30: A Married Couple's Guide to Business & Life (w/ Tina & Rob Moorman)

First off, I love how Jordan clears his throat for a clap. That’s fantastic. It’s classic. It is so necessary.

But anyways, we are back and I really appreciate having Rob and Tina Moorman in the studio with me. We have all been hit by back to back hurricanes that were more powerful than many that have hit this area in at least a long, long time. And I just wanted to kind of address that at the top that know it was appropriate for us to take a break with the podcast because number one, we didn’t have power for over a week combined.

We didn’t have Internet. People were really focused on making sure that they were okay. And I feel like the community has come together in such a beautiful way.

There’s been so much support. I know you both have done so much on support. Like I saw a post that you posted Rob, that blew up because you put like a free charging station out near the road.

It did blow up. It was pretty viral actually. I thought it was awesome and it wasn’t anything complicated, but it was such a nice gesture that I think that’s why it blew up.

Because things like that stick out in times of crisis where it’s like people care and are there to help each other. Obviously you’re involved in something much bigger that helps. And I don’t know if we want to dive into that right off the bat before I even even introduce you.

But you’re you, you’re clearly a person. You both are that care. And I mean, that’s why along with all of the other stuff, we align so much in business and part our partnership in the creative realm.

And as I would call you both friends at this point, absolutely agree upon that. And so Tina and Rob, you own Mormon Photographics and that is in St. Petersburg, Florida. And then you also have Sunburst RV Resort, which is in Milton, Florida, up north.

Correct. Which I very much look forward to staying with once our second daughter is born and getting out into nature. So trust me on that one.

You can hold, hold us to that. We met at npi, which is our networking group and I’m very grateful for that because we met. I mean, this is one of the most exciting partnerships I have because I have been a photographer for quite some time and when you came into my life, I was able to refer that work out because you’re so much better at it.

And that’s something that I want to keep close to my heart. That doesn’t make money. I don’t want all the creative things I do to be for money.

And so that’s. Photography is something that I always had a passion for and mixing with digital art, but I never got to, I, I, I, I didn’t want that to be a source of income. And so, so it was just perfect that you came into my life.

Now we’re partners. You’re our client, which I very much appreciate your continued business. It’s been awesome to, to work with you on Mormon photographics, on your web stuff, to produce the Camera dude podcast, which I highly recommend everybody check out because Rob is interviewing fantastic people.

You’re a great interviewer. Thank you. Those are fascinating conversations.

And then like I said, most importantly, I feel our friendship has sparked into something just very meaningful to me and I appreciate all of your support in many ways through our journey. And I look forward to what’s ahead. Oh, that’s awesome.

Big love too, back at you. You know, that means a lot. It truly does.

You have taken pictures of my family. Yes. You have documented a very important moment with our family where we got us all together on the beach.

People flew in for that photo session and we look at that photo and I know my grandparent, grandma and my family looks at that photo and there’s nothing more special than that. You guys make memories that last a lifetime. That’s one of your taglines.

It is. And I know I’m dominating right now. I promise I’m going to let you talk, but I feel it’s proper to set it all up.

You’ve done drum portraits for me and cool, stylized drum portraits and you’ve done my headshots and we’ve worked together on the Saturday morning market, the farmers market in St. Pete, which is a big project and equally as big. We work on the children’s museum in St. Pete together. Yes.

Which is just remarkable. And with that said, I’m going to let you introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit more about Mormon Photographic. So Tina, if you want to start then Rob, because I know Rob’s gonna, you said, oh, I think I will see how much he talks the mouth over here.

So we’ll go in order of. Because through the questions, especially when we hit rapid fire. We’ll have you go first and then Rob.

Okay. We are St. Pete natives and we met, we didn’t meet in school, we met a little bit later. We were in our 20s.

I got my fine art degree from Florida State and I was hanging out with some welding people, sculpture people, and I was interested in that. So I came back home and got my welding certificate, two year certificate at the local VO tech. It is now ptc.

And then I did that for a while and I got back into computer graphics a little bit. And then he was getting Mormon photo off the ground and he. He doesn’t.

He just didn’t have enough hands at the time. And he said could you help me a little? And that was 25 years ago. Sorry.

So I did help a little bit. Yeah. A little bit.

Like a lot. And now sounds like a lot of it. This coming year will be 30 years in business.

That’s amazing. Really hard to believe because it went so fast. Tell them a little bit about.

Because she’s humble. Is the company she worked for was a company called Solar Graphics. And you had worked your way up to head artist there at a point doing all the digital work.

So share about that because it was. It was an interesting job. It was a window tinting company.

But they had the ability to create graphics that they would print on a large scale. They would put it on the window and they would take different colored window tint because there’s more than just grays. And they would create these graphics life size and they would be attention getters.

If you were in a little strip center, nobody knew you were there. These bold graphics would really get people’s attention driving by. So I ended up there.

But we would draw a lot of things from scratch. I mean this is talking about paper clip art days. We’re scanning into programs creating these CAD style graphics that could be printed on a plotter.

And we. I mean we barely had computers really. And it was super basic.

But it was an interesting job. And we just got to sit around in our cutoffs and listen to music and draw all day. It was fantastic.

Sounds fantastic. It was kind of hard to give up but. And she crushed it.

We drive around town. You’ve seen a restaurant with window tint that, you know, maybe it’s a hamburger. Yeah.

And the look that’s a lot of this company and their design. And she was just crushing it and worked her way to the top. That’s such a cool medium.

You know a lot of people don’t realize when you have like a graphic arts computer graphics background how that scales into the world and how surrounded we are by graphics and photography. It’s everywhere. Yeah.

I think we’re even more inundated now with all the technology that we have and we kind of take it for granted. We see beautiful art in so many ways all the time. But we’re just so used to it now.

Yeah. And with AI we’re Seeing some really amazing things. We don’t know how they came to be necessarily, but they’re still amazing nonetheless.

Sure thing. And people taking it for granted is one of the battles of being valued for a creative trade, because people just expect stuff to be good. Or they see a logo, the Mormon photo logo or something like that.

Oh, that looks simple. That’s easy to do. No, not easy.

Very opposite. Not easy. And how long did it take us to decide to use it after we made our logo? Yeah, it was a long time.

How long? I was probably eight years, nine years. We made it and we’re like. And then we ran across it cleaning out the hard drive one time.

We’re like, well, this is great. Why are we not using this? And of course, Tina had designed it, so that was the cool part. That’s very meaningful.

What do you do now? How did that. Sorry to be the leader. It’s your podcast.

Oh, no, you’re okay. It’s my band. You’re popping into the role.

I expected it. Yeah. So that.

All that skill that you learned in art school and then now working at the solar graphics. What are you doing with that now? So my useless basket weaving art degree, which I thought that’s what it was, I use every day because I am editing and retouching photos, and I make our attractive clients look just a little more refined, a little more. I look at mine, I go, who’s.

Who’s that dude? Nice job. Maybe just a little bit younger. Yeah.

A little smoother. Yeah. Thank you.

But that. That’s. That is what I do.

I mean, I run the business and I handle the finances, et cetera, but that’s the bulk of my day, is handling images and having my hands in it in an artistic way. So I really do get to use that talent, which is. It’s kind of a miracle to come, you know, all the way around, full circle back to art again and being on a computer.

