April 3, 2025 • 60 mins
Hanna Roshak shares her journey from being a competitive gymnast to becoming a media content creator in the triathlon world. She discusses the influence of her family, her experiences in neuroscience, and her time living in Vietnam. Hanna reflects on her transition into media, the importance of storytelling, and her aspirations for Roshak Media. The conversation highlights the challenges and rewards of building a personal brand while navigating the complexities of the sports media landscape.
Hanna’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/hanna14c_/
Roshak Media IG: https://www.instagram.com/hroshak.media/ Roshak
Media Site: https://www.hr-mediamarketing.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
How's it going everybody? And welcome back to another
edition of the Stupid Questions podcast.
Today on the pod, we're going tobe talking with Hannah Roshak.
She is a Boulder, Co native and a media content creator and all
things people person with Rocheck Media that she just
started not too long ago. You may recognize her from some
of the Trevor Foley YouTube videos that she's been helping
edit. And Oz also been doing just a
(00:22):
lot of picture and video contentfor different athletes from Gwen
Jorgensen to working with Rudy Project, obviously Trevor Foley
and a few others. So thank you so much for jumping
in with us, and I hope you enjoythis conversation with Hannah.
This is my my first ever podcast.
Super excited. I was telling telling my dad
(00:43):
about it cuz he's big on saying yes to like any opportunity that
comes around and very different backgrounds.
But he he was like, you're gonnabe the first Roshak.
I think that's a very done a podcast.
So that's awesome. Already beating him.
Yeah, for sure. What does your dad do?
He was a He's retired. He was ACFL of a a
(01:06):
cybersecurity. Company.
OK, wow, so C-Suite executive definitely a leader then.
Do you feel like you have garnered and gained some of the
ambitions of your dad? Definitely.
That's how well my dad was the reason that I got into
triathlon. So.
Oh really? Yeah, He retired and had to
(01:29):
harness his energy somewhere else, I guess, and picked up
triathlon, you know, casually asan age grouper.
And I went and watched his first, no, sorry, his 2nd 70.3
in Salem, OR And I fell in love with the sport.
I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
(01:51):
And yeah, so that's kind of whatkicked off my my obsession as
well. Yeah, for sure.
How long ago was that? That was 2021, so almost four
years ago. OK, nice.
Yeah. So I'm pretty new to the world's
as well, Yeah. Well, you've been taken it by
storm. You're making friends relatively
(02:11):
quickly. That's the easy part, making
friends. Everybody's so, so nice in the
community. But yeah, like, it's, it's been
really fun, especially this lastyear feels like quite a
whirlwind of meeting people and getting my my fingers in the
network. So yeah.
Well, congratulations. And I should say also, First
(02:33):
off, just thank you so much for coming on, taking the time out
of your schedule. I guess you are in Australia
right now if I'm not mistaken. You just got there, so I'm sure
you're feeling a little jet lagged.
Yes I just got here 24 hours agoand I was bragging to my mom on
the phone yesterday that I didn't feel any jet lag.
It was like 2:00 PM and then I went home and showered after
(02:58):
going to the beach and literallylike 3 hours later I was asleep
at 5 for like didn't make it to dinner.
So the jet lag did get me, but I'm sure it'll be fine in the
next day or two. Yeah, for sure.
What part of Australia are you in again?
I flew into Sydney and then I was thinking about going to the
(03:20):
long the Pro Series race but I don't think it's going to work
out. So I've just taken a proper
holiday and going to go out to the Gold Coast and urban to
Australia, so I'm excited to be here.
Yeah, that's a huge trip. Are you there solo?
Is that because you said you were thinking about going to the
70.3? Is this trip literally just for
(03:41):
a vacation or did you have some kind of work interest in
business intertwine. It's just for vacation.
I haven't had a good holiday vacation time off in a while, so
I wanted to go somewhere far away and this seems pretty far.
