Latest / Crafted Connections / EP 53: A Whole Lot of Stories from the Video Industry with Keith Toombs & Matthew Brown

Transcript

EP 53: A Whole Lot of Stories from the Video Industry with Keith Toombs & Matthew Brown · Crafted Connections

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, welcome to Crafted Connections.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Kaelin Calhoun, and this is a podcast all about storytelling and building genuine community.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Here we'll dive into the art of storytelling, unpack strategies for making meaningful connections, and hear from incredible humans who are using their story to create impact.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's craft some connections.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to Crafted Connections.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Caitlin Calhoun, and you are here enjoying conversations and talk about how to connect with people via storytelling, just general storytelling, and how to like really infuse that into your life, into your brand, all that stuff.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm coming at you from a rainy morning.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: It is cozy as can be, y'all.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: I am obsessed with it.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a big fan of like sleeping in the rain, so it's been a little bit of a slower morning for me, and I am resisting the urge to make a second pot of coffee, but why?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Why resist the urge when it would just bring me joy?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, with that, let's dive in to talk about this episode.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: I got a little experimental with it.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: I whoa whoa brought in two people, not just one, for this interview.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: These guys are so fun.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Keith Toomes and Matthew Brown.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've had the pleasure of working alongside these guys in the production space, and it was fun to connect with them on a different level.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: We definitely had a lot of production talk, a lot of like camera experiences.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Keith has been in the biz for around 30-ish years, and Matthew's been in the biz for around five.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was fun to have that generational conversation and talk.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I fall somewhere in between them.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: So it was cool to talk about camera advancements uh over the years, about where we all entered the field, how that's all democratized things, and then and then where a story fits into using those tools, especially in our case, right?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Visual storytelling.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a really fun part of the conversation.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then we got even more personal and talked a little bit about some mental health experiences.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm really grateful to the guys for their vulnerability in this conversation.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I really want to give people anecdotal examples.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Mind you, this is not, you know, this is not medical advice.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely seek out experts if you're experiencing anything that we share.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm especially a fan of sharing anecdotal experiences for expansion purposes to not feel alone.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of people on this podcast about what they've gone through, what they did to, you know, move through those challenges.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, our conversation about mental health was no exception.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you gotta just feel your feels, and and it was magical.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then at the end, oh my gosh, Keith like blew me away with like this question about if you could do anything, but also in a realistic way, right?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you could do be anything, what would you do?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: kind of thing.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so we all kind of really daydreamed and played around with like what would we want from our lives, but also I love how he he wanted really to be like, yes, but what's the realistic nature of that thing?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a really fun discussion.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: It got me really excited about some of the things I have going on in my own life in the coming months.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: So these guys are just as good as it gets, some of the best humans you'll ever meet.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So please enjoy our conversation.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: I want to thank them so much.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Buckle up, it's one of our longest episodes ever, but that's what happens when you bring three people into a space, right?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's worth every single minute.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: So enjoy.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for listening.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: I am always grateful to have anybody hit play.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: So if you enjoy this episode, forward it to a friend.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Please subscribe on wherever you like to listen to your podcast.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: So grateful that you're out here.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: So grateful for all the downloads, all the humans, and also so grateful for Keith and Matthew.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Keith, Matthew, thank you for being here.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: This is Crafted Connections.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: I am so grateful to have you and your time.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, like I said to you earlier, this is uh this is a little bit of an experiment.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: This is gonna be the first, you know, conversation with me and two other humans versus sometimes sometimes I'm all by myself talking to myself.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes, you know, I I'll bring on a guest, but it's really excited to have you.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, happy to be here.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, thank you.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, thank you.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go ahead and start from super basics.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Can you all give me a little bit about yourselves?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll, you know, I'll call on people so it doesn't get too confusing just because this is how you're showing up in my Zoom.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Keith, you go ahead and go first.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want to know about me?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I guess would be the first thing.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: You want to know where I came from?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: You want to know answering a question that I do for the question?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, let's just do this.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is the really interesting question.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: So to back up, the reason that this came to be is because we were all on a job together, and Matthew, you know, I was talking to Matthew about my podcast, and I was like, Matthew, I think you're an interesting human.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: You should be on the podcast.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then Keith was behind us at a table because we were celebrating a job well done.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And Keith entered the conversation, and then Matthew's like, actually, I don't want to be on the podcast unless Keith is on the podcast with me.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then and then we just kind of like, because we're creative people, we just kind of ran with it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Matthew, what is it about Keith?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why do you love him so much?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I've heard you say it before when he's not in the room, so it's not like you're not just making it up because he's there.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, to add to your point about how this came to be, when you say he entered the conversation, he physically entered, like he climbed over the table to join the conversation.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it was quite literal.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I feel like that kind of sums up what I love about Keith.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: He is unashamed to be himself.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's a very unique individual.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like when you first meet Keith, he's very he's low-key, he's quiet.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You would never expect him to have the kind of stories he has when you like sit him down at dinner or something.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: He can just talk for hours the most interesting stories about his time in college and the industry, and he cracks me up like no one else is the main thing.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people can crack me up, but I think Keith is the person who can very easily get me like tears flowing out of my eyes, crying.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the biggest thing is for some reason, whatever it is about Keith's sense of humor, it just clicks with me.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: It just fits right in.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then so in that, uh, we all are, you know, work in production together, and that's how we know each other.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a little bit about that.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you two have worked together many times.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what do you what do you enjoy about Matthew?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think he kind of hit on it a little bit, and that is that I think we just kind of click in terms of personality-wise.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: We we we we we actually haven't really spent that many days side by side working together.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: We've worked around each other several times and and like where we where we were working, and where he's kind of off in a room over here doing stuff, and I'm out here doing stuff.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think it Matthew, was it the trip to Texas?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Was that the first time we really worked together?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was yeah, the first time the uh yeah, Fort Worth.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you travel together with somebody, you also see them in a different way than you do when you're just with them during the day at work.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: You have different conversations at dinner and things because you you're stuck together for three or four days and you kind of you run out of the the little chit-chat stuff to do, and that's when you start to get into some stuff that's a little bit or you find ways to entertain each other.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I do enjoy entertaining people.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a real outwardly going person, I don't like being around strangers.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I prefer much smaller groups and usually with people I know.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: That'll change a little bit.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: You get a couple drinks in me, I'll become a little bit more outgoing.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: But uh and so I just enjoy entertaining people, and and Matthew's easy to make laugh and and and fun to make laugh because he's got a he's got a great laugh and when he when he does, and he seems to put up with my my stupid stories.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's worked out.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're not all stupid.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them are pretty stupid, but that's what makes it funny, you know.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Me telling you a story about sitting in my hotel and reading a book when I was in uh New Orleans isn't a very good story.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's true.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Although I'd love to hear that one too.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's still a story though, you know?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Start start, you know, a bit of challenge along the way and then and then an end.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: You had to open the book.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's quite the hurdle.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Gosh, from here then, like I I think there's a few things that I took the time to kind of, you know, think about you as individuals and review like what we discussed ahead of time, what what you all shared with me ahead of time.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And like I wanted to like be like, okay, like where are like the overlaps in like you know, your y'all's experience and whatnot?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think there's a lot.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: There, there's like, you know, the production background, travel.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think you both uh identify as like family men, right?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like you just you love your people that you you're that you were building families with.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: And and I just think like that's very, very special.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so maybe what what are you guys interested in, drawn to to talk about with each other right now?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is there a favorite story that you want to share that that Keith has shared with you, Matthew?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let me jump in for a second and and ask Matthew a question that I don't know.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that is uh, you know, I know I've I've we've talked, you know, I know you went to Taylor, and I I know you were good buddies with somebody else that we've worked with that I've actually had as an intern at my company at one point in time and and still work with, and and I get along with him very well.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say you guys are very similar in a lot of ways, both personally and professionally.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh I I do fit, I think I feel fit in very well with both of you, but I don't know how did you get into the idea that you were gonna go into video production?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: That what because that's what you studied at Taylor, right?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is, yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Film and video production is the name of my degree, I believe.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a few years now.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I should I should definitely remember that, but I believe that's the name of the degree.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I always I not hate, but I feel kind of cringy answering this question because it's like the most stereotypical answer ever of like ever since I was a kid.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I loved picking up my dad's camera and filming with it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, that is really the trajectory I was on from like my childhood, just accidentally recording over precious baby videos as I was like filming stop motion Lego stuff on my dad's camcorder.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just always kind of doing it as a hobby.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was not until high school when my um there was a class, a media class offered that I took just to fill a credit, and I ended up really like falling in love with it, and I hadn't really thought about it as like a professional option up until then.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was maybe gonna go the like medical route or maybe like architecture.