Plate 66 - D8NIT - Trista's PL8STORY Podcast

Plate 66 - D8NIT - with Dan Purcell from UT

Connect with Dan:

@getyourmarriageon on Instagram

Wanna keep the spark alive in your relationship? There's an app for that! https://intimately.us

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Transcript:

D8NIT

Trista, Host: Welcome to this week's episode of Trista's PL8STORY (Plate Story) Podcast. I'm Trista Polo from iwokeupawesome.com and I am your host. Each week, we learn the story behind that vanity plate. You know, the one you saw driving down the road... what did it say? What did it mean? Why did they choose it? 

Welcome. Thanks for joining us. I'm really super excited to have this week's guest. The plate may sound familiar to you. It's D8NIT. It's D eight N I T from Utah. Dan Purcell is the owner of the license plate. Welcome Dan. 

Dan, Guest: Thank you. Happy to be here. 

Trista, Host: So glad to have you now you chose date night, share a little about why you chose that.

Dan, Guest: Sure right after I graduated from college, I got a job in a little town in Idaho and our neighbor, a few houses down had a BMW convertible and their license plate was Idaho date night. And we thought that was so cool. And that couple they're always flirty and fun towards each other. They'd go out on dates all the time.

And you know, when you have a sexy car, you got to name it date night. So we thought that was really. Fast forward many years later I had my eye on a specific car and. It's, it's a Tesla model X. And if you know about those, they open the back doors open, like a, the con Falcon wing doors and the fast, and it can seat up to seven passengers and we have a large family.

So I had all these reasons why it would be the perfect car for me. So we started saving her money and I will go get into this a little more, but it took us a long time to save for that car. And when we finally got it, we let my wife and I looked at each other, what are we going to call this? And I said, date night, of course.

So that's how we can kind of came up with that name. 

Trista, Host: That's awesome. Now we had a previous guest also date night, you guys know each other. Yeah, we 

Dan, Guest: do Laura Brotherson. 

Trista, Host: Yeah. That's awesome. So did she have anything to do with you making that date night choice? 

Dan, Guest: No. In fact I didn't even know that she had date night on her car either until after I heard about it from your podcast.

Trista, Host: So 

Dan, Guest: I texted her say, Hey, Laura, we have the same license plate. Well, very similar, but yeah. 

Trista, Host: I love that. So you have the Tesla, it has the sexy plate to go with the sexy car. Now you said that it took something for you to save for the Tesla. You know, those are kind of pricey cars, but you have a little bit of a journey that you've been through professionally.

Can you share a little bit about that? 

Dan, Guest: Yes. I'm a software engineer by training and entrepreneur by hobby. So. The entrepreneur bug bit me right after I graduated from college and I want to start a company to build a business and we, we did professional website design and software development, and that grew and grew and grew.

We got to the point where he had 32 employees and over 800 clients all over the world and it was awesome. And an opportunity came to sell the company. So we're excited because running a company is hard. Long hours and it's a thankless job. It's very lonely and you sometimes work so hard for just such little pay.

It feels like sometimes. And often fantasize about, you know, a job at McDonald's or at the post office. Sounds really good right now compared to running this company anyway, so that, that opportunity came to sell the company. So we go into the negotiation, sell the company, came up with the valuation and agreed to terms where they would pay 10% down.

And 18 months later, the balance would be due with interest. So we've signed the papers and we'd go to work together. We merged these two companies together, and life is great for 11 months. On the 11th month, Mark, the CEO of the company that acquired ours, you know, invited me to lunch, which is always a bad sign and said, Hey Dan, I got bad news.

I'm out of money. There's absolutely no way I'll ever be able to pay you what I owe you. And we're going to have massive layoffs on Monday and you don't have a job. So that was really hard because you work so hard and we're really hoping for that payout. And that payout was going to be significant enough that we could pay off our mortgage fund or kids' college accounts and have money leftover for a fancy car.

