EXPERIENCE 145 | Investing in a Regional Climbing Community - Together - plus Fitness and Yoga! - Aaron Tellier (Director of Marketing) and Shauna Hylenski (Director of Programs), 2 of 6 Partners of Climbing Collective

Helinski and her husband Brian have been Longmont based entrepreneurs since 2015 when they came to Colorado from South Korea. Brian had there built a reputation as a world class sport and mountain climber, and they came to represent a Korean climbing shoe manufacturer and build an import brand, HMH Outdoors. In 2017, they recruited their best friends Mac and Heron and Shauna's big sister Heather and her husband Aaron to come together and form the Climbing Collective, which opened in 2018. Today, I'm joined by Aaron and Shauna to share the journey to this point and the vision for the nearest years ahead. The Climbing Collective now consists of three major properties, a news facility in Longmont, a state of the art 25, 000 square foot Roped wall, which is 60 feet, six inches high. They didn't know that's how far a pitcher's mound was from home plate. Just a coincidence, maybe plus a bouldering gym, yoga studio, and fitness. And in Loveland, a former wooden mountain bouldering gym recently and happily emerged to be part of the collective. And then finally in Greeley, a former movie theater in downtown Greeley, currently owned by the collective and under redevelopment plan, these three properties together and with their members represent the most comprehensive climbing community in Northern Colorado. This is a story of three couples working together and letting it all hang out getting big bank loans to build leading edge climbing gyms fostering community And in 2024, they'll be opening their third location and hosting the ice climbing championships at their flagship location in Longmont. This was a super fun conversation with people I didn't really know before this podcast, and I learned a lot. And I know you'll enjoy getting to know as I did, Shauna Helensky and Aaron Talear. Welcome back to Loco Experience Podcast. I'm joined today by Shauna. and Aaron Tellier. And they are co founders, uh, director of marketing and director of programs, respectively, for the Climbing Collective, which is a couple of Jim's now and one coming soon. Yes, that's right. Um, let's start with, um, I guess I'll just let you guys kind of take turns a little bit, but tell me about Climbing Collective as it is today. What you got going on and, uh, existing operations. Yeah. Terrific. Sure. Yeah, I'll start. You're the director of marketing. Yeah. Exactly. Kick us off. Well, what we've got is two facilities. One in Longmont. And we recently relocated about two weeks ago. We opened a new facility. We sort of had, we're in a rented space. And we moved to a brand new building that we own. On twelve, uh, You and the bank, I assume. Yes. You and the bank own it together? They don't let us forget that. And if they're watching or listening, yes, We're planning to pay you guys. That's all part of the plan. No, you were just telling me how much, uh, how much it costs to build a new, you know, top of the line climbing gym. We're talking multi millions, uh, but in order to deliver the facility we wanted, we needed to make the investment. So, um, but anyway, we've got the, uh, we're going to get away from the world class conversation trailer. So I'm going to turn away from the money a little bit. We'll come back to that. Um, sure. So the, the, the Jim and Longmont, it is a 25, 000 square foot facility. So Okay. It's sizable and there are multiple components to it. We've got a tall climbing walls, tallest in, uh, Colorado, indoor climbing walls at 60 feet and. Six inches. Nice. So, uh, Is there a baseball fan? Isn't that how far the home plate is from the pitching mound? I think it's 60 feet 6 inches. Oh, really? Yeah. There we go. Well, you can use that in your marketing if I'm right about that. We could sort of do something there. Yeah, like a Tom Seaver up on the ceiling or something like that. Hurling a pitch down on the floor. That might be a tall ask. Although nobody would know who Tom Seaver was anymore. Anyway. Yes. No, we didn't. So, you got a big tall wall. We're old enough for Tom Seaver. Uh, so we got the big tall wall. We've got, uh, and that's where our roped climbing is. And so we've got lead, uh, climbing and we've got, uh, top rope, you know, where you're on a belay. Uh, so, you know, something for everybody, uh, the fancy climbers. You can't go freestyle on the tall wall? No. No, there's no freestyle. Only after hours. Only after hours. Yeah. Just kidding. Yeah, but we do have autoballys also. Oh, those are cool. Have you ever done the autoballay? I have, just once, yeah. It's a little bit disconcerting experience, I think, you know, because you're just trusting that thing to work. Well, it's like I trust my seatbelt to work. It's the same technology, it seems like. Yep. Yeah, well, the seatbelt's an emergency thing, and this is like, uh, you're at the top, you gotta Just kind of jump off and then it catches you and then it slowly lets you and there's a lot of trust that goes into that. Yeah. Well, I'm like, you're going to let gravity do its job, exactly. Uh, so we've got the tall climbing, something for everybody there. Uh, then we got some smaller walls, but the other section is bouldering. Yeah. So, you know the difference between the bouldering and the Yeah, basically, bould it's the same kind of thing, but bouldering is kind of harder and you're expected to fall off a little more. Exactly. Because you're just going to fall on the padded floor. Yeah. Not for more than like Ten feet, or eight feet, or something. A little taller than that. What is it? Fifteen? Fifteen. Yeah, I think at the tallest, um, fifteen feet. That's a pretty big fall. If you land just on your head, you could probably do bad things. Yeah, we don't, we don't recommend head lands. We have a very specific orientation where we teach people how to land safely. Little video. And then we make sure that they don't put your hands down to catch yourself, things like that. Um, bouldering is one of the fastest growing aspects of climbing. Um, we were one of the first, um, bouldering only facilities we opened five years ago. Okay. Um, and Um, what we saw in the industry is that was just exploding that, um, opportunity for people to be in a bouldering only facility. And um, so we've maintained, um, so the new climbing wall is like an additional service for you guys. Right. So we started with the bouldering only and we. still have maintained the same amount of bouldering, but we've added tall climbing, rope climbing. And what's the verdict? Like, have people been coming out to sign up for your new memberships like crazy? Because now you have both. Yeah. Well, I think the market is something like three to one. Something like that, yeah. Bouldering over climbing? No, climbing over bouldering. Oh, but it's switching. Like, bouldering is the one that's growing really fast. It's growing really fast, but rope climbing is still there. It's still kind of the front runner. Well, in your second location, your Loveland location, which I have been to, was Wood Mountain, which was a bouldering only, too, right? Exactly. Still bouldering only. Yes. Up there. Yes. Yes. Until the Expansion of that one or the new location. We probably will stay bouldering only in in Loveland That's not fully decided but with the limitations of the space Doing Lisa's up. I mean we've looked at things in our old facility. We looked at like pop in the top I didn't even know that was the thing you could do in a building Yeah, but you can get these cranes and they basically cut the ceiling off and you, and you lift it by the corners and then you build a little bit in and make it taller. Yeah. Uh, but we don't own that building. So I don't think we're going to be doing that. Your landlord isn't going to want to pop the top for you. Pop the top or drop down. That's the other orientation. You can go down. Yeah. Um, a lot of climbing gyms around Denver, um, more metropolitan areas that can't go up any higher, they'll go down. Yeah. So that's another orientation. I've never heard of that before. Yeah. Plus you could put a super secret vault or something down there at the bottom. You certainly could. Yeah. As long as you're there. Yeah. We can't talk about that. I know. Because it's super secret. Yeah. The banker doesn't even get to know that stuff. D. I. A. stuff. No. They know everything. Banker knows everything. So, so you've got the wooden, what was the wooden mountain, and we can talk about that kind of along the journey, but you guys just. acquired or folded into the collective, I guess, uh, a second location, which is this Loveland operation. At the same time, virtually, as you're building this big ass new gym. Yeah. How exciting. How, like, hair raising. Yeah. And we thought about that. I mean, it was something, but, you know, we talk about it being a community. That's part of the collective idea, is that it is a community, and the community of climbers in the area, they, they go to multiple gyms. Right. So they like variety. They like to meet different people. And so they'll go to different gyms. And so we're really serving multiple communities in that way. And we sort of felt, uh, I don't want to say an obligation, but a desire to serve that community, which was partly the Longmont community. You know, it's like a crossover. And, you know, those gym owners came to us and said, you know, we really like what you're doing down here. And they were looking to do some different things. And so he said, maybe we could step in and help that community and kind of bring them even closer together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I, I was slightly acquainted. I think I went down there and visited a little bit. It was like, I think there was three owners and three owners trying to. Like, I think they were all part timers, or they all had day jobs too, and man, that's a tough hoe when you just got this little gym, and you got no time or resources, really, and you're trying to grow it, but you got a full time job, and they want you to work every day, as it turns out, right? As it turns out, yeah. The acquisition was very friendly and very supportive, which was great. It was a win win win. Absolutely. The community wins because the gym stays. Those guys. Don't have the distraction, if you will, and they can still go there and be climbing enthusiasts lifetime membership. Did you include that in the deal? That was a Yes, exactly. And then you got something big cooking and greely as well. We do. How much are you talking about that so far? It's It's, it's, we own the website. It's on the website. Yeah, it's, it's a for sure. It's just, um, the opening date is still a little bit in flux. Um, the sooner the better for us. So what we've been able to do is, um, repurpose the walls from our original gym and move the structure of those walls into the Greeley facility. So, um, foundation hall is the name of the building. Ben and Greeley for quite some time. I don't know the exact mid fifties, something in the fifties. It's been a movie theater. It's been an actual like theater, theater. Um, and now it's going to be, uh, a beautiful climbing gym to really support and, uh, benefit the whole Greeley community, the UNC downtown, I guess, downtown, right on eighth Avenue, eighth Avenue. Um, So, we're really excited to branch out into a totally new, uh, totally new community. Right. That is very eager, very excited, very supportive about us coming. And you said you moved your other walls, so does that mean they were bouldering only? And is there tall walls going to be at the foundation one too? Yes. Tall walls there. Okay. Yeah. And because it's an old movie theater. Right. In the classic style. Right. Um, and it's too bad this isn't a movie. So it goes downhill, but it's 40 feet at the end of the thing or something like that maybe. So it won't be the tallest in the new Record Breaker. No. No. Unless you pop the top. Yeah. But we've, we, we definitely have enough. space and enough height to provide tall climbing, um, bouldering, fitness and yoga. So that's our full package. Okay. Yeah. Oh, at your new location as well. And it's always been that way at our Longmont location. We've always had fitness and yoga, um, as a part of our business model. So, yeah. And so no real forecasts sometime 2024. Yes. Well, well, let's, let's put a pin, a stake in the ground here and say the spring. Oh, spring of 24. Yeah. It's, uh, we're. You already own the building. Yeah. It's just working on stuff. Yeah. Working on stuff. Well, and you know, the permitting process. Right. Um, the town's been great. I would assume it's easier in Greeley than it is in Fort Collins. Uh, potentially probably similar in Longmont. Yeah. Longmont and Loveland are a lot more business friendly than Fort Collins. Okay. Yeah, they don't like to do new things around here. Well, they do. They just want to make you like. Rebuild the street in front of your building if you want to pop the top. Yeah, that's, that's challenging. For sure. Put a new stoplight in. We've had, we've had great support from Greeley. Good. Um, and we've had great support from Longmont and great support from Loveland. Yeah. We've had great support all, all the way around the bench. People like what you got going. Well, they do. They see the benefit to the community. They see, you know, this isn't, this isn't just recreation. This is community building. This is overall wellness. This is an opportunity for people to find their third space. Have you heard of third space? Yeah. So we like to utilize that idea of how we can provide this opportunity for kids. I mean, people of all ages, right? We start our climbing as young as three and we go, you know, we have Climbers that have been climbing their whole lives that are still climbing with us. Yeah, it's really inspiring So it's an opportunity to provide that to climb to do fitness or to do yoga But then also find similar people. Yeah I I like to share that the body kind of modifies itself for to do well the things that you make it do. And so I've been an occasional runner, not much for a couple years, as you can see, because, so now I'm, I'm perfectly designed for watching football and drinking beer. Uh, but, but when you're a runner, then it melts those pounds away. And, and similarly with your climber, you know, like it isn't really about the calorie, in my mind, at least. And I think there's some Uh, prudence to this, like it's not just that you're burning X number of calories climbing this wall regularly and you get this many calories that you're intaking, but your body is like smart and it's like, if this son of a bitch is going to keep climbing this big tall wall, I'm going to shed some pounds. Like I'm going to intentionally melt some of this midsection here because I know he's going to try to lift this whole big body up the top of that wall again. Yeah. And so you hardly ever find any. Chubby climbers or chubby runners. Well, I'd like to say though, that I, I think we've, we're open and we're, we're really welcoming to people of all abilities and body types. And, um, I have seen a lot of various abilities and sizes, and, um, I think that just continues to push the boundary of our, what we expect as like, Oh, that's a traditional climber body. Um, Bigger people turn to small, into smaller people, though? Absolutely. We've seen that, too. We've seen that, too. For sure. And not that I, I'm not trying to discourage, uh, large people, and especially on the bouldering, right? Because then they can land on that hard floor easier and bounce a little more. Just kidding. Fat shaming. Right here on this podcast. Um. I'm shaming myself, actually. Yeah, we've seen it, we've seen it both. I bet you have. We've seen, you know, it's a great way to, to get strong and get fit. Uh, we had a, a member at our, our original location who lost over a hundred pounds climbing. And, um, he was just an amazing inspiration. Right. You know, he was just in there every day. It's a great way to do cardio without. Um, and I think it's a great fitness option if you're, if you're wanting to go in that direction, it's great for eye hand coordination. It's great for problem solving. Um, it's great to do with a friend when you're tall climbing or not. I think it really checks a lot of boxes. Um, as far as like the social interaction, the wellness opportunities and, um, you know, the community support there isn't in our community, you don't find people like looking and judging and like, Oh, I really, really should be climbing. So runners are probably similar. Like it doesn't matter how, like when I first started getting into running, it was like, Everybody was beating me, you know, and if you'd look at me, it'd be like, well, that guy shouldn't be that slow, but I was pretty out of shape, you know, and, and there was still no shame on just a lot of grace. And, you know, as I, as I went from 27th place in the Tuesday night running club up to 12th place over the next eight months, it was like. Oh, I'm passing more people now and stuff, you know, that was, and at every stage they were very welcoming. So that's what I've gathered in climbing as well. Yeah, exactly. If you come to the gym, one of the surprising things is, especially as you're watching the people doing the bouldering, I love to kind of look at the ratio of people climbing to people spectating and supporting. And you'll have, you know, we'll have 50, 60 people in the bouldering area and you'll have. Maybe five, eight people on the wall. So everybody's watching, but it's not like a judging kind of watching. It's like, all right, you got it, Tommy, you got it. Send it, man. You can do it. And then all the clapping and high fiving. You know, when somebody does send the problem and they get to the top, they come down, there's almost always a fist bump or a, yeah, it's great. It's just great community. What's that mean? Send it, send it, send the problem. That means you put the problem behind you. It means you, you finish it. You get to the top when you send, yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Boy. And there's, there's a above that though. Right. The flash. Yeah. You can flash the problem. And that means the first time you try it. You get to the top. Yeah. Oh! Right. Because what happens in bouldering is people work on problems. for a long time, especially outdoor bouldering. They can work on one problem for an entire year. Just getting