007 - Origin Story. We share why bravo charlie club was born and who these raconteurs actually are.

Ever wondered who's behind the microphones of the bravo charlie club? In our 007 episode, we're channeling our inner James Bond by revealing the mysteries of who we are and why we started this podcasting adventure.

We're Richard and Ben - two middle-aged mates who first crossed paths in 2003 while training for Ironman New Zealand with "the Cycos." Since then, we've both traveled extensively, living across three continents each, which fuels our popular Travel Tip segment. Richard brings his software engineering background and contributes his global perspective while Ben channels apparent Matt Damon-like qualities and love for green sea turtles (inspired by his lifesaving days).

Through candid conversation, we share personal stories (including Richard's cringe-worthy tale of backing his girlfriend's car into his flatmate's car right before an international trip), our podcasting format, and our honest admission that we initially thought this would be easy - how wrong we were! Seven episodes in, we're thrilled with our 200+ listeners and growing community.

The bravo charlie club follows a consistent weekly format featuring The Fully Awake Project (things that caught our attention), Travel Tip of the Week (with a massive content pipeline we're excited to share), and Conundrum of the Week (which listeners tell us is already infiltrating their daily vocabulary). Our promise remains: making you 12.5 minutes more awesome each week by giving you a bcc on our conversations.

Want to become part of our Inner Sanctum? Join our WhatsApp group through the link in the show notes. Your feedback shapes our podcast - whether correcting our facts (thanks to the doctor who clarified our insulin storage information) or simply connecting with us. Leave a comment, send a text, or join the conversation - we're building this community together!

Join the WhatsApp inner sanctum for early access to all episodes as they drop and share feedback straight to us! Only 48million more subscribers to catch Real Madrid!

Email us through hello@bravocharlie.club

Share a rating or review if you think we are worthy. 

Transcript

Welcome to Episode 007

Speaker 1 0:12

Welcome to the Bravo Charlie Club podcast , making you 12 and a half minutes more awesome each week . He's Ben , I'm Richard , let's go .

Speaker 2 0:22

Richard , episode 007 .

Speaker 1 0:26

007 . How do you like ?

Speaker 2 0:26

that we're middle-aged males . It absolutely resonates .

Speaker 1 0:33

It's fantastic We've made it this far .

Speaker 2 0:36

Yeah , james Bond , the secret agent , the trained assassin . We think we know about him , but he's still a man of mystery , international man of mystery , I'd say Well , I think you're moving into Austin Powers territory . I think James Bond and Austin Powers are slightly different . Just a thought I had .

Speaker 1 0:57

A million dollars .

Speaker 2 1:00

Look , it's interesting talking about men of mystery , because a couple of times now I've been asked what's the podcast all about ? Why are we here , who are we and what are we trying to achieve ? It's a lot of questions and people . I think feel like we put a whole lot of thought into this before we got started and it's just not the case . Um , we , uh , we thought it would be easy and uh and that's how wrong we were and we decided to have a crack .

Getting to Know Your Hosts

Speaker 2 1:38

However , I think listeners do deserve those who don't know us and thank goodness the ones that know us have stuck with us but um , listeners who don't know us and thank goodness the ones that know us have stuck with us but um , listeners who don't know us probably do need to know a little bit about ourselves . You know , I think you know we have a travel tip of the week because we've both traveled extensively for work and we've both lived in on three continents . But do you want to share a little bit more about your background and why you're here ?

Speaker 1 2:06

Yeah , to start in the beginning . Software engineer by trade , I have lived in Australia Melbourne and Brisbane and spent some time in London and Bali as well for a few years , so I like travel and exploring new places . So I like travel and exploring new places . I have a daughter and a partner as well , and we're on the Gold Coast .

Speaker 2 2:31

Nice , nice , and I've got a wife and two kids . My kids have just left school , actually , so apparently I've got more time on my hands to do podcasts All this free time , ben , yeah , and like you , I've lived in the UK and also in Canada . I've called three cities in Australia my home so I've been very fortunate to do some travel across the journey as well . When did we meet ?

Speaker 1 2:57

Yeah , I think it was we met in June or July 2003 , training for Ironman New Zealand with the Psychos . We thought that would be easy too , I think . Well , easier , I think , if you get the training under your belt . Certainly .

Speaker 2 3:21

No , that went all right .

Speaker 1 3:22

It did go all right , that was great .

Speaker 2 3:24

Another one in the memory bank , very nice so , uh ben , some questions for the listeners .