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I had a bunch of ideas, but I hadn't really considered it professionally until that class.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, I was 16, I just kind of decided that's all I really wanted to do and didn't really look back from there.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So nothing like too exciting, but I think kind of the the average story of you know someone my age in our industry just kind of growing up loving it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I know for you, theater theater was your background.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: But it's funny you mentioned architecture because I actually studied for three years in high school, drafting classes and stuff with the intention of going to Ball State to study architecture.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um in fact, I think they're sitting right here.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have a I don't have a big drafting table anymore, but I got a small drafting table and I got my tools and everything right here.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's like so we got describe what are those called?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: What we'll come back, come back with the images so we can describe them because this is audio.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I got my P stuck to the side.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: What is it called?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh a triangle and a T square.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know what the I don't know what the P is from.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there it goes.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got my triangle, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: T square.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: So well, these are actually things that my wife got me well as a gift one year, so I could do little drafting things.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got a little tiny drafting table, it's maybe only a couple feet wide.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: So on an eight by ten sheet of paper, I can an eight by eleven, I can draw, do a little bit of drafting if I want to.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, but it's just interesting you mentioned the architecture because again, it just goes to another level of how kind of I think similar we are in a lot of ways in the way we think.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I was doing that in high school, and I was a basketball player until I was a freshman.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was not a good basketball player, much better football, much better football player.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: You were a great basketball player.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I was lucky to make the team basketball player.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I will say, Michael Jordan also didn't make his high school team famously, so you are in elite company, Keith, I must say.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I can't jump.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So well, I can't anymore.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I could when I was in high school, but not not great.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that that kind of led me into looking for something to do my sophomore year in the middle of the winter after football ended.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because I had always played gone straight to basketball, and that's when a couple of my other friends said, Well, they were gonna be working on this musical the school was putting on that year.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't want to be on stage, but I thought, you know what, I'll go and help build the sets and do that kind of stuff.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I was one of two people that we had that year to build sets and do all the lighting and everything.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And but I fell in love with it.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I fell I fell in love with the lighting side of it, and so I enjoyed the stagecraft, but I really fell in love with the lighting side, and so I actually spent three years doing that and then went to IU to study theater and actually spent my undergrad as a theatrical lighting major, which they didn't really have an undergrad program for, so I spent most of my time in graduate courses with the graduate students at the IU theater program in the lighting, but that's kind of what led me into it.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: But so that's very similar backgrounds.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure Kate, you probably have a similar background yourself, right?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh I mean I never played basketball.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I um I did uh yeah, I agree with you, Matthew.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's as tales old as time.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're like really into operating camera, you just like want to, you know, capture everything, tell everything.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: I do love the story.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't love it for what happened to your family with losing the precious baby uh photos or images, but I do think that like now as a professional, you're like back it up always, or else you know your parents will be mad at you.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, it's it's it's really dad's fault, not mine.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Should have should have had a backup on the cloud, you know.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: We were all thinking it yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I didn't want to say it, but you know, he's your father, so you get to call him out.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: You said your dad could have had it backed up on the cloud?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have a video camera at home until I was until I was in eighth grade.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was the first chance we had to do a video at home.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and Keith, like not to like you know, call that out, but like what was the equipment that was happening, you know, around the time that you were in high school, right?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, because we we can kind of like mark.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: I almost Matthew brought this up, but like the idea that like, you know, like there's generations of like, you know, equipment, and therefore there's generations of video, you know, production folks.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm curious like what it looked like for you.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we didn't go to a huge high school, but it wasn't small.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have media programs because there wasn't as much availability to have the technology to do it.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was like my sophomore year of high school.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think they installed TVs that were interconnected to a cable system through the school so that they could run a national program called Channel One that did a morning daily morning news program for like five minutes, and they would they would run that through.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the only thing they used those TVs for was that that feed every day.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we didn't have any way of accessing it at the time when I was in school.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think eventually they got they got around to that.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of my media in classrooms, even in high school, were on AV cars that were rolled in that were TVs on with VHS machines underneath them, but half of them were still film strips where they would bring in a little film projector, pull the screen down, and they'd play audio cassette, and they weren't even automated film strip.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: They would they would beep and then somebody would sit next to it and turn the film strip to the next image.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, those that's kind of what the media was like.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I got into high school, we finally the the VHS camcorders, the old ones that used to sit on your shoulder, those started coming out when I was in middle school, high school.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we we used one of those for a lot of different things that I did.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I guess let's see, I can tell you the year first the first year I had one was 1985, so I would have been in fifth grade because my my parents got it, and I actually have the very first video on my YouTube page.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I have some stuff that my cousins and my brother and I did from back in 85 and 86.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, Keith, I had no idea you had a YouTube channel.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, in fact, I don't think I have any followers on my YouTube page, so it's about to blow up.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's about to blow up.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Subscribe to Keith's YouTube.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I also have the musical Little Shop of Horrors that I did that winter on that page as well, so people can go out and watch it.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's got it's got all kinds of copyright infringements on it because of the music and everything else in it, but you can it's actually out there, and you can you can go watch the first musical I was part of that I was lighting and set for.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: So but it was all on a VHS camcorder, you know, and we edited videos for high school on now the ones that I have that with my family, it was all in-camera editing.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was all if you're gonna tell a story, you shoot it in order in the way you do it, and you might oh that sound didn't work, you rewind it and you hit record again, and so there's always these weird jumps and everything in it.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: And but then in high school, buddies of mine and I we hooked up two VHS machines together, actually, three VHS machines together.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: We had our Sega master system plugged into it via audio and video-wise, so we could cut those into, and we were basically built a little online edit bag that had old sound effects that we would put in and and mess around with stuff.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's still what I was learning in college.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So when I went to college, that's still kind of where they were at.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I learned to cut audio but with a razor blade and reel-to-reel tape.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I learned to start cutting audio.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: My senior year in college is when we finally I did an internship before my senior year with a production company.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: They had one of the first avid media composers in the city of Indianapolis.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I learned a little bit on that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And when I went back to school that fall, IU had bought like three.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now I wasn't allowed to use them because I hadn't taken them to class, but I probably knew as much as anybody down there just because I had spent I had three months head start on them of learning it.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: But so that's kind of where technology wise, and it changed very quickly after that.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, once within a few years, the linear edit bays were gone.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I I think it's interesting, like my experience in high school was we were just wrapping up DV tapes and we were switching over to like SD cards around my senior year of high school, right?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then it just keeps speeding.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it's almost like, yeah, that transition is just kind of cool.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then and then I'm curious about what you were up to, Matthew.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, did you did you say you got into a high school course, or did you what were the like did you have the opportunity in high school?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I did, yeah.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was gonna say you guys were talking about, especially you know, Keith talking about like physically cutting audio and stuff.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: I know the razor blade thing, I'm like, that's so like yeah, I mean, dare I say badass, but also no thank you.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like and it literally is like in premiere now, like our software, right?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's literally like a little razor blade tool.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Those are actually there's no fingers, but if there are fingers, it would be Keith's little fingers.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I the first camera I ever shot on, it shot 4K.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't even start at 1080, you know.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just how different, even a few years later.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's wild.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's hilarious.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Matthew, I worked professionally for about four years before I shot HD.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Different time.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so it it changed quickly.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's mad.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: But there's not that much of a difference between uh between us.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a little bit, but it it's not so far.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that you would really think there was that much of a change.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: But there was, it changed really fast.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: It changed the biggest thing is it changed what you could do.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we couldn't afford to get into the industry to do short stories, to do uh videos of our own at any kind of quality, anywhere close to what you could do professionally.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: A camera body and a lens to get a decent image was gonna be a hundred thousand dollars coming out of school.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say, I know you know, Eric Poland, who Keith, you know, you work with him a lot.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I remember he always tells me about his first camera he bought, and it was like some just absurd amount of money.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And like even today, you could get a really nice Arial Exa package for half of that, and that's like the top-end camera.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's just wild, like how democratized the industry has been, you know, which is great and obviously makes it more competitive to some extent as well.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's a good thing.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think it helps to like there's a lot of stories that when I was younger, I I'm kind of jealous of of where where kids are today coming out of high school and college in terms of their ability to tell stories, and that in that I didn't I couldn't get my hands on a camera that I could I could tell a story and I could do videos, but it wasn't a quality that anybody was gonna want to watch.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was a home video quality video, you know, and yeah, my family, friends, yeah, that's great, but it it wasn't something they're gonna put on TV.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Kids today you come out, you've got cameras that you're working with in college, you've got edit systems that you start learning from the day that you start working in video that can put out as good a quality of video as just about anything else that's out there.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it it really uh frees you up from the technical side of can I make the cameras can I get my hands on the the gear to do what I want to let you do some of that stuff.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so that creativity is a lot, I think a lot easier to to for kids today to to express than it was when I started.