Life, Art, and Ambition: Inside the World of Roxy Szigat

Join us on this inspiring episode of 'Above and Beyond' as we sit down with Roxy Szigat, a lifelong artist, entrepreneur, and the creative force behind Rox Ink Calligraphy. Discover how her love for calligraphy started at age 14 and evolved into a thriving business. Roxy shares her journey from California to Germany and back, and how her experiences shaped her unique artistic talents. Learn about her work, her passion for music and painting, and the intense support from her husband, all while navigating the challenges and triumphs of being a solopreneur. Get ready to be inspired by Roxy's unwavering drive and creative spirit.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The worst thing that can happen is I have an unhappy customer. That would crush me.

SPEAKER_06 0:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

That would that would that I don't sleep when that happens. My stomach turns. Like I worry about that. That is a big deal for me.

SPEAKER_08 0:12

Hey there. Welcome back to Above and Beyond where Excellence Meets Elevation. I'm your host, Jan Simon. This season we're raising the bar, diving into the passion, purpose, and defining moments of leaders who don't just aim high, they live there. Big ideas, real stories. Let's get into it. Today on Above and Beyond, we sit down with Roxy Stigat, a lifelong artist, entrepreneur, and creative force behind Rock's Inc calligraphy. From discovering calligraphy at just 14 years old to turning aside hustle into a thriving business, Roxy's journey spans record stores, corporate boardrooms, international adventures, and now a flourishing creative studio in Dover, Arizona. Her work transforms everything from wedding invitations to luxury goods and even fine-line tattoos. All crafted entirely by hand. Get ready to be inspired by Roxy's passion, artistry, and unstoppable drive.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Wow, I think that should be my eulogy.

SPEAKER_08 1:13

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

It's incredible. Thanks.

SPEAKER_08 1:15

Yeah, you're welcome. So let's start because one of the things I didn't ask you about, and we can kind of jump into this, is tell me about early life of Roxy.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Early life. Well, let's see. So I was actually born in Torrance, which is kind of funny because I ended up Torrance, California. I ended up living there.

SPEAKER_08 1:36

Is that Italy?

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Torrance, California is is a South Bay City.

SPEAKER_08 1:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

And but I don't remember any of that. I do remember living in Rosemead, California as a kid. And the the most formative years, I think, from like nine to teens, took place in St. Gabriel, which is just south of Pasadena, California.

SPEAKER_05 1:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

And anyone who remembers Pasadena, it was super charming back in the day.

SPEAKER_05 2:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Had an old town where you went on your first dates, kind of a thing, and had a coffee, and and now it's gentrified. It's completely different. It's beautiful, but it's just a very different place than when I grew up. So I grew up in San Gabriel, mom and a dad, and two sisters and a brother. And I went to Catholic school. Okay. Even though my dad was Jewish.

SPEAKER_08 2:23

Like traditional Catholic schools. I went to a brooch.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Yes, with the uniform and the nuns.

SPEAKER_08 2:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

And it was a a fantastic foundation, I think, for anybody to I mean I think it's a great idea to have some kind of a foundation, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_08 2:35

And you said your dad was Jewish.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Dad was Jewish, and we didn't practice Judaism, but we were made very aware of our heritage.

SPEAKER_08 2:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

And did all of all the things, but we had a Christmas tree every year.

SPEAKER_08 2:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

So that was really important.

SPEAKER_08 2:51

Did you have blue lights on the Christmas tree?

SPEAKER_02 2:53

We did not.

SPEAKER_08 2:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

We didn't have we did not have a menorah or any of that stuff in the house at all. However, we were made very aware of our our heritage. It was very important. And you know, we watched all the the shows and all of that, the Holocaust and all of this. And and it was it was really cool because I remember my mom saying, just because this happened to these people doesn't mean it can't happen to a different set of people. Just know that. True. So I thought, okay, well, that's a good lesson to take away from this. It's just not all about that. It could happen in the future. So that was that was interesting. Yeah, that's that's where I grew up. I'm still very close to my childhood friends.

SPEAKER_07 3:33

Really?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Oh yeah. We I just my husband and I drove out to California last month to see everybody. And yeah, we're all still the childhood friends were all still very connected.

SPEAKER_08 3:44

What was Roxy like as a child?

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Incredibly shy.

SPEAKER_08 3:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Painfully shy. To go into the supermarket and ask where's the butter was a big deal. It it took up a lot of nerve. Yeah, I really had to like, oh, I gotta ask someone.

SPEAKER_08 3:57

So did you play the flute in high school?

SPEAKER_02 3:59

No, why would I play the flute?

SPEAKER_08 4:01

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

I just think maybe that's like a I I actually started guitar. Oh I didn't play any other instruments except guitar. We did have a baby grand in our house. I don't know why, but we did. And I messed around on that a little bit. But no, no musical instruments, although I'm a huge music lover. And live music is a big passion of mine. Okay. So we definitely go. My husband and I go out and see bands and whenever we can.

SPEAKER_08 4:26

You have a favorite genre?

SPEAKER_02 4:27

I don't have a favorite genre, but I will tell you that my favorite music is well, growing up it was Donna Summer. I thought she was my sole sister because we both had N's in our first double N's in our first name and double M's in our second name. But I just loved her music and I love disco. But if I were on a strand and you know, stranded on an island and I could only have one CD, it would be something with brass, like Earth, Wind and Fire, Chicago, or Stevie Wonder.

SPEAKER_08 4:55

I love Chicago stuff.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Yeah, Chicago is my all-time favorite band in the whole world. I've seen them so many times. I never get sick of it.

SPEAKER_08 5:02

I've never seen them in concert, but I can tell you I think I've worn out cassettes of Chicago.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Okay, I'm gonna buy you a boom box for Christmas.

SPEAKER_08 5:13

Right. I don't think I have any left, but I do have them on my phone. I've got Chicago on my phone. I love that the band stuff and the horns, horn sections are just incredible. So I love that.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

I agree. I'm not a Peter Satara fan. I don't like the ballads so much, but I love the the groove. And they use a lot of syncopated beat in their music, which I love. Oh, I'm a huge music fan. I really am.

SPEAKER_08 5:38

So did you study music? You didn't study music.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I did not. I didn't know that was an option. Ah, okay. I just didn't know. Yeah. Interesting. Never occurred to me. I didn't know people study music.

SPEAKER_08 5:48

That's crazy. Well, I mean, I shouldn't say that's crazy. That's not crazy. It's just interesting.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Yeah, I I just had no idea. So I came from a family of academics. I started university at 14 years old, which I don't recommend anyone do. Seriously. Not a good idea socially. So I'm running around campus and I'm terrified. But the at 14, I rode my bike to university, locked it up, took classes. I did that during the summer after eighth grade. I started.

SPEAKER_08 6:16

That explains a lot about you. I'm just kidding. Because I'm a dork. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Because I'm a nerdy dork. It's it's really, it was, it was amazing. Sociologically, it was pretty fascinating because a lot of the older students took me under their wing and kind of helped me plan out my next quarter. Like don't take this, don't take this professor, but take this one. Yeah. This kind of thing.

SPEAKER_08 6:38

Back when you had to look through the catalog of Yes. You remember that?

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Yeah. Oh it was.

SPEAKER_08 6:43

We we used to have to look through the catalog.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

There was no internet.

SPEAKER_08 6:46

Find the books or find the classes you wanted. And then as soon as registration opened, you start dialing the phone to hope you get in.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

But back then, so I had a counselor who helped me do all of that stuff. He would get me in first because I was part of the PACE program, which was pre-accelerated college education. That was when you were a freshman and a sophomore in high school.

SPEAKER_08 7:08

So I'm trying to, I mean, I I'm sorry to cut you off. I'm really fascinated. 14 years old.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Yeah, it's not a good idea. I had zero social media.

SPEAKER_08 7:18

Were you homeschooled before that?

SPEAKER_02 7:20

No, I went to that the uh the Catholic school. Yeah, I went to Catholic school and I did terrible in Catholic school.

SPEAKER_08 7:26

How did you get to college or university?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

I was super smart. I had a great, what do you call that? IQ. I had a great IQ. So when I was a little kid, I was gifted. Okay. And then I got to, without going too much into it, I didn't have a great home life when I was a kid. It wasn't fantastic. And I think so I wasn't doing homework. I wasn't doing any of the projects. It's kind of funny when you're in fourth grade, everybody does a mission project. I have no memory of that whatsoever. I don't remember doing a mission project when I was in the fourth grade, but everybody did it. So either I did it and I don't remember, or I just never did it.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

So there were a lot of things that you know when you go home and you have other things to take care of, homework kind of goes to the wayside. Yeah. Now my younger sister who grew up in the same household got straight A's. So she just kind of like locked herself in the closet and did what she had to do and blocked out the rest of it, but I couldn't do that.

