S2E11 - Mismatched socks

On this episode, we talk to Daniel Hintz. He’s the Founder and Chief Experience Officer of Velocity Group, and co-owner of Bauhaus Biergarten in Springdale. He previously served as the Executive Director of both Downtown Bentonville, Inc., and Fayetteville Downtown Partners. Daniel brings with him a broad range of experience and knowledge, and he shares his wisdom and unique perspective with us. We discuss community development, not having your “why,” and the joys of mismatched socks.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Coming up on points of failure.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

The identities were really starting to emerge. Some really big questions were being asked. And uh because those questions were asked so early, especially right after the 2007-2008, I think it it just made for a stronger Northwest Arkansas to move through COVID and some of these other pieces.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome to the Points of Failure Podcast. I'm Steve Gawtram. On Points of Failure, we discuss all kinds of failure from inaction to impulse. We have conversations with guests who share their knowledge, their successes, and of course their failures. Our hope is that you'll find something useful in each episode to help you understand the areas in your life where you feel you have failed, are failing, or fear that you will fail, and how to manage those feelings and potentially mitigate future failures. On this episode, we talked to Daniel Hinz. He's the founder and chief experience officer of Velocity Group and co-owner of Bauhaus Beer Garden in Springdale. He previously served as executive director of both Downtown Bentonville Incorporated and Fayetteville Downtown Partners. Daniel brings with him a broad range of experience and knowledge, and he shares his wisdom and unique perspective with us today. We discuss community development, not having your why, and the joys of Miss Mag Sox. Hope you enjoy this episode. We are here today with Daniel Hinz. So, Dan, take us back to the beginning and just uh give us a breakdown of where you started and where we are. How hard you want to go back. I mean, we don't have to go back to conception, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There you go. I don't want to start there. Uh and uh, you know, grew up in a in an interesting changing Milwaukee. I had uh undergone significant red lighting up to when I was born, it knocked out a bunch of the neighborhood to make way for a highway that never manifested. Uh, we were dealing with, you know, rising crime and rising violence within the urban planning side of things. But at the same point, in Milwaukee was also a community of celebration and lots of festivals and celebrations of all kinds. And uh my parents were very much a part of helping foster several different major festivals. And uh I was the first graduating class or one of the first graduating classes from Elm Creative Arts School and Roosevelt Middle School for the Creative Arts, which was a magnet school for young people all over the city that sort of was part of the revitalization of several different neighborhoods. So it's interesting when you look at the seeds of my point of view now and the references to the work that I do in experience design, urban planning, community engagement. I definitely see those seeds planted very, very early on in my life with my family's activism within the neighborhoods and kind of growing up uh in a very interesting and changing uh world in Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

So that's kind of what then kicked you off to this whole sort of community development and and Yeah, through a roundabout way.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah. I mean, I I came through it through many interesting channels. I mean, I uh have a BFA in film, I did professional theater, I cooked for a long time, I've been executive director of social service agencies, I worked on public policy, I've been marketing and communications, um, you know, urban planning, executive director of several downtown associations. And then in 2014, I started my own firm called Velocity Group, which does urban planning and community engagement and community experience design all over North America. I just finished, I think it was my 47th city a couple months ago, working in my 47th city many times, uh having long-term relationships with those communities and looking at the types of experiences, the types of projects that forward a community vision. So I've been very grateful and honored to be a part of those conversations. This is after being here in Northwest Arkansas. My wife and I moved here in 2003, where we co-founded with several of your friends Theater Squared. I became the executive director of downtown Fayetteville and eventually downtown Bentonville. And so had been a part of a lot of those conversations here in Northwest Arkansas. My most recent endeavor is opening up a German beer garden in downtown Springdale with my business partner, Chef Jennifer Hill Booker. And uh so that's been been interesting to be on that side of the equation, on learning a lot of different new things. I mean, we both of us have a lot of experience in the food world, but uh working in or with people is very different than actually owning your own establishment.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yes, it is, and so uh so that's been an interesting uh learning curve for me. So we met in 2004 uh one so long ago, I know, right? Life just goes.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

