0:00

Chaz Greener enjoyed a long career as dance

0:02

director of Mountain Kids in Fort Collins,

0:04

and along the course of her journey, she became a content

0:07

creator in her spare time, initially

0:09

as a contractor for Facebook. Her

0:11

professional dance instruction career ended in

0:13

2019 with an injury. And

0:16

in the time since then, she's blown up Chaz's

0:18

Crazy Creations to over 10,000

0:20

YouTube subscribers and a very active

0:22

website and blog and video library. Chaz

0:25

also has a second enterprise site consulting

0:27

services where she helps other creatives

0:29

bring it all together. Maximizing their blogs,

0:32

email marketing, and managing multiple revenue

0:34

streams. This episode

0:36

zooms in on the life and journey of a creative

0:38

solopreneur, how to build community

0:40

among creatives with authentic communications, intentional

0:43

partnerships, and scroll stopping content.

0:46

Chaz is a kid at heart and her past

0:48

vocation as a teacher of creative dance positioned

0:50

her well for the creative dance that is building

0:53

a sustainable and impactful enterprise. In

0:55

the time since this conversation, Chaz

0:58

has become a member of Loco Think Tank, and

1:00

we're excited to have her big ideas, charming personality

1:03

and marketing savvy in the chapter meetings every

1:05

month. Please enjoy an amazing

1:07

conversation with one of my newest friends, Chaz

1:09

Greener. =Welcome

1:48

back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest

1:50

today is Chaz Greener and,

1:52

uh, Chaz saw our ad in the Fort

1:54

Collins Lifestyle magazine and said, I gotta

1:56

know more about this loco think tank. And

1:58

we had a Zoom a few weeks ago, and,

2:01

uh, I really enjoyed your story and learning

2:03

what you're doing in the world. And so welcome

2:05

Chaz. Thank you. And thanks for having me.

2:07

I'm really excited to be here. So I

2:09

would like to just ask you to please describe

2:12

your enterprise. Oh,

2:14

sure. Because you have kind of a few different things that

2:16

you do and it's, I would call it kind

2:18

of a non-traditional, uh, set

2:21

of businesses, but. I, I loved learning

2:23

about it when we, when we first met, so, yeah.

2:25

Sure. Um, so I have

2:27

a blog, a website, and

2:30

a YouTube channel, and I

2:32

am, it's Chassis's Crazy Creations.

2:34

Mm-hmm. So that's one platform that I have

2:36

and I create DIY tutorials

2:38

for cleaning, organizing, repurpose,

2:40

upcycle, all kinds

2:42

of stuff like that. Yeah. Um, and

2:44

that is one forum that I work kinda self-help

2:47

in some ways, a self-help hack channel.

2:49

It is exactly that. And I have hacks

2:51

too, right? Like, you know, a bunch of different

2:53

ways to use the Magic Eraser or what

2:55

can else you can do with coffee filters and all

2:58

kinds of stuff like that. Yeah. And then I

3:00

have a second website that is called Site

3:02

Consulting Services. And this is more

3:05

of a, a like blog coaching

3:07

or if you need help with your email marketing

3:09

or you, um, Have

3:11

some website troubles. Yeah. Some tech needs

3:13

or something like that. And so that's my

3:15

other, so yeah, I, I never,

3:17

I couldn't have told you in a hundred years,

3:19

like when I got done with college that this is the direction

3:21

my life would've been heading. Well, what I like about it is

3:23

there's a lot of coaches that

3:26

haven't done, but what you've really done

3:28

is you've built a. Successful

3:30

solo entrepreneurship and channel and following.

3:33

And you wanna help other people like be able

3:35

to put it all together. Yes, exactly.

3:37

Cause there's so many things to, to having

3:39

an enterprise. Exactly. Yeah. The journey was

3:42

totally first. Uh, well, there's a

3:44

bigger journey that I know we're gonna be talking about, but,

3:46

um, Just ideally

3:48

the whole DIY website aspect of

3:50

it was the starting point. And then through

3:53

my teaching background of teaching

3:55

dance, then it spawned off

3:57

of, oh my gosh, other people, you know,

3:59

might need these, you know, how do you do this? I struggled

4:02

to learn this. Yes, yes. So maybe other people wanna

4:04

learn how to do this. Exactly. So then I,

4:06

you know, I'd started with some, um,

4:09

my, uh, we call it a mastermind when a group of bloggers

4:11

gets together and starts talking about things.

4:13

And I, before I knew it, I was kind of coaching

4:15

them and then they said, you need to look

4:17

at this at the bigger picture. And so now

4:20

it's turned into whole second business. And which,

4:23

which business do you love more or give more

4:25

attention to? Or is that the same answer?

4:27

That's a really good question. So, I

4:29

think they both fulfill to set

4:31

like, I don't know, maybe it's right and left brain

4:34

per se, right? Mm-hmm. Because, you know,

4:36

the creative aspect that has always been a

4:38

part of my life through dancing and all

4:40

of that. Um, and just

4:42

making up things. Sometimes my parents say they don't

4:44

know where the creative and came from. Mm-hmm.

4:46

You know why I'm the way, so like scientists or whatever.

4:50

Well, my dad had a body shop for a lot of years. I

4:52

said, that's an art form in itself. So I think

4:54

some of it came from that. And, um,

4:57

but then the, the whole coaching piece,

4:59

I mean, that is very, um, planned

5:02

and programmed and very political. Yeah. Very structured

5:04

and intentional. Yeah. So, I don't

5:06

know, maybe my brain just likes using both halves.

5:08

That's, you know. Yeah. I think

5:10

that's great. I think that's great. Yeah. You could have two

5:12

loves, you know? Exactly. Having another child

5:14

doesn't diminish how much you love the first one. Right?

5:16

Right. Exactly. And I think like

5:19

you're, I'm fitting like, So

5:21

the DIY stuff has had been more

5:23

of what I did. And then I would say

5:26

the other aspect of the

5:28

coaching end of it now, um, it's

5:30

gearing up like this last year. Now this

5:32

is, you know, I went to conferences, I've been guest

5:34

speaking. Mm-hmm. And so now

5:36

that aspect is kind of catching up with the other, whereas

5:39

the other one was kind of the leader for the longest time.

5:41

Yeah. Yeah. He would call almost the, the

5:43

second one. More of a passion project first.

5:45

Yes. Both were more of a passion project first,

5:48

I expect. Right. They were, they were, yeah.

5:51

Yeah. They were both a passion project and

5:53

then I, I had no idea, like I said,

5:56

that I was gonna end up, this would be my second

5:59

career. So you've got, um,

6:02

a YouTube channel that was really, is

6:04

probably the heart of your. Connection

6:07

or is that fair? Or is it the website that's the,

6:10

the beat? You know, I would say,

6:12

you know, surprisingly enough, the website actually

6:14

was the, was the, it was first. It

6:16

was first, yeah. Um, the

6:18

YouTube channel was more, um,

6:21

the complimenting piece to go with it. Mm-hmm.

6:23

Mm-hmm. And I mean, they both

6:25

have independent things of each other,

6:27

but they work in combination with each other. And

6:30

my big thing is, Just

6:32

people learn in a lot of different learning

6:34

styles. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So some people are reading

6:36

tutorial people, some people are visual, some

6:38

people are auditory. You know, just the different

6:40

ways we learn. And so my website

6:42

tries to tap into all of those things. Oh, right.

6:45

So I have the written tutorial,

6:47

but the pictures to follow along and the video, so

6:49

all the components are there so that somebody could

6:52

hopefully be able to follow along and

6:54

complete that task or project or whatever

6:56

they want themselves. And is it your website,

6:58

like really like, Categorized and thing,

7:00

you can find a lot of the stuff that you've

7:03

created Yes. And instructed. Yes.

7:05

Oh, wow. Yep. So each, yeah. You know how

7:07

you go to a normal website and it's got, you know, your menu

7:09

bar. Right, right. And you know, it's like, oh, about

7:12

this or that. And so yeah, if you want

7:14

to find my cleaning and organizing, that's under all the

7:16

how-tos. Mm-hmm. If you want to make a project

7:18

or a seasonal decor that's under

7:20

a ca, you know, its own category, so Yeah.

7:23

And then there's always a search bar. Right. So That's

7:26

so cool. Well, it's like, and when did

7:28

you first, um, have

7:30

the website? Like it sounds like it was a blog

7:32

first and foremost, and got the following

7:34

there back when. Like blogs

7:37

were like the big main thing

7:39

right? As far as making money on the internet directly.

7:42

Yeah. Um, so

7:44

I'm what I'm called a backwards

7:46

blogger. Okay. According to some people.

7:48

So, um, I

7:51

had a different career. First I

7:53

was a dance director over at Mountain

7:55

Kids here in Fort Collins. Mm-hmm. And I have a degree

7:57

in dance. And as

7:59

I traveled, you know, through

8:02

this world of parenting

8:04

and everything I would craft with my kids and

8:07

I stumbled across a website by accident

8:09

that was called Home Talk. And

8:12

it was basically do it yourself tutorials

8:14

and the public can all implement

8:17

what they have home and garden

8:19

into this website. You just put your own tutorials

8:21

out there. Right. Oh, like a Wikipedia page almost. Yeah. Yeah.

8:24

And so, you know, in the beginning I was like, wow,

8:26

this website's really cool. And I was learning things

8:28

from it. And then I thought, You

8:30

know, I should give back, you know, I'm getting from this

8:33

website, I should give back. So I started putting a few

8:35

tutorials on it and

8:37

little did I know that the, one

8:39

of the CMOs of the company was actually

8:42

watching all the posts at the time. Hmm.

8:44

And she reached out to me and,

8:47

um, you know, they

8:50

ended up flying mid to New York. And

8:52

so then I met up with them and a bunch

8:54

of other people that were kind of like me

8:56

putting tutorials out there. I think there was a panel of 12

8:59

of us out there. And, um,

9:01

they just wanted some input from us if dos

9:03

and don'ts and likes and dislikes about their

9:05

website. And then on the

9:07

fly, Facebook lives were kind of, uh, just

9:09

coming into play. Mm-hmm. And so on

9:12

the fly, they said, so circum me this, is this like

9:14

2009 10?

9:16

Yeah. Yeah, I did think about

9:18

that. Yeah. Um, I

9:21

think so. Okay. Yeah. I'm like, I should

9:23

probably bookmark my ears, right? Yeah. But not

9:25

the worst. Your processor works. Yeah.

9:27

So on the, on the fly, they said, oh, by the

9:29

way, we're doing a Facebook Live. And they pulled three

9:31

of us up and I happen to be one of them. And they said,

9:33

you're gonna make a wreath right now, live in front

9:36

of the world. Oh. And

9:38

I had never made a wreath before. I mean, I've made a lot

9:40

of carras, but I had not made a, a

9:42

wreath. And then on top of it, they say,

9:45

oh, and by the way, we have, you're gonna have a mystery

9:48

item, so you're gonna make a wreath

9:50

with, you can't see anything that's on this

9:52

table and we're going

9:54

to, you know, reveal it, but each one of you

9:57

has a special thing you need to implement. So

9:59

I was like, great, what is, oh, you know, wonderful.

10:02

So they move it all off and

10:04

it's, um, anything fall or Halloween was

10:06

the time period of the year. Mm-hmm. And so

10:08

they tell me, I'm using these plastic eyeballs, that

10:11

is my mystery thing. Oh. So I have to make aa of

10:13

plastic eyeballs, and. I happened

10:15

to love Halloween, so I was so excited.

10:17

So I made my little eyeball Halloween

10:19

wreath and completed it with

10:21

some, um, hot glue gun cobwebs.

10:24

Right. Okay. Nice. This is not something everyone

10:26

anticipated. So is it like cotton balls or something

10:28

that you stretch out? No, it's like a hot glue gun.

10:30

You heat it up and then as you pull the hot

10:32

glue gun and strings Right. All the stringy.

10:34

So yeah, you're moving it all over and then

10:37

it turned into all these cobwebs and I think that

10:39

was the thing. And it was a contest. And so

10:41

I think that was the thing that helped me win. It was this

10:43

weird cobweb thing that I made on the, on

10:45

the thing in the end. Yeah. Um,

10:47

so when I finished with the,

10:50

um, With the wreath. And I went home,

10:52

they said to me in the end, um,

10:55

you know, thanks for coming and everything, and I just

10:57

was so excited. I got to meet some community members

11:00

that were part of the website that, you know, um,

11:02

had made the projects. And that

11:04

to me was just so much fun in itself. And then

11:06

I got home and they actually messaged me and said, well,

11:09

we actually wanna ask you if you will continue

11:11

to do live shows for us. We'd like to pay you to

11:13

be a live show host for us

11:15

on our Facebook page. So

11:17

then I continued on that journey for a while

11:19

and then continued to make their, help them, you

11:21

know, um, they hired me, um, as an

11:23

independent contractor to make like DIY

11:25

videos for them, and then they kind of edited 'em all together.

11:28

Did you get to choose the content or

11:31

A little bit of both. So sometimes I got to pick,

11:33

and then sometimes they'd say, what could you do with

11:35

this? Right. You know, can you, can you come up with 10

11:37

ways to reuse your coffee grounds?

11:40

You know? And so then I'm like, I love that challenge.

11:42

Right? I real like, thrive on those kind of challenges

11:44

too. Like, ooh, what can I do? You know? Um,

11:48

so then, Um, upon doing

11:50

all of this, you kind of suddenly realize that you're creating

11:52

all this content for somebody else.

11:55

Mm-hmm. And I mean, I was being

11:57

paid for it, so I couldn't blame. But you were, but you were

11:59

a subcontractor even you didn't have have benefits or nothing.

12:01

Exactly. Exactly. And in the meantime, I'm still

12:03

directing the dance program, just figuring this was

12:05

just something for me for fun. And

12:07

all of a sudden I was like, you know, I

12:10

think, I think I need to start

12:12

a website. And so then I started

12:14

the website and started building the website up.

12:16

And then with that then created the YouTube

12:19

channel kind of to go together. Yeah.

12:21

Hand in hand. And were you doing stuff for

12:23

Facebook Live still? Mm-hmm. Or had you mm-hmm.

12:25

Okay. So you're still one, one

12:27

foot on each side? Yep. Yep. I was still doing

12:29

that. And to this day I still make, uh, a

12:31

video for Home Talk. They still hire me to

12:34

do. Oh, really? Yep. Yep. Oh, well, good. They've watched their

12:36

program evolve over the years from Facebook

12:38

lives to, um, more

12:40

of a long firm video with like 10 ways to

12:42

do something and then back

12:44

to lives and then back to this

12:46

or that. Just up and flows with all what the

12:48

social media needs are, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

12:51

I learned from them, so yeah. And I

12:53

owe a lot of where I am

12:55

at because they helped launch me and realize

12:57

that. This would be a piece of my life that I never would've

12:59

guessed. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so then

13:02

from there I had, I started my blog

13:04

and YouTube channel and they always said to me, they said,

13:06

you're the backwards blogger. Most of the time bloggers

13:09

start and then they come find someone

13:11

like Home Talk to help launch their Oh

13:13

right. Program and their platform even higher

13:15

or get back links to their website,

13:17

you know, and that kind of thing. So, um,

13:20

yeah, they said you're backwards. You, you saw this

13:23

first and then you created a website. So

13:25

what did that look like? Were

13:28

you had the website and,

13:30

and did that on the side for quite a while.

