0:38

During COVID whatever the hardcore

0:40

year was that summer

0:42

I had

0:45

, I don't

0:47

know multiple people

0:49

break down in tears

0:52

during the

0:55

interaction . It

1:00

would be a single mom with

1:03

her kid , who might not be the

1:05

traditional baseball

1:08

or football kid or basketball

1:10

kid , and she

1:12

just wants to get the kid outside and

1:16

she drives up to the lake . It's her

1:18

time , she finally has some time . You

1:20

know she's working hard , trying to make ends meet

1:22

. She goes up to the river or

1:24

the lake and her fin is missing . Comes

1:27

to our shop and you

1:32

know you can tell she's on edge and

1:36

she just needs a fin . You know that edge and she just needs a

1:38

fin . You

1:40

know that's it . She just needs a fin . You

1:43

show her how to put the fin on . You sell

1:45

her a fin or maybe give it away

1:47

, you know , and you just break down in tears

1:50

. You know because your kid's

1:52

in the car and you know they

1:55

just want to get . They have this window

1:57

. They want to make their outdoor experience happen

1:59

because she knows it's important

2:01

. That

2:04

to me is kind of the

2:06

most important thing that I

2:08

do .

2:15

I remember when I was a bat , times

2:18

were hard and things were bad . There's

2:20

a silver lining behind

2:22

every cloud . Just

2:25

four people , that's all we were Trying

2:27

to make a living out of Blacklander . We'd

2:30

be together in a family circle singing

2:32

loud .

2:34

I once read that every season of life

2:36

sings its own song , but

2:38

it's up to us to learn the lyrics

2:41

. On episode 57

2:43

of Ben Magazine's the Circling Podcast

2:46

. Join me as I have the privilege

2:48

of sitting down with Rob McDonald , husband

2:50

, father and co-owner of Stand

2:52

on Liquid Paddleboards and Latitude

2:54

44 Sports . And co-owner

2:57

of Stand on Liquid Paddleboards and Latitude 44

2:59

Sports . Rob

3:02

shares chapters from his life where opportunity , hard work and a rare level of humility

3:04

transformed an underachieving kid from Washington into a self-confident

3:07

leader , ultimately leading him

3:09

into leadership roles during the early

3:11

days of Amazon and eventually

3:14

getting recruited to Apple , where he

3:16

served as the head of Apple Books . After

3:19

almost a decade of commuting from Central

3:21

Oregon to the Bay Area for work , in

3:23

2018 , rob took advantage

3:26

of another opportunity that presented

3:28

itself by getting involved with

3:30

local small business Stand on Liquid

3:32

, allowing him to establish a full-time

3:34

presence in Bend and , more importantly

3:37

, spend more time with his wife and

3:39

family . Currently , rob

3:41

and his partners are on the verge of breaking ground

3:44

on a new venture , the Skyliner Club

3:46

. Located just east of Phil's

3:48

Trailhead on Northwest Skyliners

3:50

Road and scheduled to open in

3:52

the spring of 2026 , the

3:54

Skyliner Club is expected to be Oregon's

3:57

premier health fitness and

3:59

wellness club with a unique focus

4:01

on community and a value on

4:03

social gatherings . Yo

4:06

, rob , thanks for sitting down in the

4:08

studio , man , I had a blast

4:10

and learned a ton . I

4:12

recently came upon this old Russian

4:14

proverb and it reminded me of

4:16

you A bird

4:18

can rest peacefully on a branch not

4:21

because it is confident in the branch , but

4:24

because it is confident in its ability

4:26

to fly . Be well

4:28

, my man . The

4:31

Circling Podcast can be found on Patreon

4:33

. Visit our page and learn how

4:36

a percentage of your financial support

4:38

will help support local nonprofits

4:40

and the continued growth of local community

4:43

podcasting . Become a member

4:45

and learn about this unique opportunity at

4:47

patreoncom . Forward slash

4:50

the circling podcast . Well

5:08

, it doesn't go unnoticed to me that you chose to be here on a sunny Friday afternoon in May

5:10

, when it stays light out to almost nine o'clock , so thanks for being here .

5:11

Yeah , it's great to be here , it's fun , yeah .

5:13

What would you otherwise be doing

5:16

?

5:17

You work today , I work today . My

5:20

wife and I last

5:22

couple years have been well

5:25

, we just make , we make dinner

5:27

, which sounds ordinary . But

5:29

what makes it interesting , I think

5:32

, is that pretty much every

5:34

night we come up with a new recipe

5:36

. Whoa , my wife's a really good

5:38

cook and I've learned

5:40

to like cooking and it's just become

5:42

a cool thing Like and you know , we certainly

5:45

went through years of having three

5:47

or four of the same meals all the time , you know

5:49

.

5:50

Yeah , I do know I might

5:52

be in those years . Yeah , Understandable

5:54

.

5:54

It's hard not to be but be

5:56

. But we both love food and she's

5:58

a great cook and I really like

6:01

the process , and so usually

6:04

we get home and there's a new recipe

6:06

, or one of us has to go to the store and we just create

6:09

food . And then you know , we have

6:11

two girls at home , one off at college

6:13

, so the two will come and eat

6:15

and hopefully we make enough for lunch

6:17

. This is probably boring

6:20

as hell to all your listeners ?

6:20

Not at all . No , but it's real . I'm

6:23

not asking for the listeners . This

6:25

is interesting to know . I'm taking mental

6:27

notes right now because I

6:30

keep thinking that seems like an amazing way to kind

6:32

of connect in a new way with your spouse

6:34

.

6:34

That's probably most of it . Yeah , partly

6:37

that and partly that . Um , she really

6:39

raised the kids for years and was

6:41

traveling so much and , uh

6:44

, I definitely

6:46

came back needing to kind of help

6:48

and she was pretty fatigued with all the

6:51

housework she had to do over the years . Essentially

6:54

she was a single mom and

6:57

at first started I usually

6:59

take Mondays off and at first I started

7:01

making soups . That was kind of my thing and

7:04

then I started to expand because the kids were getting

7:06

a little burned out on soup and it

7:08

doesn't work so well in the summer . So

7:10

now we have a few different apps and lots

7:12

of cookbooks and just

7:15

kind of it's a bonding thing for sure

7:17

for my wife and I , and you know we have

7:19

two in high school , so we're thinking of the future

7:21

and when we'll be empty nesters

7:24

and it's been really good for us

7:26

.

7:26

I'm sure your wife is a phenomenal

7:28

cook . Where'd she ?

7:30

learn . Well , she was

7:32

a pastry chef , after

7:34

you know , so she kind of learned just the discipline

7:37

of it , yeah , but she kind

7:39

of just early on cared about the

7:41

food we were feeding our family and

7:44

just picking

7:47

the right ingredients . But we love going

7:49

out too , for sure , but it has gotten crazy

7:51

expensive , dude , it's way too expensive . Yeah , the numbers don't

7:53

quite work . No , no , especially for has gotten crazy expensive Dude it's way too , expensive

7:55

. Yeah , like the numbers don't quite work . No

8:00

, especially for a family of two . Well five , yeah for sure

8:02

.

8:03

But yeah , five is crazy yeah .

8:05

So you know we make , and I know this

8:07

is bragging , but I'll brag for my wife anytime

8:09

. I mean , she just makes restaurant quality food

8:11

.

8:11

Yeah , almost every night .

8:13

Yeah , and it's good .

8:17

That's awesome . Where should we begin with your story , my

8:19

man ? Cause it's a great one and I've I

8:22

, it's been really fun for me to get

8:24

to know you from a distance and talk

8:26

with friends of yours and and

8:29

, uh , just learn more about kind

8:31

of your story . And

8:33

you know , I mean I was I . So I

8:35

like asking people with cool stories where

8:38

they would like to start .

8:40

Uh well , thanks for asking . I'm flattered

8:42

.

8:43

First of all , get that mic

8:45

closer . It's too far away , all right , and you

8:47

can move it like this too Cool .

8:49

Yeah , Um , not

8:51

planned answer at all , but I

8:53

I guess I'd break my life up in three

8:56

parts .

8:57

One is that's what I have Okay

9:00

. Now I'm curious

9:02

to see how much we think alike .

9:03

All right , all right , you know

9:05

, part one is pre-believing

9:09

in myself and just kind of this

9:14

is strange , but just doing underachieving

9:18

, kind of intentionally underachieving , we

9:20

can maybe talk about that . And then part

9:23

two was like realizing I had some skills

9:25

, you know , to offer the world . Yeah , and

9:28

then part three was

9:30

is now and just trying to

9:32

like I've kind of left the corporate world and

9:35

trying to make a living being an entrepreneur

9:37

.

9:37

Yeah .

9:38

So I guess I'd break it up and break

9:40

it up like that , so you know where to start .

9:43

Well , that's similar to what I had . I mean , I I kind

9:45

of like getting to know your story . I I

9:47

kind of I broke it up into , you

9:50

know , kind of your , your childhood

9:53

, college days , into your

9:55

kind of early kind

9:57

of transition into professionalism

10:00

and then kind of this transition out

10:02

of professional corporate life into

10:04

central Oregon and then this

10:06

kind of future project that

10:08

I want to talk to you about , that

10:11

you're working on , and and I

10:14

would say that each one of those kind of lessons

10:17

or areas of growth that you just

10:19

talked about in terms of kind of your relationship

10:23

with gaining confidence , probably

10:25

is kind of this stepwise approach

10:27

through those different times . Man , that's

10:30

that's kind of what I saw when I read

10:32

about this . You know , it was like getting

10:35

to know people . When

10:38

I read about this , you know , it was like getting to know people . This humility doesn't like

10:40

talking about himself and yet like his really , you know , didn't go to an

10:42

Ivy league school and yet was like kind

10:44

of competing with and in that culture

10:47

and just all of that . I

10:49

can relate with that . Yeah .

10:50

Yeah , totally yeah . I mean , you're perceptive

10:53

.

10:53

Yeah so thank you .

10:54

Yeah , totally you know I . I

10:57

was a smart kid when I was young , yeah

10:59

, In the sense that I

11:01

read a ton . Yeah , and I realize

11:03

now with hindsight I was so bored

11:06

in school , so bored , and

11:09

never did homework I mean maybe a couple times

11:11

, and

11:18

I would have whatever book I was reading , you know , behind

11:20

the textbook because , I just could care less about biology

11:22

, you know , totally nerd for sure , and you know , and

11:25

I kind of didn't have a ton

11:27

of success athletically , which means

11:29

a lot in high school , and so I would

11:31

go to the library and read

11:34

, you know , ray Bradbury

11:36

. And then I got cut , officially

11:38

got cut . I realized I definitely wasn't

11:40

cut out for like baseball or soccer

11:43

, though I was

11:45

young for my grade . That's one excuse . But regardless

11:48

, I

11:50

it

11:52

was , for

11:54

whatever reason , and I'm not proud of it . But

11:56

I thought it was cool to not try and

11:59

to underachieve , and

12:02

so I did , and every once in a while I'd

12:04

write something in a class or I'd say something

12:06

. I remember an English teacher

12:08

, miss Condon , said Rob , why

12:10

don't you apply yourself that kind of thing

12:12

and

12:16

fast forward to college ? I

12:18

was an English major , I like books

12:20

and um was

12:23

in a kind of a higher level essay

12:26

writing class and

12:28

um did really well . You know I had a teacher

12:30

that said you know , you know , you're

12:32

, you're , you're good , you know , keep going . Ended

12:35

up working in the writing lab at Washington state

12:37

university . So I had at least a skill

12:39

you know , and as

12:41

a guy that , like I think I , I think I covered

12:43

up um , you

12:46

know , you , you can disappear in high school

12:48

if you don't like , if you're not good at something

12:50

you know . Super true , yeah

12:53

. But then you have you realize

12:55

, oh , you know , it's good to be recognized

12:57

for something , that feels good to be good at something

12:59

, and

13:11

so , um , eventually I kind of launched out of that into well , with a break

13:13

in , eventually I ended up at Amazon where

13:16

I was with all these Ivy League kids

13:18

who all I

13:20

was like the last book editor they hired

13:22

and I guarantee they all

13:24

had , they all got 20 times more stock

13:26

options than I did . I had barely nothing because they

13:29

knew they were confident and they knew how to negotiate

13:31

, but

13:33

eventually I worked them and

13:35

was better at what we were supposed

13:37

to do than they were . And

13:39

you know that was kind of the beginning of um

13:41

. You know I have some skills

13:43

and and it's better to apply

13:46

myself and so , um

13:48

, you know I'm definitely fast forwarding here . But

13:50

I had . I had a chip

13:52

on my shoulder , cause I realized that

13:56

well

13:59

, that I was kind of overlooked

14:01

and underestimated and

14:03

you know , I had some things I should

14:05

do to make the world a better place

14:07

.

