Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Russell, IV and Brandi Davis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Russell, IV and Brandi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Russell and I were high school sweethearts. We felt all the first love feelings and were completely convinced that we would be married and have a family one day. But life has a way of surprising you in the most unexpected ways. Mix our tender age of 17 with just a little bit of high school drama and that was the end of our story… or so we thought. We spent our Senior year avoiding each other like the plague and after graduation we completely moved on with our lives. We both got married and started families, with other people. But then came life again! I was divorced within 2 years of getting married and Russell and his wife ended things after 7 years. Fast forward to a chance encounter in 2020, in the middle of the world ending (or so everyone thought), Russell ran into a masked crusader in the convenience store that happened to be my well-intended and slightly embarrassing mother. She told him that I was divorced and encouraged him to reach out to me, which he did! The details of what happened over the next few months are still a sore subject, because we both have our versions of what happened LOL. But we can both agree that a key lime pie and Walmart are a part of our story forever. The moment we reconnected, some 20 years after high school, we both knew that the spark was still there. We swapped divorce stories and trauma bonded, in the most romantic way. One day we got into a debate about love sitting on the couch in Russell’s department and he had the bright idea that we should let Facebook settle it. So we hopped on Facebook LIVE and let a jury of our peers help us sort it out. They begged, literally begged, us to come back any time we had a debate, and we happily (well not so happily for me in the beginning) obliged them. After about 3 sessions, people kept asking us “when we were going to start a podcast?” So after several messages and not-so-subtle nudges from our new found audience, we decided to do it. But what do we call it? And what do we talk about? In the beginning of our relationship, there was one common theme from our conversations, we both had examples of marriage, parenting, etc around us, but how come no one ever told us how hard it is?! And that is how the What They Never Told Us Podcast got started. And for over a year and a half we have enjoyed having conversations about the things we were never told about life, love, relationships, family, friends, etc.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We have a saying that we end every podcast episode with, “We love – love and y’all should love – love too!” Brandi and I are committed to having and helping build happy and healthy relationships and family. As two divorcees, we know firsthand that devastation that divorce causes within the family unit. We also know the feeling of being alone through the process and feeling like you’re the only one who has ever had the experience. We share with the goal of letting others know that they are not alone and that there is life after divorce. We tell our personal stories and share real-life experiences with the goal of revealing the worst moments with an emphasis on the redemption. Our goal is to just be our authentic selves and our prayer before every episode is that God is glorified through it all. and whether we reach 1 or 1 million, they are encouraged, uplifted, and entertained.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

It’s funny because Russell and I had opposite perspectives when it came to social media in the beginning, Russell had been working for years to grow his social media audience, while mine was limited to family and close friends. When we started the podcast, we knew we had to bridge the gap between our views on social media. One thing that we’ve learned through out this process is that people respond to authenticity. So many times our social media presence becomes a guise that we hide behind. We adapt to what’s trendy and lose ourselves in the shuffle of “what’s popular right now”. The problem with trends is that they are always changing and keeping up with them can be a full time job, plus overtime! We have grown our social media accounts organically through consistency and showing who we really are. And our target audience is established by who is organically attracted to us. We are satisfied with that whether is 50 or 500,000. Once your audience buys into the idea of who you are, anything you do and/or sell becomes interesting to them as well. So our advise to those who are trying to grow their audience on social media would be, be authentic and be consistent.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One lesson that we have both had to unlearn is that our individual way of operating is the only way to operate. Working with your significant other presents a unique set of circumstances. Things get more complicated when you don’t necessarily share the same approach to planning, execution, or managing conflict, which are all integral parts of running a business. When we first started the podcast, we didn’t take the time to discuss how our differences could potentially impact our business. We made the mistake of assuming that the chemistry we had in our relationship would naturally translate into our working relationship. We learned quickly that we would need a game plan that merged both of our styles in order to create the best product possible.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/whattheynevertolduspod
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/whattheynevertolduspod
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/whattheynevertolduspodcas9583
• Other: www.tiktok.com/@whattheynevertolduspod

Image Credits
Miami Jarret Photography and Royale Studios