Latest / Crafted Connections / EP 5: Small Steps, Big Impact with Rocky Walls

Transcript

EP 5: Small Steps, Big Impact with Rocky Walls · Crafted Connections

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hello! Welcome to Crafted Connections.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Kayla Calhoun, and this is a podcast all about storytelling and building genuine community.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: 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_01: So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's craft some connections.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome back to Crafted Connections.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to share this episode with you.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: This episode is an example, perfect example of why I'm doing the pod.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Rocky Walls has been a mentor and a friend of mine for about four years.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And not only do I get to share his story with you all, but you get to kind of see behind the curtains where he at one point in the episode literally mentors me through some of my own business transitions that I'm working on.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's it's a lot of fun.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful thing.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Rocky.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Crafted Connections.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is such a pleasure to have you.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is such a pleasure to be here.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're already having a great time.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just grateful to know you.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Crafted Connections is all about, you know, building connection through storytelling, what have you.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And nobody knows that life better than my dear friend Rocky Walls.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to have you on.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give the people a little bit of background on you and who you are when it comes to life?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, life is such a big thing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: As it's relevant to this conversation, I'm a documentary filmmaker, the co-founder of 12 Stars Media.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: 12 Stars Media is a documentary production company.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we tell the stories of interesting characters who inspire communities to make positive changes.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: My role is as a director, primarily, just to be crystal clear about what I actually do in that process, because there's so many different roles in filmmaking.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I do most of the asking of questions.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love to meet people and try to understand who they are, where they're at in life, how I can responsibly take on the honor and the privilege of being able to sort of capture and and inevitably reshape their story for other people to be able to watch or or listen to.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's me in a nutshell.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's my day job.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I wear a lot of different hats.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an investor or partner in several different companies.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I co-founded Kudocks, which is a nonprofit organization that supports and shares Indiana-focused documentary storytelling through a lot of different programs.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go from there, shall we?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: That is something too, as I was thinking about our conversation.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a lot of things going on.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's always, you know, a large splash of creativity in everything that you do.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I always enjoy when you like when you post little art pieces that you're working on.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, where does this man find the time?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's inspiring to see that you infuse play while you are doing all these things, while you are working with all these people.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive into a little bit of the story of how you got to this point of day job plus investing in other companies, plus, you know, the family company of Debbie's daughters, which you did not mention, and uh, which is a bakery that is flipping delicious.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, in that, like, how did you get to the point of this, you know, storyteller as a day job, which is so thrilling and wonderful and a dream for a lot of people, plus all these beautiful like community organizations and community businesses that you are frankly a founder of a lot of them, co-founder, founder, not Debbie's daughters.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's more literally Debbie's daughters who you are married to one of.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, my wife Jessica is one of Debbie's daughters.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just for an additional bit of context, I am sitting directly above this little cafe that you're talking about because it is a family affair.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so our company, 12 Stars Media, is on the second floor of this historic building in downtown Noblesville, Indiana.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And on the first floor is this little bakery cafe that my wife and her sisters own and operate.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very Hallmark-esque kind of thing.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I do have to pinch myself every now and then.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not that everything is always perfect.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that you ever get to a point where life is, you know, perfect and you don't have things that stress you out.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have days where you wish that your job was maybe a little different or maybe a little easier.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And even now, with this very Hallmark-esque environment that I'm in, that I work in all the time, that I get to do what I love pretty much every day, there are still those moments where I wake up and I think, I'd really like to not today.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's important, especially if you're an early career.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Listening to this, if you, you know, if you look at somebody like me that's more advanced in their career and you think, like, oh, well, by by that point, a lot of this stress or a lot of the risk or the concerns about, you know, whether things are going to work or not, or some of the decision making has to get easier.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, certainly some things get easier, but there are some things that just stay difficult, I'm convinced, basically, until you retire or die or whatever.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think to kind of put a bow around all of that, I have a really firm grasp at this point in my life of what my purpose is.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: When we think a lot about jobs or career or or hobbies and all these different aspects of life, a lot of times folks may not be running those things through the filter of, you know, what is my purpose?