So it makes sense. And I found that my wife is multitalented in that any art she touches, pottery, painting, they’ll go somewhere and do something, you know, one of these painting with a twist type places. And all the girls she’ll go with come back with, you know, finger paint looking, and she has a work of art.

We went and did pottery one time, and this thing could have been sold in a museum somewhere. It was absolutely gorgeous. And I had a blob, like a little dog and a tail.

You know, she had this son, and it was absolutely gorgeous. And so she pretty much does that, but her Other talent is in administration. She really does have that talent where she can keep a thumb on everything.

At one point, you had a welding job, right? And she ran the office and welded for this company. So you glossed over it very quickly. You’re like, and I. And I do.

It was. And I do finances. And I was like, well, on top of your job, that’s not, you know, that’s not something to gloss over or be a footnote, because juggling extra stuff on top of your job, that says something about you, that’s not easy.

And, you know, you don’t have a massive operation. You have a wonderful operation that’s quite big. But you guys are very big pillars in making sure that everything goes right and smoothly on that.

And clearly, after 30 years, you’re. You’re doing something right. I would hope so.

Rob’s pointing right at Tina. If. If it wasn’t for Tina’s participation, I’d still be a little photographer working out of some extra bedroom in my house somewhere.

And so what’s the old saying? Behind every successful man is a really busy woman, and she’s right here. So I’m busy. Yeah, I’m glad to know you on that.

And I feel you on that as well. How about you, Rob? Let’s dive into. Who.

Who’s Rob? What do you do? I don’t have a clue. No, I’m just kidding. So I am Rob Moorman, and I am also a St. Petersburg, Florida native.

We kind of take pride in that. We love our city. Even though it’s growing and changing and where there’s a lot of uncertainty, it’s still home for us, and all of our family is here.

So, gosh, I started off working in the motion picture industry. I did 10 years behind the scenes. I drove motorhomes, trucks.

I stood next to Steven Spielberg, took orders. We can do all the name dropping. Cindy Crawford.

Yeah. Huey Lewis asked him if he wanted to go smoke a joint. Yeah, he did one time.

Yeah. Did you take him up on it? I didn’t. And I was listening to of somebody’s podcast that I follow Rich Redmond on the way here, and he was interviewing Huey, and I thought, I don’t smoke pot.

But I should have said yes because what kind of doors would that have opened, Right? I mean, you know, I could have become head roady or. But anyhow, that’s the deal. And then about 10 years of 18 hour days, seven days a week.

I remember sleeping on the floor in a production office under a table much like this one. They would move in and set up a temporary production office in a hotel. They would ask the hotel to take all the furniture and beds and folding tables or whatever.

Well, when I say low paid, I was actually killing it. But I was lowest paid in comparison to everybody in that industry. I was making CEO money if you will, for driving trucks and being a grunt in the film industry.

It was great pay in the 80s, late 80s, early 90s. But I remember sleeping under this table. The office was buzzing at in the morning.

I had two hours sleep. I had to get back up and drive a truck to Orlando from Tampa and do another 12 hour day and whatever. And just at some point I couldn’t move up in the industry.

And I don’t mean it to boast. I was good at what I was doing and I kept getting stuck in that spot. So I stopped and decided to become a still photographer.

And I went to Pinellas Technical center, which is Pinellas Technical College, excuse me, it’s changed its name. And while I was in photography school there was this smoking girl in the welding class and that’s where we met. That was going to be my next question.

So I’m glad. So did you meet in the halls or did you shadow in a welding class? Were you curious? Should we elaborate on. Yeah.

First, all the film, all the photography class students always went to welding because you sparks and there’s cool stuff to photograph. But I’ll let Tina tell a story because it’s this, this organization still exists within VO tech schools. It was called the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America at the time.

But now they call it skills. You could participate and actually compete with people that were in your same line of schooling and it would be, you know, 20 people or something maybe that you’d be competing against regionally. But then if you won regionals you went to state and if you went to state and won, you went to nationals.

And I’m talking about a massive warehouse. There could be 50 diesel engines lined up with people repairing them. And this is all timed competitions.

Wow. It’s fascinating. And every area you can think of there could be cosmetology, there was welding, there was photography, all kinds of different things of baking, culinary.

Yeah, they were involved. So it was fascinating. And we competed in that.

He did go to nationals and I, I got stopped at state but it was fascinating to compete with other people and, and we did well and it was really fun. But it through that we had meetings and I was the secretary on the board and I had my little red jacket and it was so my silly. But my instructor, I guess he saw the fervor that I had and he.

So he insisted that I go to this meeting. I said, okay, what’s this about? Or whatever. And I get there and we had met slightly in the parking lot and around the school.

And of course I’m thinking, who’s this good looking girl? You know, whatever. And so I come in and she’s in. They made us wear these really ridiculous red coats with a.

A patch on them for this. The Vocational Industrial Club of America. And she was on the board.

And I didn’t know that. So I sit down and in comes this hottie in a red jacket. And I said, okay, I’m in the right place now.

But actually, what really happened this is at school. It was my instructor’s birthday and I got him a cake. And it’s all guys in the class, so nobody cares about this kind of thing, but he thought it was fun.

So it became my birthday. So he brought in a cake and it was a welder, a woman welder with flames on this cake. And this is before people were making cakes that were, you know, the shape of a castle or something crazy.

And I said, oh, this is never going to happen to me ever again. I have to have a photograph of this to remember this. But before cell phones, way before cell phones, this is 94 at least.

Smartphones, we had cell phones. Yeah, yeah, we all didn’t have one in our pocket. So I ran up to the photography department and said, I need a quick photo.

Just a snapshot. Pick me, pick me. And his.

His instructor had his own personal camera, set it up, foolproof. And he said, okay, go. And.

And then they lost the film. So the story is this. Well, it was my instructor, who’s a good friend, we still talk to him today.

He’s retired, but he’s still photographing for fun and whatever Terry Allison name. And I’d only been in the class two weeks. I didn’t know the difference between an F stop and a bus stop.

So he sets up the camera so that it’s kind of idiot proof. I run down. And it was his camera, already had film in it.

So I run down, shoot this thing, act like, you know, whatever, because there’s Tina, right? And I get the film back to him and said, hey, as soon as you get those, let me know. I want to be able to see her again and deliver those. So that part was kind of cool that he did that.

But in the interim, I was a sound technician for a Band called Joyful Noise. So I call it a God thing because every time I turned around, my wife was there. She wasn’t my wife yet.

So we were playing in a church outside of our own. And it takes me about two and a half hours at the time to set up this 24 channel mixer. And back then, those things were massive.

So I went in on a Wednesday and I’m setting up all my equipment and I look over and who’s in the bell choir? Well, a little hottie in a red jacket over there. She wasn’t wearing the red jacket. I was not wearing the red jacket.

But that part was really cool. So we got to communicate there a little bit. And I invited her.

Our first date was, believe it or not, church and the boat show. I said, if she likes boats and she goes to church, I’m in. And she’s a welder, so apparently she can fix my boat trailer if I have issues.