14:08

That's not an uncommon story amongst

14:10

people who excel in

14:12

their given field .

14:14

Yeah , yeah , man , and you know , the confidence

14:16

thing is like .

14:17

Well , there's a different type of confidence . I think

14:19

that comes with just kind

14:22

of the wisdom gained through life , right , like

14:24

I mean , you don't know what you don't know and

14:27

the worst thing that's ever happened to you is

14:29

the worst thing that's ever happened to you and

14:31

for at least me . I

14:33

look back and you know , like 45

14:36

years old , like I've been through some

14:38

challenging things which allow you

14:41

kind of to look back and learn

14:43

from the past , to give you a little

14:45

bit more encouragement moving forward . That

14:53

I think is hopefully more of a just natural consequence of getting

14:55

older . And then there's confidence that's more contextual , I think , like within

14:57

certain areas of business or sports

14:59

, or you know what I mean .

15:01

Absolutely , and that that was the

15:03

you know , being in a room

15:05

a table full of . Ivy

15:08

leaguers and

15:10

they are so confident , they

15:12

present so well , they know how to argue

15:15

with , like , the Socratic method . You

15:17

know , and I was like , oh , you

15:20

know I'm not cut out for this , um

15:22

, but then you know when you actually go do

15:24

the work that's where I could

15:26

, I could do it and and

15:28

um , and then eventually

15:31

, having achieved

15:33

some things in the business world , you know , when

15:35

you launch , when you manage

15:38

um , at one point I managed

15:40

the book business at , at

15:42

Apple audio books and eBooks and

15:45

, um , I don't

15:47

think I'm I'm still don't think I'm supposed to tell

15:49

you how big of a business it was , but , um , you

15:52

know , north of uh , or or just

15:54

South of a billion dollars . You know , when you , when

15:56

you manage a business like that um

15:59

, you realize , um

16:01

, the importance of

16:03

what you're doing and like uh , and

16:06

that if you screw up , you're dead . And

16:08

if you , um , and

16:10

at the same time , you know if you're

16:12

delivering those kinds of results , um

16:14

, you have , you're obviously

16:16

doing something right . Yeah , and

16:51

you were .

16:52

Yeah , I love that . So

16:55

you know that I like to involve others in

16:57

these projects and episodes . Because

16:59

you caught me the other day when I called Latitude

17:02

44 , trying to get in touch with Q , oh

17:04

yeah , and that was awesome . But

17:06

I did get in touch with your childhood

17:09

buddy , scott , and I thought that his

17:11

comments would be kind of a good segue

17:13

. The audio quality is not great because

17:15

he was in Hawaii doing

17:18

his architecture thing . It's not the

17:20

best audio quality , but it

17:22

works .

17:23

We both played like Little League Baseball somewhere

17:26

and I think I was playing

17:28

second base and took me out

17:30

sliding into second base . I

17:32

didn't know him , he was probably like in my science

17:35

class or something at the time and

17:37

I think I congratulated

17:40

him on a hard , aggressive play

17:42

or something like that when we were little kids . And

17:44

literally like maybe

17:46

six months later he moved into my neighborhood and

17:49

like on the way home from the bus he kind of just

17:51

told me we were going to be friends and

17:54

we've been friends ever since . Like you

17:56

know , we spent a summer together

17:58

in ketchum , idaho , like camping

18:01

, you know , camping in the

18:04

national forest , like on campsites and then

18:06

doing . He was doing a landscape

18:08

job during the day and I was doing a construction

18:10

job during the day and we bartenders

18:13

and we and we had a bartending

18:15

and waiter job at a little mexican

18:17

place in ketchum at night . So it kind of

18:19

helped us pay for our last year of college and all that

18:21

kind of stuff . And he's

18:23

just always been scrappy like that , like we're

18:27

sort of of like minds in that sense . But

18:29

he's he stayed

18:32

in idaho for a while and wrote some books on

18:34

hiking and

18:36

the natural environment there , parlayed

18:38

that into some copyediting job at a

18:40

like an illegal firm or

18:42

something , and then parlayed

18:44

that into something at amazon and did all

18:46

this stuff and rose through the ranks there and then got pinched

18:49

by . I feel like he got taken

18:51

by a guy who was maybe one of his bosses at Amazon

18:53

and moved over to Apple and I'm

18:56

just sure that at Apple they all just kind of underestimated

18:58

him . They just didn't quite

19:01

pay attention to the fact that he

19:03

was who he was and a lot

19:05

of these places are very pedigree , right Good

19:07

colleges and all that kind of stuff and I think he's just

19:09

super hardworking and

19:11

honest and makes people comfortable

19:14

and stuff like that he's . He's just always been that

19:16

way . It's pretty fun . It's been fun to watch

19:18

. Actually , don't tell

19:20

him . I said that I'm

19:22

not going to . I'm not going to send any messages to Rob

19:24

. I'm uncomfortable . My

19:28

name is Scott Glass . I've known Rob since . I'm uncomfortable . My name is Scott Glass . I've

19:30

known Rob since I think I was 13

19:32

or 14 years old when we played sports

19:35

together . We've

19:39

been in different parts of the world but

19:41

we've spent a lot of time supporting

19:43

each other over the years and over the

19:45

miles since

19:48

we were kids . That's

19:51

all I got to say about that guy .

19:59

He's my best friend .

20:01

Good stuff , man .

20:03

He's like my brother for sure , totally

20:05

, yeah . And

20:08

you know the thing about Scott this

20:11

is not his podcast , so I'm not going to go into it

20:13

too much , but we

20:15

are definitely very similar in

20:18

the sense that we've scrapped a lot . Yeah

20:20

, just kind of figured things out . Yeah

20:25

, I , I would like , I sometimes

20:27

well , this is so morbid , but , like um

20:30

, I already know what I'm

20:32

going to say if , if he dies before me

20:34

and you know it's something

20:36

along the lines of um , you

20:38

know he's made me a better person because of how

20:41

, how fearless

20:43

he is , how hard he works , and

20:46

um just wanting

20:48

to do , be the best he can be

20:50

, you know . And so um

20:52

that's what I would say to him is like

20:54

his , his

20:57

journey has influenced my journey for sure . Yeah

20:59

, man .

21:00

Good people influence good people , for

21:03

sure .

21:04

Yeah , but his memory is terrible . He got most of that right , but

21:07

he missed some details . Yeah , you know , it's the some details

21:09

. Yeah , you know , I slid into him the 30,000 foot view . Yeah

21:11

, I slid into him at second base .

21:14

Oh , that is a big detail to

21:16

get wrong . Yeah , what

21:18

took you to catch him , idaho man ?

21:22

Yeah well , I

21:25

took a break for a semester

21:27

. I think it was my second

21:29

or my winter semester

21:31

of um at .

21:32

Washington state At Washington state .

21:34

Yep , I had a guy , Barry Barr great

21:37

guy who actually launched Caboo

21:39

Um no way . Amazing

21:41

guy . Um , he had a place there

21:43

and he dragged me along At

21:46

the time . It was kind of old school

21:48

, ski mountain town , pre

21:51

new money , old money

21:54

, super cool . And

21:56

I'd never , you know , grew up in the suburbs

21:59

and old money , like ranch money

22:01

, Like what ?

22:01

what's old money in Ketchum , you know

22:03

, like that .

22:04

Yeah , that kind of thing , totally Um

22:07

and like , not

22:09

ostentatious at all . Right , I mean my boss

22:11

at the bald man cantina , that Mexican restaurant

22:13

that Scott mentioned , uh , her

22:16

mom , um , I , I think

22:18

they all these kids were super

22:20

smart , super wholesome

22:22

and she was the dishwasher

22:25

and she

22:27

would let's . I don't

22:29

want to tell any unflattering stories , but

22:31

essentially , like she drew the drove , this

22:33

like very old suburban

22:36

and we would kind of pile in

22:38

sometimes and we'd find these checks for

22:40

like uh , that someone had written

22:42

her for whatever , for like $10,000

22:45

. And she was kind of like this old school hippie you

22:47

know , um , but it was . It was that

22:49

kind of vibe it was . It was just cool and people

22:51

were true ski bums there .

22:52

Yeah , what year is this ? Oh

22:55

gosh , um , like early nineties

22:57

, yeah , it's kind of mid nineties , yeah , mid nineties .

22:59

Okay , so I stuck around

23:01

, I graduated , went back , graduated

23:03

from Washington state , stuck around and

23:06

um , just initially

23:08

, you know , was tending bar somewhere

23:10

and um , and went and

23:12

got a job . Well , I

23:15

did one day as a substitute teacher at

23:17

Wood River High School . One of the teachers said my

23:19

husband's looking for a copy

23:21

editor and so they hired

23:24

. Ultimately they hired me at this publishing

23:26

house in in Ketchum

23:28

and my boss , clarence Stillwell

23:31

, who was kind of like the

23:33

Ernest Hemingway of Ketchum although Ernest Hemingway

23:35

did live and die in Ketchum , but he was that

23:38

kind of guy , amazing guy , just

23:41

a mountain guy and super cool , and

23:44

he would take me hiking

23:46

out , you know , just like let's get the hell out of here , let's go

23:48

. Beautiful day , that kind of guy and just

23:50

we , just adventure . Anyway

23:53

, he was starting

23:56

this book project inspired

23:58

by Idaho for the curious , which was

24:00

a book by court Conley , and

24:03

he wanted to do a book called Washington for the curious

24:05

and essentially it was an historical road guide

24:08

where we

24:10

drove all 180

24:13

or so highways and

24:15

wrote about what we saw and how towns

24:17

were settled how they were named the geography

24:20

, the geology and just you

24:22

know . So it was a 450 page

24:24

book . Ultimately , dude , that'd be a good

24:26

podcast . Oh , yeah , yeah , you

24:28

know , I'd love to rewrite that . That'd be a good podcast . Oh , yeah , yeah , yeah , I we you know , I'd love

24:30

to rewrite that book just kind of uh

24:32

, but I agree , it would be a great podcast

24:35

.

24:40

Yeah , Just segment it out Totally . You just gave me a great idea and or

24:42

or record it from the road , oh for sure , you know , and just like on location in each

24:44

of these places . It's a great idea , yeah , uh

24:46

anyways .

24:47

Well , so my boss was the

24:49

he was the actual writer , you

24:52

know but he , he , um , he

24:55

was busy with something else and he said you know

24:57

what ? Um , I need you to just write this

24:59

one section . You

25:01

know , like , go drive , he , he , he sent me out

25:03

to Washington state and he gave me some instructions and

25:05

I forget the highway . But he said go

25:07

do this . And so

25:10

I did , and I came home

25:12

and I had about two weeks before that

25:15

highway , maybe it was like Highway 26 . I'm just

25:17

making that up , but probably

25:20

five or six pages of

25:22

writing and I wrote the heck

25:24

out of it . You know where

25:27

I'd write all day and

25:29

then I'd come home and I'd rewrite it and

25:31

it was perfect by the time I was done with that

25:33

and he's like oh yeah , this is pretty good , you know

25:35

, keep going . And he was still busy with with

25:37

stuff . So ultimately , um

25:39

, and I ended up hiring , um

25:42

, a good friend of mine from

25:44

school to kind of help me finish

25:47

it from school , to kind of help me finish it , a guy named Sean Carconan

25:49

, another fantastic guy . Yeah , anyway

25:55

, we wrote this 450-page book and

25:57

then from there , once you're published , you can

25:59

do a lot of different things . And so we

26:01

started , we wrote these . They

26:03

were called the Trail Book and

26:06

it's essentially hiking guides and we did

26:08

them in around Ketchum and

26:10

then Boise , seattle , portland

26:13

, mount Hood and you know different

26:15

places all around the Northwest Um

26:17

, and so you

26:20

know essentially . And then I was doing some kind

26:22

of freelance like um journalism

26:25

I guess , for like magazines or

26:27

paper .

26:28

Yeah yeah , nice , were you

26:30

like . Were you getting like

26:32

contracts for like like outdoor pieces

26:35

, or was it all over the place ?

