WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.680 It's even more important now as we become more digital and with AI and everything else that the human is front and center, right? 00:00:10.680 --> 00:00:27.020 I've noticed that so much of, I mean, even larger, you know, larger national or even international brands are starting to move into the world of having, you know, having the human story present because we are so starved for that. 00:00:27.180 --> 00:00:38.860 You know, it's hard to know what's real and what's not real and to be able to have, you know, the founder of a company sitting there telling their story, that holds a lot of value. 00:00:38.860 --> 00:00:42.700 There's a different kind of sickness that comes from not seeing people in the flesh. 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:49.440 We spent years locked in, logged on, doom scrolling through a world that doesn't exist. 00:00:50.040 --> 00:00:57.400 But out there, in pubs, in living rooms, on mountaintops, at knitting circles, people are still finding each other. 00:00:57.400 --> 00:00:58.600 This is Real Meet. 00:00:58.600 --> 00:01:00.240 I'm your host, Brian Feister. 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:01.620 Let's go meet someone. 00:01:01.620 --> 00:01:04.940 Hey, everyone. 00:01:04.940 --> 00:01:06.880 Welcome to the Real Meet Podcast. 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:12.300 Today, I am pleased to have joined me, Betsy DeMann. 00:01:12.300 --> 00:01:14.920 She is a local media operator. 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:19.140 She has a print publication, which she's going to tell us a little bit about. 00:01:19.140 --> 00:01:27.140 And really what drew me to invite you, Betsy, more than anything else, is just you really seem to understand storytelling. 00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:31.000 And I always, I have a soft spot for storytelling. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:35.720 I had a publishing company that I started 10 years ago and wrote a lot. 00:01:35.720 --> 00:01:39.500 And I think that storytelling is really powerful, especially nowadays. 00:01:39.500 --> 00:01:42.500 But without further ado, thanks for joining us. 00:01:42.500 --> 00:01:44.380 I really am glad to have you here. 00:01:44.380 --> 00:01:48.020 And, you know, as you can tell, I've got a lot over my mind that I've asked questions about. 00:01:48.020 --> 00:01:50.040 Yeah, no, it's great. 00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:51.960 Thank you for inviting me. 00:01:51.960 --> 00:01:52.940 Yeah, absolutely. 00:01:53.580 --> 00:02:05.840 So, you know, I'll just go ahead with what I was thinking there, which is essentially, you know, I think that storytelling to really work, it has to be relatable. 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:09.760 And it's something that AI can't do, right? 00:02:09.760 --> 00:02:12.520 Like AI can't relate to a human experience. 00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:25.060 It can only analyze a trend or pattern in the corpus, the corpus being all of human communication that it has now ingested all the books, all the online writings and all the things that people say on Reddit. 00:02:25.060 --> 00:02:28.160 So I think that you're well positioned in that sense. 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:32.000 Like nowadays, I think storytelling is more valued than ever. 00:02:32.700 --> 00:02:39.720 And I'm curious, like, you know, what kind of got you interested or I think you call yourself a storyteller, right? 00:02:39.720 --> 00:02:41.200 Like that was one of the taglines. 00:02:41.200 --> 00:02:41.800 Is that right? 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:42.720 Did I get that right? 00:02:42.720 --> 00:02:43.080 Yeah. 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:43.740 Yeah. 00:02:43.740 --> 00:02:44.960 Yeah. 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:48.900 To be honest, I feel like I just have always, I'm curious. 00:02:48.900 --> 00:02:51.260 And I really like people. 00:02:51.260 --> 00:03:16.560 And I have been pleasantly surprised every time I have sat across the table from somebody that I didn't know, you know, I knew very little about going into or even maybe had assumptions about, you know, going into the conversation and that had that moment of connection, that moment of realization that, you know, that we're, you know, so alike. 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:27.380 And so, and, and I really don't know when, you know, if I was to think back when I decided or when I started calling myself a storyteller, because I think it was probably always there. 00:03:27.380 --> 00:03:28.160 Yeah. 00:03:28.160 --> 00:03:28.960 Yeah. 00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:29.220 Yeah. 00:03:29.220 --> 00:03:30.240 Yeah. 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:31.200 That's, that's cool. 00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:31.780 What? 00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:32.580 So, okay. 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:42.760 So that's a, so hard one to pin down the beginning of, I guess that's, that's, that's something I always do with all of, all of the guests is I always try to kind of like start from the beginning. 00:03:42.760 --> 00:03:43.420 You know what I mean? 00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:57.580 It's like, what, what were your early, if we change it a little bit around to say, instead of storyteller, talk about community building, what are the things that happened to you or in your life that were formative that made you interested in community? 00:03:57.580 --> 00:03:58.560 Maybe tell us a little bit. 00:03:58.560 --> 00:03:59.640 So I grew up in Utah. 00:03:59.640 --> 00:04:03.560 I grew up in a, in a suburb of Salt Lake City called Murray. 00:04:03.560 --> 00:04:07.340 I was born actually in Provo, which is about an hour and a half South. 00:04:07.340 --> 00:04:15.140 If you know where the Brigham Young University is, that's where I was born, but have my parents moved to Murray when I was one years old. 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:17.560 I'm the oldest daughter of eight kids. 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:19.400 I have one older sibling. 00:04:19.400 --> 00:04:20.040 Yeah. 00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:26.080 And so, so, um, being one of eight community was literally, I was literally born into it. 00:04:26.080 --> 00:04:26.380 Right. 00:04:26.380 --> 00:04:31.120 Um, my father's family specifically was always really, really tight. 00:04:31.200 --> 00:04:37.780 My, my grandfather, Jack had his, his family was from Holland and he was an only child. 00:04:37.780 --> 00:04:51.640 And since most of his family did not reside in the States or, or were not close by, they moved to the States and, and their, their religious community was more their family, you know, being, being here in the state of Utah. 00:04:51.640 --> 00:04:54.200 And then, but then family was so important to them. 00:04:54.200 --> 00:04:56.540 So they had, they had five sons. 00:04:56.540 --> 00:05:04.360 One son passed away, unfortunately from cancer when he was young, but the four other sons, my dad's the oldest of the five sons. 00:05:04.360 --> 00:05:10.600 They all had big families and they all lived within, gosh, like five, 10 minute drive of us all growing up. 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:12.340 We all went to like the same schools. 00:05:12.340 --> 00:05:18.820 And, um, so there was like 30 cousins and, you know, it was just, it was really, it was really big. 00:05:18.820 --> 00:05:20.060 You're all tossing. 00:05:20.060 --> 00:05:26.120 I mean, if you upset the, if anybody upset you in school, there'd be like a rebellion or a movement. 00:05:26.120 --> 00:05:26.560 Yeah. 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:27.360 Nice. 00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:28.020 That's fun. 00:05:28.020 --> 00:05:33.620 My dad's family has like, you know, a really big family membership like that. 00:05:33.620 --> 00:05:42.940 And then my mom's family has like a couple, you know, but yeah, not like that effect when you get like one family that has like eight or six or whatever. 00:05:42.940 --> 00:05:44.940 And then all of them have eight or six. 00:05:44.940 --> 00:05:49.020 That's like, that's really, uh, that's fun. 00:05:49.020 --> 00:05:49.920 No, that's cool. 00:05:50.060 --> 00:05:50.360 Sorry. 00:05:50.360 --> 00:05:51.280 I interrupted here. 00:05:51.280 --> 00:05:52.140 What were you saying? 00:05:52.140 --> 00:05:55.780 No, I was going to say, I mean, we still, to this day, our family is so important. 00:05:55.780 --> 00:06:05.820 All of my siblings live within a, within a 40 minute drive and we see each other quite frequently and talk to each other all the time and, you know, kind of know what's going on in each other's lives. 