13:33

Um, were you a dance instructor for a long time or should

13:35

we. I'm feeling like I'm in a crossroads

13:38

here. If we should jump in the time machine and

13:40

go way back and then talk more about the business journey

13:43

when we we return, is that sensible?

13:45

Yeah, I think that's a really good idea because other, otherwise you won't

13:47

know enough about who you were before

13:49

that. Exactly. And I think the transition

13:51

is really helps clarify and

13:53

explain a lot of it too. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

13:56

so jumping back in the time machine, I,

13:58

um, went to csu Okay.

14:00

And I majored in dance. Let's go

14:02

back further. You wanna go back further? All right. Yeah.

14:04

Like first grade. Oh, first grade, okay. I don't

14:07

know. So I grew up in Minnesota. Okay.

14:09

Um, and I grew up there. In the city or in the country?

14:11

Kind of more in the country. Yeah. Yeah.

14:13

And um, you know, we grew up in a small town.

14:16

My um, grandparents were farmers

14:18

and a in a different town in Minnesota. And that farm

14:21

just turned a hundred years old in 2020.

14:23

And where, where is this town, if I may? Um, that

14:26

town is in Worthington, Minnesota, which is Oh, that's

14:28

where I moved to after college for a year. Are you serious?

14:30

Small world. Oh my gosh. Yep.

14:32

That's so funny. Right before I moved to Fort Collins, I lived in Worthington

14:35

for one year. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well then we're gonna

14:37

have to talk cousins and stuff then, because you probably

14:39

knew my family cuz the town is a small town.

14:41

Well probably, yeah, probably.

14:44

But that was your grandparents' town? That was my

14:46

grandparents' town where my parents grew, grew up. And what was their last name?

14:49

Um, my grandparents or Gordon?

14:51

Gordon. Okay. And then my

14:53

dad's family there was kr. Okay.

14:56

Now no, neither. I lived there from 98

14:58

to 99, so it's a good while back

15:00

now. Okay, sure. My summer is 98, summer of 99.

15:02

Sure. Yeah. So my uncles are now

15:04

still running the farm and my cousins now taking over

15:06

and helping run the farm. So it's very

15:09

much family oriented still. Um,

15:11

and then I was up in St. Francis, which is about

15:13

20 miles north of Minneapolis, St. Paul.

15:15

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so

15:17

a small town up there and, you know, grew up,

15:21

um, playing softball. You know, we

15:23

moved from sport to sport there, you

15:25

know, and I danced and I

15:27

don't know, I just really loved the small town atmosphere

15:30

and environment. Yeah. And actually coming

15:33

forward and then going backward again. One of

15:35

the reasons I picked C S U, besides just

15:37

the fact they had a dance major here, and I liked

15:39

the program when we came

15:42

to tour the school. I,

15:44

my mom was a little lost. Yeah. And we

15:47

pulled into the oval. We were looking for the admissions building.

15:49

And so when we pulled in, um,

15:52

my mom pulled over for a second so we could try to figure out

15:54

where we were going. And somebody came over and knocked

15:56

on the window and we rolled it down and

15:58

they said, where can we help you find? Yeah.

16:00

And I said, this is the school. This

16:03

is the school. Because Right. They're friendly here, just

16:05

like every friendly Minnesota. And it makes me feel at home

16:07

and Yeah. And so I very, and of

16:09

course it was an Aggie school. Right. So, you know for sure

16:12

I went to North Dakota State. Okay. So also

16:14

an agricultural school. Sure. Um,

16:18

Your dad was an autobody guy.

16:20

Was your mom a stay-at-home mom? Did

16:22

she have a career as well? She did. So,

16:24

um, my dad owned a body shop there, and then

16:26

when we moved to Colorado, he sold

16:28

that business and then started it up here. Oh really? Okay.

16:31

And then my mom, she was a stay-at-home mom

16:33

probably until we were both in mil, um,

16:35

elementary school. Yeah. And then, What

16:38

she did is she kind of got a job in the school

16:40

district. Right. Oh, okay. So then keep an on you

16:42

from the inside. Yeah, exactly. So she started

16:44

as the lunch lady and

16:47

then worked her way up a lot of power. A lunch lady position.

16:50

Yeah. She liked her whistle, but

16:54

yeah, then she worked her way into kind of the secretarial

16:56

positions. Right? Yeah. And, and yeah, administrative

16:58

support and different things and stayed involved with

17:01

the PTA and whatever else, probably. Yep, exactly.

17:03

So, um, that's, that was their

17:05

jobs and, and um, like

17:08

I said, we live, we live there until, how many of

17:10

you do you have siblings? Do I do, I do. So

17:12

I have, um, a sister. I

17:14

have sister, and I have, uh, a,

17:16

well I had a brother. He recently passed away.

17:18

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so yeah, there was

17:20

the two of us mostly, and then my sister

17:23

got to come visit us in the summers or during

17:25

the holidays, and she's actually still back there in

17:27

Minnesota. Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah. So,

17:29

um, you're an active,

17:32

you know, multi-sport kid. Sounds

17:34

like good grades too. Um,

17:36

I was a good girl. Yeah. Yeah. You seem like kind

17:38

a goody too, too, a little bit. I, yeah,

17:41

I'll just own it. Yeah.

17:43

So not the hall monitor type, like you're

17:45

No, it wasn't quite that bad. No. Yeah,

17:48

no. Yeah. Uh, smart and good, but not

17:50

a controller of others necessarily. No,

17:52

no, I do, I I do have some aspects

17:55

of my life where I probably would own being a control

17:57

freak, but not quite like that. That's in

17:59

the organizational space. Yeah. That is an organizational space.

18:02

Yes. So, um, it sounds like

18:04

it was, Maybe before your CSU

18:06

experience even that you came to Colorado

18:08

as a family? Yes. Um, I was

18:10

in, um, let's see, about to go into

18:12

eighth grade. So I finished up seventh grade.

18:14

Okay. Um, and it was different.

18:16

It was like a big culture shock, I would

18:18

say. Um, from where we moved in

18:20

Minnesota, small town to, we

18:23

moved, um, down in Aurora,

18:25

but it was kind of near the Cherry Creek school

18:27

district area. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I went

18:29

to Smokey Hill High School and

18:32

while I was there, we had,

18:34

I would say it was an interesting collection

18:37

of students because some of them

18:39

lived in the area where like John Elway Yeah,

18:42

yeah. You know, lived, that's where his house was. And

18:44

others lived in Commerce City or over. Exactly. We

18:46

lived in the, you know, smaller homes or whatever

18:48

and both parents worked and everything. And so

18:52

I just remember being that first year

18:54

was really challenging. Um, it was

18:56

eighth grade where you're not quite

18:58

moving, finding schools yourself anyway. And you're finding

19:00

yourself and, you

19:02

know, it was just that thing where. We,

19:05

we grew up in Minnesota where it was like,

19:07

I got my sister's hand me downs. I got

19:09

my cousins hand me downs and like, that was the coolest thing

19:12

in the world. You know, you got your, your,

19:14

you know, they were new to you. They, they were new to me

19:16

and, and my, my cousins were cool and

19:18

my sister was cool. So like to get these clothes

19:20

to wear was just everybody.

19:22

Everybody did that. So, I mean, every once

19:24

in a while you got the new sweater for Christmas or whatever. Sure.

19:27

That was just accepted and it was exciting, you

19:29

know, this was my sisters or whatever. And

19:31

then we moved here and it was like, if you didn't wear

19:34

a spree, outback red or gas,

19:36

you were no one. Right, right. So that

19:38

part was a little challenging to kind of maneuver

19:41

through and was more of a sidious city-ish

19:44

area as well. So what prompted

19:46

the move? Um, just wanted

19:48

to come to Colorado like a lot of families did.

19:51

And the body shop was working good enough, the

19:53

somebody wanted to buy it kind of thing, or was

19:55

there other factors? You know, I.

19:58

It's a, that's a really good question. I don't know

20:00

what the hell my dad was thinking. Uh, yeah, I,

20:02

well, and honestly, sometimes I'm like, I

20:04

think they were going cuz they were in their

20:06

forties, like young forties. Okay. And so I'm like,

20:09

uh, midlife crisis maybe. I'm

20:11

not sure. You know? So, um,

20:13

interesting. Yeah. So was it like long

20:15

and coming or they were just like, that kids

20:18

we're moving to Colorado? That's exactly

20:20

the way it was kind of presented. I mean,

20:22

so my dad, you know, he owned a business and,

20:25

and I just couldn't believe he was gonna up and sell it. But

20:27

I remember when they sat us down to tell us that

20:29

they were thinking about it. I mean, they had traveled out here

20:31

to kind of visit. Mm-hmm. And I, you know, and I thought,

20:34

why Colorado? Of all places? I wa I mean,

20:36

yeah. We had not really left our own state

20:38

other than to like maybe go to Disneyland

20:40

once or something like that. Right. And

20:43

my dad said, well, I had a calendar

20:45

up and I marked how many times

20:47

it rained this summer and it rained almost

20:49

every weekend. And I'm sick of the weather and

20:51

I'm sick of the rust and I'm

20:53

just done. And so, Yeah.

20:56

He, he just said that's it. And so yeah, he

20:58

sold his business and my mom quit her job

21:01

and we literally moved out here in a motor home

21:03

with, you know, pulling a trailer. Yeah, yeah.

21:06

Like, we came out in our motor home and lived

21:08

on, um, in, uh, Chatfield

21:10

Reservoir for two weeks. Oh, awesome.

21:12

While they lived at this place. Yeah. Like we lived at

21:15

Church Chatfield Reservoir for two weeks. While

21:17

they like tried to adventure of that though, like

21:19

it does, it sets a good tempo for

21:21

your life ahead to be, because it's

21:24

like, you know, mom

21:27

and dad just moved their whole family to Colorado without

21:29

really much of a plan, you know? Yeah,

21:31

yeah, exactly. Like and, and just,

21:35

yeah. What was that? I don't know. But I mean, again,

21:37

I guess this always teaches us that we can

21:39

all start over at any time around our lives and

21:41

we're very adaptive creatures. We are, we are.

21:44

So yeah, we moved out and they. Rented

21:46

a house and my mom was the first one,

21:48

um, to get a job because my dad wasn't

21:50

sure he wanted to start another body shop.

21:52

Right. Right. At first. Right. So my mom got a job in the school

21:55

district and we started school and

21:57

my dad actually worked as an estimator for,

21:59

um, a big business down. They're no

22:01

longer there anymore, but, uh, um,

22:04

body shop down there at the time. Gotcha. And,

22:07

uh, you know, was come in, put your hours in and leave,

22:09

right? Mm-hmm. Which he hadn't done in years. He was

22:11

almost unemployable. Yeah. And

22:13

so then he just decided

22:16

there was some things going on at that business that

22:18

he just couldn't stand behind. And

22:20

so he was like, okay, I

22:22

think I'll open up. I think I will open up

22:24

a body shop. Yeah. If these guys can succeed.

22:27

Yeah. There must be plenty of demand. Yep. Yep.

22:29

And I mean, he. Just

22:32

was, his first year was so

22:34

wonderful. Like, because there was no rust,

22:36

you know, and things like that. You know, the rust

22:38

jobs were the worst. I think for him. He didn't mind

22:41

painting cars or fixing dents

22:43

or a lot of that kind stuff. That's all we really had to deal with is rust. Was

22:45

rust. Rust. Exactly. Exactly. And,

22:48

um, I think the income bracket was a little different between

22:51

where we lived and here. Right. You know? Yes.

22:53

$600 job at home was

22:55

like, somebody's like, are you sure?

22:58

You know? And here they're like, yes. It's

23:00

only a thousand. That's great. Yeah. Can I trade you some

23:02

work for that? You know, and that doesn't put all that

23:04

kinda stuff that doesn't put fa on the table necessarily,

23:06

right? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So, um, I think

23:08

then in the end he was super happy that he started

23:11

the business backup and saw that location

23:13

does matter and, you know,

23:15

um, yeah. What kind of a, uh, tell me

23:17

about. Like that business,

23:19

was it a lot like the one he had before? Did

23:22

he have, you know, 2, 3,

23:24

4, 6 body men

23:26

and then like a front desk person, estimator

23:28

kind of thing? What was the functionality

23:31

of his body shop? Sure. He was,

23:33

um, Mostly a one

23:35

to two or three man show. Okay. So he

23:37

was always kind of the one that answered

23:39

the phones or you know, did the estimating

23:42

and then did a lot of the work. And then on

23:44

his busy times he would hire another

23:46

guy or two. Okay. Yeah. To kind of work. And

23:48

then a lot of the body shop people, they

23:51

would come and flow like ebb and flow. Right. You know,

23:53

so you'd have 'em maybe for a few years and it

23:55

was enough for him to fall in love with each person

23:57

that worked for him, you know? Yeah. And then,

24:00

you know, for whatever reason that person would

24:02

move on or we back to wherever or,

24:04

and so then he'd be like, gosh, now I'm back to the

24:06

drawing. Or it was a lot more of a cash and carry,

24:08

like now you almost need to have a full-time person just to

24:10

deal with the insurance companies Yes.

24:12

And stuff. Yes. Right. And,

24:14

but in those days it was a lot more like, okay,

24:16

it's gonna be $450, Frank, you know? Exactly.

24:19

Yes. And now it is very much more insurance

24:21

based and, um, he. When

24:24

my brother graduated from high school,

24:26

he ended up working more and more with

24:28

my dad. So then they kind of ended up being the father-son.

24:31

Yeah. Cool duo for a lot of years,

24:33

but still a pretty small enterprise. A small enterprise.

24:36

And then, yeah, my brother was the one that kind of

24:38

did a lot of the computer aspect

24:40

of it. Mm-hmm. And they were a good team. They were

24:42

a good complimenting team. And my

24:44

dad actually, he's um, 76

24:47

and he just sold the business. He just retired,

24:50

like, oh, it's probably been a almost

24:52

a year now that he, you know, kind of sold

24:54

it. So it was just, what's his name? Buzz. Hey

24:56

Buzz. Congratulations on selling your business.

24:59

Thank you. Yes, he's, uh, he, at

25:02

first he, you know, he knew he was ready, but

25:04

at the same point, when you grow something from being

25:06

a baby, you know, it's hard to let that go.

25:08

Did he find something else to occupy

25:11

his time or what's he doing with himself? No,

25:13

so, yeah. Um, he is,

25:16

Just kind of at home with my mom. Yeah.

25:18

And, um, he, they built like

25:21

a big, big, um, four

25:23

car garage type thing on their property. So

25:25

that's his little stomping grounds now. Yeah. So

25:27

he goes and puts his down in the little garage.

25:30

And at first it was all about, you know, his

25:32

time was occupied with taking things from

25:34

the shop that he was keeping cuz he sold the business.

