The Real West Michigan

You Missed It! Hair on Fire, No Clothes, Mushroom Artist, Facing Fears. Highlights from Episodes 1-4 S2

• Eldon Palmer • Season 2 • Episode 6

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Eldon Palmer brings together the most powerful moments from the Real West Michigan podcast's first four episodes for you to get a taste test! Featuring insightful conversations with local entrepreneurs, artists, and community builders who are making an impact.  Dan Korhorn shares how his farm upbringing shaped his work ethic and business approach. Dan discusses finding balance between family commitments and entrepreneurial demands. Illustrator Liz Donoghue reveals her journey from childhood doodles to professional art.  Liz demonstrates her creative process through artist conch mushrooms and whimsical creations. Cameron Embers explains why rapid iteration beats perfectionism through the clay pot analogy<br>• Cameron advocates for "teaching the why" behind decisions and embracing imperfect action. Shawn Loney describes how Tapestry Rockford connects community resources with local needs. Shawn explains why staying small and personal allows her organization to maintain its impact. Check out the full episodes on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. If you're enjoying these conversations, please leave us a rating or review. If you have a story to share or a guest suggestion, drop us a message in the comments. We want to hear what you think!

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Eldon Palmer:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Real West Michigan podcast. I'm your host, Eldon Palmer, and this is our special In Case you Missed it episode. Over the past few months, I've had some incredible conversations with some amazing guests right here in West Michigan. Each has a unique journey and powerful lessons to share. Today I'm bringing you the highlights, the best insights, stories and moments from our first four episodes. Let's kick things off with Dan Corhorn. So Dan shared his honest take on building a business, balancing a family and navigating life's challenges. Dan grew up on a farm with a deep work ethic that farm life will give you. He reflects on these in his balance between work and family and shares lessons that he's learned about managing people's emotions in both life and business. One of the most powerful moments Dan shared was his candid thoughts on dealing with cancer and how it's changed his perspective on what really matters.

Dan Korhorn:

Young kid, my dad had worked at the local farm around the corner William Boss Greenhouse still in existence and at the time there was Coots here across the street and they were their family. They're actually related, but it was one business. Back then and I don't know, maybe eight or nine years old, it was time to go to work and so it was bean picking time and so little Dan got on his bike and rode over the mile, and this was back when kids could ride their bikes, you know when they wanted and I got paid 10 cents a pound to pick green beans in the mornings for a couple days a week.

Dan Korhorn:

So that's where it started. Evolved out of that, there was, you know, in the same neighboring farmland there was a celery farm and so I spent the bulk of my young, early youth and teenage years on a celery farm in the summertime, sitting on a celery planter and getting to the harvest time, you know, carrying irrigation pipes down a 500 yard field and you know goose stepping over wet celery and after school harvesting cabbage and still driving it down to JA Bestman and delivering it ina Ford Custom Deluxe with three on the tree when you're 17 years old. And then I transitioned into the neighboring greenhouse. It was, you know, more year-round work, and so one of my best friends and his brother owned that company, still in existence, and that's kind of my young through high school years was mainly farming and whether it would be, you know, perennials, annuals, greenhouse vegetables, things like that. So that's where it all started.

Eldon Palmer:

Yeah, I, it was kind of similar, like when you're kind of around the edges like picking asparagus and throwing hay was kind of my first first gigs and when you were the young one, hard work in the loft of the barn on a Saturday at 630 at night on low

Cameron Embers:

elevator when it's 130 degrees.

Eldon Palmer:

Yeah, yeah, the feeling, but it teaches you work ethic for sure. It does Everything else education it comes easier after that. So how does having the family and the expectations there go along with running a business challenges with that, and how do you make time for family and balance that?

Dan Korhorn:

Well, at the beginning it was way out of balance. I remember still vividly the criticisms, and you know I would hear it from people. It's like, you know, you're always working, you're always working, you're always working. Well, I'm trying to build a business and so I would leave the house by 8 or 8 30 in the morning, I might come home for dinner and I might be out until nine o'clock at night. I'd work better part of a day on Saturdays and I did that, I think, to my oldest, maybe five years old, you know, and they were maybe when they were a little younger than that. But you know, and that's what it took, um, and then it transitioned into a business where we have three locations, 14 employees, I think, um, between full and part time. We have some admin staff that fills in seasonally, um, and you know I'll be somewhere and you know I'll hear from him. Well, you ever work.