So that's kind of where our first kind of goal was to get this, this fancy 

Trista, Host: car. So you kind of went from having your whole life set up to nothing. No job, no big pay out, no college tuition, still having a mortgage. So debt that's got to have really hit your family and you really hard. 

Dan, Guest: It was disappointing.

But I did have a few things going for me. One is I have skills. I know how to build a company. I don't want to, but if I had to, I could start over. The second is I had relationships and that's probably even more valuable than the first. I still had friends. I still had. Former clients I could reach out to.

I wasn't the only one losing my job, really talented people in that company, or we're also going to lose their job at that time. So it was a prime opportunity to snatch up top talent. So I cried in the closet for about a day and then realized that's going to do me no good. So I just went to work and that next monday was a big announcement and everything went down. And then by Tuesday, the next day I opened another office and we just went to work on starting the company all over again with a smaller, smaller group of people 

Trista, Host: that takes like a lot of mental fortitude. I mean, you're put kind of like, well, you know what, I was upset for a day, but got back up and, and went for it.

And I'm just thinking about like the average person. Would maybe need therapy, you know, like there's a lot to what you went through and the emotional reaction. I'd love to hear a little bit deeper behind the scenes of what it took for you mentally, emotionally to start over from scratch when you really were supposed to be done, having to do so much hard work.

Dan, Guest: First. So first things is that during those 11 months I worked for another company. See, I hadn't really gotten to. Paycheck like that for years, because I had run my own company. And if you run your own company, you know, you're always paid last. So that was kind of a new experience. But I also learned a lot too.

I, I learned that I actually don't make a good employee. I, I like to kind of run my own agenda. I like to set my own goals, not have someone else set goals for me. I like to I, I, I think I'm very much a visionary type of a worker and I was given integrator type tasks. So I got them done. But deep down inside, there was something missing.

I'm an entrepreneur I want to create. So I in a, in a way that sudden change, even though the way it came about, wasn't the way I would have preferred it to happen. It was, it was also an exit for me to kind of, you know, start something over and let the creator inside me loose. The other thing that really helped is I at the time and I still do sincerely believe the CEO of the company wasn't trying to pull a fast one on me. He wasn't trying to deceive me or trick me out of something. He honestly could not pay me. And it was at the end of his rope. He had, he had tried all of these things and it just, it didn't work. And I get that business is risky. Him acquiring my company was a big risk.

He took on probably a little bit too much risk than he was prepared to do. And he probably wasn't very well prepared for that. And so there's, so I kind of had to give him a little bit of grace for me to get over the emotional hangups of feeling taken advantage of. And another thing too, is. My wife and I tend to live frugally.

We'd had savings. We had we had enough savings that we could last, maybe six months, Dave Ramsey would be really proud of us. And he had we, we were okay. We would be okay. And we live near family. So something absolutely awful terrible would happen. We'd have, we have a support network built in that we could, you know, help help with.

What is that I'm thinking of a crash pad where it kind of absorbs the impact a bit. 

And just say it wasn't stressful would be not truthful at all. It was stressful, but part of it too is I I'm a believer in God. And that's, that's an important part of me to, to you know, to kind of take up my case before God and just ask for his help.

And I, I felt like he gave me help. 

Trista, Host: That's awesome. What I'm really hearing from you. You were, it's not like you woke up one day and had nothing. You had already put structures in place, both mentally, spiritually, and financially that it wasn't like you were waiting for a guaranteed lottery ticket. This was not your your big pay day to fix every problem you had amassed over the years.

So it sounds like you already had a very strong. Support system in many areas of life. And I think that I just want to acknowledge you for having all of that setup in place, but also for giving the owner, the benefit of the doubt. This has been kind of this mantra I've had the last few weeks, you know, if you're upset with someone, if they've quote done you wrong, said something wrong or mean, or what to give the person the benefit of the doubt that they were doing their best. They meant it in the best possible way. Maybe they were having a bad day having some good will stores with the people in your life. And it sounds like you had that with the owner so that you could give him the benefit of the doubt when he came to you with this news.

