SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome to the VC Code, where we unlock real stories of small business owners who've battled chaos, crushed doubt, and conquered their challenges. Faith, family, and finances. No fluff, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory. One story at a time. What is awesome? Thank you for joining us today as we explore our latest purpose-driven journey, The Creative Architect, where we unpack building sustainable ecosystems for creativity. How to lead with purpose, navigate three decades of media pivots, and foster a local legacy that outlasts the trends. In an era where digital noise drowns out local voices, how do you keep an independent magazine relevant for 30 years? And how do you turn that influence into a nonprofit engine that supports thousands of artists? A creative entrepreneur, photographer, and advocate, Angela Brown has become a cornerstone of Utah's cultural identity. She's the force behind Slug Magazine, which is short for Salt Lake Underground, and the founder of Kraft Lake City. Angela and I met through Dan Martell's elite mastermind. She is a master of the cultural ecosystem. In a world where print media has struggled to survive, she has led Slug magazine for over three decades while simultaneously building Kraft Lake City into a powerhouse nonprofit. She represents that where that rare leader who can balance an alternative publication with the operational rigor required to run massive festivals and year-round community programming. Today we are exploring the architecture of community. We're diving into how Angela bridges the gap between alternative creative expression and the sustainable professional leadership. As you've come to expect, we'll filter her 30-year journey through the Vici pillars faith, family, fitness, and finance. Angela, so happy to have you. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

It's my honor and pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Absolutely. We're gonna jump right in. We want to get into the nitty-gritty, the breakthrough. Um, you've been at the Helm of Slug magazine for over 30 years. You've seen the rise and fall of countless media outlets. What was the specific breakthrough moment where you realized Slug wasn't just a magazine, but a platform that needed to expand into a nonprofit like Craft Lake City to survive and thrive?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

That's such a great question. You know, I think a lot of us out there, we forget that we can maximize our platforms. And for me, when I made that decision to maximize my platform, which is a media outlet here in Salt Lake City, Utah, and use that to start a nonprofit creative community, it actually was really kind of organic at the time. I mean, that was 18 years ago now, which is wild to think about. And it really was to serve a need. You just were lacking that need here in the community. And so I decided to fill it.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

That's amazing. How do you maintain an alternative voice while sitting at the table with city leaders and corporate sponsors?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Well, but maintaining an alternative voice for me has always actually been pretty easy. I mean, I grew up here in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the punk scene, in the DIY do-it-yourself scene. Um, and I had some really wonderful parents that I was number six of six kids. And by the time I came along, they really allowed me to, you know, kind of be who I wanted to be. And they were very supportive. My father was very into the arts. He was an entrepreneur himself, uh, although he would never identify as an artist, he had very creative practices. Uh, his art form was designing our garden and spending time in the garden when he wasn't working and building his business. And his business was actually in social work. He was uh an entrepreneur, had his own social work firm and a very big, big career in uh social work and was at you know the the top of his field and very, very, very renowned um here locally for that work that he did in academia. And my mom, she was a homemaker that struggled with mental illness. And so she was in and out of uh mental institutions my entire life. And you know, mental mental illness is a still relatively new phenomenon uh as far as you know with the medical industry, and they're still learning so much every single day. And there was at one point where she had been on every single antipsychotic or or antidepression medication out there, and we were still looking for the one that was going to work for her. So she had just a really kind of like difficult time. But because those two kind of instances of my parents having a lot uh on their shoulders, they kind of allowed me a lot of personal creativity and time to really follow my own path and my own dreams.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

