EXPERIENCE 83 | Tanis Roeder on Communications

Today's guest was Tannis Rotor, a longtime friend and the founder and owner of Elevate Your Communications in Fort Collins. And Tannis is a communications expert. This episode is all focused on communications best practices, really segmented into three areas of her business, which is public speaking, and then Emerginetics, which is a communications tool to know thyself and no others, much like the halos systems that we've been using around local think tank. And and lastly, exactly what to say, which is a book by Phil Jones that she has become certified to teach in. So from a stage presence standpoint, from a understanding thinking type standpoint, and from a word choice and motivation standpoint, getting off the slow maybe. There's a lot to learn in this episode. Tannis shares her journey really of starting out in our career in sales, PR, communications, event management, really developing a side hustle in that space of events, and then designing and crafting a launch of her own business in Elevate Your Communications 11 years ago in the evolution of that and learning how to really teach people well, how to communicate effectively. So if that's something you struggle with or even something that you're great at, but want to learn more about, or if you're interested in becoming, you know, somebody that can help people communicate better, this is a great place to start. So thanks Tannis for being on the show and enjoy. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the local experience podcast on this show you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy. And through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the local experience podcast. Today I'm honored to be spending time with Tannis rotor and Tannis is the founder and owner of Elevate Your Communication. And to the extent that I've got any stage presence, Tannis is very responsible for that when she was first developing her business. And I've just honored to have her here. We're going to share a lot of great tips about public speaking, but also have a really entertaining journey with a really servant-hearted lady. So Tannis, tell us about Elevate Your Communications. What do you do for who? Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation to come and talk about my journey and the thing that I am the most passionate about, which is communication skills, because I think it's something that we can't get through life without. Yeah. And honestly, it's probably also the thing that causes the most problems in our life when we don't have great communication. Exactly. Exactly. So I started my business 11 years ago now. I know. Can't believe it's been that long. No, it seems like yesterday it really does. I had been doing PR and sales and business development and decided it was time for me to go out on my own. I knew I wanted to be a public speaker, but I had no idea how to do that. So I started doing it for free, which is what I encourage everyone to do, who's ever wanted to become a speaker or share their story. I say, go out and do it. Even if you don't get paid to do it in the beginning, that is how every great speaker starts. You just have to go out and do it. So I went out and I started teaching networking and body language and anything that I knew something about. I developed classes and I went and taught them for rotary clubs and koanis clubs and chambers of commerce. I mean, anybody who had listened to me speak, I would speak. So how did you happen to have the skills to be able to develop these classes? I mean, what was it natural to you? I know you had some high school experience or something if I remember. Yeah. Well, I participated in some speech competitions when I was in high school, but I mean, those were five to seven minute speeches. So those weren't necessarily developing a workshop the way that I was when I was, you know, putting these workshops on. I would say it was just going to other people's workshops and seeing what they did and taking things that I liked that they did and copying them and looking at things that I didn't like and not doing those things. You know, I mean, I think we all build the build the plane as we fly it. And that's really what I did. And I tried things and I failed and and I got in front of audiences and I didn't do well. And you were selling and doing PR and event management and different things for your day job, but you were building kind of the skill set to start something. Yeah. And I was going to Toastmasters all along as well, just kind of sharpening those skills and and getting the practice along the way. So that way when I did get the opportunity to actually get paid to speak, people would say, oh wow, you're actually really good at this. Yeah. Yeah. So when you get paid to speak today, what do you speak about? Is it about that, about communication, how to like tips and practices? Yeah. So there's really three main areas that I teach. The first is public speaking. Yeah. And I know you've been through my public speaking workshops. So it's a full day experience where you come in and there's a maximum of 12 people and it's very in depth. And we work on all of the physical skills. So what are you doing with your body and your voice? How are you coming across as confident or maybe not coming across as confident when you're speaking? And and we do a before and after video. So people get to see themselves and and see how the little things they do make a really big difference in how they come across to their audience. So that's the first thing I teach public speaking. Okay. The next thing that I teach is called Emergenetics. Oh, yeah. And I don't think you've been through Emergenetics. No, but you've tempted being with it a little bit. I know. We should do that sometime. So Emergenetics is a profile that looks at the way you think in the way that you behave. And I use it as a communication tool. So for example, my brain, I am a red yellow. So I am conceptual and social. And I would say that we probably have that in common. Because you are a social person. You tend to think about others. You love to work with other people. And you are also conceptual. You think outside the box. You love to be creative. And this is probably why the two of us work really well together. Right. Well, and interestingly, I've been studying a similar framework, maybe called Hallows Relational Intelligence. And it's a five color system. I'm a white green, which is the white is the thinker, the idea person, et cetera, conceptual. Yeah. And then the green is the social relational. Oh, wow. So you pegged me. I'll test you actually. I'll send you a test here shortly. I said that before today. Okay. So anyway, continue on. Please. So then the other side is the blue and the green. So the blue is the analytical thinker. Okay. So big picture bottom line. The green is all about the details. They want to know every little detail of everything. And for me, I don't really have a whole lot of analytical or structural thinking. Yeah. Same. Which is why we have people on our teams who help us with those things. Yeah. Well, in Hallows, there's five colors. Okay. So in addition to the thinker and the social relational, we've got the orange is the achiever entrepreneur. Okay. And the blue is the organizer planner. Okay. That's the analytical details person. Yeah. And then there's a brown. That's an integrator. That's kind of a bit of all the things, but also has a very systems approach. Very deep. Sometimes seems slow, but they don't break stuff. And yeah, those of us who are yellow brains tend to sometimes break things. Correct. Yes. Or not good things done at all. Yeah. Yeah. Fly a kite. I know. So so there's emergent ethics. There's public speaking. Yes. And. And then the third thing that I just recently got certified in and I'm super excited about. I don't know if you've ever heard of Phil Jones, but he is an amazing author. He wrote the book exactly what to say. And it is a very easy read. It's a very small short book, which is why I love it. I read it, I think twice, the very first day that I thought all the way from beginning to end because I was so excited about this book. And so inside this book, he has a bunch of phrases and magic words that you can use when you are in conversations with people in order to help steer the conversation and potentially a more positive direction. Interesting. Because again, as I mentioned in the beginning of this, I think communication really has the potential to cause lots of problems in our world. When we are not communicating, when we aren't communicating well, it really can lead to disasters. It can relate to the break of relationships, to you losing jobs, to not being on the same page as your boss, all kinds of things. And so the words and phrases in this book really just help people become better communicators. Yeah, I should probably, I mean, in a lot of ways I've built local think tank in part one person at a time by inviting them into this community. And I think at least part of that is because while we're meeting it to know they recognize that I'm somebody that just says what's on their mind. And I'm very transparent about my thoughts and things. And some people don't always like that. But for my members, that really sets the stage of having a safe place where you can say whatever you need to say. Yeah. I think that's important, especially in what your organization provides to people. So, so to continue. So Phil Jones' book, you teach people through those principles. Yes. Yeah. So I am a certified guide. Okay. I think there was only eight of us, but I think now they just certified another group. So there might be closer to 20. Okay. His goal is to get a hundred of us teaching across the country. Okay. Because he says it's not about him. It's about the content. Sure. And he wants everyone to be able to use this content to help have improved communication. Yeah. Whether it's in their personal life or their professional life. So whereas your original workshop is more really about your hand movements and your tone of voice and eye contact, body control, things like that, this is about more about the words that you choose to say. Yes. So it's a deeper dive. Yeah. Fair enough. Well, and they tie in together. Very much so. So I'm sure a lot of your clients that have had your workshop might now be interested in plus wanting on this next thing. Hmm. Wow. Funny how that works. Right. Well, that's good. Yeah. A Jason revenue. It is. Yeah. So and your clients are who and they hire you to basically do these kinds of things. Either working on their team through better self awareness and others awareness through in Virginetics. Yeah. That's kind of stage presence. Yeah. The neat thing about communication is that there is not a single industry that doesn't communicate. Which has been really neat because I've had the opportunity to work with doctors. I've had the opportunity to work with lawyers. I'm doing a law firm this weekend. I'm getting to work with them on their presentation skills. Cool. I have, you know, mortgage professionals, real estate professionals. I've got a group of farmers that I work with. That's awesome. Potatoes, USA, engineers. I work with a lot of different engineering companies and and so there's really a wide spectrum of types of companies that I work with. The one thing that they all have in common is that they want to help their team members improve their communication in one way, shape, or form. It