I'm sure that helped you reset after it happened.

Dan, Guest: Yes, it did. 

It's all your relationships. And I liked what you said about it. It takes you have to have a reservoir of it though.

So you have to kind of build up that reservoir and not just, just in general, you need to live that way. It's not a, if it's a win something happens, for us to draw 

Trista, Host: on. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you have your software engineer and you have an app that also kind of goes with your license plate, right?

Can you share a little bit about that? 

Dan, Guest: So a few months after we started everything over. I, so the stars aligned some really interesting things happen all of a sudden I'm back to work. And even though it's stressful because we don't have anything and we're kind of starting from scratch, I have new found life and creativity and passion in my work again.

So I'm happier at my work, even though it's more challenging. And then. My oldest at that time is around 12 or 13 years old and he is responsible enough to watch the younger kids. So my wife and I can go out more regularly on a weekend just to have a few hours together on a date. So that was another wonderful thing.

And probably for the first time in our marriage, up to that, My wife and I had some really serious conversations about our relationship and how, how we're relating well together. And part of that was prompted with an opportunity at work or in the conversations with friends. I call it stage of life or whatever.

And we both, for us realized we had a lot of anxiety going into marriage about our sexuality, that we've never really expressed to each other, that we've held on for these 13 years. So we're finally starting to have those really uncomfortable, but really important discussions about our sex life. Like, am I a good lover?

How am I doing? Like how can we improve in this area or. It was, we never really brought it up before. So for the first time we are, and for us, our situation's probably different than others, but we realized we needed a lot more information to make our sex life better. So we started we went on Amazon and found a few books and we, then we read some more and then we found podcasts and blogs. Within one year, think we read like 12 marriage and sex books together. We found awesome podcasts and great blogs. We like devour these blogs and binge listen to these podcasts. And just all of a sudden our relationship gets a lot closer.

And. We just start really connecting better. And there's something really magical that happens when you're twitterpaited. It's like the sky is bluer the grass is greener. The sun shines a little brighter. Everything is funnier all of a sudden. And we're like living in that, like state all over again.

It's like we're newlyweds all over again. Because we now are more mature and have a little more history. So we're like, holy cow, this is really, really good. If I were as a good public speaker, I would probably like be talking about this stuff. Or if I was a good writer, I'd probably write 

Trista, Host: then now we all know, we all know what it means. That's awesome. So the intimacy app is that available on all kinds of phones is itin the app store, 

Dan, Guest: just search the app store for intimately us.

That's 

Trista, Host: awesome. So what can someone hope to get from that app? Would they be able to get all the things that you were able to achieve from your work over 

Dan, Guest: that year? Absolutely. Yes. Yep. If you want a better sex life, there's an app for it. 

Trista, Host: Perfect. Do you want to be twitterpated there's an app for that.

Yeah. I love it. Now you said you had a couple other apps or did you have something else? 

Dan, Guest: Yeah, one app is a chat app, so 

it's not just my wife and I, but many couples like to flirt when they're apart and texting and whatever's a popular way to do that, but there's a big problem with texts. Is books or blogs about myself, but I'm neither of those.

My only medium I can really work in is software. So I thought we're going to make an app. Strengthen their marriages and get a, especially in the intimacy. Yeah. So we made an app called "Intimately Us" plus a few. We have a few other apps out now, but that's the main one.

Trista, Host: That's great. Now I just have to stop for a moment. You used a word that I had never heard before and I have a pretty good vocabulary. So I looked it up and it was "twitterpaited". I just want to let everybody know it is excited or overcome by romantic feelings or smitten, according to dictionary.com.

Anybody else was? Yes, it comes from the movie Bambi. That's exactly right. So if anybody was wondering or stuck on that word then now we all know, we all know what it means. That's awesome. So the intimacy app is that available on all kinds of phones is itin the app store, 

Dan, Guest: just search the app store for "Intimately Us".