That's amazing how you're you've you've found your creative inspiration out of like kind of really two different ends of like uh a parenting, a parent struggling and the other one really thriving. And you've taken bits of both to really be who you are and and impact your local community. Real quick, I just want to jump back on mental health. It's just yeah, we're still peeling back the layers on that, right? Like, and I feel like now it's getting more exposure. So now it seems like everyone's got a mental health issue, but also right, like there's also the the the realization that like media, like social media and kids, it's just really kind of driving that maybe, maybe people are having more mental health issues. And I just I'm glad that you know you brought that up and you and you know, you the candid moment to to to reveal that because I think everyone's got a highlight reel out there, and there's always a battle that you know people are dealing with that no one really knows about. So I really do appreciate you know your candidness on that.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Thank you. Well, and with mental health, there's so many different levels, like you mentioned, of mental health. And I think there's so many different ways that we can control it. Of course, medication's one, and for severe cases like my mother, bipolar schizophrenia, she really did need some medication. But also, I I wonder now, she's since passed. Um, but I wonder if at that time, too, if we had kind of been able to educate her about uh the importance of physical fitness, um, about getting support from a community. You know, although she did have community support from her church, because of her mental illness, it was really hard for some people to get close to her. But I wonder also if she had more support with her, you know, being the uh the homemaker of the household, which can, as you know, is just one of the most important and difficult jobs out there to maintain a household and of course maintain all of the children. And so, you know, I wonder if if she'd had a little bit more support in some of those areas, if that couldn't have lessened some of her mental health. Um, and then again, yeah, if she could have uh, I mean, she was always really into uh eating a clean diet and things like that. But, you know, I think some of those things are preventatives that we can do to maintain our own mental health.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Absolutely. We've we've come a long way, but we're still finding out new things. And I think what we can all agree on is, you know, proper activity, hydration, proper nutrition, getting outside, like those four things. You know, you can be struggling with something, but those four things will really give you a fighting chance to really combat that. Now, some people's issues, like you said, are more severe than others and may require, but those are the four things that a lot of people just aren't doing. They're just not doing those things. So, you know, that's another episode. And uh I really appreciate you jumping into that. Um, now let's jump into the finance pillar. Let's get back into the business side of things. Uh, we talk about sustainability, right? You had a nonprofit, you had a for-profit magazine and a nonprofit organization. How do you balance those two checkbooks to ensure both are serving the community without losing their independent soul?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Oh my goodness, Joe, still learning. You know, uh even though I've been in business for over 25 years, uh, you know, the nonprofit for 18, Slug magazine as the publisher 25, of course, working for the previous publisher for years before that. Uh, but it is, I bootstrapped both of those businesses. And with Slug Magazine, when I first took it over, I uh took out a loan. And it was back when you could do, you know, loans on stated income, which was really wonderful. So got a business loan on just kind of the stating that I could pay it back. And uh, and then it took me about five years to pay that loan off. And over that five years, as a young person in my 20s, I was working two other jobs on the side. I was doing all of the jobs at Slug magazine. I could only afford to hire one part-time employee for 20 hours a week. And uh and so slowly, slowly I started uh, you know, just just I mean, really just learning by doing, right? Um, and got a little more smart with my finances, was finally able to increase our revenue through sales, getting better at sales, improving systems and techniques there, and then uh growing up our teams to where now, here 25 years later, we have 10 full-time employees, we've got uh two independent contractors, we've got around 15 part-time employees, and then over 100 volunteers that make the magazine happen each month.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

So it is huge. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

It's a small army. So I really learned about community and building community through building Slug magazine. So then when I started the nonprofit, uh, you know, really it was about eight years or maybe seven years later, I finally had some extra free time with Slug magazine. So I decided typical entrepreneur style to start it, start something else. And so that's when I started the nonprofit, because again, I saw that need in the community and took all of that experience of working with volunteers, bootstrapping that, and then bootstrapped the nonprofit for seven years. And that, gosh, I learned so much. I would sure do it differently now. But for the first seven years, 100% volunteer run. No one got paid, including myself, and learned so many financial lessons there too.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Absolutely. It's funny how so many of these rite of passage stories are so similar. Um, for the younger crowd out there listening, you know, these these, you know, from zero to a hundred stories are just so rare. Um, and and there's there's so much more to the story, you know. Would you have done them differently, Angela? Yeah, sure, but you wouldn't have known how to do it differently if you didn't go through it, right? It's it's always good to have people in your inner circle that will be honest with you because you know, starting a business and growing a business, oftentimes you'll hear people who really don't know anything, but they want to support you, say all the nice things. You know, look for the people who are uh maybe a little bit more brash, but we'll tell you, you know, really what you need to hear. But it's also good to have those supporting friends and family members to keep you encouraged. But it's it's fascinating how you know, so many of these stories have some consistency with the struggle and making it through. And I gotta say, one of the most impressive things is when you know that you've got a really strong brand identity when you can when you have over a hundred volunteers helping you, you know, pursue like your vision, your mission. And that's just amazing.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