SPEAKER_07 8:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

So my my up to eighth grade, I really don't even know how I graduated eighth grade. My grades were terrible, terrible. But my parents were, they were academics and they were very insistent that I that I go to university that year, that I graduated eighth grade. So that summer, it was the best thing they ever could have done for me. What a gift. Seriously, what a gift, because I loved it and I flourished, I thrived. It was amazing. So I'm so glad they did that. Yeah, it was incredible. So I did that in the summers, freshman, sophomore, and then junior year. And then junior year, they move you from pace to ace. It's no longer pre-accelerated, it's accelerated. And I don't know if these programs still are around.

SPEAKER_08 8:56

But it's way smarter than I could ever feel.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

And then I I told my mom, I said, Why am I going to high school when I'm already doing college? And in high school, I was doing AP classes that were giving me college credits anyway. So I was like, Why why am I why am I doing this? And it was $33 a quarter. That was my tuition back in 1982.

SPEAKER_08 9:17

Really?

SPEAKER_02 9:18

I'm I'm 57. I'm not afraid to show it until my age. I'm 57, so this was 1982. I was 14 years old.

SPEAKER_05 9:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

And it was really affordable. So all I really had to worry about were the books, which I got used, it was no big deal. But then I started taking art classes. That's where it gets expensive. So you gotta spend all that money on supplies. Yep. But anyway, it was it was fabulous. I loved it. But that was that was my youth. I I really didn't I didn't really have a lot of friends, except for the kids I grew up with, because I never really learned social skills. I never learned that. In school I was incredibly shy, and whenever I needed something, I had my dad there to kind of like help me along. He was my bestie. So yeah, I just I didn't see any I I just didn't see any any reason to have to have friends or didn't really need that or want it or know how to get it.

SPEAKER_08 10:11

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Oh, and then in university I'm hanging out with kids who are older than me, so I've always connected with people who are older than me. Always. So that kind of made sense. And then once I stepped away from university, I took a break, and then that was I moved out of my parents' house, and I thought, okay, well, I better figure out how to earn a live. So I started working at in 1986, I got a job at Music Plus. If you're not from California, Southern California, you don't know it. It's a record store. Okay. So I worked at in one of the stores at Music Plus for about a year, and then they had an opening at the main office in la in downtown LA, or it was kind of an offshoot, it was a weird area of LA, on Alameda, and it they it was called Show Industries or City One Stop. They they was were the ones who were all the records came in. So I supported the four owners there, which was kind of neat. Well, I was sucked at it. It was terrible. I was so bad. I don't know how they put up with me. I didn't know what I was doing, I had no experience. So they moved me into the catalog department and Columbia House. The catalog department is where you send out the list of all the top hits. So I was the one generating those reports.

SPEAKER_08 11:17

So you got to decide who the top hits were?

SPEAKER_02 11:20

I did not decide that. It was all sent to me, but I was working on a WANG. Does anybody remember? Do you remember a Wang? Wang uh before Microsoft Office came out and all that stuff? Yeah. Yeah. I learned BASIC and Fortran way back in the day. I know I'm totally aging myself here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 11:36

AS400 AS?

SPEAKER_02 11:37

So yes. So I I worked on a Wang back then. And then when Show Industries was purchased by Shamrock, Shamrock industry purchased that. A lot of people got laid off. So I figured out, well, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? And I was still working all the while. I was working at a hospital. My dad got me that job when I was, I don't know, young, and was working as an admitting person in emergency room and in the front office. It was a great job. It was a wonderful job. So that's kind of where I learned my social skills through work. Where people were like, Yeah, no, you can't do that, Roxy. That's not okay. That kind of thing. It was great when someone would actually come up to me and say, Yeah, no, that's not appropriate behavior. You can't do that. Otherwise, how do you learn? Right. How do you learn? Well, you have to. Yeah. So ultimately, I was I think a headhunter reached out to me. She was a big mentor for me, Mona Schostrand. She was from Guadalajara and she was married to a Swedish guy or or Norwegian, I think. And she she had her own company for employment, employment agency. And I better take a drink just in case I get just in case I get parched.

SPEAKER_08 12:50

You should probably hydrate. It's important.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

So she placed me at my first investment banking job. And that happened. And then I'm kind of skipping over all your questions. I'm just giving you the nut Oh, you're good. The nutshell version.

SPEAKER_08 13:04

We'll circle back at some point.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

So I worked at Dean Witter Reynolds. They were Dean Wood or Reynolds back in the day. I don't know if they still exist. And I was dating this guy from Emerge to the Emergency Room. And we had a baby.

unknown 13:18

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Little Ryan. Yeah. Little Ryan was born.

SPEAKER_08 13:21

So you have a son. Only one, or do you have multiple?

SPEAKER_02 13:24

One is great. Okay. Um, he is wonderful. So I had him, and then I went to work for Smith Barney, which became Smith Barney Shearson. So I left you. So all in the investment banking world. So this was where I had my corporate experience, which was fabulous. What did you do for the I I was an administrative assistant.

SPEAKER_08 13:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

And I supported anywhere between four and five bankers. Okay. But they can be in all different areas of investment banking. They can be in senior debt or they can be in corporate finance or whatever. Whatever they were in, I was care of that. Yes, exactly. And it was a great job because I made a lot of money.

SPEAKER_07 14:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

And the year-end bonuses were fabulous. The benefits were incredible. Yeah. Sorry. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_08 14:07

The benefits that's something people don't think about, like owning your own business. There's no benefits. I mean, no benefits. No benefits. And I Christine and I we we had I don't remember what she had before. Did we have Aetna? No, we had Cygna. And then Cygna decides they don't want to be in the individual world. Then we get Aetna. Aetna decides they don't want to be in the individual world. It's like, okay, where do we where do we go? You know, anyway, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

You don't go anywhere and you pay through the nose. That's what you do. And you hope that you're healthy and you never use your insurance. Right.

SPEAKER_08 14:41

You never need it.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

I never use it.

SPEAKER_08 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

I mean, I've been paying cash pay. Yeah, that's exactly what I do. I have insurance.

SPEAKER_08 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

I have catastrophic insurance. It costs me about three grand a year.

SPEAKER_08 14:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Because if I go on my husband's, that will cost me $800 a month.

unknown 14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

I'm not worth it. That's crazy. I don't need it.

SPEAKER_08 14:59

I mean, and I understand. I mean, obviously being in insurance, I understand how it all works and blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately, we've gotten to a point where too many people are using it as a sickness thing, right? A maintenance plan versus paying cash for some things, you know, the the little stuff, and then using it as catastrophic stuff. But yeah, it's so stupid expensive.

SPEAKER_05 15:21

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 15:22

And and as a business owner, you're like, okay, maybe I have to hire an employee so I can get a group plan. Right. So I can get actually some type of coverage. Anyway, sorry. I digress.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Well, one of the benefits to being that I have found being a solo preneur, I'm gonna call myself or a business small business owner, is that opening that solo 401k, which gives me the option to contribute more than if I just had a regular 401k.

SPEAKER_08 15:50

Yeah. I mean, that is like Do you have a a I think it's just called a solo 401k?

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Solo 401k, okay. But I mean you can you can invest, well I don't know what the max is $18,000 or something, employee and employer. So that's $36,000 a year you can invest.

SPEAKER_08 16:08

Wow. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Free tax. Yeah. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah. That's incredible. That's where it's at for me. That's for me, that's the biggest plus.

SPEAKER_05 16:17

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Whereas if I'm working for, I mean, you know how how a 401k works and I'm I'm kind of handcuffed. I can only do what is it, 69. Yeah. You only put in this much, and then and then I think you can only contribute. I don't remember what the contribution limits are, but yeah, it's no. I I that's not for me. No. I want to put in as much as I can put in while I'm young and healthy.

SPEAKER_08 16:38

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Young 57 and healthy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 16:41

Young 57. You know what's crazy? And this is a total side tangent. So I actually somebody today asked me how old I was, and I said 53. I'm 54, which? Yes. I was driving away and I'm like, I was born in seven. So I'm 54. I didn't lie, I just forgot. But what's weird is as I've been kind of going through this whole thought process of the business and and planning the business, and where do I want to go with it in the next five years, and the next 10 years, the next 15 years, I'm like, wait a second. 10 years? I'm gonna be 64. Crap. I get my shit together.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with being 64. No. I mean, the idea of retiring seems ridiculous to me.

SPEAKER_08 17:26

It does. I agree. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

I don't know what I would do.

SPEAKER_08 17:29

I I I get I know what I would do. Well, I don't know what I would do. I would fill my time with something. I have so many projects going on.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Yeah, I'm sure. So retired people are the busiest people I know.