That’s been my joke for 30 years now. Hey, if you’re going to get married, might as well be able to fix your boat trailer. I mean, that’s the.

And I’ll wrap this story up by saying they did find that roll of film and processed it. And I have that photograph as the first PA of a scrapbook about how we met. How special that’s really the first day that we met was that.

Yeah. And that we actually met. And so it was kind of cool.

I love that story because it also intertwines your trade. You know, it intertwines what you were working on in your passions and how those came together in. In a podcast about business and life like yours and all.

It was about the time I started getting my act together. I was goofing off until age 28, and by 29, other friends were doing things. And I’m like, okay, I need to get this together and figure it out.

And I chose vocational school for several reasons. I had blown 10 years. Not blown, but had worked off 10 years in the movie industry.

And I thought, I didn’t want to do three to four years of college. Let me do this for two years. Get out, make a living.

Zero regrets. Glad to do it. You know, it’s been a roller coaster ride, but here we are.

Yeah. Yeah. If it’s not a roller coaster, then it’s a pretty boring ride.

I don’t know. You know, I mean, that you don’t have the highs without the lows, you know, the drops on the roller coaster or what is part of the fun. And marriage is that way too.

I mean, if it’s easy, something’s not right. Yeah. You know, we’ve been up and down and all around, so.

And. But that’s the deal is the staying power 100%. You know, the commitment has to be passed.

Whatever angry ness there might have popped up and then the go through the apology stage. I probably owe some. So.

I’m sorry, hon, whatever it is. No, I’ll just start up. I should throw in my.

My sorrys while we’re at it. Oh, that’s very sweet, but yeah, I mean it. You’re.

For my own experience. Life is dynamic, to say the least. And it’s not always internal.

There are external things that influence what you have to deal with. And either way, getting through that as a coup and on the other end, when you get through it, the strength that you have gained compared to before only increases and makes that love in the future experiences more sweet. There’s a great quote from a great movie that I like a lot, Vanilla sky with Tom Cruise.

If you’re aware of that movie and one of the actors says, you know, the sweet isn’t sweet as sweet without the sour. And I always like that because, you know, just like the dips, then you realize where the highs are. You have comparison, contrast.

I’m talking to two artists. Contrast is essential. Yeah.

And yeah, so that’s beautiful. I would like to go back a little further and understand what drew you to welding and the creative field. What drew you to motion picture and, and creating photos.

So maybe Tina, you could tell us like what was the tug? I was always the quiet kid, you know, people. I. I went to a private school and I didn’t live in that neighborhood where all my friends lived. I was across town.

It was, it was just unusual circumstance. So I didn’t have a ton of friends right down the street from me where we all hop on bikes and ride around and go to each other’s houses. It wasn’t that easy.

Um, and I just always found myself tinkering, drawing, doing that kind of thing. I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s house because my parents were self employed so we would go there after school. And I just always gravitated to that.

So when it was time to choose college and choose a direction, it just seemed natural to go that way. There was nothing else that really stood out to me as this is what I want my career to be. So it’s pretty simple.

It’s interesting because I’m thinking about when I grew up playing guitar and sometimes I’m an only child and my friends would be busy and that always bummed me out. I can still feel the feeling when my friends all couldn’t hang out and I felt lonely, but I could pick up the guitar and two hours would be gone, you know, or do some art and it’s just like you get lost in this craft and there’s a lot there. How about you, Rob? Well, I found photography by accident.

Now, just to preface, my father was a hobbyist. He had so many cameras and he never took it to this level as pro. My father had enough revenue in his life that photography was playtime for him.

He loved the technology, but he was a technician and he didn’t really add the art side to it because back then he was film, of course. And back then if you shoot at high noon, you get perfect color. But the problem is all the people in the photo are squinting and the contrast is terrible and the light is bad.

So he was going for the tech aspect of it, not adding the emotion and the feel and the softness to it. So that’s the type of photographer that he was. I find photographers that are technical and creative do well.

So I found photography though I got out of the film business, always fascinated by the cameras in the motion picture industry, the guys are checking the gate and handing off lenses and changing these big Panavision film magazines out and all of that stuff. And there was one gentleman that I just followed forever and sadly he’s passed away. But having said that, I got tired of film, exhausted physically and was working at a dive shop in the summers because film would die out, the snow melts and all
the New Yorkers and Canadians and film companies go home and they film at home because it’s cheaper.

Snow hits the ground, they come to Florida, they’re working year round. So when summer was slow is at the dive shop. They had a Nikon IS5 underwater camera there.

And I couldn’t figure it out. And I went to my buddy Bill Barlow, who’s been on my podcast a couple of times and he goes, ah, go down to the vocational school, they have a whole class, you’ll pick it up. And he says, don’t finish it, just get enough to go diving with a camera.

Well, that was all she wrote. I fell in love with it, finished the two year course and interned with a master photographer for a year after that. And then here we are at 30 some years later.

My goodness. Yeah, it’s been a great journey and continues to be, by the way. Well, one people underestimate how difficult Film production is, I mean, stick around for the credits, you know, I mean, it is exhausting just to think about now that I know the production pipeline when you were saying that you’re working 18 hour days.

I have an uncle who works with us at Naaman Creative with business development. He is still an actor and he helps produce commercials and things like that. And he’s been in movies and things like that.

Awesome. It’s a ride. And then I grew up wanting to be an animator.

So I went to school for animation. I don’t know if you know that, but I popped out of Computer GR Graphics Generalist because it wasn’t an animation school. We just had a few animation courses.

But I’m grateful for that because I got to see more of the pipeline and understand, Holy moly. That’s what goes into it. It’s a lot.

Wow. I mean, go ahead, anybody listening and go and make a three minute film or a 30 second animation and see how you do. Make a.

Make a, you know, a plan. Come up with a plan. Get all the props, get the people together, draw it out so that you have every angle that you’re going to do.

Yeah. Create your storyboard and all of that. And it’s a lot.

One of the things I did love though is when I got out, my close friends in the industry were shocked because I was Mr. Filmmaker, I looked like a filmmaker, I walked like one, I talked one, I lived it. You still look like one. Well, thank you, sir.

I lived it. I really did. I was just that guy.

And when I got out, they were all shocked. But I really felt that I had gotten stuck. The person I worked for, whom I love dearly.

But I was good in my position and I was supposed to move up. And every time I would get to the job and say, okay, put me in the grip and lighting company, let me learn that department and then put me over here and do all these things. But they would always hand me that walkie talkie.

I really need you on this one. In production. And she probably did, but I realized that I was stuck and so I just decided to fade out and move into still photography.

And there’s no regrets there. I miss the creative process of filmmaking. I don’t think there’s anything any more creative than that.

Every art form you can think of comes and ends up on a set. Yeah. You know, from carpentry to skills to lighting to painting.

I mean there’s just the whole. They all show up in one place to derive a final result. And I mean, we worked on crews, 150, 200 people.

And the pressure, which is why I got out, was certain job budgets. We were spending $200,000 every 20 minutes to pay for crew and all the people. So the stress was high.

Yeah, yeah. And I was just a small part of a big production, you know, and that then. So, yeah, I don’t.

Tina mentioned name dropping. I don’t do it much because most of the time people don’t believe you. You work with who and.