And uh uh through Heather Fallen, actually. And uh yeah, I was I remember volunteering uh just to be part of the festival. And uh I tell this story a lot, actually, that I uh I remember getting a call from you one day that I forget her name now, but she'd step down to to be the director of the film section of the arts festival, and you asked me if I wanted to do it. Yeah, and I remember thinking, yeah, that'd be great, having literally no idea what I was stepping into. So thank you for that. Yeah, no worries. I hope you I hope the therapy bill never hits me at some point. But uh yeah, right. No, it was uh it was a good experience though, and so um, I guess my thinking there is I I think back to the the ways that I uh failed and learned, but um, what do you think are are the the fundamental areas where um community development or large productions like those experiences, what are those fundamental areas where they failed? Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Well, I think one of the the big issues, and I could say this for for anybody, is what happens uh you know when the people don't have vision, yeah, you know, they perish, right? And so recognizing that without sort of a mission, a point of view, a sort of philosophy for doing things, you really haven't grappled onto your why. And your why is your north star, right? No matter what position you're in, no matter what environment you in, if you don't sort of have that north star, you you fail, you try to figure that out. And I think over the course of years and years and years, sort of understanding and honing that why has really been uh a mission. And I stub my toe on a certain occasion, oh, I think, oh, that I'm doing it for this reason, and you realize no, this isn't a good reason, or it doesn't fit with your philosophy or who you are at the time. So, you know, having a vision, I think, is really key, having that core why. But the other thing about the vision is it takes risk. And I look at risk being vision sibling. That if you're not willing to risk, because capturing that vision, the stuff hasn't happened yet, it hasn't occurred. So you kind of have to lean into that possibility. And with risk comes learning, right? And being open to that learning uh is really, really important. So to have vision is key. The ability to have risk, and how do you surround yourself with people who are able to support you in that risk taking? And then in turn, how are you open yourself up to learning? And that's not hard. I mean, that's very, very hard, right? That's not that's not an easy thing because that takes a lot of self-reflection and that takes a willingness and an openness to recognize, oh, I didn't do this right, or oh, I might have hurt some people along the way, or something might have happened. And and how are you honest with yourself in that? I think that's that's really tough. So those are the three big things that I think philosophically, uh, when I when I look at at failure, kind of that's the retrospective that I take. Was it was it the right thing? Did it align with who and what I was uh at the time or who I am now? If not, where did I go wrong on that? Um, then we go, okay, I risked, and in that risk, was it a calculated risk? Was it a risk that had inevitable consequences that I wasn't happy with? And then how do I fix that? And then in turn, all of that is learning, and therefore you're constantly honing what the next step is, you're constantly honing um, you know, your vision and and who you are, and that's that that growth factor. And you talked to me about me being in my early 20s versus me now being 50, one would hope that I'm a very different person uh at that time. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I've taken the I'd like to believe that I've gotten wiser. I know I've gotten older.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah, that's yes, yes. Wise wise doesn't always come with getting older.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

It should. It should be part of hope. Yes, one would hope. So then you feel like um, so taken from that, you the having a vision, a why being a critical piece. Um, do you think that's something that's is that inherent in a movement? Like you look at something and go, oh man, this needs to change, and I think I can do that, and here's why I think so. Is that something that comes inherent or is that something people need to dig up? Like, why am I doing this?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Well, I think what's what's interesting is that change is inevitable, how we change becomes a choice. And so we look at having a vision isn't always reflected upon something that needs to change. Sometimes it's a vision of how you want to participate, how you want to add to a conversation that really connects with you. So after that, why really the next level of conversation is who? Okay, who are you? Who are you going to surround yourself with to help enable the why, right? And that's also something that is a learning curve. I mean, think about the folks that you used to hang out with, or things about the folks that you dated or whatever. There's a reason why some of them are no longer part of the equation. Because you've grown beyond them, they've grown beyond you, the why has shifted, that kind of thing. So, really, I think the interesting thing, once you kind of have that set vision, is surrounding yourself with the who and then constantly going back to saying, is this who I am? Right, which is really key. Second phase then to all of that is that how like how does this now manifest? Right? What is this thing that I'm going to be doing? And that's your daily actions, that's your job, that's your philosophy, you know, that's your your projects, your very tangible, fungible things as you move forward. And then timing is also a big key to this. When? When do I change? When do I make that change? When do I leave the space I'm in to go do something else? Um, when do I stay? And how does that work? And so when you that's how I sort of like to couch uh this process of vision and risk and learning within that sort of why am I doing it? Who do I need to surround myself with? That who then dictates sort of the what. And then with that comes the the when and the how.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah, I think about um all the the things that I've looked at, like, oh, I want to start this, I want to do this, I want to do that. But I think that's where I for my failure was that I didn't have a why. I just it'd be fun, something to do. Um, I didn't want to be nine to five anymore, eight to five, whatever, you know, these things. And so the why just wasn't there, not a real one, you know. Um, so what do you think your what do you think your biggest challenges were uh starting with with Fayetteville, with with all of that?