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few things I wish I had gone back and done where I put off because I well, I don't I don't have the money to to get the camera that I want to shoot this on.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is is even if I got the camera and I shot it, I didn't have any place to edit it.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't afford$300 an hour to go to an online go to an online bay and have a real real machine set up and all the graphics and everything you got to do to do that.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's definitely an advantage now from that side of but again I think it's a good thing and it it helps it helps to the storytelling.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: It helps you focus on what really impacts other people.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now I still lean towards the technical side of things.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: My goals and what I do most of the time I tell people is that I can help write scripts, I can help fine-tune messaging, but my thing is I want to come in and help you tell the story that you want to tell in the best way you can do it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: To have it look as good as it possibly can.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot easier now.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know and so it's funny you say that the first camera that you had was a 4K camera.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: What camera was the first one you shot with uh it was the Sony a60300.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay I don't think I ever worked with that one.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Tiny little you know mirrorless body and I was just mad it didn't have you know I couldn't shoot 10 bit on it.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was spoiled well and I'm curious Keith like in real time what was that experience like you know like going from like just like what was the feeling in the experience of like this is what we can do.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is how much it costs and then like seeing the technology come out bit by bit like do you remember like kind of feeling your way through that or was it kind of just like oh cool oh cool and like baby steps of oh cool two big times when it became very apparent one is when it came out of shooting on beta cam it was still SD everything is still 60 frames a second so no matter what we did with a video camera it still looked like video because of the settings when the HD cameras came out and Panasonic came out with the very cam but now we could do 24 frame or 30 frame and you're shooting HD even if it was only 720 at first and you had the 16 by nine it it that really changed the visual that took a lot we were doing on video and let you go a lot more film like with it.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: That was a big jump of hey here's a time this is this is a big change what we're we're we're going through.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and just to kind of like layman's terms this like we're talking about like when you see like camcorder footage versus like film back in the day right like there was so there was a very distinct difference you're saying and then so there was a digital camera that came out that was just like oh wow it's not super different anymore.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: A good example for people that may not know is if you watch the news now it's still shooting news at 60 frames a second and there's more detail there.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's less depth of field it just doesn't have as natural of a motion feel to it or actually some people think it has more natural emotion and then you watch a dramatic show that's been recorded that's usually shot at 24 frames or and and it's it looks more like people will notice it if you have your high refresh rate on your TV turned on.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Some people don't notice it I go into somebody's house and they have that 120 hertz or high refresh TV turned on and it makes the film stuff look like video because it the way it refreshes and so there that's a big visual difference as well.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: But the 16 by nine and four by three thing is a big one too.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just to a wider screen and there was always the battle of some people hating well as the TVs went from being four by three to sixteen by nine no matter which way you shot it somebody was going to have bars on the screen to make it fit the screen the way you shot it or you had to do the whole pan and scan thing and and all that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: But you know what's fascinating about that is like how we adapt, right?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because now like we're shooting vertical all the time like and how like collectively we like adjust to those things.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: And like and I even like um my little sister will put on you know subtitles and she did that started doing that like three or three to five years ago and now I'm kind of like I'm like where are my subtitles and at the time I was just like turn those off what are you doing you know and it's just so interesting how like we as individuals and collectively kind of like accept or struggle with the change of it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: The the vertical one's a big one.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: I hated vertical at first and now I find myself out shooting stuff going man I wish I was shooting this in vertical.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because you well I so much of what I consume is on my phone.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so much of what I see on a daily basis is in a vertical format.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Even if it was shot in in a widescreen it's been cropped to a vertical format.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so I I've I've definitely come around to it a lot more than I did.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah that was a big change and then the other one was when the the the canon 5D Mark II came out which was the first can video camera that really gave you that kind of depth of field kind of gave you a little bit more of that film look from the video side even it went a step farther because of the sensors it was the first large sensor video cameras that took really hit the market big and I think if I remember correctly it was by accident.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Canon built the camera for its still photographers to be able to capture behind the scenes footage of films and things that they were doing stills for.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: So now the photographers could be with doing the behind the scenes of movie making with stills but then they could roll off some video clips.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when they did it and they started putting these lenses on it and started bringing the footage back it was like wow and it kind of just kicked off that whole revolution of this ever changing body style different size lenses again it just again it completely changed the world from the video standpoint of what we do.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Now we were using ENG glass that would go from a wide angle to a tight in one glass now we've got primes we've got cine zooms that just come that was the next step that happened in about 2010 2011 when that really kicked off well and so yeah so that's actually again to like to to dumb it down for those who don't understand cameras necessarily like we're talking like big chunky rectangular guys that you like have on your shoulder or you like need some sort of mount for to like a now we have the capability to use like a traditional camera looking camera like the the the point and shoot style where you click and you take a picture that is now in 2010 2011 is now taking video which actually was my when I graduated high school right so that's like the that was kind of a really cool time to be like entering you know studying the field if you will so very cool.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's really cool to like to hear it like because you're like already in your career experiencing these big changes.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's so epic.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah in fact I was so far into my life and my career that that happened about the time that I got divorced from my first marriage and I had been with her for 15 years.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know I've been married for 12 at that point.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so that kind of gave me a short little time period though there where I had this new tool and I went and was able to really dive into it and learn it.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: And this part of things is you we talked about being family guy I left you know I have two kids now and remarried and been remarried for almost uh 12 years now again and and I come home and I don't want to work.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of shut it off when I I I have a home office but I very rarely work here.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I never have really because I like when I leave the office to leave the office.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And for me that means leaving behind taking video taking photos I don't take a lot of stuff at home anymore.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't I very rarely pull anything out at home and mess with stuff.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's my that's my job.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: I still enjoy it but that's that's my job to do I don't and I don't want to do my job or around my family all the time.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that time frame was a big time frame for me.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I had had a whole part of my career already and then that kind of helped open up a whole new wing of things that you could do all of a sudden because now you could start you could realistically start I'm gonna shoot a short film and have it look like a short film not look like a home like a home video project.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you could afford to do it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: You guys as you guys as as high schoolers and college kids had cameras in your hand that professionals were working with because the cameras became affordable.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know when I was on when I was in college we shot on little camcorders or 15 year old cameras.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: We were shooting on five or three quarter inch tape where we had cameras on our shoulder and we had a big tape deck that was about this big that we carried over our other shoulder that hung on the other side.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how we like that the tape recorder wasn't even built into the camera.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so but they were both twice the weight of what a camera is today.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: So again it's just it's just it's a tool that that the tools have gotten easier to use.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of glad you guys never had to carry around the heavy stuff and do all that kind of stuff.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm so scrawny key couldn't be weak and do the job early on especially a lot of the two man crew stuff where I was pushing cards and cards of stuff.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: I still do sometimes yeah but it's a really like it's a really um especially yeah camera operating DP work director photography work is all very very physical and I honestly I have very seen very shoe very few directors of photography and and videographers like stretching on the job but I did see one guy one time and I was like look at him go like that's wonderful because like it is it's it requires a lot of of the body and like it also something too I I'd love to dive into this like it is the industry itself is long hours lots of travel I'm curious how you how you two like because you you know you do love your home lives and you do have hobbies outside of work like how do you what's the balance look like how does that all kind of come together what do you do uh after you know many days doing 10 12 hour days is it just sleep coma that's what I like to call them um I mean definitely when I'm on like actually on the shoot it really is just get back, have dinner sleep coma for the most part which you know it's good to rest and get your body ready for the next shoot day but also that does you know make the time go faster as well you know get to sleep, get to the next shoot day, get home.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: One interesting thing that has actually helped my wife Autumn and I when I'm gone on shoots when I first started my job you know four or five years ago and I would leave on shoots we would try to like FaceTime and call as much as possible because we missed each other and that felt like it would help because you know it's like you're you're gone from someone and you want to stay in contact.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like without even really talking about it, we sort of stopped doing that a little bit which has helped a ton I think for both of us because every time we would like FaceTime or call, you would get kind of sad because you like want to be with that person and you're not and it kind of reminds you of the distance but then if you just kind of if I'm gone and I'm focused on the shoot and just getting my work done and she's here like diving into you know hobbies or just having like nice rejuvenating alone time and we're not talking like obviously we're still texting and stuff but it's almost helped to have that break a little bit and it makes the time go faster and it kind of keeps you from thinking about being away from that person.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure that wouldn't work for everyone but it has worked for us.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious Keith you know when you travel how how your communication is with the people at home obviously different with kids.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: I do want to apologize first for laughing because I I just really enjoyed when you said obviously we text and I just imagined you're like I'll be gone for five days don't contact me do not contact me.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't hear from me in six days contact the authorities but don't reach out to me in six days.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah just yeah reach out to my boss or you know reach out to Keith someone in charge of me pleases thank you.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: But sorry back to you Keith I just thought that was yeah that was a special moment for me inside my head in terms of communication with home it's hard especially depending on where you are um you know you travel out to the we're East Coast time you travel out to the west coast and your job isn't done until eight o'clock east coast time at the best and then a lot of times it's to the hotel room and you turn around and go back out to go to dinner.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so by then by the time you're done with dinner it's 10 o'clock at home 10 30 and if you got two young kids and a wife that works it's it's hard to always talk.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: I always try to at least call and say hi during those times of of between dinner and things and we text a lot throughout the day honestly we do you know we just whenever whoever doing things they have a break and just text and just say hi just that kind of stuff.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's harder with the kids but my kids neither one have been I got two boys and neither one of them ever wanted to talk on the phone very long to begin with.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you call home and say hey let me talk to Ethan for a minute and he gets on the go phone and goes hi dad and you're like hi how's your day he goes it's good bye and then he runs off so you know it's good to hear him and and and it's not Ethan's like don't contact me so now I have a little bit harder time because unlike Matthew I I don't go right back to sleep every night.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I I don't sleep well when I'm on the road so I probably only average four to five hours of sleep a night when I'm on the road.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and so I usually find myself out and I don't like sitting in my hotel room by myself.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: So that's actually one of my favorite things when we when I travel for work is just me myself and my thoughts looking out the window.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I I don't enjoy that I'm glad some people do and I'm I could we all have our interests yeah I sometimes wish that I I could but I I don't enjoy just sitting there by myself I I enjoy people I enjoy being around people so I usually find myself even if nobody else I'm traveling with is out I usually find hey is there a restaurant across the street I can walk to I sit at the bar and watch a sports game and hang out with people and talk and and do stuff or even the hotel lobby sometimes has them that just to just to go watch a game and watch people watch and talk a little bit and I am more that type of traveler.