One day as we were sitting at Bulletproof Café sipping a butter-laden vanilla latte (an LA trend we hopped on early) after a workout, Krista asked Lindsey if we should start a podcast about all the things we spent our time talking about anyway. The real vision for the show wasn’t clear just yet, but the desire for connection was. Krista was a podcast devotee and listened to them religiously as a way of pursuing her interests and finding inspiration while navigating LA traffic. Lindsey is always down to create something, even if the end goal isn’t clear, so she was in.

The podcast had almost the same gestation period as a human baby, which is fitting because it grew to be our shared child—in this and so many ways, our relationship has become like a marriage over the years. We spent the next eight months figuring out what the heck we were doing. Back then, in 2016, podcasting wasn’t what it is today. Most people thought it was “radio,” and those exploring the medium were making their own rules without any expectation for their podcast to become a “thing.” It was a really exciting time, almost like the entire industry was one big start-up, with lots of promise and very few rules. There were very few female podcasters on the scene (and even fewer duos), so we didn’t necessarily have a template or anyone to look up to. Instead, we had to be that for ourselves. We started brainstorming different segment ideas by listing things we wanted to talk about (because shows need to have segments, right?). Some of these make us cringe now: Shit That Stuck (things we learned that week and wanted to share); 100, Not 100 (which was an homage to Krista’s first mildly successful blog, Hundred Blog); and a segment where we took a question from “the audience” (that we didn’t have yet). These questions came from friends, who were technically our only audience at the time, but we fudged that they had “written in.” Lindsey bought a $15 recorder, and we started practicing whenever and wherever we could—in our closets, at an abandoned WeWork (the door was unlocked, soooo . . . ), and sometimes even out in the wild (we interviewed a fertility doctor at a café once; the sound was horrible).

The elements of a show started to come together. A friend of Lindsey’s made our podcast cover art for free using photos we had taken to try to legitimize ourselves a few weeks earlier. It was during the days when an “artistic” photoshoot required nothing more than a graffiti wall in the background. We tried to capture the confused-twentysomething vibe by dressing in cutoff jean shorts, bikinis, and trucker hats, a look that we felt represented this in-between time well. Another criiiiinge-worthy decision, but today we kind of respect the clarity and confidence of the vision. We hired a voiceover artist on Fiverr to be our hype man in the podcast intro (would love to meet him one day!) and had a friend edit our episodes for $50, the first of which we recorded on Lindsey’s trusty state-of-the-art recorder, sitting on the floor of the closet of Krista’s studio apartment next to her boyfriend’s smelly gym shoes. We closed the door while we were recording because we were professionals and wanted the best sound quality possible. This meant we had to take frequent breaks to swing open the door and gasp since we were totally oxygen deprived (which may have affected the quality of our conversation and the show, lol).

We held our breath when we launched Almost 30 in September 2016. Were we ready? Absolutely not! But we weren’t willing to wait any longer. We had done the practice and the prep, and now it was time to let our little podcast baby go out and live a little bit. Almost 30 gave us a place to relax, be ourselves, and hang up the idea (at least temporarily) that we had to be further along in our lives than we were; we hoped that the show would find its legs and make other people feel similarly. We had no long-term plan and chose to trust that what felt good for us to create would serve others in some way too.

In those early days, Almost 30 was, uh, less than polished. A sampling of some of our earliest episodes include wacky titles like: “(Boy) friends with Benefits”; “Destuffing Bras + Stuffing Faces”; and “Card Chip Readers Suck, Self-Awareness Rules.” We were raunchy, doling out tips about the proper poses for taking nudes for the person you’re seeing and oversharing about dating, family drama, and sexcapades. Go back and listen to a few if you dare; we can’t listen without hiding underneath the table and earmuffing ourselves. But, hey! It was an honest snapshot of that moment in time. And we had to start there. Thankfully, the podcast evolved along with us. As we navigated our almost-thirties and then moved into our actual thirties, the podcast mirrored our evolution. The podcast had been the teacher we needed and the purpose that we had been praying for. Over the years, it became more centered on health and wellness, then career and entrepreneurship, and then we were called to explore all things spirituality. We started to include conversations with guests and bring on experts in the field we were most interested in at any given moment. Today it’s a mix of all those things—and, mainly, it’s about transformation or, as we put it, being almost something. We have always committed to honesty and saying the things that others are afraid to say, to leading with our own truth, and to connecting with others in a way that we would have never thought possible once upon a time. As a result, we have amassed millions of downloads and a community of like-hearted people all over the world who are so ready and so willing to learn, grow, and commit to living lives that they love.

Perhaps our messes made us seek the awakening, or maybe the messes were our awakening. Either way, we were open and hungry for knowledge and support, and for feeling less alone and (mostly) less crazy. Through our conversations, we found the teachings, experiences, modalities, and tools that could support us—and now you!—during this intense season. We look back and realize that although we didn’t see it at the time, we really did understand our assignment from the Universe. We’ve moved through this intense period of almost-thirty and learned an incredible amount about ourselves. Dare we say, we’ve come out better on the other side. More whole, happy, and set up for a life that we love. We now know how someone like you can feel more equipped, confident, and empowered to navigate this too.

Despite the fact that we didn’t plan for this to be anything beyond a fun project created in our closets, today Almost 30 is our full-time dream, complete with an amazing team—and, yes, we have surpassed thirty. It’s been hard work, yes, and we really figured it out as we went along, and although we’re over that hill, the name has stuck. Thankfully, we did move our recording sessions out of the dark, cramped closet we started in and built ourselves a spacious, elevated Almost 30–style studio that has been featured in press outlets like Architectural Digest and Apartment Therapy. Over the years, the pod has been written up all over the place, in publications like Oprah Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, Entrepreneur, Women’s Health, and more, and has been nominated for iHeartPodcast Awards a few times in both the health and spirituality spaces. We’ve sold out global tours and spoken on stages around the world, hosted immersive wellness retreats, expanded our biz to influential courses and online learning, and have had the incredible opportunity to interview and learn from some of the most impactful experts and thought leaders of our time, including people like Mel Robbins, Lilly Singh, Jessie Inchauspé, Jenna Kutcher, Gabby Bernstein, Glennon Doyle, Lalah Delia, and Jay Shetty, to name just a few—many of whom you’ll hear from in the Almost 30 book.

Those twenty-seven-year-olds driving around in Lindsey’s Nissan Sentra would’ve been so in awe and proud of the fact that we’ve gone on to build an entire career (and empire) out of our belly laughs, genuine curiosity, and explorative musings. But back then we were just trying to figure out what it meant to be almost thirty.

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