Speaker 1 3:32

What's your favorite animal , favorite animal ?

Speaker 2 3:35

um favorite animal be the turtle . Why the turtle ? What's up with the ? Turtle specifically the green sea turtle turtle .

Speaker 1 3:43

The green sea turtle yeah .

Speaker 2 3:44

So I think if anyone's seen Finding Nemo , they'll remember the ride that they take on the causeway down the side of Australian .

Speaker 1 3:53

The EAC dude , yeah , yeah .

Speaker 2 3:56

And I grew up doing surf , lifesaving and heavily involved in lifesaving , but I wasn't a surfer . But the turtle style just resonated with me and , to be honest , I'm probably shaped a bit like a turtle at the moment and they still love the water , which fits me to a T yeah .

Speaker 1 4:14

You've even got one for the listeners . On podcasting platforms Won't be able to see it , but in the video platforms you've got a big picture of a turtle in the background there , Correct ?

Speaker 2 4:24

Yeah , followed closely behind by my favourite bird , the kookaburra .

Speaker 1 4:27

It's no coincidence .

Speaker 2 4:29

Yeah , have you

Fun Personal Questions

Speaker 2 4:30

got any funny mishaps you'd like to share ? If we're oversharing this point , yes , well , we do .

Speaker 1 4:36

I think that my funniest mishap is that time that I backed my girlfriend's car into my flatmate's car uh , two days before I was about to head over to the states so sorry about that . Here's the keys I think it's one of those incidents that , on reflection , gets gets more humorous the further you get away from it .

Speaker 2 5:01

So uh , yeah , yeah , not funny at the time .

Speaker 1 5:04

But yeah , 25 years later or so , much more humorous .

Speaker 2 5:10

I can imagine in the moment that was probably , you could have sunk into a pretty deep hole and been quite happy . Yes , who would play you in a movie ?

Speaker 1 5:21

Oh , who would play me in a movie . Oh , who would play me in a movie . You know , we kind of give Hugh Jackman a lot of props on this pod , but Hugh , sorry , I think it's probably , I guess , george Clooney . George , all the way Solid George man Love his work .

Speaker 2 5:38

How about you ?

Speaker 1 5:39

Ben , he wouldn't need a haircut . He wouldn't need a haircut , he'd wear one of those wigs .

Speaker 2 5:44

I'm sure he's worn that and look I know , listeners who stuck with us in the pilot probably assumed my answer was going to be Hugh Jackman , and we do have a lot of similarities , that's not in doubt . But the correct answer is , of course , matt Damon .

Speaker 1 5:56

Matt Damon Yep , yeah Again .

Speaker 2 6:02

You know , his efforts in the Jason Bourne series are incredible and I just realised that James Bond and Jason Bourne have the same initials .

Speaker 1 6:11

They do . They could get their lunchboxes confused or something .

Speaker 2 6:16

Yeah , there's something going on there . Hey

Podcast Goals and Listener Growth

Speaker 2 6:20

, where do you hope the podcast heads to ? Like , what's your hopes and dreams for it ?

Speaker 1 6:25

Yeah , if we can just ship 100 episodes , just kind of stick to our format , Wait hang on .

Speaker 2 6:33

I thought we agreed on 52 . One a week for a year .

Speaker 1 6:38

Where did this 100 come from ? I was following MrBeast of ship . 100 videos and then come and talk to me , okay .

Speaker 2 6:46

The listeners . We've just committed to another 48 episodes we didn't know about please stay with us .

Speaker 1 6:52

I'm sure it'll be fun .

Speaker 2 6:53

It's getting better all the time yeah , yeah and um , you know my side . I guess it's a mini conundrum . You know we do them at conundrum of the week and um , when do you , when do you get to say that your podcast has gone viral , like that's ?

Speaker 1 7:09

what is ? That's what I would like to . That's what I would like to achieve for my podcast I guess it's when it's it's people that you don't know are sharing it with other people yeah , fair call yeah um , but at scale ? What does it ? Does it ? Would that mean a thousand ? Does that mean 1,000 ? Would that mean 10,000 ? I'm not sure .

Speaker 2 7:28

Because we're seven days in . We've had 200 listeners , which I've had a look at the stats on Spotify and Buzzsprout , which is the hosting platform , and that is actually quite a decent performance . So thank you so much to the listeners who have stuck with us . That's because the pilot wasn't that good .

Speaker 1 7:49

It's all up from there .

Speaker 2 7:51

Yeah , we're not going to hide from it .

Speaker 1 7:54

We're certainly not trained podcasting professionals yet .