And it was a one off thing. So that person that’s a big name, they don’t remember me. You know, I was some guy that ran by really quick and helped them and got their mobile motor home out to the set and, you know, handed them a script and, you know, whatever it was that needed to be done.

And then they moved on with their life. So they probably didn’t remember us. And you could also add in your craft service skills to that too.

Craft service being an aspect of taking care of that huge crew. Sometimes it’s a small crew, but all of those people are kind of stuck on that location. They have to eat and have of refreshments and things throughout the day.

So Rob was the craft service guy and he would basically cater an hors d’oeuvre spread throughout the day and have a ton of coffee going. And he had director’s chairs and tables and all kinds of things in this van that and I’m aspirin and paper clips and all kinds of things that you would need that you wouldn’t have on your person, you wouldn’t have it with you. And special coolers of the lime Perrier just for this guy, and the green M&M’s just for this guy.

And whatever it is, he did that for some time. And I think that was a really good skill for you to hone as well because you cook for us almost every day. Yeah, I entered that with no cooking experience except a two week gourmet cooking class at my little private high school that I went to.

And that was enough. Well, apparently on sets you have craft services, which could be as simple as somebody working out of the trunk of their car if it’s a low budget to a bigger gig. So my business partner and I, his name was David Hopkins.

It’s hard. He passed away, so it’s hard to not talk about him and get sad. He was a buddy for a long time and we had our time out for a while where we weren’t talking to each other and reconnected and it was total gone.

Bad thing, actually, how all that happened. But anyhow, he’s not here now. It’s hard to talk about.

But what we would do is provide this almost like a Super bowl spread all day. Because when you’re on a set that long, you can’t leave and just grab something. What if you have an accident and you’re the key actor or, you know, the key lighting person or whatever.

So they would come to our truck. It was all free. They would give us a budget, part of the production, and we would fill this step van that we purchased, designed, built out, and put everything in it.

So I had a hundred catering chairs, enough tables to have those chairs at, as well as director’s chairs, umbrellas, all the things you see on sets that are ancillary over and above lighting and, you know, cameras, et cetera, was. Were in this truck. I was only 18 years old when I started this business.

So you had the bug early on. Yeah, I was a wild man. I don’t like to.

I have an entrepreneurial spirit and I kind of giggle because I don’t know that I’m that good at it in the sense that I’m not running some Fortune 500 company at this point in my life. But he doesn’t want somebody else to tell what to do either. That’s exactly the problem.

That’s huge. That’s exactly the problem. She knows.

She’s married to me. So. Yeah, no, you’re absolutely successful.

And you also dictate the amount of success you want. I, I feel like I want name and creative to eventually be producing like documentaries and things like that, but I don’t want it to be traded publicly. That’s insane.

I mean, I, That’s. That’s something you lose. You could lose track of your goals, your missions, your.

Your morals. Things get slippery there. And I like small but mighty teams.

And I think in business growth, when is enough is enough for you personally, right? I mean, if you want to be the multi billionaire and that’s your set goal, then I would think the people listening that then you position yourself for that. But if you just want to be comfortable, have a nice house and enough for your family and all of those things and maybe a few toys in life, but not necessarily that level, then that’s okay too. Yeah.

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I feel very strongly about that because for me, I’ve been paycheck to paycheck for a long time, and I’m finally getting out of that and getting the business established for just turning four. And we’re going to have a party, which you guys are invited to, by the way, in January. Look forward.

Yeah, but, you know, I feel rich. My life has richness. It’s not wealth.

You know, there’s enough money to get by, and we put a little away for our daughters, and I feel that that’s enough. We. We do need more to, like, get a bigger house because we’re outgrowing it.

But, you know, richness is not money. And my success is not dictated by money. And I feel, I feel, based on what you said, that we’re in alignment there.

I want to share. And Tina knows. She knew my father before he passed, and my father was adopted into a Mormon feed company family, and that was a huge factory.

They had multiple factories across the nation making farm feed. My grandfather, who I never got to meet, these folks adopted. My dad built this major company and it started in an old rickety barn and they started selling to farmers around them and of course, using it themselves.

And so now it was such a big iconic thing in America that you can go on ebay and people are collecting Mormons feed marketing things. They were also one of the first companies to do marketing where the name was on the pen or back then. They would have an ashtray and all of these things we see commonly now.

They were one of the first companies to do that. Oh, that’s really neat. Yeah, they were cutting edge in that area.

They have more swag than I’ve ever seen. Everything you can think of And I made the mistake of going down the rabbit hole of ebay. And now I have this whole cabinet at home full of all.

Some of it I already owned. It was just stuff I played with as a kid because that was my family. I don’t think that’s a mistake.

That’s special stuff. That’s really cool, and it’s kind of attached to your trade. You’re a part of marketing besides your family portraits and things like the business aspect, corporate aspect.

That’s absolutely marketing. Someone getting a nice headshot, they’re marketing themselves. And so, you know, you’re.

You’re attached to that, and that’s really special. I would do the same. Well, it’s a.

It’s definitely a team effort with this beautiful woman across from me. There’s no way I would be where I’m at as a photographer, and there’s no way we would be where we’re at as business owners. And the recognition in the community, it’s always been important to me.

Not in a prideful way, but to me, it feels like you’ve arrived when you walk into a networking meeting somewhere and people know you. Or I was walking down taking photographs of some of the destruction from the hurricane for in Venetian Isles for Venetian. For a stroll.

Venetian Isle magazine. And they recently changed their name and people come out, hey, Rob, what’s going on? And in their plight, we were able to enjoy each other. And I was able to put down cameras and help somebody haul out a couch and, you know, things that were needed.

You know, you’ve arrived as a small business when you can walk down the street and know half of the people there. And I can back that up because through my journey locally, we moved down here in 2018, and since knowing you, I. I always shout you out or say, oh, and I’ve got a great photographer and a business. Rob Moorman of Mormon Photographics.

And they go, oh, yeah, I already know him. I’ve worked with him. I love him, you know, and it’s just like you’re.

You are a bit of a staple in this area and beyond, from what I’ve gathered. And that is pretty cool. You’ve definitely made it.

And here we are. And back to. You’re going back to riches and wealth and the definition and what you value.

You were talking about your dad. Oh, yeah. Forgive me.

Thank you. And little ADHD over here. So when my dad had inherited his money, but to all his credit, he managed it well, used it pretty well, lived off of it well, and didn’t blow it and all of those things.

And so. But I have to say, all the money that he had. I might start crying again on your podcast.

He died the most unhappy person I know. He had millions in the bank and he did a good thing. Those millions went to St. Jude’s and All Children’s Hospital.

Not All Children’s. I apologize. St. Jude’s and Shriners Children’s Hospital to help children.

So what he had kept and managed went to a phenomenal cause in his absence after he left Earth. But. But he was not a happy person.

He just wasn’t. Yeah. And that’s a testament.

Money. Money does not buy happiness. Exactly.

Old cliche, but it’s true. It buys opportunities. Right.

But it depends on what you do with us. Anthony Robbins once said, money doesn’t solve your problems. It just allows you to ride to them in style.

That’s great. Yeah. I used to listen to his stuff back in the 90s all the time.

And I never forgot that. Oh, that’s. That’s a good one.