00:06:05.820 --> 00:06:18.120 And I, so I think, I think that that like community builder thing was kind of like ingrained or, you know, bred, bred into us in some way, you know, or it's just, it is just what it, just what it is. 00:06:18.120 --> 00:06:21.420 I also can think back to early childhood. 00:06:21.420 --> 00:06:25.020 And I, I guess I just really have, I just have always liked people. 00:06:25.020 --> 00:06:26.740 I, I, I'm a talker. 00:06:26.740 --> 00:06:28.020 I like connecting. 00:06:28.020 --> 00:06:36.180 My, my parents said that in kindergarten, my, my teachers said that I was, I was bright, but I was too chatty. 00:06:36.180 --> 00:06:46.600 You know, it was like, I, it was hard to keep me focused and listening because I was very, you know, interested in what's going on with the, you know, with the, the, the neighbor sitting next to me or, you know, whatever else. 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:50.200 And then grew up in a family that was very into sports. 00:06:50.200 --> 00:06:57.540 And, and I, I was the one kind of a little bit odd man out because everybody else grew up playing soccer and that was always such a big piece. 00:06:57.540 --> 00:07:14.040 And I was a dancer, but, but again, like, you know, the, the structure of community and having, you know, a group that you, that you belong to and are kind of like, you know, partially responsible for and, and can support, you know, throughout life's ups and downs and whatever. 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:18.900 It's just, it's always just been a piece of, of, of, yeah, that's awesome. 00:07:18.900 --> 00:07:19.560 Yeah. 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:24.600 I often think about how community building can be thankless work. 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:26.960 I've done some of my own work in this space. 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:30.440 I had a sort of pseudo non-profit that I started. 00:07:30.440 --> 00:07:36.760 I've started different events, hosted different, you know, like communities and meetup groups and all that kind of stuff over the years. 00:07:36.760 --> 00:07:54.580 And, you know, it's like, it's interesting just to see what people are sort of aware of the costs, but it's like the value of it is already so agreed that, you know, it's not like anybody had to convince you to value this, you know, because it's like, yeah, I mean, it's like, it's like breathing, right? 00:07:54.580 --> 00:07:57.440 Like, how could you even imagine life, you know, without it? 00:07:57.440 --> 00:08:00.920 And so it's just sort of a core, core element of who you are. 00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:03.600 At least that's, that's what I get from your story anyway. 00:08:03.600 --> 00:08:04.240 Absolutely. 00:08:05.340 --> 00:08:07.100 But yeah, no, that's, that's cool. 00:08:07.100 --> 00:08:09.460 So, okay. 00:08:09.460 --> 00:08:13.740 So now it's like, from zero years old, this was sort of baked in view. 00:08:13.740 --> 00:08:15.140 So, okay, I got that. 00:08:15.140 --> 00:08:18.900 And then what did you, what was your, what was your career journey? 00:08:18.980 --> 00:08:21.460 I know we'll, we'll eventually get to what you're doing now. 00:08:21.460 --> 00:08:25.860 I know you're working a lot with local media and local business and stuff like that, which is awesome. 00:08:25.860 --> 00:08:30.920 But like, what was your journey like in the middle career wise? 00:08:30.920 --> 00:08:36.480 Or did you have anything that you did prior to what you're now doing with, with the, yeah. 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:37.720 Tell me a little bit about that. 00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:42.020 Right out of college, I worked for a company in healthcare staffing. 00:08:42.020 --> 00:08:44.320 If you know the industry, it's called locum tenens. 00:08:44.320 --> 00:08:50.120 It's essentially, you know, hospitals, hospital systems, healthcare systems that need coverage. 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:55.580 Oftentimes they're looking to hire full-time physicians that are struggling to. 00:08:55.580 --> 00:09:01.500 A lot of times it's smaller community, you know, rural community hospitals that are needing additional help. 00:09:01.920 --> 00:09:03.800 And I worked as a physician recruiter. 00:09:03.800 --> 00:09:11.880 I started out as, as working with kind of the baby specialties, the obstetricians and pediatricians and, you know, kind of all those subspecialties. 00:09:11.880 --> 00:09:13.680 And then moved into emergency medicine. 00:09:13.680 --> 00:09:17.160 I worked for that company for over 10 years. 00:09:17.160 --> 00:09:27.580 And, and the being kind of, I guess, in the business side of medicine definitely was not fulfilling to me, but making those human connections always was. 00:09:27.580 --> 00:09:29.620 You're, you're filling, you're filling a need. 00:09:29.740 --> 00:09:36.860 But you're working as a recruiter, you're making a connection with an individual or a, or a community and making those matches. 00:09:36.860 --> 00:09:50.000 I used to joke that I was, I was essentially not in sales or in, even in recruiting, that I was a matchmaker because you're, you know, you're kind of assessing both sides and what's going to make, what's going to meet the need on, on both sides. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:55.560 And I left that career at the end of 2018 in order to start the community magazine. 00:09:55.560 --> 00:09:56.480 Okay, cool. 00:09:56.620 --> 00:10:02.900 So you had a pretty, compared to some people, you had a pretty efficient path because you didn't have tons of detours. 00:10:02.900 --> 00:10:06.620 You did that for 10 years and then jumped into what you're now doing. 00:10:06.620 --> 00:10:07.820 So that's cool. 00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:11.480 I find that like, that's interesting and rare, I guess. 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:11.840 I don't know. 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:16.060 It's my tenure at different jobs kind of like can vary a lot. 00:10:16.060 --> 00:10:21.840 It's like, you know, I've been at, you know, I've been at a job for eight years now, which is like the longest that I've been in one job. 00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:25.800 But some of them were much longer and shorter, those stints before that. 00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:26.740 But yeah. 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:28.700 Yeah, no, that's, that's cool. 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:35.600 Well, that's, you know, you seem like a person who has like a really strong vision, I feel like, of what you want in life. 00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:43.640 And so it kind of fits, you know, it's like, okay, you did this thing for a while, you know, and then you jumped over to your, your current endeavor, you know, which makes sense. 00:10:43.640 --> 00:10:48.200 Because I feel like you're somebody who has a really clear idea, you know, of what you're looking for. 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:48.940 So yeah. 00:10:48.940 --> 00:10:52.300 So tell me a little bit about your business now. 00:10:52.300 --> 00:10:55.820 And, you know, that's kind of, I love that you're helping local business. 00:10:55.820 --> 00:11:05.420 And, you know, that's kind of what I'm doing is kind of spotlighting people who are, who are out there building communities and doing that sort of sometimes thankless work. 00:11:05.420 --> 00:11:21.500 Because I think that I just feel like, so personally, right, it's like, I've spent 20 years being on a computer screen, I've, I've built relationships with people most strongly, of course, with the teams that I've built, because I, I build engineering teams, you know what I mean? 00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:34.700 And so I have a tight cadre of people who are engineers, and that sort of thing, work together a lot and closely, but not necessarily, you know, it's not always like a huge community of people that you interact with every day. 00:11:34.700 --> 00:11:42.980 But that being said, you know, after a long time of doing that, I just kind of, I've been more interested in focusing on the community piece and on the connection piece. 00:11:42.980 --> 00:11:50.260 And so, yeah, that's where, that's where I got the idea anyway, for this, this whole podcast. 00:11:50.260 --> 00:11:56.080 So, but tell me a little bit about what your, your work is today and how you're, how you're helping your community. 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:56.780 Yeah. 00:11:56.780 --> 00:12:03.180 So I'll give you just, even just a little bit of background of why I decided to, to leave the corporate job that I was working. 00:12:03.180 --> 00:12:12.860 Because I think oftentimes people are, well, to kind of address some of what you were saying, I mean, I do think I have like a very clear vision of what I want now. 00:12:12.860 --> 00:12:25.340 And my, you know, my tenure with the healthcare staffing company was long and structured and, you know, I, I, I was very goal oriented within that and, you know, climbed to the corporate ladder. 