Harnessing Passion for Community Empowerment | Matt Dallas

Matt Dallas, a Gilbert resident, shares his journey from growing up in upstate New York and playing baseball through college to selling Cutco, experiencing a serious illness (double pneumonia and Stevens-Johnson syndrome) that led him to move to Arizona, and eventually leaving corporate B2B sales to start neighborhood publications with N2/Stroll in 2014. He discusses building Val Vista Lakes, launching Agritopia (later transitioned after 100 issues), and taking over and revitalizing Seville, including the panic and pressure of producing a new issue every month and how he uses boundaries, systems, automation, checklists, and time-management to sustain the work. Matt explains his purpose-driven mission—connecting neighbors, introducing local businesses, and giving back through nonprofit partnerships—along with how faith and reading shaped his leadership and values.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hit submit on it and I felt so accomplished because I had worked eight months to put this thing together. And then immediately, immediately I had this incredible panic attack. Christmas is in a couple weeks, and I have to put another one of these together on January 5th. I realized I have no idea how I'm gonna put the next one together.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Hey there, welcome back to Above and Beyond where Excellence meets Elevation. I'm your host, Jan Simon, and 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's guest is a true community builder. Matt Dallas lives right here in Gilbert with his wife, Nicole, their daughters, and a full house that includes two dogs, chickens, and even a rabbit. Since 2014, Matt has been the driving force behind Valvista Lakes and Seville Stroll publications. And N2 that looks weird. N2 marketing? That's weird. That's not supposed to be there. That's okay. We'll cut it out. I'll say. Since 2014, Matt has been the driving force behind the Valvista Lakes and Seville Stroll publications, connecting neighbors, spotlighting local businesses, and giving back to nonprofits in a meaningful way. Ranked in the top 20 nationwide among nearly 600 stroll franchises, Matt leads with faith, family, and a genuine passion for making Gilbert stronger. This is a conversation about impact, connection, and building community on purpose. Matt Dallas. That sounds good. Well, thank you. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Kind of talked it up. All right. Two daughters.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yes. Two girls.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

One daughter's a sophomore in college. Yep. Yeah. Which that blows me away. I don't feel like I've known you that long, and I feel like she was very young when I first met you. We've known each other for a while. Like 14 or 15 years, I think. Probably close to that. Yeah. I think that's probably right.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

12, 13. Yeah. That's crazy. She's thriving. She's uh NEU. That's awesome. She is taking the cut co world by storm. Oh, really? She just started selling cutco recently.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Oh, I should I should reach out to her. I just had somebody send me a cutko knife. My parents have had cut co like my entire life, and I think you and I have talked about this. Yeah. But I just got this knife, and I'm like, we need to get cut co stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

It's badass knives. Yeah, I think if I can just brag on her for it. So I I wanted her to sell cut co when she finished high school. And because I wanted it for her, she didn't she wanted nothing to do with it. Yeah. And then she was having a hard time finding a job at NAU. And she was working for me part-time, and but I couldn't get it, I didn't know enough hours for her. So she came to us right before Christmas. She said, Hey, I signed up to uh start selling Cutco. No. She's probably one of the only people who went to Cutco and said, Hey, I want to do this. Like, when can I get started?

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Without them from or going getting her, hey, we've got this opportunity. Right, right. And yeah, she started with the Christmas program and she killed it right out of the gate. And she's, I want to say she's like top maybe 15 in the country right now. Wow. Um something like that. That's awesome. Uh yeah, she's I'm super proud of her. She's working towards the scholarship and just doing really well. So that is so cool. Um, and she's on track to graduate early. I think she's gonna graduate when she's probably 20. Wow. Something like that. Wow. So that's awesome. Uh yeah, so yeah, so that's uh that's Maddie. And Brie, our youngest, is gonna be 13 in a few weeks. Okay. And um we homeschool her. She's doing awesome. She runs she just started running track. Very cool. She we just signed her up for football, so she's gonna start trying to play football around her track schedule.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

She sew, she's learning to sew, she takes sewing classes, cooking classes, and we homeschool her through Liberty University online academy. Oh, very cool. Very cool. Those are is Liberty associated with Hillcrest? No. Hillcrest, I believe, is in Michigan. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Liberty is in Virginia. Oh, okay. Okay. I for some reason I felt like there was some tie there. And then Nicole, your wife. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yeah. Dogs. Yeah. So Nicole and I have been we celebrated our dating anniversary. Okay. So we so which was uh February 24th, 2004. Is that right? So it's like 22 years. Yeah, 22 years. So yeah, so that was like last week. Um we've been together for a while. And uh then we have two dogs. Yeah. So Nicole and I have been together uh a long time. We have the two girls, we have two doodles, we have a brindle and a golden doodle. Okay. So we're doodle people, apparently. Are they are they hyper? The Brno Doodle is the the golden doodle's older. She's probably 11 at this point. And uh she's pretty chill. Yeah. She kind of does what she wants. She's kind of honory, like old woman, you know, kind of thing. And you you have a chicken or multiple chickens? We have multiple chickens. I cannot disclose how many chickens we have because they're in the neighborhood. Uh what do they say? You can have two and then chickens. You can have a rooster. We love our chickens. We don't have a rooster, okay, but we love our chickens, and they're like pets now. So do they lay eggs for you? Yeah, they yeah, they they do. They um propagate a lot of eggs. Yeah, I went out, we got like five eggs yesterday. So that's cool. Yeah. That helps with the bodybuilding. Yeah, I do my Rocky shake every morning to rye eggs after I work out. So that's great. Nice. Yeah, chickens isn't is an interesting. They all have names. So once they have names, they're pets. Okay. So they all have names and they kind of do what they want to do. My my one of our dogs, Kemper, our our younger one, the burned doodle, she figured out how to open the back door, like the sliding door. Okay. So sometimes she'll open the door, she'll go outside, and then chickens will just walk inside. So if we the door's open for more than about a minute, the chickens inside. Living room full of chickens. Oh my gosh. And so, you know, it keeps it interesting. And then we do, you mentioned the rabbit. So we have a rabbit, and uh, it was Breeze Rabbit, and I'm like attached to the rabbit now, too. So I thought I'd be attached to a rabbit, but that's funny.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Rabbit's cool. Is it is so is the rabbit fairly tame where it'll come up to you and let you hold it and pet it and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah, she's cool. That's awesome. She jumps around, does her little tricks for us, and uh yeah, we just kind of hang out with the rabbit brand new. That's awesome. Daddy-daughter bonding kind of situation.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

That's so cool. That's cool. So uh let's uh let let's let's rewind. Okay. First, New York Mets. Did you grow up in New York? I didn't know you were gonna bring this up.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

I I'm kind of Are you not a Mets fan anymore? I I don't think so. I think I'm I think I'm done. I don't know. Really? I'm done with the broke your heart too many times. I think they did. I think we're done. I think the relationship is gonna be over.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

So now you're gonna become a Chicago White White Sox fan?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

I'm done with I don't know. I think I'm done with professional baseball. I think it's time for me to I don't know, progress. Savannah bananas? I don't know. I haven't seen them, but uh it's supposed to be really fun. I follow some of those guys on Instagram, they're good, they're seem like good dudes. Well, I started following baseball in the 80s in New York, and in 86 the Mets won the World Series, so that's when I was yeah, I was I don't know, like six or whatever. So that was a very impressionable time. The Mets were the best team in baseball and had a few more good years. So I was a Mets fan. So I've been a Mets fan ever since. And then hoping they get back there at some point. Yeah, well, they went in 2015, right? And I went to the World Series on a whim. Oh wow, and which isn't I'm glad I went, yeah, because uh I don't think I'm gonna follow them anymore. I don't know, they they fire sold the team over the fall, yeah, for the most part, and Peter Lonso was my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Yeah, it's so rough in pro any professional sports, I think, anymore, because you know it's it's there's really not a lot of longstanding. You get one or two players, right? Yeah, but then then they if they win a s win a series, win a championship, whatever it is, it's like okay, now we're losing these key guys and yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

I've I've kind of stepped back and examined fandom as a adult, as an adult. And you know, some people I I understand like they're totally into it, like that's their thing. But as I've just grown personally and with you know, my family and my wife and everything, like I think that is, you know, for me, it's time to kind of put that chapter behind me. So the the the off season for the Mets was probably a good close to that gotcha to that chapter of my life. Yeah. So I'm moving forward and I'm gonna ask you in six months when the Mets are in the series. I don't know. We'll see.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

We'll see what happens. They they they pull off some miraculous, you know. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

That's that's just the way it goes, probably. No, I I was glad I went to the World Series though. That'd be cool. I was watching game four, so it's 2015. It was 11 years ago, I guess. And I was watching game four, and it was 11 o'clock at night or something, and they happened to win game four to extend the series one game, and I just decided I'm gonna go. No kidding. So yeah, so I went on stubbub, found tickets, flight, wow, and got to the airport, almost missed my flight, got to LaGuardia, and I don't know why, I can't remember why, but for some reason I walked from LaGuardia to the to the stadium. Oh my gosh. Super sketchy, and game they ended up losing, right? Losing game five, lost the whole world series in game five. I was agonizing to watch your team lose the world series at home.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