SPEAKER_08 17:41

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

They are.

SPEAKER_08 17:42

They are probably makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

I can't imagine letting go. I just I don't I really love what I do, and I imagine you do too.

SPEAKER_08 17:48

Well, yeah, and you I I mean, I think about what you're doing. You have the ability to say yes or no, right? Whenever you want. You can do an event or not. You can do, you know, the I mean, you do the glasses for me, which I love, and I need to get you a few more. But you have the ability to do that. I'm at a point now where I'm not where I want to be from a financial perspective with the business, but I'm getting close, which then allows me to say, okay, can I get Christine to a point where she doesn't have to work anymore? She can if she wants, but doesn't have to. I can support us, and then I can do pet projects, but continue to keep the business going, you know, whatever that is. So it's funny because in my younger years, I always thought to be successful, I would have to be big and employ a bunch of people and all this other stuff. And the more I think about like, I don't really need that. What this this number is is a good number to be at. If I'm making that much a year, I can pretty much do what I want when I want with who I want.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Yeah, everybody's everybody's benchmark is gonna be different.

SPEAKER_08 18:57

And and and you, I mean, you have a creative thing, like I love being creative. I don't know if I ever showed you, I do Halloween decorations and stuff, so my house is stupid at Halloween and Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

I heard about that.

SPEAKER_08 19:10

Um there's like this.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

We're waiting for our invitation.

SPEAKER_08 19:16

Yeah, well, we may get there. We'll we're working on it, but like I love creating things, right? Being able to see something like this table. I mean, making this table. I was I had an idea in my head of what I wanted my table to look like for the podcast. It wasn't working. I got pissed off. I told Christine, I'm gonna I'm going to American Furniture Warehouse, I'm buying a table. She goes, Why?

SPEAKER_03 19:45

This is perfect. Because I can't.

SPEAKER_08 19:46

I walk in there, I walk in the showroom, I see a table that looks very similar to this. I sit down and I'm like, I don't like the color of this table. I asked the sales guy, do you have any other colors? Nope, this is only one. I'm like, okay, thanks. Write down the dimensions. I'm like, I'm gonna go build it. Yep, you know, and I went home and built it. I love being able to do that sort of thing, right? And I can only imagine with what you do, is similar. I mean, you have beautiful work that you do, amazing artwork. Everybody that I've given a glass to loves it. And and obviously without you, I couldn't have done it. And you directed me to get the the you know, the front done and then the back you're doing is is amazing. But as we'll say, as you age, right? Why would you want to stop?

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Well, first of all, thank you for the kind words. That is really nice, and I feel privileged to even be a part of this podcast. Well, thank you. I think you're awesome, and I think the podcast is amazing, and I'm I'm I'm privileged to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_04 20:44

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

The second thing is I really don't feel that I'm being very creative in my job. Really? Yeah, that's one of the challenges for me. But people can't do what you do. But I'm doing what people tell me to do. There's no creativity whatsoever.

SPEAKER_08 20:57

Well, and making this desk, there's no creativity. You could argue that. You could say, I mean, I took a snapshot in my brain of what I thought this looked like.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Oh, I disagree. So nobody I'll tell you, honestly, the the types of of projects that I enjoy, the ones that I really relish are I'm gonna have to mention Karen Gadbury in this because she constantly pushes me out of my comfort zone.

SPEAKER_08 21:23

Give me shoes.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

I mean, the first foil pair of shoes I ever did was for her.

SPEAKER_08 21:28

No kidding.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

And I think I lost two years of my life doing that.

SPEAKER_08 21:32

That's funny.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Because it was it was hard and I didn't know how it was gonna turn out. And I was so stressed, and I was like, oh my god, what if this looks like crap? Like, what am I like how do I is there a way to fix it? There's no going back. When she foiled that, it's foiled. Well, so you better not screw it up.

SPEAKER_08 21:47

Well, and there's the you could say the same thing for glass.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Nah, glasses are a diamond dozen. I can give another glass.

SPEAKER_08 21:54

They're not. I mean, it's I had somebody I would love to learn to weld. Like, I think being able The weld so I can make tabletops, deep pore epoxy, awesome tabletop and weld the the legs. And somebody's like, oh, it's easy, just do it. Like, that seems so hard to me. They're like, no, woodworking's hard. You cut it too short, you gotta get another piece of wood.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

A lot of swear words. Same thing with glass.

SPEAKER_08 22:19

You screw it up, but it's just a glass.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

But it's just a piece of wood. No, but it's it's different.

SPEAKER_08 22:26

No, it's not. So I You're incredible at what you do. You shouldn't discount that.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

I'm not I I understand what you're saying and I appreciate it. But honestly, so I we replaced all the carpet on our top floor with laminate, and then my husband put in all the baseboards. And every time the baseboard was too short, there were a lot of swear words. Oh, absolutely. But it was it and that is a big process because he had to measure again and then he had to go down and then you had to place it around, and then he had to cut it, then back up the stairs. Yes. And and then put it in. And and it was a big process. Well, if I mess up a glass, I just grab another one. It's no big deal. I just grab another glass. I didn't make the glass. No, but I I mean it's no big deal.

SPEAKER_08 23:04

I think that I think it's a good idea. If you've got a thousand dollar bottle of bourbon, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah. That takes years off of my life as well.

SPEAKER_08 23:11

Okay, so there you go. That does, yeah. I mean, it's I and and and it's funny because I replaced all the laminate in our house, the entire house. Upstairs. I did the downstairs. A few years later, I did the upstairs. Well, when I did the upstairs, I didn't I was moving too quickly and I didn't round the corners, which all the corners are rounded. So there's a couple that are like, nobody will notice except for me.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Right. It's not covered by the baseboard.

SPEAKER_08 23:37

Well, because it's squared off and the baseboard.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Oh, I'm gonna notice now.

SPEAKER_08 23:41

I'm gonna look at it. You will never be upstairs in the house. But anyways, I you know, I digress.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

But you're you I don't think you should discount what you do because I think what you do I'm not discounting, and I don't mean to sound that way, and I'm incredibly grateful for all of the projects that I do. What I'm saying is they're not creative for me. The shoes that I did for Karen, the the painting on the top of them, like I love to paint. Do you ever bottles? Oh my god, I love painting. Like that is creative. Somebody gives me an idea and I go with it. I go with it. But other than that, people are like, okay, I need place cards and I need it to be in this script. Well, that's not really that's not creative work. That's me doing creative work, yes, but it's not a creative process.

SPEAKER_08 24:21

Do you do when you say painting, do you do imager imagery? Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah, I I I create all kinds of stuff. I don't do people, I don't do pets.

SPEAKER_08 24:30

But if I gave you a if I gave you a picture of let's say a farmhouse and I said, hey, I want this to look haunted.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_08 24:40

You could do that.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

I could do it. So for Jeff Bride's 50th birthday party, I gave him a bottle of vodka, which I'm sure he'll never drink now because he's not drinking. But I did, I pilfered a photo off of his Facebook of his truck at the top of a mountain somewhere. It was just the best picture. And I thought, this is what I'm gonna paint on that. It was a big vodka bottle. Wow. So there was a lot of space. And I painted that on there for him. He was so happy. No kidding. But it and it doesn't look exact, but he knows what it is when he looks at it. Yeah, yeah. And I I loved doing it. For me, that's creative.

SPEAKER_08 25:14

Do you do commissioned artwork artwork at all?

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Oh yeah, I do it all the time.

SPEAKER_08 25:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

But that's not the stuff, that's not what Roxy calligraphy and engraving is. Well, no. Doing live events, really. Right. I'm going on site, I'm doing what they tell me to do. Here, Roxy, we're gonna give you a bunch of Mac cosmetics, engrave whatever the person wants on it. Okay, no problem. Love it, grateful for the work. It's very lucrative. I'm happy to sit there for four or five hours in Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus or wherever and do that. It's no problem. I enjoy it. The people, the customers are great.

SPEAKER_07 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

And the the teams that I work with are incredible. So I love doing that. It's a wonderful way to spend my day. I'm incredibly lucky to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_05 25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

That's really I mean, that is that's incredible. But I will say it it's luck, but I've also worked really hard to make those build those relationships. Oh, I'm sure. And to seek out the people who want to hire me for this. So it's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_08 26:09

Do you work? And this just popped in my head. Luann Lennox, tequila snobs.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 26:14

Do you ever do events with her where you're like, hey, let's bring she doesn't sell it.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

See she doesn't sell the tequila. So she and I have talked about that and recently actually.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

She should.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Yeah, she doesn't sell it, but she she would have to get a a license for that. She's not a distributor. And the license to sell alcohol is incredibly expensive. So I don't know how she would recover that based on the cost of a bottle. I mean, it just it doesn't make sense for her.