There’s an office quote. Stanley says, drive fast and leave a sexy corpse. That’s my motto.

I like that. That’s awesome. I also didn’t forget that one.

You guys have made it. But you’ve made it as a. As a married couple.

As a couple in business, which is unique. A lot of people listening to this who are married go, oh, I never could work with my spouse, or et cetera. We hear it all the time.

I’m. How do you make that work? What’s the special sauce? The number to our counselor on speed dial. I’m just kidding.

Although we have. We have partaked in. Partake, you know, fight for what’s right.

And I believe our marriage is right. And she’s still here. So I think she believes that as well.

I can see it. But, yeah, that’s been a tough battle. And it takes a specific couple that can do that and that can work together and live with the fact that, yes, work is work and home is home, but they do cross pollinate because you own it.

And so she hasn’t seen me all day. I’ve been on a photo shoot. She’s already at home.

I come from some location somewhere, plop on the couch at home, knowing I gotta unload the car a minute. And she has to talk to me about things at work because she doesn’t see me all day. Right.

So it does come home. It’s. And we don’t have kids.

So it’s our life. It just is. Yeah.

And I’ve heard other couples. There’s a couple who, they do a lot of little kind of webinars. They’re realtors.

And they were talking about that very topic the other day. And I thought, well, that’s interesting that they’re just broadcasting out there because how many people do you know that are couples working together? But ultimately they said, people always ask us, what’s that work life balance for you? And he said, I don’t even consider it because one day we might work 12 hours and maybe the next day we only have a couple closings or maybe we don’t have anybody to see and then we enjoy that time off.
But there’s no plan for it.

We can’t really orchestrate things such that there’s, you know, we’re only going to work six hours a day. You can’t, you just can’t do that. So your work, if you’re enjoying it, is your life.

And it all just kind of flows together. It does. It’s.

Our clients are part of our family in a different way. There’s a sense of decorum on our part. We don’t just show up at their house with a plate of barbecue ribs and hey, we’re getting in the pool.

It’s not like that. But we love. And I’ve always said it, and this makes me teary.

I would do anything for my clients, even the ones that maybe frustrate you sometimes, you know, but anything. If one of our long standing clients calls us and hey, my kid is sick. And they’re at Northeast High, which is right down the street from our studio.

Can they walk there and wait for me? And you’re. Absolutely. I’ll make sure they have something to eat and drink and they can do their homework in there and we’ll take care of them or whatever.

I would do anything for my clients. And you’re not just saying that. I know, I know that.

That’s a fact. They’re based on personal experience too. We’ve had clients for, I mean, we photographed their kids as babies and now they’re in college or leaving college.

And we’ve watched those people lose their own parents and go through all of these different trials in their lives. And we, it’s not like we were, you know, sitting on their couch with them consoling them, but we were, we were there behind the scenes there in support of them, and they knew that we were there. Their hurt becomes ours.

It absolutely does. And I didn’t design my business that way. But when you do relationship marketing, those relationships become Real and that’s what Mormon Photographics is built on is our relationships with the community that we were born and raised in and still serve.

And so it’s so important to me. And back to the work life thing is Tina is right is that sometimes we’re off. And so we have a wonderful office manager, Elizabeth.

She’s there today was kind of slow that allotted us the time to hang out with you today and do this. But yesterday we were at schools and had corporate headshots in the office and I could go down the list and having two businesses. I had two zoom calls yesterday from my other business because it’s eight hours away and whatever.

So you’re not always off. But it’s a lifestyle and we do find our time. So we’re going to a Sandals coming up in and it’s about five months away but it’s booked and planned.

Oh great. Cool. I’m going to work that buffet over like nobody’s business.

Oh, I don’t blame you. Yeah. You feel like you’ve earned a little bit.

I think you both have. It’s ironic and fitting that you call it relationship market because you both are married in a relationship and your focus is relationships. So I don’t think that’s a mistake.

And that’s not happenstance. That’s because it’s like embedded in your cores. And also to be honest, even if you’re marketing and you’re selling whatever the business is, your relationship marketing, you just might not know it.

And if you’re not doing it well, then you’re probably just jumping around and there’s nothing. You know, there’s the long clients and relationships are because of the relationship you build and that’s everything. I resonate very deeply on that because I feel like that’s what I’m doing with my business is I’m looking for a long term relationship.

I’ll design you a business card. One off. Sure.

But I’d like to keep in touch so that when you or I need something down the road that we remember each other and can work together because we have great rapport and I turn down work where. Where we don’t align or don’t agree on. You know, for me marketing, I don’t want to help a business who I don’t think is going to do good in the world, build it bigger, you know, so that’s.

But usually it’s not the case. Something you said, being the person with a business podcast. Cameradudepodcast.com by the way.

Sorry. Stealing a plug There. Oh, see that? You got mic.

All right. It’s there to use. I’m just kidding.

But because of that, you had mentioned something about positioning yourself and building that relationship there. And. And you said it so elegantly that you should guest on.

On with me again sometime in the sense that it’s more about relationships than it is business. And if you build that relationship in depth, the business comes. Yeah.

And. And so on my. On my Facebook page recently, I put out a quote.

I do all these little and things, and this one was mine. And it says their goal before success is sacrifice. So many business owners today don’t want to make a few sacrifices in time.

Not everything. We have to respect our families and do all that. But you, you make that sacrifice now and then it’s an easy glide later.

Oh, is the graphic that you showed. Yes. I love that.

Thank you. I love that so much. Oh, yeah.

There’s somebody that I know, I won’t mention their name, but they see me working all the time. They’re in proximity of my business, and he’s. Don’t you feel like you’re missing out? And this person didn’t really.

Well, they’re just doing simple. They’re not going anywhere at the moment. And I’m not knocking them.

Okay. They’re good people. I talk to them all the time.

And had a chance during the hurricane to help them out, and very glad. But I came up with that little statement because of what he had said to me. He doesn’t want to dive in and own a business and commit as much as we have because he feels like he’s going to miss out on life.

And I think that Tina would attest to this, that our business has given us life. It has. I think you have to define that.

What do you want your life to consist of? If you enjoy working with these clients and that’s how you spend a lot of your time, then, like people always say, well, if you love what you’re doing, it’s not work. It’s. That’s kind of true in a way.

So, yeah, I think it’s all about definition. Absolutely. And the perspective you put on that definition, how that evolves as well, because that person could have taken the leap and then let it evolve based on certain parameters, but not, you know, I think a lot of people.

I’m working with someone who wants to be a public speaker. I was a guest on her podcast yesterday, and she’s having reservations and things like that, but she’s a published author and she’s going to do great. And she knows it deep down.

And I told her, if you don’t have a little bit of fear, then you’re not pushing anything or everybody’s doing it or whatever. You’ve got to have that healthy fear. That’s a good thing.

But one thing that you’d mentioned with, you build that relationship and then the business comes. I guess I said it too. With our networking group that we met at, we did not start our relationship transactionally with, okay, I’m buying family portraits or you’re getting website work.

It did not start that way. It started by developing a relationship and feeling good about each other and connecting and trusting one another. And then the business comes both ways.

And sure enough, it has. And that’s why I like the networking in that way, because it’s not. It is referral based, but that’s not immediate.

