you that led to him kind of be willing to introduce you and then more people finding out about you through that podcast that you were doing with Lee.

Which led to, you know, you basically saying, you know, why am I spending time over here? Why don't I just go all in and, and, you know, create this as a business model. And so let's kind of talk a little bit about that. At what point did you realize, Oh, I don't need this.  experience I've had in the past of this NDA and using this for a job.

I could potentially just, you know, take some of these things I'm doing and actually make this a business. Well, one thing happened that I didn't know what happened and that is when you work with someone as high profile as Lee Cockrell and you do a great job, then people start reaching out to you saying, can you do for me what you're doing for him?

And I learned quickly that when people keep offering to pay you for something, you should probably do it.  So, so I ran with it. As people started reaching out about me doing podcasts, then I just kept going for it. And I, I developed systems that it's much easier now, I will say than it was back then.

I developed systems that would allow me to do multiple podcasts at once. I do think at my peak, I had 10 shows going at the same time. That's a lot. Yeah, I've really cut back, Jared. I think I'm down to about six now. Well, yeah, way, way, way to tone it down.  Yeah. Six for some of us would be like, Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine doing two, much less six, but.

Yeah. And I think overall, I've got to be closing in the, the last time I actually counted, I had just done over 2000 episodes altogether of all shows. And I've got to be closing in, I've got to be getting close to 2, 500. I just haven't counted in quite a while. You know, Joe, you're moderately well traveled before this whole podcast stuff opened up. 

I would say these last 10 years, the opportunities to experience new places has probably exceeded your expectations. So what are some of the exciting places that, you know, maybe you've been to before and got to go back to or never been, never thought you'd go? Well, I will tell you three that came to mind right away, as you asked that.

The first one being the opportunity to go to Kuwait to, one, the highlight there was probably recording an episode of the podcast, If Disney Ran Your Life. From the top observation deck of the Kuwait Tower. That was pretty cool. So that was one trip that came to mind. Another one, perhaps the location is not as exotic, but was very significant in 2019. 

I was invited to come and speak to all the state park directors at their annual conference for the National Association of State Park Directors. That was in Rogers, Arkansas. And for a former park ranger, I don't know if it gets bigger than that to get the opportunity to come and speak to the state park directors.

That was because someone who was helping organize the conference listened to the Park Leader Show. So they were coming up with the lineup of speakers and that day the lineup included the governor of Arkansas and executive vice president of Walmart. And then Jody Mayberry, which is pretty incredible. So that, that was really neat.

And then just recently, I got to go to Northern Alberta, Fort McMurray, Alberta, and I had meetings all day. This was a project that came to me because of podcasting. It has nothing to do with podcasting, but without podcasts. This wouldn't have happened. And in one day, I got to go dog sledding, I got to go curling for the first time, and I got to go see the Northern Lights for the first time.

So that trip wouldn't have happened without podcasting. And my goodness, Jared, who would have thought things like that would happen just because I sat down behind the microphone 10 years ago? Well, and that's just three stories. You have many, many more beyond those. But, but I love the fact that you spoke at that conference for all of the major park people, and you yourself were just, I mean, let's not, you know, pretend you were just a park ranger.

You were, it's like, it's not like you were on the elite of elite levels in that space, which is, you know. You know, right or wrong, but you, you went from being just the park ranger to now speaking to all of the, you know, key people that are making major decisions and doing big things and all of the parks.

What a, what an opportunity. And then, you know, to be on the stage with, you know, the governor and then, you know, a high, uh, Executive from Walmart  that's insane. I know. Yes. Jared is exactly right. That wouldn't have happened if I was still a park ranger and nothing really was different. I'm the same guy except now I have a podcast and, and so I, I get to talk to all the directors, which is pretty cool.