00:12:25.640 --> 00:12:37.600 And, and I think I, I, it, at that point was, was quite purposeful, but I, but I do think there was, there was always a piece of me that was always kind of not, not fulfilled. 00:12:37.600 --> 00:12:37.940 Right. 00:12:37.940 --> 00:12:40.900 I was really looking for something that was, that was different. 00:12:40.900 --> 00:12:44.560 And so during that time, I actually got, I got really into fitness. 00:12:44.560 --> 00:12:51.380 I was a fitness coach, worked at a handful of studios over the years and became a running coach. 00:12:51.620 --> 00:13:00.420 Um, distance running became a big piece of my life and part of it was to, you know, to, to, to be physically fit. 00:13:00.420 --> 00:13:05.700 Part of it was to be mentally fit, but so much more of it was the communities that are part of that. 00:13:05.700 --> 00:13:05.980 Right. 00:13:05.980 --> 00:13:14.480 So if you're, we're out on the road at 4 30 AM in the morning, it's less about the miles after a certain point. 00:13:14.480 --> 00:13:20.340 It's more about those relationships, the, the, the people that are your, your fitness partners, right? 00:13:20.340 --> 00:13:28.140 The people that you're, that you're training for that marathon with that you're out there for hours, talking their ears off, update, you know, catching up on life. 00:13:28.140 --> 00:13:33.620 And, you know, it's more, it ends up being a lot more about the human connection than anything else. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:37.120 That's interesting. I never, I thought, I've always thought of running as very solo. 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:42.260 I, I have a, so I, it's too bad, you know, like you could have been my coach. 00:13:42.260 --> 00:13:43.340 I was a terrible runner. 00:13:43.340 --> 00:13:51.660 You know, when I was in high school, I, I used to have this thing where I couldn't even finish like the mile that they made you run in high school. 00:13:51.660 --> 00:13:56.740 And I figured this out about maybe like four or five years ago or something like that. 00:13:56.740 --> 00:13:58.780 So quite a long time passed. 00:13:58.780 --> 00:14:03.480 And I realized that for whatever reason, I just have to really, really focus on the exhale. 00:14:03.640 --> 00:14:07.920 If I don't, I'd start to hyperventilate, I guess, and didn't really realize that was happening. 00:14:07.920 --> 00:14:09.640 And that was why I was so stuck. 00:14:09.640 --> 00:14:17.760 But like, it's a really hard mindfulness practice for me because for some reason, my default is like, is the wires are crossed and it doesn't work. 00:14:17.760 --> 00:14:22.420 But all that, just to say, I always thought of running as being more of a solo thing. 00:14:22.420 --> 00:14:27.980 So why is it that, why does running out, I didn't know people are out there chatting it up about, I thought you said. 00:14:27.980 --> 00:14:36.980 Yeah, yeah, well, and I, and I'm not going to pretend to know the science behind it, but you actually sync with the person that you're running with. 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:40.620 Your stride, your stride syncs, right? 00:14:40.620 --> 00:14:48.760 I don't know if sometime you'll have to pay attention to this and, or maybe you'll, you'll find a good running buddy and you'll, you'll, you'll experience it yourself. 00:14:48.760 --> 00:14:56.060 But if you pay attention to any group of runners that are running together, there's, they are stepping in sync. 00:14:56.060 --> 00:14:57.980 They are breathing in sync. 00:14:57.980 --> 00:15:05.500 There is, there's something happening there where the humans are actually like, literally, it's like they're, they're, they're connecting. 00:15:05.500 --> 00:15:06.680 Their energies are connecting. 00:15:06.980 --> 00:15:22.520 But there's also, since so much of it is mental, we, we, by talking and distracting yourself, you actually are, are able to kind of get past a lot of that, the mental struggle, you know, the mental, the mental hurdles of it. 00:15:22.520 --> 00:15:25.320 And then it also, it actually regulates your breath. 00:15:25.320 --> 00:15:26.020 Yeah. 00:15:26.020 --> 00:15:26.580 Yeah. 00:15:26.580 --> 00:15:27.580 Yeah. 00:15:27.580 --> 00:15:28.700 A lot of that checks out. 00:15:28.700 --> 00:15:34.720 It tracks, there's, there's actually, I don't know how many, but I can think of, I won't wrap a trail on it, 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:41.340 but I can think of two or three right off the top of my head, other human biology processes that tend to sink and stuff like that. 00:15:41.340 --> 00:15:41.660 So. 00:15:41.660 --> 00:15:42.520 Yes. 00:15:42.520 --> 00:15:43.280 Yes. 00:15:43.280 --> 00:15:43.480 Yeah. 00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:48.860 Well, and then, you know, I, I, any, I mean, I, I, I still very much believe this. 00:15:48.860 --> 00:15:57.720 I think that anybody that is, if you have a fitness goal, if you're going, you're going to be much more successful if you do it with somebody, whether it's a partner or in a group setting. 00:15:57.720 --> 00:16:04.160 And I got into coaching at Orange Theory Fitness, which that's, that's a, that's a community in itself, right? 00:16:04.160 --> 00:16:17.300 I mean, you know, you, you hear people joke about the different like fitness cults, whether it be what's the, the, the current kind of craze is, you know, so many of my, my friends have been competing in that high rocks community, but, but it is a community. 00:16:17.300 --> 00:16:18.780 And that's the point of it, right? 00:16:18.780 --> 00:16:24.400 It's, is that people come together and celebrate each other's wins and push each other when they hit that wall. 00:16:24.400 --> 00:16:27.120 And, um, the running community was like that. 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:39.820 And if you go to a marathon and you're watching, yes, there's the elite runners that are coming through, you know, early on, but so much more of it is, you know, is, is the, the people that are, you know, they're running for a loved one or, you know, whatever else. 00:16:39.820 --> 00:16:52.360 And as they're hitting that wall, the other runners are picking them up and carrying them through, you know, and so, so that for me, while I was in corporate America, one is how I was making, you know, giving myself that greater sense of fulfillment. 00:16:52.360 --> 00:17:00.160 But I was also burning myself out because I was getting up at 3 a.m. and going to bed super late and working my, you know, nine to five in the middle. 00:17:00.160 --> 00:17:02.420 And, you know, it was just, it was, it was a lot. 00:17:02.420 --> 00:17:07.300 And so then, so this is the, this is the pathway to what I was, you know, doing now. 00:17:07.300 --> 00:17:11.360 So my husband at the time was a Park City firefighter. 00:17:11.360 --> 00:17:22.200 So where I live in, in Utah is a, an amazingly beautiful mountain town, you know, and we had worked really, really hard to build a, to build a dream home up in the mountains here. 00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:34.020 And, um, part of what we chose and the reason we chose it was because it was, even though it's, it's only about a 30 minute drive to Salt Lake City where I was working, it feels like you are up in the middle of nowhere. 00:17:34.020 --> 00:17:40.160 It's, you know, it's here, you're surrounded by trees, very little neighbors, um, close by. 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:46.340 And my, my husband at the time, he was, you know, building this great community now where we lived, right? 00:17:46.340 --> 00:17:51.040 Or at the time where we lived, he, the, the fire department is a huge community, right? 00:17:51.040 --> 00:18:06.280 They live with each other for, you know, for 48 hours every single week, but they also socialize together and, you know, and so I was working these crazy grueling hours, you know, leaving, leaving the house at, you know, four in the morning, coming back, you know, super late at night. 00:18:06.280 --> 00:18:10.160 I wasn't making any connections with this new community that we were living in. 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:16.280 And when I did have time there, we lived so, what felt so remote, I was starting to get really depressed. 00:18:16.280 --> 00:18:19.420 I was, my mental health was really not doing well. 00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:25.240 And so the decision was made to sell that home and for me to pursue something else. 00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:28.540 And I met a gentleman who was a publisher. 00:18:28.540 --> 00:18:34.920 He ran a community magazine in one of the, the towns or one of the suburbs where I was coaching fitness. 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:41.740 And he told me about this, about best version media, about the publishing partner that he utilized for his community magazine. 