I really thank you. And it it really is amazing. And I think that it when we're working with volunteers, it brings a different type of individual to the team. It brings a mission-driven, a purpose-driven, which uh is really different from someone that's very financially oriented, which also, you know, we've got to have that too. But uh, and I think that's really special. It's more people kind of leading with their heart. And I love to be around that energy and to work with those types of individuals where we can all just connect on service and helping other individuals. But but that being said, with the finance, uh, you know, going from bootstrapping to then learning that I really need to get a line of credit so I can move quicker and faster uh to also airing on that side, to getting uh just because you get that line of credit doesn't mean you should use it, to using relying on that a little too heavily when I started my family. And um, and so now I'm on the other side of that working to really pay down that business debt because we got a you know a little bit into debt. And so it's been such a wonderful journey to be on both sides of the coin from being so proud of not having any debt to realizing, okay, there's a little bit of good debt that you can get into to really grow the business, but then just being mindful not to be too reliant on that to where it gets out of control.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yeah, I'm actually working on a startup checklist for uh some of my audience. And, you know, one of the things, because I I feel like I'm I'm a broken record when I talk to new clients all the time. I'm like, all right, so you start your business, you get your EIN, you get your bank account, you get your QuickBooks set up, you know, uh once you have a separate bank account, you know, if you can get a if you can get a line of credit or a credit card going, do it immediately because it's like only use it if you need it, but it's good to have, right? It's good to be able to say, okay, I paid for it here with a credit card. I don't get a statement for another 30 days. Now I've got 30 days to pay that same. You just gave yourself 60 days of extra cash. And those 60 days is gold when it comes to cash flow. So it's it's so important to be able to have that tool, but also have the um have the management ability and the fortitude to to only use it when you need it.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

So the self-control, right? And my my goodness, with with that line of credit, if we didn't have that during COVID, boy, that would have made things a lot more difficult. I mean, it could have taken us out. I mean, we really relied on that line of credit during COVID. Uh, and then, you know, we were able to pay it all down, which is wonderful. And then um, I got pregnant with my my one and only daughter that I have and was wonderful. And I kind of uh just relied a little too much on that line of credit to take care of some business expenses while going through that and learning experience for sure. So now it's kind of it's time to just be mindful about that. But it is so important to get that line of credit.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

And I also think it's important, Andrew, to point out that like you may not have gotten that line of credit, you know, early on. Like you make sure you know who your banker's name is, know a few of them, develop that relationship because sometimes that's the wild card that gets you access to additional funds where you know you're you're an actual person, not just, you know, a name on the other side of an email, right? So I think it's important that our audience also knows that you know that banking relationship is so important.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

So important. And get it when you don't need it. Because when you do need it, it takes a long time to get, uh, or you might not be able to get it because of your financial situation then. So always get it when you're on top and you do not need to use it. And then just of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

And that's and that's often why I actually like so even if it's like uh a a thousand dollar credit card or a ten thousand, you know, I always say get it now. Cause if you don't use it, you're literally adding brownie points to yourself, saying that, like, hey, I'm doing fine without it. Or if you are using it and you're paying it off responsibly every month, you're showing, you know, basically sweat equity for getting more money later on. So great point. Um, how about invisible costs? What's the biggest invisible cost of building a community-driven business that founders often overlook?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

