Latest / Takin’ A Walk Nashville / Stories of Passion and Resilience from Jennie Smythe-Founder Girlilla Marketing

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Stories of Passion and Resilience from Jennie Smythe-Founder Girlilla Marketing · Takin’ A Walk Nashville

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: M taking a Walk Nashville at the end of the day.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Like that simplicity of making sure that you do a
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: good job, that you don't mess it up, and that
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: you turn around and help somebody behind you.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Pretty powerful stuff.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Hi, this is Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taking a
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Walk in Nashville Today. I am taking you to the
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: eighth Avenue South neighborhood in Nashville. Joining me today at
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: her office is Jenny Smyth, the founder and CEO of
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: award winning Girl LM Marketing, which heads digital strategy for
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: a diverse roster of world famous entertainers and brands, including
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Debt and Company, Willie Nelson, Darius Rucker, Blondie Brookshields, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Vince Gill just to name a fuel. Her early career
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: includes time at Disney's, Hollywood Records, Yahoo Music, Warner Brothers,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: and Clear Channel. And today we are sitting down to
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: talk about her new memoir that is out now called
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Becoming Girl.
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: Gorilla Buzzsnight and this is Taking a Walk Nashville with
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: singer songwriter Sarah Harrelsick.
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: Hi, Jenny, thank you so much for being on the
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: Taken a Walk Nashville show today and.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: You're having me. I'm happy to be here of course. Yeah.
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: So we are here at Gorilla Marketing today in Nashville,
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: and I just read your new memoir, Becoming Gorilla, that.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Was published earlier this year.
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: So what inspired you to write about your life experiences
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: as far?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I want to tell you you're the first person in
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: a long time that has actually pronounced gorilla right, so
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: high five. We have many variations, but that was that's
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: fun and exciting for me. I wrote this book simply
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: because I felt like I had all this information and
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: all these stories that I thought people could really resonate
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: with and hopefully on the work side of life digital
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: marketing and social media really just take a look at
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: how they were behaving online and improve because there's so
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: many good things about it, and that really doesn't make
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the news very often. So I wanted to kind of
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: tell the historical, you know, relevance to my life personally
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: through my career, but I also really wanted to leave
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: people with ideas and options of how to better relate
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: to human beings online.
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: And you get very personal in your story in this
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: book and your life experiences, and I kind of got
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: chills reading the prologue myself because my father's name is
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: actually Pete and you have a peat. I have a peat,
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: and I was a strange for him for ten years
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: until my mother passed away and then I got reconnect
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: did with him.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So I just related whoheartedly to your.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: Story, and I just think so many other people can
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: relate and connect to your story. So thank you for
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: sharing it. I definitely thank you for telling.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Me that because sometimes, like you know, that was the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: intention of the book, is that and I said this,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I hope that people see themselves in my story. So
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: to hear that is actually really powerful for me because
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I know that it worked and that was the intention.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: And you just by saying that somebody's going to see
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: this podcast and they're going to say the same thing
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: to you, and that was the intention. It was just
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: to say, like, hold on a second, we're all connected.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: How do we move forward? And especially after the.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Last few weeks for us online have been really difficult
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: for a lot of us, And so even though the
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: book came out in April, you know, in October, the
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: fact that I'm still able to talk about the basics
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of what I think we do together to move forward
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: in this type of communication is doing that.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: It's like really connecting with people. And so thank you
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: for telling me that.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you. I think connection is so important. I
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: think young female professionals will relate to this book a lot.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: And I want to talk about the start of your
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: career because you say the music industry is all about
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: who you know sometimes, and I think that's so true.