SPEAKER_07 26:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

But what she sells is the tasting itself, right? Which is incredible.

SPEAKER_08 26:43

Right. But I'm just thinking if she could have bottles there.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Yeah, we taught the first minute, the second I met her and I heard what she does, I was like, oh my God, we've got to collaborate. She's like, yeah, no, no, easy there, killer. That is not what I do. And I said, Oh, okay, well, that makes sense. And then I understood a little bit better. But yeah, I it it doesn't, it doesn't work. And I w I don't want to do small projects. So I think about, well, if she has a party of 16 people, then I can engrave shot glasses, but that's not really worth my time. Yeah. So I have a project minimum, which I lower for APN Voke. But I I do have a project minimum, and otherwise, you know, it's costing me so much money to go back and forth and email to figure out what people want. You know, how do you want this? Where do you I've got all my templates and they really save a lot of time. But then there are those those projects where they're just every project is different, even if it fits into the category, they're all different. Everybody wants something custom, which I love and that's what I specialize in. So there's a lot of communication and that takes up a lot of time. So I have to have that minimum and I have to charge.

SPEAKER_08 27:50

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Which which when people stop and they they're like, oh, it's so expensive. It's like, okay, but we're talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

It's not expensive, it's just not in your budget.

SPEAKER_08 27:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's time and I think about that with woodworking.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

You're asking for custom artistry.

SPEAKER_08 28:04

It's like what would you charge for this? You know, when I make the bourbon boxes or those types of things, what would you charge? It's like, I have no idea, but I have hours into building these. Hours. And if I if if in my business I'm a hundred dollars an hour, I mean, you're talking a lot of money, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Well, that's what I did. I sat down and I thought, what do I want to make per hour? And that's what I started charging people. And it took me a long time to get there.

SPEAKER_08 28:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

A really long time.

SPEAKER_08 28:31

You have to I think get comfortable with yourself to be able to say, I am worth this.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

I wasn't comfortable with myself, but I did it anyway, and you'd be surprised how many people just said okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 28:42

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

I mean, I tend to not go for the cheapest person.

SPEAKER_08 28:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

When I'm hiring somebody to do something, I don't go for the cheapest person ever.

SPEAKER_08 28:52

There's I I used to tell my ex-wife and not this is not why she's my ex, but I used to tell my ex-wife that there are certain things that you should pay additional for, right? There there's things that the money is worth it. And and I and I think that that's one of those things that that it is, you know. I mean, you what what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

So Well, it's a discretionary purchase. My clients are really the people who have the extra funds where they can afford something like that. I'm not looking for the budget bride.

SPEAKER_04 29:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

I'm not looking for the the client that wants to have me at their wedding, but they don't want to pay for we only need you for an hour. I wish I could be there and help you, but it's not really worth I would love to be there for you, but 45-minute commute to and from and set up. This does not this is not a sustainable business plan. I cannot do that.

SPEAKER_08 29:45

Yeah. Well, and and so in doing that, you're probably opening up opportunity for the ones that will pay you.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yeah. I would rather take the day off and spend it with my dog and my husband than do something on the cheap.

SPEAKER_08 29:57

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

It doesn't make me feel good.

SPEAKER_08 29:59

So let's talk about your husband.

unknown 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 30:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

I love talking about my husband.

SPEAKER_08 30:04

So hunky had to first, how long have you guys been together?

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Together, I want to say 13 years. I'll he could probably tell you the hours and the minutes.

SPEAKER_08 30:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

But I'm this is two thousand yeah, thirteen years, just over thirteen years.

SPEAKER_08 30:17

So walk walk me through. I mean, he's okay, so he's he's from Germany.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

He's from Germany. Okay. He was living in Germany when I met him.

SPEAKER_08 30:24

Okay. How did you get to Germany?

SPEAKER_02 30:26

I moved for him.

SPEAKER_08 30:28

Really? Did you meet him on like some dating app or something?

SPEAKER_02 30:31

No, I didn't, but I'm not opposed to that. I mean, I dated a lot on dating apps when I was single. Oh, I I did wasn't looking for Mr. Wright. I was looking for Mr. Wright now, and I had a blast.

SPEAKER_07 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

I think dating apps are awesome, and I encourage every single person to do it. It is amazing. And even if you have a bum date, oh my, I'm a huge advocate of dating apps. I think they're amazing. They put people in your path. You wouldn't otherwise meet.

SPEAKER_07 30:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

And I will say that a lot of the guys that I met on dating apps are some are still my friends. We didn't date, but I would meet them and realize, okay, I'm not attracted to you in that way. And maybe they weren't attracted to me in that way. But we connected in some maybe intellectually or whatever it was, musically or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

And I've been friends with some of my friends, I met on a dating app like maybe five years ago or whatever whenever it started. No kidding. We've been friends forever. Wow. And they love my husband. And there's no weirdness there. Neither one of us are super jealous. We're not jealous jealous at all. But I I really hope that single people go out and explore that in a safe way.

SPEAKER_08 31:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Yeah. No, I I would never be opposed to meeting somebody on a dating app.

SPEAKER_08 31:41

I did it So how did you meet him?

SPEAKER_02 31:43

I'm just really making you wait for that answer.

SPEAKER_08 31:45

I I'm I am just chewing at this. I'm like, this is killing me.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

No, it's the greatest way. It was very organic. So my one of my girlfriends, I traveled with her a lot in the past. We'd we flew to Australia, and she was another I I'm from the South Bay, the Hermosa Beach area. And she was also a South Bayer. I don't remember. I think we met through our friend Vin, who decided he was gonna take a year off of work. This is way back in the day, and travel the world. And he did. And before he left, Lynn, who's my my friend, Vin and a couple other people got together, we all shaved his head right before he left. So Vin ended up, he said, I'm gonna be in Australia on these dates. You guys have to come meet me. So Lynn and I met him. We did. And Lynn met Marcus from Germany through Vin as well.

SPEAKER_07 32:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

She married him. Marcus and Lynn had a couple of kids. I was anti-Rox. I was always over there.

SPEAKER_07 32:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

They ended up living moving to Temecula.

SPEAKER_07 32:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

So when I would go to visit, I would spend my time with the babies. But all of the women in that group, that neighborhood, I called them the Hots, the Housewives of Temecula. There was a lot of drama, a lot of stuff going on. But I just watched from the sidelines. I wasn't involved in any of it.

SPEAKER_07 33:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

And Marcus turned 40 and invited all of his German friends to a big weekend. These Germans can party like no one I've partied with in my life. So the night before Torsty, my husband's Torsten, and I call him Torsty, and most of our friends do too. The night before he arrived for the party, everybody met up with me in Hermosa, because that's where I lived, and we all partied. And I invited some of my girlfriends. There were some single Germans there, so I invited everybody, and we had a blast. The next day, Torsty arrives. I didn't get to meet him. He came with his friend Michael and they went straight to Temecula. The following day was the day of the party. And I thought, gosh, I don't know if I should go. I've got my contract with this. At this point, I was no longer working in investment banking, but I was working as a consultant. I would go into companies and find out, figure out where they were bleeding and fix that. So one contract had just ended. I didn't have another one. And I thought, ugh, I'm kind of bummed out. I don't know if I want to go to this party. And Lynn Lindsay says, No, you have to come. You gotta come to the party. The kids are waiting to see you. We're waiting to see you're coming. They had rented a limo. We did a wine country thing with a bunch of Germans who didn't drink wine, but it was they found a vending room. Yeah. So I show up at the party. Apparently I was late, but I don't remember this. And I mean, this is March of 2012.

SPEAKER_07 34:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

I walk in, I see all the hots, I see their husbands, and I see this tall guy, super cute, in the kitchen, who has Roxy written all over him. And I looked at his finger and I didn't see it's not literally written all over him. He was my type. I didn't have a type, but if I did, he would have to be. He was it, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 34:43

And I'm trying to picture Roxy written all over this German guy.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

That would be cool if he had, right?

SPEAKER_08 34:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Well, he didn't have a ring, and I looked around the room to see if there was an extra person that maybe was his honey bunny. And I didn't see anyone, so I went over and I reached out my hand and I looked straight up and I said, Hi, I'm Roxy. And he looked down at me and he says, Hi, I'm Roxy in a German accent. And I thought, so that was kind of like, all right, well, nice to meet you. And I kind of went on my way. So we did the whole limo weekend. It was wonderful and fantastic. And we kind of, you know, saw each other now and again. It was a big party. And he came over to me at some point and said, So Lindsay thinks that you and I would be a great match. And I thought, oh, he does speak English. The problem was he was drunk at noon on a Friday. And I said, Oh, she does. I said, Well, that's that's very thoughtful of her. I'm sure you're a very nice man, but you're smoking, and there's no good or bad, no right or wrong. Just different. And it's not part of my lifestyle. I was playing volleyball, I was very fit, living at the beach, and he said, Oh. And then he said, he did this with his hands, like weighing the options, right? And he said, Trau, which is dream girl, Raoin, which is smoking. He threw his cigarette away. And I haven't seen him smoke since.

