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Ever Onward Podcast
The Ever Onward Podcast is your go-to business podcast, offering engaging discussions and diverse guests covering everything from business strategies to community issues. Join us at the executive table as we bring together industry leaders, experts, and visionaries for insightful conversations that go beyond the boardroom. Whether you're an entrepreneur or simply curious about business, our podcast provides a well-rounded experience, exploring a variety of topics that shape the business landscape and impact communities. Brought to you by Ahlquist.
Ever Onward Podcast
Turning Passion into Profit with Tayler Tibbitts | Ever Onward - Ep. 57
Tayler W. Tibbitts shares his inspiring journey from growing up in Salmon, Idaho, to becoming the VP & County Manager for Fidelity National Title. As a Real Estate Attorney and Business Leader Hybrid, Entrepreneur, Podcast Host, and recipient of accolades such as IBR 40 Under 40 and Idaho’s 2023 Power List, Tayler discusses the importance of community, family connections, and how his love for the outdoors led him to co-create successful hunting apps—including ElkNut, Turkey Tech, Duck Tech, Whitetail Tech, Goose Tech, and others under Got Game Technologies—highlighting the intersections between passion and profession.
• How Tayler’s upbringing in Salmon shaped his work ethic and leadership style
• The pivotal shift from law school to the title insurance industry
• His insights on the vital role of title companies in real estate transactions
• Tayler’s entrepreneurial ventures with Got Game Technologies and its popular hunting apps
• The importance of building strong team culture and meaningful community connections
• Personal growth derived from outdoor experiences and a passion for hunting
• His leadership approach centered on authenticity, connection, and vision
Tayler’s journey is a testament to the power of combining passion with profession, inspiring those looking to make an impact in their industries.
In the intro segment, Ahlquist Update, Mark Cleverley and Holt Haga from our team at Ahlquist dive into the exciting developments shaping downtown Boise. They provide an inside look at 4th & Idaho, the latest Ahlquist project set to redefine the city’s skyline, while also reflecting on the legacy of Ahlquist’s impactful contributions to Boise’s urban landscape. From the iconic 8th and Main tower to the bustling City Center Plaza and transformative projects like Pioneer Crossing, Mark and Holt discuss the evolution of these landmarks and how they’ve contributed to Boise’s growth and economic vitality.
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Today on the Ever Onward podcast, we have Taylor Tippetts. He is the VP and County Manager for Fidelity National Title. Taylor is a big-time business leader here in the community and is involved in so many different things. We're excited to have him on. He attended Virginia Law School and graduated in 2013. He's also a big-time family guy married a high school sweetheart, has five kids. I'm sure that we'll talk about that. He's also developed several apps mobile apps, including apps for the hunting industry. We'll talk about that today. Excited to have him on today. Taylor Tippetts, okay.
Speaker 2:Holt, we're here. Tommy turned the reins over to us. I know we're moving forward.
Speaker 2:I think we're just unfiltered this is our time Totally unfiltered. Tommy's out, just kidding, but he did ask us to come on and talk about, like, our biggest project right now downtown Boise, iccu Tower 4th and Idaho, and the fact that we're back downtown. Right, we did 8th and Main. What was it? 267,000 square feet. We did city center plaza, where clear water analytics is, pioneer crossing and all that. Eighth and main and city center plaza. We filled those up. Pioneer crossing we filled that up. Um, and we need another downtown building. We need another downtown building.
Speaker 3:I mean need another downtown building. I mean it's interesting, because that was like our grassroots right. That's where that was. Our launchpad was yeah, was class a like premium class a office? I mean we look at like the true premium class a office buildings downtown. There's arguably three of them, and we deliver two of them to the market Absolutely Right, and so you know they just the projects keep getting better and this next one's going to be the best one yet.
Speaker 2:It is going to be awesome. When we started BVA and now AllQuest in 2018, we kind of not that we left downtown, because we always had Pioneer Crossing that we were working on, but we had. We spent a lot of time out at 10 mile, spent a lot of time at eagle view and then throughout the entire treasure valley, but it feels good to be back downtown, right, yes, it does, especially you right being close. You're our eyes and ears on that sucker.
Speaker 3:Yeah, baby, yeah well downtown, you know it has a different, it has a different energy. Yeah, I mean we've done really. You know our thesis, when we pivoted out here has been, you know, a really strong thesis. I mean there's the, the flight to quality, the suburban office, you know, kind of transition that happened. It's been happening over the last decade but like, really sort of like was magnified during covid and leading into covid, and so we, like you know, we kind of hit the mark really well, yep. And and now, as we start looking back downtown, it's like things are opening back up during COVID and leading into COVID, and so we, like, you know, we kind of hit the mark really well, yep. And now, as we start looking back downtown, it's like things are opening back up. You know, we know what the value proposition is, we know what these companies want to see in terms of, like you know, finished office space and that's where we thrive. So it's good to take our thesis back downtown. Yeah, love it, I'm pumped.
Speaker 2:Our thesis back downtown. Yeah, love it pumped. It's gonna be huge, awesome, gonna be the greatest. Yep, okay, awesome, thanks, man taylor.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the podcast happy to be here, thank you I feel like I'm rusty because we took a few weeks off for the holiday and these guys like I'm giving you a hard time already today.
Speaker 4:Oh, this is awesome, thank you?
Speaker 1:How are you doing? I'm doing great. You're having a nice holiday.
Speaker 4:Great holiday. We got to partake in a little bit of the fun around the Boise State football game.
Speaker 1:Oh, did you go down?
Speaker 4:Went down to the Fiesta Bowl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on our feet cheered the whole game. You know tough loss, but took our three older kids. They had a good. Take your older kids.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was, it was great wasn't it great season, yeah awesome season and fun to see the just the positive benefits that come to our community from that. I'm a big believer in the boise state effect. It's huge.
Speaker 1:I, um, we've talked we'll talk about it again here but I, my first one was 07 and uh, that was my fourth one, wow. And in the 07 one I was uh, it was back when I was working in the er and I had a really tight turnaround and I took my son at the time, who was 12, wow, yeah, yeah, he was 12 and we went down and we sat. We got to sit in the family section because my had a buddy, who's um, who knew the linebacker coach back then, and so we got two tickets with him and it was crazy oh, I bet that game was insane, it was crazy.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, it was. Uh, the guy's name was kent nwahi and big hawaiian guy stronger than heck and he would not watch the overtime. So he would. He literally didn't watch any of it and he would put his head down and when, when they had run a play, he would stand up and grab me and shake me and he's like what happened? What happened, what happened. And then I would tell him, and then I would look for my son and like, two different times he's like one row in front of us. I'd get him and pull him back up and sit him by me and then same thing. What a memory. But then you know, they've all been special in their own way, but this time, because it was the first, college football playoff yeah.
