One of the most important things we do at the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce is share the stories of our members. Storytelling is an art and it can take many different forms. Through the centuries, stories have been used to preserve culture and pass on cultural heritage and knowledge from one generation to another. A decade ago a team of neuroscientist at Princeton did a study that showed actual neurological connections between storytellers and their audience. Literally the same parts of the storyteller’s brain would activate as listener’s brain as the audience listened to the story. This is not a surprise to the casual observer, but the bottom line is that stories connect us.

The power of storytelling is definitely beyond measure. With that in mind, the Carlsbad Chamber recently launched our own podcast. Podcasts have been growing in popularity over the past 15+ years. According to podcastinsights.com, as of April, 2021, there were over 2,000,000 podcasts and over 48 million episodes that had been published (and that’s before ours arrived). According to Inifite Dial 2020, over 75% of the US population is familiar with the term “podcasting” and over 104 million people listened to a podcast in the last month.

With all that knowledge, we decided that it was time for the Carlsbad Chamber to get into the mix. With the help of our friends at Imagine Podcasting, we launched our weekly podcast in July, 2021 called Carlsbad: People, Purpose and Impact. Each week we interview a different guest who comes and shares their stories about themselves, their business, their mission and more. If you live, work, play, or care about Carlsbad, this is a show for you. As I write this we have published ten episodes.

The guests have ranged from Mayor Matt Hall of the City of Carlsbad to Carolyn Grant, Executive Director of the Museum of Making Music, to Jill McManigal, the Executive Director of Kids for Peace to Geoff Gray, General Manager at the Park Hyatt Aviara and Resort and many others. Future episodes will soon be out with Chris Ryan, Owner of Ryan Video Productions, Adam Jacobs, Founder and Owner of Fortis Fitness and Strength Training & YOGALUX, and Bryan Snyder, the Creative Director of Snyder Art & Design. We also have an interview coming up soon with our new Police Chief Mickey Williams of the Carlsbad Police Department.

I share all this because I want to encourage you to check out our podcast. You can find it anywhere where podcasts are consumed. If you are a podcast junkie and have a favorite app for listening, you’ll find it there (my favorite is Spotify, but that’s just me). If you are new to podcasts and have never listened, you can get your start by going to our website: carlsbadpodcast.com. You can listen right from the website or find an app (all the most popular podcast apps are listed on the site). The website has all the episodes available.

After you listen (and hopefully like our storytelling) I have two requests: 1. Follow our podcast (some apps use the word subscribe, but don’t worry, it doesn’t cost anything), and 2. Share it. The vast majority of people find out about a podcast as a referral from a friend or family member. And if you are really inspired, leave us a comment about our show on our podcast website, we would love to hear your feedback.

So whether you are relatively new to podcasts or a veteran, please give us a listen. I know you will be inspired by the amazing organizations, businesses and people here in our community. And feel free to binge, you have our permission!

Listen to our podcast: www.carlsbadpodcast.com/