the right moves and the right body posture. Interesting. In the gym, we're turning over about once every six weeks. So you don't have a whole year to work on a problem and you probably wouldn't want to do that indoors. Oh, interesting. But you'll come back. So like somebody might come back 10 or 20 days in a row. Yeah. And maybe they do a little sport, climbing a little bit of this and that, but they've got this one problem that you've put on your wall that they have not been able to succeed at. And they keep coming back and trying different ways and we just had a I just quit hard things when they get too hard. Maybe that's why I'm not a climbing gym rat. We just had a big climbing competition, our annual Lung Tucky Showdown. Um, and we had our, our route setters. So that's a, that's a whole profession, route setting. Sure. Um, and we have some really amazing route setters at our gym, and they set these problems that were so fascinating, four point starts, upside down, backwards, sideways, I mean, it was unbelievable. Um, it was really fun to watch. And so. bouldering competitions are really amping up as far in popularity for people to just come and watch because it's pretty amazing to see what people can do. And, you know, you can look at the wall and figure out, okay, I'm going to try this. And they have four minutes on the clock. During finals to figure out to get to the top. And it's, um, I think this year was one of the most exciting long tuckies we've ever had. So it was really fun. We designed the gym with competitions in mind. We have like a very clear path for, um, doing events in the future. So, so we're really excited to, to bring in competitors as well as bring in spectators to watch this amazing climbing. Four point start? Does that just mean like you've got your hands and feet all in a fixed spot, so there's no decision from that? Look at you, you know. Well, I've climbed a tiny bit. I told Erin that one of the local Think Tank members is the climbing gym here in town, Ascent Studio. Oh, great. Yeah, so I learned a lot about that actually when I was still in banking. It's crazy that it's this long ago, but that could have been my next project. loan that I financed, and then I quit my job, tried to start a restaurant, got a local think tank going and stuff, but Um, so I learned a fair bit there, and then I was a, hmm, probably ten time a year outdoor climber down in the Colorado Springs area. Oh, nice. Uh, for about three or four years. Oh, great. I was fairly active with it, and, and whatever. And I, I hate to say it, but I kinda, I love the outdoor more. Oh, yeah. And I don't, haven't really established new relationships with climbers up here. So if anybody's listening to this and they want to take me climbing sometime, I've got old shoes, uh, and no ropes, but I'm still interested in, I'll come, I'll come along. I'll buy some new shoes if you bring me along. Fantastic. Cause I assume that my shoes are way out of date, right? Well, it's funny that you say that because one of the members of our staff. happens to be the marketing, another marketing guy. He wants to take people outside and show them, you know, what the benefit of you climb indoors, but Hey, you can, you can also do outdoors, right? Because it's in, in the gym, it's easy. You come, you know where you're going, you got a parking lot, right? You know, two hour hikes to get to the place where the cool route is before. Yeah, exactly. So he runs occasionally, he'll take people out. Cool. And he just did that. It was like a self initiative thing. Like, I'd love to just take people out and we said, that's what motivates you. Go ahead and do it. Yeah. Yeah. So we had, um, every month basically from May until last month, we did an outdoor meetup at different locations around Colorado. Yeah. So, um, that that's always been hugely popular, um, to introduce people to. Outdoor bouldering, specifically. Yeah. How do I find outdoor bouldering? Because that would be nice, right? I don't have to have any ropes and stuff. I didn't get a crash pad. But I don't even really need to have a friend. We rent crash pads, by the way. Yes, we do. For sure. Or do you need a friend? Probably you should, in case you don't land the way you're supposed to. Want to, um, boulder in pairs, um, yeah, at least pairs so that you have somebody to spot you. Well, plus it sounds like the cheering section is a big part of it, right? So have a, have a, have a group of four or six is even better still. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, where do we depart from the, I guess we started covering the experience quite a bit. Um, yeah. Should we go back to like. How did this climbing collective start in Longmont? Because you guys, most of you have like day jobs and stuff and, or maybe not most, some of you. Some. Some, you do. We have a whole mix of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, yeah, tell me about the Sean is the history part. You're the historian. You do the history. Yeah, give me that. All right. So, uh, the history of the climbing collective. So, um, The connection to Longmont, my, my husband and Brian and I, um, got married in 99 and right away started our life adventure together by moving out to Colorado, a place that we both had, um, visited as children and just fell in love with. And so we heard the mountains calling and we just went, you know, just married sign on the back of the car, everything we owned in my Isuzu trooper, the whole nine yards. I had a trooper, it was nice. Yeah, it was a great, great car. Um, so from there, we got really established in Longmont. We really fell in love with Longmont in 99 Longmont was, uh, not as cool, not as cool. But we just kept seeing the potential. We love the downtown. We love the people. We were just really getting integrated. We bought a house. My wife and I have had a couple of, uh, staycations of sorts where we get an Airbnb in Longmont. Amazing. We love it. Something theater, the Ellie Calkins Theater or something. Oh, oh, there's, there's a theater right downtown that's had a few really good bands. Oh, okay. Oh, the opera House. Yeah, the Opera House. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Dickens. The Dickens Theater. Oh, right. The Dickens. Anyway, we've been in a couple, couple of different times when they have a great band that nobody knows, but they're in Longmont. We like. Yeah. Stay the night. Fantastic. Yeah. It's one of the staples. It's one of the, you know, foundational, um, buildings in Longmont. Yeah. Part of making it cool. Part of making it cool. Was fixing that place up. Absolutely. So we just kept You know, kept it on our radar. We were doing a bunch of different things, um, living there for about four years or so. And then we decided we loved our life in Longmont, but we wanted to set out on an adventure. So we, we got a job teaching English overseas, so we, um, landed in. Japan, um, a place called Okayama, which is between, um, Hiroshima and Osaka. And we started living the expat dream. We were working, we were traveling, we were learning, um, and we were part of the climbing community there. We had fallen in love with climbing. Well, while those three years living in Colorado, um, but it really fostered this awareness of how, how it shows up in other cultures and the way it showed up in Japan and then further down the line in South Korea, uh, when we landed there and ended up living there for almost 10 years. I'm going to want to come back to this chapter a little bit. Um, because we were going to unfold both of your long term journeys, but yeah, like the climbing collective. Yeah. Like How did that start? Yeah, it's coming. Oh, it's coming. Yeah, we're getting there. It's coming. These are the ingredients. Alright. Alright. This is part of the soup. Sounds good. I'm listening. And then, and then, so we, what we decided to do So in South Korea and in Japan In South Korea and in Japan, we realized what we wanted in a climbing community and yoga and fitness. It was all about community. It was all about family. It was all about support. And that was not something we had really found a lot of in the climbing gyms, in the climbing community before. before we left. So when we came back to Longmont in 2015, we're like, you know, there's still no climbing gym in Longmont. This is kind of unbelievable. We've been gone for, you know, 100, 000 people now or something, right? Yeah. 120, 000. Wow. And growing. And we, we were inspired to start a climbing gym. And what were you doing, like otherwise? Um, so we had come back to the United States, um, with connections with a climbing shoe company called Boutora. So Boutora makes climbing shoes. And we, um, had agreed to be their North American distribution hub. Oh. So all of a sudden we were selling climbing shoes. I was working as a teacher. Okay. Doing yoga. I was kind of doing a hodgepodge of things. Okay. My husband, Brian, who is a big, he is the captain of this climbing collective ship. He's kind of the head visionary of sorts, maybe. Absolutely. Yes. He, um, he came back and he's like, all right, we're going to do the climbing shoe thing. That is going to be our, you know, our path forward. And it was good for a little while. And we still have that company. Um, it's called HMH distribution and, um, not only Butoro climbing shoes, but we have AB plus chalk bags and other brands that we represent. Were you guys like elite climbers? In these other places or something? Why do these climbing shoe people like you? Brian. Brian in particular? Yeah. He, he is an alpinist. He's the dog. He's uh, he has had numerous first ascents all in the Himalayas. And he is, he is a superstar climber. Climbing maniac. And he will not say that about himself. So I will say that about him. Perfect. So yeah, he, we had a nonprofit in South Korea that, um, supported climbing crags. And so he was highlighted many, many times, um, for that. And that's why he was approached about being, about have this, um, partnership with Bhutora. Yeah. So when we came back to Longmont, we had had a daughter while we were overseas. Um, her name is Hannah and she was Seven at the time when we moved back and we were, we were hustling, we were trying to make things work, but we had this vision of a climbing gym and our other two co co founders, um, Mac mayor and her on joe were in Colorado as well. And we really worked hard with them. with the idea of what could this climbing gym look like? Could we make something like what we experienced because they lived in South Korea as well? Oh. Could we make something similar? Could we make a climbing gym where people, all people would feel like it's their home? Where it's not just for the elite climbers and there's this sort of like judging yourself against other people. Can we create a climbing family in Longmont? Is that possible? Um, and it We realized that we needed more support and that's where Aaron and Heather came in. Um, so we were like, hey, we have this idea. We have, you know, these wheels are turning, but we need more. We need more help financially and we need more help with marketing. And, um, and we, we brought them in. We brought them into the equation. So you're like working your way through this business plan almost. Yeah. To kind of get together every Exactly. Oh wow. And they were in New Jersey at the time. Oh wow. And so, um, it was And this is your sister? Whose sister? My sister. Your, your sister is his wife? Yes. Okay, gotcha. So you knew him pretty well. Yeah. Probably her better even. Well, just on that point, we, we grew up, I don't know, three, four miles from each other? Oh, really? In upstate New York. Okay. And they had, they moved into the community where we had a super tiny school. There was like 26 kids in my high school graduating class. Wow. To give you a sense. And we were all in the same district. This is how many was in mine. Oh my gosh. Okay. Wow. I'm from North Dakota though, so it's normal there. Oh, okay. Anyway. Uh. So 26, still pretty small. Yeah. Uh, but you got me beat. And, uh, they moved to the neighborhood. the, the district when, um, I was 10 and so Heather and I, my wife went to school together and actually, uh, their, their, Sean, his mother, Heather's mother was my brother's kindergarten teacher or first grade teacher or something like that. So a lot of history, a lot of family stuff. That's cool. Yeah. Like deep history there, right? So we've known each other quite. a long time. So since you would be like five. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, um, so super excited to make this a family business. Yeah. Um, and so when, when Aaron and Heather got on board and Brian and myself and Mac and her on and We put all of our skills and our passion together, and we opened the first Longmont Climbing Collective in March of 2018. Yeah, and that was at the location that you just departed? That we just left. Yeah. And where was that? Um, South Parkway in Longmont. Okay. So, um, yeah. just down from Main Street. So pretty central location. Um, but we were limited a little bit by the height. Pretty traditional building, 20 foot ceilings or something. And so you can put in the 12 foot. Yeah, I think we were probably a little higher than 20. So yeah. You know, the cheese importers down there, it's a really cool little shop. Uh, I don't think I do, but they got all the French feel to it. You can buy French, uh, food and it's fantastic. They used to be in our building, then they moved and that's what opened up the spot for us. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. So we were in a pretty spacious building. We built a mezzanine so that we could have a lounge and the yoga room was upstairs. So we, we really did quite a bit. It was a pretty good. Like, no matter how proud you are of this new location, you already had a pretty good facility. It was 15, 000 square feet. The new one's 25. So, it was pretty good size. It was. For sure. It was a great And plus you already had the yoga, the fitness, etc. We did. Yeah. It's a great way to launch us into the climbing world. Jim business. None of us had done that before, right? So there was a lot of opportunities to learn and to course. Correct. Yeah. And, um, you know, really show up for a community, ask for their input, ask for their help. Um, and so we've Just continuously been supported by our community. I like to mention too, that during COVID, um, you know, two thirds of our member base stayed with us and continued their membership, even when you were shut down, even when we were shut down for two months, I believe, at least two months, at least two months. And then, and then it was like. You know, we can allow six people here, right? Exactly. We were like four people in the gym at a time, you know, make your reservation. I mean, we were constantly, um, getting creative with how we could offer what we could, what we could do. But Our members just believed in us and they just kept saying, you know, we want a place to come back to like this place is really important to us in our lives and we don't want you to go away. So we're going to keep supporting you and until, you know, until everything's back to normal again. One thing I remember, uh, from meeting with John, uh, from a sense studio before my conversation in the banking realm ended is how he had done like. research, uh, market research and stuff. But by meeting with other gym owners and other cities, and I think I remember Colorado Springs and I had somewhere like maybe Oklahoma city or something. And he was like, well, here's how fast these businesses got to their membership up to break even. Cause that's the big trick, right? Like you build this. Three million dollar facility or whatever or even if it's leased maybe it's a million dollars worth of walls and stuff like that And then you know, the bank wants money every month. It doesn't matter how many members you have yet exactly But they just shared it with him like he was just doing his market research and he had all these other climbing gyms that weren't in the region where he was building and they were like Yeah, here's my, here's my financial data for the two years after we first started. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I'm like, how'd you get this? And he was like, well, I asked. Yeah. And it just shows that kind of collaborative, kind of help each other kind of. Yes. Culture. Yeah. I guess the climbing industry has. It's, it's there and it's really fun to be a part of that and, um, eventually it may change, you know, but for right now it's really great. We have a, you know, a Facebook group called Climbing Gym Operators and, you know, Brian is consistently on phone calls with everybody. Uh, in Colorado that, you know, all the gym owners and asking advice and, you know, everybody's trying to stay similar price wise, so we're not hiking the prices super high, yeah. So that we're, we're serving our communities and, um, you know, taking care of the consumers. I don't think it's illegal for them to be with other tumors and stuff, uh, I think. I don't know, who knows. Anyway, we'll come back to normal reality. Do you need any more bourbon, Aaron? No, I've got plenty. Yeah, thanks. I got a little tip or more. Um, we'll come back online here. So what were we talking? Oh, just the collaborative nature of the industry. It is very much so. And I'm also in in the yoga community. And that's been I've been in teaching yoga for over 12 years and a part of that community as well. And as as lovely as that community is the climbing gym. The climbers in the community, it's just a different feel. It's like everybody wants everybody to succeed. And, um, I just see that difference than any other industry that I've ever been in. And I wonder if yoga was kind of more that way. When it started. Right. When there wasn't nearly enough providers and stuff. And I would say, I would speculate, because like the, the craft brewing industry has been Under negative growth, uh, we'll say for a couple years now or whatever, um, and they were always super collaborative as well, but when you go through a few years of negative growth, maybe that starts to make the world feel a little less blue ocean. And I would say yoga's kind of the same, maybe. Yeah, yeah, I would say that, yeah. Also co own a brewery. So I forgot, I'm actually very familiar with that. And, uh, this is in South Carolina, right near Charlotte. There's a, there are a hundred breweries. Give or take in the Charlotte area and so we're just on the other side in South Carolina The the laws are different by state, you know, but the the point of that is that they're very collaborative They're very supportive how to help each other ideas and so even with the negative growth as it was I think there are just some industries that I kind of culture of that culture of that well and things like brewers clubs and stuff like that kind of helps to set that tone Whereas I would imagine that yoga, like there's almost Like there's these different kinds of yogas and different backgrounds and and frankly very few Yoga teachers have very much abundance in their life financially. Yeah, it's tough. So they've lived with this scarcity It's like the nonprofit world a little bit, right? Like yeah, and I've always been very grateful I had started my own yoga studio about a year and a half before we opened the client, the first climbing collective. And, um, I, I just, I wanted so badly to provide this beautiful, um, transformative practice and I could not make ends meet, you know, and I was in my backyard studio, you know, um, exactly. And so to, to bring yoga. So when we opened the first facility, I, I brought my studio there and tried to do both. And I just, I was so thankful for the support of everything else and how each part of our business supports the other, you know, so it's not that climbing is the only thing and fitness and yoga are sort of afterthoughts. We have like an equal focus on all three aspects. And I think that's. kind of unique. It's a unique aspect and partially because I'm so passionate about yoga and our, um, director of services, um, Taylor Rimmer, who's amazing and has been with us from the beginning. He's a personal trainer, super passionate about fitness. So we had people in place that could bring their expertise to the table and say, this is really important. And we've seen this really fun crossover between all three aspects, bringing, you know, bringing very high quality classes and training and workshops and learning opportunities to the climbing collective community. When you say fitness, I think of the videos that my wife watches online, uh, whatever, a body pump or something like that. Yeah. It's, um, a little different than that. So really leaning into, um, traditional weightlifting, um, styles. So push, pull. Um, legs, upper body, like all of the, um, opportunities to get strong strength, strength training. We call it fitness. So it's all encompassing, but it's mostly strength training, a lot of weights. So we have classes that are provided and included in membership that we have, um, six classes going on every week that people can take part in. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And so we have some really wonderful trainers, people that are oriented with. with climbing, but really focused on training and fitness and, you know, strength and conditioning. Um, yeah, here's a kind of out of the blue question cause you've got, it's funny for me to think about now, but I've been a member of a gym, you might not imagine so, but I have been, um, and they do have the, like the classes all week long and you know, got the morning set and the afternoon set and there's some evening stuff and whatever, but people have jobs, right? Like, so. Are your members, like, like, they get, you know, Monday afternoon as a flex day for their work or something or whatever, and so they're there every, you know, Monday afternoon or Thursday morning or, like, is that kind of the, I mean, it's, can't just have, like, stay at home moms when their kids are at school, right? That's not a big enough demographic, so. You know, um, I think for it, I guess people, what we're finding more and more, especially even since COVID is like remote work, right? Flexible hours, people that actually work from the gym. We have a lounge. You could do your computer work from there. Yeah. Um, walk on the treadmill and do your email. Exactly. Yeah. So I think people are finding, um, Hmm. you know, creative ways to integrate fitness, wellness, yoga into their lives. That doesn't have to start after 6 PM. And, you know, I would definitely say that's the biz, still the busiest time. Um, after, you know, after five o'clock evenings on the weekdays, but weekends are, are busy. Now we get a lot of families, first timers, things coming, um, coming in on the weekends on Saturdays and Sundays. And, um, I think. People really appreciate we open at 6 a. m. We don't close till 10. Oh, yeah. So, you know, so those early morning hours are probably pretty vibrant too. Yep, and in Loveland here, we have 24 7 access, which is that was pioneered by the previous Owners. Yeah, and we said, oh, that's really cool So there's a there's a high degree of trust that you have to have a community to let them into the building Well and security cameras Yeah. A lot can go wrong on or off security cameras, you know that. I know. I would plan. Uh, cause most of my exercise, frankly, takes place before 8am. I'm a pretty early riser and so if I'm going to go for a run or do a yoga sesh at home in the living room, it's probably right there or lift weights. Yeah, so that's why our 6 a. m., once we moved into this new gym, we opened starting at 6. Previous facility was at 7. Um, rope climbers like to climb early. That's, that's what we found. Um, my, myself and my husband were always that way as well. We like to go to BRC or, you know, go to movement or something. You guys are all partners, right? So you come in at 9 after the The grunts open it up at 6 a. m., right? Well, for the first two weeks, we were there every morning, and closing at night, and you know, learning the new policies and procedures and supporting our staff. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. What do your other, uh, like, I know your husband is kind of the, kind of, chief visionary and climbing world whatever guy. You're the programs gal. Yep. Uh, sounds like you're gonna focus on yoga besides. Um, you're the marketing guy. What's your wife do, Aaron? She does the retail. Okay. So we want to make sure we have, you know, snacks and drinks and then, you know, the equipment. Especially now that we're doing Yoga mats that are a little nicer than the one I have now. Yeah, the harness. Like, you get really psyched and you say, I don't want to rent these harnesses. I want my own harness. Right. Well, and plus the shoes and stuff, right? Yes. Has that folded into the rest of it, or you and your husband are the shoe seller people? Um, so actually, we, uh, our other co founders, Mac Mayer and Haran Joe, they really manage HMH Distribution. Okay. We kind of did, um, a division of, of tasks a little bit. We're all still involved in both. Right. But they kind of head up that. That's fair. Part of the, the business, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Mac, uh, Mayer, he does, kind of works with the setting team. Okay. Our setters are pretty independent, but he's there to support them and really kind of guide that process. And then you'd be surprised at all. Well, maybe you wouldn't as a banker, but the, the, the amount of numbers and finances behind all of this. Yeah. And so he ran, she just. She manages all of that and I don't know how she keeps track of it. Yeah. Yeah along with Brian Shevchuk, who's an amazing wizard and he he helps us with our finances and all of the the businesses So we call ourselves managed by climbers. That's our our kind of umbrella And so we have some Also some, um, businesses where we're doing, uh, commercial property. We own the warehouse where, um, Butora is housed out of in Lander, Wyoming. Oh, wow. Uh, we have some property in Longmont, um, and so we have a couple irons in the fire, but the climbing gym is, and the, and the shoe company, those are, like, the big ones, really. So, um Like, when you imagine what should be next for the climbing collective, is there, like, a willingness, do you need to really be open at least before you start taking on new things? I mean, uh, I would say so, yeah. Seems like Fort Collins and Windsor could be other places, like, do you have growth plans still? Denver, do you want to get into the shark infested waters down there? Not so much. Um, I mean, we wouldn't, we won't say no for sure, because you never know. Right. Um, but our, our idea was always kind of the northern part of Colorado. Um, also areas where there were little to no climbing gyms. Right. It's kind of our jam. Is there one in Cheyenne? Um, not that I know of, no. So that could just continue upward. You'll probably come after that like stinking on lube. You're welcome for that free idea. So, yeah, I think North, um. You know, Denver, I mean, I can't get my husband to drive in to go to a, uh, uh, a restaurant in Denver. Right. He doesn't like the concert. Like, Tate Swift was there and he didn't even want to Oh, no. Give me a break. No. He cannot. Cannot. With the, with the traffic. So, yeah. So we're really interested in, in serving areas that don't have climbing. Yeah. And so we did that in Longmont, still the only climbing gym in Longmont, and we are One of a few in Loveland, but those are a little closer to where you are in Fort Collins and then, um, with Whetstone and Ascent and then, you know, in Greeley and there's nothing in Greeley. So we're really excited to, to, to be that, to be that hub. Well, and to kind of set the cultural stage, right? Cause you're not just, we're a place that makes money while you climb here. Uh, it's, it's, we're designing a space for you to have community and a third place and whatever else. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And to find ways to connect. with other people, with yourself, with, um, your balance of, of wellness, you know, and, and how you can utilize these skills and, you know, you can go climbing outside, you can bring your family in, you can, you know, like there's lots of different ways and iterations of, of how this sport can show up positively in your life. So I don't know how to fast forward through this thing, so I'll just kind of stumble, but we, we, we do this system, we call it, it's Halos Relational Intelligence, and it, it works on the notion of, of, uh, opposite land almost, uh, or a negative, of. Negative polarities, but, like, one of the beautiful things about a collective is that you can do a lot of things, right? You have a lot of capabilities, and a lot of skills, and, you know, want to go a long ways, have a big group kind of thing. And, like, Sometimes it's a pain in the butt to manage a collective. Uh, so my, my question is, is like, you know, from a, and I, I won't ask you about ownership percentages and stuff like that necessarily, but how do you, like, is your husband the decider ultimately, or is there a six headed monster that's trying to make all these decisions when you're thinking about. Signing on new debt and stuff like that. Like what's the org chart look like now and in the future? Well, I would say we're really blessed because A lot of family businesses, families are just tough things for some people. And when you're trying to run a business, that just adds a whole another dimension. And then we've got not only family, but it's easy if everybody's making a lot of money. Well, I mean, no, not necessarily because some people want to reinvest every profit dollar for the future. And others want to get it as fast as they can, right? So even when you're making a lot of money, but it's definitely easier than losing a lot of money. Well, for sure. But yes, so when we got started, there were a lot of, there's a lot of discussion, a lot of thought went into how do we structure this business to be successful? And I'll just speak for myself when Brian and Shauna came to Heather and myself and said he would like you guys to be involved with this. I was working at an agency doing full time work, uh, marketing agency. And I, I thought I can't. I can't be there. I'm in New Jersey. You know, I can, I can do these things. But I can't do these other things. So we talked a lot about that and kind of the idea was, look, you guys are there, meaning Brian and Shauna and Mac and Hiram, you guys can kind of make the call. Like, we trust you to make the call on things. If you want an opinion, I'll give you an opinion. But there is something to be said for knowing when not. to provide your opinion. And so I try to, I try to, and Heather and I both try to stay back a little bit and so we have this, it's not written anywhere, but there's this sort of agreement that, hey, if push comes to shove and we need to make a decision, we're going to let the team here who kind of founded it, the climbers, we're going to let them make the decision and we'll provide our counsel and input and that has, that has served us very well. Yeah. If I'm guilty of anything, it's probably you. Bringing too much collaboration into some of my decisions, you know, and then I water it down like I was just kind of we just had a strategic planning kind of an engagement kind of thing and, you know, the vision that I've got for Loco Think Tank is fairly defined and the path to there is Got a lot of ambiguity. Um, but if I let the vision be corrupted by too many other imaginations, then definitely the path to get there will be more ambiguous still. Mm hmm. Yeah. And so I think there's some, some value in that, Erin. I appreciate that sentiment. Mm hmm. Anything to add, Sean? Yeah, I, I would Very much agree with that. And we have regular owners meetings, um, where we talk about important decisions. And if we come to a point where it's not unanimous, we spend more time. Yeah. So anything that we're, you know, we've got people on the fence or there's a hard no on something, we're not going to just breeze over that, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna spend time investigating other alternatives. Like, let's look and see if we can make adjustments or modifications so that this works for everybody. So we've been, we've been working really hard and, you know, myself and, and Brian and Mack and Haran have been working together with the climbing shoes. Um, with Butora for a number of years prior to opening the, um, the gym. So we had sort of that established relationship and then we have, you know, this family relationship, but it changes. I mean, it's different being, um, business partners and being family, you know, Aaron from New Jersey that we see once in a while is different than Aaron, the partner. Yes, exactly. And when they moved out here, um, in August of 20. 21. 21. Um, it just brought everything together. You know, there's still some like adjustments and growing pains a little bit, but my sister and I are very close and we always have been. And, um, my grandfather had a family business and we saw that, um, he had, um, grocery stores and he had farms that he managed in upstate New York and meat markets. And he was Electronics business. Electronics. Yeah. He was a big entrepreneur and we saw the family business and the pros and cons, the good and the bad, and we, we've always been really strong. Like we will not let this, um, affect our relationship. So we've. had to kind of figure that out as well. And I, I am, I work with my husband, so we've had to figure that out as well. So, you know, I think, and Brian and I, this is our full time thing. Right, right. We don't have anything, any other jobs. Same for your other partners, or they have other jobs too? So, Mac and Haran have HMH, so they're Right, that's kind of their main job in some ways, and the climbing collective is their secondary element. And Aaron has He has a ton of jobs. He has so many irons in the fire, um, with marketing and brewery thing and whatever. Yeah. And then Heather's been, um, at UNC going to school for her PhD doctorate in, um, In education. So she's no slouch either when it comes to brain power. And she's running a non profit in New Jersey still. Right. So. We're a busy group. Yeah. Well, what I was just thinking, and I think I can probably get a laugh out of you guys from this, is that, uh, Brian's the big boss, ultimate decider, and Shauna tells Brian what to do. Guaranteed laugh. There you go. I think that works. Hi, Brian. Hope you're listening. But we did, you know, it's, Funny because it continues to evolve, but we created some language around this and there's the idea of die on the sword. Yeah, it's just and it's been a very useful tool for us because you know There's so many decisions to make like what should we get a square table or an oval table, right? Who really cares, you know? But it may be the oval table for me as a die on the sword moment, right? And I'll say When, so we'll ask, we'll get into this like heated discussion, I know a square is better than an oval. And someone will say, is this a die on the sword moment? Yeah. No, it's not. And then we can move on. Yeah. Right. But if it is, that's when we take the time and go, oh well let's Well you basically get a die on the sword veto, right? Yeah. Goddammit, I'm gonna, like, stab myself if this table is not oval. It's exactly right. Can't believe you idiots can't see that it needs to be oval. And that, it comes to that sometimes, but then we work through it. Well, and you can't use it every time, otherwise you're the boy who cried wolf, right? Exactly. And, and you know, the decision to Open a gym in Greeley and to acquire the gym in Love Women Those were, those were tough conversations. Oh, those are baller high leverage decisions for sure. Yeah. And you know, we all had concerns, but the thing is, is we saw that this is what we want. The timeline is a little crunched and maybe a little more intense than what we had planned for. But when you, when you find the building, that is gonna be the perfect building, and it's for sale in g Greeley, right. Or you have the business that is struggling and they need you to come in and, and you wanted to open a gym in Loveland anyway, it's like, well, okay, let's just do it and trust because that is a big part of what the vision is, is like the trust in what we want. Yeah. And, and it's, and it's unfolding at its own pace, which is rapid. Well, we can talk about that more in the faith section if we want to, but whether you come from a, like a universal consciousness or God is the decider kind of thing, like not kicking against that force, like being able to recognize that force and not like fighting against it. And if, if fate or life or God wants Greely to come along fast, then it's better not to fight against that. Yeah. Yeah. It would be foolish for us to turn down those opportunities when they present themselves. Not that there was no work, right? You know, not that there was no effort, just because the door opens doesn't mean there's not a lot of work behind door number one. Exactly. Exactly. So I think, you know, in, in my experience in life, I definitely prescribed to the feel of, you know, you open yourself up to the opportunities. You kind of see what might be unexpected. You don't just keep the blinders on, you know? And you see what. What things might show up in unexpected ways, and you seize those opportunities and, um, over the years of life, I've seen that that's really panned out. Usually works out better. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, when we bought the land for the new gym, that was, when was that? It was 21. It was pretty much the start of the pandemic. Right at the start of the pandemic. Yeah. No, that would have been 20 then. Yeah, it was 2020. It was, I think, April or May. When we made that deal. Oh wow. And that land had been around for a long time. Right. But there's something about the physicality of being there. And when you stood, there was a 12 acre piece, and it was the last piece, and I came out to look at it. And I said, yes, this, this, we have to do this as a view of the Rocky Mountains. Is there a cool brewery there right at that intersection? There's two actually. Yeah. So there's Collision and Outworld across the street. Yeah. Uh, from us. Okay. Yep. I have been to, to that first one, Collision, I guess. So we've got that view. I mean, they've got a little bit higher elevation, but we've got the Collision view. But I know where that's at. Yeah. And so we said, you know, we, we just have to do this. And we were able to make. the deal a century. Yes, absolutely. Well, because somebody was freaked out because COVID nation was going to destroy the whole world or something. And also, uh, we have a number of the acres are in the floodplain. So people didn't really want it because it wasn't buildable. How many acres? Seven. Seven. Yeah. Yeah. And so parking lot, right? Um, no, no, we, we're going to use that as our event space. We're going to use it. It's sort of You know, the dreams are unfolding as, as we live in it. Have a hold, held loosely plan. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we do have something in the ground for that though. Uh, so in 2025, we're going to be hosting the world cup for ice climbing. Oh, no shit. No shit. How about that? That's awesome. Uh, and it's, it's terrific. Do you have to build an ice climbing wall, I guess? Because I have a friend that used to go down to Euray a lot and go ice climbing, and that's like some crazy shit, right? The ice park in Euray is beautiful. Let me guess, your husband is like a world class ice climber? Well, yeah. Yeah. Like So he's really passionate. He's top three. You know, hard to say where the top three is, but Yeah. I mean, he's not competitive. He's just really passionate. Okay, fair. So he loves ice climbing, and he always has. Um, and so when we knew, so we have an outdoor climbing wall, so we have a wall that's open to the outside that will be set. It's not built, finished being built yet. It should be done December or January, and it's facing west. So you're climbing on an outdoor wall. You're turning around, you see the Rocky Mountains, like you see Meeker, you see Longs, it's just an unbelievable view. The sunset is breathtaking, like the whole thing. So we have an event wall that's part of our facility already. And then we're going to be putting in an ice wall as well, but that's good for the wall that we have is good for dry tooling. Um, so that's like a specific type of climbing that is using the ice axes. but not, um You're not making new holes, kind of, or whatever? Right, but it's not on ice. It's on wood. Oh. So, yeah. So, the last time it was hosted in Colorado was at Civic Park. And that was back, I believe that was 2019, if I'm remembering correctly. So what do you mean? You're like, putting your tip of your stick into the wood? Yeah. Even though it's an icy wall, kind of thing? It's no ice. It's all wood. Oh. Yeah, so it's called dry tooling. Okay. Yeah. So these are two separate things. We're going to have an ice wall for the Championship, but we're gonna have a dry tooling wall for all the practicing. Oh, right. Oh cuz it's that's using these So dry tooling is almost like a practice for real ice. Yeah, and it's a sport actually a sport in and of itself Yeah tooling is its own thing Um, and then there's speed, ice climbing. Right. So there's three components. If I'm, if I'm, I might be misquoting this because we just heard like three days ago that we're getting it. So I'm like trying to catch up. It is insane. Exactly what's happening. But this is huge. This could be 20, 000 people visiting Longmont. Wow. You know, over a three day event. So. It'll take some. Everybody's really excited. Connections to make something like that happen. Yeah. Yeah. What if it's like 45 outside all week and you can't keep the ice cold? We're gonna figure it out, Kurt. You don't even worry about it. Don't even worry about it. You know, that's such an, uh, such an obvious question to ask. We just such a can do group. Whatever it takes. Right. We're going to make it happen. We'll just will it to be cold. We'll open a bunch of freezers, buy a bunch of freezers from Home Depot and stand them all around there and just leave the doors open. There you go. It'll be fine. If that's what it takes. It's going to work. I'm pretty sure there's ways, like I saw there was snow skiing going on. Gosh, just the other day, where the heck was I? And all of a sudden there was like this ski hill with snow on it. Where the heck was I, I don't know. Yeah, not far away. Uh, yeah, there's, oh, it was up by Big Bear Lake in California. They had this little mini, and it was like way too warm for that, but they had this little north slope and somebody had sprayed a bunch of snow on it. Yeah. So I would have to think you can cool it. There's like ice and snow technology that is beyond, it's like above my pay. I mean, all you need is overnights below 30. And, a hose, and you can at least make fresh ice every night. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And if it's on the west side and the north side, I assume, kind of, it doesn't get, but the early morning sunlight that doesn't have any horsepower anyway. Yeah. And, uh, by noon, you know, the risk is kind of low. It's just like leveling a basin, right? Exactly. So we're super excited for it. That is cool though. That's awesome. That's big news. Right. That's big news. So American Alpine Federation is super excited and um, you know, Longmont City is giving us a lot of support and it's, it's a big deal for the United States too, to have, to be hosting this. Oh, this isn't a United, this is a world event. World Cup. World Cup. Oh damn. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm going to give you a little distance high five here, because that's pretty impressive, I have to say. Um, so, well, that is exciting. So, like, talk to me about, because we kind of jumped off the trail, you had put this gym together. So, like, talk to me about the launch moments. Did you start the, the climbing collective before Aaron came? No. No, because he he was part of that though. Yeah. He became a, a member of it and stuff, but he came back and then before the big move. Right. So, but there was still a million dollar like nut to get started, right? Yeah. And you were like an unsuccessful yoga gym. yoga studio operator. Hey, hey, hey, hey. What? Wow. You had the, you had the HMH. It's the distribution business and stuff, and I assume that was at least functional and worked okay. It was, and we were, we were bootstrapping though. Yeah, that was the foundation though, ultimately. That was your revenue engine that kind of allowed this to be thought of. Right, exactly, exactly. You know, having a world class marketing expert at our side really helped to get the word out. Yeah, you know, and what was really interesting at that time is that there were a lot of people in Longmont that didn't know anything about climbing. It was very new to a lot of people. So we were introducing to climbing to people for the first time. Yeah. Um, so We, we did very well. I mean, it started a little bit slow, but, um, if I remember correctly, we were doing well pretty quickly. Yeah. A couple months in, it was like, oh, we're doing okay. Word is spreading there's something new to do. And because our costs were fairly low, with staffing, um, we didn't need a ton of equipment besides what we already had. It was kind of like fixed cost. Yep. Um, it was It was mainly about just getting more people in through the door. Right? And we had enormous support from our community. Well, and that's the beauty of your kind of business and, and mine, even if I'm honest, a membership model kind of thing is like once you hit break even, then every additional dollar theoretically goes right to the bottom line. Although you keep adding value, adding new staff, adding new services, adding new things to try to bring more new members, right. At least you have a number that you can make sure you underspend. Yeah. Yes. That's the beautiful thing. Whereas, you know, a lot of industries, you're like unemployed every morning. And you don't, you know, unless somebody walks through the door and buys something, you don't know how much money you have next month. Yeah, that's a brewery. Right. Man, I wish we had subscriptions at the brewery. Right? That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. The membership model was wonderful, you know, to have that continuous support month after month. Uh, we made it very affordable for people to come in and, you know, it's all inclusive so they can take part in the yoga and the strength and conditioning, fitness and climbing as well. And so it was, um, not segmented. you know, saying we're upcharge here and, you know, premium membership here. We just wanted it to be all. Yeah. Just simple. Yeah. And on top of that, even if you're, let's say you're injured, cause that happens to climbers quite a bit and they can't climb. We have partnerships with local. Uh, the rehab place and we've got a partnership with, uh, you know, the bulk food market and, and you can go and get discounts at these places. So, you know, there's a lot more value. It's like a triple A almost. Lots of climbing gym. Was that in there from the start? And is that part of your design? Yeah. We always wanted to be in this like community collaborative space. Right. And, um, so we had, um, our community partners come in. early, and those continued to evolve and grow and, you know, shift and change a bit. But in general, we've had this community support. For example, um, the roost in Longmont, um, the runner's roost or just the roost. It's called the roost. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The roost is a restaurant. And, um, Sean and his team, they have three restaurants in Longmont and we, we got connected with them and we give their hoses You know, their employees membership and they give us some community that they provide food for some of our events, free food for members, things like that, or member appreciation parties, things like that. So it's, um, it's really fun. I mean, it's It's really what drives this. We could not do this alone. We don't do it alone in our partnership team of six. We don't do it alone with our staff of over 70, um, between both locations and our community partners are an extension of that. Yeah. Very cool. That's a actually super wise as far as like, it's so expensive to build a big voice. Uh, You know, from a marketing perspective or in a community. But if, if it's obvious that you're aligned with some other biggish voices, gosh, so much easier to, that's actually one of the biggest pieces of advice I share with, uh, with startup business owners is, you know, you're going to have to find an advocate. You know, somebody else that actually has a voice that can, that can kind of be aligned with you and because you're doing something valuable, but you'll probably be poor before you get rich, uh, with your current situation. And so that sounds pretty wise. Was that your marketing guy that came up with that? Or was that already gone? That was all. I'm not sure you needed him. I'm just kidding. We needed him. We needed No, I think, you know, that came back to our time overseas and really seeing how the community benefited. Um, just to give you an example, so we were part of this climbing community in South Korea and every weekend we would all get together and go to our crag. So it was an outdoor climbing area and that's the space that we took care of. So we made sure the bolts were safe. We made sure that there was no trash. We, you know, we. We took care of that space like we would have taken care of our indoor climbing gym. And, you know, that was such a unique experience. We'd never really had that before. And, you know, as expats living in South Korea, we wanted to give back. We wanted to not just be the expats that come in to party and do the things, but not participate in the care of, and so the care of the, the place that we love to spend time translated. Into our our gym here and how we structured our business and how we brought in our community partners because People like to be a part of something Meaningful. Yeah, and we realized it's really not a hard sell when you're on when you're in alignment with each other And we found a lot of great people that we were in alignment with Do you think you'd like to be an expat again? Mmm, I think about it frequently, Kurt, because I worked like 15 hours a week and had over 16 weeks of paid vacation. And now it's like, no paid, no, I get some paid vacation, but I work a lot more than that. Yeah. Um, but, you know, after almost 10 years of teaching, which I loved, I got to teach yoga over there, I was a dance instructor, that's part of my past. Um Got to spend a lot of time with our daughter, which was amazing. Um, we both felt the desire to make something meaningful and to build something. And we did try, uh, we did try overseas to build something with our nonprofit, but there was certain limitations being expats. So we, I think, you know, there are tough days that we think about. Well, it might not have been God's plan for you to have that nonprofit or the universe's will or whatever you want to say. Yeah. Yeah, so I think that, you know. In the, in the greater scheme, the bigger picture of it all, we wouldn't trade it. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe someday. Uh, I don't know if that, I could go back to it actually. I mean, after I would love to travel again, but not to have any job. Then not to have any job. Like, to be a consultant of some sort. Easy, easy consulting. Yeah. Right, yeah. Just consulting things. Does that even work? I don't think so. This guy. It's a lot of work. Yeah. I can vouch for that. For sure. You gotta step into someplace new. Um. We're gonna take a short break and when we come back we're gonna jump into The time machine and go back to upstate New York circa when the two of you met That was a fun break So, you know, we said we were going to jump in the time machine for the 17 things, but before we do that, I want to hear about the 17 things that you've got going on otherwise, because I know you have a brewery and you've been like a consultant in marketing Aaron and things like that, but I get the sense that there's more. Well, that's kind of enough, but I, I am planting the seeds for, for other things going forward. So um, the work that I do for sort of to survive for money, for, for money, you know, that's important. Um, is I work for a company called Dentsu, they're a big, uh, global advertising agency. Okay. So you never heard of them, but we do advertising for all the, you know, so many of the big brands are 67, 000 people. In. Oh, wow. Yeah, exactly. Okay. In, in Densu, if you ever received a piece of direct mail asking you to buy some insurance, that's likely to be interesting from me. Um, or I, I was involved in, in that in some way. Interesting. And so that, that was its own journey. Uh,'cause I went from Merrill Lynch, you know, working corporate. Right and to this advertising agency making the big it was a big switch you were in marketing for Merrill Lynch Yes in marketing for Merrill Lynch. Yeah, so we made the switch. I made the switch over the agency world and it was like Are you going to be able to do that? Is it, uh, it's so weird. It's such a, it's such a big, uh, you know, cultural shift, right? But I had this entrepreneurial vibe always. I've always, you know, kind of had ideas about things and, uh, David Williams was the founder, just to. I'm just a huge fan of, uh, David Williams, if you haven't heard of him. He's done some podcasts and he wrote a book and a bunch of different things, but he's an amazing leader. Took that business from 25 to 10, 10, 000 people. Sold it to Dentsu, but he, he always had something going on the side. So he, he's the biggest, uh, I think this is still the case. He's the biggest. Duncan Donuts franchise owner west of the Mississippi. Oh, he bought it from Jerry Jones had a bunch of these things So anyway, it was just a great role model for me. And so it was 2016 we started talking about doing the gym and I thought well David just doing this stuff. I think I could do something on the side here after after hours and so that's when I threw in with the gym, but I kept doing the That marketing. And then when we got sold to, or got bought by Dentsu, um, you know, that was like a four year process, the whole earn out and all that sort of thing. If you're familiar with that, how those processes go really, but well, when you buy a company, you want to make sure that company is going to do what they say, so they make you perform. for a period of time. Oh, and you'd worked hard enough for this pre Dentsu company, uh, to get a little bit of chips in the play and be key enough so you would get a a retention bonus Bingo, all that, all that stuff and so you're super motivated and um, we really went to But now you're out of all that so you're like wondering what's next No, well I'm out of, I'm out of the uh equity game, so to speak but that's when I moved from Merkle to Dentsu. something new. Again, it's just like entrepreneurial. Let's like, just try something new. And so I was running, um, you know, all these insurance and wealth management clients for them. And, uh, they said, well, you know, wouldn't it be fun to kind