And then I couldn't get an Uber or a taxi or anything back to the airport. So I walked, it was like midnight or one o'clock, I don't even know. So I walked from LaGuardia all the way, or walked from City Field all the way back to LaGuardia through Queens in the middle of the night. Oh my god. Say you're lucky you're still alone. It was good. It was, you know, it was one of those things. Like you, it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Memories. Yeah, you go for it and did you go alone? I had a friend who's also a diehard Mets fan. Okay, who's uh actually a CEO of our company now, and he had another friend, and we ended up working out where I ended up going with his friend. Okay, because he at the last second he couldn't make it, but uh so I had somebody to go with, but I was going no matter what. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Um that's so cool. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I mean, you know, it was a good story, you know.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

I actually, when the Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl this year, not the first time or you know, whatever, but I was like, it's in San Francisco, even if I have to, I can drive out there. I looked at tickets, I'm like, no, I'm not going.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Probably a five-time brand or something.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Oh, yeah. Nosebleed, back row, you know, eight thousand dollars. I'm like, yeah, no. And I guess they started coming down a little bit, but I was like, yeah, I'm not going. And and really, something like that, it's almost better to watch it in your own living room anyway. You're a real fan, too. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, because you can really get into the game. I think, you know, I think what happens, and I don't know if the World Series is really like this. I was I was kind of surprised, but from what I've heard, I've never been to the Super Bowl. I've heard the Super Bowl is very corporate, so it's kind of like a more of a corporate thing to go to the Super Bowl and it's less about the actual fans, like less maybe about the Seahawk fans than it is like people who maybe follow the Seahawks, but it's more like I'm a going to the Super Bowl corporate kind of experience. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

That makes sense. I mean, especially since the money that it costs to go and it's it's ridiculous. So did you grow up in New York?

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yes, I grew up in New York through high school. Okay. Where in New York? Upstate New York, okay. Which, if you're from New York City, people think upstate is just like right outside of the city. But I'm from like Syracuse. We call it real upstate, yeah. So when I was little, I lived in Little Falls, which is near Utica. I spent some time in Utica, and then for most of my we moved from Little Falls to s near Syracuse, Central Square, when I was in sixth grade. So sixth grade till graduating high school. I'm trying to remember where Frank is from. I feel like he's from he's from E East Syracuse. Okay. Yeah. So he and I have talked about that. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah. So I think he went to Leiden. I think it was Bishop Luddon. There's a couple different uh schools like that. But uh we would play East Sar ESM was East Syracuse Manoa. Okay. This is going on the Wayback Machine. So in Central Square would play ESM. We didn't play there. I think his school was in a different league. I think he played basketball. Yeah. He knew some kids from Central Square. Um, but yeah, all that like that upstate New York Syracuse area. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

That's where I'm from. It's crazy. Small small world. If you know Dan and Dell Salisbury, they're Dan uh Dan is from like this, like the same town as Frank is. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

That's interesting. I haven't I don't think I've met him. Yeah, so uh Del owns Del Shootery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Dan Um that's super interesting. Yeah, Frank is really, I think, the only person I've ever met out here from there. Oh, really? I don't I can't think of anybody else I've met from Syracuse. Yeah, um that was here.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

I feel like Dan and and at one point I remember a conversation where it was like like across the street and like he knows this guy that knows this guy, and they basically decided they were brothers. You know, it's like they'd like that close, you know. Yeah. So so tell me what what growing up for you, you know, what what was that like? I mean, in in New York, I mean, obviously, you probably got a couple inches of snow in the winter.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah, you know, I just looked this up a couple days ago. Syracuse uh is the snowiest city in the United States. No kidding, one of the sniest in the whole in the whole world. Oh, it gets more snow for large cities in the whole country. Wow. And uh, and it was funny, I was looking at this the other day, and the record snowfall was in 92, 93, and I distinctly remember that season of snow. I mean, it was we got so much snow. I think we had almost 200 inches of snow that year or something. Oh my gosh. Yeah, wow. But uh, I remember where we lived, and for most of that time, I was raised by my mom and my brother and my sister. Okay. And uh like I remember that season specifically, you know, all that snow and where we lived and everything. But growing up, I started playing sports. So in junior, I think I started playing I was playing baseball in like little league and that kind of thing, and then I didn't play baseball in junior high. I played baseball in high school and I ran track in junior high for a season. And then I started playing baseball and running cross country, and I was awful in cross-country, but we had a really good team. So I had some cool experiences with cross-country in high school, and I was awful in baseball. I was the worst ever as a freshman, really, and then I ended up getting pretty good and um had a good senior season for for high in high school, and ended up going and playing a year at at um a school in Philadelphia for my freshman year in college.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Very cool. When when you were in school, kind of in those developmental years of you know, sports and kind of figuring that out. Were there people in that time period that had some influence on you with regards to kind of keeping you straight and narrow? Or were you more of a wild child and sports were just a hobby?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Super funny you asked me that. I didn't know what questions you were gonna ask me, so now like this is good. Drink up. So I'll tell you my little baseball story. Okay. I think this is a good story, by the way. I uh I tell my girls the story, try to inspire them. So I was so believe it or not, when I was in like sixth or seventh grade, I was actually tall. Okay. So I had a growth spurt in like seventh grade and then never grew again. Oh no kidding, happened. So I started playing first base. So I played first base for a while and I ended up that's where I played in high school and everything. But I uh I was playing first base, made the freshman baseball team. So in in our school, we had freshman, JV, and varsity. Okay. So I wasn't good. I got caught or I didn't make the team when I tried out in eighth grade, but I made it in in ninth grade, and I was not very good once the season started, and I actually didn't get a hit for the whole season. Oh so they started playing me a little bit, I couldn't get a hit, saved my life, and then I didn't get much playing time because you don't play people who don't hit. So I went, it was some I I don't know, it was something like O for 13. Okay. So I literally went oh for my whole season, and that's not good, right? Like, like that's that's about as bad as you can get. I mean, even even catchers hit better or pitchers hit better than that. Yeah, so you know, in in most cases, I think people would give up. Um but I really wanted to play baseball and I enjoyed it, and I used to be good in Little League, yeah. So I thought, you know, there had to be something there, but I was also running, so I ran across country, which is kind of counterproductive because you try to get faster baseball, and then you have to build slow twitch to you know muscles to run cross-country, but I was trying to do both, and then before my sophomore year, I ran indoor track and I was trying to get faster, so I was working on my speed, my strength, and just practicing a ton. I I got some tools to help me learn how to hit and just practice and practice and practice and swing and swing like thousands and thousands of swings, and I ended up making the JV team as a sophomore. Okay, did a little bit better, got my first hit, which is good. Yeah, and then I kept practicing, and my junior year I was actually pretty good, but I uh I I partied a lot in high school. Okay. And one of my friends who I just reconnected with, I haven't seen him in almost 30 years. I saw him a few weeks ago, and he uh he kind of took me under my wing under his wing. He's like one of the older guys on the team, those seniors, I was a junior, and we we partied a lot, but we had a really fun time. I didn't play very well. The partying and the and the baseball thing seemed to go well for me as a junior, yeah. But I uh I kept at it, and by the time I was a uh senior, I led our team in hitting. And I think I don't know, uh I don't know. It's like I think doubles, I was like a doubles hitter. So I led our team in hitting, doubles, I think runs, RBIs, stuff like that. And um like kind of pulled it all together. So I went from this O for season as a freshman to you know pretty all league and yeah, decent, right? Yeah, upstate New York because we have to like shovel this the field to play, right? So you don't it's not like Arizona, right? Like you don't get this long season, you get like whatever you can play whenever the field's not under snow, you know. Yeah, it's not very much. So it was you know, for me, it was looking back is kind of inspirational, you know. Yeah, that's awesome. I did it, how I, you know, how I went through that. What what position did you play on the field? So in high school, I ended up playing first base. I got really good around the bag, first base. I had really good footwork, I could move and and and handle throws and all that kind of stuff. Plus, when I started figuring out baseball, I was tall at the time.

unknown 19:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And uh your growth plate stopped at at some point, or probably seventh grade, I don't know. But uh, but when I went to college, I there was um a guy who was kind of had first base, kind of locked down. So I so I kind of transitioned to the outfield. So when I was in Philly, I played for a year in Philly, it was D2. Um I was primarily like if I got playing time, I was in the outfield. Okay, and I was at that point, I was pretty fast, so I would like go pinch run in certain situations, and they would kind of use me for that kind of stuff. Gotcha. So that was my baseball. And then I ended up going to school in Tucson. So here's the progression. Went to school in Philly for a year, okay at Textile, which is now Jefferson University, and then long story, but I ended up going to Tucson and going to school at Pima Community College for a year. How'd you get down there? Oh, my dad lived there. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

I say, can we ask that question?