SPEAKER_08 36:05

No kidding.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

I'm sure he has, but I just haven't seen it. Yeah, yeah. He did it, he has it doesn't do it now, but I'm sure he did it on the rest of that trip. So uh long story longer, what ended up happening was he, his buddy Michael said, Hey, we're driving up the coast. We'd love to stop in Hermosa and stay at your place. Would that be okay? Well, I had an extra room in my condo. So I said, sure, you guys are welcome. So they stayed, and I took them to Pallas Verdes and the cliffs and wherever I could take them. And then they said, Well, we're heading up to Santa Cruz to go meet up with another German girl, a friend of ours. Would you want to join us? So I went to volleyball the next day, and I was like, Oh my god, this guy, like, he's a player. He wants me to go up to Santa Cruz. He's gonna get frisky. I'm 44, I'm not in the and he was 39, I'm not in the mood for some, you know, foreign fling. This guy I'm never gonna see again. I'm just and one of my friends, Lisa, said, Roxy, go. And if you don't like it, come home. I said, Oh, well, that's pretty. So I booked a flight to San Jose and he picked me up from the airport. We went, we had a great time. It was amazing. So, and he got food poisoning, which kind of ruled out the frisky part. So that was awesome. That helps. Yeah. So uh then he ended up flying back to Germany, and then we were just kind of long distance for nine months. He came back in August of that year. I'm sorry, I think I went there in August of that year, I can't remember. And then he came in September or vice versa, I can't remember. December, I was packing my stuff. Oh, I know what I did. In August or September, when I went there, I went on a job interview.

SPEAKER_07 37:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

And December packed up my stuff, he came to get me, and we flew to Germany. Before I did that, I sat down with my volleyball girls and I said, I don't sell all my stuff and go to Germany. And my friend Lisa says, Ra, if you don't like, and I said, Oh God, that's so that's really great advice. And so that kind of made me feel like, all right, well, I'm not stuck. I can always come back. My friends are here for me. This is my network.

SPEAKER_07 38:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Living in the South Bay is pretty incredible. It's a great group of people, very, very tight-knit. Uh and and I still feel that way, even though I haven't been back there in a while. We it's still very tight. So I went. I lived there for three years. I integrated, I learned the language, I taught English, I taught CEOs and high-level executives English and started my own business as well as worked for three other German companies.

SPEAKER_07 38:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Um, we got engaged in Italy in 2000 and I don't know, 14, maybe, to 13, 14, had to be 14. And then uh we got married in California on a cliff, on those cliffs where I toured him in 2015 and went back to Germany. Then we had our German wedding in July of that same year. Yeah, it's been a it's been a blast. I love living in Germany. It was amazing. He is he is the most amazing person I have ever met. That's awesome. Incredibly supportive. No matter what I do, he's behind me a hundred percent. Even if in his mind he's thinking, that's crazy. But you know, whenever I say, Hey, you know what, I'm gonna add this server, my business, he's like, Oh, okay, let's see how that goes. And then it works.

SPEAKER_07 39:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

And so now at this point, I just keep saying, okay, I'm gonna add tattooing. He's like, All right, sounds great. Do it. You know, he just says behind me a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_08 39:25

So you do actual tattooing.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

I do.

unknown 39:28

Really?

SPEAKER_02 39:29

It's fine line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tiny tattooing. That means it's super small somewhere, and that means it's there's no shading, or I'm not I'm not doing any any major stuff. Gotcha. It's literally monoline. Tiny little thing. It's a tiny little thing, and I can go to a wedding and sit there. You'd be surprised how many drunk grooms get tattooed. It's at wedding. It happens.

SPEAKER_08 39:50

So, what does he do?

SPEAKER_02 39:52

My husband is a walking cliche. He's a German mechanical engineer, and he does not actually do that. That's what his degree. He also has his master's in woodworking, which is where you guys connect. He has a master's in woodworking. No kidding. He's incredible. Incredible. He speaks five different languages. Some of the languages are just dirty words, but it counts. Wow, yeah. No, he can speak Swedish, he can speak Russian, he can speak German.

SPEAKER_08 40:18

Oh, see, if you can speak German, German's like the worst language out there, other than Dutch.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

I will tell you, learning it was not that bad. Really? Yeah, because what you look, what you see, it's like Hawaiian. Every syllable is pronounced.

SPEAKER_08 40:30

I I took German for a semester in college because I was supposed to take two years of a foreign language. I had two years of Spanish in high school, failed miserably, took a year and a half in college of Spanish, failed miserably. So I thought, I'm gonna try German.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Oh God. It it can be a challenge, but honestly, I bet if you did it now, you'd get it.

SPEAKER_05 40:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

And the conjugation is the same across all languages. It's the same. It's it's amazing. So yeah, I mean, if you can if you if you know English, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can do any other language. It's it works the same. So I'm gonna encourage you to take a class and and try that. Go go get add babbel onto your phone. Get German. Pretty amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 41:12

I I would say if I could learn, it would either be German or Dutch. Like I think my heritage, but I think that'd be cool. Like Spanish is like, yeah, that's cool. And I understand enough Spanish. I can't really speak it, but I understand enough. But German and Dutch is like just throw rocks in your mouth and pretend.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Yes. Well, German's not very different if you're from Bavaria. It sounds like you've got a potato in your mouth. Yeah, it's terrible.

SPEAKER_08 41:39

That's too funny. You have a son. How old is your son?

SPEAKER_02 41:42

He will be 34 in November.

SPEAKER_08 41:46

Kids? Grandkids?

SPEAKER_02 41:47

No, I have a dog.

SPEAKER_08 41:48

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Yeah. He and his girlfriend are not gonna reproduce. They've got to do that.

SPEAKER_08 41:52

You know what's funny is we have kids at home that have pretty much said the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Yeah, they've just this generation has decided, nope, not doing it.

SPEAKER_08 42:01

However, my daughter, we're gonna be grandparents in like that's amazing.

unknown 42:05

I know.

SPEAKER_08 42:05

So excited.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Well, I will live vicariously through you. That's incredible. Stupid excited. I can't even imagine how that feels.

SPEAKER_08 42:12

Yeah, it's well, hopefully everything, you know, works out well for them.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

So why wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_08 42:17

There there's been little I I'm not even gonna call them complications. There's been little things that have happened along the way with regards to the development. Um so he's it's a boy. They're saying he's fine as far as like everything, but like there's certain like growth indicators and things that he's smaller and whatever. So I'm just like, he's gonna be a late bloomer. His dad's tall. My my son-in-law is got six three, probably six three.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_08 42:46

So he's tall.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_08 42:48

But anyways, so I need to interject. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

My favorite letter is D. And the reason I'm saying that is because when I post this, I want to know who is gonna find out what my favorite letter is.

SPEAKER_08 43:01

Oh, that's funny. So that I know listen to it. You will have to listen till minute 46 or so. The letter D. That's funny. Like that was that was like one of the most random things that have ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Like, where do I go with that?

SPEAKER_08 43:18

I know. Well, it's it's kind of one of those things where it's like, crap, am I supposed to remember something?

SPEAKER_02 43:24

You know, no, I just I just think it's kind of cool when I post this. I'm gonna say, hey, what's my favorite letter? Hey, what's my favorite letter? If you can tell me, maybe I'll have a prize or something for that.

SPEAKER_08 43:33

That would be awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. That's a great idea.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_08 43:37

It's funny. I mean, I'm sitting here thinking, like, Christina's told me something, and I'm like, am I supposed to remember this?

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Tell me about the letter D.

SPEAKER_08 43:46

What did Roxy tell me before we started that I'm supposed to remember?

SPEAKER_02 43:50

No, nope, nothing, nothing.

SPEAKER_08 43:53

Oh, that's too funny. When did you move back to Arizona or to Arizona?

SPEAKER_02 43:57

We moved in 2020. It was during COVID. And we did not know that there was a mass exodus from California to Arizona, so we didn't mean to infringe and hurt the market and do whatever everybody's upset about. But we were just kind of sitting around and a bunch of people had returned. I had to return invitations to people because our weddings were being postponed.

SPEAKER_08 44:14

Were you living in the middle of the day?

SPEAKER_02 44:16

I was living in Torrance, the the near the hospital where I was born.