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't don't spend a lot of time in the room.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: What types of things do y'all like to do like in between traveling right like when you are home and you do have time to like you know be a human outside of your work.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well this isn't a direct answer but one thing I will say about the time in between is that was a big adjustment for me as well when I started working out of college was I feel like I'm one of those people like the stereotype of someone you know you have a dentist appointment at 4 p.m so then you waste all day up to that point because you're just thinking about the appointment and then you know you end up wasting seven hours that you could have been doing something.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I did that except it was like oh I have a shoot next week.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I can't do anything.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you're like production robot you know the production robot boots down until it's time for production again.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's I don't know why I felt like that because obviously if it's like if it's Wednesday and I'm leaving for a shoot on Monday, I obviously have many days so to do whatever you want with it.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly I could have done anything but I just couldn't get in a mental state where I was able to feel like I could get in a good like rhythm of things at home because the rhythm would kind of get interrupted every time I left but I've gotten into a better rhythm now.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was just an adjustment since such a new you know such a new thing for me.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's uncommon for folks in our industry either because it is demanding and requires you to really love what you do because of that.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: So there's almost like I definitely experienced that for the majority of my 20s like just being like I all I can do is work and I can't stop and I I love it but it's like and it just the obsession was absolutely there.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah no for sure.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: And like in the last few years I've had to like because of some burnout moments I've had to learn how to like be a Caitlyn which has been really hard but also wonderful.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I don't think it's uncommon I'm curious Keith I'm curious about your experience you know being in the industry almost 30 or 30 plus years now.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's there's a 30 near your experience time.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes unfortunately there is very very close in fact it would have been 30 30 years ago this summer that I started my internship which is where I kind of consider working kind of almost professionally in this business because I got paid for my internship for that summer.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I it was yeah it's coming up in 30 years this summer.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know when I first started the first 15 years or so I was freelance it was me and I had jobs that I paid to do.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: It took a while to get used to the idea that I don't know my schedule more than a week or two out most of the time.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was a lot of well I have this week I don't have a whole lot but I don't want to go out and do a whole lot because I don't know if I'm gonna be making money next week to pay for the stuff I'm doing this week.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was a financial thing to it of can I spend the money to go do things and is the work going to be there.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's still even after 30 years of it it still is can sometimes be I don't know what's around the corner.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know how much I can afford to take and do.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now in 2012 I started we we started by hiring a couple of employees and I've had employees so there's a different side of running a business that you're never off you never get a day where there's not something I'm gonna be doing.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that makes it harder for me because I have a hard time completely walking away and it's what we were talking about I just recently was sick and it was kind of nice I was sick on Friday I felt awful I slept for 12 hours Friday night.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: I did nothing Saturday I sat in my bed watched TV got up and got food when I was hungry it's almost kind of like my body and I that I had up to that day I had done 14 or 15 straight days on job sites.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah well your body knows I I'm a big believer of that your body's like oh I'm off those days cool I'll hold off I'll fight I'll fight these germs till then and then it's like take over here we go made sure I couldn't do anything for a couple days to get a little bit of a breast and a little bit of a break.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah which it felt good because by Sunday afternoon I was feeling I was feeling better than I had in a few weeks.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well there's nothing better than sleeping on my quill let me tell you I love it.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: So but yeah it that I enjoy just like when I'm on the road doing stuff I enjoy being active I don't enjoy sitting at home so when I was younger I played a lot of golf on off days I I played a lot of golf those first 10 years with kids that changes everything.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't have the time to do that anymore because there's two things I have a I have employees and kids which in some ways are the same.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have to there's always something you could be doing to keep them in line or they're doing something that you need to be overseeing.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't get to do that as nearly as much as I do now.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: My in-between work stuff now a lot of times is my wife and I both love to travel and so we try to travel and we try to take the kids and show the kids as much of the world as we can.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: One of the beauties of traveling with work is over the last few years I've been able to tag them and her along with me on trips.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we've kind of gotten vacations partially paid for by me being paid to go to a job.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think it was three or four years ago I went to Madrid, Spain and I was able to take the family for eight days.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: I had to work three of the days that we were there but we got to go to Madrid for eight days.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: The funny thing about that Keith is my dad traveled a lot when I was a kid uh and we got the chance to to travel for work with him right and once I started really like moving in my freelance career I got to start traveling you know for work just like my dad did and when I like the the first few months of it I'm like oh this isn't like when I was a kid when we were traveling for work.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: I just remember like being like oh it's different when you're the one working and traveling for work.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember like in my entire like yeah I was just like oh I'm gonna travel for work so much.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then like once you start doing you're like oh this is so different than you know tagging along with your your parent you know the last three years I've been able the I've had one trip the last three or four years that's always fallen over spring break for my wife she's a teacher at a nursing program and she's been able to go with me on one of these trips.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we've gone to Madrid we went to Florence Italy for a week we spent a week in Ireland last year.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: This year's trip is falling over her spring break but it's China and the hassle of getting over there and everything else is too much for her to take the whole week because you know for that kind of trip we're I I'm making it in six days I'm working two and a half of them I'm not gonna have any free time and then to expand it enough to enjoy the trip to get adjusted time wise and everything else is just too much to take as a personal trip in a week which they have totally and so she's not unfortunately she's not gonna be to go with me we're not gonna be able to turn it into a trip this year.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: But well and the job that we all work together every year it's you know it's an international conference and it's one of those things where like I see so many people from the other side of the planet just like sleeping in the hallways of that conference because they literally are just like there for like five days and they're just like cool I'm just gonna lean up against this wall on this bench and just get you know five minutes to to recover.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's like that you know when you when you travel that far for work for sure.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a good one for me though too because uh my brother lived in Vegas for 17 years.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: Is he not there anymore?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is he because I know that's he lives up in Cedar City so he lives about three and a half three and a half hours away but I've been able to parlay that work job I and my wife's come with me several times.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: My wife's always come out with me either most years either the three days before or the three days after depending on how it falls in the year in the calendar and now that she's a teacher the three days before are always really easy because she hasn't gone back to school yet.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so like she's come out with me for a few days.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: We visit with my brother they come down or we go up there and meet them.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so again I'm able to parlay the travel into a trip that's a little bit cheaper because parts of it are taken care of for us and going.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then just the fact that you earn so many miles and stuff traveling that I can a lot of times if I'm getting my trip paid for by the comp by a company that's paying for me to go I can fly her for free because I have enough miles to to do it.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah yeah it was actually it's it's Matthew's employer that got me making sure I get my points that I need and I know Matthew you have Marriott out the wazoo.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I do I do tend to I hoard I hoard my Marriott points I like to see the number just keep going up and up.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I use them sometimes but 'cause what what do you yeah what are you doing?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: You're staying at that place so much for work, you know it's just fun to see the number go up.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's gamified if you will.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well you sit up for the big same up for that big trip.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know I took the couple of years ago I took the family to Hawaii without having to pay a penny for flights because I had enough miles to take all four of us out to Hawaii For a week.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so all we had to pay for was Matthew, where are you gonna go?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let's plan your trip.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like Marriott too has like some really like fancy place.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like they've got some resorts now, don't they?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: Or I mean, I don't know.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've never shopped around with it.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: They've got yeah, they've got a ton of brands, high-end.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I know, especially like honestly, Marriott properties outside of the US tend to be very nice.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like Asian Marriott properties are often really nice.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Good service, good breakfast.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe I'll maybe we'll take a trip to Japan, China, Korea.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be good.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: I know you're not like very consistent on the gram, but make sure you share a little bit with us, you know.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: Matthew Brown, travel points.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see like a single kind of cryptic story, and you're not gonna be sure.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is he on a trip right now?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: And no other details will be shared.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's actually that's what I need.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you know I'm gonna see it because we're out here.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: The algorithm knows we're friends, so that's perfect.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like the other day, and actually I do want to talk about this.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: The other day, maybe in the last 24 hours, I feel like I saw some sort of meat with a rub on it that you made or something.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was yeah, it was uh that was last night.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was making fuss.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is the exclusive take right now.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: You better watch out.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: People are getting the inside scoop.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I was making fuss.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a bunch of beef bones that I was roasting, and I like to, you know, let the cat smell it a little bit.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, and they seemed interested.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were very interested.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: There was a time where I had a chuck roast on the counter, I left it for just like a minute, and I came back, my cat was like on top of it licking it.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just this raw hunk of beef.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was the best day of his life.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: But wow, yeah.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was he was carted off immediately.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, can't blame him, can't blame him.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: And with that, that's that's a hobby.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you like have you do you do cook and you do find things to do with yourself.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's yeah, yeah.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: I would say cooking is probably the main thing I do in my my free time just because it also happens to be producing something I need to live.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do it, yeah.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nice two and one thing.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: You're not like let me just cook some ramen from the pack, you know, for sake of it's already packaged up for me.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, for sure.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: I do I feel like it's hard to get in your head while you're you know focused in the kitchen.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I tend to be someone that like overthinks things and is just always, you know, thinking about the next thing to be worried about.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: So cooking is very like grounding, you know, both for your senses and also just you gotta be focused in the kitchen on the task at hand, or else you're gonna either burn the food or burn your house down.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a nice way to like take your mind off work or whatever's going on in life.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know some people hate cooking and it probably would amplify stress, but for me it has done the opposite, which is good.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: A nice outlet.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: Hey y'all.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know I love telling stories, gathering stories, and finding a way to help people connect their story with the people that will get it.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what my story strategy sessions are all about.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: So over at Calhoun Creative Consulting, my strategic storytelling firm, we do one-on-one and or facilitated workshops in relation to really honing in the strategy around your story.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bit of messaging meets content creation, meets storytelling, and then how do we put that out in the world?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: How do we show up regularly?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's a bit of mindset work around it, right?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: To actually tell your story, whether you're launching something new or trying to rework your brand or just feeling a little foggy on how to communicate with your people, this is how to get clear.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: We'll dig into things like your narrative, how to uncover what matters most, maybe map out a few content pillars while we're at it.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: You'll also get a recording of our session so you can revisit the conversation anytime you like.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: Let's shape a story that actually feels like you.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: So book yours today.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: There is a link in the show notes.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: And hey, while you're at it, use the code podcast, all caps, podcast for 25% off your session.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: I would be honored to spend time with you and suss out your story.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Let's dive back into the episode, shall we?