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: And speaking of who you know, as stripper, landed your
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: first professional opportunity at Elektra Entertainment, and as she told you,
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: they they're going to think you're a stripper when you arrive.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Was not the case.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was like there, it was a wild
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: time in the nineties. Yeah, but no, I don't think
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: anyone thought I was a stripper. But I did heed
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: her advice, which was it boiled down simply.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: She was like, I'm going to help you. Once you
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: get settled, you help somebody else. And then I won't.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Say what she actually the words that she used on
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: this podcast, but she basically, in a very blunt way,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: told me not to mess it up, that there were
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: people that needed to be helped behind me, and like
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: there's not a career counselor that could have given me
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: better advice, Like it was so out of left field
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: coming from this person who I.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Don't even really know her real name, Like it was NICKI.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: That's all I know, you know. But if I could
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: find this person again, I often thought, oh, man, I
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: hope at one point she sees something and reaches out
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: and says, I'm Nikki.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: That would be so amazing.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, like that simplicity
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: of making sure that you do a good job, that
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: you don't mess it up, and that you turn around
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: and help somebody behind you.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Pretty powerful stuff.
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's very important. And during the course
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: of a career, you worked for a lot of different
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: corporate companies in the corporate world and music, such as
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: Warner and Yahoo and clear Channel. But what was the
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: actual turning point that led you to starting your own
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: business guerrilla marketing And how did you navigate past the
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: fear of being an entrepreneur for the first time.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So I was really lucky, Because I say lucky, I
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: worked really hard and took advantage of opportunities. So we
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: just called that lucky.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: To have amazing job opportunities at gigantic companies. The problem
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: with me with those particular companies, is that I never
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: really fit a particular role or I would fit now,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: but then I naturally you want to keep changing and
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: doing different things. And when somebody offers you a job
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: for a role, it's pretty well defined, like here's your
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: job description, here's your salary cap. You know, you might
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: have a bonus structure or some kind of incentive, but
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: for the most part, like you know what your lane is.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And so even though I had amazing experience, it wasn't
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: like a I didn't have like a bad experience that
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I was like, I can't do this anymore and I
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: need to start my own business. It wasn't like that
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: at all. It was it was basically more about I
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: don't fit in this world and I'm not utilizing the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: skills that I have in the best way possible for me.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: And so my only option was really to be an entrepreneur.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: My only option was to start the company that I
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: envisioned that I wanted to work at. And in this
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: job seventeen eighteen years later, it changes every single day.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I don't have a lane.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: I definitely have responsibilities as a CEO as making sure
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: the health and wealth in my company is you know,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: doing well, but I don't know what I'm gonna do
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: every single day when I walk into this office. So
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: that is a spirit thing, you know, and you have
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: to be the right personality for that. But truly it
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: was a much more natural fit for me than anywhere else.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: But you asked me how I got over the fear.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: You don't ever get over the fear.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: And again seventeen eighteen years later, the same worries that
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: you had on the first day that you start are
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: still there. But like, you do it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Anyways and then it just becomes a muscle reaction. But
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I even, you know, people used to say to me
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: all the time in the beginning, like why would you
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: do this? It's so risky, you know, how do you know?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Like what are you going to do when you're twenty
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: years in.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, man, those are all what ifs that
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: you could actually apply to any other job, you know,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: because companies go under all the time. And I grew again,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I'm a kid in the nineties, so I saw all
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: these giant corporations fall. I saw all these people with houses,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: their mortgages default.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I saw my dad.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Worked for the same company for twenty five years. My
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: mother worked for the government. That didn't seem like an
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: option for me.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: It just didn't. It just it wasn't for me.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't for me,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And so I figured I would bet on myself.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Have to take a leap of faith.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but like pragmatically speaking, the biggest piece of advice
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: that I have for anybody is.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: To just not go into debt. You know, because as
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: soon as you have debt and there's expenses, but expenses
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: are different than debt. Debt is changes how you make decisions.
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I think that's a good point, especially because
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: you know, it might have been a different story if
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: just right off the bat, you were going to be saying,
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: you know, hey, I'm going to start my own company,
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: instead of the career experience you built up before that,
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: before those skills right that you learned.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: And the same thing when you're starting out, like kids
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: that are coming out of college and they have accrued
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: an exorbitant amount of debt, they're making decisions based on
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: paying that debt off instead of setting up their life.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: That's a huge problem for me.