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, if somebody Caitlin, if you're giving my eulogy.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, it would be an honor.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I feel like you have to say that, right?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it would be an honor if anybody, you know.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to say it though.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: I interrupted you to say it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you were talking about Rocky Walls, I would love for you at some point in that, you know, recollection of who I am to mention that I'm a good listener, that I'm someone who truly wants to listen.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would rather listen more than I talk.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's saying it a lot because I love to talk.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I think that if I was like a super introverted person who didn't talk a lot, maybe that wouldn't be as meaningful.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But because I do like to talk, the fact that I really, I really like to listen even more is is really important.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that because I've identified that my purpose is to listen to others and help them share their stories so that we can create more empathy and and positive change in the world, that ends up opening the doors to a lot of other things that aren't necessarily always limited by my day job.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like the idea that I could be such a supporter and and really an active partner in a bakery, which on the surface probably seems like is very different than a documentary filmmaker.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing, is if you take documentary filmmaker and bakery owner operator, you'd look at those things and be like, those are very, very different things.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But if you if you take the role or the label or the job title away from it, and you think back again to purpose, so much of what we're doing, and you've been to Debbie Starters, so much of what we're doing downstairs is creating community, bringing people in.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: There is not, I cannot go down there and get a cup of coffee without stopping and having two or three conversations with neighborhood people, people who live right down the street from us, you know, walk to the bakery, or or people who I work with in other capacities, maybe we're on boards together, or maybe we, you know, serve our city and our community in in some capacity together.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Those conversations are very much in line with this, you know, purpose of listening and helping to share and tell stories.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what happens downstairs all the time.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, by extension with Hudox, not just taking what I do for my day job at 12 Stars Media and producing films, directing films for our clients or the you know, the stories and intellectual property that we kind of take on and decide to do ourselves, but extending that statewide and saying, I would I would love to empower a greater community of people who do that same thing for others and provide resources and listen to them, you know, and sort of do like a whole listening inception bit where it's like, I am listening to the people who are like professional listeners and asking, what's your story?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And how can I help you?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: How can I help elevate and lift up, shine a spotlight on these storytellers across the state of Indiana with what we do in, you know, in and through our programs at Hudocks.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so that for me is is really what ties it all together.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's always been that way.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not a person with very singular focus.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I chart out my day, I will be wearing multiple hats.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yesterday I I made a giant vat of hot pepper stew, which is a family recipe downstairs at the bakery just to contribute this week, you know, and then I, you know, take off an apron and a hat and I come upstairs and I have, you know, a couple of meetings about global documentary projects that we're doing.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so being able to have my hands on a lot of different things, but it all be sort of connected to storytelling is really important to me.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see this for yourself in the past?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Did you envision this life?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or is this just kind of like bits and pieces have come together over the years?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like Rocky in his early 20s, kind of what did it look like?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the what was the hope?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not no, not at all.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It would be crazy if I could have visioned with this level of specificity, like what I'm doing now.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I often am very candid with people about the time period when Zach and I started 12 Stars Media, very end of 2007, going into 2008, beginning to see very significant recession, not having any idea what we were really doing.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: That time, we didn't really call ourselves entrepreneurs.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know that I had ever even heard the word entrepreneur.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not that it, you know, not that it was new.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there were entrepreneurs then.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about this phase before.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've shared that like this phase was like, hey, we can make videos for you.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that was like the thing.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like it wasn't necessarily like you're like, we're gonna build out SOPs and we're gonna have team members, and like it was just like, hey, we have a service and we're ready to go.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then over time, right?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: It took, you said 2007.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're you're coming up on 20 years here in a few years, right?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And like you're in the high teens.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it took a while to get the stability that 12 stars has now, and even then I'm sure there are moments.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I it wasn't even that specific, Caitlin.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, we know how to do a bunch of different stuff, not just make videos, but like I designed business cards, I designed a couple of logos, you know, not anything that you would recognize at this point, but like I built the entire, you know, first two or three websites for 12 stars media in flash, you know, if you remember those days.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, people would see that we could do those kinds of things.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'd do that.