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Well, I think uh I'd say when when we first the decision to move from Seattle to Northwest Arkansas was a significant trend, almost tragic. You know, we'd well I mean it has been in retrospect, it was a phenomenal move, and we've absolutely adored living here in Northwest Arkansas and and contributing to the conversations that are occurring here in Northwest Arkansas. They've been we've learned a lot, uh we've had our challenges, but you know, had a really good time in doing so. But I think the first sort of introduction into Northwest Arkansas is that you know a lot of it was understanding the pacing and the culture, which has changed significantly over the last 20 years. I mean, the world of Northwest Arkansas in 2003, 2004 was very different. Conversations were different, the uh the focus areas were different, and we brought certain points of view and skill sets to the table that luckily enough, um, the conversations in Northwest Arkansas and our movement here, our movement here, and our ability to lend who and what we were at that time to the conversation, I think was a very unique confluence. Now, we weren't able to predict 2007, 2008, and you know, the bottoming out of the economy and a lot of the things that occurred here in Northwest Arkansas, which obviously put a lot of stress and strain on everybody, and including us. And as a matter of fact, I was laid off from faithful downtown partners because of a lot of that. But I also admit that it was an incredibly powerful layoff because then I got picked up by downtown Bentonville and was asked to come up to downtown Bentonville and do some work. And I think both of those experiences really sort of helped me hone my new why. I mean, I served in AmeriCorps in uh 90, I think it was 95, 96, and that was one of those moments of a new why. Like, oh, it's a volunteer time of my life. I mean, I volunteered a year of my life, was teaching, was doing it, and that pushed me into a whole other realm of teaching and working, you know, teaching K4 through college and doing a lot of that kind of stuff and really kind of getting into the community development side of things. Um, and so that was one of those pivotal moments. And I would say moving here to Northwest Arkansas, um, serving as executive director of downtown Fayette, you know, getting laid off and then getting picked up by downtown Bentonville was another one of those pivotal moments, learning an awful lot about both myself and what I like, and do want to be around and don't want to be around through that process of Fayetteville, through that process of 2007, 2008, and transitioning into Bentonville was a very powerful moment for me. A lot of self-reflection in that point.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

I can imagine that. So, how did you how did um working on Fayetteville and that development compare to working on Bentonville? Because at least at the time that you made that transition, those were two very I still think they're pretty different worlds, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yeah, each community in Northwest Arkansas is incredibly different, and therein lies the superpower of Northwest Arkansas. You know, they lend themselves to the Justice League of that is Northwest Arkansas, right? Each has their own superpower. But I think um what was occurring at the time, and this is just just my opinion, but in the what was occurring at the time is that Northwest Arkansas was undergoing a pivotal switch. It wasn't just about Fayetteville anymore. The other communities were beginning to ask those big questions, they were undergoing their own master planning piece, and that was really sort of the nascent seed of what is today Northwest Arkansas. The Northwest Arkansas Council had been investing enormous amounts of energy on trying to bridge the Friday Night Lights to try to get communities to come together. The communities came together to do the highway, they came together to do the railroad system, they came together to do NACA, which was the wastewater treatment plant, to be able to help these communities grow. And so there's these big heavy lifts that were going on. And then the conversation started to shift and saying, well, okay, so how do we start looking at experience design and urban planning and aesthetics? And how does this manifest within the downtowns? For the longest time, Fayetteville was the sort of epicenter of a lot of those discussions. But right in that time frame of about 2004 to 2008, there was a lot of work that was being done in communities across Northwest Arkansas. Quiet sometimes, in the background sometimes, but they were asking themselves those really big questions of who are we as an individual city and how does our individual identity lend themselves to a stronger Northwest Arkansas? And uh it was pretty amazing to watch that pivot. It wasn't a collection of individual cities, it really was this is who we are, and how do we lend ourselves to a larger identity? And I think Fayetteville struggled a little bit with that as the university town. What does this mean going into post-2007, 2008 economy? It's very similar to conversations we've had post-COVID. Um, who are we after all of that? How do we work better together? Recognizing one of the reasons why we were able to survive as a region to a certain degree, not without a lot of pain and a lot of angst. But I think we were stronger as a region through COVID because of that early work that happened through 2007, 2008, and the community is really sort of recognizing who they were, and they started reaching across the island, going, okay, so how are we going to do this together? So I think that the different experiences was Fayetteville moved at a different pace than Bettonville. Bentonville very much wanted to go from zero to 75 very quickly. Um, there was a lot of yes and uh just go, go, go, go, go. Um, they sort of we talked about fail at the speed of, you know, move at the speed of retail.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