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: If I mean if you're willing to go down this route, I would love to talk because I feel like we all on some level, and Keith, you didn't really necessarily say this directly, but I feel like on some level we all have our fair share of anxieties, right?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'd love to explore that in a conversation around like being a creative person, you know, being a person that, you know, in in our field, not only is there creativity, but there's like a lot of logistics and details that are required.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: So like that that attraction, you know, it all it all is cooking together, if you will.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I don't know.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you if you all have found a connection between your creative pursuits and and you know, your mind also finding, you know, creative ways to worry, and then how you all have uh how how you've dealt with that if you do identify with that, of course.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: I would say I've been fairly lucky in that I don't have too much of a problem turning it off.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I love that a lot of times can you give us some advice?
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wish I could, because if I could, I would certainly tell my wife and other people that I know that fight with some of that anxiety how to do it.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's it it hits me in a different way, but I I I've been pretty lucky in that I've been able to take little things and push them aside.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't let little things build up.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now they're big things that worry mortgage payment.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, like I said, they worry about where's the next job gonna come from.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, we got I got two employees that have payroll this week, and our cash is kind of getting low.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't got to get some checks coming in, and we've got to find where this is coming from.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Those are big things that, yeah, you gotta stay on.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: You got and and you've got to keep in your sphere and and and and know that it's there.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot of little things that we just don't need to be worried about that we do, and it's finding the tricks to let those little things go.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, those aren't hard for me to do.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's the it's can you give me an example of like a little thing that you've seen other people kind of cling on to?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it can be just like a general, not necessarily specific, but like a like a an example of that.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have a deadline coming up on the project.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, you just picked my specific one, didn't you?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have a client that starts picking little things about this or that, and it's just it's it's just one of those that they're not they're not responding fast enough.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or their comments aren't really they're they're contradicting themselves, or they're there's only so much you can do to control that stuff.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: All you can do is just focus, you slow down, you let those little the the little things of they're not they they took an extra hour to get back to me.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: They wasted an hour of my time.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: An hour of your time is not in the grand scheme of things that big of a deal.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: So don't let that hour of time then every little thing that happens in the edit, the machine crashes, and then the or it just lags, or you can't find that one clip that you know you have that you're looking for.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you let those little things start to add up, then you start to let it grow.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you can't find that clip, it becomes the end of the world.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we okay.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's two there's two things that are gonna happen.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're either gonna find the clip and use it, or you're not, and you're gonna have to figure out a solution to make it work without it.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: So take your time, see if you can find it.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't, start thinking about well, what other alternatives do I have?
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: Don't let it boil into a sitting there for an hour scrambling trying to find this and waste all this time on this one little thing and lose lose the big picture in it.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so it's a it's a big picture thing.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is kind of that's the big picture is the anxiety.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I even I've I've got one particular like experience that's popping to my mind in what you're describing, where like like I was delegating a task to a vendor, right?
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: And like the deadline was like a few days out, and like that task needed to move forward, and literally it just like it kind of consumed me for a day or two, right?
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, but like, but then what do you do?
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do you shake it up and like you know, I guess you can go on a walk, right?
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and like and I found ways to like because that was back in like the early 2020s, which is crazy that I can say that.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, yeah, and it's so so you're I mean, we're talking big picture, small picture, but then also couldn't people argue that like you know, fine financial like timelines and deadlines are also big picture, small picture?
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's it's it's just a lot.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the the the thing for me, and it this is the same thing that's true with the out of in life, not just in work, and that is we try to go, we try to travel someplace, and we've had some horrific travel experiences, you know.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: We right once you travel enough, they're gonna pop up at least.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my wife and I got stuck in Paris for a night because we missed our the the Delta had missed our connecting flight going through New York, we got rattled through Atlanta, got to Paris, is when we're on our way to Florence.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: We lost a day in Florence because we got stuck in Paris overnight.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, instead of just being mad about it and complaining about it, what we did was we figured, okay, we're gonna be stuck in Paris before we left Atlanta.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: I found a hotel in Paris for us to stay in that was at the airport, knowing that we had an early flight the next morning.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, okay, we're gonna be landing about 3:30, 4 o'clock, or whatever.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have we go check in at the hotel.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: We got from 6 p.m.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: until 11 o'clock to spend in Paris.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: We went and saw the Eiffel Tower, we went and saw Notre Dame.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: We had we had uh we had dinner at a restaurant down by the Eiffel Tower, we had pastries and coffee at a cafe across the street looking at Notre Dame at night as we're sitting there in the window.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: We could have let the idea that we that that happened just throw the whole day off, but we didn't.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: We we just dreamed, and here's the kicker of it they lost our bags, so we didn't have any of our stuff.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Brutal.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: We made it to Florence the next day, and we still didn't have our bags.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: We spent the entire week in Florence without our bags.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the very thing, the very thing, first thing we did when we were in Florence was we went shopping for clothes because we didn't have any, we didn't have any clothes or anything with us.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, we had packed a change of clothes in our carry-ons that we had when we were in Paris.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: But again, we just it it could have ruined some people that would set them off and it would ruin the whole trip.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because then every little thing that went wrong after that, they just keep worrying about and they keep and then they start to get worried about what's the next shoe that's going to drop.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the anxiety comes in.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: You don't react well to what just happened, and you start so then you start to worry more about what's coming at you.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you can forget about what just happened and go, these things happen and be prepared to make changes along the way, the anxiety of what's coming up is not nearly as bad.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, Air France also lost my bags last time I went to Paris when I was going to stay in Paris.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I went for a day and a half without my bags there.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that night, the hotel, I checked into the room without my bags, but I had my toiletries because I had my carry on.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: Go in, brush my teeth, and stuff, go to the job site for the day, come back to go to sleep that night, and the hotel had cleaned out all my toiletries, thrown my medicine away, and done everything else.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wasn't there.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: So now I didn't have any of my clothes, didn't have my bag, any of my personal stuff, and they had thrown all my toiletries away.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing I had on me was my computers that I had taken to work with me that day.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: That was the second time that that they this was last year when they lost my luggage.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: But again, it's just the other guy that was with me was freaking out about him.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what we can do.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a story on it.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: We can go buy toothbrush, toothbrushes, and toothpaste.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing that was a hard hard time for me was them throwing out my medicine because I couldn't replace it easily.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily for me, I don't take any daily medicines that will drastically affect my life if I miss them.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, that's not a big deal.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so you just kind of got to roll with it.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: We've had other travel problems.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: We were going to South Padre Island with the family, and it was the day that Southwest shut down, and we weren't going anywhere.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: And people were freaking out at the airport.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: I went out to the airport and it's 3:30 in the morning.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: I got the notice for flight or 5 30 a.m.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: flight was canceled.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: I go out to the air, I'm like, okay, I'm over to the airport, see what we can do.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because I knew talking on the phone wasn't gonna do anything.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: I get out there, Southwest is just packed.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: The whole space out there in front of Southwest is packed.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: I stand in line for the A-list, which I was at the time on Southwest for 15 minutes.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't move a person, and I finally like this is stupid.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: I looked it up, I could get a rental car from Enterprise rental car right there at the airport.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: And like I called my wife, I said, get the kids packed up.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm coming home.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna drive me because we'll luckily we only live about 10 minutes from the airport.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you're gonna drive me back up here.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna pick up this rental car.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go home and get the kids and we're gonna go.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a 20-hour drive to South Padre.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: We stopped overnight.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: We've got we got to see uh a uh Bigfoot museum in Arkansas on the way.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: Are we on a road?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it would have been cool if we could see a big foot.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: But Keith, you've been holding out on Matthew with those stories.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: I have not seen a Bigfoot, unfortunately.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: I can't break that news here.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: But honestly, if anyone's going to.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: But again, you know, we just kind of steered into it, and that was actually a trip where I was supposed to fly home and turn around and immediately fly to Vegas.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up booking a flight straight from Houston to Vegas, and they flew from Houston home.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: But again, it was one of those 3 30 in the morning, get the call, flights canceled.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: I could flip out, start yelling at people, go to the airport all mad, trying to figure out you just you go, okay, what's our what are our options?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't an option now.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: But so what what are they?