might be that they want to help their team members communicate with each other better. So we're looking at something like a Virginetics or it might be that they want their team members to be able to go and present at a conference on their behalf. So we're looking at a presentation skills workshop. So just depending on how they want to help their team members but they're all looking to to pour into their team members. Fair enough. Cool. And where do you mentioned a little bit ago that when we were talking about your title and are you CEO and things that you want to add to your team? Where would you love to see elevate your communication be five years from now if things were just right? Yeah, if I had my perfect five-year vision board, I definitely think that it would be fun to have a few team members that help me execute on a bigger scale. There are lots of things that I teach that it's not only I could teach them. I think other people absolutely could teach because it's again not me, it's the content. Sure. The content is what's powerful. And sure, I want to be a part of teaching it. I don't want to ever get out of that part of the business because that's where my heart is. But I think it would be neat to have a few people to help me. Just help more people if you have more people. Exactly. Have a have a bigger reach and you know a lot of business owners make the mistake of not getting out of the nitty-gritty of their business. Yeah. And I want to be careful not to do that as I continue to grow. Yeah. I want to make sure that I hire someone at the right time to be able to help me with all of the details. Yeah. And for you would that be basically another teacher, somebody help you with workshops and things like that? I do. You don't have a big administrative marketing function necessarily. No, I think you have virtual admin probably first. Right. And then I mean I probably could keep someone busy full-time honestly. Right now I end up doing it all myself which is probably not the healthiest thing. Well, you've always been a much harder worker than I am. So before we go too much into the future, let's jump into the pasture. Oh boy. You know too much about me. This is scary. Well, yes and no. I don't know much about like young tannis necessarily. I mean remember I met your dad years ago in things. Oh my rock star father. Yeah, season awesome guy and what not. But you know I don't really have it all knitted together. I've got all these little kind of brushes with tannis to inform me but not really that our conversation about who are you really? Okay. So are you like a country girl Eastern Colorado or something? I'm trying to remember where you're from. Yeah. Well, so I was born in Fort Collins. Oh, you were. Okay. At Puder Valley Hospital. All right. I am a third generation native. All right. My grandparents live here. My aunts, my uncles, my cousins. Oh, so you're Fort Collins through. I am Fort Collins through and through. Yes. And my dad works at CSU, which is why I went to CSU because I got 50% off my tuition. Nice. So I've stayed in Fort Collins and I intend to stay in Fort Collins the rest of my life. And which high school grade school. That's important to some people. Yeah. So I started out at Lopez Elementary. Okay. And then we moved to the country. So you mentioned country girl. We moved out to Timnith. Okay. So I went to Timnith Elementary and then Preston Junior High School back when it was a junior high. Right. So it was six or not six. Six was still elementary. So it was seventh grade through ninth grade. And then Fort Collins High School. Yeah. Very cool. And then CSU, obviously. So tell me about that, that young lady Tannis, when you were in grade school, 10 years old, 12 years old, were you athletic? We talked already that you did some speech competitions and stuff. But what was your personality, your character, your, yeah, so my mom always jokes that what I always said and what I woke up saying is ready? Yeah. Ready? Ready? Because I always had something going on. I was involved in 4-H. I was involved in everything 4-H. So I was in leadership groups. I was in the dance organization. I, I did cake decorating and I had a pet goat, which I'm sure. So that's where your country gets for now. It's for sure. It's 4-H. That's cool. Yes, it is. And I always say I, I, I am going to hire a first employee. They will have a 4-H background because I think 4-H kids work harder than anybody else. So I would agree. Shout out to all those 4-H kids out there. Well, and 4-H is such good job of teaching like leadership principles and value of integrity and character and all those things as well. So yeah. So hard lessons to forget. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you had to wake up. You had to feed your animals. You had to show up when you were president of the 4-H club because you had to run the meeting. Yeah. And so I was taught at a really young age that you show up when you say you're going to be there, even if you don't want to. And I think that's something that sometimes is missing from our society today. It's definitely the last 24 months or so have had a dramatic effect on that. Yeah. I actually just did a video about that the other day saying, please, if you're going to cancel on someone, give them 24 hours notice. Right. We're doing this whole two hour. Oh, never mind. I can't make it thing. I'm like, don't do that to people. It's very disrespectful. And well, and I was at a music show last night at Fort Collins Nursery, a Matthews house of it. It was awesome. And you know, there was a lot of awesome fans that were fully engaged and stuff. And then there was a number of especially kids, you know, under 25ers will say that, you know, sometimes they were paying attention and a lot of times they had their head on the phone. And I was like, you know, I'm sure those musicians will have got lights shining in their faces anyway. And so it's like they probably don't even know. But I was I felt disrespected for them. You know. Yeah. Anyway, I digress. Yeah. Unless you're recording and then they feel excited that you're right. Well, yeah, that's different. You know, that's that's that's that's engaging with them rather than being like, hi, you're too boring for me. But the life is that way in some respects for people. Work is too boring to bother keeping a job for more than six months, you know, and all these things. It's a fascinating thing right now. I was just in a chapter meeting. I substitute facilitated. And I almost everybody there has like more business than they know what to do with and not enough people to make it happen. Yeah. And it's fascinating turn of events. Where did the people go? I don't know where they went. I don't know. You know, a lot of early retirements and things like that. People's paper equity convinced them in their house that they can, you know, be fine or whatever. But yeah, it's not a, I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see where it goes. We'll talk more about that in the politics section down the road here. Oh boy. Oh boy. So, um, so you go off to CSU. And I'm guessing you were like a, you know, like a 3.94 GPA kind of girl or almost like perfect. Yeah. So it was funny. So in high school, we had the opportunity to take college credits and you didn't have to pay for them. Yeah. And so I decided, oh my gosh, I'm going to get as many college credits as I can. And so I was really going to college full time my senior year in high school, which was great. So by the time I got to college, I really already had a year under my belt. So I went into the counselor's office. I'll never forget this. And I said, okay, I won't say her name, but she's not there anymore. I said, here's, here's the deal. I'm going to graduate in three years. And she stopped and she said her notebook down and she kind of slammed her pen down. She said, you know, Tannis, you should let go of that pipe dream right now. Oh gosh. She was not nice about it. She said college is not meant to be done in three years. It is a four-year program, if not four and a half. Hi, achiever. That was the last time that I ever went into her office. I had the same experience. I will say his name Larry Mack was my economics professor. And admittedly, I was rocking like a 2.2 GPA after three semesters. And I got a DUI. So it's an academic probation and in trouble. And he was like, he gave me like the, what do you think you're going to do with your life, young man? I'm kind of think I was like, I'm sure I can get my GP up over three by the time I graduate and then I'll go work at a bank or something. And this dude was like 52, never married and lived with his mom. And I was like, I just don't really think you're going to be my guide or my guy. And it comes like the same thing. Like you were running all over this person's ambitions for your life. Exactly. I'm like, I'm not connecting with this person obviously. Right. So I had to go a little higher up the chain and find somebody different to connect with and explain. This is what I wanted to do. And actually that person helped me graduate on time because he did an independent study with me that gave me the credit sign. The final course. Yes. In order to finish so both. Do you want to give both credit? I know. Yes. Dr. Bo. I was so appreciative to him for helping me graduate on time. And funny thing is she is the one that handed me my diploma. So when I shook her hand, I'm sure she didn't hear it because there was, you know, obviously all the people screaming and clapping and whatever. But I said, I haven't seen you in three years. And I shook her hand. And I took my diploma and it was that moment of, oh, I'm so proud. That's awesome. And so what was your, was it communication? Yeah. Speech communication. Okay. So you knew like that was a strong suit for you and a passion of yours. And then you get into the work world. And like, who wants a speech communications graduate? And to do what? Yeah. Because you don't really know what you're going to do with that necessarily, especially when you're really young. Right. Well, I had already started sales jobs in college. So I had already had a sales job with Xerox. And I had a sales job with Exodus moving in storage. And I had worked at a chiropractor's office. So I worked full time while I was going to school and graduating in three years. I don't really know how I did this all looking back at him. I'm like, what? I don't have any college friends. I'll just say that, unfortunately. Anyway, that's okay. Yeah. I just worked my way through it. And so by the time I got out of college, I had life experience and I had this degree. So I was able to step right into a job. And I thought it was going to be the perfect fit. But I got distracted by a big offer and a brand new car and ended up hating every day. And what were you doing? Yeah. So I got an offer to be a wine rep for ENJ Gallo. Yeah. They only offered offer those kinds of jobs to the pretty well-spoken communications. It was an incredibly incredibly. I don't mean I guess it was competitive. It's a good way to see this. They flew a bunch of us out to Seattle. And I think only eight, eight people that they flew out actually got an offer. Got it like 40 or 20. Yeah. There was a whole bunch of us. That was crazy. We were in all of our suits and our high heels and they put t-shirts on us and brought us to the fish market. Okay. And through fish at us. Okay. And everybody there was an athlete except for me. I was the only one that was not an athlete. And