And so if you fail, what's the lessons learned and moved on and that kind of thing? Sure. And um, you know, Fayetteville was and still remains this. I think this is one of their superpowers, their ability to engage at a very visceral level, to be able to recognize that they're a university town and there's great power to that. Um, so to put it kind of in a nutshell, I think at that time frame the identities were really starting to emerge. Some really big questions were being asked. And uh because those questions were asked so early, especially right after the 2007-2008, I think it it just made for a stronger Northwest Arkansas to move through COVID and some of these other pieces.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Sure, I can see that. So uh, well, and you say move at the speed of retail, I think that it it it would seem from it as an outsider that um the uh retail giant here was a was a big process or uh uh what's the catalyst for moving that forward so quickly. So because they've done they've done quite a bit in terms of you know financing a lot of things in the area.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Well, we look at the big anchors of every single one of the communities that are out there, whether it's the University of Arkansas, whether it's Tyson, whether it's J.B. Hunt, whether it's Walmart, um, or even Simmons Foods out in Silem Springs. And we're incredibly lucky to have these large institutions that can grind through even in the midst of the ups and downs of stuff to really kind of drive this. But really, I think the other part that is the strength of Northwest Arkansas is quite frankly the spirit of the entrepreneur that exists here. Uh, it isn't just about the big companies. There is an army of humans out there that are just grinding stuff out, whether it's small developers, whether it's small retailers, whether it's small entrepreneurs. Um, and I think when you look at, once again, the power and dynamic of Northwest Arkansas, there is an incredible balance between those really big companies and then that constant churning under the water of new ideas and new entrepreneurs. Um, it's not always easy and it doesn't always work, but I think um there is a I don't know, zeitgeist, uh sort of feeling here in northwest Arkansas. And I look at that dating all the way back to when there wasn't a just a single economy back in the day. You needed 27 jobs to make a living here in Northwest Arkansas. It wasn't about ag, it wasn't about, you know, a single economy. So you had someone that was doing farming and were darning socks and doing this and doing this, and eventually that 27 jobs just started leaching into the groundwater. And I think that there's just a a certain energy here in Northwest Arkansas that is that is pretty cool and dynamic to be a part of.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah, I would I would tend to agree with that. So you've come from community development, now we own a um a German beer bar. How's that going? It's it's community development, adjacent.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

I mean, that's it's all the same. I mean, recognize um so much of my work has been in the people business, you know, whether it's um teaching, whether it's theater, whether it's social services, whether it's public policy, um, whether it's the executive director of a downtown association, or currently I serve on the Bentonville Advertising Promotions Commission, or on the board of Urban Land Institute Northwest Arkansas. Um, it is inevitably about people. Sure. Right? It's just how does your work with these people manifest in the different contexts? So up here at the bar at Bajaus Beer Garden, Chef Jennifer and I are constantly asking, you know, how do we make great experiences that is welcoming to everybody? Whether it's a family coming in and we have juice boxes and food that they recognize, while the parents like, oh, I want to try something a little different, um, you know, to making everybody feel welcome. It's exactly what a community tries to accomplish, right? How do we make as many people feel welcome in this community? Because once you do that, they invest. And time is a currency. Where you spend time is what you value, right? So people coming into our bar value the time and energy that they feel when they come into our place, and we don't take that investment lightly. And I think the same thing with community engagement, the same thing with community design, it's the exact same thing. People are spending time, they are pouring who they are, right? And why they they find this important into a project, you can't take that lightly, you can't take that for granted. So I think the through line through all of this is it's all community development. I mean, theater in and of itself is a community interaction. Yeah, right. Um, because there's there's the fourth wall, but you're live on stage with an audience. There's constant sense of community doing restaurant work, you're constantly trying to build a community, whether it's making a great line, you know, cooking in the back, if you guys are off, you get in the weeds really, really quick. And so everything has to do with how you're building teams and how you're bringing people together.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