SPEAKER_00 20:21

No, it was yeah. Um, yeah, it was long story. Um, there was a girl, and it was this whole thing. But uh somebody else just told me about a girl that um yeah destroyed their life.

unknown 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Um so, anyways, I would go to school in Tucson for a year and I played in a men's league for baseball in Tucson, which is probably more competitive than the D2 school I played in. No kidding. Yeah, it was fun. And then ended up going back to Albany. So I finished my last two years, junior, senior year, graduated from SUNY Albany in in uh New York. Okay. That was kind of my college. What what's your degree in? So I have uh it's like psychology and business. So I could like part major in psychology and part in marketing, like business. Okay. After school, I mean after school, did Cutco thing still. Okay. So I started selling Cutco after my senior year of high school.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

When I was 17. And did that through college, ran an office when I was a junior in college, and what they call branch office. So basically, what you do is you go from the end of your like I did my junior year. So it was as soon as school finished my junior year all summer until I went back to as a senior. I opened an office, recruit, train, and ran an office for summer with Kot Cow, which was amazing. I see that's got to be be uh some pretty incredible experience to at a young age to do that. It's awesome. It's I don't I don't know if there's anything better than that. Like it's it's super cool. Yeah, and great experience. And yeah, it was you know, just great time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then finished my senior year and then went to open another Cutco office, kind of what they call the career office district office when uh when I finished at Albany when I graduated. Um how did you get here? So I so 2001, I graduated, and then start this office and a bit of I think ego. So I did really well as a junior. I was one of the top in the region as a junior, like top ten, and with some top national, you know, recognition, that kind of stuff. And I didn't train as well as I should have going into my senior year. So when I went out as a after I graduated, I didn't do very well. And it was it was in baseball. In in cut cuck. Or in cut cuck. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, professionally you have to keep training and getting better and oh gotcha, okay. So I think I, you know, I the ego kind of got to me a little bit and I started off and I didn't didn't do very well and had to really kind of pull it together. And I started working crazy hours, like crazy, crazy hours in upstate New York where the weather wasn't great. And I like just ran myself into the ground. Yeah. So this was from I graduated in May, opened the office in May, and now we're in like the fall. Mm-hmm. And this is right around September 11th. I get really sick. Did I ever tell you about when I got sick? Do you ever hear this? Did we ever talk about that? I don't think so. So I get really sick. Okay. But I'm like trying to save this office, trying to save this business because we didn't do very well. And I'm working my butt off and things are starting to actually turn around. And so I'm like self-medicating. And I just know I'm like, I'm in bad shape. I didn't know exactly what was wrong, but I knew I was in bad shape. So I go to the emergency room, and so it's kind of well, not funny. It's funny now, but it wasn't funny at the time. So my mouth is a wreck and uh it just looks super gross. And then the doctor's like, Oh, you have herpes, so we're gonna give you a shot. So they give you a shot in the butt for herpes. Okay. I'm like, well, I don't think that's it, but you're the doctor. Right. So they send me home, and a few hours later, I'm like, I am really, really sick.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

So I go back to the emergency room and they're like, You have real you're really sick. Like, you need to, we need to take you in right now. So I had double pneumonia and mycoplasm pneumonia in both lungs, and I and I was developing, and I don't know if it was from the shot, along with it was probably from the shot, along with all the self-medicating I was doing and the different things I was taking, like ibuprofen and all this stuff. I had a thing called Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and it's like an autoimmune reaction. Okay. And uh it was real bad. So go back and get admitted within a few days. I can't see, I can't talk, and I'm in the ICU. Oh my god, everybody thought I was gonna die. I didn't, I was like, I gotta save this business. And that's all you can think about. So yeah, it's all I could that's all I could think about was how do I how do I save this business? Because it was the only thing like that's what I was doing, right? Yeah. And I had a pay, and I don't have I don't I don't know where it is, but I had and I probably have it somewhere. I had this notebook, and they used to put my hand on the notebook and I would write things to answer questions because I was I was in like really bad shape. And eventually, after about a week or so in the ICU, I like had a turn, I like started to turn for the better, and like within three weeks, I ended up getting out of the hospital. Wow. Um, but I was in I was still in rough shape. Um almost like you know, higher power saying you need to slow down or something. Yeah, no, I definitely think it was God like trying to put me in my place and like you need to readjust a little bit, you know, to slow down. But because I was in such bad shape, I couldn't really stay in upstate New York with my lungs. So I ended up coming out to Arizona for a while to stay with my dad. Eventually I ended up going back to New York, restarting my office because it was gone, like everything was gone. I was starting from scratch, all my employees quit and everything because I was I was literally there one day and disappeared the next day.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

No kidding.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

And yeah, it was and it was at a time where it really needed my attention. So I ended up restarting it, set these big goals, and we crushed it that next year, the next summer. So the summer used to be big and cut co because you recruit all these uh like high school and college kids, and um we we killed it. I did everything I wanted to do, but then I started to get sick again as the weather turned and I got really nervous and a lot of fear, and I just decided I can't the prospect of going into another fall, another cold season with my lungs the way they were, I just couldn't stomach it. So I ended up closing my office and moving to Arizona, and that was in 20 or 2002. Wow. So that's how I ended up out here. Wow. Yeah. And were you in Tucson at that point? Phoenix. Um yeah, my dad lived in Phoenix at that point, and I came down and got a job at 24-hour fitness for a hot minute. Uh-huh. Uh, then went back to Kacao again. Hey, if it works, I mean. I had the skills and uh I was able to kind of plug into a local office and we do some really cool stuff. It was a privilege. I I got to be I got to work with a guy named Mike, and he ran the division, and I kind of I like helped run his local office here, and we got by, we did okay. Um, I had some other issues that summer, but uh our division was the number one division in the company, and we still that that summer that year, I think we still there's still records that from what we set, which was they're the oldest standing records in Kutko, actually, which is kind of cool. That's incredible to be part of that team. It was cool to be part of that team, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

I I think it's impressive that I mean going through that, basically knocking on door desk doorstep, yeah, for sure, you know, desk door, whatever, however, you want to say that, and then and then coming back and then going back into it and yeah, I mean being successful is pretty pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

You know what I learned going through that was how important momentum is because I was in rough shape, and I I don't want to be too graphic because you know people are gonna watch this or whatever, but the thing that I that I had when I was in the hospital, I had to kind of take care of myself, like my my face and my and my eyes and that kind of thing because I was having trouble speaking and with my eyes and everything. And if I didn't keep keep on top of it, and uh can it I don't know how to describe it, but I I needed to do that consistently to get better. There are certain things I had to do consistently to get better, and if I didn't do them, I start to slide backwards. But if I did them, I would start to build momentum and I could feel myself getting better. And that's when I really understood the power of momentum and how doing things consistently leads to momentum. And once I did that consistently enough, I started to get better enough to where I could then get myself out of the hospital. And that was a big lesson I think I took from that.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Yeah, that's huge. Two things I know about you, having known you for a couple of years and and and things. One is I feel like your faith is extremely important to you. At what point did that enter into your life and how has that helped you navigate maybe some of these issues, or was it there when you were going through that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 28:57

That's a good question. I so I was raised in a Catholic home. Well, my mom was took me to churches and we went to Catholic church, Catholic Mass or whatever. So I was always raised in that environment, but I think probably it really took hold and grew after I moved here and moved to Phoenix and started. I have a friend who invited me to church in uh in Glendale. Okay, and Jeremy, and he was really influential in getting me into um the kind of church environment that we're in now. And I think that was that was really the the where my faith I think really solidified and then started to grow more. Gotcha. So I always had this underlying been around church, been in church. I have some thoughts on that, but uh well, I'm just gonna adjust this. Yeah. But it was really, I would say in in when was that? Probably 2000, I don't know, five, six, something like that, probably. Okay. Yeah, we started going to a church in uh in Glendale, an amazing pastor. I'm still friends with today. And uh that's really when when I started to grow in my faith, I think. Started to read the Bible, started to understand what the Bible actually said, and yeah, for me today still that's super important.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I I admire that about you. The other the other thing that that I've noticed is you're a very scholared individual. You read a lot, I feel. Yeah, I try to read a lot, yeah. At what point did that enter in? I mean, have you always been a reader or did you have to kind of force yourself to give in?

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Something my mom instilled in me. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think I think it was partly, you know, my mom always tried to get me to read stuff, and I probably resisted. It's just like me trying to get Maddie to do stuff and you know, some resistance there because your parents trying to tell you stuff. But I think it was really with Cutco and learning how growing professionally results in growing personally results in professional growth. And there was a manager with Cutco, I think he's still around, I think it was Dan Cassetta, who said he kind of taught this idea of you can't your business won't outgrow your your professional growth. Okay. So if you want your business to grow, you have to grow professionally. And I started getting into sales books, which led to just different professional growth books and just this appetite for wanting to learn and grow, improve, and maybe learn from other people's lessons, their mistakes, the things that they can share through a book that I can lessons I can garner.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

And you can pick up a book and get a whole series of lessons you hopefully don't have to live yourself firsthand. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Um, but it probably started in that early business when I was learning how to be a business person and salesperson, realizing that there's this whole avenue of professional growth that will lead to your business success.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Was was there a particular book at that point that really spoke to you that that you can remember that kind of sticks out and goes, God, that that one probably I mean, I read I just consumed everything I could get my hands on.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Yeah. You know, a lot of sports mentality books. Um when I was when I was learning how to play baseball in high school, I read the mental game of baseball, which was super key to me going from somebody who literally couldn't get a hit to being good at baseball. Like I was I was good, you know, it wasn't great, but you know, it was good. Yeah. So the mental game of the biggest. I mean, that's yeah, you know, better than a lot of guys. Yeah, like I I was proficient, I guess, right? Yeah, that I I'm I've consumed a lot of Augman Dino, big Ogmandino fan. So the greatest success in the world, the greatest salesman in the world are both uh I think super valuable lessons and books. Are you familiar with those? Um, yeah, so those are those are favorites of mine. All kinds of stuff I would say, like just business, professional growth, that kind of stuff. My my the the one that I recommend to people and who most people have not heard of this is straight line leadership. And we did a um, I was really fortunate I was able to do a what do you call it, a book club at the chamber. Um back in when was that? I think it was during COVID, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 33:36

I say I was I was in that and I when was it?