26:36

Mostly outdoor type stuff , yeah , but

26:38

it could have been , and I was at kind

26:40

of on the edge of whether I should , uh

26:43

, follow this path . I mean , of course

26:45

you make no money but like um

26:48

, but it was cool .

26:49

Yeah .

26:49

Super cool work , um , and

26:52

so like , it'd be like go write about

26:54

a loft in downtown Ketchum or

26:57

go float this river and and

26:59

just write about the experience . Fantastic

27:02

, you know , um , super cool . But

27:05

um , I you

27:07

know , I think I got a little big for my britches and

27:09

I was like I can do anything now . And and

27:12

so my Scott from before

27:14

he was an architect in in

27:17

New York we're like let's write a screenplay

27:19

and he was in New York and so I just . I

27:21

left everything and moved out to

27:23

um New York .

27:25

Like NYC , yeah , like New York

27:27

City , yeah , lower East Side . Had you

27:29

been there before ?

27:31

I mean briefly Okay , but like , but yeah

27:33

, we spent . I don't know , I probably spent about six months

27:35

there .

27:36

That's a big shift , dude yeah .

27:38

Yeah , it was awesome , I bet

27:40

. But I

27:43

well , we kind of sort

27:45

of wrote a screenplay or tried to never

27:48

, we never finished . We were just having fun , but

27:56

it was an excuse to like kind of , um , continue , you know , our

27:59

, our , we used to have this saying uh , you know , you do not

28:01

want to relinquish your youth and and hold onto that , and

28:03

so that was just a little bit more of that

28:05

. He was getting serious with his architecture

28:07

, Actually

28:15

, I mean , he did , he's doing stuff all over the world . So I , I had another friend

28:17

, good friend of mine , named Todd Sloan in Seattle and , um , he had a place

28:19

, he needed a roommate and I

28:22

heard some buzz about , you know

28:24

, um , no , there's just

28:26

things were happening . You know this

28:28

was Um

28:51

, no , there's just things were happening . You know , this was well , actually , before Amazon

28:53

, Microsoft was beginning this thing called totally unique , you know , for it was like the first thing

28:56

that you could go online and learn about , like what to do

28:58

and where to go . And so , um

29:00

, I knew I could write that and

29:02

so I got a gig doing that and

29:05

then Amazon was taking off , and

29:07

then I jumped over to Amazon and that's where it

29:09

really got kind of crazy . You know , because

29:12

I was there , I was the 30th

29:14

book editor . They hired , uh

29:16

, and and I was had

29:18

the worst , worst jobs . Um

29:20

, or the the smallest categories would say

29:22

, uh , audio books and

29:25

sports and outdoors , and

29:27

um , but at

29:29

the time you know , amazon was blown up

29:31

and so you

29:34

know I was like sports

29:36

and outdoors as a category was relatively

29:39

small . But then John Krakauer writes

29:41

Into Thin .

29:41

Air .

29:42

And I interviewed John Krakauer , but

29:45

you know all that . That category was blown

29:47

up , so I was kind of on a cool category

29:49

. And then audiobooks

29:51

, and this is . I hadn't planned to bring this up

29:53

, but at

29:56

the time Amazon was losing money

29:59

on every book sold , every hardcover

30:01

sold . But audiobooks

30:03

had a ton of margin for a bunch of reasons , for a bunch

30:05

of reasons , and so I

30:08

convinced higher

30:11

ups to put in what we called

30:13

another edition , link other

30:20

editions , and it was audio books . I was also kind of managing large print , which

30:22

truly was the bottom of the barrel in terms of category

30:24

size , and so they added links to this . This book is

30:26

also available as an audio book or

30:28

as in large print . So

30:31

audio books , which was like 200,000 a year

30:33

, within a year or two became

30:35

a $20 million business , and

30:37

now it's , you know , massive . And

30:39

so a little bit of luck

30:41

, you know . But um , then

30:44

things kind of took off and and

30:47

, um , you

30:49

know , we , uh

30:52

, other people I'm

30:54

not going to tell the Amazon story , but um , it

30:56

was a cool time to be there , just because

30:58

the way people bought books uh

31:01

, totally changed , you know .

31:04

Do you , do you listen to audio books ? Um

31:07

, because I know you read a lot .

31:09

Yeah , I do . I listen to a lot of podcasts

31:12

and I mean I'll

31:14

listen to an audiobook on road

31:16

trips . But and

31:18

they are , I mean they are super , they

31:20

were . I managed audiobooks at Apple

31:23

. Yeah . They

31:25

are the fastest growing . They continue to be the fastest growing

31:27

segment of books . They

31:30

continue to

31:32

be the fastest growing

31:34

segment of books .

31:35

But no , I like to read . Yeah , I've been enjoying

31:37

doing these podcasts with a couple authors

31:39

, like reading their book and then getting to interview them

31:41

and

31:52

then , somewhat , like Darren Pleasance did , an audio book of his

31:54

and I told him he should put his podcast episode as a bonus on

31:56

the audio book because I listened to , I think , who was it . It was an audio

31:58

book by I

32:01

can't remember who it was , but they he after

32:04

he was interviewed and I felt like I learned

32:06

more about the book I read because I got

32:08

to know him better , you know .

32:10

Yeah .

32:11

That's . That's cool man , yeah , yeah

32:13

.

32:14

So anyways , audio

32:16

books , so audio books

32:18

. You know , managing that at at

32:20

Amazon led to

32:23

the job at .

32:23

Apple yeah , Did . Did Apple recruit

32:26

you ?

32:26

Did Apple recruit you ? Well , my

32:29

manager at Amazon

32:32

moved to . He interviewed

32:35

with Steve Jobs because they were launching iTunes

32:37

, and I think his first gig was New

32:40

Music Tuesday ,

33:06

which is their newsletter . And

33:10

then he eventually did a lot of , he

33:12

managed a lot of things and

33:17

so , yeah , I guess he recruited me , I , I guess he recruited me

33:20

and , um , I came down and took over audio books and that was great

33:22

, um .

33:24

I . There's a couple of questions that I

33:26

wanted to revisit

33:28

with you that you , you know , had shared

33:31

with me prior to us recording , and , and one

33:33

, just because I'd like you to talk

33:35

more about it , is I asked what role

33:37

has mentorship played in your journey

33:40

and who has been influential in that role

33:42

? And you replied Jeff Bezos and Steve

33:45

Jobs , both for very different

33:47

reasons . Yeah right , talk a little

33:49

bit , just a little bit , because it's not often well

33:51

ever that I have a guest on this podcast

33:54

who I ask that question to a lot of people

33:56

. I don't get those responses right

33:58

. You know , people of that kind of , at

34:02

that level of kind of , in their respective

34:05

kind of area of tech

34:07

or industry and development , especially

34:09

during the time frame we're talking about . Yeah

34:11

, yeah , well um .

34:14

To be totally upfront , initially . You

34:16

know it's not like Jeff , you

34:19

know I don't call him now Uh

34:22

um , but

34:25

I w , so I had

34:27

yeah , but but you

34:29

were .

34:29

you were editor number 30 , which

34:31

means that you had you know . I mean that there's

34:34

interaction there . So , like I get

34:36

that it's probably more of a passive mentorship

34:38

, sure , but still to

34:40

just observe that , what was that like

34:42

?

34:42

Well , I , with Jeff

34:44

, I had

34:47

about a year where I left books

34:50

and I was the internal communications manager . And I

34:52

was the internal communications manager and the cool

34:54

thing about that was that I met

34:56

monthly with the

34:58

senior team , including Jeff , and

35:01

it was partly because at the time

35:03

we do these meetings

35:06

with the entire company

35:10

basically the

35:13

corporate people , at least least not the warehouse people and

35:15

so I would sat at a table with , you know , jeff and the other

35:17

six to 10 senior vice

35:19

presidents , and so

35:22

that was an incredible experience , because he is totally

35:24

brilliant , you know , and harsh

35:27

and you know smart and funny

35:29

and all those things . But

35:31

I , I'd say , with Jeff , um

35:33

, or really

35:35

more of an Amazon influence , which is that you

35:37

just kind of well , let me say this

35:39

, we had this award that we um

35:42

pass out internally called the just

35:44

do it award , and essentially

35:46

, if you had this idea , just

35:49

go go figure it out and

35:51

launch it , and they wanted you to kind of break some rules

35:53

. I love that . Go figure it out and launch it , and

35:56

they wanted you to kind of break some rules . I love that . Yeah

36:02

, it was great and so , like that always stuck with me and Amazon would just , they would try all sorts

36:04

of things , you know , things that stick , let me . Let me give you one of those examples would be

36:06

like we're going to start selling used

36:08

books . I'm like , why would you do that ? Because

36:10

it's going to cannibalize your new book

36:12

sales . But it

36:15

turns out there's certain kind of customers for

36:17

both Right , and so eventually

36:19

the , the marketplace , the used book market

36:21

, um , was really successful

36:23

and it was incremental , not

36:25

it didn't cannibalize necessarily Right

36:28

, and so like that

36:30

, like don't . And then of

36:32

course , amazon on a , on its whole , they completely

36:35

broke the book selling and publishing

36:37

industry , not to mention everything else , and

36:39

so that kind of stuck with me . You don't

36:41

have to follow the traditional rules of

36:44

doing business . Now , Steve Jobs

36:46

and to be totally

36:48

clear there , I received two emails

36:50

from him in my time . I actually never sat

36:53

in a small meeting room with him , but I

36:55

did send a couple of things , or

36:57

you know , eventually I got I

36:59

was the , I worked on the

37:01

, the new music Tuesday email

37:04

and I wrote a couple of things that was , that were good , and

37:06

, and he sent me like

37:09

a two word response or three words . So

37:11

this is good , you know , or ?

37:13

from what I've read about him , or three words , this

37:15

is good , you know . From what I've read , about him .

37:16

That that means something . Yeah , absolutely

37:18

yeah . Um , but

37:21

Apple was totally different than Amazon , where and this is the Steve Jobs influence

37:23

so I are they mentors , not personally

37:25

, but like the way they did things .

37:27

Yeah .

37:27

Um , for sure I get it . Um , steve

37:30

, steve

37:36

, apple , they did not want you to go do things . Everything

37:38

was very buttoned up

37:40

. I couldn't go talk to the press

37:42

and I had plenty of interviews and

37:44

I'd sat on plenty of panels at Amazon , but

37:52

no way at Apple . And

37:54

everything you produced at Apple almost

38:00

to like an email you'd send to a publisher , to

38:02

certainly the hard products , but like as a marketing guy within

38:04

iTunes and then iBooks , every

38:07

word was like had to be

38:09

perfect . You

38:14

know , the imagery had to be perfect

38:16

, the pricing had to be perfect , um , the pricing had to

38:19

be perfect , everything

38:22

had to be thought out . And so that stuck with me almost to the negative , but it definitely has

38:24

helped me . Um , where I get kind of anal about everything

38:27

I send and do . And so now

38:29

you know , fast forward to , you know

38:31

, working at stand on or owning stand on

38:33

liquid where it's a , it's a paddleboard shop

38:35

or a ski shop , lot 44 , sports

38:38

, and no one cares , you

38:40

know , about that kind of stuff and the people

38:42

I work with don't ? you

38:44

know I have to kind of like shift

38:46

culturally a little

38:48

bit but at the same time , creating

38:51

you know things that are the best you can be

38:54

is a lesson that I've taken and I think I've

38:56

passed along .

38:58

I think that before we move into kind

39:00

of the the stand on liquid , kind

39:02

of lap 44 season of life

39:04

, one thing . The other question

39:06

I've been enjoying asking people lately and

39:08

getting to know them is something that people don't

39:11

know about you that you

39:13

kind of wish they did or my people might find interesting

39:15

and your involvement . You that you kind of wish they did or people might find interesting and your involvement

39:17

. You talked about kind of being a witness in

39:19

the Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit

39:22

that Apple went through . I

39:24

didn't know much about that , so I was reading

39:27

about it . That sounds like

39:30

quite the experience , man , horrific

39:33

.

39:34

But yeah , it was , it was insane

39:36

.

39:37

And I guess , now that I've learned what your role

39:40

there was , it makes absolute sense why

39:42

you were there

39:44

.

39:44

Well , I was talking , I

39:46

mean I did . I didn't do

39:48

so

39:51

. There's , at the time , there were the

39:53

big six publishers and now it's five

39:55

, and there's continued mergers

39:58

, but I didn't do those core

40:00

deals , though I

40:02

set them up , like I said , cause

40:04

I knew I was the one guy , my boss , and this is all tied

40:06

to the launch of the iPad . And

40:16

essentially they're like we

40:18

want meetings with the CEOs of the big

40:20

six on Monday , and so this

40:23

was came on Friday and

40:25

you know time zone change and

40:27

so I mean I literally I was just like they're all

40:29

East Coast yeah .