of do that globally? I didn't know anything about. global, uh, financial services. But I said, sure, why don't I give it a try? And so now I'm the global financial services guy and I get to travel all over the world to Japan and to New Zealand and, uh, Milan and London and, and talk about this morning, I was on with some people from Spain telling them about banking in Spain. It's all this crazy stuff. And that is a full time job plus. Right. Uh, well, and you. mail pieces for life insurance. My, my, so my, uh, my team, the team. Your firm does that now. Yeah, my firm does that. I used to be directly involved with that, and now I kind of do it with more thought leadership. I'm writing a book. Interesting. Uh, on transforming financial services through behavioral forms. Uh, psychology. Hmm. So, lots of different things and, you know, they allowed me to do that. Yeah. So, I've got I noticed a lot of banks are starting to talk about how we make it easy to see how you're spending your money now and different kind of periphery services for the average consumer. That's Like, when I started in banking, they all wanted to, like, zap you for as many overdraft fees as they could because that's how they made a lot of money. Turns out that, that was unpopular. Not that sustainable either. Yeah. Very. So anyway, that, that's, I spend most of my time doing that and my partners, uh, you know, at the gym and at the brewery, they're very accommodating, very understanding of that. And that was, it was part of the deal. Right? Like, hey, I gotta keep doing this, this thing. Um, and so, like, I blend my life, but everybody gets their fair share. Tell me about the, the brewery in South Carolina while we're brushing it. Is that, were you just such a smart marketing guy? They were like, here, you could have 7 percent of our brewery if you market for us or something. No, a little different than that. little different than that. So back to the family thing. Yeah. Every year, uh, my brother and I would go on a brother's vacation and we were doing this for many, many years and we started off hiking and camping and things like that. And then we ended up in cities and um, brewery tours, brewery tours, exactly. Doing brewery tours, urban hiking, my exact urban hiking. It's very strenuous. Well, it's not easy. It's not for the faint of heart to start at 11 o'clock in the morning and try to hit nine breweries. Exactly. I mean, it takes some stout. It takes stamina and intention to hit eight breweries in a day, no matter who you are. Turns out I'm capable of that. So we just kept dreaming about these ideas and what we would do. And when the earn out happened, I had a few bucks and my brother said, I got an idea for this. This is kind of, uh, my wife makes fun of me for this. So my brother said, I got an idea for you. Come down here to, uh, to the South where he lives in South Carolina. We actually went to Atlanta. We said, let's, let's get out. And we went to Atlanta. We rented at Airbnb and said, I got a proposal for you. So great. I didn't know what it was. Just flew down to Atlanta to hear what my brother had to say. Yeah. And he said, you know, we've been talking about, um, doing a bottle shop, which is basically like a, you know, liquor store, but it has craft stuff in it. Right. Events and things like that. And so we've been talking about doing a bottle shop and I thought that was the plan. So he says, let's do a, you know, let's come down here to talk. I'm thinking bottle shop. He goes, you know, I know you thought bottle shop, but. What if we got into making the beer, doing a brewery ourselves? And I said, yeah, let's do it. Way better idea. But let's, let's do it, but let's look at the business plan. And so we looked at the business plan. There's some solid, solid numbers in here. So I called Heather and I said, you know, you probably thought we were going to do this bottle shop thing, but we're going to, we're going to open a brewery. And she goes, Which one of you clowns knows how to brew beer? Like, well, nobody, but you know, we'll figure it out. Right. So we just decided we were gonna get into this and we did the planning and, and opened the brewery together. It's called Replay Brewing. Wow. It's got a 80, a really cool 80s theme, like Hubert Lights, and, uh, Pinball, and there, there are, um, it's a Pac Man, uh, bar top. We have Crazy Carl's Pizza in here, in Fort Collins, that might be a similar, a spirit cousin of your brewery. You'll have to check that place out. Nice. So we've been at that for now for two years. Uh, doing, doing a brewery. So we've got the gym, we've got the brewery, my wife's got her stuff. Um, and then I'm getting into photography. Nice. I really love photography. And with all the traveling, I take my camera, I hired a coach. You know, best way to really get good at something, hire a coach. Yeah, for sure. Uh, and I've been taking tons of pictures, motorcycle pictures, street photography pictures, landscape pictures. So this earn out thing, cause you grew, This previous firm, like, from 25 to 10, 000 people, right? I joined when it was 1800. It was like, Yeah, yeah. Sweet spot to get in. And then it was, I think, five years later that we got the earn out of it. Just cruised up. Yeah. But it was kind of like, a little bit like winning a lottery. And your brother's like, I got this brewery idea. And your sister's, or your wife's sister is like, Hey. We've got this climate. Yeah, yeah. I'm teasing. But you didn't get like retirement money, but you had some dry powder compared to the average American where you could actually put a chip on, on a, on a, on a horse that you were pretty confident about. Yeah. Right. You didn't just meet the horse. You know, that's the thing about success in business. Some, you know, it can be that you just get lucky. I don't think that's a very common occurrence, but of course some people just get lucky, right? Um, but it, it takes, it takes a certain amount of um, I don't know, just uh, confidence to, to get into a business. And my wife cashed out her retirement in order to get into the, the gym. So that's how we did it. We took the penalty and all of that. So it wasn't like we had a lot of excess chips. You weren't, you weren't juicy anymore. No, and I had to buy in. To the company. It wasn't like I got all kinds of stuff and so I had debt and had that not worked out. Oh yeah. I mean I think that's one worthwhile thing for people to know is that difference between building a job and building a company. Is a company will eat your lunch and send you to the poorhouse if it doesn't work. Right? It, it, like a, when you build a job, you can just quit, quit doing that job if you're a consultant. Yeah, exactly. And you stop getting clients. Well, it's like, well, then after four months, I stopped being a consultant and I stopped it. Yup. the bleeding, whatever light amount of bleeding that is, but I mean, what's the overhead for climbing collective? Uh, even right now, just with Loveland and Longmont, 50 grand a month. Well, oh man, I mean, if you cut the staff by half and just pay the rent. It would still be probably close to 100, 000 a month between those two existing Oh, wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, more than that. 100, 000 a month would be just wonderful. 200, 000 a month, yeah. And, and the, I mean, because you can't provide any services really, right, without any people. We have to have the staff. Right. And we have to have the amazing facility. Right. And we have to have the management to make it, to drive the engine, you know? So it's all important elements. And I think You know, that, that idea of taking risks when you, when you have a business, it's, you know, these like measured risks that, that you. Yeah, you like take your expertise and you say, okay, this is, these are the risks that I'm willing to take. These are the things that I'm willing to put on the line for Brian and I, we put, we, when we first moved to Longmont, we started buying houses and we would rent those houses. So we were in, you know, in Longmont houses were still pretty cheap. Yes, exactly. And that's, we put every single. house we owned on the line to open that gym. Right. And I remember that panic moment of like, this is everything we've got and we're putting it all This is based on our retirement plan. Yeah. Putting it, putting it in one pot. But we felt like this Was the direction that we wanted to go. And it's Yeah, just because you're an LLC. Oh yeah. You signed personal guarantees. You know this. Well, banks, their profession is making sure they pierce that guarantee. You know. That's right. You're all in. So, houses are on the line. They still are. And we've got children, you know. They, uh, she talked about having Hannah and I've got three girls. They all need to go to school. Well, they won't take your children. Um, but yes, it does change the risk profile a little bit. Yeah, exactly. Talk to me, well, we'll get, come to the family segment of the show, but, uh, talk to me about Hana while I'm thinking about it. Cause I was just in, uh, Hawaii this year and the road to Hana was, uh, one of our pathways. Hana, Hana was, uh, born in South Korea and she, of us, and, um, so her name means one in Korean and flower in Japanese. Oh, and we had spent some time in Japan. So it was like a nice merging of those two cultures. And, um, she is a fantastic, amazing kiddo who has lived in You know, all different kinds of situations and cultures, and now she's a 16 year old driving and, you know, going to high school and navigating high school, the high school world. We moved here and she was in first grade. Um, she plays volleyball and she loves climbing. She works at the climbing gym. She's, uh, a coach. kids. Very cool. And, you know, it was a big decision for us to move back to the United States. Not putting it all on her, but she did have expressed the interest in like being around people that looked a little bit more like her. She was quite a spectacle in South Korea. I imagine. Very, very blonde, fair skin. Um, you know, there's some novelty to that, but when you live there for a long time, you know, she just kind of got tired of that. Well, it's like 99 percent Korean, right? Yes. Yes. It's actually, uh, this is neither here nor there, but I wrote an article, a blog a few months ago about how ultimately the Koreans will almost have to unite because South Korea is built out and there's like nobody immigrating and they're having like 0. 78 children per Household. Yeah. And so the only way for them to find enough Koreans is to merge, re merge, reunify with North Korea. And South Korea is almost built out. They need a lot of open land and resources to utilize. And so therefore North Korea makes the most logical sense. Yeah. That would be, that would be quite an interesting I mean, there's a real problem with dictatorship and all that, totalitarian, but You know. But, ultimately, for both peoples, it would be a win win win circumstance. We, uh, Hana was born in Sokcho, which is very, very, it's an upper northeast corner of South Korea. Oh, wow. Right on the border. Not far from the demarcation, virtually. Exactly. And, um, we, there was a whole community of, of North Koreans who escaped. Really? And lived in South Korea and lived in Sokcho. Oh, fascinating. Specifically. And, um, you know, the Korean culture, we just fell in love with it. We just, it was very family oriented, even though we were different, you know, obviously, and expats, um, they really welcomed us into their, into their lives. And I think having a child. Really helped with that. Cemented that. Yeah. Um, and so we, we really loved our experience there and um, South Korea, the food, the people, the experience there will always like be close to our hearts and my daughter is dying to go back. You know, she, I'm sure she'll be a traveler when she's old enough to go out on her own to do that. So. You know, we usually jump in the time machine all the way back and do like a full, long, rambling thing. We're gonna run out of that today because my van, uh, isn't gonna be ready today, so I need to get a ride home from Alma, and I can't keep her way late, but, uh, so, because of that, we're gonna maybe have you back, but, um, Oh, great. We'd love that. But, so, I've got, there, we touched on the family. We always do a one word description of the children. Mmm. Shana. And so, do you have one word for Hana? Oh. It's a challenge. Resilient. Yeah? Yeah. Doesn't, doesn't stop her? No. I like it. Yeah. I've got three. Yeah, I was gonna say, we're coming back to you. Uh, Aaron, um, talk to me about family. Yeah. Just in general. You've talked about Heather a little bit already. Yeah, she's, she's a dream. Where'd you find her? I mean, obviously High school. You met her? Or actually, fourth grade. Yeah, yeah. She moved into the school in fourth grade. And is this your older sister or younger sister? Older sister, okay. Yeah, so I, I just kinda had a fancy for And we, uh, we didn't date in high school. It's one of those, like we were friends and there was stuff. And, uh, then we went to college separate. She was too cute for you. Oh, she was way too cool for me and too cute for me. There's no doubt about that. But you know, some of us are late bloomers and I went to, I went to college and I came back and, uh, just went to the Naval Academy and gotten to shape. And yeah, you know, stable, upwardly uniform and all that sort of thing. Uniform. You don't have to be that pretty. Uh, if you've got a uniform and you got stability, uh, yeah, anyway, exactly. So anyway, we, uh, we started dating after college and we've been married now 27 years. Congratulations. Thank you so much. So we have three beautiful daughters and it is wonderful to be the father of daughters. Yeah. Oh, it seems terrifying to me. Like, look at all these boys circling around, especially when you're a father of blonde daughters, probably. Yeah, three blondies, yes, exactly, which is a little bit of Heather's chagrin because she's a brunette. Oh. She says, what? She tried to tell me, she says, you know, all the kids are going to be brunette because that's a dominant gene. I said, we, I got dominant blonde, do you? You don't even know. You don't even know. So they're all, yes, they're all, they're all blonde, but, uh, Faith is 23. Okay, and 24 and then Charlotte or Claire is 21 and Charlotte is 18 Wow, and so they're all in different places in their life Yeah, yeah faith lives here in Colorado and she participates in one of the premier industries in Colorado She works at a dispensary perfect and she's really I call it the dr. Weed Because she's just, she just knows everything about there is and she's super passionate about that. So one word for her is I think she's sort of a free spirit. Yeah. Uh, love her. Uh, and then Claire. The one, this won't have a big meaning to anybody except people who know. She's a T'leer. You know, she is a. She is driven. She is independent. I'm going to do it myself. So she's at University of Tampa. And she is, um, she's studying for nursing and healthcare and all that. And it's very, nursing is super competitive. You know, even though there's all this demand for that, it's really hard to get into that. And she got a C in, like, Chemistry or biology or something, they said, nope, you're, no more nursing for you. But then they have an allied health, and allied health has so many possibilities, and healthcare is just massive. So she's looking at, um, uh, the, what's that, the, uh, it's not, it's not a doctor, but it's like a doctor's, uh, Assistant, like a PA. Oh, PA. Yeah, PA. Physician's assistant. Yeah. And she just started, yes, uh, Which is almost as good as a doctor and takes less school. Fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. She's super into it. She got her first pair of scrubs. She's out there doing it and she's going to Australia next year to study overseas. And she just did that. It was like, no prompting. No, she just, she's like, Hey, you know, I'm going to Australia next year. Oh, good. Good for you. That's fantastic. So she's, she's a Taylor. Um, she's awesome. And then Charlotte is, like, I like to say that, you know, if, like, Faith is, like, over here, free spirit, on the left hand side, and Claire's over here, on the right hand side, and, like, driven, and purpose, you know, she's in a sorority, and all that sort of thing. Charlotte's, like, here. Like, it's like Mega Triangle because she's not on a continuum. She's her own person. Uh, and she, I would say she's like an old soul. We're gonna put a hyphen in there and make it one word. She's just really, really special. And she's up here in Fort Collins. Oh cool. Uh, first year doing computer science. Okay. But we, we're, we're gamers. So we play games and uh, Hearthstone, if you know anything about that. But um, we, she, she switched over to Is it a card game? It was a, it's like a online. Okay. Card game, yeah. I'm gonna write it down just in case I want to look it up. Super fun, super fun. But then she kind of got out of that, because it can be pay to play a little bit, so then she got into chess. Oh. And so now we're, you know, now we're super competitive on the chess. And, uh Yeah, chess is something that you definitely need to spend some time with. Like, it doesn't matter how fast your processor is. Uh, and like, you can't just know the rules and get good at it. It's hard. It's so much to learn. It's complex. It's complex. And there's only whatever 20 Four pieces or something and so many squares. It's like, well, it's like anyway, this is a tangent, but it's like game theory, right? Like it's like human existence Chess is almost infinitely Variable and infinitely challenging. Yes after whatever a thousand years of people playing it on this little square box That's got like whatever 12 squares to a side or something like that, right? Yeah, there's only so many possible moves life is so much more Indeed complicated in business, especially entrepreneurial life. You guys were talking about all the decisions that come. That's right. And so she's my game player. She's my logic. Uh, but she's really, really special to my little buddy. Very cool. Um, let's talk about, uh, talk about politics or faith first. I mean, we can't talk about it. I think we should start with faith. Oh, and before we do that though, um, Shauna, I want you to talk about your hunky husband. Oh! This world class climber. Where did you find him, and uh, what was it about? Uh, him or you that sparked the, uh, draw? Well, he kind of