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It took two or three years for us to really settle into, okay, well, actually, we're just gonna do video, which is really what we liked the most and what we kind of started with, kind of recognizing that you know, we could do other things to fill in the earnings gap that that we would have with starting a business.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, over time you get more and more specific, or you grow at arguably an unsustainable rate, and you start to do things that maybe are outside of your core skill set or purpose.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually that's a different kind of growing pain.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to kind of evaluate, you know, is that what we want?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right around our 10-year anniversary, we were 20-some people, had experienced, I think, six or seven years of consecutive growth, some some years growing, you know, revenue-wise doubling or or even tripling.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we were doing a lot of things that didn't necessarily feel like they were in line with what inspired us the most and what we were happiest with.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we don't have to hash that whole story out.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually Zach and I kind of looked at each other and said, well, did we ever like stop to ask ourselves when are we big enough?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or when have we grown enough?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or when does growth start to be measured in other ways than revenue or employees?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: When we started to ask ourselves those questions, we eventually dialed it back.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, now we're under 10 people, we're in a building that we own instead of you know leasing property, which we did for the first 12 years of business.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: That also plays into how we can be a part of uh several different things, all kind of with this overarching theme, making you know, smart decisions financially.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, I was gonna say, I remember you telling me a few years ago that you never expected to invest in real estate, but you know, you've been able to kind of like build out your own portfolio a little bit on that, one being the building that like both 12 stars and Debbie's daughters is in.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, again, early 20s Rocky would have been like, no, I don't need that, you know.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: But then it is something that like when you look at it, it's smart, it allows you to do more creative projects, like it gives you freedoms that you didn't maybe know that you might have wanted.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and in yeah, early 20s Rocky, as you describe him, would have never imagined that that would have even been possible.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, early 20s Rocky was living in an apartment with not quite as much space as we probably needed with a growing family.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: The first two or three years of 12 Stars Media, I think we went 20, 30,000, maybe even over$30,000 in debt, personal debt, not like we went and got a small business loan, and that's like a more acceptable kind of debt.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking like credit card debt, like high interest.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, go to the mailbox and get like an offer to transfer your balance, and we're like, oh, sweet, like we can do a balance transfer and put this off for a little bit longer, being very real with you, like those were the early days.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, never would I have been like, oh, well, we'll probably buy a building to move our business into.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Zach and I debated about whether we could really truly afford our first little office space was just like a$250,$300 a month or something silly like that.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't silly then.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really big deal.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't sure if it was, you know, a commitment that we would regret later or or be able to maintain a sustainable cash flow for.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, those things change over time.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that it's important to recognize that most of this stuff does take a lot of time, and it's a lot of small steps in the same direction.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you think about that first office that I mentioned, a couple hundred bucks a month, you know, and then the next one was 500 bucks, and then moved into one of those places where you could sort of rent one office, and then if you needed to add another one, you could add another one.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time we were ready to move out of there, we had we had kind of taken over three or four offices.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then we moved into a space that we had a four-year lease on with a contract that was a bigger investment than we had ever made at that point, and then finally looking at it and going, well, all right, we've spent almost quarter million dollars in the last four years just on leasing this space.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Surely we could probably buy something now.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it didn't go from$300 a month to let's buy a building.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was it was over many years.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think that one of the reasons you're able to do that is because small steps in the same direction.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back in my life, I know that there's no way that I would be where I am now if every time things got a little dicey, I put where I really wanted to go, where I dreamed that we would be able to take 12 Stars Media on the back burner and went and got a job somewhere.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's one step forward, two steps back often.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think you make the same kind of progress that way.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a certain level of dedication, maybe stubbornness, and I think that's a lot of what we've had is is we've we've stuck to it.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll also say, quick shout out to my co-founder and best friend Zach Downs.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot easier to do when you have a partner in it.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that you have to surround yourself with people that can help you have that intuitivity if you just are kind of constantly wavering and and taking steps backward.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you can make the kind of progress even over several years that a lot of people want or expect to see.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so my challenge to people would be if you're gonna do it, do it.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Get out there and and and do it.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: You made a major shift in your life going nomad.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, can you explain it to me actually?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just think I just did.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're, you know, it's it's you're you're a nomad.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to hear from you.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you does that resonate with you?