I believe that's a oh my goodness, that's such a great question. What is the biggest invisible cost? Can you give me an example? What's an invisible cost?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

You know, like you go into business. Like, I think insurance is always a good one. You're like, oh, I got this great idea. I'm gonna start this business and do this, and then all of a sudden you owe like, you know, general liability insurance, you owe payroll insurance. Like, there's just all these different insurances that you don't expect when you uh start a business. So, what was like one of the biggest ones that kind of blindsided you a little bit for, you know, the the building the community-driven side stuff?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

So for invisible costs, there's two things. I'm gonna first answer it in a more of a creative way, which is people think that once you become a nonprofit, money just flows to you, that you are able to just get free money. There's grants everywhere, which don't get me wrong, there those things are true, but it's not just because you're a nonprofit. Um, I think the big invisible cost with that is putting in the time and labor to write a grant uh to get that funding. For instance, there used to be a grant that we'd write for that was a $5,000 grant, and especially in the early days, $5,000 was so much money. And then we actually did the labor breakdown of how much time it took for us to manage that grant, to write the grant, get it approved, manage the project that the money went to, and then write the grant report because it was very labor-intensive, this specific grant. We actually were losing money. And so we took that grant off of our prospect list for the following year because it just didn't make sense. And so I think that invisible cost where you think you are you're staying busy to get the funds, but then when you actually look at it, that time could be appropriated to other places where you could be raising two to three times more money.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

That's an amazing example. Uh, because it goes back to the lesson of just because you can doesn't mean you always should. And I think that's the that's the side of the entrepreneurial spirit that we have to kind of check ourselves on is like, oh, I did this. Well, I'm gonna go do this. It's it's really easy to pull yourself in in directions that you shouldn't. And to, you know, you gotta really remind yourself to be hyper focused. And that is a great because who who would have thought free money would cost so much, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:33

It's really true. And again, it just um I think with that too, it's also important to take time to self-reflect, to go through the process. Because if we hadn't self-reflected with that example, we would probably still be applying for that $5,000 grant and spending so much time doing it. Um, so when we're really working on projects, it's important as leaders and as entrepreneurs to not just get so busy in the work, to make that time to, you know, be out of the business and really working on the future and looking back at what we've done, analyzing it, determining if it's still the best way we should move forward.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah. In my discipline, we call that managerial accounting, right? Doing the analysis of is this profitable? You know, what's what's our cost compared to generating that revenue? Um, and that's that's next level skill. Like usually in the first phase, it's just get the money in. You know, Dan talks about all the time, just get the money in, worry about that other stuff later. Build the system, uh, but eventually you got to get to a point where like you got to really start evaluating. And that's where we try to, you know, build value with our clients with like the bookkeeping function. Like it shouldn't be just this sunk cost, like, oh, I gotta do it for a time. If you're not making decisions based on data, I mean, you got to definitely go with your gut on a lot of these things, but like if you're not making decisions based on data, you're leaving, you know, uh a lot of opportunity on the table. Um, so making sure that you're looking at the analytics of the outcomes is really important. And it leads to you guys maybe going after bigger grants that may not require you guys so much time and you be profitable on these on these grants. So great, great feedback on that, Angela.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Thank you. Well, and it is so important to look at those numbers from a narrative point of view, because the numbers tell a story. And I love that idea of even looking at the numbers with your bookkeeper or your CPA or someone who's not in your day-to-day the same way that you are, because they're gonna read the story a little bit differently than you are and give you a different perspective. And making time to do that at least weekly, I think is so, so important, if not daily.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Financial literacy. You know, you want to be it, you know, you want to be on the same page as your accountant, whether it's a bookkeeper or your tax preparer. You want to be on the stage page, you want to talk apples to apples um and and be a sponge to learn that. Because you want to be able to not just be a one-way street, you want to be able to go two ways and have an intelligent conversation about your business and the finances. Um, because you can strategize. Yeah. Oftentimes, you know, even even like uh uh uh uh a seasoned eye uh looking at this stuff may not always see the things that the owner sees. So it's good to collaborate on understanding your finances with uh that finance function.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Right. And I was I was just looking at um one of our fellow elite accounts before this call, and they made this wonderful post about how it's important as entrepreneurs to not be just intuitively thinking about our finances. And I think that we all start out that way where we kind of we think we know, but we're not looking at the numbers. We are just like intuitively operating from this perspective of like gut feeling. And with numbers, you can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