00:18:41.740 --> 00:18:44.180 And, you know, I researched it a bit. 00:18:44.180 --> 00:18:48.700 It just aligned with everything that I had always hoped that I could do. 00:18:48.700 --> 00:18:51.040 My degree was in journalism. 00:18:51.040 --> 00:18:58.640 I graduated with a degree in journalism, a minor in health communication, which is kind of how I got into the healthcare staffing world. 00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:02.500 But I always dreamed of writing for magazines. 00:19:02.500 --> 00:19:06.400 I always dreamed of writing those long format features. 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:15.400 And, you know, in the early 2000s, even our professors were telling us, well, nobody's, you know, print's dying and nobody, you know, nobody's writing for magazines anymore. 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:17.920 And, you know, everybody's blogging these days. 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:28.980 And so they advised us to, you know, to, even our professors were advising us to think smarter and to go into, you know, smarter, go into business and, you know, and so to have that plan. 00:19:28.980 --> 00:19:34.420 And this, this really, initially, I wasn't certain that this could be a business. 00:19:34.420 --> 00:19:37.520 I wasn't totally set on this being a business. 00:19:37.520 --> 00:19:43.960 I thought maybe it would be my, my passion project, my hobby on the side, but it has become so much more than that. 00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:55.160 It is, it is a business that is very profitable, but it also is the, the piece that's so much more is, is the, that I've created such a large community. 00:19:55.300 --> 00:20:07.660 You know, and, and, and it's not just benefiting me, it's affecting, you know, so many people in the community in such a positive way that I, I mean, if you can't tell, I'm so passionate about it. 00:20:07.660 --> 00:20:13.040 It's just like, it was just really, it's, I mean, it's, it really has changed, you know, it's changed my life. 00:20:13.040 --> 00:20:15.780 So it's, it's, yeah. 00:20:16.420 --> 00:20:23.560 And, and, and, and at the heart of it, it's human connection, which is when you just don't even know that you need it as badly as you need it. 00:20:23.560 --> 00:20:23.880 Yeah. 00:20:23.880 --> 00:20:28.280 And I think print publication lends itself well to it's all form that you're talking about. 00:20:28.280 --> 00:20:30.340 Storytelling also really comes in here. 00:20:30.340 --> 00:20:37.800 If you're telling the story of, uh, you know, a local business and like bringing in the human element, making those people feel like they're real. 00:20:37.800 --> 00:20:47.940 And hey, they're not just very much, very much antithetical to the sort of parasocial in a lot of cases, things that are like 10 million people follow this YouTube personality. 00:20:47.940 --> 00:20:51.380 It's like, there's no meaningful chance to interact with this person. 00:20:51.380 --> 00:20:55.480 And yet we, for whatever reason, it's like, people love that and that's fine. 00:20:55.480 --> 00:20:57.300 But, um, but yeah. 00:20:57.300 --> 00:21:03.340 So I want to go back a little bit, cause I think there's your, you mentioned how it's so interesting. 00:21:03.340 --> 00:21:07.580 I have no, so, so I did something very similar to what you talked about. 00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:09.820 So I, I, I started over in life. 00:21:09.820 --> 00:21:11.200 I moved across the country. 00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:13.460 That's like literally everything I have behind. 00:21:13.460 --> 00:21:19.380 And I ended up, I'm, I ended up in New Mexico and lived in Taos, which is also a ski town. 00:21:19.380 --> 00:21:26.440 And, um, I even, I bought 11 acre property on the North side of a mountain and, uh, you know, a valley. 00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:30.040 And then like the, the, the sort of top of the mountain on the North side of it. 00:21:30.040 --> 00:21:32.360 And, uh, I never did build up there. 00:21:32.360 --> 00:21:35.880 Like I planned and there was like these crazy switchbacks just to get up there. 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:37.600 Cause it really, it was really like tough. 00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:40.660 But I want, I wonder what it is. 00:21:40.660 --> 00:21:45.840 Somebody like Seth, you know, I, I have my, I'm an extrovert in certain ways. 00:21:45.840 --> 00:21:49.340 And then I, I like, you know, get into my own projects. 00:21:49.340 --> 00:21:53.220 I write a lot of code and I'm like in the dungeon by myself doing that a lot. 00:21:53.320 --> 00:22:00.460 But, you know, I wonder what makes people, what do you think, what, what, what drove you to do that? 00:22:00.460 --> 00:22:07.000 Because there's such an obvious contradiction between being like community driven and then being like 30 minutes up into the mountain. 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:14.980 And because like, I did exactly this, like what you just described to me, I had this story and I also, you know, there's a couple of different chapters in my life. 00:22:14.980 --> 00:22:21.460 But in my second marriage and my wife is, we were living in New Mexico and we were 30, 40 miles from everything. 00:22:21.460 --> 00:22:25.540 And we moved for that because it was like, it became too much, you know what I mean? 00:22:25.740 --> 00:22:36.020 So what do you, why do you think people, what is it that makes people want to like live in the mountains, but also like, it's like, oh, I want community, but I also want to like live really far from everybody. 00:22:36.020 --> 00:22:39.020 I don't, I don't know why I did that. 00:22:39.020 --> 00:22:40.200 Maybe, you know, why you did. 00:22:40.200 --> 00:22:40.840 Yeah. 00:22:40.840 --> 00:22:47.560 Well, I've analyzed it a lot with myself too, because I think there's something there's just like in everything, there's a spectrum. 00:22:47.560 --> 00:22:52.800 And I feel like we're, we all, you know, like it's, it's the, we're, none of us are black and white. 00:22:52.800 --> 00:22:59.820 And, and so it's like, we each need, we need a little bit of everything and, and to different, you know, varying degrees. 00:22:59.820 --> 00:23:05.520 So, you know, I think I romanticize it so much because I love the being connected to nature. 00:23:05.520 --> 00:23:07.580 I love, you know, I'm, I'm a backpacker. 00:23:07.580 --> 00:23:08.660 I'm a trail runner. 00:23:08.660 --> 00:23:09.340 Me too. 00:23:09.340 --> 00:23:10.440 Not the trail running. 00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:10.740 I'm a biker. 00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:20.120 There's something really healing for me in my soul being in a moment where there's no other human beings around. 00:23:20.120 --> 00:23:28.220 And I'm, and I'm, you know, and, and I'm like convening with nature, you know, it's, it's, there's, there's something really healing about it. 00:23:28.220 --> 00:23:36.500 Now you take the, the, you, you take it off the plate where you're not able to then have the balance of connecting with some, some human beings to, to balance it out. 00:23:36.500 --> 00:23:38.360 And I think it becomes miserable. 00:23:38.360 --> 00:23:45.740 So you, you, we, we all learned this in such a, such a powerful way during the, especially during the early part of the pandemic. 00:23:45.740 --> 00:24:00.360 You know, when, when people were suddenly inside and having no, no interaction with anybody outside other than zoom calls or through, you know, through our devices and, and our mental health spiked. 00:24:00.460 --> 00:24:15.020 Now, if, if it had been, if it had been a one week vacation where we were planning it and knew that we were going to be off the grid and, and disconnect it, it, the, the, the value would have been, you know, that like, you know, the value would have been there. 00:24:15.100 --> 00:24:24.260 It's funny because the intro, the intro to this podcast says there's a different kind of sickness that comes from not meeting people in the flesh. 00:24:24.260 --> 00:24:25.100 You know what I mean? 00:24:25.100 --> 00:24:30.360 So I was talking about exactly that, but yeah, so that's wild. 00:24:30.360 --> 00:24:30.740 Yeah. 00:24:30.740 --> 00:24:32.660 And also I identify a lot too. 00:24:32.660 --> 00:24:40.780 I, I very much, I, I say a lot to people that I moved kind of to the middle of nowhere, had a sort of crazy monastic experience in a way. 00:24:40.780 --> 00:24:42.900 And then it was very healing for me as well. 00:24:42.900 --> 00:24:46.400 So I really relate to that, but, but yeah, that's cool. 00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:48.100 Well, so yeah, I don't know. 00:24:48.100 --> 00:24:48.660 Yeah. 00:24:48.660 --> 00:24:49.560 It's weird, isn't it? 00:24:49.560 --> 00:25:02.240 Cause you, you think, yeah, you think you, it's like, yeah, you know, actually I just had another episode that David Spinks and I talked about this, where he was talking about how we need, he's like, we need shallow connection. 