Dan Korhorn:

Which way do you want and either I work too much or I don't work enough so yeah um.

Dan Korhorn:

So it took a few years to find the balance. And now this time of year is taxed and we have a pretty thriving tax business. So it's probably a little out of balance right now just because of the you know, the workload and the time constraints that things have to be done. But we've balanced it out within our office and even our staff that our office is closed on Fridays all summer. You know we have such a short summertime so we've given everybody the opportunities like hey, monday through Thursday and, you know, enjoy three-day weekends from, you know, memorial Day to Labor Day.

Dan Korhorn:

So it's been a process to find the balance, and there's going to be times where it's out of balance for sure, but I think it's out of balance for sure, but I think it's. It was been a learning curve for sure. You make work balanced around your family. Don't balance your family around your work. And I think that's probably been the key. And I've got a few, you know we've got a few younger guys, you know, on the team, you know, I think Ben, who you know well, is he's 30.

Dan Korhorn:

A couple of young guys in their early twenties, and it's one of the things that I'm trying to instill in them. It's like work hard when you work but be away from work when you're away from work. And it's not that I'm trying to avoid it, but I don't need to be reminded. I don't need a text every day. We're thinking. I don't need the same thing from every person every day. I'm like I're running away from it. No, I'm well aware of the situation, but I don't need to be reminded of it by a text 20 times a day from 20 different people either. Just knowing that people care, they're praying for me around the world, that's really the thing I'm like. Appreciate your care. Thanks for reaching out. Let me know, if I need anything I'll ask, but I know I won't, because you know what do you? You know there's.

Eldon Palmer:

Next we talked with Liz Donahue, an illustrator and art educator with a passion for whimsical art and finding joy in the process. Liz opened up about her journey to embrace her style and balance the demands of family, teaching and creating.

Liz Donoghue:

As the story goes, my mom always says I just started drawing just happy faces. Over and over again I always had crayons and paper. And I asked her one time you know like what's the first drawings that you remember me doing? And she's like, well, you're just doing like just happy face, you know, doot, doot, smile, doot, doot, smile, doot, doot, smile. And she said I'm like how old was I? And she's probably like probably like three. So I'd say, know, I started just, you know, drawing in notebooks.

Liz Donoghue:

I remember asking my mom getting like just blank notebooks and I would draw on those all the time and so like in preschool and kindergarten and in first grade, just having just little notebooks of drawing like faces and animals and things like that. It was mostly just cartoons and things, so just things I make up like people. I really like Disney, princesses and things like that, so just trying to draw girls with long, pretty hair and lips and makeup and drawing animals and things that I liked. It wasn't until probably middle school I really was into video games so I'd try and draw a lot of video game characters and cartoons from TV, so things like SpongeBob and Rugrats and all the 90s cartoons. Now that I think about it more. It's probably more in elementary as well, just drawing cartoons and things like that that I liked. And then we got into more like drawing bands or musicians that I really like.

Eldon Palmer:

So yeah, some of that whimsical you know, children's type art was really some of the stuff I like the most. You know, I saw some of your recent mushroom and frogs and toad type stuff and then back in our prize you had these farm animals. That were really cool. I thought you could do a whole lot with them.

Liz Donoghue:

Yes, it was just really fun, that's exactly what I thought when I was explaining that. So I'm glad you brought that up, because when I I made those back in college because I was wanting to get more into art prize. So, long story short, those animals you're talking about was kind of just a random story. I asked somebody to just give me some just random animals and asked if they could be friends and I started just kind of imagining like well, maybe it's because, you know, one was just very um, I can't think of the right word, but he was very like thinks he's all that. So because he can spin, plates and the other animals were just.

Liz Donoghue:

He thought they're just jealous. So he leaves to go to the circus and he realizes that all the other animals there are just like him and treating him the same way. I think they're all great and talented and you know he's not that great. So he goes back to his friends realizing like, oh, I've just been treated the same way, like I just treated my friends. So when he comes back he decides to teach him how to spin plates.