No. I like making decisions based on both, right? What does the what does the the numbers say, right? Objectively, what do they say? But also what does my gut tell me about what's gonna happen? Because we can't, the numbers don't tell us what's gonna happen all the time. So it's good to bring both of those together. Um let's jump into some family stuff. You've built your career around community engagement in the family pillar. You often act as the matriarch of uh Utah's creative scene. How do you protect your personal time and energy when your professional mission is to so deeply is so deeply intertwined with the public life of the city?

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Uh, thank you. Well, I think that it's really important for me to involve my family in my work. For the, I mean, I've got a four-year-old daughter, and I think it's really important for her to see the work that I do and to experience it so that she can become a leader in her own right, so that she can understand that women can be bosses, that we can be entrepreneurs, we can be community leaders, we can essentially do whatever we want to do, and that also it's important to act in service to help others. Uh, and so I as much as possible try and take her with me when I can. In fact, when she was a baby, I would take her to meetings all the time. And even here in our office, we have one of our employees uh on the Craft Lake City side, because I run Slug magazine and Craft Lake City in the same office, two separate teams, but we're all here together. But we have uh a very friendly, dog-friendly, and kid-friendly office. We've got a baby changing area, we've got a playpen for kids and books and toys. And my daughter spent her first two years of her life here in the office with me, which was wonderful. And uh now one of my employees is doing that with her daughter. And I think it's also great for the individuals that haven't chosen uh to be part to raise their own family yet, for them to kind of experience what it's like and to be around children and just see how wonderful that can be. But also it's so it's so great for us as working moms to be able to be with our kid too, and just to kind of integrate that life together instead of trying to balance it. And I'm a big advocate about ditching this idea of work-life balance if you're an entrepreneur and looking at integration. Because I think, I mean, even as if you're not an entrepreneur, just that the idea of chasing balance all the time can just be really stressful and uh just understanding the pendulum is going to swing right to left. And one thing that's really important for me is that I take two weeks off with my family uh to travel. And so one thing that we do is we go to a different foreign country every single year. So we're about ready to go to Korea in three weeks for 10 days, which will be wonderful. And so that will be just our time together. I'll probably, you know, check in a little bit with the team. But uh being in another foreign country allows me to just really center with my family, which I love. And then, of course, uh when we're here and when we're working and um just bringing the family along as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

There's so much good advice in everything you've just said. It's hard to even go back on it. We could spend an entire episode on just that. But I think you look back at like, you know, legacy, you know, trades, right? Um, you know, it's been a lot of changes over the last hundred years. You used to grow up watching your parents do what they did and you follow in their steps, they miss out on that opportunity and they miss out on that time with you and they don't get to see all that hard work. So you have to be more intentional this these days and letting them into that life, right? Um, but when you're when you're your own boss, you can make those decisions and bring your kids around. I'm I'm working from home, my kids are in the other room. Luckily, you can't hear them, but they're having a great old time and they're homeschooled, so it's a little bit different, but like they get to see all this if they know it's podcast time for dad right now. So they know they got to be a little bit wetter, better behaved. Um, so I think that's amazing to be able to, like you said, integrate, right? The work-life balance uh rat race is kind of a myth, right? It's you have your good weeks, you have your bad weeks, but you just gotta make sure that you're intentional with you know making time for family and and in in and including uh both sides of that coin together. Um and I love that you travel. Uh I love traveling. We travel ourselves. Uh, we've got one on the way, so we're gonna be doing a lot less travel this year, but I love it. Korea is on my uh really high on my list um as well. So I hope you enjoy and have a safe trip. Um jumping back in, how is your background in photography and design influenced the way you see leadership and team building?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Well, designing a team is like designing an art project in a lot of ways. You really got to be thoughtful about what you're bringing into the space. Uh, you've got to calculate the cost. Um, really just be kind of prepared. And then if it's not working, be prepared to scrap it as as soon as possible and to pivot. And uh it's really fun to be able to design my workspace, to be able to design my team, really design my life in a thoughtful way that is kind of in my own way a reflection of my life as a as a form of art.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