40:30

Yeah .

40:31

So I'm , they're all New York and I'm just making

40:33

calls and but as soon as they heard Apple

40:35

, you know they , they jumped . And part

40:37

of the reason they jumped is because , um

40:40

, amazon

40:42

was selling eBooks through

40:45

their Kindle . They had launched it a year , year plus

40:47

before um at a loss

40:49

and and they wanted to kind of and

40:51

they wanted to kind of and they were in publishers' minds , they

40:53

were devaluing books . You

40:55

know , they were used to selling their $27

40:57

hardcovers , yeah , and so

40:59

, anyway

41:02

, they ultimately

41:04

, well , they all answered the phone and I

41:06

talked to the admin

41:10

or the right-hand person

41:12

for the CEO this is all in the course

41:14

of hours and

41:20

we had meetings set up so that they , you know , they went and had their high level

41:22

conversations to get the big deals done . But then I signed

41:24

, um , we were trying to get

41:26

people set up to work with us . I

41:29

mean hundreds of deals and

41:31

, um , ultimately , through

41:33

the course of those big deals and my deals , uh

41:36

, there was an accusation

41:38

that we uh fixed prices

41:41

or colluded with publishers

41:43

to fix price , fix prices of um

41:45

of eBooks and

41:48

, uh , we lost the case . Um

41:50

, continue to think that it was insane

41:53

and stupid and like not true , it

41:55

seems just like a business strategy .

41:58

Well , it was like yep , I mean , and

42:00

and I don't really , I barely understand

42:02

what antitrust laws are , but like

42:05

when I read through it , I to me , yeah

42:07

, I mean you lose those you

42:09

lose in those cases when , like Amazon

42:11

came out looking good

42:13

because they're lowering the cost of things .

42:15

And if you're lowering the cost of things and

42:17

if you're lowering prices , like the government

42:19

just thinks that's inherently good , even

42:21

if the impact of lowering

42:24

those those prices are putting

42:26

most other booksellers out of business

42:28

. And that's kind of what

42:30

it was about . It was crazy , but

42:32

you know what a

42:34

trip .

42:34

Yeah .

42:36

But you know , as a kind of an earnest , honest guy who

42:39

um understood

42:41

the marketplace and

42:44

um had the most relationships

42:47

. And then you know we

42:49

launched iPad and we do some really cool things

42:51

on there . You know , like um , not

42:54

a ton of people download of these , but we created

42:56

an enhanced version of the

43:00

Game of Thrones books of Harry Potter

43:02

, you know .

43:03

I mean we created some really cool things

43:05

and you were involved in leadership on those

43:07

projects . Yeah , I mean those . That's cool . I've

43:09

never experienced that , but it sounds

43:11

way ahead of the time . It was

43:14

kind of ahead of its time .

43:15

I mean massive books ahead

43:18

of its , like the time it was kind of ahead of its time

43:20

. I mean massive books and , um you know , I was a fan of both

43:23

those series and and , uh , you know , had the opportunity to say

43:25

work with the publisher and say let's do this

43:27

, and so we created cool

43:30

stuff . so suddenly you know we're

43:32

, we're , um . I was the last

43:34

uh witness for Apple on

43:37

the stand and you know

43:39

what I kind of learned ? I

43:43

mean , I can be political . I'll

43:46

try to avoid it for the most

43:48

part , but

43:51

generally things are not as they seem . It's

43:54

certainly in the business world and

43:57

there's . I mean , what I learned

43:59

in that situation is like the

44:01

government doesn't care who's

44:03

right or wrong , they just want

44:05

to win the case . You know and I'm

44:07

not anti-government , but in that

44:09

case , in that specific case , they just wanted

44:11

to win the argument . And

44:14

so they came at me really

44:16

hard for really dumb reasons

44:18

and , um , yeah , I got through

44:20

it , but , like it was , it was , uh , it

44:23

was definitely . You know , I'm in a room with a hundred

44:25

people , including including

44:27

, you know , reporters from everywhere and

44:30

the senior vice president of legal

44:32

, you know , um , staring

44:35

at me and I had to make sure every word was right

44:37

. And so , uh , it was , it was

44:39

. It was really hard , it was really

44:41

hard , but got through it .

44:43

Yeah , that's one of those going back to life moments

44:45

that builds some confidence when you look back on

44:47

what you've gotten through . Yeah , that's gotta be

44:49

up there Totally .

44:51

Totally yeah . Yeah , I mean , it's something

44:53

I always kind of think about . It's like well , you know I

44:55

got , and actually before that I was on

44:57

the stand or not on the stand , I was deposed

45:00

by the department of justice

45:02

for eight hours straight

45:04

, you know , um

45:06

, but I didn't do anything wrong . So ultimately

45:09

you kind of learn . You know ? Uh , just tell

45:11

the truth and you're okay .

45:14

What a trip . Yeah , yeah , that's . That's

45:16

quite a life experience . I was in a bank robbery

45:19

once oh , hey yeah , how'd that go ? Um

45:22

, it was scary man . Yeah

45:24

, yeah , like , uh , I'm

45:26

trying to think of something that's rare

45:28

in life experience , like being being

45:30

deposed by the department of justice

45:32

. You know that's that's not that

45:35

many people are put in that legal scenario

45:38

.

45:38

Terrifying .

45:39

Yeah , the bank robbery . Yeah it was . It

45:42

was up in Coeur d'Alene where I grew up . I was

45:44

probably I think probably 15 and

45:46

it was in early December when it gets dark

45:49

, really early , and I was putting my paycheck

45:51

from my job into my bank and

45:54

they were just closing and it would

45:56

dude . It was like

45:58

a movie . Like this guy came in in a ski mask with the pistol and

46:00

just jumped over the you

46:03

know the lane ropes

46:05

, that kind of used to go like this in banks

46:07

and yeah , and I was

46:09

the only customer in there , man , and he , just

46:11

he , he robbed the joint . What

46:13

?

46:13

did you , do you drop to yeah ?

46:15

He kind of used me as some

46:17

leverage , if you will , for a minute

46:20

, and then he told me to get on the ground

46:22

which was you know ? I mean , I

46:26

barely remember it really and when you're in

46:28

those things it's happening so quick . You're like is this

46:30

really happening ? You know , anytime

46:32

you have a weapon pointed at you it gets

46:34

real , real quick . And I grew up around firearms

46:36

so like I knew the

46:39

inherent risk and danger of

46:41

you know pointing a weapon around like

46:43

that . Yeah . Yeah , they

46:46

caught the guy . That's good . Yeah

46:48

, like three weeks later , I think

46:50

he got away for a while . I

46:55

think robbers could get away back in the day easier . There

46:57

was less surveillance .

46:58

Seems harder now Hell yeah dude .

47:03

You know , what's rad about this

47:05

episode is that you and I

47:07

got together or started talking

47:09

because initially I wanted

47:11

to kind of supplement this stand-up

47:14

paddle episode

47:16

I'm doing with you know , stand on liquid

47:18

, because it's a big community presence in that

47:20

world and you guys are like you

47:23

know what it sounds like and what you shared with

47:25

me , the kind of the , the leading independent

47:27

, kind of what would you call yourselves

47:29

.

47:30

I mean , I'm a West coast , you guys , you guys kill it Retailer , yeah

47:32

, yeah , and we've , you guys kill it Manufacturer retailer yeah .

47:35

And this is the first time we've talked about paddle boarding

47:37

. That's right , which is awesome .

47:38

Yeah , absolutely yeah

47:42

. So Mike

47:45

and Jenny Mudd started Stand and Liquid in 2010

47:48

.

47:48

Yeah .

47:49

And initially it was , they just sold other

47:51

people's boards . Yeah

47:53

, I , mike

47:56

and I went to school , washington state , and

47:59

you know I was traveling from

48:01

here down to to um

48:03

, california , pretty much every week for

48:06

many years and

48:08

I needed you know . I knew it wasn't

48:10

going to last forever , it was starting to wear on

48:12

me and so I .

48:14

I the the nine year commute

48:16

starting to wear on me , and so I , I the

48:18

the nine year commute .

48:19

Yeah , it was a nine year commute typically

48:24

Monday through Thursday . It was a lot you did owe your wife a lot of

48:26

meals .

48:31

My wife travels one week a month during the school year and um our kids at the

48:33

age where it's doable , but man it's busy . So , yeah , I I have the utmost

48:35

respect , like utmost respect

48:38

, for single parents . That hustle man , yeah

48:40

, it's insane .

48:42

If my wife goes out of town now and I'm

48:44

with my kids and you know I

48:46

just what

48:48

you just said , you know like total

48:51

respect for for people

48:53

trying to feed their kids

48:55

and make money . You know it's really hard .

48:58

You started to go kind of into the stand on liquid

49:01

kind of story . But you've , you've , essentially

49:04

you're now . Are you the sole owner

49:06

? I'm a co-owner , co

49:08

-owner With the original founders

49:11

.

49:11

No , the Mudd's .

49:12

Mike and Jenny .

49:13

They sold their interest and I took

49:15

it over , and actually my attorney

49:19

, as we were doing , the deal became my

49:21

partner . Okay , that's Pat , okay

49:23

, and then Hugh

49:26

Wilson . He

49:29

is also a part owner as well .

49:31

Yeah , stand

49:34

up , paddling man . Yeah

49:53

, stand up , stand up , paddling man . It's , uh , it's , it's old enough now , and it's

49:55

kind of story , to kind of have some seasons to it . You know , it seems like it was

49:57

. It blew up and then it seems like there was a little lull and now it starts to , and I don't know

49:59

, this is just observation , but it seems like there's some more . You know , the whole

50:01

push towards inflatables seem to change everything , or maybe not

50:03

.

50:03

I don't know . Yeah , there's definitely been

50:06

seasons spikes and

50:08

you know , initially we sold just a ton of hard

50:11

boards . Yeah . And partly because

50:13

, well , they still are better . They

50:15

perform better on water . Inflatables

50:18

used to kind of suck , but they're much

50:20

better now . Yeah , Newer

50:23

people in the sport , less sophisticated

50:25

, they have less space or you

50:27

know transport options , so

50:29

that works for inflatables . But

50:33

you know , you throw in COVID , um

50:36

which ?

50:36

made everything nutty .

50:38

So , uh , sales

50:40

were crazy and we ran out of everything

50:42

, yeah , and then , like

50:45

everyone , we kind of overordered , yeah

50:47

, but then we got all that stuff late

50:49

. Yeah . We missed the entire summer

50:51

and so we were sitting , we had like four

50:53

containers I mean hundreds of thousands of

50:56

dollars of paddle

50:58

boards arrived after the season , you

51:00

know . And then the

51:03

market itself , I

51:05

think , was saturated because all the cheap

51:08

stuff direct from

51:10

China or , you know , on Amazon

51:12

for 200 bucks , but it's crummy

51:14

, you know , it's not good , so

51:19

kind of competing against that , and then you see , like , like

51:21

the , the premium , premium brands

51:24

, um , made from

51:26

the same factors as us , you know , essentially

51:28

the same , but they have been around a lot

51:30

longer . Um , they've

51:32

been slashing prices and so

51:34

it's been . It's been challenging , for sure , but

51:37

we're getting

51:39

through it and at least

51:41

locally . I think the

51:43

one thing that we have is , you know , customer

51:46

service , which is like the key to everything

51:48

. Right , and helping

51:51

people find the right board

51:53

for them and making it talking

51:56

to them in an authentic way . We care , you

51:58

know , and , and that's everything

52:01

. That is everything . That's how we survive , that's how small

52:03

bookstores , indie bookstores , will

52:05

survive . Is that they have people that actually read

52:07

books , and , uh , that's

52:09

how we're we will survive , that's how we are surviving

52:12

, which is that , which is that , you

52:15

know , we find

52:17

the right board for the right person .

52:19

Yeah .

52:20

And we make the whole process

52:22

like comfortable and not

52:24

intimidating , because

52:27

it's scary . You know these big pieces of this

52:30

big product , and how do you get it on

52:32

your car , how do you carry it , how do you

52:34

paddle , and so I'm really proud of what we

52:36

built . And do you carry it ? How do you paddle ? And so , um , I'm really proud of what

52:39

we built , and where we are now .