Liz Donoghue:

So that's what the illustrations are all about and that's kind of when you realize I really like making stories and just or based on either experiences or just memories. So some of my other illustrations at that time when I was this is probably the end years in college were a lot about memories. So when I worked at, I was a camp counselor at Center Lake Bible Camp and then I was also with my friends at church doing like a bluegrass kind of fundraiser for our mission trips that I made illustrations for those things, but like an animal, whimsical kind of form. So like my camp counselor days, a lot of the animals were, you know, like little campers, like all these little animals and things are, like you know, swimming at the lake and then the bluegrass group kind of fundraiser thing was all these barnyard animals with uh instruments and having like a party. So yeah, now that's kind of what I'm doing.

Liz Donoghue:

Going back to those things, that's why I really like being an art teacher in a ways, because kind of, like we were mentioning before, is just like putting all putting the playfulness into um teaching. So as I'm making like an example for the students, I'm like, ooh, I kind of like this and that's kind of like my creative outlet. When I can't create or sit down, like, say, I go to the studio or go at home and sit at my kitchen table and make something I want to make, I kind of get that release, in a way when teaching art with children. So I start getting into making the examples or sometimes, if I'm lucky enough to be able to sit alongside them and and make art with them and do the things that they're doing, so kind of get my creative fill and that way, when I can't sit down and be like I'm going to make the things I'm hoping to make, I think there's a couple things.

Eldon Palmer:

You know, I just turned 50, a friend of mine. We're kind of business, entrepreneurship, creative, a little bit of everything too like we feel like we we're good at a lot of things but not great at one thing. But also, you know somebody else didn't remind me you don't have to be. I mean, being great at one thing isn't necessarily the best. We don't need everybody to do that either. Um, there's a lot of value in hold on stay there.

Liz Donoghue:

Okay, be a good mushroom. There we go. So this one's a little better. So, like an artist conch. You probably see, when I ask people, have you heard of an artist conch? Or some people say, um, a shelf mushroom, um, they like. They say yes bumper or when.

Liz Donoghue:

I say, like you know, oh well, have you seen it? Like walking down the woods and you've seen a mushroom kind of stick out like this, like yes, I'm okay, that's most likely one of these. And so an artist conch mushroom is a shelf kind of mushroom that grows out like this. My hands, like the log or the wood or the stump grows out like this. And then what's really cool about the mushroom is you'll notice that there's like rings on the mushroom itself I don't know if you can kind of see that here.

Liz Donoghue:

I can hold it up a little higher, but there's rings on the mushroom and each of these rings, just like rings of a tree, show its age. The rings of the artist conch shows the number of rainfalls that have happened.

Eldon Palmer:

Really.

Liz Donoghue:

And the width of that ring shows how long it's been raining and if I turn on its side and see how it's kind of lumpy, because each of those rings, however high the ring is, shows how heavy that rainfall was interesting, I had no idea michigan mushroom hunters and I thought like that's crazy. So it's kind of like um its own, like weatherman in a way yeah, it kind of shows a little bit about its life.

Liz Donoghue:

It's got a story there, yeah, exactly like kind of like the life of the mushroom, how long he's been kind of sitting there. And some people say, does that mean like that's how old the mushroom is? And I would say not necessarily, because it could rain, you know, multiple times a day or like not rain for a few days. But that's kind of how mushrooms grow from my, from what I'm still learning about fungi, but sure you know they they get all that moisture from the rain and then they start growing and taking on those nutrients so he just starts to expand. These can get really big. There can be really really small ones. I've made ones that are like really little. They can sit like on a windowsill. Probably the biggest one I have is like dinner plate size. But there's ones that can get as big as people can sit like on the shelf of the mushroom, apparently that's crazy yeah.

Liz Donoghue:

Fungi just keep growing until they break off, or something eats it, or yeah.

Eldon Palmer:

So like when it's harvested from the tree to be used for art. Is it soft? Is it hard? What's the texture of that?