Trista, Host: So what can someone hope to get from that app? Would they be able to get all the things that you were able to achieve from your work over 

Dan, Guest: that year? Absolutely. Yes. Yep. If you want a better sex life, there's an app for it. 

Trista, Host: Perfect. Do you want to be twitterpated there's an app for that.

Yeah. I love it. Now you said you had a couple other apps or did you have something else? 

Dan, Guest: Yeah, one app is a chat app, so it's not just my wife and I, but many couples like to flirt when they're apart and texting and whatever's a popular way to do that, but there's a big problem with texts. Is you can accidentally send a message to the wrong person, and it's not just, you know, SMS, there's Facebook messenger and there's WhatsApp.

And all of those platforms are designed to like communicate with many people. So we wanted an app that you can only communicate with one other person. And so we created "Just Between Us" is the name of it. Okay. And you install it and your, your spouse installs it or whoever your partner is, and then you sync. So when you send a message, they're the only recipient ever that will ever get that message.

Plus it's all end-to-end encrypted. So it's double encrypted. So there's absolutely no way an intermediary can get it and you can password protect the app. So if you have young kids at home, like we do, who like to play on our phones, sometimes they can't get into our messages. Oh, my 

Trista, Host: gosh, I love this app.

That's 

Dan, Guest: amazing Yoou can send photos and videos. And we've built in like some fun conversation starters and topics, and a bunch of 30 graphics like you can put in and of course, GIFs and all that good stuff. 

Trista, Host: That's adorable. I have never heard of either of these apps. I'm so glad to know about them. That's so fun. Now you Started a business and run it to get it to be so successful you sold it. You were able to get back on your feet and start a second business. Very successful. I'd love to hear some advice, how to be a great entrepreneur and how to be a great traditional business with employees. Like what does it take?

Dan, Guest: Yeah, I, my business goal, I started to really take off my business, started to really take off in the last few years. Once I got really good at planning, and that sounds kind of generic, of course everyone plans. But what I really mean by that is goal setting, planning, vision, that kind of stuff.

So some of the major changes I've made in my life is first. I joined a mastermind group and I recommend that to anyone who is serious about this. Did to look just Google mastermind group for business, whatever there's like hundreds, maybe even thousands of organizations that provide a mastermind in case you don't know is it's, it's at its very basic form.

It's just getting together with peers to talk about life, business, whatever, and you're there to really help and support each other. It's kind of like having an accountability. So I joined one for my business and what helped me there is I bumped shoulders every week with other men that think very differently than I do yet we all have common goals and we have common values and common. We have very different backgrounds, so it gives me insight into ideas that I would never have thought of myself. One of the things that helped me through that in this particular group I joined is they a lot of the men in this group, they're all men in this particular group.

So I can say. They there's this book written called the 12 week year. Now there's lots of books, very similar. There's 12 week, year. There's four disciplines of execution. There's traction EOS. There's a lot of these, but they're all very similar and it boils down to you coming up with a vision for where you want to go.

And I picked about a three-year. And then you work on quarterly goals by quarterly. It comes to like, if you take 52 weeks, a year divided by four that's 13 weeks and I'd take one week off per quarter. So it's really 12 weeks. So the idea is I plan out 12 weeks at a time. What goals do I want to accomplish then?

And what that forces me. Excuse me. Well, it forces me to do, is it really laser focus on one or two major objectives to really move the needle instead of trying to work on a ton of things with a one-year horizon or a three year horizon. So now I'm really like dialing it back down into that. What can I do in 12 weeks, week by week.

And then every day by day, what am I going to do to help me to accomplish that week's goal? When I got really laser focused, then I started to really take off. A lot of my initiatives got done we're ahead of schedule on some things. And it made a difference. 