52:40

You know you took it from . I mean

52:43

, you guys were in Costco , we

52:45

were in Costco for a spell , that's

52:47

, that's , that's . I mean that's seems

52:50

like a big deal .

52:51

It was , it was a big deal , um we

52:54

sold a gazillion boards

52:56

, you know , and , uh

52:59

, really great opportunity

53:01

got . It , helped us expand our

53:03

brand nationally , um

53:06

, because they're national , um

53:08

, and when you put something online

53:10

there like we'd have these special deal sales

53:13

, I mean you'll sell , you , we'd show up

53:15

in the morning after you know

53:17

, on Monday morning after a weekend , and

53:19

there'd be an like 75

53:22

orders for thousand dollar

53:24

paddle boards , you know , and

53:27

so awesome , Right , but

53:30

you know

53:32

, putting 75 hard

53:34

boards in boxes and taping

53:36

them , that's a lot of work .

53:37

It's a lot of work .

53:38

It's physical , no problem

53:40

, but um , but the

53:42

challenge becomes

53:45

and I'm super glad we did it , but the challenge becomes

53:47

that , um , ordering the right

53:49

amount of stuff and not

53:51

, you know , getting over your skis , is

53:54

really hard because you're ordering

53:56

it from China and it takes three months to get here

53:58

and the demand

54:00

can be so hot , you

54:02

know , you just don't want to , or

54:05

, you know , then you throw in like a COVID or something

54:07

and then it just dies and

54:11

then on top of that , the margins

54:13

at Costco are just really tough

54:15

. I believe that . So a lot of work

54:17

and ultimately , glad

54:20

we did it , but glad we're not doing it

54:22

.

54:22

Yeah , I would

54:25

imagine that there , like it's not

54:28

, I would imagine . It seems that I've

54:30

heard similar stories about different outdoor

54:33

equipment sectors , like mountain biking

54:36

, for example , and kind of a similar

54:38

impact that COVID had in terms of saturating

54:41

the market with product . And what

54:44

I found interesting when I was talking

54:46

to I think it was Don Leet , who

54:48

was telling me that you know these similar

54:51

these , you know very

54:54

established bike manufacturers and brands

54:57

for the first time ever starting to like slash

54:59

prices on their inventory because the market's

55:01

so saturated and that's part

55:03

of that is why so many everybody

55:05

and their brother is selling e-bikes

55:08

now , because that's kind of the one area

55:10

that can there's people are buying

55:12

is our e-bikes right , but

55:14

like muscle power bikes or

55:16

sales are down man

55:18

.

55:19

Yeah , or so I hear , I don't know . Well

55:21

, I think they are , I think there's local

55:24

businesses that are closing and . I

55:26

mean , this is business , right , things

55:29

trend and then they disappear

55:32

and it's harsh , it's

55:34

really harsh . And

55:36

you know , as a small business guy

55:38

this

55:41

is going to sound super trite , but I've realized

55:44

just how like the importance

55:46

of you're not a business unless

55:48

you have profit yeah , kind

55:57

of obvious . But like I think a lot of people kind of jump into this , this kind of stuff

56:00

, and they don't really pay attention to well , a cashflow and

56:02

margins , you know , because there's a lot

56:05

you have to do to bring in product

56:07

and then if you don't sell that

56:09

, product you're , you're , you're in trouble . Yeah

56:12

, you're hosed man . Yeah , so about

56:14

five years ago . Obviously

56:17

, paddleboarding is a seasonal sport

56:19

, and

56:25

so we wanted to do something in the winter which it

56:27

turns out , winter is longer season than

56:30

summer around here , no joke .

56:31

And it's shifting too . It's bizarre

56:33

, totally shifting .

56:35

I mean , the summer

56:37

business is really like June 15th

56:39

to August 15th before the smoke comes , so

56:42

pretty short . You know , totally it's

56:44

two months , that's it . I mean there's

56:46

stuff , you know , in the shoulders

56:48

for sure , but we do sell

56:50

a lot of surf stuff , which is cool

56:52

, yeah , but

56:55

for the river wave , but yeah , we started

56:57

Latitude 44 sports about five

56:59

, six years ago . Initially

57:01

it was just secondhand

57:05

. Yeah , my kids I had three kids

57:07

that all went through MBSCF .

57:08

Yeah .

57:09

And we realized Shit's expensive

57:11

bro . It's

57:14

expensive , were they ski racers

57:16

. Yeah , the

57:20

first one , yeah , really , yeah , yeah , yeah they , they all did a little ski

57:23

racing um . You gotta have like 12 pairs of skis

57:25

, man well

57:27

, my kids didn't , you know , they , I'm just

57:29

I'm just kidding it's funny , though , because they started

57:32

young so they can do like on their skinny

57:34

skis , they can ski powder you , you know cause ? That's

57:36

all they had .

57:36

Oh , don't get me wrong . Some of the

57:39

best skiers in the world most of

57:41

them all , have a have a foundation from

57:43

from racing gates in terms

57:45

of like , having to truly like turn

57:47

a ski Absolutely , but um

57:50

so Lap 44 . Yeah

57:53

, you guys , I mean I've been in there a

57:55

couple of times in the last couple of years and

57:58

I mean I was in there

58:01

like three weeks ago . And , by

58:03

the way , have those racks come in ? Do you guys have new

58:05

racks ? Yet we do , we should have called you Nice

58:07

.

58:08

Well , that's when I saw you call .

58:11

Uh , anyways

58:15

, like , yeah , um

58:18

products insane , like

58:20

, like the quality , like it

58:23

looks really good in there .

58:24

Thank you , yeah , yeah , we really care

58:27

about the curation we try to on

58:29

the winter side . We try to be

58:31

selective about what we take Yep . What

58:38

we take yep needs to be laundered , needs to be working . It needs to be organized

58:40

in store , in the store itself . Um , there's a ton of gear in town

58:42

we work a lot with like , um

58:44

, uh , certainly

58:47

like sales reps . We we

58:49

really value their

58:51

, the gear they bring to us , and then pros

58:54

, you know we get a lot of gear . that that's really

58:56

cool . Um , you

58:58

know , we have historically had really

59:00

good payout rates . Um , we

59:03

, we , you know , gear fixes obviously the big dog in

59:05

town and and they've been great to us . They

59:07

, you know when they run out of stuff they'll send customers

59:10

our way . So all good there , um , but

59:12

you know , we do things a little different . Um

59:14

think the customer service piece is

59:17

the thing we pride ourselves in . Speaking

59:20

for myself , I

59:23

really well , I'm not an

59:25

overly technical guy on gear

59:27

and some people love that and that's totally

59:30

cool . But when they come in and they want to

59:32

talk to me about like camber or radius

59:34

or this or that , I'm like

59:36

, let me grab . Uh , I usually

59:38

grab Pat , who's fantastic

59:40

and he has both the patience and the knowledge

59:42

to to talk through those things . Um

59:45

, but you know , I I try

59:47

to take the usual . Well

59:49

, we never want to be too cool to our customers

59:52

in the sense of like oh

59:54

, you know , we know more than you . You're

59:56

asking dumb questions . No , no , that's just

59:58

the opposite . You know , we know more than

1:00:00

you , you're asking dumb questions . No , no , that's just the opposite

1:00:02

. You know , I think that's so silly . We'd love the families that come through

1:00:04

and just kind of helping people get

1:00:06

on equipment and not breaking the bank

1:00:08

is something that we really pride ourselves in , and

1:00:11

so I think it's a good formula and

1:00:14

it's working pretty well .

1:00:16

Well , yeah man , it's a good formula and it's

1:00:18

it's , it's working pretty well . Well , yeah , man , it's a great formula and I and the

1:00:20

I mean it's

1:00:25

nice to know that there's other options

1:00:27

for people that want to partake in all

1:00:29

that our region has to offer

1:00:31

without having to buy new shit all the

1:00:33

time .

1:00:34

Yeah .

1:00:35

I mean it's hard for business

1:00:37

and that's where I think there's this kind of like

1:00:39

uh , you know catch

1:00:41

22 , where you'd like to see brands

1:00:44

and you know models

1:00:46

have more than just one year

1:00:48

of like relevance right , especially

1:00:50

like towards younger people

1:00:52

and snowboards and skis . I mean , when

1:00:55

I was growing up , it was like everybody wanted new

1:00:57

things every year , you know , and

1:00:59

I feel like that used to be kind

1:01:02

of standard operating procedure

1:01:04

, but I feel like it's shifting more in the last

1:01:06

like decade . There's more emphasis towards kind

1:01:09

of getting more out of the

1:01:11

life of something before you buy it another

1:01:13

one .

1:01:14

Well , again , I'm

1:01:16

not like I did not own a new

1:01:18

pair of skis and I'm a guy that lived

1:01:20

in Ketchum , idaho , and now

1:01:23

own a ski shop for whatever seven years or

1:01:25

so yeah , until

1:01:27

like six , seven years ago , you know , and

1:01:30

for 95% of people

1:01:32

it just does not matter . What

1:01:34

matters is getting outside and

1:01:37

being with friends or family , that's

1:01:40

it , that's it . Couldn't agree more

1:01:42

. And and like you know , certainly okay

1:01:44

, like , uh , skate

1:01:47

skis , nordic skis , you know . I

1:01:49

mean you definitely need to have the right flex , you

1:01:51

need to have the right um , if

1:01:55

you were a strong

1:01:57

skate skier , you need to have

1:01:59

the equipment match your height

1:02:01

, weight , experience , all that stuff . That's

1:02:03

important , but 95%

1:02:07

of the people we sell stuff to just

1:02:10

want to get outside . And and so

1:02:13

that's kind of my , our mission . You

1:02:15

know it's like don't break the bank

1:02:17

, don't make it an intimidating process

1:02:19

, help people get outside and

1:02:21

make the experience

1:02:24

when they're in our store cool . You know

1:02:26

, I mean this is going to sound a little whatever

1:02:29

, but like we joke that we want

1:02:32

to be the cheers of like a

1:02:34

retail experience , so

1:02:36

we really try to remember people's names , partly

1:02:38

because we probably owe them money

1:02:40

because they're selling with us , you know , but

1:02:43

also just makes people feel good and like , uh

1:02:45

, we want to connect with people and you know

1:02:47

we're not saving lives Although

1:02:49

I kind of think we are sometimes but like yeah

1:02:52

, you argue .

1:02:53

arguably you are I think so

1:02:55

a little bit by people getting

1:02:57

outside . You

1:03:01

can't really argue that . You absolutely

1:03:03

are . I mean I guess define saving

1:03:05

lives , but mentally

1:03:07

, physically , emotionally . I mean yeah

1:03:11

, buddy .

1:03:12

Can I take a tangent here , please ? Can I take a tangent here

1:03:14

, please ? During COVID whatever

1:03:16

the hardcore year was that

1:03:19

summer I

1:03:21

had , I

1:03:24

don't know multiple

1:03:26

people break

1:03:28

down in tears during

1:03:30

the interaction

1:03:33

. And I'll just give you one example

1:03:35

and

1:03:38

it's really illustrative and it's kind of like

1:03:40

stuck with me Um , it would be

1:03:42

a single mom , um

1:03:44

, with her kid , who

1:03:46

might not be the traditional , you

1:03:49

know , baseball or football

1:03:51

kid or basketball kid , you know , just , maybe

1:03:54

not not athletically gifted single

1:03:57

mom , and she just wants

1:03:59

to get the kid outside and she owns

1:04:01

a less expensive paddleboard and

1:04:04

she drives up to the lake . It's her , it's her

1:04:06

time , she finally has some time . You

1:04:08

know she's working hard , trying to make ends meet

1:04:10

. She goes up to the river or

1:04:12

the lake and her fin is missing , Okay

1:04:14

, so she comes

1:04:16

to my , comes to our shop and

1:04:19

, um , you

1:04:22

know you can tell she's on edge and

1:04:25

and she just needs a fin . You

1:04:27

know that's it , she just needs a fin . And

1:04:29

so we find her fin

1:04:31

and show her how to put

1:04:33

it in , you know , um , cause

1:04:35

you know it's not totally intuitive

1:04:37

at all . And not

1:04:40

no , this is not about us

1:04:42

, but it's just about , um , well

1:04:46

, to your point , adam , like , uh , the

1:04:49

the benefits , the importance of being outside

1:04:51

, like um , you

1:04:53

, you show her how to put the fin on , you

1:04:56

sell her a fin or you maybe give

1:04:58

it away you know , 10 bucks , whatever

1:05:00

and you just break down

1:05:02

in tears , you know , because you're

1:05:04

the kids in the car and you

1:05:06

know they just want to get

1:05:08

. They have this window , they want to make their

1:05:10

outdoor experience happen , because

1:05:12

she knows it's important and

1:05:14

, um , that

1:05:17

to me is kind of the

1:05:19

most important thing that I do

1:05:21

I love that .