(04:01):
So just here by myself. Yeah, I'm glad, like, glad.
I'm taking it now before things ramp up for the season.
Yeah, for sure. Cool, cool, cool.
Well, we'll get into that. I want to hear all kinds of
different things, but the first question I'd love to open up
with is the deeper 1. You might know what's coming.
I don't know or or not, but who is Hannah?
(04:27):
That is a great question to get to know someone.
I guess just ask them right out who they are.
Well, I like to say Hannah is a collage of literally all of the
people that I've met in my life.So I feel like I've been
influenced throughout these verydifferent eras of myself and
(04:50):
taking on little traits of everybody that I've been around.
I'm definitely a lot like my family, but I'll give you a
brief rundown. I've had a lot of different
interests in my life. Similar to you, I grew up a very
competitive gymnast. OK, I wasn't competitive so oh.
(05:12):
OK, that was my life. Like till I was 18 years old, I
was elite gymnastics, which definitely gave me that
obsessive traits about things that I'm interested in.
And then the sport was just really hard on me and my body
(05:37):
and mentally. So I left that pretty young.
By 18, you're kind of either going to make it or you're
already over the hump of being the best that you can be in
gymnastics. It's a very young sport.
So I decided to focus on academics and I went to school
and studied neuroscience, workedin a neuroscience lab during
(06:01):
school and after school for a little bit studying Parkinson's
disease, which was really cool. And I think that gave me a
really analytical, an act for analytics and love for data and
science, which I've taken with me throughout the rest of my
life. But the lab was a very isolating
(06:24):
experience. You're sitting there with your
like, test subjects, which in mycase, where I studied
Parkinson's disease and fruit flies.
So it was not a very and fruit flies, yeah, it was not a very
social experience. So I had a bit of 1/4 life
crisis and I moved to Vietnam for two years.
(06:45):
OK. Wow.
Yeah, that's huge. Yep, Yep.
It was a really cool experience doing that, but it was over
COVID, so that was different than what I was expecting.
But I got to travel around the country a lot and meet a lot of
great people. Then eventually came back and
joined the corporate world in tech as an analyst, data
(07:09):
analyst, which is that analytical side coming back in.
But throughout this whole journey, I've been really
inclined and love media. My cousin was a husband, a
photographer for the past 15 years and I would always shadow
her around with my little digital point and shoot Canon
(07:32):
camera when I was 11-12 years old.
So I've carried this camera iterations of it, of course,
with me throughout my whole lifeand all of these different eras
of me. And so my most recent era, which
is a love for triathlon, I thinkthis one will stick, but we'll
(07:52):
see. It's it's just been a perfect
combination of a love for sport and a love for media and
documenting and storytelling. So beginning last year, I kind
of started to take that more seriously and dedicated to
creating media for triathletes, athletes, brands and events and
(08:19):
it's been a blast. Yeah, for sure.
Well, thanks for giving me that rundown.
There are like 5 different things I kind of wrote down that
I would love to dive into more, so thank you.
This makes my job very easy. Going back to gymnastics like
that obviously was a big piece of who you were from a young
age. So first question around that,
(08:41):
when did you first come in contact with gymnastics?
I was really young. I think I was two years old.
The neighbor that was living next door was a few years older
than me and she was in gymnastics.
And my parents would send me over there and she would teach
me how to do somersaults and cartwheels and I just loved it.
(09:03):
So my parents put me in gymnastics class, I think when I
was 2 1/2. And shortly after, maybe a year
after it started to get pretty competitive and pretty serious.
By 5 years old, they were telling me that you have to
choose between soccer, gymnastics or dance and
gymnastics, you got to pick 1. So that was definitely my my
(09:26):
focus growing up was being beinga gymnast.
Yeah, so like when you say, you know, becoming pretty
competitive around 3-4 and five years old, I don't know many 5
year olds that are just like, oh, I want to go be competitive.