Speaker 2 7:58

Yeah , we're not going to delete it either . So , yeah , just keep that one in your memory bank .

Weekly Segments and Listener Feedback

Speaker 1 8:03

Yeah .

Speaker 2 8:06

So what do the listeners expect on a week-to-week basis ? Like we are following a formula and , and I think um you know that's that's in the podcasting world , because it makes you know consistent um tableau . So what , what are we going to deliver on a week-to-week basis , mate ?

Speaker 1 8:23

I think so . So we've got the fully awake project , which is a sort of opening segment , I guess weird name it is a bit of a weird name , but it's sort of things that we stumble into or bump into , uh , over the week , things that open our eyes or things that kind of like jump out at us . There's , there's always , there's always something new , always something uh interesting . I think so it started .

Speaker 2 8:46

it started as the tech tip of the week , didn't it ? And we sort of went , it did it , sort of evolved from there into . There's more going on A bit more broad .

Speaker 1 8:54

Yeah , that's right . That's right Cool . And plus then I was monopolizing all the airtime with my yeah . Going on about AI and stuff .

Speaker 2 9:04

I was getting a little lost .

Speaker 1 9:08

Well , travel tip of the week . They brought it home so I think , balanced it back up , so there's a lot more we can both contribute pretty evenly from there , I think .

Speaker 2 9:17

Yeah , absolutely , and I'm conscious of the fact that we've spoken about the domestic carriers that we use in Australia , but the tips that we're sharing are definitely global .

Speaker 1 9:29

Evergreen .

Speaker 2 9:30

Evergreen tips . If you just replace the names we use with your preferred carrier , you're probably going to be well and truly on point . But yeah , there's some cool stuff and I've had a look into the topic pond , as we like to refer to it . Yeah , the content pipeline folks . There's a huge pipeline and the travel tip pipeline is the biggest .

Speaker 1 9:53

It is yes .

Speaker 2 9:55

Followed closely by the conundrum of the week , and I think that's I've already had listeners write in and say they've started to use conundrum in their daily conversational language . That's a win . That's a win .

Speaker 1 10:06

We are impacting the vernacular .

Speaker 2 10:08

Yeah , it's not viral , so to speak , but it's a massive win , so I'll take that . Thank you KM in particular , who gave that feedback . Speaking of which , listener feedback is an important part of the podcast because we want to feel connected to our listeners , and so leave a comment , send us a text . There's a link in the show notes . Join the Inner Sanctum on the WhatsApp .

Speaker 1 10:41

The WhatsApp group yeah .

Speaker 2 10:42

That's the best place to give the listener feedback and get a note through to us , because we love to hear you . We'll redact your name , we'll put your cat's name , do whatever you want us to do . You can stay anonymous . There's no problems with that . Hey , speaking of listener feedback , richard , do you remember last week when I said that we weren't doctors ?

Speaker 1 11:11

Yes , yes , I do . It's still true . Are we gone ?

Speaker 2 11:17

That information is still accurate . A doctor is written in oh wow .

Speaker 1 11:23

Trained professionals yeah , that's awesome . Yeah , accurate um a doctor has written in oh wow trained professionals .

Speaker 2 11:26

Yeah , so that's yeah , uh , which I'm I'm very thankful for . Obviously . I had a 12 and a half minute commute from their , you know , three-story apartment in the city . Um , just correcting me on the fact that insulin , what I said was insulin doesn't need to be stored below 25 degrees . What I meant to say was insulin doesn't need to be stored below 25 degrees . What I meant to say was insulin doesn't need to be stored below 5 degrees Celsius . It does need to be stored below 25 degrees .

Speaker 1 11:51

So

Wrapping Up with Corrections

Speaker 1 11:52

thank you .

Speaker 2 11:55

I knew what I meant , but at the heat of the moment , the fast pace of our podcast , you know , just trying to keep up , I lost my way and that's why we need the listener feedback . I appreciated that .

Speaker 1 12:05

Keeping us honest .

Speaker 2 12:06

Very much so we wouldn't believe it . Our listener promise 12 and a half minutes to make them slightly more awesome in the week . Listeners have been BCC'd on our week , richard , and , in case someone's wondering , we feel like this is a blind carbon copy of the WhatsApp chat that Richard and I have throughout the week . That's where the BC seed on the week comes from , guys , and we'd love to hear from you . Leave a comment , send us a text , join the Inner Sanctum . Bravo , charlie .

Speaker 1 12:39

And that's the pod .