all I could think of is, oh my gosh, I'm going to drop this stupid fish. Oh my gosh, Danis, because I don't know. I don't play any sports. I'm not like athletic at all. I'm a go-princess. What was the point of throwing fish at you? I don't know. Just to see how you handled it kind of. Yeah, yeah. And to make sure we weren't afraid to get our hands dirty. Right. I don't know. So here we go. They're getting ready with this big ol' fish. And I got super nervous and I reached out with one hand and I grabbed this fish so hard I caught it one hand. So I have a picture of me one handed with this giant fish. Again, one of those moments that I will never be able to repeat. Right. But I'm pretty sure that that is what that made the job. But that wasn't the Super Bowl, right? It was. That's one of your talents, I think, is performing well when there's pressure, whether it be event creation or from a stage or whatever. You're pretty cool cucumber. Yeah. So you get the job and hate it. Yeah, so I got the job. I hate it. No, so what happened is I ended up getting put into the same territory. It was actually the territory that my boss got moved out of. So she got promoted. So I was selling into the stores that she was previously selling into and I was beating all of her sales records. Okay. And that did not go very well. I'll never forget one of our meetings, my teammate leaned over at me and he's like, what did you do to make her hate you so much? Yeah. Made her jealous of me. I don't I guess that's what it was. But I ended up talking to some people at the company and explaining, hey, I'm kind of being mistreated. I didn't get lunch breaks because she would make me work through lunch and it was just not a very positive first work experience. Yes. And nobody listened to me. Nobody did anything about it. So I typed a three-page resignation letter and marched into the president's office handed it to him and he sat there and read it. And he stopped and he looked at me and he said, is there anything I can do to convince you not to leave? And he said, no, not at this point. But thank you. I appreciate. I appreciate that. Yeah, I appreciate that. And so I quit that job and then the company went through a bunch of changes later. So. Yeah. Well, it really is a good example of that old adage, I guess, of people don't quit companies. They quit bosses. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. The company was amazing. Yeah, and I'm sure you could have been a real fun job. It was. They had all kinds of sales perks and bonuses. It was great. I had a lot of free wine. A lot of free wine. Oh my gosh. And I learned so much and I loved all of my customers. The liquor store owners were amazing and it was just I enjoyed the job. Yeah. No, you can't work under that kind of conditions and you know, obviously those kind of managers usually weed themselves out. And like it was just an extra grind with you, you know, and we study and how those this notion of sympathy and antipathy and sympathy being when you have affectionate feelings towards somebody, but antipathy being also useful where you kind of have because you can be more clear headed and you can, you know, not be as a whatever, just allow them to do whatever kind of stuff and be more objective. And yeah. So anyway, I digress. Obviously she had an antipathy for you and had she realized and recognized that even and treated you well because it was good for the whole whatever. So I don't do want to call her out by name. No, I don't think she meant to do it. I really don't. It doesn't matter. Hopefully she's changed her ways by now or maybe she's living on the streets in San Francisco. No, I'm sure she went on to be successful. Okay. I wish people the best. We were all young. Yes. Yes. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, fair enough. Well, and so you blank canvas ahead of you now. Yeah. I did. And the one thing I want to mention about that is I was stuck in this mental game and I would cry in my car and it was an awful space to be in. And I got help. I got a therapist who talked to me and talked me off my ledge so many times and helped me get the courage to write that letter and helped me reread the letter and make sure the letter said what I wanted it to say. And so I just want to encourage people. If you ever do find yourself in that position, don't feel like you have to be on an island. You're not by yourself. No, you are not by yourself at your own choosing. Exactly. And I was young. I mean, it was my first job. And I felt like such a failure because it was my first job. Right. Four, three or four months in. And almost even blaming yourself probably for what have I done to make her mistreat me like this? Yeah. Well, even my teammates asked me. Right. What did you do to piss her off? I'm like, I don't know. Right. So yeah. I just. Thanks for mentioning that. And I and I very much agree. I've been to see. I got a little just a little closer than most to the flip the switch kind of thing. We all are. That was not my first therapy story. Fair enough. Fair enough. And so tell me about what's next. And was that your first time where were you by that time? Right? Because you've been in Fort Collins and Timnith your whole life at that point. Yeah. And then graduated early and off to Gallo. Is that in West Coast? Seattle, you said or no? No, no. So you were a real person. But yeah, my my territory was in Fort Collins. Actually, I got really lucky and got my backyard as my territory. But no, so I quit that job. And then I actually ended up going back to work for Exodus for a couple of years. Yeah. Because they were a fabulous company to work for. And I did networking. And they let me do teaching on the side. I worked for monster.com. And I traveled all over the country speaking to high school students about college planning and saving money. Oh, so cool. Yeah. It's the hardest audience you'll ever speak to. For sure. You turn your back and they're doing all kinds of naughty things. How do you sell moving company services? Like, because I see frankly in it and carries a member and I've known a lot for 20 years. But like, what is that approach? It's kind of a different thing to try to sell, right? Yeah. You I mean, you don't sell moving company services. You sell yourself. Right. You build relationships with people that think about you when they know somebody that's moving. Yeah. And they get so excited to say, oh my gosh, I know someone that you need to talk to. And so my phone would ring all the time with referrals because people got excited that they had a friend in the moving business who they could trust to take care of the people that they knew. Yeah. Well, and you can sell it very well because you knew that you could trust the team of Dexas to deliver. Yeah. I mean, I knew every guy that was on the crew. I was friends with them. I showed up to my jobs to make sure they were going well. Yeah. I became an estimator. Oh, because I didn't want to just go out and be the pretty face. I wanted to know the business inside and out. Yeah. And so I went out and I did estimates myself and you know, really worked every side of that business for a long time. Really? I didn't know about that chapter. See? Yeah. You were like, oh, you know my whole story. And I don't know nothing really. Like, I was even trying to figure out how we first got acquainted. I don't. It was somehow before Black Tybingo and before your transition, maybe the Peach Festival and stuff or Matthew's house early on. Yeah. Probably that. I don't really quite remember. Anyway, maybe we'll stumble upon it while I tell you the story. As we talk. So, so that so you're still at Exodus. Yeah. Where we jumped up. So I went to Exodus. Oh, and then I got distracted by a shiny quarter because us yellow brains do that. Yeah. And I took a job at a high-end real estate company. Okay. And that was that was like as a realtor or a path toward being coming a realtor kind of thing. Yeah. I think I thought that was going to be my path. Yeah. So it was a Sotheby's company down in Longmont and that ended up being the worst working environment I've ever been in. The most abusive boss I could have ever had. Do you want to call her out or call him out? No. He's not alive anymore. Sorry. Rest in peace. Yes. That's all. Yeah. Oh my god. That was horrible. But I actually packed my shit at lunch in a bought in a black trash bag. Literally. I typed a note that said, I'm sorry, but I can't do this anymore. Here's my binder with all my notes on what I'm working on and I put my shit in a trash bag and I walked out the back door and I never went back. I just I couldn't do it. It was so abusive and so awful. Like are you talking sexist? No. No. Just talking down like a stupid. Like you're a dumbass. Yeah. Well he treated me as though I was stupid. One wouldn't have to spend much time around you to recognize that that's exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean I tried to work very hard and I I mean the real estate world was new to me. Sure. I had a learning curve by all means, but I consider myself a fast learner and and I was making connections and yeah. Moving up the ladder relatively quickly. So I thought I was doing a great job, but it just was. So was he a jerk to everybody kind of? Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't just you in that case like the last job. No. Well that's good. At least you're two things. You know it's not just you but also you know you're growing a confidence to find the right thing. Yeah. Right and the right people to be around. Mm-hmm. Because that's clutch. No. Yeah. I mean if you ever feel like you would rather drive your car in front of a train instead of go to work. Get a different job. You need to put your shirt in a black trash bag and you need to walk out the back door. Well or the banker in me says at least get out there and get some resonate resumes. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's a tight job market right now especially. So you can get a better job. If you hit your job you can get a better job or you're a young lady. Yeah. So you can. Don't be scared. No, believe it. Believe in yourself. You got this. So I took off from there and I think I was unemployed for a whopping like week maybe. Okay. And I got a job with a marketing company. Okay. Because that kind of interested me and I thought that would be something cool to do. So I did sales for a marketing company. Do I sure who that was? Sage marketing. Oh sure. Yeah. Yeah. So Doug. Yeah. Tallest marketing guy in town. Tallest marketing guy in town. He knows everybody and that was potentially the smartest too. I know. He was so fun to work for. Yeah. I loved working for him. And then the market kind of crashed. So he had to lay off his newest employee which was me unfortunately. Yeah. But it was really cool because he was friends with Matt Hoven who owns Chippers. Sure. And so he said, Tannis, I don't know if this is something you'd want to do. I mean it's a bowling alley. Would you ever consider interviewing? And I was like, no. You did? I met you when you were first there. That's a long chapter forever. Yeah. Yeah. It was a three-year chapter. Yeah. And in fact it was probably one of my favorite chapters. Well, in there, I don't know if she's still with him. I assume so. Chana. Yeah. She reminds me a lot of you kind of in some ways. Yeah. She's done a great job. I think she's the GM of the entire organization. Oh no, she runs everything. Jill and I ran into her and her fella up in steamboat last fall. And we promised to get together. And then we forgot. So, Chana, if you're listening. Yes. Of a full-go hangout, double date. I know. She's awesome. Every time I see her there, I'm like, we should get together and we never do. We could triple date. There you go. All right. Let's let's all go out and do something. Yeah. But yeah. So Doug hooked me up with Matt and I interviewed for that job and ended up being their first event coordinator for the bowling centers. We don't call them bowling alleys because that's our house. So for the bowling centers and that was the two and four Collins, the one in Greeley, the one in Estus Park, and the one in Broomfield. Yeah. Right after we put all together. Yeah. Yeah. So I was running all over God's green earth planning events and oh my gosh, it was so much fun. That cool. That I just, if you've never had a job in the entertainment industry, it is the best. I bet. Because all you do is hang out with people that are partying. Right. And having so much fun. Yeah. That was my food truck and business too. It's like a blast. You're just hanging out having good time. I know. Not making any money, working your ass off. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. Well, the bowling alley probably paid you more than my food trailer. Yeah. No. They treated me very well. Bowling centers. They treated me and I and I got a pair of high heel bowling shoes out of it. Ooh. I know. I put those on still and people are like, oh my gosh, those are the coolest shoes I've ever seen. And I get to say good things. And the bowling alley staff are like trying to come and bust you and they're like, you're like, these are legit. Yeah. You can't bowling them. You would eat shit. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh. They just look like bowling shoes. They were my networking. But are they officially like bowling alley because don't you have to have like free shoes? Yeah. They would have to have something. Yeah. No, these are more like dress shoes. Got you more like I catch you. All right. So what pulled you away? What shiny object pulled you away from the bowling centers? My heart's desired to do my own thing. Oh, was it then? Yeah. So were you, was that the more the events business then? Well, because you were doing like the peach festival, but you were also helping with cultivate hope at the Matthews house going back to the early days. You had other events things too, right? That was the cool thing about Matt is he's like, Tannis, I want you to do your stuff. I want you to do my stuff. I want you to just do it all. Like anything that makes your heart happy, he is such an amazing. So he let you hustle other event management on the side, kind of basically as a, because that was basically your first real business of your own then kind of was that side business while working for Chippers. Yeah. Okay. And I was still working for Monster.com. So I was traveling around the country still speaking in high school. Interesting. I mean, I was doing it all and kind of figuring out what I love the most. And we'll get into a faith family, politics stuff later, but when along this journey, do you get a shine in your eye for Steve? So it was, we just celebrated our 10 year. Okay. And it'll be together. Four years married 10 years together. So it was right around when I quit Chippers. Okay. So very good, very good. But yeah. So I, I finally was like, okay, I got to do my own thing. And I had to tell Matt. And that was the hardest conversation I've ever had because I loved that job. And I loved the people I worked with. And I loved working for him and Danny. And I, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to leave. But then Shawna came in and I got to teach Shawna stuff. And was like, oh my gosh, she's going to do great. Like she, yeah, she had a great personality and was super excited about it. I'm like, yes. Okay. This is good. Right. Well, especially when you have to leave a place. You know, this is the first job I've heard you really say that, you know, maybe Exodus, you liked them at least. But you knew that you weren't going to work in the moving business for rest of your life, necessarily or whatever. Right. So you knew that was a chapter. But yeah, so cool. Yes. So I ended up leaving chippers. And I had a designer that had developed, elevate your communication logo. And I had launched my website. And so it was all very real at this point. And I had some clients I was doing event planning for. But I knew that event planning wasn't what I wanted to do full time. It was just like, okay, this is going to pay my mortgage and my car payment. And I've got to figure out how to do speaking to. And it was about a week after I officially, like my last day at chippers, that my phone rang. And it was a woman named Diane. And she said, Tannis, I'd like to take you to lunch. I am the chief people officer for Otterbox. Nice and cool. Should we go to Jay's? And I'm like, wait a second. She's inviting me to Jay's. This is a good meeting. Right. Right. I'm like, yeah, sure. So we set up a meeting to go to Jay's. And we sat down at Jay's for lunch that day. And she looks, I mean, she goes, well, I'm sure you know why we're here. And I literally had no idea. I had never met this woman. I did not know who she was. I mean, I love Otterbox. We live in the town that they are in. And they're an amazing company. I'm like, oh my gosh, you should have just guessed something out loud. I should have. But I said, have you kidnapped my husband? I didn't even have a husband then. But I looked at her. I was I said, honestly, Diane, I don't. And she goes, oh, okay. Well, here's why we're here. It's because Brian Thomas, who was in charge at the time, he had a party at Chippers for our top performing team. And you were there. And apparently you made an impression on him. And ever since that day, we've been kind of keeping track of you on LinkedIn. And when you changed your profile from being employed at Chippers to being self-employed, I reached out to you because we want you to come work for Otterbox. Okay. I didn't even know you could do that. That's kind of creepy that they can keep track of you like that on LinkedIn. But also kind of cool. Well, kind of cool. Actually, I appreciate the integrity of it. Like they probably could have just stolen you away from Chippers. Well, they couldn't because one of their investors is also an investor in Chippers. Matt's brother. So the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. So they had to kind of keep things separated, which I totally respect. I had no idea any of that existed. And so I sat there and I took it in for a minute and I just birded out. Well, oh my gosh, I'm so flattered. But I just started my own business. I can't come work for you. And then I was like, oh my gosh, I shouldn't have said that. But I was so proud of myself for saying that. Right. And what did they tell you? What they wanted you to do for them? No. I just immediately was like, I don't want a job. Like duh. I just didn't do it. I finally started my business. And so she's like, okay, okay, here's the deal. Let me go talk to Brian. And now I'll get back with you. So I think it was like a week later, she called me and she goes, I have, I have some really good news for you. I said, okay, and she goes, Brian said, if you won't come work for us, then we will be your biggest client. That's awesome. See, I thought you landed the otter box thing before you like officially made the full jump and whatever. Because you trained me in about 15 of your other friends that same course that you took to otter box before you took it to them. I remember. Yeah, which was working with them by them. I know. Oh, you were already, but you had. I was doing other things for that. I got you, got you, got you, got you. So we weren't like, pre that, but it was before you gave them the big workshop that you've sold them. Yeah. Very cool. Okay, so take me through the rest of that launch kind of in the otter box thing. So I was like, oh my gosh, okay, this is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. And it was literally because I was picking up their dirty bowling shoes and serving them pizza. That just goes to show that every single thing you do in life leads you to something else. Every single thing. I just, I love that story because. Well, be mindful of the impressions you make with every moment in some ways. Right? Like you might be thinking that I got to slip those fancy pants otter box parties drinks and stuff like that. But that might be your next biggest customer. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, they brought me on and I got to help develop a leadership academy for them. I got to do all kinds of just really cool stuff. I planned their company conferences that they had or their company team. Okay. So yeah, you kind of slipped some into the events role, but then also communications really was focused. Yeah, I got to hire all these big known speakers to come into otter box. So I got, I made friends with lots of amazing speakers who are now some of my mentors and best friends. Yeah. All because of otter box. And I had a blast. I came down to a speaker event down in Denver with you at one time and really interesting. And that's probably you have a huge network within that community now. Yeah, the National Speakers Association. Yeah. I was president last year. Oh, you were. Yeah. I got fallen told. Yeah. That's usually how the best things in the past. Yeah, you missed the meeting where they decided who was the next president leadership. I was the only one who had been on the board long enough. So they're like, hey, Tanner, she qualifies. Like, wait, that doesn't mean I should do it. Are you glad you did? No, I'm very glad I did. Good. And I'm glad I'm past president. Like having a boat. Exactly. Better to have friends with boats. So, uh, so that's become, I mean, obviously not a lot of change, I guess, in some ways. I mean, a lot of change adding the image, Virginetics and adding to other things, but not necessarily a lot of change in the scope of the communications element, especially. Yeah. But I love how the progression of the different services, you know, you've got kind of that, that speaking skills, stage presence, all those things, you've got, you know, communicating with each other, you've got word choice and things. Are there, like, some notions that you have that you would like to add to the fleet of services? Gaps in your game right now are opportunities in the marketplace. I guess is also new edge technologies, things like that. I mean, I think once I write my book, then yes, that will be kind of another avenue of, of content. But you're not going to tell me what the book title is yet. I don't know what the book title is yet. Okay. I don't know if I figured out. I gotta still finesse it. But it's all about perspectives. So let's, let's dip into what you know a lot about for a few minutes. So for those listening, they just want to think about, you know, what do I, what do I do? Well, what do I not do? Well, and let's go through kind of on a, on a three level thing. So on the front of public speaking. Yes. Can you give us a small handful of tips of things that people do really well that's effective and people do that's really distracting or really takes away from the messaging that kind of thing from a stage type environment? Sure. Because I'm going to be on the Disrupt HR thing next week and I'm pretty rusty. Very cool. Okay. So, I mean, the cash are so many things. I can literally teach for an entire weekend. Well, yeah. I mean, we, I took an eight hour course. I know. Right. And so, but, but I'm thinking just, I don't know, just like the things that are just obvious should be obvious to you. Your muscle memory is well developed at this point. I mean, I think the biggest thing that people do that's distracting and we kind of laugh about this in my class, but it's touched themselves. I know it's a little awkward to say, but it's I can't help but sing that song when I hear that. But it's true, though. I mean, we, we like touch our hands and we touch our pants. We put our hands in our pockets and we do all kinds of things. Yeah, we spend our pens. We touch our papers. We touch the podium or the lectern, whatever. We're doing all kinds of things because we're working. Please don't touch yourself. They're good. For those of you not watching the video, you can just let your imagination anyway. So we're touching ourselves because we are working the cortisol out of our system. Cortisol is that nervous dump that happens when you see people looking at you and you think they're judging you. And so here we are. We're touching ourselves and our audience is thinking, oh wow, they look really nervous. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. Instead, we want to be making open palm gestures. So we always want to be pointing our palms towards towards our audience because that shows our audience, our listeners that we are open. We want to connect with them. We are being honest. We often get in the habit of pointing our hands towards ourselves. So our palms towards ourselves. And what that tells our audience subconsciously is that we are actually self-centered. Oh, really? It's all about me. I was thinking more about guarded kind of, I say, oh, pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. Listen to me. I have some amazing things for you to hear. You've got to be really careful about that because that's a very common gesture that you can get in the hand making to turn those hands around. Do you see like a revealing things to people? Exactly. When you get on a bigger stage, the bigger the stage, the farther away from your body, your arms are going to be able to come. And it's not going to be awkward because you have a very big space to work with. If you're in a small space, then you keep your arms relatively close. That's fine. But a big stage can mean big gestures. So that could be one thing that you do that you change a distraction into something that is an engaging factor. Very cool. That gestures can do that for you. And then really moving with purpose. And what I mean by that is instead of pacing or just taking a few steps, taking a few steps, taking a few steps, moving around the stage, you really plan your movements. I remember seeing you from a stage and it's like, okay, I'm here, I'm talking and then I walk over there while making eye contact along the way and then I stop there and I stay there for a while. Yes. It's very on purpose. You always call it four by four. So you take at least four steps, you could take five, you could take 20, doesn't matter, but at least four. And then once you get to where you're going, you stop and you make eye contact with at least four different people in your audience. And what that does for you is it eliminates the pacing that takes place when we're nervous. Because never once has someone said, oh my gosh, that speaker looks so good wiggling all over the stage. Well, it's almost like finding your breath when you're doing yoga or something. Right. It's okay. I just, if I take four steps and I look at four people, then I'm ready to continue, you know, and just keep my place. Okay. Yeah. So those are two probably of the major things that I work with people on all the time. Yeah. Because if we can get those things right, then it makes a huge difference in how engaging we are with our audience. I remember the power of the pause was another significant thing. Is that you? I just got my license plate. Have you heard about this? I did see you the other day. That's why I remembered that. Yes. So my license plate now says pause. I've had two people take a picture of it. Oh, that's awesome. Mine says homes. H-O-M-Z. It's my camper van. Oh, nice. That's like a home away from home. Take us homes. It's your home's homes. Yeah. First time I've had a personalized plate. They're kind of fun. Feel kind of special. I know. And like kind of like at risk if people see me driving like a jerk. I know. Because then they know it's you. Yeah. Can you imagine if people see me driving like a jerk? They're like, yeah, lady, pause. Oh my god. Okay. I'm going to take a breath here and not go 50 miles an hour and a 35. Okay. But yes, so those are probably two of the biggest things that I would recommend. And then the other thing is the power of your voice. Okay. When we are speaking with a microphone, we often think that it is the microphone's job to project our voice. And what happens is we speak in this tone of voice. So for example, right now, this is a conversational tone. This is not my speaking voice. You're not yelling at me. I am not yelling at you. Do you want to try out your public speaking voice on me now? Yeah. So and you'll be able to hear the difference in this. So if I were standing on a stage, I would be speaking more like this. So this is my speaking voice. You're trying not to overwhelm the microphone now. I am because the microphone is very close to my mouth. Yeah. And you don't have the volume adjustment. So people will be like, but I can hear the difference in the way that you're speaking. Yeah. Yeah. So this is conversational. Whereas this would be a speaking voice. So I'm projecting my voice to the other side of the room right now. Yeah. And here I'm just having a conversation with you. Yeah. There's a very big difference between a speaker voice and a conversational voice. Yeah. And I think I didn't really recognize like I think I do it instinctually. Yeah. Like I'm the sergeant of arms at Rotary Club now. And so I could up and introduce our guests and things like that. And I'm using the big voice. Thank you. But but yeah, I hadn't really made that characterization in my own mind even like right. Yeah. So cool. Thanks. And thanks for not overwhelming our listeners with too much volume on the stage voice. I know better. So anything else that is coming across your mind from the stage perspective? Or do you want to give us the two-minute primer on Emergenetics next? Yeah. I don't I don't maybe not even the stage perspective but just communication skill in general. I think something that we can all work on is our eye contact. COVID has made this especially difficult because we've spent so much time apart. Yeah. And I think being together in person is not as easy as it was before we feel a little bit more awkward. And so we're spending a lot of time outside of people's eyeballs, meaning we're looking at the ceiling, we're looking at the floor. I have noticed that. I don't think I've changed because I have pretty much a that's just you often locked on. But I do notice that I have less returned eye contact than I did pre-COVID for sure. Interesting. Yep. Yeah. COVID did that for us. It did a lot of other things too, but it ruined our eye contact. And so people are having to re-teach themselves how to look in people's eyeballs. Yeah. And the reality is when you are having a conversation with someone you should spend most of the time in their eyeballs in order for them to feel like you are connecting and that you are speaking to them. Yeah. And especially when you're giving a presentation, if you want to connect with your audience you want to be looking in their eyeballs not over their heads or at their shirts or at their shoes or at the wall behind them, but really in their eyeballs. So I'm thinking about like the difference like if if there's a crowd of a thousand you can't look in all those eyeballs, but if there's a crowd of 12 or 20, are you intentional to make sure you look in every single person's eyeball in that situation? Every single person. Yeah. And if I'm in a crowd of a thousand, what I'm doing is I'm looking in all of the areas of the room because if I were to look over. Because nobody can tell if you're looking at somebody 10 people over 20 or whatever. No. As long as I'm looking at one person, then I look like I'm looking at 40 people. Right. Right. Right. Right. In that side of the room. Yeah. If I said who am I looking at 50 people would raise their hands. And so you just have to be looking in the direction of their eyeballs instead of above their heads. Right. Right. Right. Interesting. Okay. Great. Anything I'm on the stage. Yeah. I know. I don't. I don't know. I'm sure there's so much more. There is. Yeah. Go to the website book Tannis for a do you ever do just open workshops like where it's not for a company, but you just promote and advertise a workshop and you have a room for up to 20 people or something. No, that sounds like a lot of work I haven't. Do you want to do one? Like we could talk about it. We could get the room at Better Business Bureau for free. It books up to 20. I would help you like promote it within my membership or something because I do believe in it. I might even I would agree to go through it again. Well, I might even like subsidize it just a tiny bit so that my members could get a hook up or something. Let's talk about it. Yeah, let's do. Yeah. I haven't ever done that. It's for sure. Because it's a big investment and so usually it's a corporation. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, let's talk about it. Yeah. Fair. So Emergenetics. What got you excited about Emergenetics? Yes. And how does that? How do you offer those services to your clients and whatever? And yeah, so give us the framework. Get us the the reason. Sure. Emergenetics also got started at Otterbox. Oh, really? Yes. They offer Emergenetics to every single employee in the business. Oh, you learned about it from Otterbox. Okay. And I saw how it works. Yeah. And that's why I fell in love with it before I ever became certified. Okay. Because I watched it work in their organization. Is that related to the Patterson stuff and the strategic planning? No, which is awesome. Super cool. Yeah. I love that stuff too. I love it. Okay. They do that for their employees. Yeah. Yeah. No. So this is another perk that they have. Yeah, it's a separate system that they had discovered and said this is better than disk. It's better than Myers Bridge, whatever. There's a guy at their organization, David DeMateo. Okay. Who does the training for them? And he is spectacular. I adore David. And so he, uh, well, and I think they may have other people there now too. I'm sure it's have changed a lot since I worked with them, but they offer every single team member an Emergenetics profile. And then let's say that you and I work for Otterbox and we've never met each other. Yeah. But we have just been assigned to work on a project together. Yeah. And so I can go in and look at your profile and say, okay, I'm meeting with Kurt today about this project. And I can see your profile and say, bingo, I know exactly how to communicate with Kurt because I know how he prefers to think and behave. And you can look at my profile and say, oh, this is who I'm meeting with, Tannis. Perfect. I know exactly how to communicate. So when we come into that room, we avoid all of that awkward, like, oh, get to know you, like, how do you like to do this? What should we do? Yeah, if you're talking to a social relational person and you get right to business, it's like, what, we do not get right to business. We're like, how was your? No, but if you try to get right to family, exactly, but if you try to get right to business, they're going to be like, we haven't like talked about stuff yet. Right. And so you just have all this like miscommunication because we don't communicate the same way. Whereas if I know your profile, I'm like, okay, this person is blue green. I'm a red yellow. We're opposite. So we're going to do a project where we like create almost like baseball cards for our members where it's like name, business, years, and business, halos profile that you know, and or at least we might, I have lots of ideas that we don't always execute. Oh, really? Yes, it's true. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Was that your sarcastic voice, tennis? I could say the same thing about me. Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure. Like the book that I'm still writing. So you got really excited about it and decided to become certified and sprinkled into your elevate practice. Yes. Basically, as I'm hearing. Yeah. I decided that and it is something that let's say a company calls me and says, Hey, Tannis, we have this executive who is giving a presentation and they need one-on-one coaching for this upcoming presentation. We need you to help them get ready to deliver in front of our 3000 employees. This happens all the time. And the first thing I say is that's great. Part of my package is that they need to do this questionnaire. Right. You need to know who you're working with and they need to know it. Exactly. So and sometimes I teach them a marginetics and other times I don't. That might not be relevant. It might not. It might just be, Hey, we have three weeks because they often call it last minute that always happens in this world. And so I need to get to know them very quickly and I need to speak their language and be able to coach them like that. And that's what a marginetics does for me. It allows me to jump over all of those pleasantries and get straight to the point where I'm communicating to their brain in a way that they are at your core. Yeah. Bives with you. Yeah. And how can I help them create a presentation that isn't just from their perspective? Because that's the scary thing is humans. We only speak from our perspective. Totally. And so a marginetics allows me to say, that's wonderful. Kurt, I love your perspective. Now, there are going to be people in your audience that have this perspective. How can we bring some of that into your presentation? Oh, so good. Yeah. So that way, as this executive, as a CEO, as the CFO, whoever it is, your team members feel like, wow, they get me. Yeah. Yeah. And can you sketch out the framework just a little bit? I'm sure a lot of our listeners are not familiar with a marginetics, but are familiar with some of those others. I've mentioned discs and, you know, any a gram and all that stuff, right? Sure. So you mentioned the, better give me the names again. Yes. So we've got the four colors. This is your thinking preferences. So you can have a preference in analytical, which is blue, structural, which is green, social, which is red, or conceptual, which is yellow. Okay. And then we have three behaviors that we measure for. Okay. And the reason that we measure for these three behaviors is because they're relatively the same no matter where in the world you are. Okay. So flexibility, yeah, expressiveness, and assertiveness. Yeah. That sounds, yeah. And it sounds actually a little bit like the notions that Jordan Peterson uses with in terms of his, like, your closeness, openness, things like that consciousness. Sure. I mean, a lot of these tools. There's so many tools. Lots of crossovers, which is wonderful. I do love a marginetics. They are very, very scientifically sound. They publish their scientific report every two years. So they re-norm everything. Wow. So for those of my clients who say, oh, fluff, communication skills, fluff, fluff, no, no, no, no, no, let me show you how this is scientifically sound and valid. And then they look at the scientific report and go, oh my gosh, this is good stuff. Like this is real. This is not just fluff communication skills. Cool. And then last one, Phil Jones. Can you give me the cliff notes on Phil Jones, like what to say, right? Exactly what to say. Yeah. Here's one that I think you could use all the time. I mean, there's tons of phrases in this book that I think that you specifically could use because you talk about your organization and people getting involved. Yeah. So a phrase that you could start out with, let's say you aren't sure how to open the conversation. Okay. You could use this one. I'm not sure if it's for you, but. Yeah. Hey, Tannis, I'm not sure if it's for you, but we have an amazing group of members. And we like to hold learning sessions for that. So what you just did when you use, I'm not sure if it's for you, but is you made my brain go, well, wait, let me decide. Let me think about that. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even I'm not sure if it's for you, but I've got this house relational intelligence workshop that you might find a lot of value in. Or there's a merge genetics program. Okay. So tell me more. Right. And that's what you usually, what people say after you use a phrase such as, because I got the, I get the Colorado slow maybe all the time, where like nobody says, no, everyone hates the way he says, yes, you know, a lot of people say, yes, because otherwise we wouldn't have a hundred members, but, yeah, but I get the slow maybe all the time. And that's a kind of a question that can disarm or disables or at least catalyze a decision on that front. Well, another one that you might use if you're constantly getting this slow maybe is I'm guessing you haven't gotten around to it yet. Right. I love it. It's calling someone out on their, yes, without really calling them out, because it's like, oh, it's okay. If you haven't, I'm sure you haven't intentionally been ignoring me. Exactly. The last two emails and one phone call that I followed up with. Why are you ghosting me? Yeah, you said you were in. Yeah. Interesting. I like it. Okay. But I do that a lot when I send out a proposal. And then I get no response. I'm like, hey, I'm sure you just haven't gotten around to it yet. Yeah. So it's all about psychology and word choice from what I'm hearing. Very much so. Very cool. And getting people out of the land of maybe no one likes to be stuck in maybe. I hate maybe land. Give me a no. That's fine. Please. There's so many. Yes. Or give me a no. So we can move forward in life. I like it. That is absolutely the brilliance of Phil. He is so good at helping people get out of maybe. That's so cool. I am going to read that book. And I should have brought you a copy. I'm sure should have. I'm definitely going to copy of your book whenever that's ready. I've decided I'm not going to write a book. Really? Mine's mostly pictures. Well, people need to be guru or something. But I'm just going to become a famous podcaster. I like it. I know you're going to travel around in the van with your microphone. For sure. I heard about this. Yeah. When it comes when it comes. This is cool. So I feel like we've covered a lot of your journey. And it's time to talk. We always talk about faith, family, and politics. And you know, I'm a communication coach, right? So I'm going to tell you that those are topics that you don't usually talk about. Well, I know, but this is not over there. That's why this is the low co-experience, baby. Or sex or COVID. We've added those to the list. How's your sex life? Amazing. Oh, good. But we're not talking about that. How do you want to talk about COVID? No, I said we don't want to talk. Did you see that Denmark stopped offering vaccines? Those under 50? No, I don't know. It's kind of a big deal. Because the stuff that today. Yeah, yesterday, I think I had more important things to do. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. I was going to get more. I was taking my grandpa's hearing. So, but we're still going to talk a lot. Let's talk about your family first. Tell me the love story. You're married now in long time. What, I guess, you weren't a mistress, but you were meditating with one of the famed restaurant tours around here. Steve Lauer. famed restaurant tours. Yes. Well, Steve met with me to talk about how Dummy was being by leaving the bank and trying to get a restaurant in Waybackland. He tries to convince people not to get into the restaurant business all the time. He was right. That was stupid. No, actually, he shared a lot of his time with me. I'm appreciative. So, yeah, tell me about that love story just a little bit. Okay. Is it appropriate? Some of it. Well, don't tell me about the sex. No, that's not what I was saying. Okay, no, no, it's totally appropriate. We had both been in long-term relationships with amazing people who we both love and respect still. Obviously, I've lived in this town a long time. I've dated a lot of people. There's a lot of folks. You can be like, oh, that's Tannis's ex. She gets around. But I'm friends with all my exes still. Well, that's actually admirable. They're amazing people. I wouldn't have dated them otherwise. But anyway, so we were both in long-term relationships and we broke up right around the same time. You knew each other before for a time. But we only knew each other in relationships. Of course. It wasn't. It's funny because I remember being at beach house. He owned beach house. Sure. And he, I was there on a date and he came down the stairs and I thought to myself, gosh, he is so cute. But he's so much older than me. All right. No, but how much older is he? He's 18 years older than me. Oh, boy. I know. I know it was like at least 10, but I didn't realize 18. So scandalous. I have to tell you the story of when I told my mom because that's amazing. Okay. So anyway, no, I don't remember. Okay. So yeah, we broke up with our significant others. And my friends asked me to go to Mexico and babysit their kid. Okay. My cool. I just became single. I get to go free to Mexico. You're going to pay for my trip to Mexico. Sure. Right. And so I went to Mexico. Well, actually, they called me the night before and they're like, Hey, we're going to pick you up in the morning. Steve's driving to the airport. And I was like, what? Who? I'm like, yeah, Steve, you know, Steve Lauer. He's driving us to the airport. And I was like, what Steve's Steve's going? What? Why is Steve going? I was so confused because they told me nothing. Yeah. All I knew is I was going to watch their kid on this trip. Is it set you up in a blind date weekend? Oh, no, a week. A week? A week. Yeah. So, but so I go on. Yeah, they show up at my house and sure enough, it's Steve's company trip because she was his marketing director. Oh, hello. And it was his Cudoba trip with all of his Cudoba managers. And here I am going as the nanny for their kiddo, right? So we go down and that first night, I'm like, we totally played footsie under the table. But nothing happened. It was totally innocent. And we spent the next eight months denying that we liked each other. So you didn't actually date? I mean, we kind of hung out a couple times, but no. I mean, we were like, no, no, no, no, we don't want to. Because of the