Speaker 1:Penn State and um, it was, it was just wonderful. But what I mean you think about 07? It was pre-recession, it was when everything else was dying. I mean, lehman Brothers shut down, it all went to heck. And now you had Boise State, kind of really single-handedly being the thing that everyone rallied around, business-wise.
Speaker 4:It was a huge lift.
Speaker 1:When they expanded, and you know that was back during President Custer's time here and it was pretty magical for Boise State after that game. I think it's a big deal. And now you look at this with Gentee and the Heisman race which he should have won Right, and then the getting to the championship you look at next year what Jeremiah is doing, right? Oh it's inspiring to see what president Trump's doing. I mean, it's just really proud of them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I had a moment where, uh, I was looking at, uh listening to an interview of Coach Danielson and he's younger than me, and I had a moment where I'm like he's such a great leader. I think he's three years younger than me. How old are you? I'm 38. I think he graduated from high school in 2007. But I just thought it's inspiring to see somebody who's such a charismatic leader and really motivating his team and just a young guy.
Speaker 1:Watch the way he interacts with. He gave the opening prayer at the governor's dinner. He did that couple nights. Well, the game was on Tuesday and on a Saturday night, and man, he's just an inspiring dude. It's neat to see.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we can keep that crew together.
Speaker 1:We keep inviting him. We've got to get him on here. So if anyone's listening and can somehow twist Spencer's arm to get on here, it would be great to have him on here and hear about the season. Nil's got to be crazy for him.
Speaker 4:Yes absolutely crazy. You've got to think about some pending reform there. I mean, as a mid-market program, we've got to have the ability to compete at a high level and it's insane.
Speaker 1:Did you listen to Dirk Cutter's interview? I didn't hear it. No, oh man, him just talking about just how hard it is and how it's interesting, because I think the purpose of NIL was to take some of the TV revenue and all this revenue that's out there and share it back. But what it's done is just really put that responsibility back on donors in the community to figure out how to do it. If you want to keep a team, you got to figure it out.
Speaker 4:Right, and I know our community is so great at rallying around causes they believe in. Right, and I know our community is so great at rallying around causes they believe in, and so the community is ready and willing. But it is interesting to see that the dollars are coming from the local level like just normal people here in Boise State former players that not all of them are NFL players that have a bunch of money, but they're all banding together to try to keep these, keep these good players, and that's hard yeah.
Speaker 1:Boy, that great leadership, though. Amazing leadership all levels. And now we're in basketball season.
Speaker 4:That's right, and the team's looking good again. They look great.
Speaker 1:Andrew Meadow cut his hair.
Speaker 4:He did, okay, did you see this. Oh no.
Speaker 1:Oh man, it's the highlight of the week, so he cut his hair. Yeah, but it was just for that Utah State game, so I don't know.
Speaker 4:What a close game that was, I know.
Speaker 1:He looks good. Well, I can't wait, Taylor, to hear a little bit more about you. I didn't know. You grew up in Salmon.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so my story definitely intersects with Salmon. I moved there when I was 15. My family did so. I didn't grow up grow up there, but I have relatives that were ranching in the Salmon area and then an uncle that had a fence construction company there. So my dad's a large animal veterinarian. How was that growing?
Speaker 1:up with your dad being a vet.
Speaker 4:It was wild when I was little. I didn't really like it because I had to go on farm calls with him and in the wintertime it was so cold and his eight nine-year-old kid I mean. He had all the gear and stuff but still it was not always fun. But I'm so thankful now that he would take me because I have an appreciation for that community and I think people think of veterinarians, as you know, medical professionals that all kind of fit in one box and the large animal vets are just built different and they it's not the most lucrative profession either, I mean. And then you're out there doing most of your work from the rear end of a cow. You know you're earning every dollar the hard way. But I loved that upbringing. We worked in northern Utah. My family lived there until I was 15. And he had kind of burned out in the practice there. He's a great vet, working a lot of hours, wasn't able to be super present in our lives just because he was so busy working and finally he's like I got to change this and so that's when we moved to Salmon.
Speaker 4:How was Salmon back then? So what year was this? That was 2001 when we moved to Salmon. Awesome town. I'll never forget the first demolition derby that I went to in Salmon. I just remember thinking, man, this place is special, just it's. You know, people are just calling it. What's the mascot there? The Savages. Yeah, they got some trouble for that, yep. So now it's just Savages, disconnected from any association with Native American tribes, and yeah, that's a big, big kind of point in the community. They love the history of that. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So yeah, 2001 was when we moved there and I didn't know this, but my dad was actually going to stop being a vet.
Speaker 4:He was so burned out he needed a break and so we joined my uncle's fence construction crew and we built barbed wire fences in the mountains of Montana, outside of Darby and Hamilton Sula.
Speaker 4:So we do four 12 hour days, 15 hour days, sleeping in tents or in cabins, building fences, and and it was a hard summer for my family financially, but it was the best summer I ever had, because I went from never getting to see my dad, or not very much I shouldn't say never because it's probably not fair to him but it felt like other kids parents were coaching their teams and were able to, you know, be at events, and he just couldn't be there all the time. And then we moved to Salmon and I got to be with him every single day of the week and it changed my life and changed how, what I wanted from a career goal standpoint. And then all of my younger siblings kind of got to experience having him with that flexibility over his schedule throughout their lives and it's just a great move for our family. And so when people ask me where I'm from, did he go back to?
Speaker 4:that he did so. After that summer, um, people started figuring out that there was a new vet in town and he's such a he's just an Idaho guy, he team ropes, just old school you know, loves to hunt and fish and like just relates so well to that ranching community that when they found somebody who kind of spoke the language there with them he got busy really fast. So he's run his own practice out of salmon for 20 plus years. He's had a couple of stints where he's done some work outside of the area. Lived outside of the area for a couple of years when he had back surgery. But he's done some work outside of the area. Lived outside the area for a couple of years when he had back surgery, but he's back in Salmon now and doing great and he's still working. And he's still working. Yeah, he's 63 this year.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen, 63 sounds old to you. It doesn't sound old to me at all. Good for him, thank you. Good one for the old guys. He's still young, absolutely.
Speaker 4:What was it like? Fencing? So fencing was really tough work. It was hard work, but it's something that I'd love for my teenagers to be doing right now. We were packing around coils of barbed wire and you'd get tread through your clothes and gloves. You'd have to have five sets of gloves for the week because you'd tear through them one a day, pounding posts in the rocky ground up there and digging holes and you're pulling big boulders out of the holes. And it was hard work, but it was great work, especially for a teenager, and at the time I would have said I'm never, ever, building a fence again. I don't want to do anything like this. And then I get an office job, you know, a decade later, and I'm like, oh, building some fence right now sounds pretty good, isn't it funny?
Speaker 1:Corey Hall, and I talk about it all the time. You spend your whole life thinking, man, I can't wait to go do something else, and then spend the last half of your life trying to get back on a farm Absolutely Fencing and do stuff. It's really cool. So where were you in your family growing up? Were you one of the older kids?