spotted me. This was, uh, my freshman year at Shenandoah University. Dance major. Alright, yeah. We brushed against that briefly. Yep. He's a, um, sports, sports science physiolog, physiology major. I don't remember what he majored in. Was he a college athlete? Yes, he was a lacrosse player. Well, started off with soccer, then moved to lacrosse. Oh, very, very athletic. One of these type of people who could pick up any sport, and he's just good at it. Naturally good. Didn't have to go lift weights, didn't have to do a bunch of stuff. He's just naturally strong, naturally, like, able to pick up new skills and integrate them. And I would say that that Has translated into business. There's been so many things that he's just figured out how to do. He's a he's a Definitely like a hustle kind of guy. Mm hmm figure stuff out and makes it work. Yeah so yeah, we met in college and Pretty small school. So his side of the story is often that he Uh, and I think that's what kind of snatched me up right away, right before you, before I was, uh, had a chance to get too corrupted or, uh, out into the sea of college guys. That's fair. And, um, my wife was 19 when I met her. Yeah. Uh, and I didn't date her. You were 18? I was 25. Uh, so I could, I, I, I told her, I'm like, I'm hands off. Like you're, you're younger than my sister and that just doesn't right. Uh, and then like two years later, I was like, JK, uh, but, but there was something too, like, connecting, like, I almost didn't feel right. Um, I remember snatching her up at 19 and it was almost better when she, not just because she could go to the bars with me at 21, but because she kind of needed to become her own person a little bit. Well, Brian just snatched me up. He just grabbed you. But he gave you a long leash anyway and like you guys became expats and. Yeah, I think there was like no leash. Right. And so that was one of the things that allowed us to be together for four years of college and continuously now we've been married for. what is it, 24 years? Yeah. And so we've allowed each other to grow and we've allowed each other to evolve. And so, you know, when we met, we were, we were kids, we were just babies, you know, and so we've grown together. And a big thing that I've always admired about Brian is that, um, first of all, he's very funny. Um, he made me laugh right away, which is a big part of our relationship. Um, but also like, His determination, his like work ethic and his vision. So like when we moved out to Colorado, I was mentioning about the real estate and buying houses and things like that. And I was like, what? Why do you wanna buy a bunch of houses? What are you talking about? You know, his father, unfortunately passed away, left us some inheritance, and that was what we used to buy the first rental home that we still own, actually. Right? And you know, I just, I couldn't quite see it, but he's always been able to see it. He can see the big picture. He's a big dreamer and I support his dreams and I, and he supports my dreams as well. So I think, like, we work together collaboratively in that way, and he's always just dreaming big. Yeah. He, um, I dig it. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize it, but it's very possible that he would be a great member for our local think tank, honestly. Yes, absolutely. Uh, because he is such a vision caster for the rest of this group. Mm hmm. And, it's hard, you know, and when there's big million, multi million dollar decisions on the line about the next thing, and the next person, and this key person that's helped me for five years, but I'm gonna have to let him go. It's nice to talk to somebody that isn't, like, right there with you. Yeah, and he's had a lot of people like that. I would say Aaron is one of those people that he's relied on. Um, he's had other, he did work for a dot com for a while, that was DoubleClick, that was bought out by Google, and he still has, like, connections in that business world. He was a programmer for a while. Right. Um, and so, like, he, he's able to kind of Very multi disciplined. Yeah. Like, there aren't that many Uh, First Ascent Climbers that are also programmers. Programmers, and with a, um, accident, uh, Like a exercise cardiologist background, like, um, yeah, so he has like the medical background, the wellness background as well as having the, um, business fortitude, the business vision and the climbing, the physicality of that kind of puts it all together. So he doesn't, he doesn't do anything halfway. Yeah. I think one of the distinguishing characteristics about Brian is his ability to suffer. Yeah. He, he'll say this. Oh yeah. He'll say this. So he, he just can take more than most people. Yeah. And when we were building the gym and when we under, when we said, Oh, well we're going to go from this rented facility, we're going to buy one, we're going to build a world class gym in Longmont and then, Oh, maybe let's expand to Greeley. It was like, no, you know, Brian's going to make it happen. And he, when we were building the gym, we all pitched in like, I don't want to, I don't want to short anybody on their, on their commitment. Right. Right. But. But he suffered a lot. He, he just, he was there every night he was there when, you know, in the beginning, in the morning and he would stay at night, we'd joke like, do you have a cot here? And then, and then, you know, he has a bum, he was having a bum knee and then the gym opened. He's like, okay, now I'm going to go get surgery and like, he just. through that and it's, it's this belief. He inspires this belief in everybody. Like we're just, we're just going to, we're going to happen. And it's actually really good for people like I've been trying and I I'm honestly the last two weeks I haven't done it yet, but I've been trying like at least twice a week to do a shiver shower, you know, just turn all the hot water off and stand in the cold water for at least three minutes before you get out and. Curse the fact that but because it's good for you like to do uncomfortable things and Like it sounds like that's at least part of his persona. Yeah, and at the new gym We have a plunge pool so you can get in and do the whole like, you know I think shiver and that's that's Brian's plan, right? Yeah, exactly, right? Yeah. Well because most people don't necessarily Identify that with Success. Mm hmm. It's kind of funny, but early in my banking career, there was, there was actually, uh, David Veldman is his name, and he was a, a collegiate athlete here at CSU, track star, I think. Um, but they had the first commercial real estate firm. And he rode his bike down to the Boulder Boulder, and ran in the Boulder Boulder, and then rode his bicycle back to, to Fort Collins or whatever. Yeah. And I'm like this 24 year old guy, and I'm from North Dakota, right, and I'm kind of a bohunk, or whatever, and I'm like, It seems like you, if you get really rich, that means you don't have to ride your bike to Boulder. Like, you just drive your Lamborghini, or whatever, right? And you don't run, but doing hard things. Challenging things that you make you suffer is kind of part of what keeps you ready for the next thing. Yeah. Well, I'll give you one more example, at least one more of Brian's choices. Like, uh, beginning of the pandemic, we were trying to figure stuff out. We were trying to figure out what's going on with the gym, but he'd been thinking for a while, you know, climbing is not presenting the same kind of challenges that it was. He'd done numerous attempts at different mountains in the Himalayas. And he said, you know what I really don't like to do? I really don't like to ride my bike. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to ride my bike from Seal Beach, California, all the way across the United States to, um, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. And I was like, well, that sounds like a terrible idea. Right. Why would you want to do that? And he's like, I need. to challenge myself with something new. And he was by himself, no support staff, no, you know, vans driving next to you to make sure you're not going to pass out in the desert, literally the middle of the pandemic, riding his bike across the United States. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Can't really function well without. An actual hard challenge in their, in their face. Yeah, and, and Hannah and I, to our, to our testament, we did join him for the entire state of Missouri. Oh, nice. So, we did join for I mean, it's a pretty big state. It's a pretty big state. And a, and a less sexy than other states. You know. Right, even through the hardest stuff. I mean, Nebraska might have been, it's, it was bigger and not, and even less interesting, but. Yeah. So we wrote the Katy Trail, which is like the railroad that they've Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we did the Katy Trail with him. Um, loved it. I love riding my bike. Yeah. So I, I'm not a, I'm not the same type as Brian. I don't choose the suffer, so I enjoyed myself. Right. Hannah is on the fence. She doesn't know if she likes bike riding anymore. Yeah, yeah. But that's just a good example of like him always choosing the path. That's the path of most resistance. Yes, it could be some way like presenting the most challenges. And then he learned so much. And, you know, he got an opportunity to speak at Aaron's company conference. And that was a really Amazing opportunity. And so he's like, maybe I'll, I'll do this thing where I, you know, have a book and talk about my things. And I'm like, great, let's build the gyms first. And then really, yeah. But I like it. Yeah. Um, let's talk about politics. COVID nation was like right there fully present. While you guys were building this planning the next phase and stuff. Yeah, I was actually Working hard to start a chapter in Longmont in the summer of 21 Okay and I had found a facilitator that actually was one of my first podcast guests that wanted to start a chapter to to lead a group of smaller business people around and and we've had a couple of few gatherings had a few people interested and then mask mandate came back on in the fall of 21 in Boulder County and, or maybe July, August. And I was like, fuck it. I'm done. I'm leaving. I'm not going to start this chapter in Longmont. And fuck it. I put a lot of time and effort into it. And, and frankly, I couldn't bring people together in person anymore. And so it was just like, I'm just, I'm just not, I went to, I had an outdoor brewery event. I tried to catch traction, but anyway, that, that season in particular, especially that second season, because it was the fall of 21 when it came back on. Right. Yeah. And I have to think that that lack of certainty in a membership model, kind of a business like yours where everybody's going to be in person touching each other almost. Yeah. was significant. So anyway, tell me about that. Not to, but because that's my experience of COVID nation was, it's what chased me out of Longmont. Maybe for the best. Yeah. Maybe for the best. Maybe not. Maybe it was just the right time. Well look, I mean, COVID was, no one knew what was going on. Right. And I think we need to allow each other some latitude. We were, we were trying different stuff and people tried different models. Right. And that's what's, I think that's one of the wonderful things about the United States is our Federalist Model 50. 50 unique experiments. Totally. Well, even within each state, there was like. Uh, like Death Valley, California had a decidedly different culture than did Los Angeles, uh, New Jersey, Princeton, New Jersey, which is where I was, totally, totally different. And so I, I don't judge what, what, no matter what side of the spectrum you're on, I don't judge you were right or you were wrong. People were trying stuff and, and that's what we had to do to survive. And we've We figured it out together and, you know, we got to the other side of it. Okay. Such a unique, uh, experience of everyone in the entire world experiencing something similar. Never seen anything like that before. Yeah, and that just kind of, you know Except for maybe the Cold War ish in the earlier days Maybe. in the 80s, maybe, when there were scud races and, or not, you know Mr. Size competitions. But there, you know, every single person in the world was touched in some way by the pandemic. And I agree with Aaron, I'm very much on the same wavelength that everybody was trying to do what seemed right for them. Yeah. And, you know, I think that the Um, chafing came when there was a lot of judgment against someone who was doing something different. And what we tried to do in our business is follow what the county was telling us to do. Um, listen to our staff and our members. But have, um, a set of protocols and guidelines that, as a business, we really did need to follow. Right. So that we were able to stay open. At least set the, set the standards that were expected. Exactly. Exactly. And so we kind of leaned into that. No matter our individual beliefs, we had this set of guidelines that was put in front of us as a business. We felt it was important to adhere to those to make sure that we could keep our doors open. And so we expressed that when we had issues with members who didn't want to wear masks or people who wanted to wear masks longer, you know, the whole thing back and forth. Um, we really tried to stay as neutral as we can and just say, we're aligning with what the people that know more than us are saying we should do. Um, and I think that that, that In the end, you know, was, was the right, was the right way to go because we're, we're still open. Yeah, fair. That was probably like If I want to give Trump credit for something, it was kind of letting the different states be different during that time. Um, if I wanted to criticize Biden, it would probably be kind of, and it was the federal, not Biden necessarily, but the federal government really put a lot of national scope things into place, like immediately after the Trump presidency was over. And like the OSHA thing, like that was a, frankly, to me, an abuse of power, uh, to have a federal agency trying to set policy like that. It's such a, it's such a fine line. Or maybe it was a protection of people, right? There's an Office of Safety and Hazard, right? Or whatever that is. Right. Well, you know, you talked about life and business being harder than just try governing the world. Right? Right. And so, there's so, there's so many different choices that we could be making. And if you think about the United States, the world population is what, 8 billion? The United States has 350 million people. So we're what, 4 or 5 percent? of the world's population. Well, we had like 15 percent of the COVID deaths, so that was less than glamorous. Yeah. So the point, the point of that being, it's really complex to work in mostly because we're fatter in the, you know, and, and, and less equatorial ultimately. Um, so tell me. We, we have right now and I don't, you're probably not a student of this, but right now the World Health Organization is like, let's make it so we have clarity about the rules next time there's a pandemic. You just, everybody has to sign onto this. How do you feel about that? I don't really know too much about it. So I don't know if I want to like weigh in with a specific opinion, but I, I would say that I think having some preparation in advance, um, would make a lot of sense. Okay. Um, some kind of. guidelines that can be agreed upon as a foundation. I think, like I mentioned, we leaned into that as a business. It made, it seemed common sense. It seemed like it made sense. It's hard to make those decisions on the fly without any kind of background or any kind of preparation. And I'm sure there's people in the government that would say, we've been preparing for this, but it wasn't really put in place or whatever. Um, so, I don't want to But would you like an extra national organization, a world organization to be the decider? Or would you rather have your county health department be the decider? No. Thank you. That's the answer I was looking for. Yeah. I mean, I don't think a, I don't think something to, for the world, but per state, I think that that would make sense. Something that could give guidelines, um, for the state as a whole. Um, I don't know. Okay. It feels, it feels like there was a lot of, a lot of sort of reactionary decisions that were made at that time, um, that was, made a big impact negatively or positively on someone's life. What should we do? Yeah. Yeah. So something is better than nothing. So let's let the somethings be mutually agreed upon in advance. I would agree with that. Yeah. You know, sort of look, take a long term historical perspective. We haven't been living in a global world. Right. For very long. For very long. And the truth is, somebody gets on a plane, Right, it's already broken. To be, you've got AI, right, which can cross borders. There's, there's so many border crossing activities that we, we have to, we have to create a global community. Does that mean we have to have global mandates? I certainly hope not. Right. But we have to collaborate. We have to come together as a collective and, you know. There you go. Right, right, right. Yeah. Aww. I didn't even plan that. Aww. Ha ha ha. Ha ha. So, um, you know, I think we, we need, again, just as we allow each other to have some personal differences, we need to allow for that at the local, the state, the, the national and the global level. Yeah. I think that's the biggest challenge that the world faces right now is. How to decide where most of the, cause we, we, like the anarchists are not going to win. Like, we're not going to have anarchy be the rule of the day unless we want to end humanity, kinda. Here's hoping that they don't win. But, like, within that, there's like, local, state, federal, global, like there's, right now, I would say we're probably Minimally regulated on the local level in comparison, and the state is relatively modest, and federal is probably the biggest in our country, or at least the biggest it's ever been. And then the global's pretty small, but a lot bigger than most of us would prefer it. Like, what's the right balance of those things? I would, I would submit that putting a bunch more into the local side, And a bunch less into the global side and the federal side would be better for humanity because it's so hard to be a centralized planner and get information that you actually need. Well, you're absolutely right about that. But at the same time, you