00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:03.360 We need deep connection. 00:25:03.360 --> 00:25:12.240 We need people that are like sports fans that are friends, people that are, you know, like all kinds of different levels of different places where you can be serious. 00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:14.680 Places where you can be playful, you know what I mean? 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:15.480 All that kind of thing. 00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:16.540 So yeah. 00:25:16.540 --> 00:25:26.700 And I think when you lock yourself in, that's the challenge, I guess I would say is that when you, when you commit all the way and it's like, okay, I'm going to go live off the grid in the monastery and never see. 00:25:26.940 --> 00:25:31.840 Although monastery of course is not quite that right because there's other humans, you know, but you know what I mean? 00:25:31.840 --> 00:25:39.580 Like when you're going to actually commit to being totally in the middle of nowhere like that, you find out that like your needs are very, are actually varied. 00:25:40.100 --> 00:25:44.120 And, you know, it's kind of, it's, it's, it's, you need a whole spectrum of interaction. 00:25:44.120 --> 00:25:45.080 Yeah. 00:25:45.080 --> 00:25:46.100 But yeah, that's, that's cool. 00:25:46.100 --> 00:25:49.300 So we'll see you're definitely somebody who understands connection very well. 00:25:49.300 --> 00:25:51.300 At least that's my, my impression. 00:25:51.300 --> 00:25:59.360 So tell me a little bit about what you're doing, like how you, I guess, actually, you know, if you're up for it, I'm going to put you on the spot. 00:25:59.360 --> 00:26:10.580 Do you have an anecdote that comes to mind in terms of a, you know, a particularly meaningful opportunity that you've had to tell somebody's story that, you know, really stands out? 00:26:10.580 --> 00:26:17.020 Because I mean, I know you do this and it's like, it's hard to pick a favorite because like every month you're, you're telling lots of stories, obviously. 00:26:17.020 --> 00:26:24.100 But I'd love to hear if you have something in mind that's a singular antidote about something that really stands out for you. 00:26:24.100 --> 00:26:24.840 Singular. 00:26:24.840 --> 00:26:25.880 Well, so. 00:26:25.880 --> 00:26:28.800 I know there's, yeah, it's like, you know, 00:26:28.800 --> 00:26:34.880 I've almost said, or yeah, nearly eight years of being able to tell these community stories or, you know, individual stories. 00:26:34.880 --> 00:26:45.060 I think part of what makes this so special and it's, and it's what makes, it's why our publication is unique in the community and in Park City specifically, we're a small mountain town. 00:26:45.060 --> 00:26:48.740 There's in Park City proper, there's about 8,000 full-time residents. 00:26:48.740 --> 00:26:50.540 So it's a, it's a small community. 00:26:50.540 --> 00:26:58.400 Now, if you go out broader, as we've developed into the, into the Wasatch back, you know, there's, there's quite a few, you know, quite a few more residents. 00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:01.420 And in the, in the valley where we live. 00:27:01.420 --> 00:27:03.340 And how far is, how far is Salt Lake? 00:27:03.340 --> 00:27:05.380 Because people come from Salt Lake up there to ski, right? 00:27:05.380 --> 00:27:05.600 Yeah. 00:27:05.600 --> 00:27:07.300 We're so close. 00:27:07.300 --> 00:27:07.500 Yeah. 00:27:07.500 --> 00:27:14.920 So it's part, again, it's one of those, I'm very, I'm very much in love with, with our community here because that's part of the draw to it as well. 00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:20.600 Is that we're 35 minutes, 30, 35 minutes away from an international airport in Salt Lake. 00:27:20.600 --> 00:27:28.840 So unlike, you know, a lot of the other, like, you know, the communities around Denver, there's, we have, we have a very short commute to our airport. 00:27:28.840 --> 00:27:37.440 So we can feel, we can be living up in the mountains and walking the trails with elk and, and moose and bobcats and whatever else. 00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:43.680 And then be on a plane to, to Amsterdam or London in, you know, in, in less than an hour. 00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:48.360 So it, it really is, it really is lovely and unique, but, but yeah, so it's a small community. 00:27:48.520 --> 00:27:51.160 We had our first female mayor. 00:27:51.160 --> 00:27:53.840 She just finished her term about a year ago. 00:27:53.840 --> 00:27:58.900 And one of my favorite things, I got to interview her before she went into politics. 00:27:58.900 --> 00:28:00.500 She was not a career politician. 00:28:00.500 --> 00:28:11.840 She was in, um, mostly in, in education and, and, and philanthropy, but, um, had decided to, you know, to, to, uh, pursue the, the, I don't like, I was going to call it a mayordom. 00:28:11.840 --> 00:28:13.620 I don't know what you'd call it, the mayorship. 00:28:13.620 --> 00:28:15.100 I don't know what you'd call it. 00:28:15.100 --> 00:28:17.640 I wonder, maybe just mayordom. 00:28:17.720 --> 00:28:18.140 I don't know. 00:28:18.140 --> 00:28:18.900 We'll have to look that up. 00:28:18.900 --> 00:28:19.140 Mayor. 00:28:19.140 --> 00:28:19.400 Yeah. 00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:19.940 Yeah. 00:28:19.940 --> 00:28:29.300 But, but I, I got to interview her before and was very, very impressed with who she was as a, as a person, not getting into her politics whatsoever, because that's not our platform. 00:28:29.300 --> 00:28:30.960 Um, that's not who we are. 00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:47.700 And then I got to interview her after and, and it, what ends up being, I think such a big, something powerful is that it's when, when somebody kind of stops telling the rehearsed piece of who they are, you know, like she's, she had, she wasn't a career politician. 00:28:47.720 --> 00:28:58.380 But obviously over a four year period there, there's a transformation there's, you know, she's, she's, um, she's responsible for, you know, meeting certain requirements. 00:28:58.380 --> 00:29:04.920 And she's got staff that are, you know, kind of maybe editing things that, that, uh, she can and can't say and, or should or shouldn't say. 00:29:05.060 --> 00:29:19.720 And we got to just sit down and talk about what it was like to be a mother, what it was like to be a wife, what it was like to, you know, put off her, her life in the pursuit of, of supporting her community in such a, an altruistic way. 00:29:19.720 --> 00:29:24.560 Um, and during her mayorship, she had actually, her, her adult son had, had passed. 00:29:24.560 --> 00:29:40.220 He had lost his life and to have to go through that grief in, in, in, while, while in office, um, was something that she really couldn't talk about or, or wasn't, um, able to, I think talk about right until, until after the fact. 00:29:40.220 --> 00:29:45.440 And being able to sit down and have just that, I mean, just real conversation. 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:55.360 And it's like, and, and we're a platform that because of who we are and the, the stories that we share, that all the, the people that we represent and tell their story, they know that we're not, it's not a gotcha type of thing. 00:29:55.360 --> 00:30:07.080 We're not looking to be salacious or, or, or, you know, we're there to just really tell the story that, that how they, how they would like to, to be, you know, to the truest version of themselves. 00:30:07.080 --> 00:30:26.360 Right. And when she was able to put that out in the community, she said that the, the outpouring of support because people then didn't see her as the mayor anymore, you know, they, they saw her as just somebody that, that had, that had had experiences like they had had, you know, and they saw her in a different light. 00:30:26.360 --> 00:30:33.540 And, but I, but we've been able, you know, I've gotten to tell some really, really amazing stories of, you know, um, people that are so behind the scenes. 00:30:33.540 --> 00:30:41.060 These are, you know, park city has like famous, you know, famous people, athletes, Olympians, former people from Hollywood that have, that have moved here. 00:30:41.060 --> 00:30:45.780 Michael Jordan, you know, was famously a big member of this community for a long time. 00:30:45.780 --> 00:30:51.420 You know, there's like, there's, there's, there's a lot of, a lot of, of kind of fame and fortune here. 00:30:51.420 --> 00:31:07.780 And I'm so pleased to be the one who gets to tell the story of the, the grocery, you know, um, checker and, uh, you know, the, the woman who works at the hostess stand that gets, gets the locals in, you know, 00:31:07.780 --> 00:31:21.480 gets the, sneaks our, our, our name on the list, you know, in between all of the tourists and, you know, like it's, it's just being like, it's not about the, the, the mayor really, you know, it's just about, it's about the humans. 