SPEAKER_00 33:39

I feel like it was during COVID because it's like 2020 or 2021. Yeah, that was that was great. I I love that book, Straight Leadership. I think it's a great book. Um that's the one I highly recommend to people.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

Yeah, that is a great book. I I would agree with you 100%. So you're in New York, you're selling cutco, playing some baseball, get sick, moved to Arizona, go back to selling cutco. What happened after cutco? Oh man, I mean, how long did how long did you do cutko in Arizona?

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Uh just like uh I don't know, about a year. Okay. And then so we'll kind of go through the next 10 years, yeah, maybe pretty quickly, but it went this. I mean, this is how I went. So I had an opportunity to to help with a family business in New Jersey. Okay. My uncle was kind of an inventor. He worked for Scott and he uh he like invented the Swiffer and worked on stuff like that. But he but on the side he liked to hunt and fish and he made he invented crab traps. Oh for blue crabs, and he invented he patented these like certain crab traps. And I had an opportunity to go help him with that business in 2004. Okay. So packed up, went to went to New Jersey. Where in New Jersey? It's like Vineland, Richland area, which is like an hour west of Atlantic City. Okay. And my job was to sell crab traps and mainly crab traps, but also some tackle up and down the the eastern co the shore in New Jersey. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

So I did that for a while. Christine's family has a place in well, her aunt lives in Egg Harbor. I don't know if you're familiar. I sold them crab traps. I'm sure you probably did.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Pretty much everybody in that from like pretty much Tom's River down used our crab jobs. Oh wow. So I did that for a while. That didn't work out. Working with family business wasn't great. And uh then I go to Florida, got stuck in Florida. Long story, but I ended up staying in Florida for about a year. Was there a girl involved? Kind of. So Nicole was like putting up with me while I was out and about. And uh yeah, and then she ended up moving to Florida, so I spent about a year in Florida, and we decided we were done with Florida, and we moved back to Arizona in 2005.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Okay. And then what'd you do when you got back here? Is that when when N2 came along?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

No, so I ended up going in the kind of the corporate route for about 10 years. Okay. And I worked for a short time I worked at Sprints and worked in a Sprint store selling cell phones, and then ended up at ADP, sold payroll for a few years, did some soft uh like some software sales kind of stuff for a few years for a couple different companies. And then in 2014, I was still doing like B2B sales. I did B2B sales for about 10 years, and I was between jobs, I was working someplace, I knew I didn't want to be there anymore, so I got a new job, but I wasn't supposed to start yet. And in that middle area, I decided I don't want to go work for somebody else anymore. And I knew some friends that have been doing this newsletter thing, and I just called them up and I said, Hey, tell me about this N2 newsletter thing. At the time it was N2 publishing, now it's N2 company, and they were, you know, like hey, it's a legit thing, and it was a lot of my cut co-friends. So some of my cut co-friends went to N2, and uh I decided to give it a shot. So I said, so I called my employer to be and I said, I can't take the job. It was a big like Fortune 500 company. She's like, Well, what are you gonna do? Because it was a long recruiting process. I said, I'm gonna start a neighborhood newsletter. There's like this silence. Yeah, you're gonna do what? I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna start a neighborhood newsletter. She's like, Okay, good luck. And uh that was it. I took this leap of faith to go start my own business.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Up until that point, were there any? I mean, being in sales is a grind. And I don't I don't care how you slice it, dice it, to use a cut co phraseology there. I sales sucks. I mean, sales is to to to use an overblown and overused phrase, the highest highs and the lowest lows.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Yeah, it can be.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Were there times in there where you're like, I just don't know that I want to do this type of grind anymore? And did you have have you ever had aspirations of doing anything other than sales?

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Oh man, that's a good question. From when I started or now, or both? Yeah. All of it? Yes. Yeah, I would say yes. Okay. I mean, all I've ever done, literally the only thing I've ever done to make money is something sales related. Did the Cutco thing for a while, did Corporate America for a while, and then since 20. So in in I think I left my job in March of 2014, and I got my first paycheck in December of 2014. So that was a long time of grinding it out with literally thousands of cold calls, not knowing if it was gonna work, yeah, just hoping, praying that it would work. Yeah. And I I had a burn the ships mentality. I said, I'm gonna try to figure this out. Yeah. And uh and it worked, you know, thank God it worked.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Yeah, what um yeah, I I mean you see you had friends who were doing it, the the neighborhood publication stuff. Is is that what drew you to it?

SPEAKER_00 39:01

So it was kind of like there was a familiarity there, or what what I mean I think it was the idea of doing something for myself, okay. Investing in myself versus investing in somebody else. And the job, the job prior to the job that I left was a great example of corporate America, I think, where I interviewed with this with this young woman who I thought she was gonna be a great manager. I thought we clicked really well, I thought I was gonna really enjoy being on her on her team. And I think there's this false security in in corporate America. I think there's a a false security that comes from working with a big company or being in that environment. And um, I don't think there's a lot of security in that, to be honest with you. So I accept this job, I leave what was a pretty good job, go to that job, and my first day I get the the walk in and I was all excited to work with this with this manager. They're like, Well, you're gonna be on a different team. We just hired this new guy, you're gonna be on his team, and that did not go well. Yeah, um, so I was like, I left my ADP job for this.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Um that I not to cut you off, but to I guess probably commiserate on some level with that. I was in a in a job doing fairly well, and I was applying around because I just wasn't really happy with the management and stuff that was going on. I was presented an opportunity on a entry-level management position, whatever it was in North Phoenix, and uh same type of thing, like great story, whatever. Ended up taking the job, got in there, it was like nightmare. Yeah, and I mean, I think I lasted well, as long as it took me to get my next job, yeah, it was out the door.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Yeah, I mean, they say there's that saying that people don't leave companies, they leave managers. And managing people's hard. Yeah. But at the same time, sometimes you people companies promote the wrong people. Right. And it and um, you know, Nick Saban talks a lot about that, about standards and and and how you you know run your team and and what you tolerate and what's what the standards are. Yeah. And uh, and you know, looking back, I've I've left a lot of managers. I didn't necessarily want to leave the job, yeah, but I just couldn't work with that person, that manager. And I'm I think people who are entrepreneurial, and we talked about this in maybe sometimes, but it's the idea of like we're a little bit unemployable, but I wanted to do something for myself. And I said, if I'm gonna grind and I'm gonna work and I'm gonna put in all this time and energy and effort, I wanted to be investing in myself and something I'm building. Yeah, and I want I wanted to take on that accountability and that responsibility on my own shoulders and kind of see if I could do it again. Like I did it with cut coat, but that was early and that was different. And I wanted to see like, can I do this now as a real professional and make money to support our family? So yeah, it was um it was a total burn the ships, like take it on and see what you got kind of moment. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

That's awesome. So you started with Valvista Lakes with N2 publishing, right? Yep, 2027. So N2, Valvista Lakes, then you rolled into Seville or was it Agri. Agri Topia.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

So yeah, we started Agri Topia in January of 2017. I started working on that. We launched that one in August of 2017, and we did before I before I sold that one recently, we did uh we put together 100 issues, and they did this thing kind of cool. The company they gave us this book with all with our first 100 issues. Oh wow, and it was actually uh exactly 100 issues before I transitioned that one to Holly.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

No kidding.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

So Agrotopia, yeah, we did a hundred issues there, a hundred months, so that was super fun. That's really cool. And then in the fall of 2022, Seville was in a situation where they were gonna close the Seville publication. It wasn't doing well. I've been there had been some things that have happened that kind of happened and some just unfortunate situations. And um I just raised my hand, I said, Hey, if you're gonna close it, like let me close it, like let me give it a shot, see if I can save it. And I took that thing over. We did our first issue there in January of 23. Okay. And we this week is our deadline for the April issue, so that'll be three years plus four. So I guess our 40th issue in Seville. Oh wow. Yeah, so it's been a little over three years, is that right? 23, 24, 25, yeah. So a little over three years running Seville. Recently transitioned Avertopia to Holly, who's on my team for like eight years and uh kind of trained her and helped her learn the business. Now she's running that, she's doing awesome, which is super cool. Yeah, and uh so I'm running Seville and Velvas the Lakes.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

When when you look back on the early days of getting into this, were there points at which you thought this isn't gonna work? And and what did you do to keep yourself going?