1:05:22

That's your why . Yeah , I think so

1:05:24

. I was going to ask you what's your why with

1:05:27

this , with paddleboarding and

1:05:29

um and and

1:05:31

latitude 44 , because it's easy for me

1:05:33

to draw the like , make the connection

1:05:35

with your , your previous

1:05:38

career kind of your love for

1:05:40

your , you know your , your background in literature

1:05:42

and English and journalism

1:05:46

and that parlayed into like opportunity

1:05:49

and in terms of text , timing

1:05:51

and all of that , and then to step out of

1:05:53

that into other than being

1:05:56

in bin full time

1:05:58

, like you know . I don't , and maybe

1:06:00

you didn't know your why right at the very beginning . Maybe

1:06:02

it's defined itself as time's gone on , but

1:06:04

that seems like it .

1:06:06

Oh , perceptive question . I , I for

1:06:08

for sure it was being

1:06:10

here , local , with my family , and

1:06:14

then it became okay

1:06:16

, how do I do this ? And actually

1:06:19

, you know , make ends meet Totally , you know

1:06:21

, and there's a whole business side of things that are , it's always

1:06:23

challenging , but

1:06:25

as I do this , it's um

1:06:27

, why

1:06:29

am I doing this , like when I show up what

1:06:32

matters ?

1:06:33

Yeah .

1:06:34

And I guess my

1:06:36

why at

1:06:39

the shop is

1:06:43

being

1:06:46

authentic and helping people

1:06:48

out .

1:06:49

I mean , yeah , I think you previously said it was getting

1:06:52

people outside for all of the things and

1:06:54

seeing

1:06:56

the value in that . I mean that's , that's kind of

1:06:58

become this weird tagline with this podcast

1:07:01

at the very end and I don't even know if people ever

1:07:03

listened to it , but at the very

1:07:05

end of the show credits , you

1:07:07

know it's like what do I say , uh

1:07:09

, thanks for this . Something like get

1:07:11

outside , we'll see out there . You

1:07:19

know , yeah , like , cause clearly there's value in it . I mean that out there .

1:07:20

You know , yeah , like , because clearly there's value in it I mean that's .

1:07:21

You know , well , for me there is like I'm kind of grumpy , son of a bitch if I don't get outside

1:07:24

and exercise or

1:07:26

, you know , just engage in

1:07:28

nature , man . That's why

1:07:30

most a lot of people live here , for that reason

1:07:32

.

1:07:32

Well , for sure , and I

1:07:34

mean we're kind of touching on the

1:07:36

value of getting outside and it's

1:07:38

everything really , and it's also

1:07:41

it's both everything in terms

1:07:43

of I mean there's a reason that

1:07:45

, like you

1:07:47

know , kids that are troubled they do

1:07:49

these outdoor kind of things because it kind

1:07:52

of puts things in perspective and

1:07:55

, um , it's just so healthy

1:07:57

I have , uh , I'll

1:08:00

see kids that go

1:08:02

that are involved in some of those programs

1:08:04

in this area with like injuries

1:08:07

at work and and treat them

1:08:09

and I've gotten to know some of the um

1:08:11

and it's sometimes I'll see them when

1:08:13

they get initial like just

1:08:16

start the program you know , and I'll treat

1:08:18

them for like a wrist fracture or something that requires

1:08:20

a few months of follow up and

1:08:23

you will see like I'll observe

1:08:25

kind of a change in their personality

1:08:29

not personality demeanor and kind

1:08:31

of how they engage .

1:08:36

Age and it's it's . I don't really ever get the chance to really dive in with them

1:08:38

, but I've had some conversations with some of the chaperones of them

1:08:40

, cause it's always the , you know , there's a small

1:08:43

group of people that do that , so you get to know them over

1:08:45

the years , and we've had similar

1:08:47

conversations to that as to why

1:08:49

these kinds of outdoor programs

1:08:52

for I

1:08:55

don't know young people who have made

1:08:57

poor decisions in life are can

1:08:59

be very effective , and a big part of

1:09:01

it is just that . Then you know the natural

1:09:04

exposure to the elements and all

1:09:06

that comes with that .

1:09:08

Absolutely , you know , I mean my . My

1:09:10

favorite thing to do if I have an

1:09:14

hour is to take my dog

1:09:16

and walk the river

1:09:18

trail . You know it's easiest thing

1:09:20

to do . Put on a headphones

1:09:22

and a podcast and just kind of like

1:09:24

clear the head and come back and I'm

1:09:27

ready to go .

1:09:29

Yeah , we're so , we're so . Blessed dude

1:09:31

, yeah , yeah , that's awesome I

1:09:33

bet you've become . I know you're not a gear

1:09:35

head , but your knowledge

1:09:37

has at least gotten broad , if not

1:09:39

deep , on stuff I bet .

1:09:43

Modesty aside , I

1:09:45

truly think that , both on the paddleboard

1:09:47

and the ski side , I

1:09:51

almost always can know

1:09:53

what someone , the

1:09:56

right product for that person , is within

1:09:58

about 25 seconds

1:10:00

, and it's partly

1:10:03

what they want to spend . It's

1:10:06

height , weight , it's

1:10:08

confidence , it's experience , it's

1:10:11

athleticism , it's all that stuff

1:10:13

, you know . Yeah , 25 seconds

1:10:15

is quick . It's almost

1:10:17

always right . I swear , and

1:10:20

I really try to listen , and

1:10:23

I definitely never want to

1:10:25

sell something that someone

1:10:29

can't afford . You know that

1:10:31

I have a bias towards like not

1:10:33

overselling , yeah .

1:10:35

And then some people are like I appreciate that , bro .

1:10:37

Oh dude .

1:10:37

I mean that's I kind of have that

1:10:39

mentality . You and I are very similar

1:10:42

. I have that mentality when it comes

1:10:44

to ordering

1:10:46

diagnostics . You

1:10:50

can accrue such

1:10:52

a high bill with very

1:10:55

rapid set of decisions in

1:10:57

a medical office , you know , especially

1:11:00

in orthopedics , you know . So , just developing

1:11:02

a more balanced approach to

1:11:04

that , so that cause , I think , a lot of things personally

1:11:07

get overordered , you know

1:11:09

, but for

1:11:11

the same reason , I , I , I , it

1:11:14

pains me to like for people to pay

1:11:16

more than they should , or you

1:11:18

know what I mean .

1:11:19

Well , you , can see the stress Totally .

1:11:21

And there's nothing worse than that . There's nothing worse

1:11:23

than that , and I , I think I've experienced

1:11:26

that , you know , and that's probably one

1:11:28

reason why , like I'm sensitive

1:11:30

to it .

1:11:30

Totally , totally . Some people literally

1:11:33

want to spend the most they can because

1:11:35

they think that matters , and in some

1:11:37

cases you know you pay

1:11:39

for lighter things or stronger things

1:11:42

or whatever . But , like on

1:11:44

the paddleboard side , you know it really

1:11:46

is . You

1:11:48

want the

1:11:51

board to be buoyant

1:11:53

enough , floaty

1:11:56

enough , not too tippy , um

1:11:58

. You want the person to be able to carry

1:12:01

the board to and from the water , put it up on the car

1:12:03

, um , and

1:12:06

, and then a lot of it is just it

1:12:09

. You know it's confidence , you know it's like

1:12:11

are you going to

1:12:13

, um be

1:12:16

? Once you cause , once you paddle , the

1:12:19

board actually will support you . Once

1:12:21

you start going , and once you trust that the board

1:12:23

supports you , you're fine . And

1:12:25

so I

1:12:28

.

1:12:28

I just judged their , their level of confidence

1:12:30

, you know , and if they're not , and again

1:12:32

that comes out really quickly .

1:12:35

Um , let's just start

1:12:37

here . You know , on the ski side

1:12:39

, especially like racing . You know , on the ski side , especially like racing . You know

1:12:41

MBSCF

1:12:45

kids . You know they

1:12:48

pretty much just need a slalom ski and

1:12:50

not overly stiff , and

1:12:53

, and like you , you well

1:12:55

, most parents are cool

1:12:57

and they , they get it . Some

1:13:00

want more than their kid can

1:13:02

handle given their height and weight and

1:13:05

you just kind of size that up pretty

1:13:07

quickly .

1:13:08

Do you guys do tech work there too , like

1:13:10

do you mount and do like tunes

1:13:12

and all that stuff ?

1:13:13

We do tunes , edging , waxing

1:13:15

, that sort of thing . We mount some . We don't have a ton

1:13:18

of jigs .

1:13:19

I worked in a snowboard shop in high school yeah

1:13:22

like when the first grinder I came out . Do

1:13:24

you remember ? You know what that is like ? A base grinder ? Oh

1:13:26

, yeah , yeah and it was like

1:13:28

I I got really good at base

1:13:31

grinding snowboards nice yeah , it was fun

1:13:33

I , I got really adhd

1:13:36

about base base you know

1:13:38

, yeah , that's fun . So

1:13:40

you're you're working on kind of a

1:13:43

really big next professional project

1:13:46

, the Skyliner Club

1:13:48

. I think you described it to me as a premier

1:13:50

health fitness , wellness club with a social

1:13:52

gathering component , correct ? Does that

1:13:55

describe it well ? Absolutely , yeah , share

1:13:57

a little bit about this . I mean , we're going to hear

1:13:59

from John , but like just give people a

1:14:01

little bit of a more kind of visual

1:14:04

conception of what what you guys are up to For

1:14:06

sure ?

1:14:07

Um well , first

1:14:09

we , we have purchased land . That

1:14:11

is like awesome .

1:14:13

Wow .

1:14:13

Congratulations . Thank you Um John

1:14:16

and I , and and some great

1:14:18

investors , and it's a

1:14:20

tight you know , coordinated

1:14:22

group and it's

1:14:25

on Skylar Road just past Miller

1:14:27

Elementary , before the

1:14:29

tree farm adjacent to

1:14:32

that new daycare .

1:14:33

Oh , yeah , skylar . Yep , I

1:14:35

know where you're talking . So we have two lots . There

1:14:38

Are those acre lots .

1:14:40

Two acre lots , nice . So we have two lots . There Are those acre lots . Two acre lots , nice . Yeah

1:14:42

, so two acres and it's about a 50,000 or so

1:14:44

facility .

1:14:46

Okay .

1:14:47

And Wow .

1:14:49

It's a big project , dude .

1:14:51

Way bigger than I've ever done , for sure .

1:14:53

I love this story , man .

1:14:54

Yeah , yeah .

1:14:55

It's cool .

1:14:55

Yeah , we're

1:15:02

so excited about it for a bunch of reasons . You know , starting

1:15:04

from scratch has some value , because

1:15:06

what people think of in

1:15:09

terms of fitness and health has

1:15:12

evolved . And the way

1:15:14

I think , john , and I think about it , it's

1:15:16

holistic . You know , it's not just lifting

1:15:19

weights , it's , it's um

1:15:22

you know cold

1:15:25

plunge sauna

1:15:28

breath work , all that . Thank

1:15:30

you , You're doing a great job with this . Uh and

1:15:32

and , and you know you want modern

1:15:36

equipment and , and

1:15:38

I guess you know the biggest thing is like the

1:15:41

social element like

1:15:43

a place where people want to go with like-minded

1:15:45

people to be um

1:15:47

. You know , it's not just about

1:15:49

working out , but it's like hanging out with people that care

1:15:52

about their , their health and their

1:15:54

community and so

1:15:56

that , um , we

1:15:58

feel like that's a little bit missing . in

1:16:01

Bend , oregon , we have this fantastic

1:16:03

location and we

1:16:05

have beautiful building that we're

1:16:07

going to erect here and hopefully launch

1:16:09

, uh , spring of 2026 . Um

1:16:12

, it's a place that , um , uh

1:16:16

, you know you , you will have swimming

1:16:18

. We have John was a

1:16:20

uh ex um

1:16:22

collegiate swimmer . He was Olympic trial

1:16:24

guy .