scandalousness of that age gap or because of the age gap. And I don't think it's scandalous, by the way, but I mean, I don't think so. The perception is. But it is. Yeah, exactly. I mean, he's closer to my parents age than he is. That's the truth. Like there is no denying that. And so, yeah, we spent a long time just saying, no, we're just not going to do this and then he took me on a trip to wine country. And we were actually at striker vineyards. Oh, cool. Yeah. I know. The wine wasn't that great. But we were standing out in the vineyards. And he we had just checked out of the hotel. We were getting ready to go back to the city to fly home. And he looks at me and he goes, I don't really want to go home. And they said, okay. And he's like, actually, I just kind of want to be with you. And I was like, okay, like cool. I guess. Because remember, we aren't dating. And he's like, no, no, I mean, like, well, I took you to wine country. I want to be like, I want to be together. I want to be your boyfriend. And I was like, what? Okay. Cool. And that was it. That was. Yeah. Yeah. And so then I was like, all right, you're my boyfriend. Cool. Yeah. And what did your girlfriends think? Oh my gosh. My friends love him. I'm sure because he's so lovable. And he seems like he's 15 years younger than he is. He looks 15 years younger than he is. Yeah. I mean, he acts 15. But I wondered if it was scandalous because you were probably right around the time where you there had to make babies or not make babies or something, right? No, all my friends knew I didn't want baby. Oh, you didn't. You never did. That's never really been a thing. Okay. That's cool. And so they that wasn't an issue. It was they wanted to make sure that he wasn't, you know, just dating. Exactly. Like, and I think we both proved that because we just hung out for the first six months and we just we really became best friends. That's awesome. Before we ever said, like, let's be boyfriend and girlfriend. That's cool. I love it. And we just denied each other that whole relationship step. Yeah. And so that's when I say he's my best friend. I mean it. Yeah. Well, that's all we had. He earned your trust through that in a lot of ways. Yeah. Very cool. When I say family, what else do you think about other than Steve and your relationship with him, your parents are still around. I have the most amazing family. Okay. Yeah. So my dad works at CSU and my mom is a nurse practitioner, a psych nurse practitioner. She has her own practice here in town and it has the biggest heart ever. No, she's not taking new patients. Poor thing. Which took me if I needed it. She might. Okay. If I asked pretty face. But yeah. So they're still together. They live in Wellington. And my sister lives in Wellington with my. What's your dad's name again? Brandon. Brandon. Yes. He's in a band. Altered ego. Okay. Altered ego. Check out the altered ego band. Yeah. They play at the whiskey every once in a while. Okay. I love it. I love the whiskey. They've played it. Pelican lakes and a couple of places in Windsor. They're just a bunch of older guys that love jamming. And what's your dad do at CSU? He is an IT guy. Okay. Yeah. And then your mom has she been a kid raise her mostly. She had a career as well. I mean, yes, she raised us. Well, you told me about the psychology stuff. But yeah, no, she's she's the nurse practitioner. And so she's had a huge career in a health care career. Yeah, sorry, surgical neuro. I see you. I mean, this woman has just given her whole life. Yeah. That's awesome. Yep. And then she inspired my sister to do it. So my sister is also a nurse practitioner. Nice. Shena Crowe. She runs her own practice in Wellington. Okay. Yeah. Shena Crowe. Shena Crowe. Okay. And so she I think she is still taking patients. And is amazing. If you want to drive to Wellington to see somebody and have an insurance that Banner will take. It's awesome. Lovely. But yeah. So she has two kiddos. My two favorite humans on the flight. Order an emery. My niece and nephew. And her husband Chad, they live up in Wellington and have a goat farm. Nice. Back to the goat farm. Exactly. I get to hang out with baby goats every day. Do four itchy stuff. Oh my gosh. My heart is bursting every every May June when I get to go hang out with the baby goat. Not the better than baby goat. No, no. So and then my brother lives in Fossil Creek. Okay. And he he also works at Puder Valley Hospital. He's the EMT there. So I know. It's quite a healthcare family. You've got going on there. And I'm afraid of blood. And none of them would stand on a stage and speak if I gave them a million dollars. Isn't it cool how we're also diverse just by our wiring? Like you didn't have to like even in high school when you were in that speech competitions and stuff like that. It wasn't like somebody had to push you up there. Like you had a desire. Yeah. I was talking with Jill and in Rico. We have an exchange student right now from Italy just last night. And I said, you know, I don't I'm not envious of very many careers. Like, I don't want to be a lawyer or even an NFL player or a lot of things. But a musician that gets to sing and song right and perform their own singing songwriting on a stage. Right. Like not only do I think I would love that career, but I think I could have done that. You still could. I still could. I told Jill could I have a 60 something year old, you know, singer songwriter career. And she's like, maybe. Yeah. My dad's he wrote the song called Simple Life. And every time they play in my dad, will you play Simple Life? Oh, cool. I love that. Find it online. Yes. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Simple Life by the. By Brandon Router. So, um, so we've talked about family. Oh, my grandparents are. Oh, yeah. Awesome. I know. My grandparents are in Fort Collins one set. My brother doesn't have any kids yet. No, not yet. Hope and he meets somebody fabulous. All right. Eligible bachelor. How old is he? Let's see. He's 35. So anything between 50 and 30. Really? Yeah. Family tradition. As long as she's hot and nice and intelligent, does she have to be hot? That's kind of sexist. Hot can mean a lot of things. You know what his tastes are besides. I don't know if I do know his taste honestly. Fair enough. Yeah. He doesn't have. He has dated so many fabulous humans. Interesting. Why does he keep not quite bringing him home? Oh, it's always their fault. I don't know. Of course, he's a brother. Yeah. Would you prefer to talk about religion or not religion? We don't talk about religion. We talk about faith or politics. We talk about faith or family and politics. We just talk about. We should talk about mental health. If you want to. Right now. Yeah. Are you having a problem right now? Am I? Yeah. Um, I don't know what I know. I was a little wacky during some of the COVID season. I mean, I cried this morning. Does that count? Well, no. I mean, I don't think so. I cry at least twice a week. Um, no, I actually did a video and it has gotten a ton of views when I was talking about getting on, uh, well, butrin through COVID. Oh. Because everybody thinks that I'm just like this happy, go-lucky, fabulous, you know, smiley person. Were you pretty depressed? Yeah. Oh my gosh. For what? Not being around people. Hmm. And I was scared to be around people because of my grandparents. And I wanted to be around them. Oh, so you kind of isolated yourself from society more than maybe you would have so that you could be around them? Yeah, because I wanted to make sure I could take them food and hang out with them. Right, right. And so I definitely played it safe, I suppose. And then yeah, then kept myself away. And then I tried to do this whole thing with the tablets. I don't know if you saw this at all, but I raised all this money and bought all these tablets and got them into the hospitals so people could do that. Yeah. And then the hospital IT department said, never mind. Mixed it. Yeah. Oh. And it was heart wrenching. And then it ended up being such a blessing in disguise, because there was a bunch of youth that needed them. Yeah. And so for counseling, which was amazing. So everything ended up being exactly the way it was. But yeah, I mean, COVID, obviously a lot of crazy things happened. Dude, we were just talking about it in a meeting recently. Like, it's like, divorces are up like 100% in a lot of parts of the country. You know, and not only that, but just friction. And everybody's broken a little bit. Well, and we're not communicating about it. Right. Again, we come back to this community. Oh, it's an eye. You know, if you just sweep it under the rug, it'll be fine. Yeah. Or we just let it fester and fester and fester and fester. And then we just walk away because it's easier to walk away than it is to sit down and have that tough conversation. So why? I mean, we talked about family. And I did not even talk about my stepkids. No. And I should have. Oh, yeah. Please. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So yeah, I forgot. Steve's got their questions. They must be there like 20s. Well, I know because of the age difference. Well, I remember meeting at least one or two of them. Yeah. You might have met Sydney endlessly. I don't know. Yes. But yeah, so Sydney is 26 and she works for Google. Oh, cool. And is an amazing human being doing incredibly well. She lives up in Bellingham, Washington now with the work from Marcus. And we love getting to spend time with her. And Wes, unfortunately, we lost him to an accidental overdose during COVID. Oh, I'm so sorry. And that is one of the reasons why I talk about mental health. And I bring that up because I think, again, it's something, no, it wasn't. We thought that's what it was going to be. And actually, my girlfriend lost her son to a fentanyl. Yeah. Well, it can be so accidental when he says, yeah, I mean, it's, it is an epidemic. It is a pandemic. Terrible. It is, yeah, requires so much more attention than it's getting. It's scary and and preventable too. I mean, I, I, I tongue in cheek said it kind of takes the recreation of recreational drugs. Yeah. You know, knowing that it might kill you at any moment because there's an extra grain of fentanyl in your cut. Yeah. Well, if you aren't testing it, you need to be tested. For sure. Yeah. Don't do, don't do recreational drugs, kids. But if you do get some test strips and test every time or adults, yeah, that's what I mean. People are doing drugs for sure. It's not that I want to condone that because obviously we lost Wesley to it. But at the same time, it's like for heaven's sakes, there's ways, ways to test it to ensure that it doesn't show you. Hold was Wesley. 26. So was he twins then with Sydney? No, she's 26 now. So this was two years ago. So he will be forever 26. Yeah. Yeah. We like to do one word description of kids around here. Would you like to give one in honorarium for Wesley and and share one for Sydney too? One word. I'm going to jump up real quick and get out of your tissue because I can see the possible tears. So yeah, one word for each. And you don't have to boil it down to one word if you want. No, that is like, I'm trying to think of one word and it's so incredibly hard. I mean, Sydney's has got to be gifted and I don't even think she realizes how gifted she is in so many ways. So I can't wait to see how she uses her gifts to bless the world. Right. And may she use them well? Yeah. In fully. And lots of different ways. Wes was so many things. Wes was my gentle giant. Is that right? Yeah, he was six foot. Gosh, I don't even know, six foot four, six foot six, six foot six. Wow. He was so tall. He gave me hugs. I only came to him. And Steve's not small, but he's kind of slim and six foot tall or something. Exactly. They're both super tall and super skinny. I'll never forget the last time I saw him. I gave him the best hug and the waist hugs. My favorite moment from our wedding was during the mother sun dance. When Steve was dancing with his mom. And Wes comes over and taps me on my shoulder. And he goes, hey, Tannis, I think we're supposed to be dancing. Oh, gosh. I know. And I was like, oh my gosh, like the first time I felt like a mom. Which is true. Like stepmoms or moms. How old was he when you and Steve? Yeah, so that was like when you were officially together. 