25:36

So a lot of it went with the business. Mm-hmm. But there were certain aspects

25:38

that he needed. Right. So then

25:40

he, you know, had to organize

25:42

that and put everything in its place,

25:45

you know. Um, and then my mom,

25:47

she, um, She had retired

25:49

a while back from the school district, but in

25:51

the last, um, couple years, she

25:53

ended up, um, first she got breast

25:56

cancer and then oh, she, uh, but

25:58

that was, you know, that was re that was easy.

26:01

Um, well, it's never easy. Comparably easy, but comparably

26:03

easy. It was, you know, caught very, very early. But

26:05

as soon as she that was settling

26:08

down, she got diagnosed again with a

26:10

stage four cancer of unknown primary. So

26:13

they just couldn't find the mother tumor anywhere in

26:15

any of the scans. So, I

26:17

went back and forth a lot with her to kind of

26:20

do a bunch of the, um, yeah. Treatments

26:23

that she needed in the beginning and then now

26:25

she's in remission. So That's good news.

26:27

Yeah. And it's been really helpful now that

26:29

my dad's retired to be home because,

26:31

you know, she, yeah. More of him. She's just needs

26:33

a little extra help here and there as she's recovering

26:36

from all of her treatments and stuff.

26:38

And so they work well together, you know,

26:40

and he just says, I actually,

26:43

you know, he was one of those that woke up at four automatically.

26:45

He goes, you know, I can sleep till six now,

26:47

you know, but

26:50

he enjoys sleeping in a little bit more and just

26:52

taking it, yeah. Slower going for

26:54

walks. Yes. Reading books and newspapers

26:56

more. Exactly. All of things. Yeah.

26:59

So what we kind of left off on

27:01

you, you were. Trying to adjust

27:03

to eighth grade and this

27:06

different kind of culture and big

27:08

city relative to the country girl.

27:11

Yeah. How was that? Did you come to embrace

27:13

it or what was the rest of high school like for you?

27:15

Yeah, so I think high school was

27:18

a good turning point for me

27:20

because eighth grade was kind of the end of middle

27:22

school. Yeah. And so you're just, the friend bases

27:24

are already a, everybody starts fresh kind of

27:26

in high school anyway. Yep, exactly. And

27:28

I was a band geek to the core. So,

27:31

you know, I found my people, you know,

27:33

so at school I was with the band crew,

27:35

um, and I floated around with a lot of people. I

27:38

loved, uh, making new friends. And then, you

27:40

know, I also had my dance that I did

27:42

on the side. Sure. So I think that

27:44

helped me settle into being here.

27:46

I definitely learned how

27:48

to appreciate the weather that my parents

27:50

were talking about, because when you grow up in

27:52

Minnesota and somebody says the weather's

27:54

bad. You're like,

27:57

I don't understand, you know? Cause it's normal

27:59

to get on the school bus and pull icicles off

28:01

your eyelashes, you know? And somebody's like, no, that's

28:03

not a thing. You're like, no, that's a real thing. You

28:05

know for sure. People don't

28:07

get those little things, you know,

28:09

or how, how much the humidity really

28:11

is. And so I'm maybe imagining

28:14

that when you first got here, you were kind of a little

28:16

bit maybe resentful and

28:18

upset, and then as nice,

28:20

beautiful spring, summer, and fall after

28:23

Nice, beautiful spring, summer and fall and

28:25

winter. Yes. You're like, you know,

28:27

mom and dad made the right decision. Yeah. Yeah. That

28:29

first Christmas was a little weird. I, we had

28:31

one of those really warm Christmases where it was 60 degrees

28:33

here. Right. And so I'm standing outside

28:35

on Christmas day and a T-shirt, this

28:38

is stupid. Why don't we move here? Yeah.

28:40

And I was, where's the snow? Right? And it

28:42

was like, it doesn't, I mean, yay for

28:44

the warm weather, but where, where's. Where's

28:46

the snow? This isn't Christmas, you know, or

28:48

whatever, you know, so, but

28:50

yes, I definitely learned to love Colorado

28:53

and, you know, I love my hiking

28:55

and, and um, kayaking

28:57

and camping and all of that. So definitely

29:00

learned to embrace everything Colorado has.

29:02

And now I'm like, okay, I

29:04

appreciate. Like

29:06

my upbringing in Minnesota and I appreciate so

29:08

many pieces of Minnesota, but I

29:10

also very much appreciate Colorado. Now

29:13

it's nice to have a lot of sunny days. It is, it

29:15

is. So you show up as still

29:17

kind of a band nerd and dance

29:19

geek and all those kind of stuff at CSU

29:22

and continued that, is that right? You were pretty active. Yeah.

29:24

That was your, became your major, right?

29:26

Yeah. Yep. I was, um, actually still

29:28

maintaining. I had a, um, music

29:31

scholarship. Mm-hmm. So I continued that.

29:33

What, what were you playing by the way? Um, so I

29:35

started on flute and piano. Okay.

29:37

And then, um, Moved to all

29:39

percussion instruments. Whoa. So

29:41

depending upon what season it was like it was marching

29:44

band season or concert season. Wow. They

29:46

would just send me to whatever instrument they needed me

29:48

to play. Dang. And then

29:50

they also asked me to play the basoon.

29:52

Oh. And at first I wasn't sure about it.

29:55

I was like, I don't know. That's like the tuba, right? Like, well,

29:57

it's the big barking bed post we call it. So

29:59

it looks like, you know, it's the straight brown board

30:01

thing that looks like a bed post and it's got this curly

30:03

thing that comes off of it Yeah. That you blow into. Right.

30:06

It's a beautiful sounding instrument. I

30:08

was not really ever good at it, but,

30:11

you know, it was the thing that paid, it, paid the bills,

30:13

it was the scholarship goer, you know, as soon as

30:15

they said this will get you a guaranteed scholarship

30:17

to school and I needed that to go

30:19

to school. If you need a backup basoon player, then Yeah, exactly.

30:22

Yeah. Cool. And yeah, I mean, I, cuz

30:24

we needed that scholarship, so, yeah,

30:26

so I came here with the Basoon and

30:28

Music Scholarship and then majored

30:30

in dance and then eventually I, um,

30:33

earned more for dancing than I did

30:35

for the music scholarship. So I flip flopped

30:37

my scholarship at that point. Um,

30:39

cuz you couldn't have both fine arts, you can only have one

30:42

or the other. Is that right? Mm-hmm. So

30:44

like they just gave you a bigger scholarship in

30:46

for dance side then? Yep. Okay.

30:49

I didn't realize that was kind of a competitive thing.

30:51

Yeah. So you usually are capped out at a certain level,

30:53

but then if it's your major, they can give you just a

30:55

little bit more. Mm-hmm. So

30:58

that, um, that helped. And so, um,

31:00

then once I got done with, uh, Colorado

31:03

State University. I um,

31:05

I met my future husband while you were there.

31:07

While we were there? Yeah. We were both in band. Okay.

31:10

Um, he was actually a band

31:12

major over in Greeley. Okay. At

31:14

unc. And then transferred to,

31:16

I would say this is so backwards, transferred

31:18

to CSU to become an electrical engineer. Oh.

31:21

Cuz he knew he didn't necessarily wanna

31:23

end up in New York City waiting tables. Yeah.

31:25

Yeah. So, um, well they got a really

31:27

good music program over at UNC as well.

31:30

Yeah, they did. He had a full ride over there.

31:32

Yeah. And so he had to give that up to come over

31:34

and become an electrical engineer. Now he's still at scholarships,

31:37

but no full ride. Um, so

31:39

yeah, we were both in band on scholarship. And

31:42

sat next to each other. So that's how we met.

31:45

And um, so then I continued dating

31:47

him and we eventually got married. Um,

31:49

and then right out of school I ended

31:51

up, um, getting a job at Mountain Kids.

31:54

And it was just to teach dance classes. Yeah. And

31:56

like anyone, when you get outta school, you just need to pay

31:58

the bills. So I think I had about three or four jobs, you

32:01

know, upon getting outta school, you know. Wait

32:03

at this restaurant and then Exactly.

32:05

Babysitting, daycare, you

32:07

know, whatever it was to pay the bills. And

32:09

then eventually that turned into a full-time job

32:11

over at Mountain Kids. Okay. Where,

32:13

um, yeah, I worked a lot

32:16

of hours and had a lot of fun and raised

32:18

a lot of kids and it was amazing, amazing

32:20

things about mountain kids, like who are the

32:22

clients there? What kind of kids? Demographics,

32:25

like ages and stuff. Sure. And

32:27

actually the history of Mountain Kids I always think is a little

32:29

fascinating too. So Ron and Mary, I know

32:31

nothing. So yeah, Ron and Mary Beretta own

32:34

Mountain kids. Um, and

32:36

they met, I believe it, it was at

32:38

CSU as well, and Ron was,

32:40

um, he was almost

32:42

an, an Olympic gymnast. Oh, wow.

32:45

Yeah. So he, um, was the

32:47

gymnast behind Mountain Kids. Okay. And

32:49

then, um, Mary was

32:51

the, um, dancer behind

32:53

Mountain kids. And so together they built mountain

32:55

kids and um, it

32:57

has, and Mary is. Uh,

33:00

small lady, right? She was, yeah. Yes.

33:03

Um, she's, um, she did

33:05

pass away. Oh, she did? Yeah, she passed

33:07

away. Oh gosh, it's probably been 10 years

33:09

already. Um, she ended up with lung cancer.

33:12

Oh. I don't know if I knew that. Hadn passed away. Unexpected,

33:15

I think, yeah. From way back in my banking days,

33:17

I remember. Oh, sure. Meeting her now that you Yes.

33:20

Described it a little bit. Super, super sweet lady. Yeah. Yeah.

33:22

Amazing. And, you know, she was like organic

33:24

and healthy before it was even an in thing.

33:26

So the fact that she had lung cancer was

33:28

just out, like beyond all of us. But, um,

33:32

Yeah. So they opened this program and it, first it started

33:34

as gymnastics and dance, and then grew

33:36

to preschool and swimming lessons and

33:38

Oh wow. I didn't realize the scope. Yeah. So they

33:40

have an acro and all, you know,

33:42

all kinds of programs there. I think there's

33:45

even like a little ninja. Ninja. So

33:47

they would serve hundreds of kids Yes.

33:49

Every year. Yes. Every

33:51

year in different programs and anything from as

33:53

soon as they walk all the way up

33:56

to adults, you know, depending upon what

33:58

the program was. And um,

34:01

you know, my kids, they went

34:03

to the, you know, anything from the day camp

34:06

in the summer to the preschool, to the

34:08

gymnastics, to the dance. And did

34:10

I force them into that? No. I mean, in the beginning,

34:12

yeah, you gotta do something right. And the preschool, there was,

34:15

you know, Deanna who runs preschool was outstanding.

34:17

Um, she was amazing. And she teaches the

34:19

kids great things and sets 'em up for school

34:21

really well. Um, And

34:24

then you're just like your mom. Your mom came

34:26

to the school and Oh yeah. Right,

34:30

right, right. Let's say you have

34:32

to be here, but you should Right. You know, do something

34:34

just a little bit. No, it's true. So

34:37

tell me, uh, your early

34:39

marriage and was, what's your husband's

34:41

name? Jim. Jim. Was Jim

34:43

like an engineer then?

34:45

And kind of stable through all of this and,

34:47

you know, occasional promotions

34:50

and raises and mostly doesn't get laid off

34:52

cuz it's electrical engineering or whatever. Yeah.

34:54

So he ended up with Hewlett Packard.

34:56

Okay. Yeah. And then became Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

34:59

And he was there for Oh, early.

35:02

Yeah, he was there for over,

35:04

oh gosh, over 20 years. And,

35:07

um, I think going on 25 years even.

35:09

And, uh, just in the last year now,

35:11

he actually left HPE

35:14

Okay. And is now at a M d

35:16

Oh, advanced Micro devices. Yes.

35:18

Yeah. Yeah. They build bitter chips

35:20

there now. Right? I

35:22

am not going to say anything. That

35:24

was awesome. Oh gosh.

35:27

So, um, yeah, so he's, that's,

35:29

he's been the stable one through all of this.

35:31

And I mean, I was at Mountain Kids for 25

35:34

years and I think some of the

35:36

only things that stopped me from

35:38

being there, I, I don't know that I ever

35:41

would've, you know, that was my life is being

35:43

around those kids. And, um,

35:45

what happened in about 2018,

35:48

I wanna say it was 2018, is I tore

35:51

my labrum in my hip, which is

35:53

the cartilage that holds your femur

35:55

bone and your hip together. Yeah. You

35:58

can function with it, but it was, it, you

36:00

know, it tore. Big time. Yeah. And

36:02

so I needed surgery for that. So I booked that

36:04

in 2019, my hip

36:06

surgery. Mm-hmm. And um,

36:09

it's, it was a, not a total

36:11

hip replacement when they do a, um,

36:13

Dr. White down in Denver did it

36:15

and it's a, um, they use

36:17

like cadaver tissue. Hmm. And they put

36:19

you back together and it grows back.

36:22

So you have an all natural labrum,

36:24

um, from scratch basically. And, but it

36:26

takes a long, a long time. A

36:28

long time because you have to go basically

36:31

a whole month with no weight on it. And then

36:33

you only get 2000 steps for

36:35

the next two months. So that's four months in and

36:38

then after that you get to continue to work your way

36:40

up. Wow. Right. So no dancing for one full year.

36:42

So I knew I was doing that. Well and you had

36:45

Jazz's crazy creations grown

36:47

on the side and stuff. Right? Exactly. Like you already

36:49

had this blog and website cuz we jumped off.

36:52

It must have only been like 2012 or 14,

36:55

or not even. Well, I was all, I

36:57

I did both things. The website

36:59

I started up in 2017.

37:03

Oh, it was that late. Okay. Yeah. So you did this, this,

37:05

uh, Facebook Live and different things like

37:07

that for a little while. I did that for a while.

37:09

Yeah. So I was doing that cuz that was just, you know,

37:11

a little bit of time every week. It wasn't nice here and

37:14

there. A full gig. Right. And then it'd make 500 bucks

37:16

a month or something. Exactly right. Yeah. Okay.

37:18

Yeah. So, um, and

37:20

then started the website in 2017 was

37:22

still just kind of, you know, it wasn't like it

37:25

was still a side hobby, it was just side money. I was like, oh,

37:27

I'm gonna grow this someday. Maybe this will be some

37:30

re retirement income on the side is

37:32

honestly what I was thinking. Right. Just a little

37:34

extra supplemental income for retirement down

37:36

the road. Um, And

37:38

so I took a little break from directing,

37:41

which we knew I would be doing, but what we didn't

37:43

expect is about, um,

37:45

a month into it. Uh, well,

37:47

not even that. It was two weeks after, about two

37:49

weeks after. After your surgery? Of

37:51

the hip surgery? Yeah. I needed to go in,

37:54

um, for a different little, um,

37:56

breast ultrasound thing done, and

37:58

they did a biopsy and they were like, oh, everything's fine.