SPEAKER_07 44:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

It's j it's near Himosa Beach, but just inland.

SPEAKER_07 44:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

It just gave us more space. And I had canceled workshops, I mean, just the whole all the things, right, with COVID. And so we're sitting there and I was I I'm I don't get depressed. I just don't. I just I figure stuff out, you know, and but at this particular point I thought, oh my gosh, you know, what's gonna happen with my business? Here we've been here now four years, and things were taking off, it was doing really well, and now now I'm at ground zero. I feel I felt very stagnant, and there was despair, which I that's a new feeling for me. I I'd never really felt that before, but I had despair. I I'm not comfortable living off of my husband. I could, and he has made it very clear that I don't have to work, and I can't imagine doing that. That has never been a part of my my personality or my makeup or ever, ever, except that's not true, when I had my son for his the first two years of life, it was very important to me and my ex-husband that we that I be there for him. Those are really those developmental years are important, and I was grateful to him that I got the gift to stay with him, to stay with my son. But I did work from home still. I still did a little side gig. It's just it's in my nature to constantly be doing something. I cannot not work, and I'm incredibly motivated by money.

SPEAKER_07 45:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

I love to save money. I love it because I know at some point I'm gonna need it. Yeah, at some point I might need that money. So that is a big motivating factor for me.

SPEAKER_05 45:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

So yeah, COVID, 2020, and I said, okay, I said, look, I he's five years younger than me, but I said, look, you where do we want to land? Where do we want to end up? What do you think? Do you want to go back to Europe? Do you want to stay here in the States? I kept hoping he'd want to go back. He'd say, This place sucks, let's go back. He didn't because he's flourishing, he's thriving. Yeah, this guy is he's amazing. His company values him and he loves his company. And he is just okay, so you get the idea. So no, he said, okay, let me let me do my research. And he did the German research and evaluated every country uh every s state in America that he thought was a viable solution. And we even traveled to these places to for due diligence, right? D to check and see whether or not it was something that we could tolerate. He chose Gilbert, Arizona.

SPEAKER_07 46:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Of all places. I had no idea I had friends living here. I didn't know. And I say friends, but they're people that I've known for years, not more acquaintances, but now friends, but they were there was a lapse. I didn't know they were here. And I said, why there? What do you think he said, Yan? Why do you think he chose Gilbert, Arizona in 2020?

SPEAKER_08 47:05

Mormons?

SPEAKER_02 47:06

No.

SPEAKER_08 47:07

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

My my beer drinking husband did not choose it for Mormons.

SPEAKER_08 47:11

Gilbert, Arizona in 2020.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Number four safest city in America.

SPEAKER_08 47:17

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

It's not that anymore.

SPEAKER_07 47:19

No.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

But it was. And Germans are known for being risk adverse, and he fits all the stereotypes.

SPEAKER_07 47:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

Yeah. So he brought us here. I said, great, you choose a city, I'll choose a house. We chose a cute little house. I say little, it was 2,500 square feet, in the islands. Loved it. Lived there for three years and moved 0.7 miles north where we are now, and with a little more space, so that I could have my two studios and he can have his office. We still have space for a guest. And yeah, it just it fits. It works for us. That's awesome. So that was my Germany story, and that's when we came back here. And so five years in Arizona, Arizona has been incredibly generous, welcoming, aside from all the all the comments on Go Gilbert about all those crazy Californians coming over. I get it, I totally get it. But people have to understand this. When you live at a beach in California, your whole life is people coming from somewhere else.

SPEAKER_04 48:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

And I don't ever remember anyone saying anything negative or derogatory to anyone else for coming to the beach. It was more like, yes, welcome to paradise. We're glad you're here. Right. Come play volleyball with us.

SPEAKER_08 48:30

And yeah, until that's what I'm used to. Yeah, oh, for sure. Until they got to a point where the government of California was. Yes, things have changed. Yeah, you know, changed. It's crazy. It's crazy to me. But yeah, no, I completely understand. And in Arizona, it's funny because I moved here in '99 and it was still relatively small. I mean, I lived at Valvista in Southern, and then in 2004 we moved to Ray and Higley. There's nothing.

SPEAKER_07 49:00

Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

So it wasn't just it wasn't the Wild West, it was a wild, wild, wild west.

SPEAKER_08 49:04

There was nothing out there. I remember when they first started digging the freeway. My daughter's like, Dad, why are they digging the big hole? It's like, oh, they're building a fill freeway there. But yeah, I mean, you know, it's but it's crazy. I was the recently I was looking at population numbers, and since like I think it's like 1985, we've doubled the Earth's population, which is insane.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Where are we supposed to go? Yeah. Of course we're gonna come to Arizona. But we didn't know there was a mass exodus. We thought, where could we go where it's beautiful weather, low humidity? That was a biggie for him. Okay, and beautiful outside where we could enjoy the outdoors and go camping and hiking and do all the stuff we love to do.

SPEAKER_08 49:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

And it seemed like a perfect solution.

SPEAKER_08 49:49

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 49:50

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

I love it. It's been incredible. Incredible. We're so happy we're here.

SPEAKER_08 49:55

Very cool. What do you, when you think about the word success, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Everybody has their benchmarks. I my goals are not to be on the cover of a magazine. My goal, my goals change constantly. I'm constantly reinventing that, you know, pushing that benchmark, pushing that. So my most recent goal was for success in my mind. I mean, in general, success for me is to produce a good product and make people happy. The worst thing that can happen is I have an unhappy customer. That would crush me.

SPEAKER_06 50:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

That would that would that I don't sleep when that happens, my stomach turns. Like I worry about that. That is a big deal for me. So that for me, of course, is success. Yay, I did a great job and that person is happy with my my product. Other than that, my my personal success is being able to contribute to my family and my retirement. That that is success for me. I always want my husband to feel that I'm contributing in a meaningful way. And I feel he feel he does feel like that. I work very hard, he sees how hard I work, and I am bringing home the bacon. So that's and he doesn't even care about that. It's it's a bonus for him.

SPEAKER_04 51:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

But my goal was to be able to make the mortgage, which isn't a low number.

SPEAKER_07 51:20

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Even though we're in Arizona, we did buy this house two years ago, so it is a little bit higher than what we had when we first moved here. But my goal was to make that mortgage, God forbid anything happened to my husband, I'd be able to cover that. And I can.

SPEAKER_08 51:34

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

So that that was for me, that's success. It's like, okay, I'm contributing in a meaningful way. Nice. I've got you, babe. I've got you. I've got us.

SPEAKER_08 51:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

We're good.

SPEAKER_08 51:44

That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. Does he still have family back in Germany?

SPEAKER_02 51:48

So his mom passed away about a year ago, which was really hard. Wonderful, wonderful woman. The mom I never really had. Incredible. Yeah, so she she died last year, I want to say in March. So yeah, this March was one year. And he has a brother, and he's married, and they have a kid. So our nephew, Robin, and he they we stay in touch with all of them. Mostly Robin. He's the kid. He's very excited to come and visit someday. He's about 15 or 16, I wanna I think. He always seems old, the kids seem older than me to me than what they are.

SPEAKER_04 52:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

And then his other brother, Stefan, is amazing. He just finished an Iron Man.

SPEAKER_04 52:29

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

But get this, this is a great story. So when Torsty turned 50, right after we moved here, I think. Wow. Yeah, so he was born in 72. So a few years ago, he turned 50. I had a big party for him at our at our place in the islands. He didn't know this, but his brother and sister-in-law were gonna come. He hadn't seen his brother in 30 years. Oh my gosh. Yeah, because they have different dads. Okay. I'm sorry, different moms. And so they were separated when they were younger. But and there was no ill will or anything like that. They just hadn't connected.

SPEAKER_04 52:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

So his brother was gonna come out, and a week before he was supposed to get on the plane, he discovered that he had cancer on his ear. Oh my god. Yeah, so he had cancer. So he's like, oh my god, Roxia, this is this isn't gonna happen. So he served in Afghanistan for Germany, and that's probably where he got it. So he's still he was in the military up until this happened. So he had to have surgery right away. He lost his entire ear, like a bunch of stuff. Oh my gosh. So now he has magnets in his head and an ear that me that clicks onto his face, like you would never know. But this guy, so he was big and bulky like a big security guard. He lost a ton of weight and really leaned himself out. And now he does triathlons. He just finished an Iron Man. He's in the news over there. Like he's a famous guy. Wow. He's amazing. I mean, what a great story of perseverance. So he's like, Yeah, I kicked cancer's ass and blah, blah, blah. And we're like, Yeah, you did. That's awesome. Yeah, he's amazing.

SPEAKER_08 53:55

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

So, yeah, and and his wife is incredibly supportive of him. She's amazing, Sarah.