So was this, was that truly likeyour focus or was this parents
and outside influences seeing potential?
And they were like, hey, you could be really good at this.
(09:48):
And you're like, oh, you kind ofwent along with it.
It was probably pretty influenced by my parents.
I was the first kid. So I think my mom particularly
saw that there was some, there was some love for it and there
was some skills. So she she pushed it initially,
yeah. But by the time I was, you know,
(10:08):
a little bit older, I think I took on that passion for her.
It wasn't always just her interests.
Yeah. So I would assume that as you
got into it more and you even mentioned like elite gymnastics,
you know, the the ultimate penultimate goal I would assume
would be the Olympics. So when did that dream start to
(10:29):
grow within you? And till it be like you latched
onto that and like that was the focus.
For a while I, I would say it was around 11-12 years old.
We had this group of very competitive, highly like skilled
gymnasts that I was a part of. It was about eight of us.
(10:49):
And we worked very closely, longhours, like 40 hour weeks in the
gym with our coach. She was from Belarus.
And it was, it was just my life.Like everybody's goal was to go
to the Olympics or at least go to the trials.
And if you didn't make the Olympics, at least you would get
(11:11):
like a full ride scholarship forgymnastics in college.
Yeah. And so I would say like that
goal started to become the goal around that time.
We went to a training camp in inRussia, even 1 summer to train
for, for with the like Olympic training camp.
(11:35):
And it was actually in Belarus, but we also got to go to Russia,
which is pretty cool. So yeah, it was a very
competitive few years and then injury takes its toll and goals
kind of shifted by the time I was 1415 years old.
Yeah. What kind of injuries did you
sustain? Lots of little broke like little
(11:57):
fractures. I think the one that kind of
sealed it for me was AI had likea little fracture in my back
after a bad fault. And that kind of just, it kind
of just sticks with you. And I was like, can't be feeling
50 years old at the time. I'm, you know, 14.
So I also just wanted to focus on other things like school and
(12:21):
friends. And there's not always time for
that with competitive gymnastics.
Gymnastics. Yeah.
Was it hard for you to kind of sunset that dream for wanting to
go toward the Olympics or was was it easier because you were
sustaining those injuries and you just you really did have on
their interests? Yeah, I think it was easier for
(12:41):
me. A lot of girls, that was their
only dream. Their eggs were all in one
basket. But my parents at the same time
also pushed academics and also pushed you're going to go to
you're going to go to school, you're going to get a good job.
It's not going to be gymnastics won't be your life.
So when the reality came that elites Olympic gymnastics wasn't
(13:07):
going to happen, that it was notas devastating to me I guess.
Yeah. What are some of the aspects of
that chapter of your life that you feel like you still carry
with you today in terms of the lessons learned and how you deal
with life? There's definitely some good
ones and some bad ones. I'll start with the the good
(13:30):
ones. I'm, I've become very good at
time management because I had togrowing up.
When you spend so many hours in the gym, it's like you have to
learn how to manage your time. Otherwise you're not going to
get homework done, You're not going to be able to see your
friends because it's like working a full time job when
(13:52):
you're in primary school. So I think that I've definitely
carried with me also sticking tothings when I don't necessarily
want to, like sticking out some hard times.
I know that I can withstand extended periods of something
kind of being rough and maybe not wanting to do it anymore but
(14:15):
not quitting. I think I've over rotated on
that a little bit and I've learned to let go of things now
that don't serve me. But I will stick out some like
tough periods, and I think that's been advantageous for me.
(14:37):
I would say the worst traits that I carried over from this
time of my life is like not trusting my gut instincts as
much. When you're being told that when
your gut instinct is to not fliponto your head over a four inch
wide beam and do this really scary skill that you feel like
(15:00):
you're going to fall and you're going to crack your head open,
but you have to do it and your coach is telling you to do it
and everybody else is making youdo it, then you start to not
trust your gut instincts as much.