38:01

Everything's normal. Um, we just

38:03

need to remove this little lump. It's a benign papilloma

38:05

is what it was called. And so we

38:07

went and had it removed. And when they removed it, they

38:09

said, well, the good news is we got all of the papilloma,

38:12

but the bad news is we pulled out breast cancer.

38:15

Oh. And so I, but it wasn't in that

38:17

lump, but in the tissue, it, surrounding

38:19

tissue was some cancer. Cause we tested

38:21

it. Cause we test everything. They saw the cells

38:23

in there when they did the whole pathology report.

38:25

And, you know, I had my mammograms, I did all the stuff

38:28

I'm supposed to do and it wasn't showing up yet.

38:30

So it was that early. So that was a blessing

38:32

in it. Um, but then with that

38:34

came more imaging and more

38:36

research. And then, um, about

38:39

three or four months later, it led to a journey

38:42

of seven weeks of radiation and

38:44

um, then endocrine therapy after

38:47

that, which is just, uh, a medication you take

38:49

to kind of block the hormones that promote.

38:51

Um, yeah, I have a colon cancer takes

38:53

that still. Okay. Yes, yes. Yep. And

38:56

my sister too, probably. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

38:58

No, it's uh, not an uncommon,

39:00

uh, condition, unfortunately. Yes.

39:02

Unfortunately is very true. So you're

39:04

like rehabbing from this hip surgery and

39:07

like hobbling yourself in for your radiation

39:10

treatment Exactly. And stuff like that. I was, yeah. And

39:12

trying to go to, um, um,

39:16

Rehabilitation therapy for the hip

39:18

at the same time. You know, it's like you get up and

39:21

you go to, you know, um, did

39:23

you just take radiation? Didn't have chemo. I did not have

39:25

to do chemo cuz it was caught so early.

39:27

Okay. So I was very lucky for that. Um,

39:30

but yeah, going through all of that at once and then

39:32

my daughter graduated from high school during

39:35

the middle of all of that as well. Um,

39:38

and then 2020 And all was all

39:40

was good. Yeah. Well then late, no, actually

39:42

later then in, oh gosh, in, in 20, 20

39:45

19, then I had to have the other hip done. We

39:47

found out the other hip was bad too. So I had

39:49

two hip surgeries and breast cancer all

39:51

in one year. Nice. So that was

39:53

a little bit much. So yeah. Then we moved to 2020.

39:56

Right. And in

39:58

some ways I had my own little private joke when we

40:00

all got shut down because, you know,

40:02

um, Basically for

40:04

the whole year of 2019, I

40:06

was secluded at home. You shut down. I

40:08

was secluded at home already. Like I couldn't

40:11

get anywhere, you know, this is easy. Yeah. So

40:13

I was already kind of, well, I know. Look, I, I

40:15

was lucky enough to work from home at that point.

40:17

You know, I had the blog to kind of survive

40:19

on. Mm-hmm. It was my outlet and

40:21

I couldn't get out of the house anywhere,

40:24

and I was supposed to, you know, watch,

40:26

um, all the germs and everything anyways. So you're

40:28

staying within your

40:30

own home and then, yeah. I like

40:32

literally got released to be able

40:34

to start going out and start doing

40:37

things. And it's like, oh, we're on lockdown.

40:39

And you're like, awesome. You know, but

40:41

I just kept saying, well, I, I've been in training

40:43

for a year. That's what I would tell everybody. I'm

40:45

good. I've just been in training for a year, so,

40:48

so tell me how, um, Like,

40:51

we've kind of come up to modern day. How do you monetize?

40:54

Like, do you, like it used to be a lot of affiliate

40:56

links and stuff. Sure. Like if you were teaching

40:59

people how to make wreath

41:01

out of somebody's material

41:03

or something, you could Right. You know, sell, get

41:05

some dough. But they've, that's kind of reduced

41:07

a lot these days. And like, nobody actually

41:10

plays for blog subscriptions

41:12

anymore. Really? Except for maybe on CK

41:15

now, right? Yeah. Well, there's, I,

41:17

we, we always YouTube. I don't know. Yeah. Tell me about like,

41:19

I don't know anything about this world. Yeah. But I

41:21

know it's real. Yeah. No, we call

41:23

it diversifying your income

41:25

is what we call it in the blog. Lots of little

41:27

streams. Yes. So instead of putting all

41:29

your eggs in one basket, um, how,

41:32

how many ways can you maybe make, and

41:34

what is, what are the, where do you need to put your

41:36

roi? Right? Your return on your investment. Okay. For

41:38

that. Right. So, um, one

41:40

big way is ad revenue. So whenever you see

41:42

ads on websites, those are what are

41:44

helping pay for those websites. Sure. So a lot

41:46

of people get angry at the ads on website.

41:48

Oh, there's so many ads and. True

41:51

there are, but those are what pay for our website.

41:53

Mm-hmm. I mean, I don't think the average person realizes that

41:56

a website, just to have a website itself

41:58

almost costs $2,000 a year just

42:00

to have a website. Yeah, for sure. You know, you

42:02

gotta pay for the domain name and the hosting and

42:05

all these pieces. Well, and you have a website

42:07

that people are coming to. It's like the library almost

42:09

in some ways. Right, right. Like you've got a lot

42:11

of, like, mine is just for selling

42:13

stuff. I'm not sure why anybody else would ha want to have

42:15

an ad on my website, but Sure. For

42:17

you it makes sense. Yeah, exactly. And,

42:20

and two, I mean, It's,

42:22

you are getting something for that. Right? So

42:24

by us having the ads and being paid for that,

42:27

we get to keep generating free content.

42:29

Right. You know, for people. So that's what I remind

42:31

people sometimes when they're so angry about the ads. I'm like,

42:33

so what are some examples of ads? Like who is

42:36

it? Like, is it yarn sales companies

42:38

or like what, So

43:22

usually you work with like an ad agency.

43:25

So like there's a, you, the starting

43:27

ground level is Google AdSense as one company.

43:29

Mm-hmm. And that's working directly with Google. And then you work

43:31

up from there and then there's Tric, she

43:33

Media. Um, and then you work

43:35

your way up to Adri as one of the higher

43:37

ones in Media Vine, right? Mm-hmm. So they,

43:40

um, basically. Kind

43:42

of run the, they kind of whoever want, they put

43:44

whatever they want to on there. Exactly. They own that

43:46

space. They own the space. But you can, you can

43:48

choose, like I can say, oh, I don't want any

43:51

ads of this kind or that kind

43:53

on there. Right. Um, so you know,

43:55

you do have some control of what no Bacardi light

43:57

ads on. Right? Yeah.

44:00

So I mean, that's one way. So the ad revenue,

44:02

the affiliate links still are a thing. Right? Especially

44:05

like if I'm doing tutorials and I use

44:07

a hot glue gun. Right. Why not? Give

44:09

them an affiliate link to a glue gun or something.

44:12

Um, creating e-books out of the content

44:14

you're building. Mm-hmm. So e guides, things

44:16

like that. Um, doing webinars,

44:18

these are ways people pay, monetize, like five bucks

44:20

or 10 bucks for an ebook or whatever, and Sure. Yeah.

44:23

Depending upon how much content's in it, but if

44:25

you make one copy, you gotta, you can have a million

44:27

copies. Exactly. That's the nice thing.

44:29

Yep. Yep. Okay. And,

44:32

um, sorry I missed that last one. Uh, webinars

44:34

or mastermind classes or

44:36

events, right? Mm-hmm. So I could do things

44:38

like, um, a crafting event, right? That

44:40

people could pay mm-hmm. To craft with me

44:42

or something like that. Um, YouTube

44:45

has its own monetizing system that you

44:47

can tap into. Um, so

44:49

yeah, just kind of thinking outside the box

44:51

of what else can you provide or

44:54

do as a service, right? Mm-hmm. Like, so coaching

44:56

is one of my other Oh, sure. Divers, diversifies. That's

44:58

obviously like a whole. Ha coming up on half

45:00

your business soon. Sure. Exactly.

45:02

Exactly. And membership sites

45:04

still are a thing. So either there's

45:07

private content that people pay for access

45:09

to mm-hmm. That are on the backside. I've seen people

45:11

do membership sites where, oh, if you

45:13

don't want the ads on the front side, you

45:15

pay for this membership site and they can see the same

45:17

content ad list. Right, right.

45:19

So you're getting funded the same way. It's just,

45:22

which way are you serving it? Yeah, yeah. Right. Or you get

45:24

special content, you know, maybe everybody

45:26

gets to see these five. Tutorials,

45:29

you know, but then on the backside you

45:32

get five extra tutorials a month, you

45:34

know, so exclusive content and

45:36

whatnot, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many,

45:38

many ways to, to skin a cat. Yeah. It

45:40

sounds like on your YouTube you don't necessarily monetize

45:43

it through YouTube or, I do, I

45:45

actually do. Okay. So, um, yeah, I have

45:47

AdSense over there cuz that's the only one they allow.

45:49

Oh, sure. Um, and then other ways to monetize

45:52

over on YouTube are, um, you can sell

45:54

like swag, you know? Right.

45:56

So if you find companies, you could sell

45:58

your own merchandise or swag, um, through

46:01

companies that are, work with YouTube

46:04

and YouTube partners, or sometimes you can even

46:07

facilitate your own ads right. Through, you

46:09

know, Hey, this is my shirt. Yeah. Well, and I was thinking

46:12

about, uh, I don't know if you ever see JP

46:14

Sears, you know who that is? Yeah. So

46:17

he always has like, you know, this. Was

46:20

promoted by, you know, athletic greens and

46:22

da da da da, and like Exactly. Or, or, and

46:24

then also wears and sells his own

46:26

swag t-shirts and stuff like that. Sure, yes.

46:29

And then there's brand deals outside of even

46:31

that, you just reminded me of that one. So brand

46:33

deals is like, um, I'm

46:35

gonna, you know, I'm gonna work with this company and

46:38

maybe they have a new product like they have,

46:40

or, or resin. I do like a bunch of resin.

46:44

Projects that are made outta resin. And so you

46:46

work with, like, you find a company like Total Boat

46:48

say, and you say, Hey, I'm, I've got

46:51

this upcoming project. Would you like to sponsor

46:53

it? Yeah. Then they can send you free product

46:55

for it, and then they pay you an allotment.

46:57

You negotiate the price and what the terms

46:59

are, and then you, you, you mention that

47:01

in your blog post or your website,

47:03

right? Or, or on the content on YouTube that

47:05

this post or this video is sponsored

47:08

by Total Boat. Yeah. All opinions

47:10

are my own, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. But

47:12

they gave me free stuff to use. That was great. Yep.

47:14

Exactly. Thank you. It's way better than my other stuff. Yep.

47:17

And sometimes it's, it's being creative

47:19

and thinking outside of the box when you're looking for those

47:21

brand deals too, because maybe everybody's going

47:24

to make a resin coaster or the common

47:26

thing. So what else could you do that

47:28

people wouldn't expect? So one

47:31

thing I just did a branded deal with was for

47:33

a company, um, they own,

47:35

you'll see them in Walmart now. The, the brand is

47:37

Circle, it's uh, C I R K

47:39

U L. It's a water bottle. But they have

47:42

these screw in tops that add flavor

47:44

to your water. Oh yeah. You know,

47:46

and you just buy these new inserts that flavor

47:48

your water essentially. So if you're a terrible water drinker,

47:50

this is one way to get your water. You can me adjust

47:53

the dial for how much flavor you want or

47:55

whatever. Well, I,

47:57

sometimes I am a terrible water drinker. I just

47:59

own that. I know. Sorry dancers.

48:02

It's the truth. I will just own it, but add some

48:04

ice and some lemon and I'm good. Yeah. But

48:06

um, you know, so I do these videos

48:08

that are called Shop With Me. So I go to the

48:11

Dollar store or I go to the Target dollar

48:13

spot or go to different stores around town

48:15

and I say what I find, you know, like,

48:17

check out this and maybe say what the latest new

48:19

finds are, what's the new stuff in style, what's

48:21

a good deal, where to find the clearance, um,

48:24

you know, just these different shop with me things.

48:26

Yeah. And so one of the things that

48:28

I did with this Water Bottle company is I said, you

48:30

know, I have these shop with me videos and

48:32

I can incorporate the water bottle into the shop with

48:34

me video, take it with me to the store and have

48:37

it naturally fit into. This.

48:40

Yeah. You know, shop With Me video where that

48:42

serves many people are always looking for these

48:44

shop with me videos, which kind of, I'm like,

48:46

I don't know why. Sometimes I'm like, I'm not sure why

48:49

they wanna watch me go shopping at the store and

48:51

be like, check this out. Or I spent all

48:53

my time like saying, Hey, check out

48:55

this two hour podcast I produced with somebody

48:57

that's locally famous and like, nobody

49:00

watches it, but you. You're like, Hey, who wants to

49:02

watch me go shopping? And everyone was like, I'm

49:04

in. Yeah. I know. I, I, I mean, seriously,

49:06

I walk in the store and I just am like, okay,

49:09

here's the latest stuff at Dollar Tree. Let's, you

49:11

know, or I use this for this. I guess I'm giving

49:13

hints then on how I use the different things or

49:15

what I could build out of different things or at the

49:17

target dollar spot or where to find clearance

49:19

and deals. Right. These are, these people, I guess

49:21

Well's, it's kind of your community a little bit, right? Like

49:23

Sure. This thrifting and diy,

49:26

thrifting and crafting, and

49:28

it's kind of all about, I'm a, I'm a.

49:31

I guess I would call myself a, a

49:33

decent home chef. Oh, sure. Yeah.

49:35

I, I cook quite a bit and it's, I

49:37

don't plan much. I just create

49:39

fun new things. That's amazing. Tons of stuff that's

49:41

in my fridge, you know, and my wife is

49:43

very organized and recipe driven and stuff,

49:46

and she's like, Would drive me

49:48

crazy to go shopping and not know

49:50

what I was gonna make with the food I was buying.

49:52

And I'm like, I just buy the nice looking

49:54

food and Yeah. And see that would be interesting

49:56

cuz some people are like, no, if

49:58

I did that, it would look like a pile of muck

50:01

and, you know, I'm not sure it would taste good.

50:03

Right. You know, so that's, that's

50:05

a talent right there. Well, we're all

50:07

wired differently and that's one thing that's obvious

50:10

for me is that, uh, you

50:12

have a very fast creative mind.

50:15

Uh, so that when you're, when you are going

50:17

shop with me, it's not like, uh,

50:20

I don't know what we could do with these pipe

50:22

plates, but I guess we could do something, you

50:24

know? Yeah. It's you just like a fountain

50:26

of ideas, just like, oh, look at this and we

50:28

got all these rolling a dollar down. They haven't had these here

50:30

before. Right, right. Whatever it is. Like,

50:32

I just imagine. Yeah, yeah, that's

50:35

true. Or just even where to find things

50:37

like comparatively, um,

50:40

My daughter loves TV dinners right now, so

50:42

we're just gonna use this as an example. But

50:44

you know, there's the banquet TV dinner at

50:46

the Dollar Store and there's the banquet TV dinner

50:48

at King Seebers and there's the banquet TV dinner

50:51

at, you know, Walmart. Well,

50:53

what one person might not know is they're like, oh, it's at

50:55

the Dollar Store. I'm gonna get at the Dollar Store, but

50:58

it might be cheaper at Walmart. Right,

51:00

right. So it's like sometimes you think the Dollar Store

51:02

is the cheapest place, but it's not. So sometimes

51:05

just showing that too, or you

51:07

know, is the food okay to get at the Dollar store?