SPEAKER_08 54:00

Have they connected?

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Yes. So, what happened after that before Torsi's mom died? Um, the year before that, Torsi took a trip. I couldn't go, I had too many obligations. The holiday season is tough for me. So Torsi went and connected with everybody. Oh, good. Kind of knowing it would be maybe the last time he saw his mom. And I thought, I could go, but I really want you to spend the time with her. We FaceTimed every weekend, so it wasn't like I didn't hadn't seen her, seen her, but he went and so he saw his brother, met his sister-in-law, and all of that. So now I'm just the missing piece. I need to go over there and see everybody at some point. But yeah, they did connect. So awesome. Yeah, it's it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_08 54:39

That's incredible. Yeah. That's incredible. What is what is your plan from here? I mean, where does where does Roxy go?

SPEAKER_02 54:46

So I've just started doing something pretty cool. I have started adding artists onto my how do I how do I word this? There are artists that I can call to work with me or go to an event in lieu of me.

SPEAKER_05 55:01

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

Depending on what the request is.

SPEAKER_05 55:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

If I can go, I'll always go. But during the holiday season in the past, I have to say no because I'm already booked.

SPEAKER_04 55:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

I don't want to do that anymore. So I've started, I don't want to say hiring because these are 1099ers, but I've I've started spending time with other artists, bringing them in, explaining to them how these these events work. Maybe we have artisty days where we sit around together and do stuff just so I can make sure we're all on the same page. And the processes for maybe we're painting on leather. Well, that's a very different process for doing something else that's on site. So this is something that I've just started doing and I'm really excited about it because it what it it's not about making more money, but one of the advantages is I'm supporting other artists when I'm doing this.

SPEAKER_05 55:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:53

So artists that wouldn't otherwise have these opportunities. So I think that's that's like my way of like giving back. And they're making a lot of money doing this. That's awesome. So yeah, they're pretty happy about it. And and I'm thrilled because now I don't have to say no to clients and have them go someplace else.

SPEAKER_05 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

So it's it's a win-win. So that's that's where I'm going with that. I really want to focus on the live events and continue doing that. And I would love to do more commissioned work with painting. I mean, that is really where my passion is. I love my mom is a painter. Oh. So I maybe, maybe.

SPEAKER_08 56:31

But it's what do you what is what do you like to paint? I mean, is it scenery? Is it people?

SPEAKER_02 56:38

I don't like painting people. Okay. I don't like painting pets. I like painting things and I like painting scenery's great. Landscape. I love doing objects.

SPEAKER_08 56:48

Do you do concept scenery or do you do actual scenery scenery?

SPEAKER_02 56:52

I don't do actual scenery scenery. Okay. I I do concept scenery.

SPEAKER_08 56:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 56:57

So it's never and and my style isn't as realistic as it's more impr impressionist. Okay. Than than something that's realist. It's not really realist. I'm I'm not gonna try and match exactly what's in that photo. Yeah. I I don't I don't have interest. Like I've noticed something about me. If I don't have the the interest and the patience, it's just not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_08 57:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

And I just don't have that interest.

SPEAKER_08 57:18

I feel that.

SPEAKER_02 57:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 57:20

Same way, like people have said things to me about woodworking. Like, oh, you should just, you know, do that and you make money. It's like part of it is I think when you're not doing it to make money, and it's and it's more a cre a creative, it's easier. When it's like when I have to do things for raffle prizes and things like that, it becomes hard.

SPEAKER_02 57:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 57:45

It's weird. It's like a weird, like it's something you have to do then. But some point, I'm gonna make one of my bourbon boxes. I'm gonna have you, we'll we'll get some bourbon bottles, we'll get those etched out in some way, shape, or form. One of the things I I've thought about doing a few different times is um like a wine, a wine rack, but then have the wine glasses, and I think it'd be really cool. Can you do things like like if I wanted, let's say, the Gilbert Water Tower, can you do stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 58:15

So that kind of stuff, kind of like this. Yeah. I always recommend you get that etched. So I don't do any etching. And the difference is, because a lot of people use these words interchangeably, but etching is a chemical process.

SPEAKER_07 58:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:29

It is a cream. So a cream went onto this glass with this template. There was something on there that, you know, marked out they created some kind of a template or you know, whatever they did. And the cream went on in this format.

SPEAKER_07 58:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Shape. And then it was wiped away. While it was on there, it was eating the glass away.

SPEAKER_07 58:49

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

That's what happened with that.

SPEAKER_07 58:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:51

So I don't use any cream. It's not a chemical process. I'm literally using a micromotor tool.

SPEAKER_07 58:57

Scratching it.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

And if you show up to the pop-up happy hour, I will be there. I will be there too.

SPEAKER_08 59:05

Which I'm still trying to figure out where that is.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

I I can't I don't know where that is.

SPEAKER_08 59:09

I think I know. I actually think I figured it out.

SPEAKER_02 59:12

Okay, don't say anything then. But I'm not sure. But I will you will see me in action at that event. Nice. And you will see what I'm doing. And it I am using a handheld micromotor tool.

SPEAKER_08 59:27

Like a Dremel?

SPEAKER_02 59:28

It's similar to a Dremel. Okay. But more more like what a a person in a nail salon would we would use.

SPEAKER_08 59:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

But mine's more expensive and and I'm using different kinds of bits.

SPEAKER_08 59:39

Probably like a diamond bit or something.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Exactly.

SPEAKER_08 59:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

And those I'm literally engraving into the glass.

unknown 59:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

I'm I'm cutting the glass away while I'm doing it. And pressure is everything. And it's all people you would not believe how many people come into and go, oh my God, I can I can do that. Oh yeah, this is similar to what I did. Well, if that's true, congratulations. I love that you can do that. That's amazing. And I I want everyone to tap into that creative juice. But nine times out of ten, they think it's easier than it is. Yeah. It takes practice. There is a learning curve. It's not that nobody anyone can do it. You can do it, you know, as well as you want to practice. Right. Just like anything. Right. You can do it.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:23

You get better at it through time.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:26

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:26

I've been I've been doing it a long time. I've been I've been doing calligraphy for over 40 years.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:31

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

Over 40 years. What what got you? You can be better by now, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:00:34

What got you excited about calligraphy?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:37

I'd always been from one time I was a little, little kid. It's amazing. I I did just a s oh my gosh. I always did art. I I still have stuff that I created when I was a kid. No kidding. I created these little note cards. I thought I was gonna get them printed and sell them to Hallmark. Random designs, just random stuff, like some were flowers. One was like a woman's leg in a high-heeled shoe that just came. Like I'm looking at these stuff and I'm like, where did that come from? But just random stuff. I did a lot of eyeballs for some reason.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:06

But I've always drawn and and doodled and done stuff. And then we had creative writing as a kid in school. We had handwriting. We had to do the circles. I don't know if you had to do that. And I mastered that. I was so good.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:21

I was horrible. I mean, I can write in I'm a lefty and I mastered it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:26

The only problem was when EraserMate came out. That was a problem.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:31

Or do you think that you want to know funny story? You know what's funny? When I got married, the only pen we could find was an eraser mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:38

You're kidding me.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:39

So our marriage license was signed in Eraser Mate.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:43

Oh my gosh. Well, that might have been a sign for you right then and there.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:47

If there wasn't a sign before it. That's funny. Yeah, no, that's crazy. You're left-handed. So see, like what's odd, and people say like dyslexics have really bad handwriting. Uh-huh. And I don't think I'm dyslexic. I think I probably was to an extent. I've gotten to a point where everything I write is in capital letters. Like I feel weird writing in small letters. If I if I try to write in small letters, like capital smaller clusters. Lowercase. If I try to write in lowercase, I end up falling into a cur I can't even call it cursive. A weird smush. Yeah.

unknown 1:02:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:23

But I love my favorite word to write in cursive is love. Because it's so loop-y-doop-y-doop.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:32

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:33

It's a weird one. But it is. But I've never been able to write good in cursive. Like I have to stop and not like really think about what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

I will tell you that cursive and calligraphy are very different.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:45

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

Yeah. So calligraphy is made up of nine strokes. There are nine strokes you need to master. No kidding. And those strokes connect to make letters. And then those letters connect to other letters to make words. Oh it's all building.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:58

Cool is that.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:59

Yeah. Everybody every time somebody says, Oh, my handwriting is so bad, it has nothing. My handwriting's terrible.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:06

But you've got to like stop and go, okay, I'm going to do this stroke.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

This stroke. You just learn it until you don't think about it anymore, just like anything. Just like riding a bike, just like anything.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:15

Are there different fonts in calligraphy?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

So a font is typically that's really a a word you would use for computer. Fonts are on computer. Humans don't make fonts.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:26

Okay, so scripts. Okay, so is there different scripts?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:29

Yes, there are a million different scripts. Okay. A million of them. And yeah. And I can never really replicate one ex- Well, sometimes I can. I mean, if you learn copper plate or something like this, you can replicate it, but I mean there are so many different ones. So inspo is really that's my my go-to. Oh, you like such and such? Great, send me some inspo. Let me see what we're working with here. Well, I can't do that script exactly, but I can do something similar. What do you think about blah blah blah blah blah? And it's something that I can probably do naturally. And they say, Oh yeah, I love that, that's perfect. So it works out.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:03

When you're doing it, because I've I've partially watched one of your videos, but never watched a whole one.

unknown 1:04:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

They're not that long.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:11

I know. They're like 15 seconds. Do you have a template that you put down, or when you do it, are you actually like freehanding it?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:23

What are we talking about? Calligraphy?