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: We looked at other airlines.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: Can you get on a Delta flight today?
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: There you could you get on it.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: I could have gotten on a jet blue flight the next day for like$1,400 a person.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, that we could drive there in that time, and it's gonna cost us nothing because we're gonna get the money back on the airfare, you know.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: I so it just those little things.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's that's when I say little things, those are the things you've got to roll past.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it once you roll past them, it makes the upcoming hills not seem so bad.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and so with that, like Matthew, I'm curious about like when you uh find yourself facing a challenge, whether it be something that like is just maybe building up, you know, in your in your mind, or if some something like is just like you know, pivots in a way that you didn't expect, like how do you uh you know face that or or to take something on in that way?
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the funny thing is a lot of the time I mean I I'm not as calm as Keith.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's the example.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it's like you don't have air enterprise on speed dial like Keith does.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't maybe I should, but I don't.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like my issue is often not with things that are actually happening.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not in reality, it's you know, the scenarios you make up in your head.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: So like you know, things happen, you roll all the punches, but then as anyone put anxiety knows, your brain makes up horrible scenarios for what's gonna happen in the future, and that's where I yeah, for me everybody hates me, which is silly because they don't.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe one or two do, but like compared to like everybody, that's a very small number.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, no.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: One or two.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty good.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, that's sort of the issue, is it's not like based in reality at all.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: So s sometimes that's good because it means like when it comes to you know work or that sort of thing, it's not like the root of the anxiety, but then it's obviously harder to tackle because if it's all in your head, you know, there's not exactly a a a solve then and there.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: But good points made by Keith about rolling with the punches, which you you absolutely have to do in you know, all lines of work, but especially ours.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: I am curious, are there any like tools that you have found help when like there's something that you're like, okay, this is not real?
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: So like tools that help you just for anybody listening who maybe is not at that stage yet.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I love to like make sure that like through our experiences we share ways that the other people could apply and maybe haven't tried.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I can go first meditation, journaling, walking.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, basically all the tools that they tell you on the internet, I have used them aggressively and it works.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: But also that there's a lot to it, right?
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I've also, you know, done all the things, gone to therapy, you know, meditation, that sort of thing.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what has helped me, and uh to be clear, I'm not a therapist.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is not actual advice, it's just anecdotal.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: Anecdotal experience that could be helpful, but don't sue us.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: I it's almost been like coming to terms with the fact that this is sort of how I am, not necessarily someone with like a mental illness and with anxiety, that's not who I want to be, but someone who is naturally cautious and thinks about things a lot and runs through scenarios, like ever since I was conscious, that's just kind of how I have been.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna like therapy the natural way that my brain works out of me.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of been learning, okay, so if this is how I am, how am I gonna then shift this into something productive and not something that is like holding me back?
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: So this is like the dumbest example ever, but people on you know, the team I work with like to laugh at me for my my bed bug checks.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I am big on checking for bed bugs when I get to hotels.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when I first learned of the you know existence of bed bugs and the cost that it takes to get rid of them and how horrible having them is, I was horrified, you know, every time I go to a hotel room, I'm just thinking all night, like what if what if I get bed bugs?
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that was always on my mind.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I've kind of learned like, okay, that's I'm not gonna not be worried about that now.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's how my brain works.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not just going to necessarily get past that fear, but if I set like a strict boundary for myself, like alright, when I get to my room, I'm gonna do a quick 10-minute once over of the bed and the furniture.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if I don't see any signs, I'm not allowed to be anxious about it anymore because I've done what a reasonable person would do.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: So even though I'm going farther than like 99% of people in like checking for that, there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's not then continuing to affect me.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that I kind of again, that's a dumb anecdote, I guess, but it kind of extends like that to almost any scenario in my life where I just try to almost use it as not always a strength, but implement it in a way that is not gonna hurt me and is not gonna like hold me back mentally, and allowing myself a little bit to like be okay with with that being how I am and not just try to shove it down and be like, I don't want to be like this.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't explain that very well, but no, no, no, I honestly I I do hear this as like I mean the t it's a tool of like self-acceptance and forgiveness, right?
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and I think Keith, you you called this out, you know, as we were talking about what this conversation could be, like like the idea that like not being afraid of failure, right?
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's also a tool like self-forgiveness, self-acceptance, like not being and and letting yourself like have parameters that are that are very like this is gonna make me feel better, right?
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_02: People have all sorts of medical things where they're like, I can't do this, I can't do that, and they have boundaries around that.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, mental health is no exception, whether it be staring at screens nonstop is not good for you mental health-wise.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, okay, let's have some screen time boundaries, you know, talking for a friend, um, like and things like that.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: And no, and I I love that because I I think we forget about some of those less talked-about and more ambiguous, like helpful tools when it comes to like how we treat ourselves.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I love it.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you sharing because I know it's not always the most fun to talk about some of those harder experiences and some of those more like I love me moments uh that take a second to get to.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: Can I jump in and ask both of you something?
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: Something I I did a long time ago that I learned about myself was do you ever use times to intentionally put yourself into a position to get out some of that anxiety, some of the the worries, some of the other things, not just ways to necessarily try to calm it, but like ways to expel it.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you an example of what I what I used to do as I learned in college, you get you you do have stressful week, you know, you got all your classwork you're doing, you got everything else, and I like to have a good time.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, I don't like to carry that stuff out with me.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I get into a routine of Friday evening after dinner, I'd sit down in my room, I'd I'd put on certain types of music, I would put on certain things that would make me think, and I'd almost get myself to the point of crying about stuff because it just it was a release for everything I was holding that week.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I let it out.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: I've I went and I pushed it out.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: So then I turn it off, I get up, but an hour later I'm out having a great time.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've let go of that stuff.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you guys, with your anxiety stuff, does it work the same way for you?
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: Have you found, have you tried anything like that to see if it works for you?
• 1:04:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I honestly feel like your example, Matthew, of like giving yourself the time to check is like letting, you know, again, it's not what everybody's doing, but it is like giving yourself that space to be anxious, to double check.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: There's this, uh, it's a pretty popular book called The Artist Way.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a uh thing, a tool in there called Morning Pages, which is like literally every morning you're like supposed to write just brain dump three pages of thoughts, right?
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I've almost found it to be like um mental flossing where like I'll let myself just like like repeat an anxious thought over and over.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: And some good stuff comes in too.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just like Galen's like psycho journal, but like, but it is like there are things I'm like, oh, I'm feeling really anxious about this relationship with this friend, or like, or like, you know, when's that check gonna hit?