And uh comes to mind is Fibonacci sequence, right? Patterns and um sequences, right? So building that team, building that structure, right? There's got to be a balance, obviously, of structure and creativity. And I think that's where someone like you, who can do both, can really teach us, you know, how to do both, right? So it's it shouldn't be one or the other, it should be a really good blend of both and a good balance.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Well, we work with a lot of individuals. One of our mission or points of our mission with Craft Lake City is to elevate Utah's creative culture through science, technology, and art. But as part of that, we teach uh executing as part of as part of executing that mission, we teach individuals to become creators and makers themselves. And I oftentimes hear from people that they do not believe that they're an artist, that, oh yes, I don't have a creative bone in my body, that, oh, that's my little sister or someone else. And I highly disagree. I think we are all very creative human beings. We just haven't found our specific uh art practice yet. But we're utilizing creativity as entrepreneurs in our business systems and how the decisions that we make, how we put things together, how we solve problems. And I love that about uh entrepreneurship. And so that is something that we also do with Craft Lake City is we teach artisans how to become entrepreneurs because a big part of that education in college or art school is not about business at all. It's all about how it's hard to run a business or how if you're a creative person, you can't also be an analytical person or you can't have business skills, which is a total fallacy. And we need to stop that narrative and start teaching creatives that it's it's the same skill, it's just creativity. It's just applied in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Yeah, it's it's called being responsible and saying that like I can do this. You may not be great at it, and eventually you get to a point where you're, you know, magnifying your efforts in other areas so that you can spend some more time learning that or hire, you know, buy back your time and hire it out. Uh, but yeah, I mean, everyone's capable of financial literacy and and running a business, the business for sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Just got to be consistent.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

So uh leadership in the arts requires immense mental fitness. When you hit a wall, whether it's a festival logistics nightmare or a publishing crisis, where do you find the faith or the inner conviction to keep pushing for another 30 years?

SPEAKER_01 29:49

It's really important as a leader to maintain a positive attitude and composure and to think about what it is personally I need to do for myself in order to bring that best version of myself for others. Because as a leader, people are going to mimic my energy, they're gonna mimic my behavior. If I'm stressed out about something, they're gonna get stressed out about something. Not to say that I can't have those feelings or emotions, but I need to find a way to regulate all of that and to deal with that. And so I start with a good internal practice. Um, I am very into physical fitness, work out every single day, make sure that I take care of my body in a dietary sense, eat whole foods, eat a very healthy diet. Um, occasionally uh I think that sleep, I could probably have a little better sleep hygiene, but uh, because that's really important too. But when we're when we're out in the field, when we're producing, you know, our big DIY festival for 20,000 people over three days and it working 18-hour days. I mean, I'm sure it's similar to maybe even kind of your time in the military, where you just you're on a mission, you've got to do, you've got to execute this project. Um, things can be happening that are out of control, but you kind of got to just keep your composure and keep it all together and move forward and get it done.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah, and that specific moment in time, you know, you got to adapt and overcome and get through things, and then you debrief after where can we do things better? I think anybody in the military can relate to sleep deprivation for sure. And I think, you know, running uh uh an event of that magnitude, it it just requires sacrifice to make sure, you know, crises are avoided. So yeah, you know, peak mental fitness will, you know, going into it will help you get through that. And, you know, eating right, having having the the nourishment your body needs um will get you through some of the moments where you may not be able to really focus on putting all the right things, but always drinking off water. We'll just say that, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Drink I drink for sure. I bring a couple extra pair of shoes and some socks. That's like such a game changer midway through. Change your socks, it's it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