And that's definitely something that I've had to kind of gain
the confidence back in adulthoodto trusting those gut instincts
(15:24):
that they're there for a reason and I don't have to listen to
somebody telling me to do something that I think is not
the right thing to do. Yeah, for sure.
So you said you like exited thispart of your life when you're
like 1415. That was probably, I don't know
how many years ago 10 years is. Ten years ago, yeah.
OK, so you're learning back thatconfidence now.
(15:45):
Do you feel like you're still are struggling with like gaining
back that Oh like I can trust mygut instinct.
I would say yes, I think it's still work in progress.
I think for a while it was even like finding that gut instinct
again. It was, it wasn't even there.
(16:06):
It was just gone. And now I feel like I, I can
feel the gut instincts again. And I've really been working on,
like I said, like exiting thingsand knowing what it's telling me
and getting out of places or ideas or situations quicker and
(16:29):
just being more like agile with what I do in terms of what that
got instinct to sign me. But I think it's still a work in
progress. Yeah, yeah, we're all a work in
progress, so I'm sure it'll comeback.
Just keep keep leaning in, keep keep testing it for sure.
So one more thing on the gymnastics, I know from being
(16:49):
not even at like a super competitive level that there's a
lot of emphasis put on obviouslythe physical body and you know,
you want to strengthen conditionand whatnot.
But I know for the girls who I was surrounded with, several of
them like received pressure fromcoaches around like, hey, you
weigh too much or hey, you know,you need to weigh a little bit
more. So there's like this constant
observation internally and from even from others of like how you
(17:13):
look. Do you feel like that that
affected you and the way that you've moved on?
Yeah, probably unfortunate. Unfortunately, like it was just
especially that era of gymnastics, coaches were not shy
of telling you like, we have a competition this weekend, you
should skip dinner this week. Like it.
(17:35):
Yeah, it was just how it was. And they're not from the state,
so it's overlooked a little bit,but I would say I got out pretty
easy with it. Like I have an amazing support
system, family, parents that do nothing but hype me up and like
(17:55):
tell me how amazing and great I am.
So I never really struggled too much with the the body image
issues. That's awesome.
It is definitely, you know, as still an athlete myself, like
it's something that I'm conscious about.
I want to be healthy and I want to fuel myself properly and I
want to stay in good physical form.
(18:19):
But yeah, luckily it was it was not too bad.
Yeah, so the support system you're talking about, you know,
your mom and your dad being ableto speak truth in life, into
your life as you grew up. And even to this day, it sounds
like you're pretty close with your dad.
Like I'm telling you to say yes to the podcast.
How crucial or how yeah, how crucial has it been to have that
(18:44):
relationship with your parents growing up and bringing you
through your different chapters of life so far?
Oh gosh, it's, it's been literally everything.
So my parents are divorced, but I'm equally as close to both of
them. They're they're my best friends
and they've been like by supportsystem through each crazy idea
(19:05):
or chapter I wanna embark in. And I think they're both like
crazy smart and funny and I hopeto be half as cool as either one
of them when I'm when I'm their age.
So the other their support has been the whole reason I'm here
(19:26):
doing what I do literally every step I make in my life.
That's a beautiful thing. I wish more people had that, but
that's really awesome that you have that.
So going into the next chapter, I guess, is kind of the college
neuroscience working with fruit flies.
What level of influence did theyplay into that?
And yeah, tell me that story a little bit.
(19:49):
Yeah, that was more and that's aworld they are not in.
My dad worked in, he was a business guy.
My mom was a stay at home mom for a while, but she also worked
in. Politics.
So they didn't know the world ofscience at all.
And that was what my interest was.
So they were very supportive, but they couldn't, you know,
(20:12):
help me. Like they couldn't hold my hand
through it. They could just help me from
afar, which was really good for me to kind of take those big
steps by myself and pave my own way kind of for the first time,
I would say. But they were there when I
(20:33):
graduated, you know, they were there.