10 years ago. Yeah, so he would have been 28 to 18. Yeah. Yeah, and we went on vacations together and got to do lots of special things. Yeah. Oh, God bless you, Wesley. He will be forever missed. Yeah, see you later. He shows up in lots of cool ways. Yeah, yeah, I believe it. I believe it. I won't make you talk about politics, but I enjoy getting people out of their comfort zone once in a while. Oh, yeah. No, I'm waiting to talk about it. You're very apolitical. I really am. Do you have any encouragement for local politics or for example, there's a local minimum wage? We should definitely not talk about that. You know we own restaurants, right? No, I'm kidding. What I will say is that we do not have a hard time finding employees because we pay our employees very well. Yeah, you do. So yeah, that's all I want to tell that. Do you want to talk about the restaurant operations? Yeah, I would never mind giving them plug. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'd love it. Like three different concepts that you guys opened all basically at the same time. And Simmer did pretty good right away. Macaroni something kind of sucked for a while and then went away. Yeah, then went away and then rally five seems to be the lead horse now. Like it took a while to get the popularity. But now when I go to either Simmer or rally five, rally five has always been. Yeah, no, I mean they both Simmer and rally five have just exploded. Awesome. And it was so cool because during COVID, I mean Steve took the approach of how can we feed our community? And so we were doing all kinds of cool things to to send food to the hospitals and do things for the churches and give back and I really do think that our community noticed. Those seeds sprouted and started coming back and regular fruits back to Simmer. And it just like it makes my heart so happy to know that we are a part of this community. Isn't it cool when when you sacrifice to provide and then it then it comes back and it wasn't why you did it? And he didn't that's not why he did it. He didn't even think about it like that. I love that about him and obviously that's part of why married him is because he has a servant heart and that's what attracted to me to him so much from the very get-go. What Steve's energetics type? Emergenetics. Yeah, he's green red, so we bond with the social side of things because we both have this huge heart for people and thinking about people but then he has the structural side. So he loves to organize and loves the details and so my yellow, my conceptual wants to go fly a kite and he wants to talk about how we're going to organize the pantry. Right, right. So you can see sometimes we don't get along at all. Well, and Jill is super detailed and organized like what we were getting ready to take off on our trip to California. We did a big 4,700 mile road trip with an RV with my staffers at RV that are running for a hundred bucks a day. Thank you Deb, you're awesome. But I was she was like well where are we going to stay and this and that wanted to plan it all out and I was like we get an RV baby. We'll stop where we stop. Love it. And we just needed to be at her sister's house for her 40th birthday that she shared their twins. Do you drive her insane sometimes? Right, well, and that's one of the things that Halus has provided because I have all these ideas and I started threatening her structured world that where everything is in its place and stuff and maybe you guys have the same challenge sometimes. No, we do, but it's neat because he can now look at me and be like whoa yellow. Yeah, you're so useful. And then I can look at him and be like all right, my green brain has spent. Let's go and we don't take it as an insult. No, we know that that's us just being like your brain is thinking this way. Yeah, and then we're like oh yeah, yeah, and we meet each other in the middle. And so we have this amazing common ground of respect. Yeah, and I do believe, I mean, I don't do couples counseling or anything, but I do think that emergent ethics has made our marriage stronger. Yeah, I think anything you do that can help you understand yourself and other people better is worth it. Yeah, frankly, so commercial for either one of our platforms. Oh, absolutely anything you can do. Just get out there and learn more about yourself and the people you love. Who are you voting for for your governor? Do you even know who's running? Honestly, I'm pretty disconnected with politics. Well, that I won't make you talk about it anymore. Thank you. Your local experience, you're supposed to get out of here in like four minutes, but the craziest experience of your entire life that you're willing to share with our listeners. The craziest experience that you're willing to share, I think, is probably important. Then I'm willing to share. I don't know, was that experience of being surprised with a trip to Mexico for a blind date? That seems pretty crazy, but it wasn't really. You guys didn't make it that way anyway. Did you still end up nannying and watching kids? Oh, totally. Oh, right, okay. I mean, I watched the kid, but I definitely flirted with Steve at the whole trip. I don't know. I mean, I think about my husband proposing in Bangkok. That was pretty good. You know, right? I also, I gosh, the craziest though. If I think of crazy, probably when I was 15 and forgot my speech and on stage. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was in a speech competition and the prize, I had won the speech competition. It was a 4-H conference at CSU, and I won the competition. And the prize was that I got to give the speech in front of the whole conference. Okay. So all of my peers, all these cute cables sitting out there in the theater at CSU. I don't even think that theater's still there, but I went on stage. But it's big. Like a few hundred people. A few hundred people. Huge deal. Yeah, like huge deal. My dad came and I wanted to make my dad proud and I was so excited and I knew this speech. I had memorized it. And this is, this is why I don't recommend memorizing because your brain goes into cognitive overload. If it doesn't remember the next word, it doesn't remember anything. And so I was standing on stage with all this cortisol in my system and my brain didn't remember the next word, so it wouldn't give me anything. And if you continue to freak out, it can actually shut off your prefrontal cortex, which means that you just stand there and you don't say anything. We've seen this. There's videos of this. I think our president has done that. I'm not sure if that's what was going on, but this is a deeper problem. Yeah, we are not talking politics. Come on, let's do it. But anyway, so I'm standing there and I have nothing to say. But luckily, I don't know where this came from, but I just blurred it out. And was like, do you remember in speech class how they told you to picture people in their underwear? And everyone's like, what? What does this have to do with the three lessons you've learned in 4-H? Right. I'm just like shaking and tears in my eyes and freaking out. And they were all like, what? Huh? And I said, well, that is a really bad idea. You see, I just pictured you all in your underwear. And there is a really good looking cowboy sitting up here. And I don't remember what I was going to say. And they all started laughing. And I was like, oh, my God, it worked. It worked. And did it break your freeze? It did. But I still didn't remember exactly what I was supposed to say. So I just went on to something else. Just three laps, yeah. I just went on to something else. And then I remembered what I was supposed to say. So I stopped. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I remembered my speech. And they all started laughing. And I forgot it again. My brain was playing the worst tricks on me. I mean, it was awful. And so I finished my speech. And I was going through and the three things I talked about. Number one was this. Number two, I don't remember. It was so awful. And I finished and I walked off stage. Like totally tears probably running down my face at this point. My dad standing out in the hallway and he looks at me and he's like, Tannis, please don't ever do that to me again. I'm like, do that to you. You know, it wasn't how you planned it. But everybody in that room remembers that probably still. I know. I don't know. I let out the best part. I did get my first standing ovation. Right. That's what I thought. I did. Yeah. It was the best part. You crushed it. I did. Because I let it go. I let the perfection go. And I think that this is the perfect note to end on. Like as humans, we strive for perfection. And we strive to be perfect humans and to come up with, you know, whatever, to deliver the perfect thing or the perfect words or the perfect project. Like it doesn't exist. Be yourself. Be human and love yourself for who you are and what you've got. Because it's it's great. I'd love to hear you saying that because probably that's one of the things that you struggle with. They know which is anybody. The most. Yeah, this is probably what I have to remind myself of. Yeah. All the time is like, Tannis, you got this. Well, you are not perfect, but you're perfectly amazing. And I'm really thankful to have you here on the local experience. If people want to look up, elevate your communication. Where would they find you? Yeah. You can definitely Google elevate your communication. It comes right up. You can Google Tannis rotor. My name is pretty unique. Our OEDER. Our OEDER. I'm in the process of switching over all of my branding to be just TannisRoder.com. Oh, really? Interesting. I think that's kind of smart, actually. It needs to happen. I know. I've been fighting it for years. Yeah. So we're launching a new website in the next couple of weeks. Okay, it's cool. Doing all kinds of things that I've been working really hard on. And so it will, right now, it's elevatecanhelp.com, but it will be TannisRoder.com coming shortly. That is so cool. And for those that are listening, this lady has been giving to the Cultivate Hope event for the Matthews house and help create the Peach Festival for the Rotary Clubs. And we didn't pay her much for any of that work. And she has really contributed to good causes in an amazing way. And probably lots of other ways I've never known. So thank you. You're a servant to our community and a saint. It's my pleasure. Thanks, Dennis. Thanks, Kurt. Bye for now. Thank you for listening to this episode. This is Alma Ferrer, producer of the Loco Experience Podcast. If you enjoyed this program and would like to support the show, please share it with your favorite people and leave us a review. 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