SPEAKER_00 43:44

I think that on a regular basis sometimes. Even still today. And I was just on the phone with a colleague today who's been really successful, and we were just talking about this because I think you go through seasons and like right now, I'm in a I'm in a challenging season of trying to restaff, regroup. I just hired an amazing content coordinator, she's super awesome. And but even even even though she's awesome, like I still have to train her, and we're you know, we're learning how to work together and that kind of thing. So it's you know, we're not in a baseball season that has 160. I mean, the thing about business is it's 365 days a year, right? It's not like it's not like a baseball season where it's 162 games, you get some off season, right? Like businesses every day, but pretty much every hour if you let it be. But um, I think business and life, we go through these seasons. And whether it's the beginning season of learn of growing the publication and getting it off the ground. I remember my so my first issue ever was January of 20 of 2015. Okay. And our deadline for January is December, essentially like December 3rd or 4th, something like that. And I'll never forget, I got the first issue put together, hit submit on it, and I felt so accomplished because I had worked eight months to put this thing together. And I and then immediately, immediately, I had this incredible panic attack of it's December 4th or whatever. Christmas is in a couple weeks, and I have to put another one of these together on January 5th. And as soon as I hit submit on the first one, I realized I have no idea how I'm gonna put the next one together. And I'm like, I'm gonna be one and done. Like, this is gonna be the end of my magazine career. Yeah, how in the world am I ever gonna get this next one done? And it's just sheer pain. And uh it was like I mean, it was like manna from heaven. It was like it just came together and met some amazing people, and now we've done. I tried to add it up on the way over here. I mean, we've done almost 300 publications. That's impressive. Which is wild. That is, but you go through seasons and sometimes it's really difficult. Yeah. You just gotta dig deep and just keep going and try not to quit. Yeah. Top 20 in the country? Yeah, we yeah, that was kind of cool. So it's really because we have we have three publications. Most people are not crazy enough to try to do three of these things. There's a handful of us that were crazy enough to do that, not about the two. But by having three, like the volume of that, of three publications, put us for 2024 and 2025 in the top 20 in the company. And it's you know, you gotta be on top of your game to be able to just sustain that and manage that. We did that for about three years, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Yeah. Running three different publications, I'm assuming there's staff that goes along with that. Obviously, you you were running offices um back in the heyday when you were running around doing cut go stuff. How do you feel you've changed as a leader over time?

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good question. How have I changed as a leader? So I would lead these big sales teams, and really it was about trying to, I had a I had a motto of I don't know if I should say this on in the public. Of course you should. So I had my motto, our motto at the time was push them up or push them out. Like our motto was we need to push these people to for them to maximize whatever their potential is. And some people when you push them, they rise. And some people, when you push them, they're just not ready for it. And we really wanted to, we believed in our people and we wanted to push them to either fulfill their potential or go find what might be a better opportunity for them, right? And that worked in sales, but what I'm doing now isn't necessarily sales driven as a leader, it's more about leading my team, and I have a small team of part-time employees, but it's also leading the vision for the publication, it's leading the vision for people in the neighborhood, it's leading the vision for our advertisers and even for the nonprofits that we work with. And what I would do vision casting as a sales leader was kind of creating the future, predicting the future and showing that it could be possible. And when I started the publications, it was kind of the same thing. It was like, okay, we're doing something that's never been done before. There'd never been a publication in Velvas Lakes from us that like what we do, and even in Agri Topia, and people kind of thought I was crazy. I mean, I had so many people, this is never gonna work, it's you know, it's never gonna happen. But I think as a leader, it's really about painting the vision, creating the vision, believing in your vision, being passionate about the vision, and and as you share that with people, then people are attracted to that. And if you're doing a good job sharing it, you attract good people, I think.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

When when you talk about cutco and ADP to a point, I always think about Glengarry, Glenn Ross.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

Is that kind of what it was like?

SPEAKER_00 49:20

I mean ADP probably. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to some degree, probably uh uh probably cut co. Yeah. I mean, it was yeah, I mean it was it was pretty intense sales. Things I think are different nowadays in the cut co world. Cut co's evolved a lot. Yeah. Um, it's actually kind of cool um the way it's evolved. But um, but yeah, my you know here's something random fact. My mom was really good friends with the Baldwins, actually. And uh I went over so I don't think it was any relation, but the Baldwins, Alec Baldwin, Alec Baldwin's, yeah, whatever the guy, right? Yeah, he's the coffee is for closers, right? Yeah. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to make sure I'm on the same page. So his mom lived in Baldwinsville. I don't think there's any relation between Baldwin's and Baldwinsville, but Baldwin's right next to Central Square.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

And my mom and my stepdad were really good friends with them. And one time we were up there and we went over to their house, and it's so funny, we like pull up and there was like this motorcycle rally or something. So I'm like going up to the door and like Stephen Baldwin's there, and he rolls up on his bike. No kidding. He's like, Hey, let me get the door for you. And he's like, Hey man, it's just like you see in the movies, right? Super cool guy though. Yeah, and uh William was there, and we hung out for I don't even know. I was I was probably in high school or college, something like that. It was around that time frame. And um Elk wasn't there, but we yeah, we hung out over at their mom's house for a couple hours, and um yeah, I don't know if they're still friends or not, but uh yeah, they used to be pretty tight because their nieces there's like some relationship between like I think my my stepdad's daughters and and their girls or something like that. So there's a relationship there with the Baldwin's. So interesting. Um yeah, it was so it's kind of funny, but that's funny. I was uh I was in the kitchen and William Baldwin was like making a bottle for his baby or something. He like walks in as boxers, and I'm like standing there, and I'm like, it's just weird, it's just kind of bizarre. Like hanging out with Stephen Baldwin in the living room, yeah. But uh random little real people, yeah. No, totally super cool, just super down to earth. Yeah, like real people, you know what I mean? That's awesome. But at the time they're super famous, you know, it's like biodome and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Absolutely, anyways. So part of the mission, and I will get this wrong, of stroll, which is now stroll, yeah, is connecting neighbors to each other and businesses, right? Nonprofits. How how does that mission with regards to stroll fit into you personally and how have you made that part of your life?

SPEAKER_00 51:50

So that was that's not really a stroll thing. In 2019, I'd been doing this for five years and I was struggling. I was going through a hard time. And it was like in one of these seasons where I just couldn't figure it out. 2018 was really hard. 2018 was like a down year. Like I was growing, growing. 2018 was terrible, challenging. 2019, I was trying to turn it around. I was doing this for five years. I'm like, I finally figured out, I felt like I figured out how to run the business after five years. But I didn't know if I wanted to keep doing this. So every five to so years, I kind of like, do I really want to keep doing this? And I have a friend, uh Rajiv Patel, who um owned some Nikos and a bunch of different businesses, made awesome wallets for a while. He recommended traction. And the back of traction says, Do you run your business or does your business run you? And that really spoke to me. And it was the whole EOS model. So I read this traction book and and I'm like, I'm gonna do this. And that was September of 2019. Start implementing this traction process and on all the stuff in my business. And I was just like starting to like maybe start to build some momentum, and then you have 2020, and I just decided I'm gonna go for it. Like, I'm not gonna cower, I'm not gonna fold, like, we're gonna run this business and we're gonna help some people, and we're gonna implement this whole traction thing. And what I came up with in traction, and it took me a few months, but luckily I did it before 2020. The mission, the vision, and I wanted to make a positive difference in Gilbert through what we were doing. And I think everybody says they want to make a positive difference. It's easy, it's kind of like a buzzword kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 53:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

I'm like, but how do we actually do that? So I looked back in the last five years and I said, what actually makes a difference? What is what is helping people? And I realized that by connecting people in the neighborhood, that was really where everything started. We were able to really help people connect that might not otherwise meet, and that was like really impactful in their lives. I was able to introduce businesses in a way that they wouldn't necessarily get access or get exposure in these communities if they weren't working with us. And it's hard for a business to build its brand. It's hard to be top of mind, especially in neighborhoods like this, and because it is so close-knit and everybody's trying to reach them and all that kind of stuff. So that was something that I could tell tangibly we were making a positive difference there. And then the the nonprofit thing, I learned along the way that I had this, I would say, responsibility to steward our influence well with people in these communities, and we were able to do that to help certain nonprofits. And there were some that we I kind of gravitated towards. I worked with Winged Hope for a long time. They just recently celebrated their 13th year as they kind of closed down and went in a different direction. But Winged Hope was a big one. And I kind of came up with those three things. So connecting neighbors, introducing businesses, and giving through partnerships with nonprofits. And I said, that's something that we do.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

I'm confident that we're able to do that, and that's how we make a positive difference in Gilbert through these neighborhoods. And then 2020 came and I and I leaned into those three things. I'm like, how do we keep neighbors connected when everything's going crazy? How do we continue to introduce businesses when everything's going crazy? And how where are our opportunities to partner with nonprofits to help people at this kind of time in the world? Yeah. And that's how it came about. How do you get your team on board with that? Or do you need to? I mean, are they already there? That's that's a good question. So I didn't do this well early on, but I kind of came up with this whole thing in 2019. So it was after I have a couple of long, I had a couple of longtime employees. Andrea's been with me, gosh, probably 10, 11 years. She's awesome. But I came up with this after her. It was even after I hired started hiring or I hired Holly. But now that EOS model led down to certain values, things that are important to me in the way we run the business that supports that mission and vision. And I would lead my interviews when I was interviewing and recruiting people and training people with the values. This is what we're about in the interview process. And that would help me attract the right kind of person that would align with those values, that could see the vision for what we were building, for what we're all about. And that's helped me in hire who I've hired and I think how effective they've been in being bought into what we're doing. Because it can be difficult. I mean, any job can be difficult, but if you're bought into the mission and the vision and supported by the right values and hiring and firing based on those values, then that's helped us be pretty successful. It's helped me have really good tenure with my team. And the tenure with the teams, stability with the team obviously is super important because you're not training that often, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

When when well, okay, so have you been in a situation where there's been a very, we'll call it a difficult decision to make, and you've got to go back to those three, we'll call them pillars, yeah, to say, does, you know, how does this serve the mission? Yeah. And and how do you work yourself through those processes?