Speaker 4:I was second Second of seven.
Speaker 1:Okay, second of seven, so big family and Sam in Idaho. What a beautiful part of the state.
Speaker 4:And it is a gem. You know a lot of folks don't make it past Stanley. They get up to Stanley, or maybe they get up to Chalice. You just got to go one more hour to get up to salmon.
Speaker 4:You go one more hour and then that's, that's end of the road, that is yeah, you got the Frank church wilderness. One of the coolest just scenes that you can find it in Idaho is when you drive to the very end of that river road along the Salmon River and you see that sign. Here lies the Frank Church Wilderness of no Return right and you're just like wow, we've reached the end of the map.
Speaker 1:Salmon is a. Yeah, a lot of people don't get up there because it is so remote, but my goodness that the drive up the whole thing, the setting it's unbelievable Great area and a lot of folks in the Boise area came from Salmon.
Speaker 4:This is kind of the big city for us it is, but you'll run into folks at law firms and hospitals and they're like, oh yeah, I went to Salmon and played hockey on the open ice rink there. Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1:It's probably a great place to spend your years, and most of your siblings then grew up from young children. That's great. From young children. That's great Before we get off your dad, okay.
Speaker 4:Tell me I mean, tell me a little bit what'd you learn from that guy watching him? You know a couple of things I learned from him that I've been thinking about lately. You know one is he was he's a great entrepreneur because he's a great salesman and he's not. I think people hear sales and they just think someone that's high pressure and kind of slimy. But his sales strategy is just to make friends with people, to get to know them, to spend time with them doing things that they enjoy and the business takes care of itself. So he's a great entrepreneur, great at sales.
Speaker 4:That's impacted what I love about the work that I do, which is kind of an unconventional path for an attorney, but there's a big sales component to it which I think was attributable to what I saw him doing and he's got an incredible work ethic. He's somebody who has a hard time turning it off. I think I learned both directions of that but he's just wired where he's always wanting to be working on something, building something. So he's built a couple of his own houses. He builds all the barns and outbuildings, trains his own horses, shoes his own horses um, you know, works on his own. You know truck and four wheeler and there's a lot of things that it's just a little bit of a different approach to life than we have now, where we outsource so much and he's very self-sufficient. You could send him up to the mountains of salmon and he could build a homestead. It up to the mountains of salmon and he could build a homestead it's pretty cool.
Speaker 4:That's awesome. What was your mom like? And my mom is the yin to the yang there. I think super sweet, soft-spoken, very faithful. I mean, her faith is really, I would say, what drives her purpose and focus in life and then her children, and has a mother heart where that's really what she's wanted to do with her life and support us children and support us children and help us grow. Um, and I think if she could, she would have had twice as many kids. I mean, she just loves being a mom and I, um, you know I had, they had a couple of miscarriages after they had a seven and it was heartbreaking for her Cause I think she kind of saw that, as you know, time to time to shift gears, but she just loves, loves being a mom, and just such a great example to me of faith too.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 4:Health's so good for both.
Speaker 1:They're both in good health.
Speaker 1:That's great. Well, that's awesome. Um, so let's talk about your path to well, first of all, in in our business we do. I remember when I got into this, you know, er, you don't even know what title means, right, right. And then I remember the very first project I did was over here, when I did, uh, uh, where Buffalo, wow. So Portico was my first project and that was a very messy project because it was a subdivision that then you know, an old subdivision that had to get converted to the commercial center that is now.
Speaker 1:And, um, back in the day I met Trina Nishitani was her name. And back in the day I met Trina Nishitani was her name. Okay, so she was a longtime title agent for Stewart Title Awesome, and she's long since retired, but I remember her sitting me down and giving my first lesson on title and why it's important and understanding what they do for you. And then, throughout the years, we've always just had these great relationships. They're often long-term relationships with title companies. They're actually very hard to change because people are so wonderful and they help you and they protect you and they have you look out for stuff that you otherwise wouldn't look out for.
Speaker 1:That's what I love about title. And then there's the insurance side of it. So I was excited to have you maybe talk not I'm jumping kind of to the end talk, not I'm jumping kind of to the end, but it's. But it's an interesting. When I saw your background and your, your schooling and then law school to title is interesting. So I want to hear about that and then when you get rolling here, tell us a little bit about, about why you love the business and about title.
Speaker 4:Okay, absolutely. So I'll go chronologically just to keep us in line. You know I didn't know anything about title insurance either. I didn't grow up thinking, well, I want to be an attorney for a title company, but I did grow up thinking I want to be challenged intellectually, academically and over time kind of learned that I was a people person, entrepreneur type. I don't think I totally was that way as a kid. I remember being kind of shy and uncomfortable in group settings.
Speaker 4:But after high school served a mission for my church in Taiwan, learned to speak Mandarin Chinese over there and just spent every single day talking to people and just from that personal obligation that I felt to talk about my faith while I was doing that mission experience and it changed my personality a little bit, I think, where I just lost that fear of being in front of people, talking to people and you know, as a missionary, talking about a subject that's kind of touchy, it's not something that in all settings people feel comfortable discussing, and so it was a great opportunity for me to come out of my shell a little bit and while I was over there also just learned that the world's a lot smaller than it felt for a small-town Idaho kid.
Speaker 4:You know, the world just seems so vast and so huge and I just thought, if you did well in school, you became a veterinarian or a physician. You kind of had those buckets that you thought you needed to fit nicely in, and after being in Taiwan I realized that there was a lot of different avenues that I could go. On the plane ride back I met an accountant who was going to law school and I thought, well, that's an interesting combination. My father-in-law was an accountant and I guess I'm kind of jumping ahead that I ended up getting married. But I married my high school girlfriend, which is why it all blends together here From Salmon.
Speaker 4:Yeah, from Salmon. We were in the same grade valedictorians together, so kind of a fun story, and she's a huge part of my story so I shouldn't glaze over that, but I guess we can talk about that in a minute. Anyways, her dad is a CPA and I talked to him about the idea. I said, hey, I met this guy. He's an accountant, I'm going to law school. What do you think? He said well, like accounting, it does teach you the language of business. It's way better than some wishy-washy business degree. And I'm like, well, that's a clearly a biased opinion.
Speaker 1:Ryan Clever. He's going to listen to this and love this. The language of business. Come on, that's an accountant. That's funny.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but he planted that I love it, ryan's going to eat that, oh good.
Speaker 1:Ryan and Larry in my office will say you guys speak the language of business. That's why you're so good. Okay, that's good.