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like it it feels like that's something that you can't just kind of be like, oh, maybe, maybe we'll live on a boat.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we'll something I want to pull out from everything you just said is particularly with my own experiences being self-employed for almost nine years.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be nine years this fall.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: The baby steps are key, right?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: The reason that I now am nomadic and live on a boat is because around 2023 I took too many large steps, right?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then in that, it kind of like blew everything up.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we went into recovery mode and we're like, what can we try to kind of get things, air quotes, back on track or what have you.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it it's been about a year and a half of like, I had a company until October of 2024.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then I kind of like closed and reopened uh with my own personal brand.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: The baby steps are key.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you take big risks and they don't work out, and that's okay, but the stick-to-it-ness is a big thing, right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: And there's always a solution and getting creative with it is really fun.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And for us, it was we're gonna sell our house and live on a boat because you know, I overinvested in my company in 2023 and learned the hard way, what money I shouldn't should not be spending, right?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Or how fast I should be investing in certain things.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: No regrets in the sense of like, I didn't know how much I needed to like spread my wings and like travel about and try alternative living because I always was obsessed with van life.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: But my partner has some real driving trauma.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we're like, what else can we live on?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, that's that's kind of when I like hear your story, it is it's like the little baby steps.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't get to like a large team overnight.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you did, you're like, do we even want this?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: How do we reevaluate?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: How do we reconfigure?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just I hear you.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's a good point because both the example that you've given in sort of stepping back from some major growth and the experience that I shared, where you know, we had reached a high number of employees and and high revenue, and and we sort of stepped back.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that stepping back can be stepping forward.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: What matters is that you are stepping forward in figuring out how to align what you're doing with your purpose, with your life at the stage that you're in.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be constantly checking what you're doing against that greater purpose, if you can.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think what causes concern for me is when I hear the primary reason for stepping back is to avoid risk or to maybe put what they really want to do on hold.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've put so much into it already.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like now is the time to double down and keep it rolling to whatever extent you can.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's different for everybody.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I see that so deeply in the sense of it does take a lot of work to get the ball going up the hill, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you're pushing and you're pushing, and you got some people joining you and you're pushing, you're pushing, and then you're kind of at the point where like maybe it plateaus, but the ball is still moving and there's momentum.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the investment it takes to start something, just even like I mentioned my former company, Teardrop Pictures, it even costs money to like close your LLC.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Not only is it one of those things where it takes so much to start by investing in incorporating and then you know, getting your clients and building out your different websites and this, that, and the other, just all that initial investment, both time and money.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then to to close it, I personally did not take that decision lightly, but saw how Teardrop was almost like an Indianapolis-based company, right?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I became a nomadic person and I noticed the community I'd built around Teardrop was just as supportive of Caitlin.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, what if we put our name on this thing, we let that chapter go, and we move forward.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I I mean, I took a year and a half to like really come to that choice.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: I like that we're having that conversation about committing to something and then also knowing when something doesn't work and you need to step into something else.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like both matter, but not to take it lightly, not to do it because you're afraid.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: To your point, you may need to get that out there a little bit more, talk through it, spend the year and a half or the month and a half, or whatever it is the time, whatever time you can spend.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't torture yourself for a year and a half if it's the right choice.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I would not recommend that.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but if it takes a year and a half, so be it.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: To me, in your example, is a really great one of how you can once again use your greater purpose and your sense of vision as the measuring stick.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you said just a moment ago that the people who loved and supported teardrop pictures were just as supportive of Caitlin Calhoun, it's like, well, there you go.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're not actually taking any steps backward.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're taking steps forward and you're dropping something that you don't actually need anymore in the process.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: From the outside looking in, maybe people would think, oh, well, maybe that's oh gosh, maybe that's a step backward.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you're able to look at it objectively and say, well, it's really not.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, I'm letting I'm letting go of some things or I'm changing some things.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, I'm moving forward and I'm carrying so much of what I've already done and so much of what I've already built with me.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a good example of following your true north, even if it means changing things or letting some things go.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Always calibrating to that.