It just manifests differently in every single environment. That's true. You know, I think of a lot of the places that fail restaurants, bars, and I think, in my opinion, with my experience there, I think the key that the reason they Fail is because they thought they were in the business to sell alcohol, uh, and they weren't there in the business of people's experiences, that's true. So that's right, they'll only survive. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

The the tools of the trade are there to help strengthen the experience design. But if you don't lead with experience and recognize, then you're just another commodity. And why would people go to your place over somewhere else? Yeah. Right? And communities are the exact same way. Why are you important? What is the what is the differentiating factor? What are you trying to accomplish? What is your superpower? Ours, you know, we we have a German beer garden, we sell German beer, but in the same space and right down the street, we've got great, you know, uh neighbors who sell beer and have great food and the whole night, and we celebrate them the same way that they celebrate us. And I think uh with that, it's that concept of cooperation. I don't know if you ever heard that term before, cooperation. Cooperation. So uh competition keeps you on your toes. Competition is good, whether you're competing with yourself or you're competing with others, but it's cooperation that creates sustainability. And so recognizing that you're always looking to other people for great ideas, you're always saying, Oh, you did this, how did you do this? What does this mean? Coming together around that that uh cooperation is the thing that sustains you as a human being, right? You just can't be competitive and be nothing else and you know stab people in the neck to get across the finish line because guess what? You're gonna die uh lonely and old for sure. So it's that cooperation, and I think that that cooperation, and I wish I would have coined it, but there's some great work in Harvard Business Review, and there's a book around it, and a lot of other things. But um I think that's one of the things that uh really defines Northwest Arkansas to a certain degree, the cooperation. Um, but it's how we look at at this bar. Yeah, we're in competition in the sense of we're selling beverages, but the level of cooperation that we have experienced here in downtown Springdale and the stuff that we had seen in downtown Bentonville when I was working there, even in downtown Rogers, um downtown Fayetteville, that cooperation makes this work happen. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Absolutely, yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely does. I like the term, I kind of cooperation to remember that one. All right, so what I like to do with these now is I like to wrap them up with some uh fun little questions here that just come out of there. So okay, I'm nervous, man. You're making me nervous. That's my job. Yeah, yeah. Uh so if you could live anywhere in the world for a year, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Okay, well, it depends on that. I on my bucket list, I'll just throw this. On my bucket list, um, Toronto.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I've always wanted to visit Toronto, I've heard wonderful things about that. Um, Madrid. Oh yeah, you know, dude, Prague, yeah, right, uh Tokyo, you know, um Sydney, right? Uh one of my favorite cities, which I adore, Vancouver, BC, absolutely beautiful city. Um, love Seattle, sure, you know, Chicago. I mean, I can just keep listing them because here's the thing, and I go back to and yet I also love the place that I live now in Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas. And it is when people ask the same thing, what's your favorite restaurant? I'm like, what time of day is it? How do I feel, and what does this mean? Yeah, because it's all variable. So, you know, like I said, there's so many wonderful communities out there that are so great to visit, to live, to engage in that it's really hard to pick a favorite. Sure enough. Once again, it all depends on we're in the basement of Ballhouse, having a conversation, you know, on a on a Wednesday. How do I feel today? Ooh, I think I'd love to go here today. Sure. But tomorrow might be something completely different. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Yeah. All right. What's the uh what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Well, um uh well, pig eyeballs. Oh, okay. That's a big one. Uh-huh. Um, let's see. Uh you know, and you look at uh calf brains, sweetbreads, uh Rocky Mountain oysters, you know, bull balls, a lot of the Oval stuff, um, heart, liver, kidney, lungs, you know, especially when you start uh kind of moving into that beautiful realm of Asian cuisine, traditional Asian cuisine. But I mean, we look at you know, tripa and lengua around here, it's not the craziest things, but I adore that stuff. And you got menudo, you got lengua, tala menudo, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I wouldn't call it weird because it's really exploratory, but I remember an event that my oldest uh and I were at, they were probably nine years old, whatever. It was at Tuscan Trotter, and they reached over and popped out an eyeball and they put it in her mouth, in their mouth, and uh and then I put the other one in my mouth, and it couldn't have been, yeah, you go! Woohoo! So that was a fun, that was a fun moment. I noticed that. That's uh don't think I've ever happened to me. Yeah, the cornea is a little crunchy, yeah, but everything else is not bad.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Yeah, the contact's good a little bright. All right, uh, so if you owned a yacht, what would you name it?