Liz Donoghue:

Good question. So this is what it looks like on the top, and then on the back it's a little more smooth and usually it's white. But sometimes, you know, it gets discolored because of rain or other things that get to it. So this one's a little darker. So when it's first cut it's very porous. So there's like all these little pores and you can actually press your finger into it. And it actually starts to bruise, it actually can hold your fingerprint like exactly, and it stays there.

Eldon Palmer:

Hey guys, thanks for watching the podcast today or listening online. We just want to say thank you to the Palmer Group. Our sponsor today. That's myself, elizabeth Joni and the rest of the crew at 616 Realty who help us, help you, whether you're looking to buy, sell, build or have any other real estate problem. We'd love to help. We are the real estate problem solvers here in West Michigan. For more information, the Palmer dot group or reach out to us in the comments here. Thanks, enjoy the show. From there we shifted gears to Cameron Embers, owner of Emberly Digital. Cameron shared honest reflections on fear, creativity, how to keep moving forward even when perfection feels out of reach.

Cameron Embers:

I like to talk about, like, if you're trying to succeed at something lower your time to live as much as possible, right, um, and your, what a lot of people will do is they try to increase their, their development time, right? So they say like, okay, I'm gonna work on this longer before I put it live. Oh sure, right, um, and I'm gonna have a long, you know uh, development time and a and a low uh TTL, or sorry, and a high TTL, um, and basically the idea is really to like shorten your time to live as much as possible and then iterate as much as you can on the development time, because it just, you know, you don't know that the stuff you're building is going to be useful to a real customer anyway. So get the most MVP version you can out there as fast as you can, let it get knocked around and then bring it back and do version 1.1. Yeah, so it's a study that I don't know where this was done and.

Cameron Embers:

I don't even know if it was a real study or just a story someone told as an analogy, but the idea is that two groups were assigned to make clay pots for four hours. One group was told make the best pot you possibly can make. You have four hours to make one pot and it's gotta be the best. And so they set to work on that. And the other group was sold make as many clay pots as you possibly can, don't worry about quality, make them as fast as you can and just get as many done as you can in the four hours. Don't worry about quality, make them as fast as you can and just get as many done as you can in the four hours. And so you would think, okay, well, the group that you know worked harder and spent more time on their pots is the group that you know would have the best quality.

Cameron Embers:

Turns out, the group that did them as fast as possible actually made way better pots. Maybe their first one was trash, but, you know, maybe their first 10 were trash, but no worries, they made 50 better pots. Maybe their first one was trash, but maybe their first 10 were trash, but no worries, they made 50 of them. So 40 of them now have superior quality to the one that this other person made, because now they know oh wait, I have to have this mixture of clay and now I know how to do this part, and I know how to craft it part and I know how to craft it properly.

Cameron Embers:

You know what to expect. People's perception is always so related to, like, what they are experiencing, what they have experienced, how they're feeling at any given moment. Right, like people might be in a really horrible state, like really miserable and depressed, and then they, um, you know, and then they just like perceive you because they're looking through that lens and, uh, so people are going to perceive you negatively all the time anyway, like regardless of whether you do stuff or don't do stuff, or you know, yeah, you can exactly yeah, yeah, you can hold back and play it safe and people judge you for playing it safe.

Cameron Embers:

You can get out there and do it. People judge you for doing it wrong, you know or even trying, yeah, or even trying, yeah, and this is the one I was. I was thinking of like teach the why so never do anything for a client or internally without teaching everyone involved why it matters.

Eldon Palmer:

Yeah, so that's always been super important to me when dealing with anybody or anything Like math was always tough because I want to know why the calculation worked. I needed the concept behind it Right. So I was okay at math, but not amazing because I just always sucked so much time. I want to know why. I want to know the concept, and even in doing something or somebody is doing something for me, it's definitely helpful. So, teaching the why, I think that's a great one. Finally, we wrapped up the series with Sean Loney of Tapestry Rockford. Sean's mission is to bring people together and provide practical support for those in need. In her own special way, she's a living example of how small acts of kindness create big ripples in a community.