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's such an important point, And you
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: bring up a few times in your memoir how you
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: felt like you needed to accomplish a great amount by
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: the time you were thirty. And I think, as women especially,
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: we all put a deadline on ourselves, like we need
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: to accomplish this and that by the time we're thirty,
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: when you know.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: This shouldn't be the case at all.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: So what advice do you give to women who feel
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: like maybe they're stuck in their career at their age
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: and they can't break the glass ceiling.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Oh so making all of those decisions got me in
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: jobs I didn't like and a divorce, right, So if
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I would have made different decisions, then I wouldn't be
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: here talking to you about these same things. So like,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: it's not I wouldn't say that any of those things
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: are mistakes per se.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I would just.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Say that, like it was experienced, that maybe didn't have
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: to be so painful.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: But I truly believe that, like those weird.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Rules that we put on ourselves, I do feel like,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: generationally speaking, some of those things have dissipated. And so
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I see people that I work with that no longer
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: are feeling those kind of pressures. And you know, there's
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: biological pressures. Of course, there's biological pressures for women on
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: when they are gonna decide to potentially have a family
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: or not, and you know, that's that's something that has
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: to be addressed. But I think you see more options
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: and you have more examples now of people that have
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: worked through pregnancy or you know, adopted or you know,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: got just so many different ways to do that. Where really,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: when I was coming through it was based on two choices.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: You know, you were either going to have kids or
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you weren't right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: And how was your digital marketing agency shifted since you
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: opened it in two thousand and eight with the development
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: of technology.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Everything, I mean literally we if you just think about
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: what was happening hapening in two thousand and eight and
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: two thousand and nine online, it seems like simple times, man.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I mean it was like Facebook was a college thing.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Twitter was like having a moment YouTube. You know, you're
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: watching Obama inauguration videos, You're watching Susan Boyle like singing
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: her heart out, Like you're experiencing the Internet for the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: first time with a lot of people. And not to
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: say the Internet wasn't there, because it was there before that,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: but everybody having access and really what changed that was
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: the mobile phone, right, the smartphone, because up until then,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I mean I remember sending in marketing meetings and people saying, hey,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: all those people between California and New York, they don't
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: have Wi Fi and they're like on dial up and
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: they're never going to adopt these things like music streaming
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: and downloads.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And I was like, what are you talking about?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Like that is crazy to just say we're only going
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: to care about this coast and this coast and everything
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: else in the middle the flyover states if you will
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: like these people, I mean, the implication was that, like
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: maybe they weren't a smart and I just was like
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: hardly offended by that, Like I wanted to I wanted
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: to speak to them, so like how do I do that?
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: You know? And so that was that was that was
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the assignment. The assignment was to.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Figure out how to reach people that you were told
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: maybe didn't want to be reached digitally.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And I just didn't believe that. And I still don't,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: you know, when I hear things about you know, certain
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: research studies and you know, different ways that we measure
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: through survey, I'm just like.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: I I refuse to believe it because I don't need
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: a middleman to tell me like what people find interesting
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: because people can speak for themselves. So that was that
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: was a huge game changer to be like the person
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: one of the people at the table who had the perspective.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: That didn't go through a gatekeeper.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: Walk Nashville podcast. Welcome back to Taking a Walk Nashville.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: Would you say AI has helped you with it?
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Was it still?
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: Is it still just an area you guys were trying
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: to figure out how you can use it beneficially, look.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Double edged sword, huge issues on copyright, data protection, all
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: of those things.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: But just like when the Internet came, just when the search.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Engines came, it's an equalizer and it is another tool
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: in our in our arsenal and as people, you know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: you used to be able to choose like are you
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: going to watch DV? Are you going to go on
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: the internet? Are you going to go to the library,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: are you going to read a book? All of that
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: AI is already here. It's already integrated into everything that
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: you do online. So the idea of you know, sort
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: of raging against it is futile. What you have to
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: do is figure out how do you use it to
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: your advantage. So to answer your question, my our biggest
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: hurdle are impostors. From a music marketing standpoint, our biggest are,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: hands down is impostors and and scams of our fans online.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: And the platforms don't really help us out.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: So they give us tools to proactively report these things
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: in which is helpful, but it doesn't.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: It's like a never ending game of whack a mole
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: and it costs us time. It costs us money and time.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: You know, certain things don't get.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Removed because the impostors and the fake accounts get nuanced
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to the rules of like what.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Is considered an impostor and what isn't. And it's heartbreaking
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: to read some of these stories of people that are
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: catfished and think that they're talking to somebody and they're not.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Some networks are better than others, but for the most part,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: that's our biggest hurdle right now.