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm sure you've had times where like the calibration to what decisions am I making towards my true north, am I even doing that?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or you might not have the time.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know you had a really busy fall.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I know you didn't have time to sit there and journal about is this my true north?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Is this my true north?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: You had a renovation going on in your house.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, nobody who's going through renovation is.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Journaling about their true north.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we, if you've been through it, you know.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: October 2024 was absolutely insane.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: The first half of October was this roller coaster of like emotion of premiering dirty laundry, our first feature film, and having our second annual pitch docks where we gave, you know, almost$15,000 to Indiana filmmakers.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we premiered a short film, a farm film documentary that we did down in Madison, Indiana.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, whole house had been basically torn apart, no kitchen, no laundry room.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then we embarked in the second half of October on a worldwide work for hire project.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was on a plane, I think, to Japan, like the day after Heartland International Film Festival ended.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in some ways it got harder from there because there was all the celebration, there's all the excitement of premiering a film, and then there's just like all the difficulty and the slog of like finishing up the rest of the year and it being very, very busy.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the film introduced very unexpected controversy in my life, and and we lost friends and family members over the subject matter of the film, which blew my mind.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to give a little bit of a like a synopsis of Dirty Laundry as well?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Dirty Laundry is a is a story about truth and friendship.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: At its core, it's about how you can't have true friendship without truth, without transparency in both being honest, but also being loving and accepting.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And in the film, spoiler alert, at the very end, one of the two main characters essentially comes out to his best friend and confesses a romantic love, or what he thinks, at least at this stage in their life, could be a romantic love for him, which is unrequited.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're sort of built up this affection and love for these two characters in this film that has a lot of comedy.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a magical realism film, so they're actually under a truth-telling spell as they kind of both unpack their daddy issues and recognize that there's a lot of conversation that they've never had, even though they've been best friends for a while.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there were, believe it or not, even though it's about the most tame you can get, there were people who really, really struggled to accept the idea that a young man could come out to his male best friend, and that that male best friend could be supportive.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that was part of the goal of the film was to show a spectrum of what love and friendship really means.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times in film we do, we get that.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: We've boiled relationships down to something fairly simple, and I would argue probably oversimplified in a lot of ways, where relationships are not nearly as clean-cut as a lot of relationships in film are portrayed to be.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so this was really deliberately designed to get you to really love and root for these two characters.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: All the shenanigans happen in a laundromat.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I mentioned that, but it's dirty laundry, it's where they they get sort of put under this truth-telling spell.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Our actors, Mitchell Ray and Charlie Schultz, do an exceptional job of making you really care for them.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end, you know, you get this little bit of a change-up.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, this was a comedy.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: They were like goofing around and being silly, and now all of a sudden we're in drama mode and we have a very serious conversation happening.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite Instagram story shares, the night of the premiere, one of my friends said, I was not prepared for this.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I went into it thinking I was getting Ferris Bueller's day off, and I got Goodwill Hunting instead.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, she said, she said, I'm just over here sobbing through the QA.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Don't mind me.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really important and impactful experience for me to put candidly so much of myself on the page.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote it.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote the script and directed the film.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Genuinely to like underline this, when you were talking about Debbie's daughters and how you can't go down without having a conversation with someone, this is what I'm doing here.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're not just Rocky Wall's owner of 12 stars, right?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: You write complicated scripts, you advocate for other filmmakers, but all to say, like, this is the point, right?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you live in Noblesville, Indiana.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're creating amazing work, and people need to know that.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: No matter where you are or what you do, you have interesting things about you.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: So many of us are so multifaceted, and it is complicated.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're having a conversation like what we're having now, you dip in and out of things.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we started on this track because we were talking about last fall.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, and that's one thing I wanted to say about last fall, right?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: On paper, it's a dream for someone who's starting in the commercial space to like take an international tour and do video production work for like a large company.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's also a dream for a filmmaker to premiere and show their films.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's also a dream for like someone who, you know, has been in the arts for a lot of their career to like to start and found and be the executive director for an organization that also is giving money back to like the artist that it supports, right?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: All those things are dreams and all of those things at once are hard.