That you that that just changes your mood for the better, right? Just a new pair of socks. When does that ever get anybody upset? Never.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

So there's this just the little little tweaks like that that can make such a big difference. And there's something special too about, you know, we we sometimes use, I mean, it's definitely very different, but we kind of use putting the festival, like going through the full festival is like all right, we're gonna go through battle, you know, together because it we're setting up the city for you know just three days and then tearing it all down. And there's so much work that goes into it and so much physical labor, and it's so fun. But you bring you you kind of uh you you build these relationships and the sense of camaraderie, not only with the individuals that are putting it together, but also for the people. When the people come in and you're seeing them have such a great time with all of the incredible work that you put together, it makes it all worth it. And it almost comes a little bit like summer camp, where after it's over, you know, you've just been stretched like physically and emotionally, and then you're kind of like, oh, it's it's over. Like, oh, you know, I'm not gonna see it till next year.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

That's why we debrief though. We go through what worked, what didn't, and then you know, then it's off season that we start building day one of uh next season. So um awesome. Well, we're getting close to the end. Uh, Angela, thank you so much for your tireless, tireless advocacy uh for the makers of Utah. Um, if you're a creator looking to scale or impact your uh impact, visit, you know, craftlakekity.com or the slug magazine. So, Angela, you have some uh some offers for our clients if they want to stay. We for for the listeners, there's you know, all of your your details, your hyperlinks are gonna be in the show notes. So look for those. But tell our listeners a little bit more about how they can stay in touch with you and and what you have for them.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Well, thank you. Thank you for asking, Joe. I let me ask you a question. Do you have an executive assistant?

unknown 33:54

I do.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Yes, isn't it the best?

SPEAKER_02 33:57

It's everything, it's a game changer. It's it's it's work, but it's the the ROI is just exponential. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

It is it is, and it took me, it's so interesting how being an entrepreneur, you could just have all these opportunities to grow personally in so many different ways, which is one of the reasons why I love it. And it took me so many years to get the confidence to have an EA. And when I say that, I mean for some reason, I just felt weird about having an executive assistant, about telling people I have an executive assistant, about turning things over to the executive assistant. I, and then I realized that actually the one of the reasons why I had an issue with it was I didn't know that I deserved it, which was such an interesting thing to kind of come to. Like it was a confidence issue for me. So once I got over that, I immediately started hiring for an executive assistant. And it was such a game changer in my work world. And so I want to help others in that way. So I've got a playbook on how you can hire and work with your executive assistant. I'd love to share that with anyone who's interested in learning about that. So if you want to look me up on Instagram, you can find me at the real angela and just send me a DM EA and I'll send you over that playbook.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Awesome. You know, I think it's a mindset shift with EAs, because if you tell if if you tell yourself, you know, I don't know, I feel like I'm I'm, you know, I'm making myself feel like I'm more important than I really am, blah, blah, blah. And you move shift over to I can help more people, more clients, more team members, if I can shed some of this weight, now you see the benefit in it. You're not thinking about like, you know, am I am I being big headed about this? You're thinking like, I'm freeing up time to help my clients and provide more impact and and more purpose. So uh great feedback, great advice. Um, again, if you're looking to get a hold of Angela, uh the hyperlinks are are in the show notes. You can easily get a hold of her on Instagram, LinkedIn, uh Slug Mag and Craft Lake City.com. Um, in the meantime, stay creative, stay grounded, and keep leading with purpose. We'll see you on the next episode of the VC Code. Thanks for tuning in to the VC Code, where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense. If today's story hit home, share it. And remember, faith fuels a fight, and your comeback is already in progress.