Speaker 4:Yep. So I started down the accounting track, with law school always in my mind and I worked in a couple of different accounting internships while I was in college at BYU-Idaho and I was bored. I was really bored. I did some cost accounting, some corporate accounting, I did some tax accounting, I did some audit work, and all of it was useful and practical but didn't totally fill my cup up. So there, I've complimented and insulted the accountants at the same time, but it solidified in my mind that I wanted to go to law school. So I went to the University of Virginia Great law school in Charlottesville, virginia, a couple hours outside of Washington DC, thomas Jefferson's University, very historic, great, small town feel, which was important to me and my wife. She and I got married after I'd been home from Taiwan for just a few months. She was about done with college. I still had three years left. So by the time I finished college we were three years married, with one child and one on the way. So I had started our family early and we were looking for a college experience or a law school experience that we could have a family and to be comfortable. And so we looked at a few different law schools. Virginia fit for us and so we spent three years out there.
Speaker 4:You get kind of caught up in the you know the group think of law school where they kind of instill in you hey, you do good in law school, you want to get a clerkship for a judge, you get a clerkship for a judge, you go work for a big law firm. And so I kind of got caught up in that a little bit and worked for a firm in DC for a summer and did a clerkship with a Ninth Circuit judge in Pocatello, judge Randy Smith, who's an amazing mentor and great person. A lot of attorneys in the area know him. But by the time I'd finished up law school and had that clerkship I kind of realized what I wanted was different than the norm for an attorney. And so my wife and I talked a lot and decided we were going to shift gears and, rather than returning back to DC to the firm I interned with, we'd stay in Idaho. So we're getting close to the end here. I promise to where the pivot happened.
Speaker 4:But I worked for Holly Troxell because they're a small, smaller firm big in Idaho but smaller compared to the national firms that I had been interviewing with and working with and spent about a year and a half there and met some great attorneys. They started to train me up in the ways of litigation and I realized that I didn't love litigation. I love to write kind of. The confrontation and the chess match of making the other side's life difficult didn't really float my boat. And so I also started really engaging in some business development activities for the firm. And you know, I think the firm was like hey, we've got this little eager beaver associate. We're not quite sure what to do with him because he's not really fitting into the normal associate mold. And I think I billed 1,200 hours for the firm and then 1,200 marketing hours. And I think they're like well, what do we do with this guy? And ultimately I decided that I wanted to do something a little bit different. And they were supportive.
Speaker 4:But I ended up kind of falling into a conversation with a guy who was running a title agent here Next Title Chris Miller and he said hey, I want to do some business with the firm. Do you have any referral work? And I said well, actually I'm kind of looking for something different to do. And immediately he said hey, I want to love to have you come run our commercial department and build a team and get you into title and escrow and Michael, that's great. But what's title insurance? I had no idea. I think I had one case in law school about a title insurance company and you know it wasn't even on my radar but saw something in me and so jumped in. I was most excited about the opportunity to go through the company sales training. We had six weeks of sales training and then they kind of turned me loose and I was doing commercial escrow and in-house underwriting, counsel stuff and marketing and business development and was just happy to be out there starting to learn that lean into that sales aspect of what I wanted to do. So that's how I fell into title insurance. That's great.
Speaker 4:And then you were with them. For how many years? I was with them for a couple of years and then kind of got bit by the full entrepreneur bug. I moved up back up to Salmon, took my wife and at that time we had three kids, four kids, and we're there for a couple of years Meanwhile. Next, title got acquired by a new ownership group. Yeah, and I've been working with them, you know, still doing some work for folks in the valley and after being away for a couple years.
Speaker 4:I saw everything that you were doing over here in 2019 and I'm like, uh, you know and I mean that I saw the projects that you're working on, as well as everyone else, what they're doing, the valley and I kind of felt like I was sitting on the sidelines. And so when they called and said, hey, we've been acquired, what do you think about coming back? Kind of firing back up the commercial team, I was open to listening to it and even though I loved the kind of small town life that we built for our family in Salmon, I missed the industry and missed the opportunity to really be kind of at the forefront of the real estate scene. And so they talked me into coming back in 2019. And so I spent three more years with them, so collectively about five and then got a call from the folks over here at Fidelity National Title.
Speaker 4:And you know it was interesting because from 2020 to 2022, you know, 2019 to 2022, it was three of the best years the real estate industry has ever seen. It was absolutely the three best years the title insurance industry has ever seen. So everybody did pretty well. So I don't want to take too much credit.
Speaker 4:But our commercial team did do well and I'd always really just taken it upon myself to try to be a good player in the sandbox and know people at other companies and so when this opportunity at Fidelity came up, I knew a lot of folks on the team and they recommended I get a call and it ended up being the right time for me.
Speaker 4:It's always hard to make a career change like that and had a lot of good friends and clients that I think felt a little bad when I left the Empire Title crew because they rebranded from Next Title to Empire, but it was a great thing for me and my family. Fidelity National Title is a big company nationally. I think one out of every three real estate transactions that close in the country close through Fidelity or a Fidelity agent. So it's pretty massive but small in Idaho and they were looking for somebody that had strong Idaho roots and I think I fit the bill there and we've just been trying to manage this operation through what now has been one of the toughest markets for a title insurance company.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:When interest rates go up, our volume goes down. It's all volume related right. That's right.
Speaker 1:I'm both residential on the commercial side. Talk about title, yep. Talk about the different aspects of title and why it's so important and what people might not know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's not a typical insurance product. I think people try to fit title insurance into these other different kinds property and casualty et cetera. But it's a backward-looking title insurance product where you're doing research and it's more like an indemnity contract where you're indemnifying the insured to that policy that the research you've done is accurate and if it's inaccurate then title insurance coverage kicks in and there's a claim that can be paid. But from just kind of a higher level standpoint, title insurance really is doing a public service in helping create and perfect real property records and I don't know that that's totally understood or appreciated.
Speaker 4:Counties across the state of Idaho and across the country all have kind of different processes and procedures and they index records differently and there just aren't always ways to stay ahead of potential problems.
Speaker 4:And I think there's a couple of subdivisions in Custer County where the survey was just off by a few feet and so every single lot line in that entire subdivision that was done years and years ago is off by a few feet. Right, you get a title insurance company involved. They do research, they find out those issues and then they help clear up title Because a buyer who wants to know that they can purchase a property in confidence. They don't want to buy a cloud on their title or a problem, and the title insurance company doesn't want to take on that risk. And so we try to help reach that solution, clear up clouds on title, really perfect those real property records and I don't mean perfect in the legal sense, just more in the organizational standpoint so that our record system can be what it is today. I mean, I think it's really good and it's in large part because title insurance companies are doing good research and they're being good partners in the real estate industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's kind of the first call. Well, if we're looking at a new piece of property, the first call we make is title, let's pull a report right. Pull a report. And then what usually happens with that relationship is they'll already start doing their scrubbing and they'll be flagging issues before you even know they're issues Right. And you get a call and saying, hey, because it's part of what you're doing to underwrite it, because you're going to insure it, right. So it fits hand in glove with business being done. Because you want to bring up issues, we want issues resolved, and so that partnership with title companies is a really big deal.