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think your job has been constantly shifting with
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: the course of technology, and it will continue to. But
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: do you think it's harder with technology now for everything
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: you have to sort through or does it make it
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: easier because you don't have to phone up as many
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: people stick flyers around them.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I actually think you still need to do that because
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I feel like you're leaving real life, you know, a
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: side by just concentrating solely on digitally. So I would
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: say this, I would say, the volume is what makes
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: it sort of unattenable.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It's the amount of networks.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Is the amount of different types of content that needs
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: to be created on each network, right like it used
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: to be this was for video, this was for photo,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: This is for pictures of your kids and your dogs,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: right like, that was kind of how we looked at things,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: and now it's hey, these are the five different types
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: of media that you need to create for this. This
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: is the interaction, you know whatever. So I sort of
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: liken it too, having multiple networks within your reach, and
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: each network has its own set of channels, and so
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: how do you approach that? And sometimes it's the same
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: on you know, across the channel, but oftentimes it's not.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: So it's a volume thing.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: But I will say this, I love social media the
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: idea of being without it, even though it is not
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: without its faults, But I do remember a time without it,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: and I am very happy to be connected with people,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: to be able to keep in touch with my friends
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: who don't live here or that do, and that we're
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: just busy and on different paths, and that I get
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: to see those birthday photos and I get to see
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: you know, their accomplishments at their jobs, and just in general,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: you know, able to learn about causes that are important
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: to me that I can donate to. Like these are
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: all blessings, but for the most part, the ethos in
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: this building is that you don't own these networks and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: you can't depend on them. Like we're as we're sitting
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: here today, on the date that we're sitting down, there's
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: a strong possibility by the time this goes live that
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: will have some indication of what is going to be
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: happening to a particular network or not, you know, in the.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Next three four months.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: So things like that are really good reminders that like
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: you can use that you can use these networks, but
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: you can't rely on them.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: So as old school and eye rolly as.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: This sounds, it's super important that you have your own properties,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: your email list, your website, you know, any any business
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: that you own that you have the data because at
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: any given time, one of these networks can go down,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: go away, get bought, get sold.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And we've seen this before.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: You know, you asked me about two thousand and nine,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: like man MySpace was was it? It's not here anymore,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: and we still talk about it like it was a
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: part of our culture.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: It was a part of our ethos.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: And so these things can be impactful and they can
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: also be fleeting.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you just never know, right, of course it's going
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: to take rice exactly. You've dealt with your own battle
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: of breast cancer, and you know, it seems everywhere you
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: look now people are dealing with cancer in some form
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: of another, and many entrepreneurs and full time creatives can't
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: afford health insurance or they just kind of put it off,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: and then when they deal with their own health battle,
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: you know, they're out of work, they're not able to
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: go and do their job. And you are on the
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: board of Music Health Alliance. So how does this organization
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: break the barrier for people in the music industry struggling
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: to obtain healthcare.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: They're so far beyond even breaking the barrier. I mean,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: there was nobody doing this work.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: So Tatum, the founder of Music Health Lifecience, had a
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: wide breadth of professional experience before she founded this company,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: but she started on the music business side, and I
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: think she saw a need that we weren't taken care of,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: as a lot of us are independent contractors, a lot
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: of us are musicians that after a certain point in life,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: it's impossible to be a touring musician or you know
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: a plethora of reasons why somebody can't live on the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: road anymore. And we get so much from this community.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Not only do we get amazing art, but we get friendships,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: we get support systems, we get you know, community like