Any big presentation I gave on my research, they would fly out
to to the hospital and give watch me give those
presentations. So they might not know not know
what I was talking about, but they were in the back causing
the ruckus, cheering loud anyway.
(20:53):
Yeah, that's awesome. So then what led to the point
where you were like this is I don't know.
I don't even know what you were thinking.
You said you had a like 1/4 lifecrisis and you kind of dropped
this piece of your life. It was just lacking, I guess,
and some things. What was it lacking in and what
led to the eventual move to Vietnam?
Yeah, I really wanted to study abroad in university and didn't
(21:17):
get the chance because I was hada very like heavy course load.
So when I was not loving my lab position, about a year after
graduating, graduating college, then close the chapter.
We finished the paper on Parkinson's and I've just
figured it is a good time to go and do something.
(21:40):
It's a good time to leave the job.
It's a good time to move to EastAsia.
So I had visited Vietnam when I was on spring break in
university and I really liked itthere.
It was cheap, it was way different than anything I'd ever
done before, so I thought it would be a cool experience to go
(22:03):
live abroad there for a little while.
It was only gonna be 6 months ora year maybe, but COVID happened
a week later and the borders shut so I was there for two
years. Wow, was that scary during the
when that shut down and you wereno longer able to go anywhere?
Yeah, it was definitely really scary just because I don't speak
(22:25):
Vietnamese. I didn't really know anybody in
Vietnam. So my first instinct was
definitely to move back. But they had a very different
approach to handling COVID. Like it was very strict right
off the bat. And so eventually there was no
COVID cases in the country within like a month and we could
(22:47):
travel around pretty freely. We just had to wear a mask
versus the states. They were in the like made of
big shutdown. So yeah, by the time that that
happens, that I was like, oh, mysituation's actually better.
So I'll just hang out here untilthe states calms down and took a
while. But yeah, that was what
happened. Yeah, that's crazy.
(23:07):
Did you learn? I mean, after being there for a
while, did you start to learn any of the local languages?
Sati good make me seem really bad but not.
Nothing, you learn Nothing. Hello.
Goodbye. Where's the bathroom?
That was pretty much it, huh? Yeah, I could order food, yeah,
but it was a very difficult language.
I wish. I wish I put more emphasis on
(23:29):
it, but I am not a language brain at all.
I'm one of those classic Americans that can only speak
one language, unfortunately. But that's OK.
You were born into the greatest language.
Or I mean, maybe that's a littlebit terrible thing to say, but
you were born into the easiest to maintain for the world of
business. But obviously, I mean, you, you
learn probably a, a good bit about yourself because you're
(23:51):
not, you're not going around anddoing a lot of things.
You're, you have more time to your thoughts.
I mean, two years is a long time.
So what did you do to pass the time?
Did you do a lot of thinking, a lot of reading, just traveling
around like what happened? Yeah, it was a lot of being
alone, which is not something I'm afraid of.
(24:12):
I love my own company. But I also got weirdly into like
aerial acrobatics, so aerial yoga, but like circus type.
And I found a really cool community of local girls and
also like expat girls. So we for a good year and a
half, I spent a lot of time doing all circus.
(24:36):
Is it like silks and stuff? Yeah.
Silks in the hoop. Yeah.
And I think my gymnastics background of my like, upper
body shoulders are just built for that kind of thing.
Yeah. So I spent a lot of time doing
that. I don't do that as much anymore,
but it was a, it was a fun era, I'll say.
(24:57):
It was a short one, but a good one.
Yeah, that's wild. So when you came back, is that
when you decided to like jump right back into finding a
corporate job and working for the the technology company?
Yep, Yep it would. It wasn't something I'd done
before, but I figured my analytical skills would
translate pretty well so taught myself how to do a little bit of
(25:19):
coding just to get myself in thedoor, and I ended up really
liking the tech world. I still work a full time job in
tech remotely fully remotely yesyeah, which works out well which
I also love I love Chong who myself in the business world
too. I think it gives me a really
(25:42):
good perspective in my personal business.