1:16:25

Yeah , he was the assistant coach at Caldera

1:16:27

this the year . My son was a freshman

1:16:30

there , Um , and

1:16:32

so , yeah , we got done talking

1:16:34

and I'm like , oh , you swim , swim collegiately

1:16:36

. My son's on that track . He's like who's your son

1:16:39

? And I told him his name . He's like I coached Holden

1:16:41

.

1:16:42

No way , small world . You know he's coached

1:16:44

half the kids in town Totally and

1:16:47

you know whether it's like a

1:16:49

kid , like competitively swimming

1:16:51

or just learning to swim you have to have

1:16:53

that yeah . And certainly there's like other

1:16:56

pools in town , like there's there's

1:16:58

a well there's a huge lack

1:17:00

of pool time .

1:17:01

man , yeah , this , I , this . I

1:17:04

can't believe this is the first kind of week

1:17:06

I've heard of this . I mean this

1:17:08

is amazing because another pool

1:17:10

is massive .

1:17:13

It's a nice pool . I mean it's

1:17:15

, it's , you know , six lanes , but like

1:17:17

wide lanes and 25

1:17:19

yard . Yeah , yeah , yep .

1:17:21

It's insane .

1:17:22

It's going to be great . And and then the

1:17:24

sports core .

1:17:26

Good for you guys .

1:17:27

Yeah , we're excited about it . It's second two stories

1:17:29

.

1:17:29

Yeah .

1:17:32

And then the this whole like West

1:17:34

faces . Well , there's a deck that

1:17:36

faces to the West . Beautiful views

1:17:39

. No way that's like oh my God . Facing

1:17:41

West on Skyliner and the thing I get

1:17:43

excited about . I'm excited about all of it

1:17:45

, but like Christmas parties or

1:17:48

you know , corporate retreats

1:17:50

, yoga , like

1:17:55

we have a yoga place , but like if you have a big kind of conference , they can wake

1:17:57

up and do their thing and look at the mountains and

1:18:00

we really this is going to be fun

1:18:02

, rob .

1:18:03

I know I know Dang

1:18:05

dude , this

1:18:08

is exciting . I'm excited to watch

1:18:10

and stay in touch with you through this , thank

1:18:12

you . Thank you , this is going to be really

1:18:15

cool . I've thought for a long time

1:18:17

that something

1:18:20

that offered this

1:18:23

type of stuff , you know , now you have a pool

1:18:25

, now you can like tap into

1:18:27

some of this underwater resistance

1:18:29

training and like there's some cool

1:18:31

stuff that you can

1:18:33

do in the water that there's just not enough

1:18:35

space to really do it in this town , you

1:18:38

know . So I don't know if you're

1:18:40

up , are you ? Do you know about some of

1:18:42

that stuff I'm talking about ?

1:18:44

Well , no , but yes

1:18:47

, in the sense that there's a lot of stuff

1:18:49

where people are fitness

1:18:51

health wise that we

1:18:53

will need to figure out . Yeah , so think about like

1:18:56

I mean we might . There's

1:18:58

plenty of marathons and

1:19:00

this , and that , oh my gosh .

1:19:02

Start it there , finish it there . The utilization

1:19:05

is endless .

1:19:06

We're going to have a park the

1:19:08

west side of it where people

1:19:10

just a public park essentially , where

1:19:13

people can come and clean their bikes

1:19:15

, because it's right , by Phil's

1:19:18

Trailhead Exactly .

1:19:23

Wow , dude , that's going to be dope . Yeah , all right . Um

1:19:25

, so , john was really fun to talk

1:19:28

to you . He's a cool guy . He's a great guy , yeah

1:19:30

my name is john malfato .

1:19:32

I I've been here in bend about

1:19:34

seven years . Um , rob

1:19:36

and I got together a little

1:19:38

over a year ago . Both

1:19:41

our daughters played

1:19:44

club soccer . His

1:19:49

daughter was a little bit older than mine , but we kind of met through

1:19:51

the club soccer scene here in Bend and

1:19:56

just in talking to people , talking

1:19:59

a little bit about the

1:20:02

needs of the community in Bend , one

1:20:04

of them being a nice health

1:20:06

club in Bend with

1:20:09

a pool , I was

1:20:11

put in touch with Rob and Rob

1:20:13

and I went out to

1:20:16

coffee and kind of chatted

1:20:18

about some of our uh

1:20:21

, our our goals and dreams

1:20:23

and things like that , and and

1:20:25

, uh , we really hit it off . I mean , he's just a

1:20:28

very humble guy . Um , you

1:20:30

know , he he shouldn't be as humble

1:20:32

as he is , and so that was something that

1:20:34

that I I I really uh

1:20:37

appreciated . Um , he's he's got

1:20:39

a really great background and

1:20:42

in talking with him I could

1:20:44

tell that he cared about

1:20:46

the community and improving the

1:20:48

community . Anytime that you meet

1:20:51

someone that

1:20:53

you could potentially go into business with personality

1:20:56

matters , with personality matters , and

1:21:00

, like I said , his

1:21:02

humility came out early

1:21:05

on , which is important . But

1:21:15

also he's willing to take some risks and taking some risks for the community

1:21:17

is really something that I've found has

1:21:19

always helped ensure

1:21:22

success . I'm

1:21:24

a little less patient than Rob is . He's got

1:21:26

an enormous amount of patience

1:21:28

and he's

1:21:30

very thoughtful about the

1:21:32

way that he does things . Whenever

1:21:35

we're in a meeting or anything like that

1:21:38

, I'll just be talking away

1:21:40

and he'll just

1:21:42

be listening , and

1:21:45

sometimes I don't like the

1:21:47

silence . I'll look over to him and

1:21:49

he's just thinking about it , listening

1:21:51

to everyone that's in the conversation

1:21:54

and formulating a really good response

1:21:56

to whatever is needed . A really good response to whatever

1:21:58

is needed , and that's

1:22:00

something I really appreciate about him

1:22:02

, which is

1:22:06

a little bit of the yin to my yang . It's

1:22:11

something I've actually tried to use more often . I haven't

1:22:14

been as successful at it , but

1:22:24

Rob , coming from the corporate world , I know there's a lot of people who have

1:22:26

been very comfortable in that world and

1:22:28

never want to leave that world , and so it was really . I

1:22:31

think it's really respectable for anyone who

1:22:34

kind of leaves that corporate environment

1:22:36

and says you know what ? I'm going to go

1:22:38

off on my own and I'm going to take

1:22:41

a little bit of a risk and trust myself

1:22:43

and invest in myself

1:22:45

, and so I think that's something that

1:22:47

I personally really respect I mean

1:22:49

obviously because that's kind of how I've

1:22:51

done my career , but

1:22:54

it's something that

1:22:57

a lot of people don't have

1:22:59

. And something I've also found

1:23:02

is , if you go at

1:23:04

it , looking at , hey , I'm just going to

1:23:06

make a ton of money because I'm going to

1:23:08

invest in this great new startup

1:23:10

, I haven't

1:23:12

found that to be always the best

1:23:14

way to go about it either , and so it was nice to

1:23:16

find Rob , who felt

1:23:19

just as passionate about the

1:23:21

community as I am and

1:23:23

producing something in the community

1:23:25

that can help especially

1:23:27

the youth of the community and the families

1:23:30

, and so I think that's something that

1:23:33

really , really helped

1:23:35

when we

1:23:38

were first meeting . We are

1:23:40

planning on submitting permits

1:23:42

for the project at the end of June

1:23:44

and we hope

1:23:47

to break ground in the spring

1:23:49

of 2025 and open

1:23:51

our doors in the spring of 2026 . So

1:23:54

there are a lot of these small , really

1:23:57

nice gyms in town , but there's

1:23:59

not really a one-stop shop , and

1:24:01

that's really what we're going for . We're going

1:24:03

for a nice new , state-of-the-art

1:24:05

one-stop shop with a pool , basketball

1:24:08

courts , pickleball courts , a really

1:24:10

nice gym , group , fitness , yoga

1:24:12

studio , and then

1:24:15

something that can do something

1:24:17

for the social aspect

1:24:19

too , that can do something for the social aspect too . We'll

1:24:23

have a really nice cafe and bar , as well as a really nice deck that

1:24:25

overlooks the Cascades

1:24:27

and a food truck lot , and

1:24:30

so it's right there at the base of Phil's

1:24:32

Trailhead too . So we consider

1:24:34

that just another amenity , and

1:24:37

so we're really excited about it .

1:24:41

Ladies and gentlemen , skyliner Club

1:24:43

Well geez , Uh

1:24:45

, uh , first

1:24:48

of all , um , well , John

1:24:50

described it uh better

1:24:52

than I could . Uh , I

1:24:54

think you know , unbelievably

1:24:58

flattered . Um

1:25:01

, John is brilliant . I

1:25:04

truly believe that and I've kind

1:25:06

of meaning to tell him that for like about

1:25:09

two months , you know , pull him aside

1:25:11

because he's really humble

1:25:13

too , you know , and , uh

1:25:16

, he does a lot of self , he says a lot of self

1:25:18

effacing things that none of them are

1:25:21

true . Um , he

1:25:24

is super , super , super , like

1:25:26

perceptive and smart and positive

1:25:28

and amazing . He's an amazing guy . Yeah , he

1:25:31

seems really cool . Yeah , and

1:25:33

I would not be doing this without him . You know like

1:25:35

I'm . The reason I'm now going on

1:25:37

to this next thing is because of him . That's

1:25:40

cool man and because you

1:25:42

know , adam

1:25:45

, I mean part of this podcast is about community

1:25:47

.

1:25:48

His whole thing is community .

1:25:51

And this is what the community needs . This

1:25:53

is what's missing . He

1:25:55

is . I respect the heck out

1:25:57

of his commitment

1:26:00

to family . He also has three

1:26:02

girls , like me , and

1:26:06

he's a little younger , little younger kids

1:26:08

, but he's going through all the same stuff I do

1:26:10

and I just so appreciate every

1:26:13

time he's like , oh , I'm running

1:26:15

a kid to this or that , just like you , and

1:26:19

so we're very like-minded in

1:26:22

that sense . We're also like-minded in the um

1:26:24

, not

1:26:26

afraid , you know , just like how do we ? Let's

1:26:29

just figure this out Like none of this is rocket

1:26:31

science , and and

1:26:33

so I'm thrilled to have them as a partner

1:26:35

and I'm really grateful

1:26:37

for everything you just said .

1:26:40

Yeah , I mean , I mean , when I listened to that

1:26:42

audio clip I had made some notes . Just

1:26:44

, you know , one thing that stuck out was

1:26:46

, you know , his and

1:26:49

he commented on it a couple times like the

1:26:52

value there is in taking risk

1:26:54

, and like having skin in the game and

1:26:56

a pursuit , and

1:26:59

like the you know what that

1:27:01

is based off of is like that

1:27:03

concept of loss aversion . You know

1:27:06

, like if humans behave in a

1:27:08

way that's more strongly driven by motivation

1:27:10

to avoid losses than to pursue gains

1:27:12

, so if you have skin in the game , you've

1:27:15

given yourself something to lose , so

1:27:17

you're more biologically

1:27:19

inclined to like do everything to make

1:27:21

it work .

1:27:22

That's interesting I think it's super

1:27:24

interesting . I mean , I'd love to talk more

1:27:27

and more and more business with you , because

1:27:29

there's all sorts of dynamics , including

1:27:31

that one which is there's

1:27:33

a lot of people that talk

1:27:36

about this or that , but

1:27:38

, you know , throw some money in and

1:27:40

then let's see what happens , you know

1:27:42

it makes a big difference . And

1:27:45

it totally does . But you

1:27:47

know , I wouldn't have done it without

1:27:50

. So , yes , I have invested

1:27:52

some money in this project and

1:27:54

we're asking people in the

1:27:56

community , including friends of mine , for money

1:27:58

. That's a whole different dynamic , right

1:28:01

. But once you have that

1:28:03

in place , you are

1:28:05

super intentional with everything

1:28:07

you do . You know every

1:28:10

single second . You know I mean , this

1:28:12

is what I'm doing , along

1:28:15

with my other stuff .

1:28:16

Yeah , you're a hundred percent A hundred percent

1:28:18

.

1:28:18

Yeah , it's awesome's awesome , it's good and

1:28:20

you enjoy it , though it

1:28:23

seems like um , I

1:28:25

still have things

1:28:27

I want to do in the world yeah I

1:28:29

don't want to , just you know be done

1:28:31

yeah , be done for sure and , and you

1:28:33

know , I want to create something cool not even be

1:28:36

done , just not be

1:28:38

.