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Um, in handling difficult situations. Yeah. I mean, I think I I try to be I try I try to be aware of the right thing to do based on my faith, I think was overarching thing. But, you know, when you boil it down to the business, you gotta have certain things you make decisions based on. And a lot of it's based on the values that we have within the within my little organization here. And then are we doing one of those three things? Like, are we is this an opportunity to help a nonprofit? Are we able to connect people in a certain way, you know, in the neighborhood? Or what's the opportunity here to help introduce this business? So we look at the look at the values and and kind of compare that to um to those three things. And if we're doing those one of one or more of those three things, that's really what we lean into. And sometimes it's difficult. I mean, sometimes you can make tough decisions, yeah. You know, things don't, it's not always pretty in business, you know. Like I had a difficult conversation earlier today with somebody who's in a difficult situation, and it's just you know, things are difficult sometimes. But you try to do the right thing, and I'd rather err on the side, like one of our values is giving. And I'd rather err on the side of giving and helping and supporting somebody, and it may not come back to me directly from that person, but I feel like if I do the right thing, good things happen. Off the wall question. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 58:17

That just like popped into my head. Do you within the publication in in attempting to help people, let's say you've got a business that might be struggling or something along those lines, and obviously you've got a you uh you have to make decisions based on what's good for the business. But do you have I don't put you on the spot, I guess. Do you have like a we'll call it a scholarship program? So you go in and you say, hey, here's a business that might be suffering a little bit in the community. Maybe we could help them.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

That's a that's a difficult question to ask. We can we can breeze over it. No, I mean, 2020 was hard. Yeah. And I don't want to mention the name of the business, but I'll speak generally. I had a business that I signed up to ever to start advertising. I think, I think she signed in like January or the beginning of February. And the first ad was coming out in March or April. I think it was April. And in the end of March, her business got sh, you know, sh we're gonna call it shut down by the government because of everything that was happening.

SPEAKER_01 59:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

And I'm like, this lady just signed up to advertise, and now her business is closed. And there was a lot of situations that are similar to that, kind of adjacent to that. And I just said, okay, let's work together. Like, let's try to figure this out. And I'm gonna invest in you and I'm gonna try to help you get through this. I'm gonna look for opportunities to introduce you to people in the neighborhood. I'm gonna look for ways to minimize or or eliminate your expenses to go through this because I believe in you and I want you to be with us when we come out of this thing. And from time to time, you go through these difficult situations with people where they're in a tough spot, and sometimes you get taken advantage of, is my experience. But overall, if you're honest with them and they're honest with you, you can help people work through some difficult situations sometimes, you know, financially as far as the marketing and stuff goes. But there's and that ended up being it turning out really, really well when that that advertising contract came up for renewal. That person ended up renewing and and I think doubling the amount of time that they're with us too. Oh wow. So 2020, especially, but then from time to time, other businesses get in tough spots and you try to help them out and you try to as long as I feel like as long as they're honest with you. And my wife sometimes she says I get some people try to take advantage of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

But you know, I uh I feel like overall I kind of know, even when I'm getting somebody's trying to take advantage of me, I'm a little bit more savvy now, but I err on the side of trying to help them and give and serve them in a difficult time because I think ultimately it comes back, and uh, if you can help somebody out in a difficult situation, they're gonna remember that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

And a lot of it is helping a business stay top of mind in within like our neighborhood, because if they're able to stay top of mind, they eventually will win business that way. And that's how business works, right? It's like branding and top mind awareness and that kind of stuff. Yep. Yeah, so it can be tough. I mean absolutely yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:09

So one publication seems to me like it would be a lot of work. One is can be a lot of work. Two publications seems like it would keep you running ragged. Yep. Three publications seems like some type of weird psychotic death sentence. How how do you keep up with running three businesses, in essence? Yeah, I mean it's really three different franchises locations. Being a husband, being a father, taking care of I don't know how many chickens.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

Um and all the other things. How do you balance all that stuff? And and and still find time to not burn out? I'm not gonna say I haven't burned out.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

Okay. Like that's I don't know about that. But Holl, it's funny, Holly and I were just talking about this today because she's like, How do you how I don't understand how you did three of these things? And I was and I was we were talking about that earlier today. One, I think I set good boundaries from the beginning with the publications as far as the business, when I'm available, when I'm not available. I very, very, very, very rarely ever answer a message, take a call after about five or six o'clock during the week, and virtually never on the weekend. I probably kind of one hand the number of business conversations I've had on the weekend. Gotcha. That doesn't mean I don't work sometimes on the weekend if it's a deadline and things have to get done, but it's not public-facing, it's you know, me hunkering down, taking care of deadline stuff, and I might be up to 11, 12, 1 in the morning, two in the morning on a Saturday because something has to get done, you know. But but I communicate that I try to, you know, at least with Nicole, and we try to be intentional in the time we spend together to keep that husband-wife relationship in you know, in a good place. And it's I mean it's marriage. I mean, marriage, we've been together 22 years, so like there's good times and challenging times, you know. But trying to be really intentional there, trying to be intentional with our girls is as far as when we're spending time together. And when I was a when I was a kid, I I always wondered, I would listen to that song Cats in the Cradle. And oh my gosh, that always makes me cry. But uh, but I always like wonder and what kind of parent am I gonna be? And you know, even today, like trying to spend intentional time with Bree and trying to be intentional with my wife, our two girls, trying to block off the time to protect the build some boundaries with time with business. And then within that business time, how do I run things efficiently? Part of it when I took over Seville, is there's physically no way I can do all this, so I had to build automations. So I built a lot of technology into our business. I spent a lot of time building using technology and automations to make the process easier, to make it more seamless and just to save us time. Yeah. I told Holly earlier today I I try to bend Parkinson's law to my favor. Are you familiar with Parkinson's law? It's uh you probably are, but it's a it's a law that says the amount of time you give something, the the task will take the amount of time that you allot for it. So if I say, okay, I'm gonna give myself two hours to get this task done, more than likely I'm gonna take two hours to get it done. If I say I'm gonna get that same task done in an hour, more than likely I'll probably get it done in an hour. I'm a big fan of the checklist manifesto, that book. And I've built my team, sometimes they hate me for this because they're like, you have so many checklists, so many to-do lists, and all that stuff. But it's having we want to bring consistency to our output, to the publication and everything we're doing and to the experience. So we have checklists for everything. So building good checklists, building good processes, leaning into the EOS model uh through that book traction to build all the stuff out. And that allowed us to, and I don't know if you want to call going from one to three scaling, that's kind of a stretch, probably, but you know, but to grow and to do three publications with the number of clients we have and that kind of thing. I think it starts with intentional time, personally, protect putting boundaries in place, working within Parkinson's law to to get things done in an amount of time. I used the Pomodoro technique, which is on 25 minutes off five, sometimes on 50 off 10. I got myself a little sign timer now. So 25-minute sand timer I put on my desk. Yeah. And then systems, processes, checklists, and automations. Um doing all that allowed me to to grow to three pubs and you know, do, you know, do well over the last few years.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

If you could go back to the beginning of the publications when you first stepped in, is there something that you would tell yourself to do differently at that point that would help you be further along than you are today?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

I don't know. I was pretty naive back then, which I think is a really good thing. I wish I was a little bit more naive now. But probably just, you know, I'd probably just tell myself, you gotta believe in yourself, you know, you can do this, you're gonna do this, yeah, you gotta grind, but you know, if you put in the work, you'll get there. The formula I came up with was over time was um, and maybe I would have told myself this earlier was truth plus gratitude plus action equals victory. And focusing on what's actually true, being grateful in that situation, whatever it is, and taking the appropriate action will help you be successful, victorious, whatever you know, however you want to phrase that, in whatever you're doing. And I've learned that probably the hard way over time, putting those three things together. But I think introducing that formula to my younger self would have probably made me a lot more successful in everything, whether it was baseball, cut cow, you know, business, whatever it was. I think that's an important formula for my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

What makes stroll different? What makes stroll different? So, you know, on the surface, I think the ultimate answer to that is the people. But, you know, and I just had this guy I was just kind of arguing with on the phone earlier today, and he was like, Well, you're just a magazine, right? And I'm like, Well, yeah, there's a hundred magazines out there. And when I when I it was actually an insurance guy, one of the first people I went to in 2014, he's like, Damn, insurance guy, nobody reads magazines anymore. This is never gonna work. It was actually two insurance guys, which is kind of funny. Um, it's never gonna work, nobody reads magazines anymore. It's 2014, and I don't want to talk to you. And now I swear there's more magazines than there was back then. Okay, and it's probably driven by us because we have like a thousand publications across the country, so people see our company growth and all that kind of stuff. But the thing that's hard is I think we make it look easier than it is. And I think for Stroll, for us specifically in these neighborhoods, it's the connection with people in the community that it's their stuff. It's not what is it's not what Matt thinks is interesting, it's not a bunch of like AI generated content that you can pull off of some AI site or something like that, which a lot of magazines these days are that's what they're doing. It's real stuff that people are actually interested in, not what I think is interesting. And that is an important distinction. Dale Carnegie talks about that distinction and how to win friends and influence people, right? The distinction between if you want to be, if you want to appear interesting, be interested. But you can relate to the publication. The reason why, and I brought a couple of them, you know, but the reason why people love this thing is because. It's their stuff. Yeah. It's their families. It's their kids. It's their pets. It's their. I remember this kid, and I learned this lesson a long time ago, and it was an important lesson. He he he was making brownies. Okay. And he wanted his brownie recipe to be in the magazine. So he made these brownies. He took a picture and he sent them over to me. And the picture was terrible. It was like it was like a blonde brownie, you know, whatever you call it, it's vanilla.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Um, but his picture was like green. Okay. The picture was terrible. Um, and I asked his mom, I said, Hey, can you have him retake the picture? And she's like, he already ate, I'm sorry. I'm like, all right, well, we're gonna have to run the green brownies in the magazine. You know what? He was so excited that his brownies made the magazine. No kidding. Even though the picture was like green. Yeah. And and that's what I learned. Like it when it's their stuff in these neighborhoods, when people contribute their things, they're it's something important to them. They want to be part of it, they want to contribute to it, they want to read it, they want to be involved in what we're doing. And that makes all the difference. It's not just what is generally interesting to the general public, or it's not it's not super pretty, and there's prettier magazines, but it's really the people that help contribute and put it together, which is part of the reason why most of our revenue comes from people who live in these neighborhoods because they own businesses and they know it's the thing that people in the neighborhoods read, and they want to be part of it because they want their business seen by their neighbors, and they know like they read it because it's their stuff, it's what they're actually interested in.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:32