And if you know, if you get it, then you know that that’s not the first character of the equation. It’s part of the equation, but that’s not first. It’s the relationship.

I think that networking groups are a way to. They don’t guarantee work. You show up, you pay money to be there, and there’s meal dues and all of these things.

But it’s how you work it once you’re in there, there in order to make it actually work for you. And so the guarantee is that you have a structured time set aside in your life once a week, twice a week. However often it is that you’re going and that time is set aside for you to build relationships.

Not just, here I am, I paid money, give me referrals, right? And so it’s all about relationships. And you and I especially, and Tina, the business that we’re in, if they love you, even if you make a mistake in doing business with them, they’re just going to come and tell you and you’re going to fix it. And it’s, you know, it’s done.

And they wouldn’t think of going anywhere else. I asked one of our longtime portrait clients, you know, I said, you’ve come all these years. Our kids have grown up.

And she said, why? And she goes, well, you’re part of our family. You’ve watched my children since diapers. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.

You know, And I said, well, thank you. And, you know, it just warmed me beyond understanding. If you look at that in the funnel of marketing, when someone says that to you, that’s a customer for life.

As far as that’s the bottom of the funnel. The goal of every business to have, you know, they’re, you. That you’re.

It’s. They’re stuck with you in. But in a good way.

Yeah. You’re not just. It’s not just, oh, they’re going to come back and spend more money.

Right. It’s, oh, I get to see them again and I get to see how much these kids have grown and I get to catch up with you. And I’m a little more excited about that aspect of it sometimes because, you know, there’ll be another portrait client, but not you.

I love you, you know, so. And it’s cool that your photography, the craft of photography, captures moments in time. So throughout these relationships, you’re literally the ones who are documenting it physically.

Yeah, yeah. You’re capturing that moment in time, too. So there’s.

There’s layers upon layers of what you actually do that makes it special, given an example of that. And Tina can elaborate, but I take it very seriously. It’s a responsibility.

I can tell for me to. For the portrait side of our business and even the commercial, because if you own a company and we’re photographing your widgets that you’re selling or whatever, that’s the history of your company. And so you look back 30 years from now and you.

I can’t believe we made and sold that thing. Look at that. But now, look what we’re doing now.

But. But in personal life, not to be a Debbie Downer. It’s emotional and it touches me.

We had a family come into our studio. We had photographed them in the past several times. And they came in, the whole family.

Kids were back in town, one was in the military and all these things. And we’re creating this portrait. Well, it wasn’t, I think four, maybe five months later, the father passed away.

And we had the blessing of taking that portrait and making an individual image of him and Photoshopping him so that he would have it. And that was on an easel, I think, in a 16 by 20 format at his funeral. We don’t charge for that.

That’s. That’s. These are my people.

And when they hurt, we hurt. And that was. I start crying again.

I’m such a baby. And. Oh, is that what it is? Sorry.

I splashed some tears on my face, says, get the cameras rolling it. But it meant a lot to me to do that. And that’s not the only time.

We’ve done that numerous times. So when you said we’re documenting a moment in time, when that person passes, it really is a moment in Time. Another story.

Just recently, a woman came into our studio and I don’t know that we knew this person, you know, in depth, crying, just crying. And she’s holding all these school pictures of her children that are now in college and they’re destroyed from the rising water in the hurricane that came up into her home. We were able to document those images, redo them and reprint them for her.

And to me, that’s just everything, you know, to be able to get those images set up and redone and look like they were taken yesterday again so that she could have those back. You can go buy another IKEA couch, but you can’t go get another wedding photo if your wedding photographer isn’t around anymore. That’s the only one.

Especially if they haven’t documented it before. Put it on an external hard drive and another one in a waterproof case. And people that had film weddings, it’s a lot of work to get that done.

So you don’t think to do it. People my age and up all their wedding albums that they’re going to leave to their children and grandchildren or whatever, so they can remember Grandma and grandpa are all film. And those negatives, photographers held onto the negatives for a long time so they can resell images.

That was their. They really didn’t make pictures, they made negatives. And then they made pictures from the negatives and sold that.

And, you know, if that photographer is gone, so are those negatives. And so that’s all they had. Yeah, and there’s a lot of that out there.

It was so sad to me. My mentor, my photography mentor had all. He’s retired now, had numerous accolades in the state association and the national association for Professional Photographers.

And all of his competition prints back then were printed and sprayed with a shine where you could see yourself in them. You know, I mean, they. And they would go before four judges and whatever.

All destroyed in the flood. Oh, no. All destroyed.

I went over to his house to help him and it was all just sitting on his garage. It was moldy and gross and he didn’t have the negatives anymore. He retired and sold his studio and he was almost in tears because that was his life’s work and it was some beautiful stuff.

At some point you have to say goodbye, but it’s just a little premature. You’re not ready for it yet. So.

Yeah, but it is cool that you have the skills, you know, of bringing some back to life if there’s the ability to. And that’s certainly special, meaningful work. We could go on all Day.

Yeah, we could. That’s not hard. We can continue this at lunch, but we’ve reached a moment in the podcast called the Rapid Fire.

Pew, pew. That’s the only one I want in. I love it.

So we’re going to go Tina first, then Rob. Okay. As rapid as you can.

If you need to expand on it, so be it. Okay. Is this like one word answers kind of a thing? If you can, as briefly as possible.

Okay. You’re going to be. Won’t.

It’s hard. We’re going to start. What is your biggest source of inspiration? Oh, wow.

I was not prepared for this. Intentional. Yeah, I know.

It’s a hard one. You want Rob to go first? Yes. Okay.

Not to be preachy, and I hope it doesn’t offend anybody, but it’s God. If you want to be creative, think about all the atoms, the universe, the stars, everything that’s out there, that’s the master. There’s a story between God and an artist got into a competition, and the artist said, hey, I’m going to out create you.

God said, all right. Reaches down into the dirt, starts to form something. The artist reads down in the dirt, and God goes, no, get your own dirt.

That’s a good one. I haven’t heard that. So that’s my inspiration.

That’s nice. Keep going. So everything in the entire universe.

It’s not a fair answer, but I’ll accept it. Just kidding. I’ll say nature just.

I really love to be outside, and I’m always looking at the sky and looking at the sunsets and looking in the clouds, and it’s just. It just doesn’t get any better than that. A good sunset or a, you know, a fresh, breezy day like we have today.

That’s just crisp, but it just lights me up. Love it. That’s great.

I feel you very, very much on that. I think she should have her own podcast. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, let’s. Let’s add something else to our schedule.

We can make it easy for you. Okay, thanks. I think.

I know you’re very talented. You’re a natural. Okay.

What’s your favorite book? Favorite book? I don’t know about favorite book. Or what’s the book that if you only had one book to read for the rest of your life, well, it would be the Bible. Okay.

I know that’s super, super cliche. Sorry. But that is what I would choose because that is the source of our life and our life decisions and our guidance and all of them.

Yeah. How about you, Rob? Similar Same. That’s our source of foundation that gives us peace, direction and guidance in life.

And all of that there’ll be in today’s world, very misunderstood. It’s usually a misunderstanding and things pull out of context that aren’t, you know, and so that creates the upheaval in the world. It’s actually not like that.