know, as our, as our nation of 320 million or 50 million or whatever, whatever it is, we've got a responsibility to play in the global, Right. Economy and the global conversation. I think we should just create as many viruses as we can so that Pfizer and Merck can sell drugs to the whole world. Can't we all agree on that? Because we got the best pharmaceutical companies ever. Like that was my big challenge is maybe probably you guys made this and you're going to sell us the solution to it. Not to stick on COVID, but that's like, that's a, as an economist, the moral hazard involved in that. situation is just over the top. Anyway, I digress. Maybe it wasn't that way. Um, Hey, let's move on. I don't mean to trap you in there. It just had me thinking because frankly, my climbing gym member john was as impacted as anybody from the covid situation. A lot of us do things that were essential and a lot of us do things that Weren't that physically close to each other? Yeah, and so anyway, it was on my mind a little bit And especially given the timing of your guys's transition and growth. Yeah. Well, there's no there's no easy answer That's I mean, I think that's the whole point here Kurt. Yeah I'm trying to get to it's an absolute dilemma. So we just we need to have a con We need to keep the conversation going we need to talk and you know when we you brought the The point about politics, it's like this, I'm just dying to say one thing about politics, which is, there's no, there's no teams. Right? We don't need a blue team and a red team. What we need is to be one team. And that doesn't mean we can't have different opinions, we can't have different roles, we can't do different things, but we have to kind of work toward some common ground. And that's just not where we are today. We're probably really close to getting our second independent candidate. Joe Manchin announcing later this week would be my guess. You think he's going to announce that? Yeah, I think so. And then, unless he joins Robert Kennedy's ticket, but I doubt that. Um, and so we'll have Biden, Trump, Manchin, and Kennedy. Well, you know, it's very interesting because the idea Maybe we're starting to see the end of the blue red. No, no we won't. You don't think so? No. They're too entrenched. Just look at history. It's always blue red. In the United States it is. Well All the wigs came out of nowhere and kind of Meaning it's always A, B. Right. Right. It's always, you know, one choice or the other choice. And I was thinking, I was reflecting on, you know, politics and the hardest place to live is in the center. Mm hmm. Because if you live in the center Yeah. Sometimes you're, sometimes you're A, and sometimes you're B. It's actually being a libertarian is the hardest place, because then both the Democrats and the Republicans hate you more than they hate the other side. Right? And so sometimes, sometimes you're with A and B, and you don't have this, like, tribe that, that's backing you, because as soon as, let's say you're, you're mostly A, and then suddenly you decide to do, throw a little B in there. Right, right. No, they don't like that. A rejects you and then B's not going to take you. So living in the center is the hardest place to be. It takes the most courage to live in the center. And just for that very reason, I don't think you're ever going to see a centrist. I, uh, the, uh, Dad Jokes on the YouTube Shorts was one of my favorites today, and it said I, uh, I decided to teach my kids about democracy last night, and so, uh, I had them vote on a choice for a movie and a choice for which kind of pizza we should order, and then I ordered the movie I wanted and the pizza I wanted because I have all the money. There you go. Well, isn't that how it works? Yeah, I think so. That's how it works. Pretty sure that's how it works. There you go. Lesson learned. Yeah. That's how it works. Yeah. So I think we need to continue down that road, and one of the things that I am really passionate about, and I'm involved to a degree, is the idea about having more parties. More choices, and it starts with election reform. And that's I'm down. Election reform's gonna That has to be the first ingredient, because unless we, we change, you know, first past the post, and Yeah. Well, the Libertarians will never succeed, frankly, because there's just no money in supporting Libertarian candidates that aren't going to do anything with the stick of government for you anyway. So why would I donate to that jackass? He can't even do anything for me. Yeah. So either approval voting or ranked choice voting is a way to start moving us towards that. Shauna, you look like you had something to add. Oh, I was just going to say that, um, I, I'm not, uh, very strongly political. Um, I tend to get pretty worked up. about things. Um, I'm feel things very deeply. And so when I see people being marginalized or not listened to, that's hard. Even even the people that are saying things they don't agree with. And this is something I've been working on since 2020 election. You want to defend those people? Um, not defend necessarily. It's just listen. Right. And so I think if we can come to a place where we can actually Listen to the other side. Oh, right. Often times we, we find some commonality. There's something there and we experienced that living overseas for a long time and coming from very different backgrounds and cultures and saying like, Oh, actually we're not all that different. You know, we might take different roads to get to the same place, but many of us are feeling similar. Now there's certainly a big, uh, variety within that. But I think if we could get to that place a little bit more frequently, where we're not in the reactionary place, we're actually listening to opposing views and, um, allowing people to express themselves without the, um, Without the one goal of changing someone's mind, I think that would be a huge step in the right direction. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. And just for clarity for my listeners, so they don't cancel me. I have not voted for Donald Trump. I don't expect to, uh, I just try to look at things from afar a little bit. Uh, because everybody's messed up. It seems like at the upper levels of our political conversation, good ideas can come from anywhere. I do think that integrity is an important aspect to any candidate. Anyone who's going to represent us in the world needs to have integrity. So when you find. Uh, a candidate that reflects that, then that's the direction that, that might like be where you go and the, where you put your heart and where you put your energy and your focus. I would definitely do that. And I haven't voted for a mainstream candidate for president in the United States since my first vote, which was for Ross Perot, uh, because I haven't really seen integrity, honestly, for the most part. It's all about who's coercing the right dollars. I mean, the Republicans hated Clinton. Because he was better at the game than they had been at squeezing the right dollars out of the right people and influencing policy and then, you know, things change and things happen. Anyway, I'll move on. Um, because we still have to talk about faith. I can tell you're excited about that, Shana. Yeah, sure. You ready? Okay, you want to start us? Um, uh, sure. I, I mean, I say faith instead of religion because I think it's more about, like, what is it that drives you? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that, um You know, when I, even when I was very, very young, I went to church and I was a Lutheran, brought up Lutheran. Um, very loving. Missouri Synod. Yes, Missouri Synod. Missouri Synod, so the conservative ones, right? Yes. The good ones. Exactly. Just kidding. Um, yeah. And I was brought up in a really, like, loving church family, um, for sure. It just, there were just parts of it that just didn't sit right. I asked a lot of questions at a young age. Questioned. Big questions, big existential questions of like, why am I here? What is my purpose? What does this all mean? How are we all connected? Why would God want all the Hindus to go to hell? Yeah. Why, why would that, you know, why, why would they want good people to go to a terrible place when they're so good people, you know? So I started sort of exploring other organized religions, which felt in my grasp at the time. And then, um, I started to move towards, um, spirituality, and that was guided by yoga, and, um, my understanding of myself, and traveling overseas was a big part of that journey. Although South Korea is definitely the most Christian of Eastern places. I've spent quite a bit of time in, um, in Thailand, in Laos, and in India. Um, and so just give having the opportunity to sort of unearth who I really was. And when I started to discover that the answers that I was sort of searching for were already inside of me, and I didn't have to go to another country or absorb another culture, learn another way of being that The guidance was there already. Then I didn't have to push back into religion quite so hard, and I became a lot more accepting because my family is still very religious. Heather and Aaron are very religious, and I I didn't like that. feeling of divisiveness that I would often feel, um, kind of going to church and, you know, being a part of that. But I, I've found my way back to being very accepting of, of however you want to live your life and just make sure that it works for you. And don't. Don't make me feel guilty for how I live my life and then it's all good. And so I think that they didn't really grab on to any of those other traditions to speak of, but self map. Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, I've been guided by the awareness of body. The connection to mind, the release from incessant thoughts, um, guidance of energy that exists within the body. Um, so all of those things continue to guide me. It's part of how I teach when I teach yoga, I do yoga teacher trainings and I help other people. on that same path discover themselves. So it's not about prescribing to whatever beliefs I might have, but it's more about helping you discover who you are and who you want to be in the world and show up for others. Do you have any concern that, like, if we have our own path, then there isn't really, like, a, a rule book of sorts? Like, like, what the, you know, if we're I've heard it said in a podcast crudely, but if we're all walking meat bags, why not just do a little stabby stabby and grab somebody's purse? Cause it doesn't matter or whatever. Like there's, there's certain rules or standards that you live by. I can tell that just by from listening to you, that integrity is super important and things like that. But That's why I think organized religion is good for a lot of people. I think that there are some who need the, not need, but, um, prefer maybe the structure, yeah, if you will, prefer the guidelines and that that feels right to them. It fits. It is in alignment. I use that phrase a lot for yoga. We actually in alignment. But I think that, for those of us who don't feel like we need that sort of, um, guideline. I like to just do whatever I want, too. It's cool. We don't, don't necessarily need the guideline because it's kind of clear. Yeah, no, I think that's true. And when it doesn't make sense, then it doesn't feel good and that doesn't last for very long. In my, in my experience. Fair. Fair enough. Yeah, but the golden rule, does that kind of help you? Or the platinum rule, which is better? Um, you know, I think, I, I've, yes. I try to do, I try to treat others like I'd like them to treat me. And I try to show up in the world in a way that feels responsible, feels aware, feels kind, feels beneficial. Yeah. So, to me, that's, that's what I need and, um, my daughter has a very strong moral compass, I always tell her. Okay. She didn't really need a lot of guidance in that, in that way. She's always just kind of known, similar to Charlotte. She's an old soul. Yeah. She I do too. I've got a really strong moral compass and I have a strong tendency to do the things that are pointing south on the compass. Well, south maybe is the direction you needed to go. No, no, not generally. Uh, or whatever. Yeah, south means to hell, in that metaphor. But I mean, not to say that your daughter is that or that you're that, but I've studied a fair bit of ethics, I understand the Bible at a pretty high level, and I have some inclinations to do exactly the opposite of the prescribed behavior given the circumstances sometimes. And so I think that's where the, maybe the value of community and whatever is involved. You know, you, you express who you are to the people around you that care about you. And, you know, the people that really do care about you are going to let you know when you're straying off the path. You know, like, hey. I like that. What's, what's going on? I know that my husband and I do that for each other, you know, we were both in the same place with you. Um, I think he's not as much, um, enamored with like the energetic forces or sort of unseen. He's, he's very logical. He's very like kind of, so he'd be more with like the Stoics and the Greeks or something like that. Kind of a pre christian, I think he'd love to throw his chips in with the Stoics if he could. It's possible from what I've heard so far, that's fair. I think so. But I think that it's It's important for you to take the time to figure out what path is the right path for you. Whatever you were brought up in, however you were raised, I think that plays a certain Role in your evolution, but then there needs to come a time when you're like, I'm deciding. Yeah. Yes. I'm deciding which direction I'm going to go, what makes sense to me, what is relevant and what is important and what I want to spend my energy and time on and what What was important for a time and what was useful for a time and to me that the Bible isn't, isn't very useful. It never was, but it's an interesting book and I like stories. So, you know, and I think Jesus was a really cool guy. He did some cool stuff, but it was a guy. Yeah. Then there were many wonderful teachers in our history who were able to provide inspiration for people. Was he a supernatural being and not in my belief system, but I think he was. It's A OK in my book. Okay. Fair enough. All right. Uh, I'm gonna move on, otherwise we'll run way late here. Erin, no, I'm gonna come back to it. Uh, well, like, when I was a kid, uh, it was like God versus Big Bang as the creator of the thing. Was there, was there a designed plan that started from a point of consciousness and intelligence? Or was it a happy accident and Look, here we are. And there isn't that kind of aggregation of thought or planning or intelligence that preceded the spawn of actual creation of matter. Yeah, big question. One of those things is true. What's the answer, Shawna? I don't know. Oh my gosh, wow. Um, I think, you know, I'd have to really sit with that and think about it. I don't, I'm not a really big proponent of happy accidents. I don't think that everything is predestined necessarily, but I don't necessarily think that, uh, it's an accidental. evolution of humankind. I think that there is some kind of greater intelligence of design. And I think that that's not necessarily at all able to be grasped by our human brains, at least in their current state. So I think that there, there's sort of a, a mixture. There's not the divine creation story in my mind, but That's not an accidental, like, this just happened one day and we all evolved to where we are right now. I, uh, saw a little clip from Elon Musk talking maybe on Lex Friedman's podcast the other day about, Are we living in a simulation? And he's like, well, if we are, like, somebody set this up because they didn't know What the outcome of the simulation would be like that's like we make lots of simulations about rockets and stuff And it's because we don't know what's gonna happen It's not like we're all these marionettes on strings, even if we are a simulation, we still should do stuff and try hard Because we don't know. Yeah. Yeah what the outcome is gonna be and neither does our creator Otherwise, what would be the point? Um, Aaron, you come from a different perspective, at least to an extent it sounds. Yeah, I think very different. Um, I've been called to be a follower of Jesus. It's, it's really that simple. Starting when? Um, well, interestingly, you know, there, there is this thought that, you know, sort of your upbringing. But neither of my parents went to church. Uh, I had to say, hey, could you drive me to the church? Yeah, yeah. At like, you know, seven. Interesting. How does that happen? Yeah, yeah. Right? Was her sister there? No. Oh, okay. But if she was, I would have gone. For sure. For sure. I did go to her confirmation, uh, which is a very funny story because I thought she was Catholic. And I, I was Protestant and I thought, Oh, this might not work out because she, Interesting. And you're like, this is like, you as a 12 year old, 13 year old. Well, when, when, when do you get confirmed? 13? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I just thought, Oh, this is, this, this might, this be, might be a problem. Um, not because I have a problem with, uh, Catholicism versus, I'm from a place where only there's, there's only Lutherans and Catholics and everything's cool. Everything's great. Unless you start talking about. Serious dating or marriage, and then it's like, wait a second, hold the, hold the phone. So, my, my grandma Although nowadays, frankly, it's probably like Oh, good. At least they're a Christian. You know? Could be. Yeah. They're not like a yoga girl. Just kidding. Love ya. Just teasing. Um. So my grandmother, uh. And I do yoga all the time, by the way. Uh. Just for what it's worth. Okay. My grandmother would take me to church. Um. And she, I don't know how old she was at the time, maybe late 70s. And so. Oh, wow. I used to go with her to the, uh, Alpha class is what they called it. The Alpha class was like all the old ladies. And you know, Alpha and Omega. But they were kind of like, Oh, well, fresh start, eh? Alpha, right? Let's, let's not be the omega class. We'll be the alpha class. So they were the alpha class and I would go with them and I would sit with all the old ladies and I just loved it. Um, and they were so kind to me and they allowed me to, when they were doing the Bible readings, they would say, Oh, Aaron, it's your turn. And you, you read. And there was a cute girl or two at grandma's church. So that didn't hurt, you know, and I would go over every so, every so often, but the first kind of. Uh, moment that I recall from like having a faith thought, um, was there, there was the church was kind of, sometimes it would be noisy and you would have kids running around and. Some of the older people didn't like that, right? It was disturbing the sanctity of the service. And the next week, the pastor preached on, you know, let the little children come. And I was a little child. And I kind of thought, well, this is kind of cool. I really like this way of, of thinking. Like, let's, let's let each other sort of be, let's not be so prescriptive. Yeah, yeah. Well, and if anything, like, that's the message of Jesus, right, as compared to this thousand year long buildup that the Jews had done of putting, you know, they started with the Ten Commandments, and pretty soon they got Pantiuch and the, um, all these other books, and they got 800 rules for life instead of ten. Yes. And Jesus is like, let's just bring it back down to ten. Love God, and love your neighbor, and if you do that good, we won't have to worry about most of the things that are wrong with the world. So anyway, I went to church, and I was doing my thing, and uh, I was sitting on my grandmother's front lawn. I was probably twelve? I don't know. I don't know. And I was reading a programming book, because I was that kind of kid. And some guy came up, approached me on the lawn, and he, he started relating to me about this programming book. I had no idea where he was taking this thing. And the next thing you know, we're talking about Jesus. And I just He said, will you pray with me? And we prayed. And I, that was your moment. That was the moment. And the thing was, nobody knew that that happened to me. I didn't come in and go, grandma, grandma, you know, I've just come to what you've been doing. I've been reading my computer book. I didn't go home, tell my parents none of that. I just, so I just kept going to church. And then, um, yeah, we went to a Methodist church. So my grandmother went to Presbyterian church and I went to a Methodist church and I got sort of, sort of confirmed there, but Not really. Uh, and then I went to, to the Navy, and the Navy is kind of, You know all denominational either it's either like Jewish Catholic or Protestant so they kind of grew up all the process together So I kind of went to Protestant services and then in the Navy I would go to service on the ship again Protestant service versus Catholic service and then we moved to we moved to Scotch Plains, New Jersey and went to church there and we went to a Heather wanted to go to a Lutheran church because that was she was very comfortable in a Lutheran church. And so we went to see the pastor and we had to do like this two day thing. And I remember, make sure you had the Lutheran cred. So yeah, the Lutheran creds to get accepted to the church. Right. And the pastor's asking all his questions. He's kind of priming us for this. And it was, it was just a couple of us. And he goes, well, why do you want to be a Lutheran? So like at the end of this year, we're going to go, I was going to be a Lutheran because, you know, and then give the list. And I said, I said to him, honestly, I'm denomination agnostic. I'm just not going to subscribe to some subsect of Christianity or Protestantism. I would like to be a member of this church. And they were like, okay, yeah, okay, but don't tell anybody you said that. Right. Well, it's so funny how, cause I, I, I kind of went to church, but it was kind of a, a weird, it was a congregational church, and it was very, like, I never heard the good news, really. I memorized the books of the Bible and stuff, uh, and got confirmed, but I kind of avoided church because it was like a time when the, the Catholics and the Protestants were bombing each other in Northern Ireland and stuff, and I was like, Well, if this is what the Christians do, like, I don't really feel like I need to have a part of it. And, and so what you were talking about, frankly, is very much my sense in my backdrop. And, and, you know, and subsequent to that, I've basically just gone to as small a church as I can find, you know, that doesn't have a bunch of dog, but it doesn't have much power because power gets yucky real fast. It does. So, you know, I've read the Bible on my own. Um, I pray on my own, uh, but I, I do go to what, uh, faith community Lutheran church. And they're very specific about that because they used to be some denomination of Lutheran as like multiple Lutheran things. And they were like They'd ask for your Lutheran card at the door, but now they don't because of the communities part? Yeah. So they, they kind of said, Ooh, we don't want to go that way. And we really don't want to So let's be a faith community. That has our roots in the Lutheran Church. And I really do like that and so, the way I feel about my faith is that it's a gift. That I am a follower of Jesus. But I do respect where Shauna is coming from. I understand all of that. I appreciate that. And I give her the space to, you know, worship how she wants to. And you can go to church with them anytime you want. Just so you know. I'm sure you've heard that. Just kidding. I was putting words in his mouth. No, sometimes, and my daughter's gone to church with friends and we're just very open to allowing her to explore. We had our, I'm good. Yeah, yeah. I explored and, but I want to make sure that You know, Hannah has the opportunity to, to see what else is out there, to make sure that when, when her time comes to decide Yeah. To be the decider of her life Yeah. That she has the information that she needs to do that and, and really feel what, what makes sense. I don't think decisions like that are just like a one time no climax thing. You're right. Uh, it's not a, not a crux of the climb kinda thing. There's a lot of cruxes here and there. Exactly. Or send it. points. Yeah. No crux. Crux is it. That was the right way. It was good. Yeah, yeah. Um, the loco experience is our final segment and we'll be brief to get you guys back on the road headed toward long month. But, uh, I think it, it seems likely it would be separate experiences. Do you have a local, actually, Aaron, why don't you go first this time? Shana seems like she might have a crazier local experience. Well, yeah, maybe she, she does. Um, you know, I thought about what my loco experience was and. You know, the truth is a lot of little moments came to me where I made decisions which were unconventional, but that doesn't feel like it's a local experience. Right, not that crazy. Uh, it's not that crazy, you know, it's crazy when And all together, they point to a lot of providence. Well, it's I suspect is how you would phrase that. Yes, I think that's true. So, The, the moment that I wanted to share was when I climbed, um, Kilimanjaro, uh, with my friend. That was in 2013. Okay. Uh, planned to be on the summit when I turned 40. So that's where I celebrated my 40th birthday. Took my, took my very good friend, uh, Manish, and he's an entrepreneur who I respect a lot. And we, so we climbed, you know, did the whole climbing thing. And we asked to stay at the summit because I wanted to see the crater. And I wanted to see the glaciers, not just, I didn't want to just like touch it, uh, and then come down, which is what most people do. So we, we made this plan and we had a great, um, great guide. Well, you know, if, if you've ever heard of all the Kilimanjaro experience, it's, it's like a dozen people supporting like two guys. Oh, really? Yeah. And they, they're bringing up card tables and all because they, they live up there. Right. Right. So it, for us. It's a, it's a quite a feat, but they, and I don't want to diminish what they do, but they kind of live at that altitude. So they're acclimatized to it. And you know, you just have jars of jam and you're not packing light and that sort of thing, right? They're, they're carrying everything, but we got to the summit and I made it there. And my, my buddy wasn't in quite the shape that I was. So he was a little bit behind me. And then we went down to where the camp was and I was so excited. I made it. And so I kind of. I didn't sprint down the mountain, but we had like three or four hundred feet and I went down too fast Oh, and so I it's like coming up from too deep of a dive too fast something like that but I exerted myself too much and I definitely had altitude sickness and I'm I said I just got to lay in the tent and if you ever had altitude sickness The way it manifests, at least it did for me and I've heard this as a common experience, is that you just want to sleep. It's like you don't care about anything. It's like, where can I curl up and just sleep? And food looks like any, you know, you can have a delicious pastry. It looks like a piece of dirt. You don't want to eat anything. And all I want to do is sleep. They just try to feed you. And sometimes you just die. Sometimes you just die. But it's nice when you have other people. Right. So we went to the top. I kind of rested and slept and my buddy came down like 45 minutes later. So it was. And I said, like, this is three or four hundred feet, so it's not that far, that's a long time. Yeah, it's a block. And, uh, they said, they said, well, what do you want to do? And they said, well, if you can go out and kind of see the glacier. Well, I did go out with a guy, we toured the glacier. I don't remember a thing about that experience. Came back into the tent. Wanted to do the whole curl up and you know, just sleep thing and I remember them asking me should we go back? Should we go back or do what do you want to do? And I I said to my my friend and the guide I can't make this decision I am NOT in the state of mind to make you you guys have to make this decision and they did And they said, we're going down. So the young assistant guide wrapped his arm around my waist. We, I got out under my own power, but you're like a walking zombie, a walking zombie, so you have to climb out of this 300, 400 thing and then go back down and we're up at 19, 000 feet. We got back down to 15, 000 where the camp was and all of a sudden I'm ready to party You know good right good to go. But the beautiful thing about that experience a couple things, you know, you've learned to let go Yeah, I didn't make that decision. Yeah right there which allows me to it's kind of my personality I can let other people decide things But we had an extra day and we went to Angora Goro crater the next day probably the most Exciting day of my travel experience life and Gorgor Crater is this amazing place. I got to do it because we didn't stay up. Yeah. Yeah up there and that was my kind of loco experience. I think it was a very loco experience actually and I dig the metaphor baked in there. So I dig it. Nice. Yeah. That's a good one. Thanks, man. Top that, Shawna. Oh, man. She's, she's got a good one. We were at dinner last night talking about our experiences trying to brainstorm. So, um, so I had mentioned that we lived and traveled overseas. Right. Um, so we lived in Japan from 2003 to 2004. Okay. And then left Japan and wanted to travel Southeast Asia. And so started in Malaysia. You mentioned Laos and Thailand and South Korea. It was actually in Malaysia when the tsunami happened. Okay. Um, which was a really intense experience. Not my local experience, but just a side note. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, traveled to Thailand and, um, this area called Krabi. Tanza that is really well known in the south of Thailand for, for climbing. Sure. So I spent quite a bit of time there. And um, and are you guys like,'cause you're with your now husband. Mm-Hmm. maybe you were married, maybe you weren't by that time. Um. Like, were you living large? Was he like a famous climber guy already and sponsored and your expats or were you pretty much just like beans and rice kind of people just climbing and living and teaching a little bit and whatever. The second one. More the latter. That's what I'm kind of assuming, but you could have been trust fund babies in some capacity or something. No, we worked really hard in Japan and saved a lot of money and um, with the intention of doing this big six month trip through Southeast Asia. Um, So we, we landed in Thailand and we're like, this is it. This is like the Mecca of climbing. This is amazing. Um, beautiful limestone climbing right on the water. Just gorgeous. And one of the things along with expats and some, and some wonderful Thai people that live in that area are quite. A few monkeys and before this I thought monkeys were cool and cute, but no, they're so nice. They'll pull your hair out like crazy if you let them spit on you, poop on you, all that. Pull your eyeballs out of your head if you let them. Yeah. So they were not really fond of the climbers on this particular, on this particular part of the island. They're like chasing you out trying. Yeah. So there's a, a climb where you kind of start at the beach and you go up this tree and you go on a ledge for a little while and then you go up further. And um, we got up early and we're like, okay, we're going to do this climb. It's going to be awesome. It's like two or three pitches. It's going to be really fun. Thank you. So Brian starts and lead climbing, meaning like you clip the rope or you put the gear in as you go. Yep. And so yeah, you put like a, a fail safe out from time to time, but you're Yeah. Free climbing much of the time. And then, and then clipping in along the way. Then I'm clipping. Yeah. Yeah. I've been there. Yeah. So I'm not usually not the lead guy.'cause you know what we talked about. Yeah. So we're climbing, Brian's climbing, I'm belaying him. And um, all of a sudden I look up. And this monkey has dropped a rock. Oh. Like, a rock about this big. Like a head sized rock. And it landed, like, right next to me. Oh shit. And He's like above you in the tree and it's just like He's dropping rocks. On the ledge. And I said, Brian, I'm not sure about this, I think this is maybe a bad idea. And all of a sudden, all these monkeys start to converge on him. Oh boy. Cause he's at the ledge. And I was like, calm down! Come down now! And so there's this sort of frantic, like, lowering, belaying situation. Are these little monkeys? Big monkeys? These are not little monkeys. These are full size, angry monkeys. Like, five pound monkeys, or like, thirty pound monkeys? Um, there's some variety. They weren't as big as thirty pounds, but they were They were big enough. Yeah, they were big enough, for sure, and really angry. And unhappy. Sounds terrifying. Yeah! And so, and I'm thinking, they're gonna just start chucking rocks at us. And so, luckily, he made it down unscathed, but then as soon as He made it down. I had mentioned that we were climbing right behind a bar. It's called Freedom Bar on Raleigh. And, um, so the guy comes out with a slingshot of rocks and starts chucking the slingshots at the monkeys. And you're like Well, of course. Well, we have tools. Right? Yeah. That's one of the points. I'm like, well, okay. Just make sure those monkeys don't get your slingshots. Right. Well, I mean, they were just making their own slingshots, you know, they were figuring it out. So they learned from us humans. How to do this thing when they didn't like whoever was invading on their space. So we had a couple other monkey interactions, but that one was the most memorable and then you know You're just like I respect the monkeys like you stay over there. I'll stay here. But did you carry your slingshot after that? No, I was Because they have a lot of range, so they're pretty effective. Trying, trying to do whatever I could to avoid any attention from the monkeys. Right. That's fair. That was like my strategy, and I encountered quite a few monkeys in India as well. Um, yeah, they're just, they're very intelligent, they're very close to humans, so they, they uh, kind of can cause quite a bit of, wreak quite a bit of havoc. Oh yeah. Along the way. Yeah, uh, monkey, I mean especially like higher apes, like chimpanzees and baboons. Yeah. There's almost no animals more violent in the world. Yeah. Like it's kind of Except for humans, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, so anyway. It's uh, it's definitely a People that think that nature is this peaceful, kind of quiet thing, and if, if the humans would just go away, the world would not have violence. No, it's not true at all. The world is violence. Yeah. Like, that's, monkey life is violence. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So that was one of my loco. That seems very loco. Moments. Like that rock, that big head sized rock. I know. Could have taken you out. It could have taken me out. So, I'm thankful to the monkey for being slightly off. It was a warning shot. Right. Probably. Or just a bad shot. Yeah. Uh, hey marketing guy. How do our listeners find your climbing gym? Oh yeah. Climbing gym. Well, that's Okay, so it's Your Longmont one we'll talk about. Climbing collective dot com. C O. Dot C O. That's not, that's for all three. That's for the future Greeley, for Loveland, for Longmont. Climbing Collective dot C O will take you to all of them and you can keep up with us and we're on, we're on Instagram and Facebook, you know. And if I want to come and hit two breweries and then come to your climbing gym in Longmont, which what's the address there? Do the breweries after? Yes. Okay. Well we're going to have taps at the brewery. There you go. Oh no shit. And I'm personally selecting the beer. I like it. Yeah, we're just getting our, uh, is that for after Oli too? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Always after. Okay. Just checking. Uh, but that's where really one 19 and I 25 almost, or where are you at? Yeah, you come down I 25 and then hang. If you're coming from Fort Collins, you hang a right on one 19. You cannot miss it. The sign. Yeah. I have one thing. I, I go big. I don't suffer, but I go big. Right, right. And I said, what's the biggest sign we can put on the building? And there are rules about that. So the sign is 18 feet across and like 14 feet tall. You just can't miss it. And it's lit up at night. And it's got your cool logo thing there. The climbing collective thing. We, we collectively designed the logo here. I like it. Yep. Well, this has been a fun conversation. This has been fun. I want to thank you guys for being here. Super fun. Thank you so much for having us. Thanks, Kurt. I'll look forward to the next one. Absolutely. Alright, cheers. Cheers.