So so the publication is or the content in the publication, in essence, is is free and generated by residents of the neighborhood. Yep. And then you pay for the publication through advertisement.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

Yeah, I mean that's that's the model. So the revenue comes from advertising, and we find businesses who want to reach these neighborhoods, and usually they're businesses that have been around for a few years, they know the neighborhood, they usually have a couple good clients in the neighborhood or good customers in the neighborhood. Like I I have a client who's been with us, she started with us in 2012 in Seville, and she's in the process of reducing her workload business-wise. And you would think on the surface that maybe she shouldn't keep advertising if she's trying to reduce the number of clients she has. And I had this whole conversation with her, but her best clientele come from, in this case, Seville. So she wants to continue her ad in Seville, even though overall she's taking on less workload because they're some of her top people. So, you know, businesses want to be in front of these people and want to share their business. They serve the community, they tend to do a really good job, they tend to get great word of mouth, and they just want more people in the neighborhood to know who they are and what they do. Um, so that's where the revenue side comes from. And then we build relationships with people in the neighborhood, just people nominating their neighbors. Sometimes I'm out knocking on doors, introducing myself, you know, just inviting people to dinners and happy hours and to volunteer events, like we're doing a volunteer event this weekend at Midwest, Midwest Food Bank, um, and just getting people involved, just building connections, building relationships. It's it's a very relationship-driven program. They say it's relationship marketing kind of, you know, it's a phrase that we use. But that's really where it starts.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:12

If if well, okay, so two questions. Oh, sorry, just kick the mic out. If if somebody wants to get in the magazine, yeah, obviously reach out to you. Right. How would they find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

Um so they can, I mean, I don't know how you're gonna do this, but you can they can call me, text me. I will link. Yeah, there will be links, but they can check some people want to check out what we're doing, and it the publication itself is private, so it's not publicly available. Part of the reason why people share their stuff with us is because they know it's private for their community, it's not stacked up the grocery store and that kind of thing. Yeah, but we do have an Instagram where we share a kind of a look into what we're doing. So the Instagram here locally is we have Stroll Seville, Stroll Valvista Lakes, and Stroll Agri Topia. I have a lot of clients in Agri Topia. If somebody wants to be in Agriopia, I can help them with that. Of course, Solly can help them too, but I'd love to help them get into Agri Topia. So they can kind of get a peek into what we're doing through our Instagram page or on Facebook too. But we try to do more on Instagram. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

Um, email me. Yeah, I hate email. But they can call me, text me.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:14

We'll we'll we'll we'll make sure that we get you linked on there. Yeah. What do you hope people say about the publication when you're not around?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:22

What do I hope people say about the publication when I'm not around? People really like the publications, yeah. They really do. Yeah, I meet a lot of people, especially with Seville, because I didn't start Seville. Seville's been around since 2012. And I'll meet people that I've never met before. I'm like, oh yeah, we love that thing. It's like our neighbors. And we I there's people who literally keep every single issue. Oh wow. And they'll pass them down, like when they move, they'll they'll keep them in the house. And I've had people reach out to me, like, yeah, when we moved in, there's this whole stack of these magazines. That's awesome. That's how I found your number. And I'm getting to know my neighbors because they put like who was in our subdivision, who was on our street, and they're like stacked up in that order and stuff. And I, you know, I think that it's real, that it's real people that were really making a difference, that it looks good. I mean, it looks people people think that it looks good too, which is great, but it's not something you can find anywhere else. Like the stories and these things, they're they're unique to that community, to these people, and it's their stories, you know, and and it's kind of cool because these are like little time capsules, you know. And we've had several people who we featured in the last 12 years who have passed away, and their family will reach out to us and be like, hey, can we get some extra copies of the magazine from when they were featured for you know for the service and everything? And um, it's kind of cool. Like it's it's a neat opportunity I have to connect with people and share their story in a way that you know just that really doesn't exist, probably, for most people. Like I had a I had a chance to meet a World War II vet, and uh we shared his story and just amazing interaction and and it's just a great experience talking to this guy and hanging out with him and and I remember when he passed away and everything. And uh it's just an honor for me to be able to like share their story. We've had several situations like that where you know some of these are older folks, and um it was just cool that I was kind of played a small role, you know, yeah sharing their story, helping celebrate something for them. We had a lady who turned a hundred, help it live on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

It it seems like you have a real passion for this.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

I mean, it it feels like it, it seems like it. And I'm I'm sure that there's days where you question sanity and do I want to keep doing this, and you know, just like any sales, peaks and valleys, right? What do you hope people say about Matt Dallas?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:30

Oh man, I've never thought about that, or I haven't thought about that much recently. I don't know that I uh I try to do a good job, try to help people, I guess. You know, I kind of look at this as an opportunity to give and to serve. And if I can serve people through those three things in that I made a positive, I mean it goes back to like making a positive difference, right? Like if I can make a small positive difference in somebody's world, then hopefully think they're better off for that, I guess. I don't know. I am I that's a good question. Do you ever think about that question? Oh, for sure. Do you ever I did this a few years ago and I can't I at this point I can't remember, I have a terrible memory, but do you ever race your own obituary? I've never done that. It's a good exercise.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:11

Never done that, but I do wonder it it's interesting because like when I run into people that I don't see very often or that it maybe I've met once or twice and they remember my name.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:21

And this is probably a weird thing to say, but it it it floors me. It like like it impresses me that they would remember who I am. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I it's a weird, like a weird uh what what's the uh there's a they say it's a syndrome we talked about it. I don't remember, but anyways, it's uh one of those things where I feel imposter syndrome. It's one of those things where I just feel like I don't know, would would somebody am I memorable? You know, would somebody say good things about me? You know, um when when I'm gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:53

Yeah. That's a that's a deep question. You know, because and you asked me about this earlier, but I share on a regular basis, I share Bible verses and things about my faith on social media. And I always wonder, um, and hopefully it's not for a long time, but I always wonder like what's my last social media post gonna be? There's gonna be a last one, right? Oh wow, and what I started doing a few years ago is I started so Instagram, so I try to post on Instagram, and usually that goes to Facebook, but it has like three tiles across. And what I started doing probably like four or five years ago is every third post I do a Bible verse. So like if you look at my Instagram, it's like Bible verses down one whole column. And uh so at least that'll be the second or third, you know, one on there. But I've had a lot of people, especially in 2020, 2021, when things are just kind of weird and crazy. A lot of people would reach out to me and they they would, you know, comment on that in that I was somehow brave or I don't know. They they they they would tell me that they couldn't share the things that I would share. They they aligned with them, they thought them, but they couldn't share them because they were worried about repercussions from their job or their whatever. And um, so hopefully, you know, as people think about me, maybe they'll be inspired to explore their faith more based on some of the stuff that's that I've shared through public means like social media, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:11

I think that's really cool. I mean, I I would say that I definitely feel that from my perspective, because of you know, the clients that I deal with and stuff, it's like I don't want to upset the cart. So, you know, it's like what what you know what are my what are my feelings, what are my beliefs, you know, those types of things. You try to keep them as neutral as possible, but at the same time you kind of feel like, okay, well, are we are we supposed to keep them neutral to keep people happy, or should we you know focus on you know God? And it it's a it's a weird, you know, when you start really well, I for myself anyways, and and I was in uh we were in in Palm Springs not too long ago, and I was driving back, and it's funny because my my stepdaughter sent me a uh podcast to listen to on the way back, and uh she sent me a message, I don't know, a couple hours in. She says, Have you listened to it? I'm like, no. And then I got back to that, she says, Did you listen to? I'm like, nope. I literally didn't turn on the radio the entire way. I just sat in silence and just had like conversations in my mind about so you're just by yourself then? Yeah, just by myself. And I'm just like literally just driving and having those conversations. And and sometimes I do that where it's just you know, thinking about what type of impression do I leave on people? Is it a good impression? Am I doing things on a daily basis to hopefully make somebody else's day better? Yeah, right. I feel very it's hard sometimes, obviously, and we're all human, you know, when somebody flips you off or tells you something bad or yells at you to remember that more than likely it's just a reflection of how their day's been, not necessarily how you're treating them, you know, but to be able to stop and go, okay, that's okay. You know, I can I can absorb that and you know move on. But what's next for Matt Dallas?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:00