I love a book that’s loving. It wraps your arms around you and it disciplines you. Nobody likes discipline.

So that’s the side of that book that everybody complains about. But I like it. It keeps me in.

But believe it or not, I’m not a huge reader and the most ADHD guy in the world. I love Professional Photographer magazine that I read every month and just all the time. Oh, that’s great.

That’s. That’s fair. I mean, it’s pages, it’s print.

I consider a magazine a book. So I’ll accept both answers. Okay.

You’re doing well. Two points for each of you so far. Oh, thank you.

Let’s see who comes out on top. You could listen to one album. Album forever.

What’s that album? Oh, we’re such music buffs. We love all types of music, so that’s really, really challenging. I know.

I don’t like always my very favorite artist. Gosh. Bella flag.

I do love some Vela flag. Oh, yeah, we’ve seen him in concert how many times? Yeah, we’ve flown in New York to see them. Did you see Victor Wooten? Yeah.

Oh, man, I would love to see that. The best. And his brother.

Ah, future man. Future man with the drum. Have you seen the Drumitar? Oh, that’s what I’m talking about.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I. If I have to just pick one, I could listen to that over and over and not tire of it.

Sure. For sure. That’s quality stuff.

They’re very talented. How about you, Rob? Peter Frampton Comes alive. There it is.

That’s what you’re gonna pick. Oh, I love it. Really? Yeah, Love it.

The ringing in my ears is based on the 3000 watt stereo I had in my car in high school. And it was Frampton Comes Alive. And everybody knew Mormon was pulling in the parking lot because it was.

It was blasting. I have a lot of music. I love older music because I’m 58 years old, but I’m a big Jethro Tull fan as well.

Huge toll. So look them up. It’s the strangest, weirdest, beautifulest, crazy just mix of this guy takes a flute and plays it in a metal band.

And the flute Becomes metal. You got to check it out. It is the baddest thing you’ve ever seen.

But I’m also a Jimmy Buffet hip fan. Well, we are parrot hubs. We are.

Oh sure. Best feel good stuff right there. I played drums in a metal garage band, but when I listened to music I was more chill unless I was listening to learn the music I was playing.

Otherwise I was listening to stuff that was more laid back and. But we like the older stuff better than the newer stuff. You know, where it was like kind of on the threshold of country, where he was kind of making that.

That beach approach. It was, you know, a little bit different. There’s a band that nobody listening will know that we follow.

And they’re local and they’re from our church and they’re just called Barnabas. And it’s a group of people that play together regularly for I’m going to guess 30 years, maybe longer. And they used to go to prisons and minister to the inmates.

And of course they play at church and all over. And we’ve both had the blessing. Tina sings, she does some great harmonies and I play Cajon and hand drums, whatever.

And we’ve had the blessing to play with them from time to time. And they are, gosh, like bluegrass, folk, 70s rock. It’s just this really eclectic mix and all original songs, all written by them.

It’s absolutely phenomenal stuff. It’s worship oriented, but really good music. Sure.

Yeah. Is that the. Is that the longest answer to question that you’ve ever had? Probably not.

Okay. You know, but that, you know, it gets people going. I guess it’s a very hard question.

And for me, I’m glad I’m the one asking it. Well, we’re, we’re music nuts. So, you know, we could add Stings repertoire to the list.

We could add Simply Red. Oh, you’re losing points. Sorry.

I’m just kidding. I’m not concerned about winning. This won’t be air at this time, but tonight I’m attending a concert.

I don’t even know the musician, but there’s a guitar shop, Doyle Dykes, that’s who. Doyle Dykes. Thank you.

At the Seven Coffee House and Guitar Shop. They build guitars there, repair guitars and play live music. One, I think it’s a Saturday or a Friday a month.

They have a free night and then other nights you buy tickets for like 20 bucks. It’s not a huge deal. And the coffee that’s served there is roasted by a good friend of ours that we know very well as well.

So kind of cool. That sounds wonderful.7c.com.

It’s a pretty great little quaint place. I’m gonna have to check that out. Yeah, we’ll go together.

Yeah, that sounds like a great day. Yep. We’ll get Jordan down there.

Fantastic. Yeah, he’s. He’s rocking us out.

There we go. Jordan. Acknowledged.

Yeah. I feel you on. I’ve been drawn more towards older music lately.

There’s a fidelity in it and an authenticity and a rawness where if they caught a vibe without all the effects and things, then it just feels so right. There’s a Turkish band I’ve fallen in love with that just nailed it. My.

My uncle, one of nine, just passed away recently, and he told his son, and now I’m going to crack up. But he told his son he’d like for our family to turn on Super Tramp when he passed. And I’ve been playing Super Tramp, like, nonstop.

And I’m like, dang, it’s good stuff. There’s just. It just has this flavor.

And they just. They caught. That’s what I love about particular music.

When you catch this. Their very particular vibe or feel. And then it’s just.

You could. They go down that path and there’s. And you feel that, and there’s nothing like it.

There’s. It was a time where technology was involved in music, but it wasn’t making the music. Now, I’m not dissing what’s happened today because there’s some musicians today that I really like as well, But I love a band that started in the garage, some folks that connected at high school and they started jamming and they sweat their way to the top.

And it was from skill and talent and staying sober. At least sober enough to make it to the top. You know what I mean? We’re usually talking about the 60s and the 70s.

That’s not an easy. So if you told me there was only one music, as you asked, is. I still can’t find anybody.

Although there’s a lot of bands coming up, there are close, and I’m going to draw a blank on their name. I even have their record, but Zeppelin just did it wrong. You’re talking about Greta Van Fleet.

Yeah. Greta Van Fleet is very similar to Zeppelin. Oh, my gosh.

So I listen to Greta Van Fleet all the time. What a unique group of characters in this band. But when you listen to their sound, you’re like, that’s Robert Plant.

You would think it’s recorded years ago. Oh, yeah, it has that same sound. But I like the raw I. Making music with my hands.

And so they’ve earned that. Yeah. I can’t explain that.

It’s a difference between buying a pre made cabinet at a box hardware store or making the cabinet yourself or buying it from a local artisan. Does that make sense? Yep, yep, 100%. Okay, I’m gonna switch topics.

Okay. But we have more to talk about. I’m stealing from the camera dude podcast.

I had to do it once in this. What? You. You’re loud.

Thank you. What turns you on and what turns you off? Go ahead. What turns me on is people that are passionate about something in life.

Photography, music, scuba diving. I always gravitated to a group of people that have created their community because they’re so passionate about what they’re doing. And off.

I don’t like ugliness, you know, from an internal portion. That’s what I mean. Someone that is just constantly negative, constantly ugly from the inside out.

And there’s, you know, and I feel for them because they’re probably struggling with something that I don’t know about. But unfortunately that kind of leaks out onto everybody that’s around them. And so in a way I want to help them, but that definitely turns me off because you can’t move forward in life like that.

No. Yeah. And unfortunately, like, what’s best for you is to get away from that negativity because you can’t.

You can only control what you do at the end of the day. Exactly. I would say off is definitely inconsideration and impatience.

We’re watching our town get more and more crowded. I mean, we’re working on snowbird season, so that happens this time of year. But it.