Speaker 4:Yep, and that's when you know you've got a great partner is when they're anticipating issues ahead of time right, so you're not waiting around or having to point things out, but when they're calling you saying, hey, this is something you should know about and most of them are solvable or at least mitigated if they're found early.
Speaker 1:Not the day before closing, not the day before closing or, heaven forbid, after you've closed, and then something comes up or you didn't get it, yeah, there's, there's horror stories, and so I think that's the. That's the real value, especially on commercial transactions, is having someone you know and trust, having someone that can. Well, it's, it's the research, it's the hey, have you looked at this? Have you looked at that? Hey, there's this, there's that no-transcript. The insurance side of it is just as important, and there's regular title insurance. There's extended policies. Maybe we can talk a little bit about that. There are options when you close on a transaction.
Speaker 4:Absolutely yeah. Of what kind of coverage you're going to get. Yeah, you got to think about it as kind of this different risks that you can insure over, right, and to cover more risks there's going to be an increased cost or a different type of product that's provided there. But standard title insurance coverage is going to basically present to you a picture of recorded documents on the property encumbrances, liens, et cetera. Right, let everybody know, hey, we've got some utilities easements here and this is a survey that's done, and there's an existing deed of trust. Is it going to be paid off at closing? And that's kind of the basics. And then a standard coverage policy will have some exceptions to coverage where you know we're not going to be providing mechanics-linked coverage if it's a new construction project, you know we're not going to be covering water rights issues, and you can insure over those specific risks as well with either extended coverage or some additional endorsements.
Speaker 4:And so any risk that pops up in the real property transaction context, there's likely some sort of a title insurance solution. It's just going to involve us getting comfortable with that risk, right? So if you want to cover some zoning risk, then we're going to say, hey, we've got an endorsement for that. But we also need to get a zoning letter from the county or from the city. Once we're comfortable with it we'll say, hey, we're good to go here and in some ways that might feel like, well, now the risk is gone, so why do I need to pay for this? But to have that peace of mind, to know that you have insurance in place that's going to cover that that's helpful and the real estate developers, you don't need to be an expert on real property records.
Speaker 1:That's our job, that's your job right and if you have the right title company, that is truly the partnership right. You got us covered right. And again, I think what I love about it is the alignment right.
Speaker 1:You want to be fully aligned from day one Absolutely, because it's risk you're going to be taking or risk we're mitigating and we're working together on issues so critically important to business here. And you know, certainly for us again, we're kind of loyalists, so we, we, we. It's interesting because because there's the the property side and kind of those relationships we've had for a long, long time, and then we have folks that go into our buildings and we're like, hey, there's another read. So we've got exposure to a lot of title companies. You guys do a great job, thank you, and you know should be very proud of all the work you do and relationships. So in your current role now, now I think your official title is County manager, which is a little bit of a misnomer, I think.
Speaker 4:In larger markets Fidelity has. You know, they're broken up operations by county, and so I manage our Idaho operations. We have four counties that we're doing business in, and so it's yeah. Title doesn't matter that much, but I run our operations here. We've got 52 employees. Three offices have been having some good wins on the recruiting side, so it's been a good. It's been a good, good couple of years.
Speaker 1:Talk a little bit about that just for general, for people to listen to this how, how is recruiting, retention of employees, and have you seen any changes in the last couple years? What are you seeing out there?
Speaker 4:You know there have been a lot of changes. The way that you build a business in the title insurance industry. You know you've got a couple of avenues there. One is developing your talent internally through that organic growth and they build those relationships with customers over time and it is definitely much more of a longer game but also, I think some would argue, more of a. There's more staying power there. But the flip side is that there's escrow officers and sales representatives in the industry that have great customer relationships that exist outside of the company. Those people work with the sales reps and escrow officers because of the relationship they have with those people and so there's always a big push in our industry to recruit escrow officers and sales representatives that have great books of business, great customer relationships and gain market share.
Speaker 1:That way Makes total sense because that's the relationship right. It's like I'll use an example like you know, my banker when I got here, you know in the 90s and had not even a nickel in my pocket has been my private banker the entire time and no matter where she goes, you'll follow her. It doesn't matter where she goes. At some point, you know, shout out to Debbie Cleverley at some point she's going to have to retire, but when she does, there's going to be a lot of really sad people that have followed her everywhere. But it's, it's very similar to that right Absolutely Following the person in a lot of ways, and so it makes sense for expansion that that could be part of the strategy.
Speaker 4:It's part of the strategy and we want to continue to develop our team internally and we've got some great people that have grown with us and so it is a delicate balance to ride in a tough market for title insurance companies to recruit and hire but also help your team internally feel connected to that growth and vision, because ultimately it helps everybody. But also sometimes you can kind of get caught with blinders on saying, hey, I see all this stuff that's going on around me, but hey, I've been here forever. Like you know, what can the company do for me?
Speaker 1:So what are some of the things that are important to you as you build teams and lead teams?
Speaker 4:You know culture is a huge one for us. We've got a great team that you know I inherited, when I have a culture where we really celebrate, you know, a team oriented mindset. You know we want to be focused internally on our team and then be a teammate and a partner to our clients as well. We want to be able to think independently and autonomously and problem solve and be proactive, and so this culture that we're trying to build here really is, you know, to celebrate those wins together, to work together as a team and really just be in the trenches together and then extend that out to the clients that we work with as well. It's awesome, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:I was thinking the other day because this topic came up for me just, I think, yesterday. You can learn a lot about leadership from being a really good leaders and like going oh I, I'm. There's a lot to learn here, and you can also learn from really bad leaders. Probably. The contrast is is is there, but the, the starkness of a bad leader is something you're like oh, I never want to do that. I think as you grow, maybe you can talk a little bit about this. As you get bigger, it's, it's harder to keep some of those habits and culture things that you have with a small group, because you're so in the day-to-day and you know them and you're there, and then it seems like we're kind of experienced a little bit of this. As you get bigger, you just can't right, you can't be that that interactive and and uh, this was the discussion was how do you, how do you prevent yourself from developing bad habits as a leader leading an organization as you get bigger? Any comments on that?
Speaker 4:You know it's interesting. You bring that up because I was talking about that with somebody else today. You know there's this concept in leadership about delegating and elevating and I you know I heard that from traction. You know the EOS system, but I think that's a pretty common theme in a lot of different books. 10x is easier than 2x. I mean a lot of those leadership mindsets is hey, you got to delegate, so then you can work on a higher level of strategy and continue to work your way up and put integrators and people in place below you who can actually manage and handle the day-to-day. And I've wrestled with that because you see the efficiency gains from doing that. You free up your time so that you can work on the business not in the business, but if you don't spend enough time in the business Well, it empowers those that work underneath you right, it's true right.
Speaker 1:And you don't want to you don't want to be in a job where you're micromanaging. There's this dude above you that's saying hey, you know what I mean. Yeah, stepping on toes.