Shawn Loney:

It turns out that while we were gone and this tragically happened, about a mile from our shop and a mile from our house, there was a home fire and word got to the Sheriff's Department of Tapestry. The deputy called, said you know, I'm aware of your organization, I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to come out yet, which I was flattered. I'm hoping he does but said that we heard you can help and I said absolutely so. I spent a little bit of time on the phone with the deputy and then the victim advocate after this house fire, trying to find out what their immediate needs were and put out some stuff on social media, had a bunch of people reply with how they were willing and able to help. We collected some funds. We collected clothing.

Shawn Loney:

The day we came home I took in all of the donations that were offered, met with the victim advocate the next morning and the brother of the victim provided a large suitcase full of children's clothes immediately because that's what we had in and some hygiene items, brand new undergarments, socks, any of the things that their son that nine-year-old, I believe, son would need. And then the next step was to collect clothing for the father. So we looked at the clothes that we had in our adult size room, put out a special request, got another whole bag delivered to them the next day. So that was awesome. It was awesome that we had the things for the kids to help right away and that we were able to get the items in to help his father. But the biggest thing to me out of all of that is I got a call from the sheriff's department. You know, they know we exist, they know we can help and they came to us to ask. So that's just another thing that helps reinforce that what I'm doing is right, it's necessary and it's seen and it's helping. You know, and I think the biggest hang up is that people don't know how to offer what they have to give. And I think when I was joking about being a matchmaker and things like that, it really is. I really am. I'm able to match people who have things to give with people who have a need, and it's fun, it really is. It's very fulfilling for me. It's very fun. I love when the stories have a happy ending and I love when we find just the perfect item for someone, and it's just been really fulfilling for me personally to see these things that I joked about, dreamed about thought might be a really cool idea or something fun to keep me entertained and to see it coming full circle and really helping has been awesome.

Shawn Loney:

I've had people ask if I'm going to take on more, if I want to grow, if I want to become profitable. A lot of different questions have been asked and the answer is no. I prefer to stay small, I prefer to stay personal, I prefer to keep it as a very awesome, helpful hobby, because then I don't have that panic and that pressure. I'm able to do only what I can do. And everyone has been very receptive of the boundaries that I've sat with. You know I only work during appointment hours and things like that. So the balance of, you know, picking up from people and giving what I give, coupled with the unique hours that we keep, seems to be a good balance right now and I don't really think I want to go beyond that because I start to lose that personal touch and if I'm required to do something or forced to do something it will lessen the enjoyment.

Shawn Loney:

So there was a sermon at the church I go to and part of the there was a video about this organization in Oxford, which is closer to where I grew up and she said I've got to find this, you won't believe it.

Shawn Loney:

So she pulled up on her phone this little segment of a group called Oxford Open-Handed and turns out it was started and I hope this is accurate by some teachers and moms in that community who also started collecting clothing items for kids that they knew had a need in their building, and it spread to the garage and it eventually connected with a church, who gave them a space and they did what I wanted to do. So, first of all, it brought me to tears. Second of all, it was incredibly inspiring and third, it gave me to here. Second of all, it was incredibly inspiring and, third, it gave me the confidence that, okay, this is a real thing. This idea that I had isn't just some pipe dream. This is a real thing that people are doing and it appears to be working. So I immediately reached out to them, said give me your advice. And they said we don't have any yet.

Cameron Embers:

We're still navigating the same thing you are, we have no idea.

Shawn Loney:

We just take the steps and do what we can. So they said just go for it, good luck. And that's really all it took for me. And that was like I said. Then I just set up all my things, got all my ducks in a row and went for it For a while. It was, you know. Every day I'd wake up and be like what am I doing? Where is this going? And then all of a sudden something snapped and the cart went before the horse and it was going faster than I could catch up. And here we are today still chasing the dream.

Eldon Palmer:

Thank you for tuning in to this special episode of In Case you Miss it episode. If you have any joy for these highlights, check out the full episodes on YouTube, spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. These guests share even more stories and more insights and we have a good time. If you're enjoying these conversations, please leave us a rating or review. It really helps others find the show and, as always, if you have a story to share or a guest you'd like to hear from, drop us a message in the comments and we'll be happy to connect. Until next time, I'm Eldon Palmer. This is the Real West Michigan Podcast. Keep exploring, keep learning and keep creating your story. Thank you.

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