So yeah, that's when I I came back and started learning the
ropes of the corporate ladder. Yeah, for sure.
So then you get introduced to triathlon, I guess before COVID,
and then you've got that two year stent.
You come back, you start gettinginvolved in it more.
When did the idea start to hatchand grow for I guess really
(26:04):
becoming an entrepreneur and going out and trying to figure
out how to make it work in the media space?
Hey guys, sorry to interrupt really quick.
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Thank you. Back to the show.
(27:52):
Yeah, it was kind of a, it's a very rolling, like slow forming
idea, I guess I when I moved back, I was craving community,
so I started volunteering at races just because I love the
environment and I needed something to do on the weekends
that was not sitting in my houseor going on runs by myself.
(28:16):
So I started volunteering for a company that throws races in
Boulder called BBSC and loves the the team and the squad.
And they started hiring me back as a race coordinator and
eventually AI went and became race director certified with the
team at USA TS like endurance Exchange.
(28:42):
And so I'd say that was when I kind of started to become more
serious on the other side of triathlon.
Before then I was just kind of racing them casually myself and
I started doing media for the races that I wasn't working the
like coordination or operations on and loved that side of it.
(29:04):
I think when it started to take a shift to the pro side was I
was just running into more and more pros.
I became friends with a few. I think really cool people like
especially Trevor Foley has really helped me get acquainted
into the world more deeply. So it's it's a multiple prong
(29:30):
approach, but events and then making the right connections has
really started to snowball this endeavour.
Yeah, well, what do you what do you see the future like do you
have and did you have a specificgoal of like getting connected
as fast as possible and taking photos and videos?
I mean, I know you said, you know, you started out
volunteering your race directingand then I guess you happened
(29:53):
about upon the opportunity of, of creating media, but when you
started this business, was it like, oh, I want to grow to this
point and get it to here. Yeah, I definitely set goals
right away. So when I started having the
idea, like I could create content for these athletes and I
could tell good stories and I could help them sell themselves
(30:13):
to sponsors and to the public, then I started to set goals on
who, Not specifically who I wantto be, but like how involved I
want to be and what kind of client book I want to have in
six months time. So that shift was probably
(30:36):
January of 2024. And then yeah, I just, I think
it's really easy, like I said, really easy to make connections
in this world. Like social media is so powerful
and in the last few months, 6-7 months, I feel like everybody's
(30:58):
been wanting to, you know, get content and up level that as
well. So it's made my job really easy
of just making some good connections.
Yeah. So how do you land on this is, I
guess, maybe a little bit personal of a question, but how
do you land on the amount that you're able to charge?
(31:20):
Or like, how do you value your set of skills in a way that just
works for the athlete? I assume it's different maybe a
little bit for everybody, but how have you navigated that?
Oh, here's how much I should charge.
Here's how much I should enter in that stuff.
It's a good question. And despite my corporate job
(31:41):
where I've worked in pricing, this is not something that I am
very good at for my own business.
But I, it's a reason that I likekeeping a full time, full time
corporate job is I can keep my prices really low and prioritize
the projects with people I want to work on, people I want to
(32:01):
work with, sponsors I want to work for.
So my philosophy right now is tokeep things lower and to keep
the barrier to entry low. I don't want that to be the
reason that I'm not working withcool people or cool sponsors or
cool events. So that's kind of my
(32:22):
methodology. It does differ, you know, I know
athletes are not ranking in likeNBA type money.
Yeah, some. Some of them are raking in, but
yeah, not definitely not many. It's a growing sport 100.
Percent, Yeah, yeah. So I, I, I definitely don't do
it for that right now. Yeah, So what makes a good
(32:44):
client in your eyes? Communication for sure, which is
hard. It's not a lot of a lot of
people like they, they know triathlon, but they don't know
media and they shouldn't. That's not their job.