Speaker 4:So you've got to kind of way to still be in the trenches and have those clear lines of authority. So your managers know that you're not trying to do their job and I think every manager on my team has had to say hey, taylor, stay in your lane, buddy.
Speaker 1:You know, I was thinking. Actually I got a text from this guy on Sunday and it made me think about him. When he retired, I gave him, we gave him a watch that was the ICCU color green and Kent Orem, and it made me think about him and what I learned from him. Even though he was really good at delegating and kind of running an organization, his, his, his focus was the people in the trenches. And you just said that and it wasn't without time and effort. I asked him I mean, I talked to him a lot about it I said how on earth do you do this? Because he seemed to put in the time and effort to, even though he was letting people manage the business and manage the process, he never relinquished ownership of the personal interaction with the employee.
Speaker 1:And I think there's a lot to learn from that, because I think I think of just even in our company here, as we get bigger, it's not like I want to go manage my property managers Right or manage my construction company guys, but I should take the time and effort to have the relationship Right At the employee level Right, and if I'm not careful, I get tired, I get drained, I get fatigued and I just don't put in the work right, no, I, I felt that too, and especially with my interest in sales, I I constantly am getting pulled outside the company, where I want to go have these meetings, I want to do podcasts, I want to go have meetings with big potential clients, I want to help a relationship with this big brokerage and I want to, you know, help grow the company that way.
Speaker 4:And then you know somebody on the team will raise their hand and say, hey, taylor, like where have you been all week? Like what have you been up to? And I'm like, well, I've been doing all this fun stuff that I really enjoy. And they're like, hey, like you know, we love what you're doing, but we also need you here on the inside. And I've been trying to strategically wrap my head around some good strategies to be able to do both.
Speaker 4:And I think the one-on-one is a really valuable one, and it's not necessarily like the scheduled every six months, every one year one-on-one, but regular one-on-ones with your management team so that they know that their leadership really happens one on one with the individual members as well.
Speaker 4:So you've got your leadership team that works with you and you're really using that one on one to teach and train them and then also helping hold them accountable.
Speaker 4:So they're doing that one on one with those who roll up under them and they're connected to the vision and they're saying, hey, I talked to Taylor this week, this is what we're doing as a company and I know it's a little bit tough that we're doing some reduced hours right now, but it's so that we can keep our team together and we're forecasting a really great March and we're just going to get through these first couple of months.
Speaker 4:And then all of a sudden, you're in the branch a couple of days later and you know you're able to say, hey, how you doing, you know how's your family and you know I know it's a little bit of a tough time, but you know this is kind of what's going on in the company. They say, oh yeah, I talked to my manager about it and feel kind of connected and in the loop, but I something that I have to do is block out days that I don't plan anything external and it's just all internal. Whatever comes up, someone needs me to take a delivery to the bank or to cover a closing. I'm in the branch, available to help do that and I feel better about the work that I'm doing when I'm able to do that too. I love that. Something to think about that I've been keen on.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think, um, uh, one of the I was just sitting here talking to you, I know you a little bit and I think what comes across when people meet you or when they know of you is real authentic, like leadership. I mean, you truly care about your people and you care about their lives, and it would be harder if you didn't, right? Because if you really do love and care for your people, and then it's about managing time and figuring out how to connect to them, that's very different than if you just don't, right.
Speaker 4:I hope so. I mean, I think, yeah, I mean I think everyone on my team would say, gosh, like sometimes we struggle with Taylor right Cause he's just all over the place and he's not that great of a strategic thinker, um, but I I do believe that everyone would know, but we know that he cares about, cares about us, and I'm thankful for that. I and I and I'm sure maybe not everybody on the team feels that way, but I love them and want their lives to be better and I'm the first to admit that sometimes I'm a hot mess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we all are right, we're pretty good at it. It's interesting, I mean, I think as you get older, you're more okay with hey, this is bad. It was a brutal week, just like that honest vulnerability. And I think back when I was younger.
Speaker 4:You just try to be bulletproof, all the time you feel like you got to have all the answers. Yeah, you got to have all the answers.
Speaker 1:I think it's okay just to say, yeah, there's a lot going on right now. Yeah, that's great, that's really good stuff. I didn't know you had done these apps.
Speaker 4:So know you had done these apps. So let's talk about this. Yeah, this is a fun. I mean, this is probably a perfect example of me putting a little bit too much on my plate. But, um, and my wife will, you know, be the first to say, like, you know that I'm always like considering stuff and um and just volunteering this for stuff.
Speaker 4:But, um, man, I uh, I grew up in the outdoors. My dad's a hunter. Um, I mean, just to bring this back to my dad real quick he, um, I didn't know this about him, but he loved to hunt, but he never hunted with anybody, no friends or whatever, just just us kids. And I was kind of wondered about that. You know he wasn't going on backpacking trips with his buddies or um, he always just hunted with us and pretty busy in the fall and and so we do these uh successful hunting. But we always loved it and I always considered myself a hunter. But I later learned that he was off hunting with some buddies when my immediately younger brother was 3 years old and while he was away, my little brother fell out of a loft and he wasn't home to be there to help and somehow my mom got a hold of him called the landline to landline at wherever.
Speaker 4:Think about back then, right, and he rushed home that night and he just said, you know, I prayed and said look, god, take care of my son. I'll never hunt unless it's with my kids the rest of my life and I never knew that and he told that story to our family. You know, my kids, the rest of my life and I never knew that and he told that story to our family, you know, a couple of years ago, and it's he's kept that promise 100%. Um and so hunting is just such a meaningful part of our family experience and um, so I, you know, grew up in that culture and I went elk hunting with a bow for the first time in 2016, and it was incredible.
Speaker 4:I mean, you know, we're blessed to live in the state of Idaho, where we have so many public lands and you're able to get a tag over the counter, and it was one of the coolest things I've ever done and I just thought I've got to learn how to do this. I want to. I want to call elk. I want to. I want to call them in close. I want to hear bugle and smell them.
Speaker 1:You'll talk about lots of different experiences, but when you like can smell them and hear them, but you don't see them. There's nothing more.
Speaker 4:It's hard to explain right. It's just such an incredible experience and, um, you know, I just I really wanted to do more of that and so, as a you know, I'm 38, so I guess I'm barely a millennial, I'm kind of at the older age group of that. But like any millennial, I was like all right, there's gotta be an app, there's got to be an app out there that teaches me how to call elk. And I couldn't find anything. And so the entrepreneur will start turning.
Speaker 4:And I'd listened to a podcast by the XO Mountain Gear guys and they had this quirky guy on there named the elk nut. His nickname was the elk nut, his name's Paul Medell. He lives here in Boise, he was in McCall at the time and he is just. He is an elk calling fool. He just loves to hunt elk. He spent most of his life in the woods calling to him, learning the language. And I heard him on that podcast and I started thinking, well, I wonder if the elk nut would want to build an app. And I'm not a software developer, I mean it's like so off the wall, right.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering if the elk nut wants to build an app.