51:09

Well, you know, it's the same thing you get at Walmart,

51:11

you know, just check the date and

51:14

if they keep it frozen, it's fine.

51:16

Yeah, exactly. They can't sell, it's illegal to sell,

51:18

like, you know, expired food, so

51:20

I'm pretty sure you're okay there. You know, I've

51:22

heard that dollar stores are struggling to keep.

51:25

S very many things at a dollar anymore

51:27

given inflation and supply

51:29

chains and stuff like that. Uh, what's

51:31

your experience? I would agree. I mean, I can't

51:33

blame them. I, when I think about the first

51:35

Dollar Tree that came here to Fort

51:38

Collins, it was, I think my daughter

51:40

was a year old, so that would be

51:42

back in 2002 ish,

51:45

roughly. Okay. That the first dollar store came to Fort

51:47

Collins, it was a dollar then,

51:49

and here we are, she's g, you know, she's turning

51:52

22 and you know, we're like 21,

51:54

22 years later and they're

51:56

still charging a dollar for it. Like you,

51:59

you know, everything's changed prices. You can't

52:01

afford to have that same amount

52:04

or quantity or quality.

52:06

Yeah. So the fact they raised you a dollar 25,

52:08

I know a lot of people were like in an uproar. Oh, is that

52:10

right? It's a dollar 25 store now, right?

52:12

Yeah. They should have made it a buck and a half store right away,

52:14

honestly. Yeah. Yeah. But then

52:17

everybody was like, well that is a pretty big price

52:19

jump. And I'm like, well, yeah, but for 22

52:21

years, like, can you blame 'em, you know? Right.

52:24

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I do

52:26

know too that one of the other reasons people

52:28

like with Dollar Tree specifically

52:30

is across the country, I guess not all

52:32

dollar trees are stocked as equal.

52:34

Oh. So I hear that repeatedly. Like

52:37

your dollar store's amazing. It has all this

52:39

stuff. And then when I tell 'em we actually have like

52:41

$4 stores or $5 stores

52:43

around in our proximity, sometimes they're like,

52:45

are you kidding me? But I guess a lot

52:48

of them aren't stocked as well, and I don't really,

52:50

I don't really know why. And I say, well, I can't

52:52

answer that, why mine is stocked

52:54

better than yours. But I would ask your manager

52:56

or like report something, you know? I

52:59

don't know. They're corporate stores or maybe they, maybe they're franchises.

53:02

I think they're a franchise. Yeah. So they're probably just

53:04

less well run. Franchise

53:07

store? Yeah, yeah. Would be, I guess, or maybe what they're

53:09

tracking, right? Like what one store. I, I used

53:11

to know like which store to go get what thing

53:13

at. So if I went to this

53:16

store, I knew I could go get, you know, maybe

53:18

the, um, seasonal stuff

53:20

better because it's gonna be less people are

53:22

in this area going after that stuff. And

53:24

if I want this, then I need

53:26

to go to this dollar store over here because these

53:29

people tend to go buy these things at that dollar

53:31

store. So depending upon what I needed, I knew

53:33

which dollar Store to go to. You

53:35

are a fascinating, uh, calculator

53:38

and computer, uh, in the way that you

53:40

identify these trends and probably

53:42

a sign. Do you do anything with the music

53:45

education? Did you do psychology, sociology,

53:48

like, that was like my second choice

53:50

for a major. I was like, I'm either gonna be a music major,

53:52

dance major, or psychologist. I'm not sure which.

53:54

But it seems like you're highly observational and

53:57

inquisitive about I. People

53:59

and their motivations

54:01

and inclinations and things like that. I do.

54:04

I love people. I really do. I actually

54:06

choreographed a dance once, called people and

54:08

I picked up on mannerisms and all kinds of

54:10

things so I could incorporate them into the whole

54:12

show. And I just, I don't know. I

54:14

really like listening to people and, and

54:17

just the journey is always so fascinating

54:20

to me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and through this, uh,

54:22

through your dance kind of career,

54:24

you really got to be engaged

54:26

with a lot of, you know, dozens and dozens

54:28

of families, I assume, and have just a little

54:30

slice of each of their development

54:33

of that child. Yeah. Or whatever. Yes,

54:35

it was a blessing for sure. I bless your

54:38

own along the way. Yes. Yeah,

54:40

exactly. And I always told those kids too, I don't

54:42

know if they remember, but I'm like, thank you for reminding me

54:44

what it was like to be a teenager again. So

54:46

that, you know, it just helps

54:48

you relate to them better, you know, because what's

54:50

a big deal to them at that moment in life?

54:54

When you're removed from it so far and, and

54:56

your bubble gets bigger and bigger as

54:58

Yeah. You know, the more you experience and what you

55:00

do. So, you know, when they come in crying,

55:03

cuz they're best friend's in a fight with them, you know, you're

55:05

like, okay, thank you for reminding me where

55:07

you're, you know, what that perspective is like. And

55:09

then, you know, when I had kids too, then

55:11

it kept me in check too because I

55:13

was relating to kids at all stages of

55:15

life at the dance school. Then it'd

55:17

be like, okay, I had, it was like having all this

55:20

practice cuz you know, sometimes

55:22

the kids would come into me and say, you know, my

55:24

mom put all of the clothes in a

55:26

garbage bag. And I'm like, well why

55:28

is it in the garbage? Because it was on the

55:30

floor. And I'm like, well why was it on

55:32

the floor? Cause I didn't pick it up. How

55:34

many times did she ask you to pick it up? So

55:37

you know, they were, they were venting it all out.

55:39

But you're trying to help them like understand

55:41

why maybe things are the way they are.

55:44

Well and sometimes you're the special person that can actually

55:46

ask them those questions and talk to 'em. Because

55:49

if mom said those exact same questions,

55:52

Oh, yeah. There isn't a, there's a block. We're so not cool

55:54

when we're the mom, you know, or the dad

55:56

at that point. You know, we're just the evil, awful

55:59

person. Right. By the way, I'm feeling like I'm

56:01

trapping you by conversation away from your

56:03

mountain time logger. Yes. Thank you. Here, I'll,

56:05

I'll, I'll stall while you reach over there. Thank you.

56:07

Yes, I will. I will. Gladly. And you can

56:09

put it to the side table if you can reach that easier. Yeah.

56:12

More comfortable. I will do that. Thank you. We, we

56:14

could edit this up, but we probably won't. Yes.

56:17

Thank you. Fort Collins for wonderful beer.

56:20

Yes. Agreed. Agreed. So

56:22

if you could look

56:24

back five years from now and be

56:26

like, oh my gosh, I can't

56:28

believe we achieved all these things,

56:31

uh, on these twin

56:33

paths. Like what would you hope

56:35

to be able to do from here? If

56:38

I were to go back five years? No. Or just, oh, forward five

56:40

years. Oh, forward five years. But can't, can't

56:42

not succeed at anything you set your

56:45

eyes toward. Oh

56:47

gosh. I

56:49

don't know, like, I don't know. I just

56:51

think, or you can't be dictator of the world or anything.

56:53

No, no. Like that. But like

56:55

what do you hope this, these crazy creations

56:58

and, and I'm sorry, I just forgot the Oh,

57:00

site consulting services. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like

57:02

what do you, what do you imagine

57:04

and hope, uh, as next

57:07

stages of development in those,

57:09

cuz really in a lot of ways, you've only really been

57:12

full-time working on these for two years or

57:14

so. Yeah. Um, you had the dance

57:17

thing and then you had the hip thing, and then you had

57:19

the hip thing and then, you know, then you had

57:21

the covid thing. So you're working on 'em,

57:23

but in a different way, I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. I

57:25

mean, in some ways it was grateful cuz it blew

57:27

it up for you. Yeah. I was just gonna say, I,

57:29

in some ways it didn't. I felt busier,

57:32

you know, in 2020 work wise

57:34

mm-hmm. Than I was. Um, at

57:37

least with the website and stuff is demand down

57:39

for that kind of stuff now because

57:41

people aren't home looking

57:43

for crafts and things to do as much. It did

57:45

definitely have a yo-yo effect in terms of, you

57:48

know, everybody was bored so then everybody

57:50

was jumping all in. Right. And then

57:52

Yeah, I heard, I heard, uh, sourdough or something

57:54

like that, or Friendship friend. It, it was so true.

57:57

Sour starters was a big

57:59

thing. You were so right. I forgot about

58:01

that. I'm a kombucha guy, so it's kind of

58:03

the same thing. Just different. Yeah. So I

58:05

love it. I love it. Yeah, no, it totally would

58:07

swing the one direction. Right. And then,

58:10

and then people got kind of tired of watch, okay,

58:12

I'm done watching tv, I'm done watching YouTube. Right. And

58:14

things open up a little bit, so like I'm going

58:16

out. Yeah, exactly. So it swung back and then you

58:18

shut back down way and they're like, well maybe I should get

58:20

the craft book hack. Yeah, exactly.

58:22

So I mean, I think it depends. Mine,

58:24

I, I did see a nice steady continuous

58:27

incline, which was wonderful.

58:29

I really appreciated that that

58:31

mind kept growing. Um, yeah. People found

58:34

your stuff and kept sharing it with their friends or

58:36

whatever. Yeah. And part of it too is, you

58:38

know, when I initially started, I,

58:41

I didn't know what, uh, search engine optimization

58:44

is, right? So, um, for those of

58:46

you who are listening who are like, what's that mean? It

58:48

means when you type something into Google

58:50

in the search bar that finds your

58:53

stuff comes up, right? So you have to

58:55

do certain steps to make your stuff populate

58:57

in Google, or bang or go dot go

58:59

in order for it to show up. So, you

59:02

know, in the beginning you're just writing these

59:04

tutorials and launching them in the world and hoping

59:06

somebody finds them. But the reality

59:08

is nobody's going to find them unless they were already

59:10

following you for some reason. Or

59:13

my, uh, one of my members is,

59:15

uh, Alex Swanson and,

59:17

and her husband Nathan was a member previously,

59:20

but, uh, They're

59:22

doing some AI stuff. They're gonna be on the podcast.

59:25

Actually, just before you, we already recorded.

59:27

Oh, I can't wait to hear it. But years ago Alex

59:29

sent me a note. Um, really

59:32

love your blog. Last month it

59:34

was almost completely worthless from an SEO

59:36

perspective. Oh, okay. Yes. It

59:38

was so fun to read, but just so

59:40

you know, if that's what

59:42

you're trying to do is help people find you.

59:44

It doesn't do any Yeah. Well,

59:47

and it's amazing how much effort has to go

59:49

even into just that. Yeah. You know, because it's

59:51

not, you know, if I were to

59:53

try to guess on how long it takes

59:55

me to start and finish just a,

59:58

like, let's say I'm making a

1:00:00

wreath or something. Well, just,

1:00:02

besides the fact you gotta go buy the supplies, but

1:00:04

you've got to make it, film

1:00:06

it, photo, you know, take photos of it,

1:00:08

edit those photos, then you write the tutorial

1:00:11

and you edit the video, and

1:00:13

then you have to put all this SEO stuff

1:00:15

in there for it to be found. Mm-hmm. You

1:00:18

know, I would say that takes two days.

1:00:20

Just to do one really one tutorial

1:00:23

post. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah.

1:00:26

Well, I mean, that's, it's better be worth it. Right?

1:00:28

Exactly. Exactly. So you're like,

1:00:30

oh, it, I mean, it's just another way of owning

1:00:32

your own business. So it is that totally slow

1:00:35

climb that, you know, well if you do all that

1:00:37

work and six people watch it

1:00:39

and two people like it, it's like, well, yeah,

1:00:42

and you do, you still like, even still some

1:00:44

of 'em flop, right? And you're like, well, that

1:00:46

didn't work out so good. You know? What

1:00:48

do you notice for your own content creation?

1:00:50

Like what gets more eyeballs

1:00:53

and, and less and, and things like that?

1:00:55

Um, people really like the, um,

1:00:58

seasonal, like seasonal decor. Sure. Cuz

1:01:00

people like to decorate, you know? Right. So fall

1:01:03

tutorials Yeah. Coming into the fall. Yeah. Or

1:01:05

Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, whatever.

1:01:07

Yeah. Um, and then of course anything

1:01:09

that saves the money, of course is,

1:01:11

is, is a big deal. The other thing

1:01:13

that I always find that. Is the

1:01:15

interesting one is, um, we call

1:01:17

it when you make a post that ends up more for

1:01:19

entertainment, even if it is a functional

1:01:22

thing. Mm-hmm. It's just more

1:01:25

like, I'll give you an example. I made, um, out

1:01:27

of dollar store pans

1:01:29

and cooling racks, I made a

1:01:31

dollar store lazy Susan of

1:01:34

sorts. So, you know,

1:01:36

you took the two circular cake

1:01:38

pants, you threw some marbles in it, and

1:01:40

it swiveled awesome. Then you put the baking

1:01:42

sheet on top, so now you gotta rectangle and then

1:01:44

you bent the, the, um, cooling

1:01:47

rack. So they were vertical. Oh, perfect. Right.

1:01:49

So you had these sled racks and then you hung stuff on 'em.

1:01:51

Right. And then it rotates. So you could make it your spice

1:01:53

rack, you could make it a homework station, you

1:01:55

could make it craft storage. Right. And

1:01:58

so people are just like, what are you gonna

1:02:00

make with those dollar store cooling racks that

1:02:02

I've seen before? You know? And then so then

1:02:04

they watch it more, not because they're gonna make it.

1:02:07

But they could see the use in it. They might make

1:02:09

it, but it's more like, what are you gonna do with that? What's

1:02:11

she gonna do with that? You know? Yeah. Kinda like entertainment

1:02:13

value. Going back to the

1:02:16

contest that you won in

1:02:18

your Facebook live. Right? Like, I don't know

1:02:20

if I'm gonna put some spiderwebs on my autumn

1:02:23

reef. Yeah, exactly. I'll just throw it out

1:02:25

there and see what happens. Yeah, I

1:02:27

like it. So how about on the

1:02:29

site, uh, side, on

1:02:31

the site consulting side? Yeah. Um,

1:02:35

that is, that is a specifically,

1:02:37

right now it's more of a membership site.

1:02:39

Mm-hmm. Um, so people either hire

1:02:41

me for coaching and then I put,

1:02:43

like, we have small group masterminds and then I put

1:02:46

the recordings inside the membership so they get access

1:02:48

to everything. And then as I learn more and more and more

1:02:50

stuff, I always record these tutorials and slap

1:02:52

them in there. Yeah. So, um,

1:02:55

People that find me on that website, it's more,

1:02:58

you know, they're looking for a service that I need.