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, and it's like what you said at the beginning, like, yes, these are beautiful things and you are so grateful for them, but it doesn't mean you're not a human who like needs sleep.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like and and I'm therapy.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Therapy, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: If this podcast is not my therapy, I don't know what it is right now.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, but that's the thing, right?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's one thing I really wanted to bring up about 2024 fall.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: So many wonderful things that, like, you know, you in your early days would have been like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's also hard to have so many good things at once.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think we should ignore that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think you take that for granted.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And also, a human being needs sleep therapy and coffee or tea.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Zach and I were just texting yesterday.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: This, you know, vulnerability.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: I shared, you can go back and look at my Instagram.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: I shared this reel that was painstakingly difficult to put together in the airport while I was getting ready to fly to Japan, celebrating all of the things that we've already talked about.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it was basically, I have this huge smile on my face.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying essentially, this has probably been one of the hardest, but definitely one of the best months of my life.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And not even a week later, I was in like the worst space that I could possibly.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, as soon as you hear me say that, you're like, well, it doesn't really surprise me.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's how we are.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's how people are.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it comes and it goes.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we, like I said, started dealing with some of the aftermath of folks who weren't thrilled with the content of the film.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like in Japan working during the day, which is actually the evening here.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: During the day, here is when they're renovating my house.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I have like contractors who are texting me questions and like saying, Hey, we're cutting the holes in the you know, bedroom to put this window in, and it's two in the morning in Japan.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Well, I better answer the phone because what if they cut the hole in the wrong place?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: That isn't wasn't really happening, but that's an example of the kinds of you know, kinds of conversations.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: It'll keep you awake.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: The thought of it will keep you awake.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was just this stressful nightmare.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And just yesterday I texted Zach and I said, Do you think I tried to do too much?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh god.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: He responded, lol, always.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a specific reason why you're asking today?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I I said, To your point, you know, about we all need sleep and therapy and coffee.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I said, maybe, maybe I could use your help in managing my time a little bit better.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, sure.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, what do you want me to do?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, well, what if what if we just scheduled more stuff so that I would be like, oh, sorry, I can I can't actually do that.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Zach says I'm needed for this other thing.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: The things that I'm needed for could be simple things like a nap or coffee, but something to like dial it back a little bit, to rein it in, and to say, Rocky, you don't have to do every single thing that you think you probably could or should be doing.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: The struggle is real, even if what I post on social media looks like a walk in the park.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why stuff like this is important to share.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: Even when you talk to someone face to face, you don't necessarily know what's going on behind the scenes.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we're all just humans and we do need to listen to each other and we do need to think about each other.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful thing.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: The listening is so, so, so important.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, there's this idea that empathy is is a weakness, that empathy is a bad thing.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that is probably the thing that has bothered me the most in the last several months, and the thing that I've sort of taken up arms against, want to put a lot of time and energy toward fighting, is this idea that empathy is a weakness.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that trying to better understand others and leave space for change in my own, in our own minds and hearts, because of what we learn by listening to others.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because empathy, I think, is in direct contrast, one of our greatest strengths as people, as humans.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's something that I hope people don't allow themselves to be robbed of because of the idea that if I leave space, if I leave room for someone else, then it's less space for me or it's less space for my story.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the container, the capacity that we have expands with it.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that fuels our documentary work.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many people who I've listened to and and learned from that have made me such a better person.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were talking about earlier.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like early 20s Rocky was very naive in so many ways and and and not nearly as good of a listener, not nearly as good of a husband, not nearly as good of a father, not nearly as good of a business person or a community member.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so much of what has changed me from early 20s Rocky to early 40s Rocky now is is empathy, is listening.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's this little nursery rhyme or poem that goes, a wise old owl lived in an oak.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: The more he saw, the less he spoke.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: The less he spoke, the more he heard.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't we all be like that wise old bird?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of goes back to, you know, you've heard people also say, I kind of wish that my mom had told me this so that I could be like my mom always said that she didn't, she didn't, she never said this, I don't think.