Oh man, I don't know. I don't know. I've I've been doing this for 12 years. Yeah. I uh I enjoyed doing it because of the challenge. It's it's a challenging business to be in. It's of all the businesses I could have been in, like this is probably one of the most challenging, I would say. So there's still this constant challenge that keeps me wanting to improve and do better and that kind of thing. There's a lot of other cool stuff out there. I mean, I've there's my interests have changed over the last 12 years. My, you know, I've grown personally, professionally. So I don't know. I mean, the short term, everybody asks me, am I gonna do another publication? I don't know. I might add a third at some point. I think I think right now it's really just a matter of focusing on Seville and Velvas Lakes and just trying to do good there while I focus on my my family. Yeah, like it went so quick. You know, Maddie's in college and Bree's almost 13, and I'm trying to simplify 30 years old and have a grandbaby. Hopefully, I've yeah, I can't wait to be, you know, have them have grandbabies. But um uh I I think it's like trying to simplify, like that's where kind of where we are, Nicole and I right now. Um trying to simplify the business a little bit, going to two publications, just creating excellence in those two, and um and exploring my personal interests and outside of the business and that kind of stuff. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know. There's I have a lot of things I would love to do. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:28

If you win the lottery, money becomes no issue. You know, we say that, but then at the end of the day, really would we?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:35

Yeah, no, that's a good qu I mean I really enjoy certain aspects. I mean, certain aspects are really challenging, it's business, right? So some things are just tough and you just gotta deal with it. But there's some really cool things that we get to do through this publication thing that you know just wouldn't happen otherwise. Yeah. I mean, there's connections I've made and help people, and that's like the really rewarding part of things. So I don't know. If I had a billion dollars, would I still do it?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:00

You know what's crazy? Because I think that too. Like if if I had if if if I was independently wealthy, whatever that number is, yeah, and I didn't have to worry about it, would I still do what I'm doing today? And quite honestly, when I'm not worried about money, I very much enjoy what I do. When I start stressing out about money, everything gets hard.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:19

Yeah. That's how I have a friend who uh sold his business for a billion dollars recently.

unknown 1:21:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:25

He has he has a partners. Um but uh I thought so he told me this was gonna happen, and I didn't know the number, I knew it was gonna be big, I didn't realize it was gonna be that big. And I thought he was gonna ride off into the sunset. And I don't know if he's gonna, he's probably not gonna watch this, but he might, who knows? He was my friend from high school. Oh and uh I saw him, we reconnected. It's been almost 30 years since we've seen each other, and uh he's going bigger, he's taking on in the same business, same industry, taking on a bigger challenge because he thrives in that environment of challenge, of um doing something some people think he can't do. Yeah, and uh I wouldn't bet against him. Um, but it's kind of the thing, like he did it, you know, and uh he's going back and doing it again. So it's easy to say what we think we might do, but yeah, you know, for some of us that were and I don't know if I'm this way, I'm it's I I don't I'm not in that scenario right now, right? But I may be competitive enough that if I did have that option, I'd still keep doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:24

I I kind of wonder myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:26

I think I I think I would in some capacity, whether it's still in the insurance world or some other world. Because you like helping people, you like helping their business. I love I love connecting people, I have helping people, I love learning about people, just having conversations. This podcast has really given me the opportunity to dig deeper into a side of me that I didn't really understand that I had, which is kind of there's a creative but inquisitive side. And so it's really been fun and learning that and going, okay, how can I be better? How can I do this better? How can I make it beneficial for the guest, beneficial for the listener, beneficial for me? What does that look like? What does that formula look like? No, you know, and and really it has nothing to do with you know, how do I monetize it or anything like that? Because if I never monetize it, no big deal, at least at this point. Yeah, it's more about it was could I do this? Yep, I did it. Yeah, okay, how can I make it better? Right. I made it better. Yeah. Now how can I really make it good? You know, and so it's weird, and and and quite honestly, I would if I could afford it, I'd I'd hire people to start doing the marketing and go, okay, now I want to do this piece. And I I've got all these ideas that just filter around in my head. So I think if I was in that position, no, I wouldn't, I don't think I would stop. Yeah, it's like okay, how because there is something about standing somewhere on the mountain going, I'm gonna reach the peak, and let's go. Yeah, who's coming with me? And then what's the next, what's the next peak? Yeah, yeah. Oh, we got to that one. Oh, look, there's a a bigger one. Let's go climb to that one. So, anyways, I'm trying to think if I got more questions for you. I feel like I should. I feel like I feel like you could tell me more about Stroll. I mean, I'm impressed with your got your publication. I what I love about it is what you've already said, and that is that you're storing telling stories about the people in the community and helping them share their stories. And I really truly feel like, you know, that knowing who your neighbors are, we live in such a large area. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:32

It's especially in Arizona. It's Arizona's the pull up, your garage door goes up, you pull into the garage, garage door goes down, you don't talk to your neighbors, yeah. And that's the you know, pretty typical. Yeah. And the opportunity to do this in here is is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:48

How how do you go about curiosity deciding who you're going to tell a story about or or or a lot do people like send in resumes? Hey, um, tell my story.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:58

A lot of people just nominate their neighbors. Okay. Sometimes it's me, I connect with somebody, I'm like, hey, you know, you're new to the neighborhood. Would you like us to help introduce you to more people in the community? Sometimes it's that. We going back to the automation thing, I created a system through some different technologies I put together where people can nominate their neighbors. And that has helped us generate articles and stories for the publication that I don't think I don't think it was possible, at least for me, I wouldn't have been able to do all three publications for over three years without having those automations. So a lot of it's just, you know, somebody knows somebody, they refer them. Um, hey, I saw you did a story on this person, you just do a story on this person. A lot, it's very organic. And it's crazy to me to think that it's been almost 300 publications of hundreds of people that I've connected with, that I've met, that I've had an opportunity to share their story, whether it's people or pets, people love their pets, and um people love when their pets are featured, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:59

Do you do you ever feel like you've worked hard to get somebody to allow you to do a story on them? You you do it and it's great, and you know, the euphoria or whatever, it happens, and then it's like all of a sudden it's in the rearview mirror and you're like, move on.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:18

And then and then there's a little bit of guilt that settles in because you're like, God, I worked so hard to get that in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:24

I mean, yeah, because here's the thing the reality is is there's a business side to this where you have to do a new one every month. Right. Right. So going back to my very first, so my very, very first publication, deadline, or deadlines are usually the fifth of the month. So let's just say December 5th. I worked super hard, build those relationships in the community, and I'm getting their story told. And then we're wrapping up that issue, finalizing it, doing proofs, and approving it. But right away I'm back into who's the next person we're gonna feature. And some, I mean, sometimes people are like, yeah, it's cool. We got featured, it's great. Some of these people I really get to know well, and I would love to like be able to continue a relationship with them. And some of them over time I have, but yeah, but yeah, it can be it can be a little bit of that, whatever that feeling is of man, I wish I could we could keep talking, but I gotta say almost like you don't have enough time in the day to keep up on all the stuff. Yeah, yeah. I mean, because I mean, I've met thousands of people, yeah, you know, whether it's networking business or in the community. That's incredible. Yeah, which is kind of it's a cool, it's a unique, it's a totally unique business. Yeah, you know, like it's unlike anything else I think that there is out there. But I think it's an it's an honor to be a part of it, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:40

As long as I am. Well, it's been great to have you on. We will make sure that we link you in both your Facebook and your Instagram account. Um, we'll get everything out to you. But uh I really appreciate it. This has been fun. Yeah. Anything I need to know about you before I say Man, I don't think so. I think we covered a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:57

Anything we need to share with anybody? No. No, I think we're I think we're good. I'm pretty public, my stuff's pretty much out there. So if somebody wants to.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:05

If you guys haven't seen these publications, I mean, quite quite honestly, and and Matt's got some here, these things are they're high quality. The pages are thick, it's not like a regular, you know, pick up a magazine in the in the new paper aisle. You know, high high quality image.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:21

So I still call these neighborhood newsletters. Some people think I shouldn't do that, and I they're trying to get me to call them magazines. They're not magazines though. I don't know. I mean, a lot of most people call it a magazine. But so here's the reason why I call it a neighborhood newsletter. Just that's a hundred one. Yeah, so that's our first hundred covers, which is uh which is kind of cool. You you definitely know some people in there right from the from the jump uh from our first issue. But so the distinction, and uh I've been saying magazine more recently. Yeah, but the reason why I think it is it should be a newsletter. Newsletters have a negative connotation. If you call somebody and tell them we do a newsletter, they don't really picture this at all, whatsoever. But it's really like the highest quality neighborhood newsletter there is in the country that nobody else does what we do, and nobody else tells us stories the way that we do in these communities by getting to know people in the neighborhood, sharing their stuff, their their families, their kids, their stories. Yeah. And um, you know, that's what makes these things great. And that's you know, something I have the privilege to help orchestrate every month. So it's uh it's great. You know, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:24

Yeah, well, very awesome. And uh I've I've enjoyed getting to know you better here in this session, but over the years, having you as a friend, I really appreciate it. Yeah, likewise. Thank you for taking the time to come on the show. Of course, you know, we will definitely be sharing this out and awesome. Thanks, John. Hope you get you some notoriety more than thank you already have.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:45

So I appreciate it. Anyway, it's an honor. This is Matt Dallas, and I went above and beyond.

unknown 1:29:51

Beyond the fairways, friendship growth. Don't be talking to deals.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:07

Network spans every place above our network. We're going above and beyond, reaching new eyes in networking realms, scaling the eyes from mixers to gulf.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:26

Our spirits unite. APN is the beacon, our guiding light. So here's to APN where dreams align.

unknown 1:30:41

In every connection, a chance to shine. Above and beyond, we'll always thrive.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:47

In APN's network, we truly thrive.