00:31:21.480 --> 00:31:29.160 It's just, it's, it's, so that might've been, you know, one of the more powerful, powerful stories, but it's, it's just, it's so much more than. 00:31:29.300 --> 00:31:30.640 Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. 00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:31.220 Yeah. 00:31:31.220 --> 00:31:50.400 Like one of my main inspirations for this show was, uh, I'm sure you're, you're probably familiar with humans in New York, you know, and that would just take like, I feel like the, the, the theme of that was sort of like the unexpected was kind of the theme, you know, it's like take something that's very juxtaposed, you know what I mean? 00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:54.360 Like somebody who their story is just so wild, you know what I mean? 00:31:54.360 --> 00:31:55.620 And it's focused on that. 00:31:55.620 --> 00:32:07.480 And now the people who I have on, they don't all necessarily have a really crazy story, but we're all, I'm trying to just draw attention to people who are out there, you know, helping the community and stuff like that. 00:32:07.480 --> 00:32:21.960 And so I think that we're in a time where, like we said, you know, and like COVID really contributed, I think we're being locked down and sort of really made people realize like, oh, well, and then AI is just multiplying the effect or compounding it, right? 00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:38.860 Where it's like, I think, I think there's people, there are stories, stories that, that like make money, you know, stories like Star Wars or whatever, you know, they tend to actually start with that example because they have a bit of a diversity there. 00:32:38.860 --> 00:32:45.120 A lot of stories make, make things out to be all one way, you know, and I always think that things are never all one way. 00:32:45.120 --> 00:32:54.840 Right. It's actually every, every, it's like, as time progresses, there's different ways that people exist in the world and they, they still all, all the previous ones never go away. 00:32:54.840 --> 00:33:05.560 Right. And then you just have this new version and it's like, they keep multiplying. Right. And it's like, I think that in, in line with that, you have people who are somebody who's plugged into the matrix. 00:33:05.560 --> 00:33:21.160 It's scary, it's scary, but that's real. Now you could have a neural chip. You could be like actually jacked into an AI sort of maze that never ends. And you're just kind of like, and there, I think there, you'll have people that are, that are, I mean, social media for some people kind of has been that. 00:33:21.560 --> 00:33:37.560 Next door is like the person who doesn't even have a cell phone and they like, you know, cut their own wood or whatever, you know? And, and so I think they all kind of coexist and you just sort of have, that's the part that a lot of stories, stories tend to need to simplify in order to be marketable. 00:33:37.560 --> 00:33:48.460 It's like you present it as if it's one way when in reality, it's like, it's all the ways, all at once. And there's a, there's a movie about, isn't it? Like everything, everywhere, all at once or something. It's like that. 00:33:48.740 --> 00:33:53.840 Um, I never saw the movie, so I don't know what it is. 00:33:53.840 --> 00:34:04.600 I was about to say, admit that I hadn't seen it. And, and sometimes I have a hard time sitting through movies, so, but I remember hearing that it was like a beautiful story. 00:34:04.600 --> 00:34:17.220 Yeah, yeah, no, I, yeah, I have to watch it. It's not an endorsement for it. I just literally am thinking about the name, but, uh, but anyway, yeah, no, I think that's cool. What do you, so, yeah. 00:34:17.220 --> 00:34:28.280 So tell us a little bit about, so in order to, in order to have a business, presumably you probably, I don't know, have a mortgage, you might have health insurance that you have to pay. 00:34:28.280 --> 00:34:40.120 And so because of that, there's a business side to this as well. I'm curious about that side in the sense that to be able to tell the story about whoever the grocery banger, which isn't necessarily a person that's going to pay you. 00:34:40.120 --> 00:34:48.340 It's like, so obviously partner with, presumably I, I think you partner with local businesses and tell us a little bit about that side of what you do. 00:34:48.340 --> 00:35:04.240 So we, um, yeah, that's the, the business model is exactly that. I partner with local businesses, the, the boutiques, the local restaurants, the, the local dentist, the, you know, the, the plumber, the, you know, HVAC companies, they advertise in the publication. 00:35:04.240 --> 00:35:13.460 We do, I do sell ad space in the magazine, but the majority of what we do is, is a little bit more content, you know, content marketing. 00:35:13.460 --> 00:35:36.740 So we, we, we, we work with them to really kind of uncover who they are as a brand. We help write their, their story for them. And oftentimes, um, because, I mean, I think it's, it, it's even more important now as we become more digital, digital and, and with AI and everything else that, that, um, the human is, is front and center, right? 00:35:36.740 --> 00:35:52.980 I've, I've, I've noticed that so much of, I mean, even larger, you know, larger national or even international brands are starting to move into the world of having, you know, having the human story present because we are so starved for that. 00:35:52.980 --> 00:36:04.540 You know, it's, it's, it's hard to know what's real and what's not real. And, and to be able to have, you know, the founder of a company sitting there telling their story, that's, that holds a lot of value. 00:36:04.540 --> 00:36:30.660 When you look at it from a community standpoint too, you know, there's as, as communities grow, as things evolve and change, as more people move into our beautiful mounted community, you know, my mission or part of the mission is to support the local businesses, to encourage our community to shop at the, the local pet nutrition store, or to make sure that, you know, the person that they're hiring to, to renovate their condo lives here. 00:36:30.660 --> 00:36:46.460 And the money is flowing back into our community versus the larger companies, you know, instead of, instead of ordering, you know, your dog food to your house, why not swing by the, you know, by and, and, and by the, the, the, you know, your dog food from, you know, the, the local business here. 00:36:46.540 --> 00:36:49.840 And, and, and it does, it's, it's, it, it becomes more and more important. 00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:56.980 And I hear it all too often where people are complaining about, you know, losing the like friendliness of a small community. 00:36:56.980 --> 00:37:06.940 And I'm like, okay, well then, you know, when was the last time you walked into the grocery store and actually, you know, said hi, instead of like, you know, ordering your groceries or doing the, the grocery pickup. 00:37:06.940 --> 00:37:20.180 Or, you know, when was the last time that you, that you, you know, went in and, and actually chatted with the, the bartender sat at the bar and, you know, and, and had a drink versus, you know, heading home and turning on Netflix, you know? 00:37:20.300 --> 00:37:28.240 Yeah, it's, it's funny you mentioned that too, because when I moved, I mentioned I moved related to this problem being a little bit less remote. 00:37:28.240 --> 00:37:32.400 And I got to, I have to say, I've been surprised that it's actually very new. 00:37:32.400 --> 00:37:38.400 It's only a month or two that I moved and I've actually bumped into people at the grocery store. 00:37:38.400 --> 00:37:42.740 And it's like where I live is such a small town that never really happened. 00:37:43.240 --> 00:37:52.740 And to sort of bring this full circle, and I think like, you know, because I want to, you know, I like to keep us on track with time, we're sort of winding down here. 00:37:52.740 --> 00:38:04.200 And I think that what, what I'm really interested in is like, it's actually amazing to me that a community of 8,000 is like a primary income source for you. 00:38:04.200 --> 00:38:06.300 Like, I actually, that really surprises me. 00:38:06.300 --> 00:38:23.220 And I'm really impressed by that because, you know, so like my, the town I lived in, like, you know, sort of 30, 40 miles from most things, but it was still a small town that had, it did have a Walmart, which a lot of towns don't even have like a Walmart, you know, but, you know, I think it's about 10,000. 00:38:23.220 --> 00:38:28.380 So similar size, but social dynamics are probably going to play and be different. 00:38:28.380 --> 00:38:33.960 Like, sounds like, you know, if Michael Jordan lives there, that kind of helps like on the economic spectrum or something like that. 00:38:33.960 --> 00:38:46.440 But I'm super interested, just talk a little bit, I think, about how do you think that's possible that such a small community is supporting you as a sort of full time, you know, and actually two things on my mind. 00:38:46.440 --> 00:38:54.060 I want to also invite you to mention, I think you started a new venture kind of doing social media and stuff like that for local businesses. 