1:28:38

do more than stand

1:28:40

on liquid and latitude 44 . For

1:28:43

sure , yeah , absolutely . Is that what you mean

1:28:45

by that ? Yeah , that's what I mean .

1:28:46

I want to do . I

1:28:48

love those businesses and they

1:28:51

still have lots of growth . But

1:28:53

this is another thing I want to do and I

1:28:55

want to get my kids into college and

1:28:58

I want to , like you know , once

1:29:00

everything is all that's done

1:29:02

, I want to get back to my community

1:29:04

, because I think that's the most important

1:29:06

thing . You know just family and friends

1:29:09

and where you live .

1:29:11

I think you're right . The

1:29:14

other thing that I took note of and

1:29:17

it's come up in other points

1:29:19

of our conversation and also with other people

1:29:21

that I talked to this incredible

1:29:24

superpower you have of listening and

1:29:27

you know like that

1:29:29

John mentioned it , you know

1:29:31

, and he made a point to say how he's

1:29:33

tried to emulate

1:29:37

that , because there's value there

1:29:39

and it you know , we live

1:29:41

in a world where people don't listen very well

1:29:43

, I don't think . Is that

1:29:45

have you always been good at that ?

1:29:48

I'm listening .

1:29:52

Does that make sense ? No , it does make sense . Like

1:29:55

, have you always kind of been slow

1:29:57

to respond ? Like or

1:29:59

like , really like . Do you consider that's

1:30:02

the picture he painted of ? You you know

1:30:04

, and I love that because

1:30:06

I'm horrible at it , but I want to get better because I

1:30:08

see the value in it .

1:30:11

Well , I absolutely see

1:30:13

the value in it and , if anything , I want

1:30:15

to double down on it , you know , because

1:30:18

I think the

1:30:21

more you listen , you

1:30:23

know let's jump back an

1:30:26

hour ago on this podcast and

1:30:28

kind of my struggles with like confidence

1:30:31

and this or that . You

1:30:33

know , once you have that , then

1:30:36

that gives you the ability to listen . It's

1:30:38

not like your ego . You don't need to like place

1:30:41

your ego in every situation you

1:30:43

know , and so by listening

1:30:45

you can better

1:30:48

understand the

1:30:50

other person or party or

1:30:53

people and get

1:30:55

to the right decision . And I think that patience

1:30:57

is a sign that patience

1:31:00

and listening is a sign of growth

1:31:02

and confidence . And you

1:31:05

know , at least from

1:31:07

my point of view , like a non-Egalist

1:31:10

, like let's just get this to the right place . You

1:31:12

know , yeah , I do know . You

1:31:14

know , because at Silicon Valley it was

1:31:17

knives out . You know . Yeah . And

1:31:20

that was a whole different thing . I mean , there was super

1:31:22

smart guys , for sure , but

1:31:24

it was more about scoring points and just like attacking

1:31:26

each other , you know . And

1:31:28

so I maybe I rebounded from that

1:31:30

in like um that would be

1:31:32

hard for me , dude .

1:31:34

Yeah , Not your not your vibe .

1:31:37

And yet I I do think you're a better

1:31:39

listener You're giving yourself credit for because

1:31:41

you're listening to me this whole time .

1:31:43

but , um , uh , but yeah

1:31:45

, I think that's something I want to double down

1:31:47

on yeah in the in the coming years

1:31:49

a couple more things

1:31:51

that I wanted to talk about , podcast

1:31:53

aside . Like you know , this is interesting

1:31:56

to me . Um one was

1:31:58

how you know . I asked you how you handle

1:32:00

stresses or challenges both

1:32:03

in your personal and professional life , and

1:32:05

you responded Share it all . I had a couple

1:32:07

months of debilitating panic attacks

1:32:09

in my early 30s . Learned that if too many small

1:32:12

stresses add up , it manifested physiologically

1:32:15

. Eventually learned to focus on

1:32:17

one thing at a time . Shorten the list

1:32:20

. I start most days off with the list

1:32:22

that I cross off yeah , that's

1:32:25

, uh , that's probably the um

1:32:27

.

1:32:28

I don't really meditate , I probably want to

1:32:30

learn to do that , but like lists

1:32:33

for me is a form of that

1:32:35

, I suppose yeah and it's just attacking

1:32:37

, attacking them one at a time , and that can be

1:32:39

everything from , you

1:32:42

know , paying a bill to walking the dog

1:32:44

to this or that , and it's

1:32:47

a little bit anal , but like it totally

1:32:49

helps me . Um , I

1:32:52

, I loved that I had

1:32:54

panic attacks , because they're so

1:32:56

common . And here

1:32:59

here's the crazy thing Again

1:33:02

. I worked at Microsoft , then Amazon

1:33:04

, then Apple really high-stress

1:33:06

places .

1:33:07

Yeah , man .

1:33:08

And I had no joke . I

1:33:15

saw four people through the course of those years rushed off on

1:33:17

stretchers because they thought they

1:33:19

were having a heart attack and all four of them were having

1:33:21

panic attacks and

1:33:23

two of them I talked to oh

1:33:25

, after they and they kind of got settled

1:33:28

down and I just shared my experience

1:33:30

and we connected and it was all good

1:33:32

. You know , because it's super common . You

1:33:34

know , if you have too many things going on , it's

1:33:36

hard for your body to process

1:33:39

and you know , I

1:33:41

love that because , like , I

1:33:44

just think it's cool to go through something , understand

1:33:47

it , own it and then

1:33:49

, once you share it to other people , it's not such a big deal

1:33:51

.

1:33:51

Totally .

1:33:52

You know , yeah . So , um , uh

1:33:56

, yeah , I really I , I'm , I'm happy I , I

1:33:58

experienced that for sure .

1:34:00

Is there anything that we haven't

1:34:02

talked about , that that you want to

1:34:04

cover ? Um

1:34:07

anything

1:34:09

did we did , we kind of did

1:34:12

we close the loop on on

1:34:14

um Skyliner

1:34:16

.

1:34:16

Club . I think so . Yeah

1:34:19

, I think that's pretty solid .

1:34:20

Yeah , um , that's exciting . I think so . Yeah , I think that's pretty solid . Yeah , um , that's

1:34:22

exciting .

1:34:22

Yeah .

1:34:22

I'm excited to watch . Yeah , we're

1:34:25

going to go for it . I want to be . I'm going to

1:34:27

be a member , Well .

1:34:29

I will , I will help that happen .

1:34:30

Yeah , no .

1:34:31

I think we're good man . I really appreciate it

1:34:33

. I humbling

1:34:38

to tell the story .

1:34:39

Yeah .

1:34:39

You know , but I

1:34:42

truly believe I'm just beginning . You know

1:34:44

, and we all are . You know , this

1:34:46

is part of the journey .

1:34:47

This is one of the one of the one of my

1:34:49

goals with this whole project

1:34:51

, with podcasting on a community

1:34:54

level , is to start to acquire

1:34:57

kind of this archive of audio

1:35:00

of just open

1:35:02

conversations with community members

1:35:04

who are , you know , directing

1:35:06

the growth of the culture

1:35:09

and the community that we live in , cause

1:35:11

like this is that's going to be a big project

1:35:14

and you get , you know that's going to create , you

1:35:16

know it's , it's just going to be cool and and

1:35:19

to like , have this and look back on it and

1:35:21

just have it kind of exist out there

1:35:23

. I think it's a cool . It's a cool new way to

1:35:25

kind of document a community

1:35:27

because , like this

1:35:30

stuff's fun , you know , and like it . I

1:35:32

know it's been almost two hours , but

1:35:34

it's like a time capsule

1:35:36

.

1:35:37

I think it's great . I've had a great time . I

1:35:39

I am going to absolutely connect you with

1:35:41

my friend James . I want

1:35:43

to know more about your wedding

1:35:47

story Story booth , story booth , I

1:35:49

think that's something I'll invest in you . Yeah

1:35:51

, it makes sense .

1:35:52

Yeah , I can

1:35:54

, I can practice my pitch . Okay

1:35:57

, I pitched it last year at um during

1:36:02

Ben Venture Conference . Yeah , uh

1:36:05

, my buddy , kyle McLeod , started

1:36:07

a kind of kind of more

1:36:09

local , regional um open

1:36:11

early stage pitch contest

1:36:13

and the last year was

1:36:15

the first one at uh in

1:36:17

the banquet room of Deschutes

1:36:20

Brewery , and I entered it just

1:36:22

to kind of get feedback

1:36:24

and won which was awesome

1:36:26

yeah . And also just the

1:36:29

process of kind of learning how to pitch and

1:36:31

I don't do well in public speaking

1:36:33

, which is ironic , so

1:36:37

it was good for me Super outside

1:36:39

my comfort zone , okay , but like just learning

1:36:42

the process and like there's

1:36:44

some cool people I've met through this , like

1:36:46

Meg Chun , who was an amazing

1:36:48

mentor and still is that kind of

1:36:51

helps me . Yeah , I bounce ideas

1:36:53

off her and she's she's incredibly

1:36:56

intelligent and rational and giving

1:36:58

of her insight , you know . And so

1:37:01

she helped me with that pitch and and

1:37:03

so that was enough to kind of like , wow , maybe there's

1:37:05

something here . And now we're like . I did my first event

1:37:07

last week up at um UW

1:37:11

and at the museum

1:37:13

of flight and on the . Boeing fleet field

1:37:15

. Amazing , yeah , it was epic Dude

1:37:18

, it's fun . There's something to it

1:37:20

, because it's , it's this , but

1:37:24

which is fun for people to

1:37:26

connect . You know , my I'm , I'm telling

1:37:28

myself in the future , you can either

1:37:30

leverage technology or humanity

1:37:33

. Yeah , you know , and this

1:37:35

is going to become , I think , more

1:37:38

valuable to people , just the process

1:37:40

of interacting , you know .

1:37:43

So I totally agree . The

1:37:45

one thing you said earlier that I don't agree

1:37:47

with is it's not a five year thing , it's

1:37:49

like a one to two year thing for

1:37:51

you . You're going to make this happen , oh

1:37:53

yeah , and I think it's fine to . I

1:37:55

think you should hold on to your

1:37:58

PA work , oh yeah

1:38:00

, because it probably makes money and you're

1:38:02

good at it , but you're

1:38:05

really good at this . Oh , thanks man , I

1:38:08

appreciate that feedback and it's true

1:38:10

and , um , this

1:38:13

is kind of everything I mean , and

1:38:15

not to get all heady , but like

1:38:17

, uh , the you

1:38:20

go back in time . It's like

1:38:22

storytelling is everything . Totally . It's

1:38:25

like how cultures

1:38:27

were created . Yeah , and so

1:38:29

I look

1:38:31

forward to helping you as best I can

1:38:33

and just watching your journey . So it's awesome

1:38:35

, Thank you .

1:38:36

Yeah , rob , I guess that does

1:38:38

it . I guess that does it . Thanks again . Yeah , rob , I guess that does it

1:38:40

. I guess that does it . Thanks again .

1:38:52

Yeah , totally yeah

1:38:55

. Now little brother has done gone on

1:38:57

. I'll join him in a

1:38:59

song . I'm gonna join

1:39:01

the family circle at the

1:39:03

throng .

1:39:05

Hey , thanks for listening to Ben Magazine's

1:39:07

the Circling Podcast . Make

1:39:09

sure to visit benmagazinecom

1:39:11

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1:39:13

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1:39:22

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1:39:28

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1:39:30

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1:40:04

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platforms and leave us a review . It

1:40:11

really does help . I'd like to

1:40:13

say a special thank you to all of those who

1:40:15

participated in the making of this episode

1:40:18

, as it wouldn't be the same without your

1:40:20

contribution , and I appreciate

1:40:22

your trust . In search of

1:40:24

outdoor equipment or a new stand-up paddleboard

1:40:27

, make sure to visit Rob and his

1:40:29

partners at Stand-On Liquid and Latitude

1:40:31

44 , as , odds are , they'll

1:40:33

have exactly what you need , and

1:40:35

stay tuned for more on the development

1:40:38

of the Skyliner Club . Lastly

1:40:40

, if you know someone who you think would

1:40:42

enjoy today's episode , please

1:40:45

share it with them today . Hey , thanks

1:40:47

for your time . Central Oregon , Get outside

1:40:49

. We'll see you out there . And remember

1:40:52

the health of our community relies

1:40:55

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