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: and those aren't buzzwords like, that's literally what we have.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And so to know that somebody who's given their whole
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: life to the music community has we don't. I mean, yes,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: we have unions for certain points of professional careers, but
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: for the most part, none of us qualify for any
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: anything like that. So Tatum became the conduit to the
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: music insurance and medical community and the music community when
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: nobody else was doing it. And I was lucky enough
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: to see her start that company. So for me, we
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: are pretty similar in our personalities. We are pretty similar
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: in our love of the community and also tenacity to
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: make something happen. And we started at our company's you
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: know right around the same time. She's a little younger
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: on that front. But she not only has helped me,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: but I mean thousands of pounds, thousands of people, and
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: it is everything that you could potentially imagine. It is
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: organ transplants, it is preventative dental care, it is you know,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: having a dedicated resource for medicare. It is the place
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: where a lot of us, when something acute happens, we call.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Like she has become the person that we all call
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: providing services to small businesses like mine, of finding insurance
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: that everyone here is covered.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: There isn't.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: I don't have an asset in my business, like I
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: don't have master recordings, I don't have any of that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: My business assets are my people. And so for me
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: as an entrepreneur being able to make decisions of where
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: my resources are going to go. I hate how expensive
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: the insurance company is. The insurance company businesses because it's
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: a business. They're not out here being nonprofits for us.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: In fact, they're profiting very well, some would say criminally profitable.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: But my biggest expense minus our mortgage, is paying our
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: health insurance premiums. And at one point in my career
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: when I showed up on Tatum's doorstep. My business wasn't
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: going to make it because of health insurance costs. And
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: when I think about that and how many people entrepreneurs,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: small businesses, and especially women owned business because there was
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: a time when our insurance was much more expensive than
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: mail insurance, which is a whole nother podcast. We had
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: to find a reason to keep going, and Tatum was
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: that reason to help me find something.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: That I could.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Know that I was doing the right thing for my team,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: but also know that I wasn't going to default on
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: any of my thoughts.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: I love that and I just love to bring awareness
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: to that organization. So I hope if anyone that's in
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: the music full time listening to this episode at or
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: checkout Music Health Alliance.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: That makes me help. That was very joyful.
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: Yes, So since we were on taking a walk Nashville,
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: I know when you were on taking a walk with Buzz,
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: he asked you who would you take a walk with,
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: But in this podcast, I like to ask where in
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: Nashville is.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Your favorite place to take a walk. So I think
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: every after I watched I had watched.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: A bunch of the Buzz podcast before, and then I
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: felt like the pressure like I really thought about, you know,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: what I was saying and who I was going to
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: pick after listening to what everybody else pick. So I'm
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: I'm I in my in my mind, I thought you
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: might ask me who, So I was like, oh, who else?
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: But I'm relieved. I think that to this day. Radner
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Lake is such an amazing place in the heart of Nashville.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: So it's like in the middle of the city. It's
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: just a beautiful path around a lake and it's you know,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: an hour, you know to get around the whole thing, really,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: and I just.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Think it's just the biggest gen of the city. Yeah,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I love hiking.
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: There so many good dirt paths and I think they're
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: under construction right now to fix the Iroin Road that
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: should be back up in November for yeah to check
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: it out.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, Jenny, thank you so much.
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: Again for being on taking a walk Nashville today. If
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: someone wants to purchase your memoir Becoming Gorilla, where's the
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: best place that they can find it?
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Anywhere anywhere you buy books, but at my website. If
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: you purchased there, then I know that personally, and that.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Means a lot to me too.
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: Wonderful and that's Gorilla Marketing dot com. Yeah perfect, Thank
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: you again, thank you today.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Okay, thanks for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: singer songwriter Sarah Harrelson, and check out our other podcasts,
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: Music Save Me, Comedy Save Me, and Taking a Walk.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: get your podcasts.