I, I actually repeated that. Was back at the state park director's conference last year in Reno, Nevada. So that has now happened twice to get invited to the state park director's conference. Well deserved, man. I love that. And the conversations, the connections you've made just from the park ranger show, just from the park leader show is life changing, you know, in and of itself, you know, and then you compound that with all the other stuff with Disney and the other.

clients that you've worked with. What are some shows that might not be immediately someone would know that you're a part of or were a part of, but shows that kind of helped you continue along this path that you've been a part of? Well, I will tell you one that comes to mind that it's actually not out there.

It's not even available anymore. Okay. But I think this show was significant. It was called Great Escape Radio, it was a show for Great Escape Publishing, which was a travel writing company. What was significant about that show was it was related to something I had no experience in, period. I'd never been a travel writer.

I was not, I didn't write much at that time. And here I was hosting this show, which It was a good indication to me that, okay, I can talk about anything. You just give me a topic and I can talk about it. And it allowed me to meet a lot of people outside of anything else I was involved in. And it was just a blast talking to these travel writers, travel photographers, just people from all over the country, some of them all over the world.

They were so well traveled. And that, that to me was a really cool show. It It's unfortunate I bring that one up though, because it's just, it's just not available out there anymore. But I've been involved in podcasts about real estate agents, about pharmacists, travel writing. Like I said, I, I host Morgan James radio, which is for authors.

It really is interesting how once you understand how to just be a good host, which I learned from Jared Easley, you can keep a good show going about any topic. But it has been really fun just to see how different shows open up new opportunities. And I've done one, Jared has actually been a guest, to me this right now is the most fascinating show I do, just to see how it operates so differently.

I wouldn't say yet it has opened up any opportunities, however, it's not for that. It's for something different. Yeah. When my son went away to college, as a way to keep in touch, I started a daily podcast meant just for him.  And every day when he wakes up, although some days, rarely, some days I get it out later in the day.

Today just happened to be a day I didn't have a message waiting for him when he woke up. It came out later in the day. But every day there's a short message, two, three minutes, half of them are from me, half of them are from other people. I don't advertise it, I don't promote it, I don't even edit it.

There's no intro music, no outro music, it is just a daily message meant for one person. That has been a really interesting experiment, and to see how It has even grown just, all I care is that my son listens to it. But it has just grown and spread and I guess people are, are just finding it organically and it has gained some momentum, even though it's a show meant just for one person that you would think, well, who else is interested in that?

But it's really fun to have people show up and listen to that. And how long has that been going now? Well, it started in August of. 2023 when my son went away to school. He's a freshman.  Yeah, and it's been every day except when he is home. If he's here in the house, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, then I don't do them because he's right here with me.

If I want to give him a message, I walk into his bedroom and tell him. 

What a unique way to leverage podcasting and, um, man, even if your son doesn't fully appreciate, which I'm sure he does, but even if they didn't, you know, I'm sure down the road, uh, that will be more special to them. And I'm loving how you've been so creative with this. You know, platform to, to do different things and accomplish tasks, regardless of what the outcome is and worst case, you know, you and your son, you don't have stronger communication.

Your son podcast. And man, that's the worst case. That's a great thing. So 

I wanted to touch on a close room that you and I shared, uh, Dan Miller. And unfortunately Dan passed away and Dan was always super gracious to me. And, and I know, uh, he meant a lot to you as well. And. You put out a very touching episode of your podcast about some things that you learned from Dan. In fact, it was 48 specific things that you had learned from Dan.

I'm not going to ask you to zip through 48, but just tell me a little bit about Dan Miller and your friendship and exactly some of the things that you take away from that.  More as an honor and a tribute to him. We both loved him and, you know, we're broken that he's not with us anymore. But thankful that he's, you know, in heaven and, but you and I both learned a lot from him.

So maybe you could share a few of those. I told Dan Miller many times that if I had a Mount Rushmore of influences, Dan's smiling face would be up on that mountain. He just had that much of an impact on me. He ended up, a dear friend, I know he was to you too, Jared, just devastating that he passed and it was just so quick.