Speaker 4:All right. So I call up the XO. I'm with your wife on this one, right? What are we doing here? I call up the XO Mountain Gear guys.
Speaker 4:I knew Lenny Nelson over there. He's not a partner there anymore, but you know he and his business partner, steve Speck, started that company. And I called Lenny and I said, hey, like you know, listen to Paul. Like, do you think you could connect me with him? And he's like, well, sure, and he gave me his get a word in about the app idea for 45 minutes. Because I just said, hey, paul, this is Taylor.
Speaker 4:You know, I know the Exo Mountain Gear guys and we just dove off into a conversation about elk hunting. Like, finally, like I'm able to kind of edge in and say, oh, thanks for this conversation, paul, this has been great and I'm reaching out because I want to. I want to see if you'd be interested in building a mobile app. And he said, well, like you know, these guys came and approached me about the idea about five years ago, but there's so much information I just don't know how to winnow it all down. And I said, look, like I'm an absolute beginner, let's do five elk sounds. Let's figure out how to create a video that explains people how to make five elk sounds, what they mean, when to use them. We'll have a little written text that explains it and then some audio to show what it should sound like, and then, and then we'll have this little feature where you can record yourself calling. He said, well, that sounds like an okay idea. All right, let's do it. And I said we'll be equal partners, let's just build this thing. And then I'm like all right, I've got to find an app developer. And I call some of the developers and I'm like, oh, this is going to be expensive. You know that was 2016. And you know, I was looking like it was going to cost maybe even six figures to build this app. And I said, man, that can't be.
Speaker 4:And anyways, I'm at a church activity a few weeks later and I talk with a buddy and, as an attorney, everyone's like well, you should know not to disclose confidential ideas to your buddies. And I'm like, well, whatever. But I was talking to somebody about this idea and I'm like, yeah, this is something that I want to do. And he's like, well, yeah, let's do it. And so we recorded the first set of videos for that app in my living room and, like I said, I'm not that successful a hunter, so it wasn't even like we had a mounted bull elk in the living room.
Speaker 4:I went to Sportsman's Warehouse and bought this little 10 by 15 painting of an now, because I didn't have any money either, right, and so we put it up on the mantle and my wife's garnishes are around it, you know, and we record these videos in front of the fireplace with no preparation. We spent all day and anyways, we put it all together and we watched the videos and we're just like these aren't good, these aren't good. And so I ended up calling my XO Mountain Gear buddies again and I'm like hey, do you have any space that we could use? And they're like actually come to the warehouse and they've got this great concrete wall in the warehouse and we got the lighting figured out and set it up and we re-recorded our videos and published the app and sold it for $4.99. And then we recorded 10 more sounds, dropped those 10 more sounds onto it, so there were 15 elk sounds up the price to $9.99. And then just kind of slowly added content and in 2021, it was the number 32 paid app on the entire app store in the month of September. Wow, elk hunters are willing to pay for a tool that helps them find success, because elk hunting is so hard.
Speaker 4:The next year, we had to pivot to a subscription model, because a one-time purchase app is tough to maintain because you're, you know, your old users are not paying anything in and you're still adding new content, and so we went through the hurdles of that. It was a process. Not every customer is happy with us, uh, but we up, you know, upgraded the app with a lot more content that we made uh kind of premium subscription based, but then the rest is free, and so now it's a very, very helpful app with a lot of free content and a subscription. If folks want to upgrade, um, and it's been, um, you still own it.
Speaker 1:I still own it. Yeah, Look this up, Maddie. This is like we're going from salmon Idaho large animal veterinarian assistant to attorney, to title guy, to elk guy.
Speaker 4:So search Elk Nut app store.
Speaker 1:Elk Nut on the app store. There it is. That's the app.
Speaker 4:If you want to click on that, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then we have five to click on that. That's cool, yeah.
Speaker 4:And then we have five other apps besides that. So we've done turkeys, ducks, geese, white-tailed deer, and then a meat processing app as well. So we're trying to kind of create this little suite.
Speaker 1:What's your duck app?
Speaker 4:So it's called Duck Tech, duck Tech, and I'll give you one of those for free.
Speaker 1:It's probably our most basic app, so it's called duck tech, duck tech, and I'll give you one of that, one of those, for free. It's probably our most basic app, so it's still for sale for 4.99. But we, we, we hunt a lot of ducks and I am not good, okay, really, I'm not good like my brother-in-law, cody he, he won't probably listen to this either, but he's always with me and he's very good, okay, yeah, and he'll just every once in a while, look at me and like go, hey, stop it, just stop it. So I was about two years ago. I was determined to learn, okay, and so I downloaded a couple apps.
Speaker 1:I don't know that I did this one, oh, interesting, and I had my. I had my duck calls in my truck and you're working on while you're driving every single day in and back to work. I would practice and I'm like it's a great story, because I didn't tell him I was doing this and I thought I'm just gonna, I'm gonna get out and kick his butt next time. Right, do it. And I get out and he looks at me.
Speaker 1:He's like, uh, stop you're like easy now so I need a new app deal oh gosh.
Speaker 4:Well, we'll hook. You know it's been a fun space to be in. It's a technology company. I don't have any technology background. It's also a company. That's been, you know, a side hustle for everybody involved and there's actually been some things that I've learned along the way where, like, you've got to make sure that everybody understands it's a side hustle or you have some conflict that comes up right and we've had to work through that a little bit. You know it's not a full-blown entity where we're fully staffed all the time and so we've had to work through. You know how do we address customer complaints or customer concerns. Those come up regularly. You know our experts that we've brought in and licensed content for them for the app. You know some of them have been much more hard charging and so we've had to work through some stuff and ultimately, as a a company, we just had to decide look, we all have good jobs that we like, good day jobs. We're not gonna quit the day job and if this has to go on, the back burner, sometimes that's what happens.
Speaker 4:So it's probably helpful being an attorney, through all that it has. I do all of our legal work. I do all of our accounting work because the accounting background into our taxes and, yeah, it's been helpful to do, it's been a fun ride. Yeah, I don. I'm sure someone who's doing tech all the time would be like you guys are like elementary school kids here, but the goal isn't necessarily to build something up to sell it. It's to really have an outlet for a passion that we have.
Speaker 1:Well, the nice thing when you are doing something because you love it and you have a passion for it, just building it is going to bring value anyway. One nice thing about a lot of businesses, especially stuff like this, where you start as a side hustle if you align, you're doing it cause you love it and you want to be a user that would use it. That's what you do to bring value anyway. Right, right, you don't have to have, like like a lot of times people ask me about exits that we've had and like did you think about what? Did you think about exiting? And I said don't, you know? Right, keep that passion for it, keep that passion for it and the right time, something will come along and I think that's usually pretty good advice, really good, that's cool yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:What's your uh? What's your favorite thing to hunt?