Trista, Host: And so the mastermind idea of really being able to be part of a group of people up to similar things, with a different mindset.

I love that. I think that's great. So the 12 week year is a book you would recommend . I mean, I think this actually is good advice, not just for business owners. This is a good advice for anybody that wants to create goals. 

Dan, Guest: Absolutely. We've adopted in our marriage.

That might sound really nerdy, but it works for us. We now have set quarterly goals as like my wife and I, how are we going to run our family? Like I want to get done. Here's what the vacations we'll eventually want to do. So if that's what we're going to do, we need to start planning ahead and saving for this or ideas.

Or it might be family systems. We have business systems all the time. So we apply that concept like to our family, we have this recurring problem within our home. Let's create a system around it, so we don't have to deal with it like that anymore, whatever. So it's not just business if you're listening and you're, you're in the thick of raising kids, like we are, that's totally like, it applies.

Trista, Host: And you said you have a lot of kids. How many kids 

Dan, Guest: do you have? Six children. Oldest is 15. Youngest is three. 

Trista, Host: Wow. So now the 15 year olds can take care of the three-year-old 

Dan, Guest: pretty much. 

Trista, Host: That's nice. That's nice. They start to help take care of the family when they get to be older, I guess. 

Dan, Guest: Yes. For good or for bad, like we got home from our date 10.

And they're still up playing like, like at least the younger ones. 

Trista, Host: Yes. Yes. It sounds like you need to have a family meeting, create some structures. You have an app for that. 

Dan, Guest: We'll have one soon. 

Trista, Host: We'll have one soon. I love that. And you have a podcast. Tell us a little bit about that. 

Dan, Guest: Thanks. This is goes more in the strengthening marriage space to kind of go along with the intimacy app that we created. The podcast is called "Get Your Marriage On!". And similar to yours, Trista, it's a interview style podcast where I bring in sex experts, AKA sexperts to talk about various aspects of relationships and sex and intimacy and how couples can find more happiness and I, I don't know, twitterpation, 

Trista, Host: the theme of this episode, twitterpation. I love it. So have you had Laura, are you going to pay having Laura on your show? 

Dan, Guest: Yes. Laura has been on my show. Yep. 

Trista, Host: Awesome. Awesome. So that's a good crossover. Shout out to Laura because she has a lot to say in that arena.

We'll have a link to that and apps and all that other stuff that you're offering in the show notes so that people can access everything. I think you've really hit the nail on the head.

You're finding a place where you can offer great value, and then you're offering a really good product in that space. So who wouldn't want to be your customer? Right. That's 

Dan, Guest: perfect. 

Trista, Host: So let's get a little bit into your life. You're married, you have six children, obviously you have a strong marriage. How did you and your wife meet?

Dan, Guest: We met in middle school and we, we live near each other, like near enough that we'd be on the same bus route. We'd be on the same bus. And we had the same, like mutual friends were the same group of friends, but we never dated seriously through middle school or high school. In fact, she dated my best friend in high school after graduation for awhile.

And there was, once we went to different universities, there was one summer I came home. Because all my summer plans fell through. The last thing I want to do was go home, but I had no other choice. So by default, I went home for the summer, same story for her. All of her summer plans fell through. She didn't want to go home, but what else are you going to do?

So she came home for the summer and that very next Sunday we were at we're at a gathering and, you know, full of people. I don't know. I, I didn't want to be there and then see a friend a face. I recognize. And she is really cute too. And like holy cow, so good to have a friend. And she felt the same way. And I was actually looking forward to taking a break from dating that summer college I've done the dating game.

I was a little sick of it. I'm okay. For a break. She just got out of a relationship. She turned the guy down for a marriage proposal. She's like, I am done. I just want a break. So we were just. I had zero expectations. She had zero expectations. So it's just that we hung out every day, that summer, and by the end of the summer we were engaged and 

Trista, Host: wow.