And I did everything I could, that episode that Jared was talking about, I did 48 lessons I had learned from Dan. Many of those lessons were in his own voice. I went into my archives of recorded conversations I had with Dan and put together that episode. I never put so much into a single episode. It took me so long to do and I sent it to Dan, but I, I never was able to confirm whether I finished it in time for him to actually listen to it, which I sure hope he did, because that was my tribute to the impact that he had on me.

And there were, there were 48 lessons in there, most of them about business, but some of them were about marriage as well, because my goodness, Dan and Joanne, what, what a testament to the type of marriage you can have if you make it a priority. And I did learn a lot of business lessons from Dan, but that may be the best thing that I learned from Dan.

I was around him and Joanne many times. I was around Dan and his kids and just to see his devotion and to understand even above his kids that his marriage was his biggest priority. I'm certain I fall way short of Dan's devotion to his marriage, but it gives me a model to reach for. Such an inspiration.

And one thing that I didn't include in that episode was one of my favorite text messages I got from Dan. One time we were just talking, it was right after he moved to Florida, and he was talking about how many exotic birds showed up in his yard. He had lived in Nashville for a long time and he moved to Florida.

And All these birds would show up and I said, Oh, Dan, you need the iBird app. And I just gifted it to him. He had an iPhone. I had an iPhone through the app store. You can gift things to people. So I gifted the iBird app to him. And I don't know how much later it was after that, but he sent me a text message just saying something simple about sitting in his backyard, looking at birds and identifying them with the iBird app.

And as simple as that is, and it doesn't sound like it's anything meaningful, it just taught me a lesson about, wow, there's something really significant to send just a simple text to show someone you were thinking of them.  And I try to do that as well. I don't want to diminish what I learned from Dan about business because I probably wouldn't have the business I have without Dan.

At the same time though, I feel like there's a lot of people you can learn business from, maybe not in the same way you can learn from Dan, but it was the other stuff that made Dan so special. It was his devotion to his marriage. It was. The little things he would do to show he was thinking about people.

I feel like that's why so many people felt they had a connection to Dan. And what I learned when he passed, I thought I had a really special relationship with Dan. And I, I did when he passed though, I learned there were hundreds of people that felt that way about Dan. I would be lucky, Jared, if I were to pass, if there were like, Five people that felt that way about me and Dan had hundreds of people that felt like they had a very special Personal relationship with him.

You're right I even heard from people that I I didn't expect When Dan passed and it's sharing personal stories and and it just blew my mind is like I had no clue that they were even you know connected or friends or You know, it just, again, more of a testimony of just how he lived and how he treated people and certainly an inspiring and encouraging thing.

I've come across a lot of people that were successful and Dan always was one that stuck out to me as just being so generous and so, so kind. He's always been friendly to me and never ever kind of one up me, never trying to take advantage of me, never, uh, just, just always being genuine. And, and, you know, I hope in addition to the marriage thing that you said, I hope that's something that I would aspire to as well, you know, and, and seeing how Dan treated others and, and hopefully, uh, you know, doing that with other people as well.

And that's not always easy, but, uh, you know, he was able to do it and that's something I want to own to do as well. Ha, ha, ha. Sick. Jody, you've mentioned your business a lot and I want to kind of transition temporarily just for that. For people that aren't familiar with what you're doing now, what are you doing and what's on the horizon for you?

Well, it has been a really fun year already. One of the big things that I'm doing. I mentioned the Cockrell Academy. Lee and I started, Lee Cockrell and I started that with courses on leadership, management, culture, customer service. We made a big leap this year where I taught a workshop. Without Lee. It was Lee Cockerell based content.

It was content I developed with Lee, only I taught it without him. And I am excited about that because it will allow Lee Cockerell's message and legacy to grow and touch people. Without Lee having to be there. And I think that is the first step in just helping spread his message in corners and nooks and crannies.

Maybe we couldn't have gotten it before. So that, that's coming this year. We, I partnered with Stephen Merrill and we taught the first one in Orlando. in February and we, I think we've got two or three more coming this year. So that I'm very excited about. Of course, I've got all the podcasts going for now.