There’s so many people driving erratically and they. I don’t even think they care about their own safety at this point. So I. And you know, people just walking into a store and people open a door and just let it close on you.

Just. They’re just unaware, it seems like. But that is starting to really make me crazy.

There seems to be like a selfishness to it. We just experienced somebody passing because of selfish driving. I’m going to drive like a maniac and save three men minutes.

But yet the result is people are dead. So my good friend Louis Paez, wonderful photographer, was also a police officer in South Florida. And lady was zipping and zigging and zagging and whipped off the road, lost control of her car.

Three motorcycle cops were on the side of the road helping someone with a dead battery. They’re all dead. Well, one’s in critical Care two are dead and one of the.

One of them that’s passed is my good friend. And it was the selfish driving of, you know, that. That it was like, it’s only me.

It’s about me, my life, my everyday and not all the people around us. And we’re seeing that more people are coming to St. Pete from up north for us. St. Pete is our home.

I go to downtown St. Pete. It’s my yard. You know, I’ve been here my whole life.

But it’s not their home. And it seems like they don’t care the same way. It’s very different.

So it’s very hard for the native to be here. Anyhow, I’m off my soapbox now. I would say on is music that is.

That’s always inspiring. Like you can be in a crummy mood and put on something you love and, you know, get out of the car and you just feel totally different. It’s.

It’s wonderful to have that. I love that. And the best, the icing on top is when you pull into your parking space as the song is just finishing for me, I go, it’s hard to orchestrate.

But that would be when it. Or when the universe orchestrates in that way. I’m like, oh, yeah, you could turn off your car instead of being like, should I finish this song? Because sometimes you sit there because you’re like, you can’t interrupt the groove.

Yeah, nothing better. You both have done very well. We have one more question.

It is how do you define success? And there’s silence. There’s different paths you can take. Of course, with the answer.

I think it’s creating. I mean, you know, what is success about? A business is about a life. Life.

What is the result? But I think it’s creating a life, a business that you’re proud of, serving the people that you like, the people you love. And in the midst of that, being able to serve and give back, having the freedom to. That could be time, it could be money, but being able to serve your community around you at the same time.

Time and also have the time to enjoy where you are. That’s a good answer. I don’t know how you’re going to top that.

I don’t think I can. Ditto. Peace for us both actually comes from above, but from down here while we’re still walking around in this earth suit that we’re in.

Contentment is important, but not the type of contentment that doesn’t include growth, progress, creativity. I like to have a foundation. You know, we have our little home.

We love it. We’re content there. We don’t have to have all the other things that, you know, we’re comfortable in our lifestyle and having that peace that comes with that.

There’s nothing wrong with pushing to the top and being as big as you feel you are called to be. That’s okay. But there’s also a time where you want to level up and have that foundation in your life where everything’s comfortable and content, and then that allows you to grow creatively or as a business owner because everything else is in place and nice.

Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. Very much. Love it.

Well, both your answers, you both have won Rapid Fire. So congratulations. Yeah.

All right. Well, it’s hard to tie a bow on this one, but what I’d love to do is hear from you, and I know it’s going to be juicy. Like to hear your favorite piece of advice, either that you’ve ever heard that’s helped you or that you have that you feel someone listening.

Anybody, whether they own a business or are in their garage playing guitar. What do you. What would you like to leave them with? Now you go, oh, boy.

They’re pointing at each other like, wait, wait, I’m not ready for that. No. What to leave people with.

So if I was leaving tomorrow Earth, I would tell people that it’s about the relationships. If you have a broken relationship with a family member, a friend, a college buddy, whatever it is, go fix it. Because when you’re gone, you’re gone.

Two years ago, I lost my best friend from birth. His mother was holding him in her arms, looking at me through the window in the bassinet at the hospital. Hospital.

And we had a broken relationship at a certain point. And there was good reason and all of that, but it didn’t matter when he was gone. It sucked royally because that door was not closed, it wasn’t settled, and it wasn’t clean.

So it’s really about the people and the relationships. We can drive as hard as we want. Some people don’t want that.

Some people just want to work for a company and clock in, clock out and live at home and have that kind of life. And other people, their life is their work. It just depends on their choices.

It all boils down to the people. So make sure those relationships are healthy. Visit those that you know and care about.

The friend I just mentioned, we were supposed to go on a big motorcycle ride together. We should have put that together. He’s not here now.

In a flash, in the pan, he was gone just like that. So, yeah, call your friends, call your family, go visit people, deal with their BS that they all have because one day they’re not there and you’ll wish that you had that. You wish you had it back.

All the headaches that they put in your life, you’ll miss. It’s interesting, but that’s how it goes. Boy.

Yeah. That’s profound. I couldn’t agree more.

It’s a great reminder. Our family motto is Living on the edge of safety. That’s great.

That sounds like a great album title that you guys can produce one day. Coming from people that are. Are very conservative in how we approach things.

We don’t make decisions quickly. We’re very careful about what we do. We’re conservative financially.

We don’t take huge risks. My advice is actually to be brave, to maybe take a risk, take a chance. If an opportunity presents itself, don’t let it slide by.

Take it by the horn and try it. Go for it and see what that result is. I mean, it could be that it’s a flop and it’s a waste of time, but you probably learned something in that process anyway.

But, yeah, that’d be my advice. I would like to. If I could go back and create a new personality for myself, it would be to be more brave.

So how is that RV park working out for you right now? Yeah, that’s another episode, I’m afraid. Sure. Yeah.

Well, there will. There could be a part two for you. Yeah, there was a brave move on our end.

It’s struggling at the moment, so. That was my sarcasm right there. Well, yeah, just to remind people, you’re not juggling one business, which is plenty.

You’re juggling two. Two businesses, a podcast, ministry, family stuff. And.

Oh, yeah, it’s every. Everybody. I was going to say that’s.

That’s. I have a quote and I don’t know who wrote it, but I was always told, even by an accountant friend who’s long since passed, he was a family friend, and he said, you know, photography, is that even business? But yet I had gone to all these conventions and seminars. I saw people doing it.

And somewhere in the midst of me saying, this is what I’m going to do, I heard a quote, and it says, those that say it can’t be done need to get out of the way of those that are doing it. And so 30 years later, we’re here because I rode that boat upstream, and it was upstream. You know, we sit here all like, we made it.

No. And when you get to the top. Another piece of advice is don’t put your feet up on the desk and relax, because there is somebody nipping at your heels right behind you that wants to change the world.

So you keep your ear to the tracks, and when it’s time to change, you make changes until your inner spirit says, I’m finished. Then step away and let them take the front stage. But until then, there is no rest, even at the top.

That’s a myth. Boy, that. This has been a pleasure, and I really appreciate your time and your friendship.

Above all, I love both of you and your personalities and who you are at the core. And that’s what I resonate most with and appreciate the most. And it’s an honor to get to hang out with you guys continually.

And I look forward to going and feeding our Earth suits. I’m using that now after this. Yes.

I love it. It’s my favorite. I do look forward to it.

Thank you so much for having us. Thanks. And our friendship and all of that, and I’m.

It’s good stuff. I look for a million more years together. Me, too.

Thanks, Josh.