1:03:00

Like, oh, they need it help or they need,

1:03:02

not that I'm a big IT person, so let me

1:03:04

just say that, but if you need like some basic

1:03:06

stuff done or how to do some things, I,

1:03:08

I'm, I can do that. Um, or

1:03:11

how to do your email marketing. Like we underestimate

1:03:13

the power of, of email marketing. Let me just

1:03:16

say that too. Yeah, I believe it. Yeah. Um,

1:03:19

but that, that aspect is, you know,

1:03:21

they're coming directly there. Through

1:03:25

needing something from me. Yeah. So that is,

1:03:27

uh, and who are they? Good question.

1:03:29

Yeah. So, um, a lot of them are

1:03:32

other content creators or

1:03:34

people that are needing some help

1:03:36

growing their websites. Yeah. Um, they

1:03:38

might get stuck somewhere along the way. Yeah.

1:03:41

Cuz they're looking at their analytics and

1:03:43

they're seeing that they're flat or not growing.

1:03:45

So what do I need to do to change that? Mm-hmm.

1:03:47

Or what's, what's wrong? You know?

1:03:49

And so they're coming to me for that. So it's mostly

1:03:52

website owners or content creators that

1:03:54

own websites or um,

1:03:56

business people that do. You're like, okay,

1:03:58

I just bought, you know, there's all these

1:04:00

different email platforms and so I just moved

1:04:02

from Convert Kit to, to MailChimp

1:04:04

or whatever. Mm mm-hmm. And you know, I don't know how to

1:04:06

set this up. Can you just do it? You know, these,

1:04:09

these pieces. So Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fair

1:04:11

enough. Um, what

1:04:14

else on the business front is. Worthy

1:04:17

of discussion before we, we'll take a little

1:04:19

break here and hit the later segments. Yeah.

1:04:22

Anything that, uh, you'd really like to share

1:04:24

with listeners or maybe aspiring

1:04:27

what I would call an aspiring solopreneurs,

1:04:30

like people to have that diversity of income

1:04:32

streams. Like do you get lonely? Would

1:04:34

you rather, you know, just have an office job

1:04:37

sometimes? Do you love the content

1:04:39

and the creation? Do you get that? Yeah.

1:04:41

Just talk to me about that kind of special place

1:04:43

of the multifaceted

1:04:46

solopreneur. Yeah. I think

1:04:49

the biggest piece I wanted to share with everybody

1:04:51

is it's never too late, as you know, like

1:04:54

with my parents up and moving to Colorado

1:04:56

in a motor home. Yeah. Start it over. Starting

1:04:58

over. And, you know, with me, who would've

1:05:00

ever expected, yeah, I had this maybe

1:05:02

little side thing that was kind of there, but

1:05:04

it wasn't necessarily what I was thinking I was

1:05:06

gonna switch to by any means.

1:05:09

Mm-hmm. But you can always shift

1:05:11

gears. You can always start over, um,

1:05:14

you know, The world is your oyster.

1:05:17

You know, there's so many things you can do. Yeah.

1:05:19

Um, and if you have a creative outlet

1:05:21

of any, any talent, it doesn't have to be creative,

1:05:23

it doesn't have to be a DIY type of thing in

1:05:25

terms of like making wreaths or crafts

1:05:28

or whatever. But if you have a talent

1:05:30

out there to share, then you

1:05:32

can teach somebody something. So you can

1:05:34

put that out there on a YouTube channel. You can put

1:05:36

that out there on a website if that's something that interests

1:05:38

you. And if those don't interest you, cuz you're not interested

1:05:41

in the digital space, then

1:05:43

there's a recreator. Right.

1:05:45

Our parks and rec program that could be using somebody

1:05:48

for help or find somebody else

1:05:50

that, that space. Yeah. Go to share your

1:05:52

talents, whatever that looks like for you. Because

1:05:54

we all need help in some way, shape, or form.

1:05:56

And if you've got, I mean, everybody's talented.

1:05:59

It's finding what that thing is that you wanna share with

1:06:01

the world and then finding the space to share it in. Did

1:06:03

I tell you our motto here at Loko thinking? No, I'm

1:06:06

sure you did, but I, I'm drawn to blank. I'm not, I don't know

1:06:08

what say all the time, but it's, uh,

1:06:10

ask of your needs and share of

1:06:12

your abundance. Ooh. I love that. I

1:06:15

thought you were I love that. Yeah. Well said,

1:06:17

well said. So, um, let's

1:06:19

just take a short break and then we'll come back and do the closing

1:06:22

segments. Okay, sounds good. And

1:07:02

we're back. So, um,

1:07:05

yeah, as you know from our first conversation,

1:07:07

the closing segments, the things that we always

1:07:10

talk about, our faith, family,

1:07:12

and politics. Yes. Are

1:07:14

you excited? Maybe nervous?

1:07:17

They're probably nervous more than anything. Yeah,

1:07:19

yeah, yeah. Nobody ever listens to my podcast

1:07:21

anyway. Oh my gosh, you're so funny. They might

1:07:23

with you though, you're an influencer. Oh, I dunno.

1:07:28

So, uh, is this different to be

1:07:30

like in this kind of a long form? Because you're

1:07:32

normally, you're doing like probably 15.

1:07:36

20 minute tutorial videos and stuff.

1:07:38

So you get a lot of camera time, but not like

1:07:41

you're doing stuff. It's not the real chat. It's a

1:07:43

lot of stop and go. Yeah. So I,

1:07:45

you know, they don't always see me because

1:07:47

they wanna see the project or the thing you're

1:07:49

doing. Right. Yeah. So, well, they like you. I

1:07:51

am sure that that's a big part of it. Like, otherwise

1:07:54

you wouldn't be popular. Yeah. I

1:07:56

don't know. Yeah. I guess, yeah, they, they want, they're curious.

1:07:59

They're curious of what I'm gonna make, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. What's

1:08:01

she gonna do next? Yeah. Or say next.

1:08:03

That's what they tune into the local experience for is what's Kurt

1:08:06

gonna ask next? Yeah, exactly.

1:08:09

So what do you prefer her to start with? Um,

1:08:15

let's see. They always say, let's do,

1:08:17

they say never talk about faith, family. Our politics

1:08:20

is, I know that's what they say. That's why you do

1:08:22

it. Right. Um, let's do, I

1:08:24

guess let's attempt to do politics first. Oh.

1:08:26

We'll get it done and over with. Okay. Um,

1:08:30

ooh. I think they indicted our

1:08:32

former president. Yes. For paying

1:08:35

hush money today or whatever

1:08:37

to hookers, I don't

1:08:39

know. Not strippers, I dunno. Like

1:08:41

everybody does it right? Like didn't, they'll put my gosh, do

1:08:44

the same thing. Oh yeah. And he wrote it off and

1:08:46

got scolded for it too or something, I don't know. Yes.

1:08:49

So anyway, I won't lead

1:08:51

your opinions here. What would you like

1:08:53

to say about politics, what you were probably

1:08:55

you're Minnesota, but outside the city.

1:08:58

Um, so it's hard to say really.

1:09:01

It's hard to tell what I'll, what I'll say. Yeah, it is

1:09:03

a little bit, yeah. I suspect, uh,

1:09:07

conservative roots, but fairly

1:09:09

progressive kind of generally, um,

1:09:13

on a lot of. You're, you're

1:09:15

a closet libertarian, just like most of us. Oh,

1:09:17

you're so funny. Yeah. Yeah. So

1:09:19

I would say, um, for

1:09:21

me it's not about establishing

1:09:24

myself as a specific party

1:09:26

or anything like that. It's more listening

1:09:29

to what everyone, what somebody has to say and

1:09:31

what is their action on it and what

1:09:33

is their follow through on it. Um,

1:09:36

so I definitely keep an

1:09:38

open mind and, um,

1:09:42

politics scare me. I'll be honest. You know,

1:09:45

and sometimes, like the news even scares me. Well,

1:09:47

it's clear to me that you value people kind

1:09:49

of regardless of what

1:09:51

their politics might be. Yeah. Or whatever,

1:09:53

right? Yeah. But that wasn't really you. Yeah. I don't,

1:09:55

I don't just pick someone because they're this or

1:09:57

that, or, you know, anything like that. Right.

1:10:00

So yeah, I definitely want to hear

1:10:02

all the sides and, um,

1:10:05

And I dig into the history of who someone

1:10:07

is and what their background is. And do

1:10:09

they stand behind their word and do they follow through?

1:10:12

You know, this is, I, I do this investigating

1:10:14

anywhere in my life, right? Like, I don't

1:10:16

even care if it's what conference I'm gonna pick to

1:10:18

go to this year. It's like, who's speaking?

1:10:21

What are they speaking on? Yeah. What's their background

1:10:23

in it? Do they know more than me? What can I learn

1:10:25

from this? You know? So I kind

1:10:27

of treat everything as an educational experience

1:10:29

for myself and dig into

1:10:32

it. And then when I find the,

1:10:34

the way I feel like I wanna agree, then that's

1:10:37

the direction I pick. So it's not necessarily

1:10:39

specific to any

1:10:41

party, any person, you

1:10:44

know, I've heard it said recently, uh, most

1:10:46

people are either, um,

1:10:49

libertarians or authoritarians.

1:10:51

Yeah. Right. You don't have to put it left. Right. Because

1:10:54

frankly, there's both in both sides

1:10:56

of that. Yeah. Question, right? Yeah. Like

1:10:58

there's, but like, do you feel

1:11:01

it's. Better for more

1:11:03

people to have more freedom to self-regulate

1:11:06

in things? Or will that be chaos? Or should,

1:11:09

do we need kind of an authoritarian state

1:11:12

to make sure that the people don't run amuck?

1:11:15

Oh gosh, that's a loaded

1:11:17

question. It really is. You know?

1:11:19

Um, I

1:11:21

kind of feel like,

1:11:23

which do you need? What's your inclination?

1:11:28

Well, I like, I like to go figure

1:11:31

it out on my own sometimes. And

1:11:35

I know not everybody else knows. Exactly.

1:11:37

That's where's why you wanna share that knowledge? Like

1:11:40

that's what I'm seeing in your space.

1:11:42

You're like, you know. Well, and that's where they ask of your needs

1:11:44

and share of your abundance comes in. Right? Right.

1:11:46

Like you're asking of your needs. I

1:11:49

feel like this whole story has been a lot

1:11:51

of that. Like, I don't know how to do this, so I'm

1:11:53

gonna research it and figure it out and this and that.

1:11:55

Well, that's just it. So it's like you can

1:11:57

listen to the news but then listen

1:11:59

to both. Both the channels, both,

1:12:02

you know, both the stations, and then figure

1:12:04

out the truth based on, you know, cuz sometimes

1:12:07

the news tells a story that's

1:12:09

more geared towards the way they

1:12:11

want you to look at things, right? So,

1:12:14

you know, I know that I won't name names,

1:12:16

but there are channels that both channels will

1:12:18

tend to be more that way, right?

1:12:20

So listen to 'em both. Yeah. See what

1:12:22

they both have to say. Read the articles.

1:12:25

Read both. What do both of them have to say?

1:12:27

Go Google it. Go look at,

1:12:29

you know, well, can you trust Google though? You

1:12:32

know, and now, especially with That's true ai,

1:12:34

you know, it's kind of like, oh, ai garbage and garbage

1:12:37

out. Yeah. Well, what's,

1:12:39

you know, what's feeding into

1:12:41

the, who's the source? Who's

1:12:43

the source of that information? What is their

1:12:45

background on the information? Even the AI

1:12:47

stuff. So I'm, I'm hoping this

1:12:50

will really happen, but down the road, AI

1:12:52

is supposed to be watermarked down the

1:12:54

road for websites. And so it's supposed to

1:12:56

be D ranked or, um,

1:12:59

less important, you know, so

1:13:01

that way, because it's pulling from all

1:13:03

kinds of other sources, and if people

1:13:05

are just copying and pacing and slapping that,

1:13:07

is it really true? Is it your word? Can I

1:13:09

believe your word? You know?

1:13:11

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, if

1:13:13

they watermark that down the road, that will

1:13:15

help. Yeah. You know, people

1:13:18

have to put their real opinion and write some

1:13:20

of it or be more behind it themselves,

1:13:22

I guess, you know? Yeah. I've been thinking about starting my

1:13:24

blogs with, or putting my disclaimer to be

1:13:26

like, this is all my writing.

1:13:29

Yes. And thoughts, not anybody else's.

1:13:31

No. Right. AI generator paragraphs

1:13:33

to, you know, put a libertarian

1:13:36

bent on Freudian, you

1:13:39

know, backgrounds or whatever. Yes.

1:13:42

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean,

1:13:45

you can only, all you can do is do your best.

1:13:47

Right. So just go, go, go

1:13:50

do the research and

1:13:52

try to sight see both sides. You

1:13:54

know, I'm very much a girl that's like,

1:13:56

there's two sides to every story you're ever

1:13:58

going to hear. Yeah. So make sure to listen

1:14:01

to them both, you know? What do you think about

1:14:03

the, like the Twitter files

1:14:05

and like recently it was exposed

1:14:08

that this guy, Alex Berenson, was

1:14:10

by name, like the government

1:14:13

said, don't. Like, this guy's gotta have

1:14:15

his stuff not be seen. Is

1:14:18

that okay? Are you a free

1:14:20

speech, uh, absolutist or

1:14:22

a squeamish? Yeah. I

1:14:25

don't know. I mean, I'm

1:14:28

a good girl, so. Well,

1:14:30

if you don't have it as I fear, then why should you fear an

1:14:32

all encompassing government? Right? Yeah.

1:14:35

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah,

1:14:37

there's there's so many. You're right,

1:14:39

there's so many. Um, the, the

1:14:41

stretch between point A and point B

1:14:43

is so big. Sometimes it'd

1:14:45

be nice if we could be more

1:14:48

in the middle, you know? Well, the truth probably

1:14:51

isn't like halfway in between these two

1:14:53

viewpoints, right? Right. It might

1:14:55

be here. It might be here. It might be here.

1:14:58

Exactly. Exactly. And that's the challenging

1:15:00

thing is yeah, when both sides of

1:15:02

the media machine

1:15:05

agree. Right. And they're still lying.

1:15:07

Right. Which happens. Yeah.

1:15:10

You don't really like to talk about politics too much,

1:15:12

do you? I don't, that's why I

1:15:14

said let's go first because I'm like,

1:15:16

oh, I hate politics. Alright,

1:15:20

well, um, so

1:15:22

faith or family Next

1:15:24

And I realized I poured my tequila

1:15:26

Oh, and I left it there. So I'm gonna get you talking and I'm gonna

1:15:29

Okay. Walk out there, but I'm not going anywhere

1:15:31

so don't fret. So, okay. Um,

1:15:33

we'll go, I'm going hardest to easiest

1:15:35

because that's what I was taught once. Yeah. Is,

1:15:38

you know, do the things that are the hardest

1:15:40

for you first to get them done and out of the way, get

1:15:42

that frog and then move to the easiest.

1:15:44

So we'll go with probably Faith Next. Okay.