I still have six. Uh, I think it's six. We ended a little off topic. We ended a, a, what I just thought was a wonderful podcast. In  2023, Dan Cockrell and I had Come Rain or Shine. It was his show. I just hosted it for him. And after five and a half years, that one came to an end when Dan moved to Australia and because of other commitments and whatnot, he just decided it was time to end it.

So that's a fabulous show of the, all the past episodes, 286  or so are still out there. So that's a good one. But if you want to find what I'm up to, all the shows I'm working on. Go to jodymayberry. com. They're all right there and anywhere you can follow me, it should be there on, on the website as well.

But up to some exciting stuff. I'm doing more consulting projects than I have in previous years and teaching more, speaking more. I just. I spoke at the annual in service training for Michigan State Parks, which, you know, delighted me, Jared, to be in front of 700 park people, because park people are my people.

So that, that was just wonderful. Yeah. And I only anticipate more of those types of opportunities are going to open up. And I, I laugh a little bit because, I remember when you first started that particular podcast, you know, you were like, man, I don't know if he listened to this, but  no, if nothing else, I just, you know, maybe I meet some interesting people and share some interesting stories and have them out there, you know, and then now here we are.

I don't think anybody could have imagined the impact that. podcast could have had. It's just opened up a whole new world for you in that particular niche, but in so many others as well. So well deserved. Jodie, I'm really proud of you. I appreciate your friendship. Uh, you've been extremely kind to me and good to me over the years.

And uh, so it's just an absolute honor to sit and chat with you for a little bit and talk to you. Uh, yeah, definitely love you and I'm proud of you, man. Well, it wouldn't happen without Jared Easley and no matter how humble you try to be and how much you try to duck that comment, it's always going to be true. 

Well I am proud of you and I can't take credit for your success, but I did have you on the show and, uh, I am thrilled that you didn't let that stop you.  and I, here was a fun thing. Jared didn't see coming. I spoke at the last podcast movement in Denver  and I included a slide of Jared Easley in my slide deck.

And Jared didn't know that, nor did I know Jared was going to come and watch my presentation. And there's Jared in the audience, and a slide of him pops up, so that was kind of fun for me. That was humbling, and, uh, yeah, you didn't have to do that. That was one of those you shouldn't have. No, really, you shouldn't have. 

All good, man. I really appreciate it and honored to be a part of, you know, the Jody Mayberry tree of influence, if you want to call it that. I don't know if I deserve to be there, but Jody, uh, we need to mention where people can check out what you're up to. I hope people will connect with you on LinkedIn.

I personally enjoy how you recycle the things that you've done in the past on LinkedIn. Uh, even if it's something that you did six months ago, I may not have caught it then and I catch it now when you reshare it and I just love how you take, uh, your stuff and you're constantly, you know, putting it out there, even though sometimes it's weeks or months later, you're, you're, uh, continually sharing things that you've done.

And, you know, LinkedIn is a really cool spot where you do that and it allows people to just kind of be aware of, Hey, you know, I didn't know Jody did this or had this conversation. Uh, it's a deep place to kind of learn about what you're up to and what you're working on. Um, so. But, uh, Jody, thank you for taking time to chat today and look forward to hearing what happens in the next several months.

I'm sure this won't be the last time that we have a chat on Star of the Doubts and that's my hope anyway. I sure hope not, Jared. This show has been a great gift to me over the years and I will note, to brag on myself for a moment, I do believe I was the very first person. Other than Jared Easley to solo host an episode of Starve the Doubt.

Yes. Which has not happened hardly ever. And  there's not much trust I extended to many people, but you've pulled through. Did and did it on more than one occasion? I am grateful for that. Yeah. So it's nice to be able to chat with you and talk about this stuff and kind of relive some of this. And I'm really proud of where you are, Jody, and look forward to seeing, you know, what God has for you in the future, my man.

Well, thank you, Jared. You are tremendous. All right. Thanks, Jody. "