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like just things like that, right?
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then also I'll be like, yay, I had a great dinner last night, you know, like things that are good in there.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like it is a space, and it really does feel like getting the gunk out almost, like just by expressing it.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I'll let you speak a little bit more to stuff, Matthew.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I I as soon as you said that, Keith, I was like, Yeah, honestly, the morning pages is a beautiful way to be like, there's no like prompts, and I just like if it's there, I'm writing it down.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: Cause by the time you get to the end of the third page, you're tired and the stuff comes out, kind of thing.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: So honestly, it's probably advice I need to take.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just think I'm not there mentally yet to be able to do that.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I've found is honestly the opposite sometimes, where if I give Myself any space to begin to ruminate on something, I will quickly spiral.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not always, and it depends, of course, on what I'm anxious about.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I almost have to be intentional about just moving on to the next thing.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I give myself space to like if I was to do do the thing where I'm writing in the journal, I might end up by the end just feeling worse about it.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm just being like, well, now I have a bunch of other things to worry about.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't And then you got a list, and now it's written down everything I'm worried about.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that the way you guys deal with it is definitely healthier.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: I need to work on that.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I but it also takes time too, Matthew.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm thinking about when you were talking about meditation.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: The first time I ever did meditation was in therapy when I was 19.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: And she was like, Okay, imagine like a river and leaves going down.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I imagined all my problems and all my friends screaming on these leaves, you know?
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, ugh.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just it just depends.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's the interesting thing too about like my experience with anxiety, and not to get like too deep with it, but some OCD as well, is trying to find the balance between like allowing yourself to do the checking, like you said, but then also not doing too much and not like indulging into the point where you are like especially with the OCD, it's like the classic, you know, worrying you left the oven on.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: So then every time you leave the house, you feel like you're not okay unless you check that it's off, which is not a healthy behavior.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as like my therapist would say, the only way to treat that is exposure therapy by not doing it.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how bad you want to check that the oven is off, even if you're like in your in your head 100% sure it's on, you just don't check.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I've also had to separate out in my mind like what are those unhealthy things where I shouldn't give myself room to do that kind of mental exercise, but then what are some things where it's okay to sit with it a bit and try to figure out a solution?
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's definitely a challenge, and it's like a fine line between accepting it and indulging it, and you have to like find the little gray area where you're like practicing self-care without amplifying the the bad thoughts.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_02: Something I'll probably have a lifelong battle with, but yeah, and I well, and I really appreciate you sharing this because it is it is hard to talk about, especially because they are hard experiences, right?
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think about OC OCD too reminds me of like I had a pretty terrible binge eating disorder, like between 16 and 22.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it was one of those things where like it's not like alcohol like an alcoholic where you you just stop drinking, right?
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like with food and like that behavior, like you need food, kind of thing.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so like my like and and so same thing with like OCD, I feel like there's like a level of like it's there and like giving a little bit of attention, but not too much attention, and that like that balance is such a challenge.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyways, changes the podcast to group therapy.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um title.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I do I do really appreciate thank you both for for sharing about this stuff because it's I think it's important to um you know to talk about and and share if if people are willing to, of course, and have had had the time to to process it BTS, which is another thing we think about a lot behind the scenes.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_02: Love it, love it.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_02: She did it.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is there anything that you all were like, ooh, I hope we talk about this, or I want to make sure I share that when it comes to talking to folks about connecting and what it's like to kind of build a network and and community of of of your peeps?
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_01: One one thing that I had thought about, and and I'd be curious to know both of your takes on it.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that is I'm always interested in okay, not in can you whatever could you do?
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you could do anything, what can you do?
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: No, if you could do anything within the realm of what you're already in, not you can't walk away.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can't say, I'm gonna retire, I'm gonna do this.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um you're not you can't say, Oh, I I would go and and be a boat salesman in in you know the South Pacific.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know's almost there.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean if anybody could say that would not be me.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm farther than both of you on that.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, Keith.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Continue your question.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is it within what you do?
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and Matthew, don't get yourself in trouble with your employer when they watch this.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_01: What would you want to be doing?
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you you know, and again, this is so good.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think we all need this question, and it's a very hard question.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this this is what me it's between me and my morning pages, Keith.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_02: But honestly, I um I to speak to actually the boat thing, like I keep my brain in daydream mode, right?
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I I I freelance, I um I consult, I produce, I edit, all that jazz.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm more and more I'm just like, I gotta just like dive in and do this boat YouTube thing.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we've already started it.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, it's like it's go time.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyways, I'm I'm feeling that your question, and like you said that, and I'm like, that's what we're you know, spraying out to the universe, if you will.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_01: The question then becomes is is you know, is it a realistic goal?
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think?
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think you can make it work within the realm of still providing the other things for life that you need to have?
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: I do because I've been working at it for two years now.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like I thought it was gonna happen a lot faster.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Let's put it that way.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like I thought like we were gonna sell our house, and then that summer we were traveling, you know, and it wasn't that cute.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so ultimately, like, it's like, you know, I I've I don't think I understood how hard it was gonna be to be fully remote and fully remote working for myself, right?
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because I've worked for myself.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually gonna be 10 years this year, and I I don't think I understood how hard it was gonna be to get my business built up in that way, but it's getting there, it's getting there, and it's 2026 has been a very cute year in a lot of ways.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_02: I love the like reality behind your question, Keith, because it is.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's like we have things we want.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_02: Are we actually taking the steps towards those things?
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I saw a quote last year, towards the end of the year, where it was like, if people saw you every day and they heard your goals, would they believe you?
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like with like the actions you take every day, like are you actually moving towards those goals?
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Or are you just saying the goals over and over?
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I keep being like, I'm gonna get back to running.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I finally did go on a run today, but like the last 90 days prior to that, no.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So huzzah, Keith.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Reality is real.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_02: I got this.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, before I follow up on that again, Matthew, what what would you do?
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to spoil his other answer after I want to I want you both to think about at the same time.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I want to hear his answer first.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll preface by saying right now I'm right where I want to be in my career.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love where I work.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoy being an employee and not freelancing right now.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_02: I believe you, Matthew, because like I feel like Keith will agree with me.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like your team, your organization, so like you all are so lovely, and you can just tell like there's something really special happening there, you know.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I I just so like people will be like, okay, yeah, sure, you want to work full-time for yourself, but those people just want to work for themselves.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_02: I could see people not believing you because they might not like their jobs, but like seeing y'all as a third party, I believe you.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I think people need to know that they should believe you.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_02: I guess what I'm trying to say too is I've been talking to my sister a lot about her finding a new like career and opportunities.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, no, I actually know of a company where people are very happy there, and culture can be good and you can enjoy what you do.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, echoing everything you said, like I can't believe how lucky I was straight out of college to wind up at such a great place with, like you said, amazing culture, you know, uh all the people I work with.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like honestly, I get a lot of the benefits that a you know freelancer would normally have, like the flexibility and kind of guiding my path of where I want my career to go, because that's just kind of the space we're given to like explore, we want to explore, get better at, we want to get better at, obviously within constraints, but like if all of a sudden I decided five years from now I want to be, I don't know, like current currently I am in a new operations role where part of my role, like 30, 40% of the time I'm doing that, and that was partially because I'd given feedback like, hey, you know, I love shooting and editing, but I'm feeling like I want to grow in this way and maybe learn that side of the business more.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And now here I am.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a lot of that like flexibility and that sort of thing in this role.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I guess what I'm trying to say is a lot of that itch is already scratched where I am.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't feel like I need to go out and do it on my own because I've got you know people that are gonna allow me to do that with me right now.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess Keith, to answer your question, apart from where I am right now, which is where I want to be, and like another world, I could have se myself being uh like an owner operator of a one-ton crypt truck, being a gaffer, maybe, but I don't wanna I don't want to drive a big van around.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_01: You have you have another place where I think that we're very similar.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh you know, obviously I with the lighting background in theater, it uh that the gaffing would have been a very simple place for me to end up in this business as a as a gaffer, but it's it I just I asked because of two reasons.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_01: One is that some people get caught up in the idea of of a dream that's not realistic, right?
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I'd want to stop people from dreaming, dream big, go for your dreams, but the there's a lot of the the grass is greener on the other side with those dreams.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they will they the reason they want to do that is because they think, oh, that looks like it doesn't have all the bad things that go along with this.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and and Caitlin, you got into it.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to get into it to ask if this followed it.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Until until Matthew answered because they didn't want to plan it in his head, and that is before you ask this question.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Can I just mention uh I feel like Matthew is like people are like, Morning Matthew, how are you?
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_02: And Matthew's like, living the dream, and that's it with the office.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_02: But he like really means it.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_02: I know it is it just cracks me up.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_02: But sorry, dive continue on, Keith.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't I didn't want to put this in his head before I asked you.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it is when you go to do some of those things that you thought you've always wanted to do, you find there's bad things with that as well.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, totally.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_02: It goes back to the whole like we're traveling for work that I thought was like just all fun and games and room service.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_02: It turns out you have to work.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Which I do love my work, right?