What a great 

Dan, Guest: story we've known each other for years. And it always started with friendship and it, it still feels very much a great friendship. 

Trista, Host: Yeah. You know, my husband and I, we met in college. And he always maintained that he got intimate quickly in every relationship, but because we started out as friends, he feels like that was one of the things that really made our relationship strong and lasting.

And we're 25 years married. Congratulations. And we didn't even use your app to do that. So imagine how good the next 25 years are going to be.

Well, I think anything, like you said, life happens, right. And there are going to be tough times and good times. And so I think that the way you come out of the tough times is you just, you have a commitment. And you communicate, you were talking about that as well. Right. And you just stick together and give people the benefit of the doubt.

Dan, Guest: Yup. And there's one more thing I, I want to share if I can, and that's having a relationship to your desires. So we still, even though our first plan a fell through and we had to start a business. That fancy car was still something we wanted or that I wanted. I should be really clear saying my wife, she wanted it too, but so we started saving for it.

In fact, we had an old savings account that we didn't really use for anything. So we made that like our Tesla fund. So we just extra jobs, extra money, whatever leftover it kind of went into this, to this fund. And by year three or so, we had enough money in there to buy it, but we didn't buy it. I just sat on it, sat on it, sat on it.

And I had a hard time committing to myself to spend money on such. It seemed at the time like a frivolous purchase. Like that's a lot of money that we could spend on like paying down our mortgage. Or what about kids funds? And then the other thing was like, am I really buying it? Cause I want it, or am I buying it because I want to look good in front of other people.

And if that, you know, if I'm buying it to look good, that's not a good reason to buy it. So I really struggled with my, like giving myself permission to treat myself. And then my wife and I were were we, we bought an e-course course together and this About a personal development. The person was talking a lot about desire and how it's essential for us to cultivate desires that propels our growth as humans, by having desires and growth.

And a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of American culture tries to suppress desire and make it make us like you're a good person. If you're needless and wantless like, I don't need anything from you. I don't want anything from you. I'm just here to give, give, give, and. And with the it's a facade with the appearance.

So you don't need anything. But what that does to us as people is it turns us to an empty shell of a person. We look good on the outside, but then inside we never cultivate desire and how important it is to cultivate that. And I'm like, ah, that's what I'm missing in my life. Like I've wanted this forever.

I've saved for it. We have the money for it. I that's I not giving myself permission to finally do it. And then the moment like that switch went off in my head, like, okay, we're going to do it. It was like, it was an amazing experience and I wish I would have done it sooner. So my advice to anyone listening is work on cultivating our desires and it's really okay if you've done the work for it to go forward with whatever it is that you work for.

That's what makes life worth it. 

Trista, Host: That's beautiful. Cause I have the same thing. I'll have the money in the bank, but I'm afraid to spend it on the thing I want because what if I need it for something else? What if something happens that, you know, it was a mistake to do it. So I think that's what I needed to hear as well is if you have the money you've worked toward getting something you desire.

Having something you desire, being able to see your goal to fruition is as important a step as saving the money for it. Yes. Yeah. That's really good stuff. So you are you have lots of kids and you have a very active dating life with your wife. Do you also do stuff with your kids as well? Like what do you guys do to have fun and enjoy each other's time?

Dan, Guest: We live in a really unique part of the United States. We live in a part called St. George Utah, Southern Utah. It's like Phoenix or Las Vegas climate. So it's, we have warm winters, really hot summers, but it's arid and dry. And it's sunny over 300 days of the year here. So there was a lot to do outdoors.

There's a lot of mountains mountain climbing, hiking Zion national park. Top 10 national park. It's essentially our backyard. So we go, we go there and the surrounding areas have tons of things to do. So for us with our kids, we spend a lot of time outdoors. We'll go camping. We'll we're just, just go out for the day.

We like to play board games at home. We have a few favorite YouTube channels that we like that the kids like, so we'll watch, we'll do that. We're having fun around Christmas time with preparing for Christmas. And last night went and delivered treats to neighbors. Just, there's a lot of fun things to do so 

Trista, Host: great.