1:15:47

Okay. And so you just want me to share a little

1:15:49

bit on you start Faith, what you like in

1:15:51

Okay, Minnesota. Um,

1:15:54

so let's see,

1:15:56

faith wise, um, I come

1:15:58

from a, a family that definitely,

1:16:01

um, goes

1:16:03

to church and believes in, um,

1:16:07

Religion and,

1:16:10

uh, I grew up going to

1:16:12

church every Sunday. Um,

1:16:14

the interesting, the interesting

1:16:16

piece to that was, um, that

1:16:18

I mostly went to

1:16:21

church when we lived in Minnesota and when we

1:16:23

moved to Colorado, actually

1:16:26

this is kind of probably gonna be an interesting story. We

1:16:28

continued to go to church. Um,

1:16:31

and then I went to college. And when I came back

1:16:33

for the summers, we would, you know, we'd be

1:16:35

going to church or whatever. And

1:16:38

we had a minister who,

1:16:40

um, was unfaithful. Hmm.

1:16:44

And they gave him the choice. They,

1:16:46

they did the whole inter the review

1:16:48

and everything. Right. And they gave him the choice to either continue, but

1:16:50

he wouldn't be able to continue at our church or,

1:16:53

um, But he decided not

1:16:55

to. He decided no, he was gonna go

1:16:57

off and pursue a different career cuz

1:16:59

he carried that weight. And

1:17:02

I found it very interesting that the next

1:17:05

set of people that they brought in was a

1:17:07

husband and wife team to be the new ministers

1:17:09

at the church. And my

1:17:12

first experience with them,

1:17:15

cuz they, this all kind of took place in my trans

1:17:18

transition from high school to college.

1:17:20

Yeah. And so my first experience with 'em, with them

1:17:22

was, um, the

1:17:24

husband had stood up there and he more or

1:17:26

less did a whole sermon on the women's places

1:17:28

in the home. Mm-hmm. And I felt like we went from

1:17:32

a very, um, like

1:17:34

the church that I went to, it was a

1:17:36

Methodist church, but I, you know, I don't

1:17:38

stake a lot into the whole Methodist thing

1:17:41

necessarily with where we went, but

1:17:43

they were at least fairly Yeah. Like, he

1:17:45

would be like, Hey, it's the Bronco game, let's get

1:17:47

this sermon done. You know, and he was, it was

1:17:49

fun. Yeah. And we did sock hops and, you

1:17:51

know, and, and, He was

1:17:53

very uplifting and very fun. And when

1:17:56

that went away and open, you know, like

1:17:58

to just appreciating life and,

1:18:00

and being in the moment and everything,

1:18:03

um, and a huge Bronco fan. And

1:18:05

so then, then the one thing, you

1:18:07

know, then to go the swing this other direction

1:18:10

and become the woman's place, I just remember

1:18:12

leaving and saying to my parents,

1:18:14

you know, I said, whoa, that

1:18:17

was really weird. And that was very,

1:18:19

very old

1:18:21

school and conservative considering

1:18:23

the direction we've moved in life. And my parents

1:18:25

both work, you know, and what did you think

1:18:27

of that? And, um, they

1:18:30

slowly stopped going to that church because,

1:18:32

you know, because it was kind of just so

1:18:35

different and the culture changed dramatically.

1:18:37

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and uh,

1:18:41

like in the Midwest, in farm country

1:18:43

and stuff like that, like. Almost

1:18:47

invariably, in my experience, women

1:18:49

are treated as equals in the home.

1:18:51

And if not, the more important

1:18:53

of the home because the farmer's out

1:18:55

all the time. But the, the wife is

1:18:58

there farming too, when necessary. Yeah.

1:19:00

And, and, and it's only, I

1:19:04

don't know what it is. I guess it's, you

1:19:06

know, it's the, the south, the conservative

1:19:08

kind of space or whatever. But I've always been

1:19:11

rubbed the wrong way by that as well.

1:19:14

Yeah. Uh, and the church I attend,

1:19:17

we don't have women pastors, uh,

1:19:19

because we're old school, cuz the Bible kind

1:19:21

of says, oh, you know, that,

1:19:23

that, that, and we have women

1:19:25

that are great teachers and they teach

1:19:28

moms groups and different things like that.

1:19:30

Sure. But you know, so it's interesting

1:19:32

being both kind of, Uh,

1:19:35

Liberty minded and I hope very

1:19:37

respectful and equality

1:19:39

oriented, equal value committed

1:19:42

and things like that. Yeah. And,

1:19:44

you know, appreciating my church for being like, well, we

1:19:46

just, you know, the Bible says pretty clear right

1:19:49

here. There's, you know, women should not

1:19:51

teach men and so we just don't do it that way. Yeah, yeah.

1:19:53

Anyway, I digress. But, yeah. Yeah.

1:19:56

Interesting. Yeah. And so you never really got

1:19:58

back engaged, is that

1:20:00

what I'm maybe picking up? Yeah, so

1:20:02

when I got married, um,

1:20:05

my husband was not as religious.

1:20:07

Yeah. And so, um, you know, we

1:20:10

have our own beliefs per

1:20:12

se. So he, um,

1:20:15

just grew up with a lot more, uh, he

1:20:17

was exposed to plenty of religion

1:20:20

here and there, um, with the,

1:20:22

you know, just the different family. Like, he'd go

1:20:24

spend the summers and his, um, His

1:20:27

one cousin, uncle,

1:20:29

aunt, uncle. They were Baptist, so

1:20:31

he got to see that. And then his,

1:20:33

um, parents when they were married, they went

1:20:35

to church here in town. Um,

1:20:38

and I'm drawing a blank as to which church they went

1:20:40

to here, but you know, it was another

1:20:42

branch, I guess, for lack of

1:20:44

a better word. Yeah. That's part of what turned me off for

1:20:46

a long time when I was a teenager and

1:20:49

into my early twenties, was all

1:20:51

the different teams. Yes. Yeah.

1:20:54

Yeah. So, you know, and so, and then,

1:20:56

then he met, um, it was

1:20:58

his mom when the parents got divorced, his

1:21:00

mom was, um, dating a

1:21:02

man and they had deep

1:21:05

discussions about religion and

1:21:07

showed him even more options for

1:21:09

what there were out there in the world. And so, you

1:21:11

know, I think that prompted just

1:21:14

theories and questioning and,

1:21:16

you know, um, Who says

1:21:18

what and where is it coming from? And,

1:21:20

and I understand all of what he's saying and,

1:21:22

and, and I appreciate that that's his

1:21:24

opinion and respect. When you say

1:21:26

he, you mean your husband? My husband, yeah. Okay. Yep.

1:21:29

And, and that he was differing than I

1:21:31

was. And so he, he chose

1:21:33

and he was pretty honest and with me, and he is

1:21:35

like, you know, I don't know that I want to

1:21:38

go attend a church specifically.

1:21:40

Mm-hmm. And I didn't ever

1:21:42

wanna force him to do that. Um,

1:21:45

and then at the same point, I had

1:21:47

my, my son at that when he was younger,

1:21:50

he has sensory processing disorder. And

1:21:52

so to bring him in certain environments, he

1:21:54

was very, um, kind

1:21:56

of seems, it kind of gets, um, it's

1:21:59

a d a d HD ish where

1:22:01

it's like he, when you put him in a certain environment, stimulated

1:22:03

almost mm-hmm. The light switch goes on and he's

1:22:05

like a top. And then you bring him back to the quiet

1:22:08

environment where, you know, cause he can't filter out

1:22:10

background noises. Mm-hmm. So when he

1:22:12

was in that, he heard everything at the same level,

1:22:14

so then he would act out. Right. And then if you

1:22:16

had him more in a quiet setting, he was like

1:22:18

the normal, average boy, you know?

1:22:21

Mm-hmm. So it was harder for me to even

1:22:23

consider bringing the kids on my

1:22:25

own to the church. So I

1:22:27

just kind of knew what I believed

1:22:30

and what I wanted to believe in. And,

1:22:32

um, And we, you know, we celebrate Christmas

1:22:34

and we understand what all that is. And

1:22:36

yeah. He's never been disrespectful of me

1:22:39

and vice versa. And then, you know,

1:22:41

I sent the kids to vacation Bible school, so

1:22:43

they had these experiences Yeah. In their lives

1:22:45

and were exposed to it, and so

1:22:47

they can make their own choices as they grew up

1:22:49

as well. So, you know, went from

1:22:51

being, um, you know, a Christian

1:22:54

based pretty, every Sunday you go to

1:22:56

church family to more

1:22:58

of an open option.

1:23:00

Yeah, yeah. You know, oli carte family, we're not anti-Christian.

1:23:03

Right. And we're, you know, right. Yeah.

1:23:06

Yeah. So that's where we're

1:23:08

kind of at right now. And, and when the kids

1:23:10

ask questions, I a I answer it, I

1:23:12

let we both answer it with whatever,

1:23:15

you know. Yeah. Our experience is,

1:23:17

and I have to say, I mean, This

1:23:19

was really, I thought, fantastic

1:23:21

that I was exposed to this, but one

1:23:24

of the things when I went through like your

1:23:26

confirmation class, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

1:23:29

Um, the youth minister that we had that

1:23:31

was running it, he actually took

1:23:33

us to other places so we could learn.

1:23:35

That's cool. About, so like we went to the

1:23:38

Jewish synagogue and sat through

1:23:40

a service there and we, you know, just because

1:23:42

he was like, I want you to know, I want you to

1:23:44

know what there is out there. And, and

1:23:47

I don't know that everybody would think that is like,

1:23:50

oh, you shouldn't do that. But I

1:23:52

appreciated that. Well, you know, free Thinkers

1:23:54

is who I appreciate. That's Yeah. Part

1:23:56

of why I use the word faith rather than religion.

1:23:59

I'm not really trying to put it in

1:24:01

little boxes and stuff. Sure, sure. But it, um,

1:24:04

what I think I'm hearing from you is you've still got

1:24:07

at least a fair appreciation for

1:24:09

your, your heritage and that realm

1:24:12

and. Like, are

1:24:14

we walking meat bags or do we have

1:24:16

a soul? Did somebody or some

1:24:18

power create us? Right. You know?

1:24:21

Yeah. Those are all the questions that some

1:24:23

of us never answer. Right. Right.

1:24:26

And I mean, we

1:24:29

were born to think,

1:24:31

you know, we were born to,

1:24:34

you know, which came first, the chicken or the egg.

1:24:36

Right? Like Right, right. You can spend forever

1:24:38

thinking about it. And that's part of

1:24:40

the great, the great thing about

1:24:42

our minds is to, like, some days

1:24:44

you ask questions, and other

1:24:46

days you ask different questions and Yeah.

1:24:49

I, I love that about people, you know,

1:24:52

and I love those kind of discussions as long as

1:24:54

they don't get heated and make me feel uncomfortable.

1:24:57

Fair enough. Well, that's part of my goal

1:24:59

is not to make anybody feel uncomfortable or, yeah.

1:25:01

No, no. And I wasn't meeting you by any means,

1:25:03

but Yeah. You know, you get in those environments where they

1:25:05

say not to talk about certain things. Oh yeah. And you

1:25:07

totally, like I will say, going back to

1:25:10

politics for a moment, Yeah, you can't

1:25:12

set certain people in the same room. In my,

1:25:14

um, my husband and

1:25:17

his dad are two people. You don't

1:25:19

set in the same room. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Like they sometimes

1:25:21

will just, yeah. One will say one

1:25:24

and the other just, I think, I think

1:25:26

my husband likes to just antagonize it a little

1:25:28

bit just to get the rally in more than anything.

1:25:31

Where did his dad, uh, where did

1:25:33

your husband grow up and like, what was that background?

1:25:36

So they, uh, he actually grew up here in Fort Collins.

1:25:38

Oh, okay. Yeah. Um, and

1:25:41

his dad grew up in, um,

1:25:44

they grew up in Pennsylvania. Okay. And

1:25:46

when they moved out here, I think my husband was only like three

1:25:48

weeks old or something like that. Gotcha, gotcha,

1:25:51

gotcha. Yeah. Just, and I

1:25:53

don't know, my, my, um, My

1:25:57

father-in-law is just very, um, opinionated.

1:26:00

Let's just say that About, about a lot of things.

1:26:02

Right. So it's like, this is the way things

1:26:04

are and, um, yeah.

1:26:07

And you're, if not, you're wrong. I

1:26:10

am too. But I like to say, uh, just because

1:26:12

I say something doesn't mean I think it. Right.

1:26:14

Yeah. You know, I don't know. Sure. You

1:26:16

know, I, I got, I've got at least a twinge

1:26:18

of uncertainty about anything I might say.

1:26:21

Yeah. Um, what

1:26:24

do you like,

1:26:26

what do you do with Jesus personally? Like

1:26:30

just in general, like Yeah. Well he was

1:26:32

either crazy. Okay.

1:26:34

Or a real guy or

1:26:36

a real, like what he was, his brandage

1:26:39

be. Oh, okay. Sure. You know, a salvation

1:26:41

instrument kind of person. Yeah.

1:26:43

No, that's, Ooh, I like your questions

1:26:46

cuz they are thought provoking. Um,

1:26:49

so I do believe he was a real person. Um,

1:26:53

sometimes I just really wish I could have been there

1:26:55

to see how all this has translated

1:26:58

through time and, and people, yeah.

1:27:00

How far, how far away from, yeah, I think

1:27:02

of the, the game of telephone, right?

1:27:04

Do you remember playing telephone with your kid Right.

1:27:06

Where you, like somebody says this and then by the

1:27:08

time you get to the end, it's either kind of close or it's

1:27:11

way off from what it was. Yeah. Um,

1:27:14

so, you know, I do believe he was a real person

1:27:16

and I do believe he probably was, did

1:27:18

amazing and great things in the

1:27:20

world, you know? Um, a

1:27:23

miracle worker. I, I

1:27:25

don't know. You know, like it's, it's

1:27:28

a long game of telephone. Exactly. It's a long

1:27:30

game of telephone. And so it, it

1:27:32

could be, you know, like the, the

1:27:34

way I was raised through church, you know,

1:27:36

he, he did, he could, you

1:27:39

know, heal the people and he could

1:27:41

do all these things and he came back from the dead

1:27:43

and all of this stuff. Um,

1:27:46

so part of me still believes in that because

1:27:48

of my childhood and upbringing. And then every

1:27:50

once in a while I think, okay,

1:27:52

what does that really look like? So he was a real

1:27:54

person and was he just a really good person

1:27:56

that helped people and did good deeds and

1:27:59

was amazing, pure person, you know, you

1:28:02

know, cuz we all know people in life that were like, oh

1:28:04

my gosh, that person Oh, for sure is amazing.

1:28:06

You know, and if I should aspire to be

1:28:08

that person, you know, and well,

1:28:10

and yeah, in most cases that person

1:28:13

has a few dirty little secrets that you would never

1:28:15

want to know about. That's true too. Right?