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it's not as restful as it was when I was a child when I wasn't actually working during the travel.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's that dream versus reality.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I like I think that's I'm in that like sweet spot that you're talking about, right?
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Where it's like we decided on a dream, we had this big idea, and the timeline expectations and the you know, was the dream.
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_02: But the reality was it was gonna take longer.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_02: It was gonna, you know, there like last May, our heat didn't work on the boat.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_02: We had just moved back on the boat for the summer, and like the rain and the the like the cold temperatures, sh she was a grumpy gus, let me tell you.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like May of 2025 was not my favorite time on the boat, but I know that now, you know.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we just we we moved through those, those, those hurdles and whatnot.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_02: But you're totally right, Keith.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think people dream all day long.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_02: They're maybe not one, not taking the action towards those things, and then two, when when they are, they're like, oh, this isn't as easy or as fun as I thought it would be.
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I look back and I go, I I was I think I was pretty lucky that I figured it out pretty early on.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the reason I went from theater to video in the first place was because I realized I wanted to have kids, and I I realized that working in a professional theater meant that you worked five, six nights a week from 2 p.m.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_01: to midnight.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have kids that get into school, that that doesn't really equate well.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you even if you find a a residency someplace where you're the same place for a long time, you they're at school while you're at home, you're at work while they're at home.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of realized that wasn't the life that I wanted to have, so I kind of ended up in the video world.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've avoided what a lot of my coworkers do, and that is get hooked up with a football series and you do it every week at a different location or uh the IndyCar series or NASCAR.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I some of the people I know work NASCAR season, it's 38 weeks on the road.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh again, it doesn't lend itself to the family life I wanted.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So while those were some things I wanted to do, I sacrificed those for the things that mattered to me more.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't be doing what I do, no matter how much I like you guys.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I probably wouldn't be at the convention we do if I wasn't getting paid to be there.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be doing something else.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's and that's there's a lot of things.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_01: I and I things now I want to do.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, we have a small studio, we do a podcast on a regular basis out of our studio.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to do nothing at this point in time hardly than to sit back there and have people come in and do podcasts every day.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just like manage a studio where you got other people coming and doing podcasts and helping to set them up and light them when and change sets and do the manage a studio space is something that now I think I would enjoy doing.
• 1:18:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think 10 years ago I wouldn't have thought that was what I wanted to do.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and then Keith, so is like is that your dream?
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Your answer to the question?
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_01: At this point in time, it's kind of I I would enjoy that or yeah, soft launch Keith studio manager.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to get to a place though.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_01: The one thing I've missed my whole life.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to get to a place where I could go to work at eight or nine o'clock in the morning, I could come home at five or six, Monday through Friday, most of the time.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one that's the one thing in career-wise that I would never been able to achieve that I really wish I could have.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's made it hard not being able to coach kids' soccer teams and basketball teams and do things because I can't commit to being at the practices and at the games.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think that dream, that's the thing, is as I've evolved in my life, as my life's gone, that dream has moved into things that fit with what I really want out of life more.
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's just a matter of, okay, well, how do I get there?
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe the first one should have been making you come out to the studio to do this podcast in person with the three of the people.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, don't think I wasn't like about to, right?
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_02: When you were like, oh, well, I'm not feeling well, or we couldn't get in on the schedule.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, yeah.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's something too.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I want to speak to that.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I've I've spoken like on some of my solo episodes, I've talked about this, but like, like I had been thinking about just wanting to do a podcast because I just love conversations with people for like the longest time.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_02: And what was holding me up is because I have a video background, like I was just like, you have to have video.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_02: You have to.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_02: No question.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's what they're doing.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's industry standard now.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, what if I just did audio?
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like just because I enjoy the conversations.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Most people listen to it their car or while they're walking their dog, anyways.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let's just do this.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe it won't like get all the downloads and have all the promotions because I don't have the imagery yet.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_02: But then it's like, okay, like if I can commit to it for a certain amount of time, if it's it starts to like have interest, if I'm still enjoying it, then I can up like level it up, right?
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_02: I can only go up, right?
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_02: But like I had to start.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, no, I mean, Keith, as you're as you're like, I'm gonna be a studio manager, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be in Keith's studio one day with all my dream guests, which includes you guys.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we love to have you in.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I love it.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so funny how with podcasts, it's just like shocking when a podcast doesn't have video today.
• 1:21:13
  SPEAKER_00: When yeah, that's just an audio format, like too.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like I get random, you know.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know people want to see me move my hands around really fast, but still, like it is.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_00: People want to see me and Keith.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they do.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, who are these guys?
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what do they look like?
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_02: I know nothing about them other than their voices.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_02: I know it's it is it, it's it's an interesting thing, and I try not to go too meadow with it and talk too much on the podcast about why I only have audio.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure like I'm very careful when I hit people up to be like, it's audio only.
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to get dressed up.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's just a journey that I'm taking.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_02: So awesome.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you guys, we did it, but I'm so grateful.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad we talked about dreams at the end.
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was an excellent way to wrap, Keith.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Production superstar, super, super, super.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go back to one thing real fast.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, yeah, yes, yes.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_01: We this goes this goes way back to to to the early part of the conversation, and it is what do we like to do in our spare time?
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think the reason Matt finds me so entertaining is because I don't sit around.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I went out and did a bunch of crazy things.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I still totally I mean, yeah, you know, like you guys said, I joined your conversation by jumping over the table.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_01: You did, or by jumping over the back of the table.
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Beer and all, I think.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was more of a roll over the table.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not overstate the uh well, no, there wasn't athleticness to it, but it it did happen.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_01: But that's because in a lot of ways I still feel like I'm 22 years old.
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and so that that energy is there, and I think that, Matthew, is why uh you find me so funny, is because I did stupid stuff because I couldn't sit still.
• 1:22:52
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway.
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and also you said, you know, you what gets you out of bed in the morning is you just love being alive, which is I think a big part of just like being young at heart.
• 1:23:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's a beautiful thing.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome, guys.
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Are you interested in people finding you or connecting with you in any way?
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is there I don't know, a platform you like to hang on?
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Or I know, I know Keith, you've got your your business website, so I'll link that in the show notes.
• 1:23:17
  SPEAKER_02: And Matthew, you're just you're just a cool guy.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Once in a while you'll get if you follow him on Instagram, once in a while you'll get uh just a cat smelling a piece of meat if you're lucky.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't even know if my Instagram is worth shouting out.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I barely put this in there.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have to shout at yeah, I know it's just nice to be following.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a super rare name.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's all you really need to do.
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_02: I interviewed a guy earlier this year, uh very lovely human named Owen Hunt, and that's one of like Gray's Anatomy's main characters.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_02: So he he he uses his stripper name, which is your childhood pet plus your um childhood street, and so it's Bootsy Greenwood, and um my child so mine is Aaron Dover.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Why I named a bunny Aaron, I don't know, but I did.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to think what mine would be.
• 1:24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Keith, what is your first chart?
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Connor Knoll.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, say again.
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Cece?
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Connor Knoll.
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_02: Connor Knoll.
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a two two-parter street?
• 1:24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Two words for the street, yeah.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's fancy.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And CeC was a guinea pig who is no longer with us.
• 1:24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, R I B, CC.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_02: I love a guinea pig.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_01: My first pet was actually a dog.
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was more my mom's than mine.
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, his name was Misty.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Misty, nice.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then what's your street, childhood street?
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's two options that I consider childhood streets.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_01: The one I did till I was about 10, which was Miracle.
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, Misty Miracle.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like uh good movie or something.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_01: For the next for the next uh eight years before I went to college, and then for 16 years as the homeowner, yeah.
• 1:24:51
  SPEAKER_01: The next street was Diablo.
• 1:24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Diablo.
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 1:24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:24:56
  SPEAKER_01: So both pretty good.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Of course you have a great stripper name, Keith.
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be stopped.
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the other way you can do that is with what your middle name is and the street you grew up on, which works well for me as well.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_01: My my middle name is Lawrence, and so it's either Larry or Diablo, which are both also good names.
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just this whole stripper crew.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like it feels like you got like three to four people.
• 1:25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's the Diablo show at two.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:25:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:25:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what times those shows have been.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I think this is a great place to wrap.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate you guys.
• 1:25:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna uh thank you, thank you so much for your time.
• 1:25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having us.
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having us.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so fun.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Crafted Connections is lovingly produced by Calhoun Creative Consulting, a strategic storytelling firm dedicated to helping people and brands tell their stories in a way that resonates.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_02: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and connect with us on Instagram at Crafted Connections Pod.
• 1:26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Keep creating, keep connecting, until we meet again.