Speaker 4:my favorite thing is definitely elk. Um, archery hunting elk in september the weather's nice out um, you know, hearing an elk call is just a unique experience. Um, but I mean anything that I can do with my family. I've tried to carry that tradition out when my dad started. I get my boys out. They're just getting to the age where they can pull a bow back that's, you know, strong enough to kill an elk or a deer, and so we've done a lot of rifle hunting with them, but I've been fortunate, through this company, to do a lot of cool hunts. I'll bet you we're not going to Alaska or anything, but you know I had a great Wyoming mule deer hunt in 2021.
Speaker 4:I actually posted a story that I had on that hunt on LinkedIn about a lightning storm that I got caught in. Oh really, it kind of changed me. It was probably the first near-death experience I've had. I mean, it was kind of traumatizing and I still like, if the thunderclouds start forming and I start seeing lightning, like there's a emotional thing you mind sharing the story If we got time, I love it.
Speaker 4:So I drew this great Wyoming mule deer tag 2021. My brother's living over there. We do some scouting and we it was prior to the rough winter that we had where the mule deer really had to die off in Idaho, wyoming, montana, and so it was kind of a great time of year to be there. We saw a lot of deer and so we went back up and Wyoming season allows you to hunt both archery and then rifle, and the seasons coincide and so archery finishes, rifle starts, and so I set up my hunt to hunt the last four days of archery, the first five days of rifle. I wanted to get something, but I wanted to try the hard way first and I'd never taken a really good mule deer with a bow. And so my brother comes up with me and he's you know he's busy, he's got a family, but we go up, we have a good hunt together on the first day we see a deer, we sneak in ultimately don't have a shot opportunity hike all the way back into this upper basin and we find this little fold in that basin. That's up at about 9600 feet and it's. I mean it may not have been the best spot, but it was great from a from a glassing standpoint. We say glassing like looking through binocular spotting scope to look for mule deer. And that was a great knob where you could just roll out of the tent and you're seeing deer from where you're at. And so I set up the tent there and then that night he's like man, some work stuff came up and it's been on my mind and I just I think I need to go back and take care of the work stuff and I'm like that's okay, you know I'll be okay up here. But he was going to stay with me through the archery season and my dad and another brother were going to come up for rifle and I have a Garmin inReach that lets me send text messages even though we're out of cell service, and so I can communicate with people and I'm okay. And so I said, hey, head home, it's been fun. If you can come back up, come on up, I'm not moving out of this spot, come see me if you can. And so he goes back home and I spend that next day hunting a little bit and have a couple of close calls, but no opportunities.
Speaker 4:And then I ease back into camp right before dark and the rain starts to pitter patter, and and I have my tent set up and it's a good four seasons tent, a nice warm sleeping bag, and I'm kind of cozy in there. And so I, you know, roll in the tent, zip it up and I just start to, you know, wait out the storm, see what's going to happen. And you know, it starts to get darker and darker and the rain picks up and I can, you know, through the screen of the tent I can see some hail on the ground, and then the electrical storm comes in and lightning here and there, and the thunder's getting louder. And I'm like, all right, like this is. You know, this is okay, we're going to be all right.
Speaker 4:And I'm in this little fold, so it's not like I'm up on the tippy top of this mountain, but I'm high up at 9,600 feet. There's some mountain peaks around that are probably 11,000. And so I'm not the highest, but there's, I'm kind of in this open spot and pretty soon it starts to intensify and it's, you know, flash of lightning, flash of lightning, and the thunder is instantaneous, right? So as soon as the lightning flash hits, the thunder sounds and it's loud enough that you can kind of feel it in your bones, and I'm starting to get nervous at this point. And then I'm like do I get out of the tent? Do I try to get to the lower area? Well, what if I get struck trying to run down? It's, you know, it's September in the mountains. What if it turns to snow and I get cold? And um, you know, I had so many things going through my mind and ultimately I'm like I can't figure out what to do, so I guess I just hunker down here. Um and uh, you know, I'm a person of faith and so of course I'm praying to be safe. And eventually it intensifies so much that I know the next time the lightning's going to strike when my hair stands up on end, um, and so my hair would stand up on end, and then the lightning I mean the thunder was, and it was so loud and I was terrified.
Speaker 4:And I remember in that moment thinking, cause I always, you know, I mean you try to live your life so that you're ready to go when it's your time to go.
Speaker 4:And I remember I I said I'm not ready to go. I remember I said I'm not ready to go. I don't think that I've done what I need to do as a dad, as a husband in my life. I'm not ready to go. Please don't. I don't want to go yet. And you had to be there, I guess. And maybe somebody who's been through that would say, no, it wasn't that serious, but it was 45 minutes of absolutely fearing for my life. I was terrified and eventually the storm rolls by and I was just so thankful that I was still alive and I roll out of the tent and I can see the storm clouds roiling off in the distance over another distant peak and say a prayer for whoever's over there stuck in that. And I get a message on my inReach and it's my younger brother who was just up with me the day before, and he says hey, just so you know, there's a severe thunderstorm warning in your area. And I'm like dude, no.
Speaker 4:You don't say and then he sends another message and he says there's another one coming at midnight. Oh my word. And so I'm like, here we go again. And so I'm like, here we go again. And so I was just filled with dread because I'm like I'm going to have to do this again. And again I thought do I move? What do I do? And just decided again to hunker down there. And so I got hit with another one and it was the exact same thing 45 minutes of air standing on end, lightning flashes, thunder. And I'm like, well, I hope I make it through this, you know, and finally survived that it was like 2.45 in the morning or something, and that next day I didn't go out and hunt. You know, it shook me. I didn't want to tell my wife about it because I didn't want her to worry about me.
Speaker 1:Or let you go hunting ever again.
Speaker 4:No, I didn't want to cancel the hunt and it was something that emotionally, I just wasn't prepared to talk about. But it definitely gave me a sense of purpose in my life since then, where I'm like all right, what do I need to fix, what do I need to do differently, so that you know, if that happens again, I'm ready to meet my maker, so to speak, and I'm thankful for that experience, and the mountains do that to you.
Speaker 1:The hunting experience. Does you get up there alone, solitude and quiet, and just you know the Alone and solitude and quiet, and just you know the grandeur of God is different when you are out in the backwoods than when you're somewhere else. Right, but then to have an experience like that in the middle of that, those are the times that change you.
Speaker 4:Yep, absolutely so. Anyways, I know that's rabbit hole, but yeah, it was a really impactful experience and having a mobile app company like this has helped me do that to bring it back.
Speaker 1:Man, this was great. Having you on Taylor, this was super awesome. Thank you for what you do in our community. I know you do a lot.
Speaker 4:Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be in this community I think it's a great one where people give back to each other, lift each other up and and you know you inviting me to be on the podcast. I'm just so thankful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, thanks everybody.