00:38:54.060 --> 00:38:56.240 So, but I'm really interested in this. 00:38:56.240 --> 00:38:56.840 What do you think? 00:38:57.060 --> 00:39:08.740 Yeah, well, like I, like I said, I think I originally was not 100% sold or certain convinced that this could be, you know, my main source of income. 00:39:08.740 --> 00:39:23.340 I, I, I'm doing well, I should say, you know, I've mentioned a couple of times with Best Version Media, they, they have support about, I don't remember the exact number, I'm going to say about 1300 small community publications. 00:39:23.340 --> 00:39:26.320 It's a, it's a lot, it's large, it's across the United States and Canada. 00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:29.540 And so there's a lot of, of publications. 00:39:29.540 --> 00:39:35.320 Our, our publication, our Park City publication has been the number one publication for the last three years. 00:39:35.480 --> 00:39:37.620 And I believe we will be going into the fourth year. 00:39:37.620 --> 00:39:41.240 Now, part of that is, is just my willingness to grind. 00:39:41.240 --> 00:39:47.160 Part of that has been that I have made true connections with the, with these small business owners. 00:39:47.160 --> 00:40:00.300 And the, this, the, this print medium where we're able to share their story and their, and the community sees their face day in and day or, you know, on their coffee table or whatever, at least once a month. 00:40:00.300 --> 00:40:08.740 Um, you know, it's, it's, it's been very successful for them, but also the reality is that a small business owner can't just advertise in one place anymore. 00:40:08.740 --> 00:40:17.240 My, my dad ran a carpet cleaning business our whole lives and he was able to operate with like as, you know, his yellow page ad alone. 00:40:17.240 --> 00:40:27.020 You know, that was like, yeah, you didn't need to do anything else, you know, well now it's like, you know, you've got to, you, if you're, if you're doing print media, you've also got to do digital ads. 00:40:27.020 --> 00:40:28.760 You've got to be on social media. 00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:30.360 You've got to have a strong website. 00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:32.620 Your reputation online has to be solid. 00:40:32.620 --> 00:40:34.300 You know, people want to see the reviews. 00:40:34.300 --> 00:40:38.540 They need to know that you're, yeah, you're, the information needs to be accurate. 00:40:38.540 --> 00:40:46.000 Your hours need to be accurate on your online and information for a small business owner lives on hundreds of websites and apps these days. 00:40:46.120 --> 00:40:49.180 So there's a lot for a small business owner to do. 00:40:49.180 --> 00:40:52.300 And that's part of what best version media helps us to set up. 00:40:52.300 --> 00:41:02.400 And then, you know, I've taken it that another step further, you know, I've got, we, we, we've created this, this network of, of content creators within our community. 00:41:02.400 --> 00:41:11.560 We've got social media videographers and photographers and, and freelance writing and edit editors that we've, that we've collected over the years. 00:41:11.560 --> 00:41:26.560 And so not only am I like a, you know, a community connector, but I think I'm a little bit of like a, actually used to joke about this even in my recruiting career that I like, you know, that I was like, I was really good at collecting these misfit toys and bringing us all together. 00:41:26.620 --> 00:41:30.580 Like to bring our, our talents and creativity and whatnot all together. 00:41:30.580 --> 00:41:36.660 And so, you know, as I've, as I've been doing this over the years, I've just made all those, those connections. 00:41:36.660 --> 00:41:41.300 And so there's some, in answer to, you know, the financial piece, I don't just support myself. 00:41:41.300 --> 00:41:47.480 Yes, I've got to, I, you know, I am a single woman, I do have a mortgage and a car payment and, you know, insurance and all of that. 00:41:47.480 --> 00:41:57.280 But I have a, of a, of a couple dozen freelancers that also are at least in some part relying on my media company doing well. 00:41:57.280 --> 00:42:04.100 But also that community has proven to be so, I mean, I keep saying community, but it's so important, right? 00:42:04.100 --> 00:42:10.460 I mean, their circle of influence that, you know, is, has proven to be very valuable to my business as well. 00:42:10.460 --> 00:42:27.040 You know, if, if, if Brigham, who, who is, is your, our, our social media guru, if he's out there at a, say a networking event or a community event, or he and his wife are having dinner and he meets somebody that could benefit from my services, he sends them my way too, vice versa. 00:42:27.400 --> 00:42:43.760 So, so it's become such a, like a symbiotic relationship between me and all of these creatives and all of the small business owners and, you know, my, my business doing well means their business doing well and their business doing well means my business is doing well. 00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:47.260 And it's, and it really has been really beautiful that way. 00:42:47.260 --> 00:43:03.220 Yeah, I think I admire the, well, the, the chutzpah to see the grind, like you also mentioned, and also just to be able to, yeah, I mean, to be able to build a media organization that supports you full time. 00:43:03.220 --> 00:43:07.080 I feel like with my business, a lot of my customers are like on that journey. 00:43:07.080 --> 00:43:24.520 And so I think I'll really find that inspiring, I think, to hear because it's obviously doesn't come fast and you've been at it for a while, but at the same time, yeah, I just find that really encouraging to think that, wow, community of 8,000 can support even a singular, like, you know, real publication. 00:43:24.520 --> 00:43:32.280 I don't know what else to call it, you know what I mean, like something that's like, has a lot of time and energy and money put into the actual production of the thing. 00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:37.800 And then, and then to have that be something that the community can support when it's so small. 00:43:37.800 --> 00:43:47.840 A lot of the people that I work with are like, if you say, because I'm in like the events category, and if you go to New York City, there's not going to be a lack of events or something. 00:43:47.840 --> 00:43:56.780 But a lot of times people who are outside, maybe it's like the suburbs, 45 minutes outside of town, and they don't, people don't really want to drive all that way and stuff like that. 00:43:56.780 --> 00:43:59.640 Finding things that are local for them, you know what I mean. 00:43:59.640 --> 00:44:03.000 So anyway, kind of, I digress. 00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:08.080 But the point is, I think that the fact that you're able to pull that off is like, you know, my hat's off to you. 00:44:08.080 --> 00:44:09.380 I'm very impressed by that. 00:44:09.380 --> 00:44:10.340 So well done. 00:44:10.340 --> 00:44:13.540 I do think there is something special about the community here. 00:44:13.540 --> 00:44:14.400 There really is. 00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:17.140 But I don't think that it, I don't think it's a one-off thing. 00:44:17.140 --> 00:44:20.380 I think that this could live in other communities. 00:44:20.380 --> 00:44:25.520 I think Park City is, it is small, but people are very connected. 00:44:25.520 --> 00:44:29.460 We still have, we have an imprint newspaper still. 00:44:29.460 --> 00:44:34.120 It delivers, you know, to the community twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays. 00:44:34.120 --> 00:44:39.880 We have a local, you know, NPR radio station that people actually listen to. 00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:40.840 Right. 00:44:40.840 --> 00:44:41.500 And it's the cutest. 00:44:41.500 --> 00:44:52.760 It's like, I mean, it's like, it's like the, the personalities that are on there that, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's really, really a lovely, you know, lovely outlet for our community. 00:44:52.760 --> 00:45:03.880 It's even something as cute as like, you know, you're, you, you lose your car keys and they put a, they'll put an announcement out on the radio station saying that, that it's like a, you know, community lost and found. 00:45:03.880 --> 00:45:05.840 And, and people really do find things that way. 00:45:05.840 --> 00:45:08.080 We've got an online news source. 00:45:08.080 --> 00:45:14.940 We've got a couple of other, you know, really beautiful magazines that are produced either, you know, quarterly or biannually. 00:45:15.260 --> 00:45:19.540 And, and, and that community has like, we all support each other. 00:45:19.540 --> 00:45:20.860 I know, I know them. 00:45:20.860 --> 00:45:24.360 We, you know, we, we, we see each other at community events. 