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Oh, see, I love this name. So this is a fun story. In the UK, they were they were working, I think it was on a medical boat, and they they put it out there for a name and they named it Bodhi McBoatface. I saw that. That's fantastic. And I was like, that is the best name for us of us. So, yes, if I owned a yacht, um, I would probably have some sort of derivative of Bodhi McBoatface.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

That'd be a fantastic name. I've ever seen that. It was amazing. All right, if somebody gave you a talk show right now, who would your first guest be? Oh alive or dead? Uh okay. Well, put it to the talk show.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

You got to get what's his name, John Edwards or talks to the meeting. Very, very, very strange. So, once again, if we're building uh conversations, it's not just about a single back and forth. It's like saying, oh, who do we put together in the same room to see what occurs? And it all depends. I mean, this is why it makes it such a difficult conversation, because I could ramble off a whole slew of people. But the art is who do you want to throw in the same room to have a conversation so you can kind of sit back and do what you're doing right now, which is prompt questions and kind of say, oh, how do they engage with each other? How do we start bridging those conversational gaps? Uh and I know I'm dodging the question, uh, but absolutely, um, because it's really, really hard to answer, answer that question. It is. You know, I think when we look at uh you know authors uh Alive and Dead, you know, I look at Bukowski, Charles Bukowski, and getting him on stage, and uh Kurt Vonnegut, you know, I mean those are folks that obviously I can't do, but I you know would love to be able to have um Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz, Pavlo Ruda, like some of my favorite writers uh in the world. And what what an amazing dinner or conversation that would be if you all just threw and then throw a little JD Salinger in there and whatever, just kind of mix it up, right? Um so you have artists, um, you know, so that that's one example of you know, I would have loved to have a chance to talk to Anthony Bourdain. Oh, yeah, my respect for him, uh, incredible in that conversation. But Andrew Zimmer, for example, uh, he actually came out to Bentonville a while back when Joe Wilson first started the uh the annual uh World Championship Squirrel Cook-Off. Oh, okay. And you know, watching him work in that world and asking real authentic questions and that kind of stuff uh was really fun for me to watch that from afar as he was doing that. So, you know, that's another person. Like I said, I I have this laundry list of humans, but those are just you know some that come to the top of mind. Um, you know, love to sit in a room with uh, I don't know, Trudeau out of Canada. Oh, yeah, and maybe um Sarkozy and you know what other leaders are out there just to kind of be like, dude, what are you thinking? What's going on? Like, what's happening? I like that question a lot. Um, so you know, I think that there's there's contemporary conversations, there's just conversations I want to have and sit in proximity with some of these people. Um, so yeah, it's a very difficult once again, it's a very difficult question to answer, and that's my that's what I'm thinking right now.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Fair enough. I'll be honest, I actually hated people who ask me these questions.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yeah, thank you for projecting is what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

This is exactly I want to make you squirm. That's why I set this podcast up like to do this. So, what is the uh what's the worst style choice you've ever made? The worst style choice? Yeah, like clothing or anything.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I mean, I yeah, geez. I mean, I'm telling you, um I've had so many because I am not a stylish human being by any stretch of imaginations. I mean, I I live, you can't see this on the podcast because it's a podcast, but um, I never wear matching socks. Oh, right.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Uh mainly because I'm first of all, I'm lazy and I don't want to have to match the socks. Second of all, you always know that you buy matching socks and then one will disappear at some point, and then it just, oh, I can't find the socks. So just go with the flow, man. It's very zen. You just have the socks. Um, third, I love the fact that in the midst of everything that's going on, whether I'm struggling with the project or I'm in front of a bunch of people and it's getting rough, I can look down and just say, look, nothing's that damn serious. Fair enough. Right? I mean, that's that's great. And there's a matter of fact, uh, to feed my uh I know I'm I'm going on a tangent, but this but to feed my uh my sock thing, there's a company out of Fayeville called my socksual that sells, I think it's three unmatched pairs of socks. Oh wow, okay. It's great. So I'm like, it's once again, entrepreneurial northwest Arkansas that is freaking amazing. And then it also just feeds my, I don't want to buy the same level of socks all the time. So I think it's not uh necessarily an error or work, because I could go on and on about that. Sure. But I I love the fact that it's just one of my my things, it's just miss match socks.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