1:28:17

You know, or Yeah. Yeah. The rumor is that

1:28:19

Jesus didn't, but I don't know, was it

1:28:21

was a walk of a telephone, so,

1:28:26

I dig, digress. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one thing that's been interesting

1:28:28

to me to learn about just lately, um,

1:28:31

during kind of the Covid lockdowns and stuff, I

1:28:33

ended up listening to this, uh, Greek

1:28:35

Orthodox Church Oh, sure. Out of

1:28:37

Loveland. Okay. And like

1:28:39

the Eastern Orthodox religion has

1:28:41

hardly changed in like 2000 years.

1:28:44

Oh, interesting. They still generally run their services

1:28:46

in the same way. And, uh,

1:28:49

there's, I'll let you chase the Google

1:28:51

around on it sometime. Yeah. But there's, one

1:28:53

of the things that, that I picked up in particular

1:28:56

from my listening was that like

1:28:58

the idea of boxing Christians into

1:29:00

like Methodist or Baptist

1:29:02

or Ecclesiastic or,

1:29:05

or, or putting God in any kind of a box

1:29:07

Yeah. Is something that's like counter to

1:29:11

Eastern Orthodox or Greek Orthodox. Yeah. Cause they're like, well,

1:29:14

you can't put God in a box. Right. Nobody

1:29:16

puts baby in a box, you know? Well, there's that, like

1:29:19

that that the debate too, that I, I

1:29:21

remember thinking myself. And

1:29:23

I still think this today, and I go, it's the

1:29:25

chicken and the egg for me. So,

1:29:29

you know, the, the theory that God is supposed to be all

1:29:31

forgiving, and then at the same

1:29:33

point, if you don't believe a certain way,

1:29:35

you're going to hell. So I'm like, wait,

1:29:38

so if I don't do this for that,

1:29:40

listen, the ask of your needs all forgiving if

1:29:42

you ask though, is the thing. Right,

1:29:44

right. So it's yeah, just that whole,

1:29:46

yeah. If you ask, then you're forgiven.

1:29:48

But otherwise he's, it's like he's

1:29:52

forgiving and then, and then is

1:29:54

he, but is he And then graceful God, it, yeah.

1:29:56

Like Greg. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. That was the words I'm

1:29:58

looking for. Yeah. Yeah. So

1:30:01

just all those interesting pieces.

1:30:04

Is he, is he a sacrifice or is he sovereign? Yeah.

1:30:07

Yeah. Right. Uh, our Easter

1:30:09

service is at 10:00 AM If you want to pop by

1:30:11

on Sunday, Just saying. Nice.

1:30:15

Uh, let's talk about your family. Do you disclose

1:30:17

where that is? Oh, it's the Crossing Church

1:30:19

at, uh, shields and Horse Tooth. Oh, okay. Yeah. Right. Crossing

1:30:21

the hibachi. Okay. Yeah, it's a small,

1:30:24

little independent church. Uh, loosely

1:30:26

connected with other, mostly independent

1:30:28

churches. Yeah. And the, the

1:30:30

long time, like 20

1:30:33

year pastor of our grandfather

1:30:35

church. Yeah. Like we're kind of a couple levels

1:30:38

down or whatever. Um, recently

1:30:41

was busted for a long term affair

1:30:43

Oh wow. And stepped down from leadership

1:30:45

and reprimanded and is still a part

1:30:47

of the church and is, was selling

1:30:50

mortgages. Um, you

1:30:52

know, probably isn't anymore, is my guess, because

1:30:54

the market for selling mortgages and stuff. Oh sure. But

1:30:57

so, And our church is

1:30:59

actually one of those churches that has like four

1:31:01

or five pastors, because we don't wanna

1:31:04

like fall apart when if somebody gets busted

1:31:06

with their hand in the cookie jar. Not

1:31:09

that we should get busted with their hand in the cookie jar,

1:31:11

but it, it just, it doesn't have to be reliant

1:31:13

upon one, uh,

1:31:15

person, shepherd. Yeah. Right. It doesn't just

1:31:17

one charismatic leader. That's the community of

1:31:19

the church. And I think that's maybe one place

1:31:22

where, A lot of churches got

1:31:24

it wrong. And I guess when you're, when it's just

1:31:26

a small church of 50 or 60 members,

1:31:28

like there ain't enough room to have two pastors

1:31:31

for this many members. Right, right,

1:31:33

right, right. I don't know. Yeah. It depends upon where

1:31:35

the funding's coming from and all of that

1:31:37

too. Right? Sure. It's a very

1:31:40

fascinatingly entrepreneurial industry.

1:31:42

Um, and if you listen to my episode

1:31:44

number 30 or so, I did, uh,

1:31:46

interview with my pastors and one of my, my

1:31:49

pastors helped to start the Fort

1:31:51

Collins, uh, CSU Riot of 2013.

1:31:54

He loaned his t-shirt so they could start

1:31:56

the bonfire that was first kickoff.

1:31:59

Oh, wow. It's, anyway, I

1:32:01

digress. Oh my gosh. Um,

1:32:04

I wanna talk about your family a little bit. Okay. Um,

1:32:07

let's go back to CSU and, and you've

1:32:09

fallen in love with this other band guy.

1:32:11

What was he also playing the bassoon? Uh,

1:32:14

yes. He was a saxophone player in a bassoon,

1:32:16

so we sat next to each other in orchestra

1:32:19

cuz that's where we both had to play the bassoon.

1:32:21

And then when it was band,

1:32:23

he was over playing a saxophone and I

1:32:25

was still playing the bassoon at that point, so, yeah.

1:32:28

Yeah. And, uh, tell

1:32:31

me about that. Uh, like,

1:32:33

was it friends for quite a while

1:32:35

and then a little flirting and then a little

1:32:37

more, or what was that progression for you

1:32:39

guys? Was it pretty instant attraction?

1:32:42

Um, so he loves to tell this story

1:32:45

because when we met, um,

1:32:48

he, I was dating another person

1:32:51

at the time and

1:32:53

so he had asked me out,

1:32:56

And I told him no. Yeah.

1:32:58

So when he tells the story now he is like, yeah,

1:33:00

well I asked her out and she said, no, but

1:33:03

he neglects to say the fact that I was actually

1:33:05

dating someone else at the time. Right. Interesting.

1:33:07

You know, so that little piece is always missing.

1:33:09

I just rejected him, is all that, you know?

1:33:11

Yeah. But, um, so yeah, then I,

1:33:14

so we were, you know, we're friends

1:33:16

sitting next to each other and about, you

1:33:19

know, so many months later I had broken

1:33:21

up with that person. Then a summer passes

1:33:23

and I come back the next school year. Cause I think he started

1:33:25

in like January when he transferred

1:33:27

over. And so then

1:33:30

that fall, at that point I

1:33:32

was kind of more ready, so I just

1:33:34

kind of at least more single. Exactly.

1:33:36

I was definitely settle closer to him. Yeah, exactly.

1:33:38

So I just said, Hey, you know, um,

1:33:41

If you ever wanna hang out sometime, you

1:33:44

know, yeah, let me know. And he,

1:33:46

you know, I don't think he grabbed his pencil

1:33:48

and paper fast enough and,

1:33:50

uh, wrote down my number. And so he ended

1:33:52

up cooking for me, um, at his house

1:33:54

for our first, uh, for our first

1:33:56

date. Um, does he still cook for

1:33:58

your family? He does. He, he does. Um, we

1:34:00

kind of, yeah, we split it up, we share it. Um,

1:34:03

cuz sometimes, you know, it's easier for me

1:34:05

to get the cooking nuts. Sometimes it's easier for him, but

1:34:07

he definitely still likes to cook, so. Yeah.

1:34:10

Um, he's definitely passionate about it, so,

1:34:12

yeah. He, that's cool. Yep. That was our,

1:34:14

that was our first date. Yeah. And

1:34:16

were you like, when you

1:34:18

were not single, were you like a

1:34:21

crazy girl? No. Were you kind of keen

1:34:24

on him or like, not necessarily

1:34:26

like the first time he asked you out, you were just like, man,

1:34:28

whatever. Bassoon player. Yeah, I,

1:34:31

you know, I think I, my, I had my try not to

1:34:33

think about that kind of stuff cuz you had a boyfriend, right? I, I

1:34:35

was gonna say, I had my blinders on, I think. Yeah.

1:34:37

So I wasn't, I wasn't really open to

1:34:39

it just because I was, you know, like, okay,

1:34:41

I was focused on now, sorry, I'm dating someone

1:34:43

else, but Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for asking, you know,

1:34:45

or whatever. And, um,

1:34:48

but yeah, I mean, o obviously when

1:34:50

I was ready it wasn't like, He

1:34:53

had to ask me again. I was open to, you already

1:34:55

knew he liked you. Yeah. That made

1:34:57

it easy, right? It made it a little easier.

1:34:59

Like yeah, you might say, but I didn't necessarily ask

1:35:01

him out. I was like, I'll just put the feeler

1:35:04

out there and see what happens. Right.

1:35:06

Because if he was like, eh, now he may,

1:35:08

maybe he was dating someone else. I, I

1:35:10

didn't know. It happens sometimes. Right. So

1:35:12

you guys get married shortly after school

1:35:15

or maybe even during school then, or, um,

1:35:17

no, it was after school for sure. Um,

1:35:19

so let's see, I graduated in,

1:35:21

now I'm gonna date myself 95. And

1:35:24

then, because he Oh wow. You are pretty old,

1:35:26

huh? Yeah. Yeah. I let me get my walker. Um,

1:35:30

and he graduated a year after me just because

1:35:33

he switched, you know, uh,

1:35:35

transferred and had to change the major, so new,

1:35:37

more classes. Um, plus

1:35:39

engineers, they expected to be smarter. Yeah.

1:35:41

Right. Whatever. Yeah. Um, and

1:35:43

we got married in 97. Sure. So

1:35:46

basically right after school, effectively. Yeah. Yeah. And

1:35:48

then how long before? Kids. Kids

1:35:51

came along. So my daughter was born in 2001.

1:35:53

Okay, so you had a few, your son. 2005. So

1:35:56

yeah, that was kind of my goal. There were bets at

1:35:58

our wedding because they knew I loved kids so

1:36:00

much. Like I've always loved kids. Yeah. Like

1:36:02

kids have always been a huge part of my life. Just babysitting,

1:36:05

being around them day, camp day, whatever

1:36:07

I could do, I, I love. Yeah. In fact,

1:36:09

one time we were sitting at a, a dinner for,

1:36:12

um, When like a business dinner, we're invited

1:36:14

over to my husband's boss's house and

1:36:17

they have some chairs around a room and

1:36:19

they kind of ran outta chairs, like everybody got their plates

1:36:22

and, um, the house sit at the kids' table. I just

1:36:24

sat at the floor. I sat on the floor because I'm

1:36:26

so used to sitting on the, like, that's what you do when you're

1:36:29

dance. You sit on the floor to a stretch and whatever.

1:36:31

Right? And then there were two kids came

1:36:33

and sat right next to me and I started having conversations

1:36:35

with them on either side of me and Jim

1:36:38

just kinda laughed and cuz they were like, well we can bring

1:36:40

you a chair. And I was like, no, I'm fine. You know,

1:36:42

it was really not a big deal to me. And,

1:36:45

um, he goes, yeah, you, you can tell who

1:36:47

the pe, the kind of people she talks to the most

1:36:49

all day long. Right. Because I'm there talking to the kids

1:36:51

on either side of me and you

1:36:53

know, at 1.1 of 'em grabs my hand and pulls me down

1:36:55

to the basement to show me their toys and everything,

1:36:58

you know? Well I think that's probably part of your, I

1:37:01

don't wanna call it fame, but your persona

1:37:03

and stuff through. Uh,

1:37:05

your custom creations and things is that you're

1:37:08

very kid at heart. Yeah,

1:37:11

I do. I mean, I love watching me

1:37:13

some Charlie Brown on the holidays and,

1:37:15

and you know, I, if

1:37:18

I go to Universal Studios, I go

1:37:20

to play. Right. You know, I become a kid and I'm running

1:37:22

around University Studio or Disney. Um,

1:37:24

in fact, I, I got a chance to speak

1:37:26

at, um, it was the first time I was ever at Cedar

1:37:28

Point over in Ohio.

1:37:31

Yeah. And they have like the most roller coasters

1:37:33

or whatever really? And so, okay. This,

1:37:36

this conference was on Cedar Point

1:37:38

and I. Like,

1:37:40

I can't even remember how many roller coasters, but we

1:37:42

got amusement park tickets as part of being

1:37:44

on the conference. And so I got there

1:37:46

the first night and I was like,

1:37:49

okay, is this weird that I'm so excited to go over

1:37:51

by myself to go check this out? Because

1:37:53

if you can't find Chaz, chances are she's

1:37:55

across the street at Cedar Point. At Cedar Point, right.

1:37:58

Because that was part of the whole conference and

1:38:00

I had no idea. I just know they handed me the par

1:38:02

part tickets and I was excited. I had done the research

1:38:04

beforehand to know that it was like gonna

1:38:06

have all these crazy roller coasters, and

1:38:09

it's part of the conference is to get out early

1:38:11

and go with your family. Well, I didn't know to

1:38:13

bring my family this first time. I kind

1:38:15

of didn't know as much about it. I just knew I was invited to

1:38:17

speak, so I went and.

1:38:20

Oh my gosh. I rode every single rollercoaster on while

1:38:23

I was there. And it was Halloween time too,

1:38:25

so I was there like running around in the fog

1:38:27

with all the people dressed up, having

1:38:29

the best time ever. And, and

1:38:32

you know, at one point, you know, I got kind of lost

1:38:34

cuz the fog that day had rolled in around,

1:38:36

um, had gotten trapped. It's right on Lake Erie.

1:38:38

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the first

1:38:40

day the fog was just really trapped in. So I

1:38:42

kind of like kept getting, I was walking in circles,

1:38:45

I couldn't figure out, kept going the same rollercoaster. Yeah. And

1:38:49

um, this guy comes out and he's dressed like a, like

1:38:51

pirate zombie and he comes out and

1:38:53

I'm like, excuse me. And

1:38:55

then I went, oh wait, I'm sorry. Ah, you know,

1:38:57

tried to paint it. Like I said, okay, now can

1:38:59

I ask you a question? And so then I asked

1:39:02

him for help cuz I couldn't figure out how to get

1:39:04

out of the fog, but I

1:39:07

like it. Yeah, that exactly

1:39:09

demonstrates my point of you being a child

1:39:12

at heart. Yeah. Um, we always

1:39:14

do one word descriptions of

1:39:17

your children. Oh, wonder descriptions

1:39:19

of my children. Yeah. No, no. Lack of challenge

1:39:21

there. Sometimes we allow hyphens.

1:39:24

Yeah. Um, but we haven't talked too much about

1:39:26

your kiddos yet. Yeah. So,

1:39:29

um, my daughter, I

1:39:31

would say, um,

1:39:34

does she have a name? Brielle? Yes. Her

1:39:36

name is Brielle and I would

1:39:38

say, um, she's

1:39:40

brilliant. Ooh. Yeah, she's

1:39:42

very smart. Now's Afit name then.

1:39:44

Yeah, she's, how old is she? She's gonna