00:45:24.360 --> 00:45:31.640 We, we've, you know, shared resources to, in order to like, you know, to help support, you know, certain partners in the community. 00:45:31.640 --> 00:45:42.240 I mean, there's, you know, so it really, I know that it's unique, but I also don't think that it's, if it doesn't exist in somebody else's, in somebody's hometown, it could be created there too. 00:45:42.540 --> 00:45:43.680 Yeah, no, I agree. 00:45:43.680 --> 00:45:51.380 And I think there's a, and I'll like, I'll just throw a total curveball here just because, hey, why not leave this, this bomb in, in here. 00:45:51.380 --> 00:46:01.220 But I think that some of it, just personal observation I've lived, I haven't lived in a million different places, but I've lived in a few, a decent number, I guess. 00:46:01.220 --> 00:46:04.360 But there's a, communities have a life of their own. 00:46:04.360 --> 00:46:11.560 And I think that the question that's really meta and hard to ask is like, is this a community that's like growing or shrinking? 00:46:11.720 --> 00:46:16.860 A lot of times people assume that population only goes up, but actually that's not true. 00:46:16.860 --> 00:46:22.040 And if you look at railroad towns that they call them ghost towns for a reason, you know what I mean? 00:46:22.040 --> 00:46:24.260 So I think that has something to do with it too. 00:46:24.260 --> 00:46:32.380 And I think that like, you know, if the pressure, if the trend of Park City is upward, you know, then sort of you have more life in the town, I think. 00:46:32.480 --> 00:46:38.420 And that's something that I've personally, because like I said, I chose kind of desolate, nothingness on purpose. 00:46:38.420 --> 00:46:44.540 You know, I kind of did that to myself and then found like, oh, wow, like the community itself could be shrinking over time. 00:46:44.540 --> 00:46:51.500 And that's not really something that I ever really thought about because that's a really, really complex meta thing. 00:46:51.620 --> 00:46:56.160 But anyway, all that to say, like, I think it doesn't matter where it is today. 00:46:56.160 --> 00:47:00.660 So it's like the community could be 1,000 or 5 or 10 or 20 or a million. 00:47:00.940 --> 00:47:05.680 But a separate dynamic from that is like growing or shrinking, you know what I mean? 00:47:05.680 --> 00:47:08.360 Is it sort of thriving, you know? 00:47:08.360 --> 00:47:13.640 And so an 8,000 person community in your case can be growing, thriving, you know what I mean? 00:47:13.640 --> 00:47:18.000 And then another 8,000 person community could be tanking, you know what I mean? 00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:29.040 But yeah, no, that's, this is like, I just, I'm, hopefully I'm not annoying to people, but I think like the dynamics of this really fascinate me. 00:47:29.260 --> 00:47:31.420 So, you know, I think it's super interesting. 00:47:31.420 --> 00:47:31.800 Yeah. 00:47:31.800 --> 00:47:33.660 But yeah, cool. 00:47:33.660 --> 00:47:35.380 Well, is there anything else? 00:47:35.380 --> 00:47:35.840 Oh, sorry. 00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:36.340 Did I? 00:47:36.340 --> 00:47:42.780 It's fun to tell, like, as you got me thinking, as the history of this community was, I mean, it was a mining town. 00:47:42.780 --> 00:47:46.740 And then it was kind of a ghost town for quite a while, even in my life. 00:47:46.740 --> 00:47:54.800 And then the Olympics came to Salt Lake City, but a lot of the events actually took place in Park City and Park City started to grow. 00:47:54.800 --> 00:47:56.560 And it really has continued to grow. 00:47:57.000 --> 00:48:03.260 And there have been kind of some key times when it has spiked and post-pandemic, it spiked. 00:48:03.260 --> 00:48:07.280 We kind of, we're still growing, but it's not as like rapid. 00:48:07.280 --> 00:48:17.120 But when people were leaving, you know, big towns where, you know, big cities to have a different lifestyle and could work remotely, they came to, you know, they came here. 00:48:17.120 --> 00:48:21.040 And that is, and so, yeah, our community is definitely thriving. 00:48:21.040 --> 00:48:22.020 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:48:22.020 --> 00:48:25.920 Yeah, and COVID definitely did that to a lot of, especially mountain ski towns. 00:48:25.920 --> 00:48:29.060 People are like, what if I just lived in a ski town and just skied a lot? 00:48:29.060 --> 00:48:29.700 You know what I mean? 00:48:29.700 --> 00:48:33.580 Like, I mean, I assume that's similar with Park City. 00:48:33.580 --> 00:48:36.600 I mean, I love skiing personally, and I did that myself. 00:48:36.860 --> 00:48:39.060 So that's my own, you know, bias, but. 00:48:39.060 --> 00:48:39.940 Yes, yes. 00:48:39.940 --> 00:48:40.980 Yeah, yeah, no. 00:48:40.980 --> 00:48:42.040 And it's fun, right? 00:48:42.040 --> 00:48:45.920 And this, like, even loops all the way back to what you had asked, you know, we were talking about originally. 00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:49.640 But it is like, you know, I think this is a balanced thing too, right? 00:48:49.660 --> 00:49:06.320 Because there are a lot of people now that live here and work remotely, but because even if they're, whether they're, whether they're still truly working from their home or they're working in like a co-working space like I do, because I, you know, crave having that, that, you know, activity around me and, you know, all of that. 00:49:06.320 --> 00:49:10.460 But I, but there is so much to do here outside of that. 00:49:10.460 --> 00:49:11.940 So then they get that balance, right? 00:49:12.020 --> 00:49:27.500 So if they're, if they're working remotely, but then they're hitting, you know, they're hitting the slopes and they're talking to people as they're, as they're riding the chairlift up the mountain, they're making that human connection that gives them that balance so that it doesn't feel so isolating when they're working remotely. 00:49:27.500 --> 00:49:29.900 So it's, it, it, yeah, it's. 00:49:29.900 --> 00:49:31.220 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. 00:49:31.220 --> 00:49:32.620 Yeah, no, I agree. 00:49:32.620 --> 00:49:40.420 And the thing I always do at the end is invite folks just to share anything that's on their mind, because I'm kind of sort of directing a conversation here. 00:49:40.420 --> 00:49:49.140 But is there anything, anything that you want to share with, because the idea here is like every guest has their own following and folks that are interested in their stories. 00:49:49.140 --> 00:49:55.080 So anything about your story or current or shout outs or things that you're, that you want to love? 00:49:55.080 --> 00:49:57.900 No, I honestly, I'd love this. 00:49:57.900 --> 00:50:00.600 It's, I'm not, you know, I'm not normally in this, this seat. 00:50:00.600 --> 00:50:10.260 I'm normally going after all of the questions and you have done such a great job of like making me feel very comfortable because it isn't something, believe it or not, I, that I am. 00:50:10.420 --> 00:50:17.040 Very comfortable with, but this just flowed and I clearly was, you know, very happy to talk about myself and my community. 00:50:17.040 --> 00:50:22.520 And, um, yeah, uh, yeah, it's, it was, it was a nice, pleasant surprise for sure. 00:50:22.520 --> 00:50:23.480 Great, great. 00:50:23.480 --> 00:50:26.740 Well, I'm glad, I'm glad it felt, felt like a good fit for you. 00:50:26.840 --> 00:50:30.280 And yeah, if I ever, everybody's tells me about skiing in Salt Lake. 00:50:30.280 --> 00:50:34.560 So it's like someday, I mean, I got a five month old and a two and a half year old. 00:50:34.560 --> 00:50:39.240 So I don't know when I'll get there, but someday I will, I hope to ski Salt Lake. 00:50:39.240 --> 00:50:41.840 So I'll have to drop you a line if I'm out there. 00:50:41.840 --> 00:50:43.880 Please do, please do. 00:50:43.880 --> 00:50:48.320 We, we last, last winter, we, we were real dry. 00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:54.120 We didn't get a lot of snow, but we're, we're normally known for having, I mean, this is like the state, the state slogan. 00:50:54.120 --> 00:50:55.600 It's the greatest snow on earth. 00:50:55.600 --> 00:50:57.340 So you better come. 00:50:57.340 --> 00:50:58.020 Yeah. 00:50:58.020 --> 00:50:58.540 Yep. 00:50:58.540 --> 00:50:58.940 Yep. 00:50:58.940 --> 00:51:00.060 I'll, I'll have to get there. 00:51:00.060 --> 00:51:03.840 I don't know when I have no idea, but I'm going to try sometime. 00:51:03.840 --> 00:51:05.260 And yeah, I love skiing. 00:51:05.260 --> 00:51:06.580 So it's an easy sell. 00:51:06.580 --> 00:51:07.820 So cool. 00:51:07.820 --> 00:51:09.660 Well, thank you so much, Betsy. 00:51:09.780 --> 00:51:18.240 I really appreciate you sharing your story and, you know, very, very happy for you and all of your success with what you're doing in, in, out there. 00:51:18.240 --> 00:51:19.500 So thank you so much. 00:51:19.500 --> 00:51:20.220 Thank you. 00:51:20.220 --> 00:51:21.300 Catch you next time, everybody. 00:51:21.300 --> 00:51:22.260 Thanks.