All right, that's an odd choice of three though. Let's uh because it's it's not even.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

So the whole point is you're not only not matchy, but you're not even. I like it. And it's not a company for those with maybe OCD or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Ah so yeah, that would be good. I love it. I love it. Alright, if you could have any one skill instantly, just when I can do it, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Wow. Um that is that's also a tough one because I I'm keenly aware of my flaws and inadequacies on a regular basis. And so if I if I were to say, which one would I choose? That would actually be um, you know, I am not incredibly good with cars. Like, especially, I mean, I look at them now and they're all computer-based and everything. So I think, oh, is it would it be cars? And I go, no, no. I I really respect uh folks in you know the car garages and stuff like this. So great, I don't want to take away from their skill sets, do that. You know, I played bagpipes for about six months.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

I don't want to learn that.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

And uh I learned a couple songs, Scott Wahay and a few other ones. You know, there is there is something about, and I played violin for a long time, that if I were to go back and actually have kept with it, I would have loved to be able to kept up, keep up with my piano, my violin, and the bagpipes. So the ability to, I get very jealous sometimes when I see jam sessions and people are doing the stuff that I'm like, had I stuck with that, I would have been able to participate. So I think right now, in this question, in the basement of Ball House, as we're talking, I would say my um my skills as a musician. Okay, you know, it trained me how to listen, it trained me how to listen to music in magnificent ways, but I just didn't keep up with it, and I think that's something I lament.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

I can follow you there. I I taught myself guitar when I was 19 because I was in a band and uh it turned out I couldn't sing. We didn't we didn't know this because we had loud drums and guitars, but no microphone. Uh-huh. So when we practiced acoustic one day, I remember my guitar player looked at me, he's like, wait, wait, stop. He's like, Steve, can you hear the notes? It's like I can hear them besides I feel like you can't. No, you can't hear the notes. Yeah, so I uh I decided to teach myself an instrument. Actually left the room. Yeah, right. Nobody's oof, this is rough, yeah. Alright, so uh final question Do you collect anything?

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Ooh, I collect stories. Okay. All right, that's one of the big things I love. Uh people's stories. I think they're incredibly powerful because you get to learn about their point of view, you get to learn about who they are, how they they view the world, um, both through memory and nostalgia. So I think the storytelling part is something that I I love to collect. And then, you know, out of that comes a collection of ideas, because I live in a world where you're constantly listening to ideas and whether it's manifestation of their own community or you're getting a great idea, and then you hear something adjacent in another community and another concept, you're like, ooh, hey, you should totally talk to this person and this person because they had a really interesting idea. So I think first and foremost it's stories, and then out of that comes ideas, because you never know when a conversation, you in the podcast world and whatever, you never know when something's gonna jump out, and you're like, oh, we're having a conversation two states away, yeah, and sometimes it's very similar, and you start bringing in these other people that have no connection to each other. Um, so that's that's it. I think stories and ideas.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

All right. Well, any uh any parting thoughts, closing, closing things. No, I just I appreciate the uh the opportunity to talk with you, man. It's been a long time. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And uh congratulations on on all this stuff. It's it's cool to see someone's journey where you we pop in and out every couple years, and to see where those early conversations of of 2004, God, we are both so young. Oh man, there's a long time. We're both so young. I know. I mean it's just it's just crazy to to where we are now. So uh thanks for reaching out, man. I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time. Awesome, thanks, sir. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I'd love for you to share it with anyone you think might also enjoy it. And if you like the show, please consider supporting it. It's the support of listeners like you that keeps us going. If you'd like to help, there's a link in the show notes. I'd like to thank all of our guests who've taken time out to have these conversations and share their insights on failures, both personal and professional. If you want to follow the show, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at failurepoint, and on Twitter at failurepoints. Please like and share, and remember to rate and review the show on whichever podcast platform you use. Again, thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time on Foods of Failure.