SPEAKER_08 1:04:25

So like when we do these glasses for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:27

Oh, I do it freehand. Really? It's all freehand.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:29

That's awesome. Do you have to put lines on the glass to make sure you because like when I write a glass? I put a line.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

I do. I think there's a video of me creating these where you can see me putting down the washi tape. I draw a line with a chalk marker.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:44

And then I just go ahead and sometimes I write it first, sometimes I don't. In chalk marker.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:51

It's freaking amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

It's it's so those are really fun to do. Like I love doing these. So these glasses, you got these from Tim.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:57

I'd engrave my memories. He gave you the glass and the etching.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:01

Yes. Yeah. I bought the glass and the etching from him.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:03

So these cut like butter.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:04

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:04

Oh yeah. I love this. Whatever this glass is.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:07

I have no idea. They're crystal.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:09

Yeah. No wonder. No wonder.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:13

They're very high end.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

Yes, they are. Incredibly high-end. Yeah, no, I I really love what I do. When I'm on site and I'm working for Heaven Hill and we're doing an Elijah Craig or whatever, it's zip, zip, zip, zip, zip. There's no planning, there's no mock-up. I'm I'm I will write at the top in my scribbly handwriting, they'll spell for me, and then I'll go through and I'll engrave it. Just to make sure I don't make a mistake.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:39

But there's no template. Wow. Yeah, there's no template.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:43

You could go work at Disneyland doing like snow globes or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:46

I would never work for Disneyland. Sorry, Disney. They I so from the time I was a kid, because I grew up in LA, Burbank's right there. Disney was known. Sorry for anybody who loves Disney.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:57

I love Disney.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:58

So you're gonna I mean it's not about loving Disney. Disney, it's about working there.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:01

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:02

But they work their team members really, really hard and the pay is not that great.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

Like anytime a recruiter came to me with a Disney job, I was like, and no thanks. It's always gonna be below market. And they and they work, they work so hard. Yeah, they work real long days. So no, I would never work at Disney. No thanks.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:23

But if anybody wants to hire you, how do they find you?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:26

Well, they can come to roxinc.com and that's R-O-X-I-N-K, like ink and a pen dot com. Or they can find me on my Instagram. Or they can just look up Roxy Calligrapher and they'll find me. I mean at Roxy with a Y. It's so easy to find me. Anybody can do it.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:46

Okay. I'll never call you Roxanne. But I was just curious.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

Yeah, only my parents call me Roxanne and the the kids I grew up with. Roxanne. Yeah, because of that. Yeah, my parents were not happy about that. But yeah, no, nobody That's not so growing up in the South or living in the South Bay, nobody called me Roxanne. They called me Rox. But my husband calls me Roxy. So 13 years ago, everybody knew I met called me Roxy.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:10

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

Because he calls me Roxy.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:13

I never went by Roxy. And of course, my mom's not happy about that because she thinks it sounds like a hooker.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:17

That's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:18

Yeah, she's not in red nail polish and the name Roxy, not. Yeah, mom.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:22

You should show up sometime with really bright red lipstick, bright red fingernails.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

Hey mom! Yeah, Roxy. I'm Roxy.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

He's like, you're not a hooker. Don't call yourself. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:35

Why would Roxy be a hooker?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:37

I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:38

Like you're going by Bambi or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

Well, she was incredibly she is incredibly religious and it did just didn't sit well with her. Yeah. For whatever reason. That's okay. It's okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:50

I won't go down that path.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:51

Yeah, let's not go down that path.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:54

Probably wouldn't be good.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:55

No.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:55

So one more question for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:58

Before I let you go. If you if you could like turn back time and go back to your younger self, is there any advice you would give yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:07

By Yahoo.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:08

Oh well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:10

Or MSN, Microsoft or I I think if there were something that I I'm pretty happy with the way my life turned out, so I really don't have any regrets. But I think if I could turn back time and not have anything change and and for it to not be to the detriment of anyone, I think I would go to Germany sooner. I would travel travel the world. I I have traveled quite a bit.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:35

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:35

But I would travel more. I would definitely.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:37

Where would you want to go if you could go anywhere right now? Where where do you have to go?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:41

I would go back to Europe because there were so many places we didn't get to go. Yeah. A lot of places. We did in the three years I was there, one year of the three years I was there, I think we took 15 trips to nine different countries in that one year.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:55

See, that's crazy. Because like you think about, oh my god, but it's really like traveling's right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:59

Oh, we went to London for concerts. We flew to London for concerts. Really? Is that insane?

SPEAKER_08 1:09:04

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:04

It's a quick hour and 20-minute trip.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:06

It's like going up to Vegas.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:08

That's it was super quick.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:09

And we'd spend the night and come back the next day. It was no big deal. Or or we would drive to Belgium to get chocolate from our favorite chocolatier. Yeah.

unknown 1:09:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:17

I mean, if we wanted Flammkuchen, we could just go to France.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:22

Did you ever experience an Oktoberfest in Germany?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:24

I did not. And honestly, Jan, that is not my deal. That is just too many people. And I love my friends and I love my customers, but I'm not a big people lover. And my close friends know that. Anyone who listens to this who knows that, who knows me, knows that. I it's not my deal.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:44

Take takes you back to the shy little girl. Shy little Rocky.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:56

What? Oh yeah, raising funds for Susan G. Coleman. And I love doing that. And that was awesome. Uh-huh. But at some point, I I didn't enjoy people so much. Something happened. I don't know what it was or when it happened, but I realized that staying home with no pants on was a better choice. With or without a husband, it was a better choice.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:17

Yeah. Well, it's funny because I sometimes feel the same way. Like I used to go to Scottsdale to watch football every Sunday. And it's like it's like, okay, I I'd rather sit on my couch.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:29

And just, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:30

And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I I work hard and I really enjoy my downtime.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:36

And I enjoy my friends. That's different. Yeah. That's really different. I mean, you know who my friends are. I I love my friends. They're pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:42

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:44

So I I really love that. But but people like and I I can't imagine I can't imagine going to an Oktoberfest. It must be just insane. It must be. Oh Torsi has such great stories and the ones he remembers. But no, I don't want any part of that.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:00

Brutal. Brutal.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

It's not my deal.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:02

Very cool. Well, I really appreciate having you come on.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:05

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:06

Yeah. It's been a lot of fun. Everybody that comes on the show gets this amazing glass. Tell me about it. It's been hand-etched by my friend Roxy. Has been a Roxy and Calligraphy.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:15

Etched or engraved. Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:18

Engraved. I love it. And you never thought when you had to do your own that you'd get it back someday.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:24

I love it. I can't wait to use this.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:26

And you'll get a coin too. I just happen to forget them on the other side of the room, so I'll have to bring it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:30

A coin?

SPEAKER_08 1:11:30

Yeah, hang on.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:31

I didn't know anything about that. Hold up. Yeah. Well, I guess I should hold down the fort. We don't want dead air. Yeah. I can't wait to see this coin. I can't wait. Here he comes. He's got the coin. Oh my gosh. Wow. This is incredible, you guys. I am holding a very expensive silver coin.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:49

Yeah, it's pure silver.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

That states uh pure silver. I went above and beyond.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:55

Where excellence meets elevation. Woof.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:59

That was painful. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:02

Home of builders. No room for you know what. Yesers. Yay. Alright, awesome. This is this has been incredible. Jan, thank you for doing this podcast. Well, thank you. Thank you for having all these people on in. Yeah. You've got the best job in the world.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:14

Well, it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:15

You get to get to know all these people.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:17

I very much enjoy it and I hope people get I hope people enjoy it listening as much as I like doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:23

I enjoy listening to it. I listen to every single one. It's like having a a one a one-to-one.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:28

Without actually having a one-to-one.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:30

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:31

I love it. So thank you. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:33

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:33

This is Roxy Seacott, and I went above and beyond.