Yeah. I love that. So is there anything else you'd like us to know? You have packed this episode with so much value and I really appreciate that because it's been amazing hearing your story, but also the nuggets that you've shared have been really juicy.

Dan, Guest: One of the influential books that I've read that's really changed the way I think about life in general is called "How Will You Measure Life" by Clayton Christiansen, Clayton Christiansen. He's if you're in the tech entrepreneur space at all, he's the father of the concept of disruption and disruption, technology like technology that disrupts other companies, really smart Harvard MBA guy.

 He takes all of the concepts he's learned in teaching his students at Harvard, but applies them to life. And it really made me think like, what do I really want to get out of life?

Another book that's really influenced me lately is it's kind of a funny title, "Little Black Stretchy Pants". It's the sport then, and by the author, Chip Wilson and like how he started that company. And he talks a lot about the doing something every day that scares you. What he means by that is stepping outside your comfort zone, life of mediocrity or average.

Do something to make life worth living. And that's kind of been his life mantra, and I really liked that philosophy. So get out there, do something today that scares you, meaning step outside your comfort zone and really think about at the end of your life. What is it that's really going to matter and prioritize that first over the things that seem to matter in the moment, but don't have any lasting.

Yeah. 

Trista, Host: Good advice and great things to leave us with. Now. I always like to turn the tables before we wrap up and see if you have one question that you'd like to ask me. Do you have a question? 

Dan, Guest: Yes. My burning question for you Trista. And I've been thinking about this for months is what part of the zoo would you like to be in charge of 

Trista, Host: a zookeeper?

If I were a zookeeper, I bet the answer to this question has kept you up at night.

Amazingly, no one has ever asked me this question in my whole life. Let alone a podcast guest. 

Dan, Guest: Yes, 

Trista, Host: it is a good question.

And you know what? It's so funny. Anybody who knows. And is listening to this conversation right now. They will probably be laughing because I am not a zoo person. I hate zoos. I find zoos to be depressing and boring. And just the whole idea of like caged animals are waiting there, you know, to be looked at by on.

I mean, just so for you to ask me this question is so interesting and yeah. All of that being said, I think the way that I'll answer the question is there was this really cool place that we used to take my sister, she's a lot younger than I am. She's 13 years younger. And so I was married and she was still in school and she would come visit for the summer and we took her to this place it was like this open wilderness area. the Catskill game farm .And it had deer and llamas and it had some zoo like caged things too. And there were two things about it that I really, really loved. So the one section was where you would get to ride the elephant. Like you actually got to interact with the animal. And I think they had camels too that you can ride and you just got to ride around in a little circle, but still like you got to interact with and ride the animal, the closest thing I've ever come to safari. And then the other piece that I enjoyed the most and probably even this would be my top choice was all the babies. So you got to go into the adolescent baby area and you could feed the deer right out of your hand.

And then you'd sit on a bench with your little tray of wafers and they would come around behind you, like nuzzling at your neck, looking for treats. And you just felt so loved by these animals that normally you only get to see from afar, like running away from you on the street or in the woods or like that.

And so to be able to feed the little piglets and the goat babies with bottles, And to hang out with and interact with and feed the adolescent deer. And I think they probably had alpaca too. So that was my favorite favorite part. So I guess if I had to be a zookeeper, which would be like my least favorite job , 

that would be, what I would want to do is hang out with all the babies and the adolescents and help take care of them. Give people the opportunity to interact with them. Do they do that at zoos? 

Dan, Guest: Sure, sure. 

Trista, Host: Let's say yes. Thank you for asking that, that. That was a good one. Well, I want to thank you so much for being on today. you brought not only so much fun and enjoyable conversation, but you brought a lot of value too, and that's super special to have those nuggets.

Dan, Guest: Thank you. Thanks. 

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