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Other people have said this that, you know, God gave you two ears and one mouth so that you could listen twice as much as you talk.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there are reasons why we say these things.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: There are reasons why these mentalities persist throughout human history, and there's a lot of value to it.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: I also love that you have that like little nursery rhyme, just ready to go.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is ready to go.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thankfully, it's very from the brain.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: It just happened.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, he's going.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's now you dropped it.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say hot, like it was ready, and it was a delicious hot crossbone and we're gonna go.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like a little like a little Caesars, like a little Caesar's hot and ready pizza.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're out here getting those ads on our TVs.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Watch out.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Rocky, what do you have coming up?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let's conclude with that.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've got all sorts of organizations.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've got Dream Docs on our docket.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is gonna be aired before then.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's already sold out.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's already sold out.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it is, but we're getting ready to release a few more tickets, depending on when this drops.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: April 25th, 2025 is our our inaugural Dream Docs, which is a conference for filmmakers, documentary filmmakers in Indiana to get together, dream big about the dream documentary projects that they want to take on and then work together through breakout sessions and really great speakers and networking and other resources to help make those dreams a reality.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're listening to this and April 25th, 2025 is very much in the rear view.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: We plan for this to be uh an annual event, much like Pitch Docs, um, which will come up in the fall, where filmmakers can share their ideas for documentaries, can submit and compete for the opportunity to win a$10,000 financial award to put toward the funding of your film.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Those are sort of the two big events that that Hudox is doing annually.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so definitely, if there are filmmakers or filmmaker adjacent folks listening, please do check those out.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you can learn more about Hudox on the website, watch Hudox.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's H O O D O X.com.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: For me personally, a lot of global work this year.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Follow me on Instagram, Rocky Walls, R-O-C-K-Y-W-A-L-L-S, just like it sounds.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you Google me, you'll get like a whole bunch of like old school, like like in like Ireland or something, you can imagine like these rock walls, like liter, literally rocky walls is what you'll get.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there'll be like one picture of me, like somewhere deep buried in there.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: But if you search for me on social media, I'm Rocky Walls everywhere.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: But uh follow along, have a trip to China planned for early June for some work.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Another Rocky Wall.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's the maybe the Rocky.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should get a selfie there.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: You have to.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Rocky Walls, anyone?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then it'll rank, it'll rank right there on the I'll have two pictures of me on the that's how you really boost your SEO.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is you just keep taking pictures with Rocky Walls and like tag the subtext.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, is this not your new personal brand marketing plan?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe follow along, you know.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I I thank you for mentioning at the very beginning that I dabble in mixed media art.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I am a layered person, as anybody who's still listening to this episode can tell.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love to do layered artwork and I share a lot of that on Instagram.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love for people to engage with me there, ask me questions about travel and and art, a collector of typewriters.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's all these things that I have going on that that are sort of just nothing is just me, but like a little bit less of the big, big picture of filmmaking and nonprofit work that you can see from me on on Instagram and and other places.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Folks who are listening can check out Dirty Laundry, Dirty Laundry2024.com and we're on Amazon Prime.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you can check it out there.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are listening to this and thinking that dirty laundry sounds like something I'd like to check out, please do and leave us a review.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to put you in a box.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Most of it is summarized on like so RockyWalls.com.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: I did eventually uh snag that from uh like a landscape company that built uh retaining walls.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they they finally went out of business after many, many years.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so not only did your mother not tell you about the two years, one mouth thing, but she also gave you this name and you're out here just trying to make it work.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, really?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: You yeah.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's the direction that I did not expect this conversation to go in.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, check me out, rockywalls.com.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I do own that domain now, and you can you know browse around and see various silliness that I'm up to and reach out to me directly there.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Rocky, thank you so much for your time today.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate being here and I appreciate you.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: This has been wonderful.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and connect with us on Instagram at Crafted Connections Bot.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Keep creating, keep connecting, until we meet again.