Like that's my job to make good content for them and they can
(33:06):
just focus on training and beingthe best athlete that they can.
But it it's like sometimes speaking a language to a client
that maybe doesn't know the language.
So I definitely have learned to err on the side of over
communicating, over communicating about expectations
of the deliverable or about timelines because otherwise
(33:30):
things can get lost in translation and they can just be
mix UPS. But I would say that would be
the biggest thing that makes a good client is being willing to
over communicate and share theirexpectations.
Yeah, for sure. What what kind of goals do you
have? Like where do you want to be
with your media company in the future?
(33:52):
Have you thought about like whatyour end goal is?
End goal I don't see an end but I definitely know where I want
to take this. I am really focusing on
building, I'm going to shift to building like a brand around my
(34:13):
own media company. So giving more behind the scenes
of how things are shot. I think it's kind of a cool
story to tell, like hanging out the back of a truck to get bike
shots. That's how things are made.
That's how content is made. And I would, I'd like to work
with, you know, some, some cool athletes and some big events.
(34:39):
But the main goal for the next little while is to build a
personal brand around my media. Yeah.
Who is? If you could choose any client
to work with and any big brand what what would those two be?
That's, that's a tough question.I, I would have to, just for the
(35:02):
experience and the knowledge, I'd like to work with Iron Man,
like specifically for a race. They work with some of the best
people in the industry. So at least just learning from
those people would definitely bea goal.
And I think it'll be one that I accomplished pretty quickly.
(35:22):
So I'm excited about that. Feeling confident, That's good,
yeah. I'm feeling confident.
I don't think there's a specificathlete I'd, I'd say I want to
work with. Like I wanna work with people
that wanna work with me and havea passion for creating cool
content and let me kind of just be weird and creative about it.
(35:44):
But there's so many cool athletes out there.
Like working with any of them. I would be, I'd be super stoked.
Yeah, that's a good, it's a goodsafe answer.
As you, as you grow into this space, like you're taking
pictures, you're doing video. I think something we can both
agree on is like the ability to tell a story is what truly
(36:07):
people gravitate to. And if you're wanting to
leverage that for brands or an athlete, whoever you know, get
more people on board if you tellthat story.
So how do you like what is your method or methods that you're
finding out work in order to draw out the story from the
individuals and the brands that you work with?
Yeah, that's something I've beenworking on a lot because I've
(36:29):
also been kind of shifting into more long form content.
So working with athletes to create YouTube videos.
So it gives more of a platform to tell a story.
It's not 32nd, a 32nd reel or a picture even.
It's you have more of an opportunity to tell a story, but
finding the right way to interview in a way that seems
(36:52):
natural and draws out some good information that people actually
want to hear and listen to. That is really important and a
skill I'm still trying to up level.
Like before shooting a, a video for any one of my clients, I'll
go and I'll listen about good interview techniques I take from
(37:13):
your podcast, good, good ways tointerview because I think you're
a pretty good interviewer. So.
Thank you. Appreciate that.
Yeah. But yeah, I think that's a very
important part of storytelling is right asking the right
questions. Yeah, Yeah, it's not an easy
thing. I I love doing this after, I
think this would be like episode100 and maybe 135 or something
(37:36):
like that. But the reason I say that is
because like I've talked with a lot of different people and some
people it's super easy to to talk with and some people it's
actually super not easy to talk with.
Like I've had some conversationswhere I'm like, man, I don't, I
hope this is going to go well. And then sometimes I get pushed
back. So it's like every person is so
different in the way that and their level of comfortability.
(37:58):
But I'm like, in my own experience, I'm trying to figure
out how to hone in to get peopleto just feel as comfortable as
possible as quick as possible, which seems a bit manipulative
if I'm being completely honest, but it's like it's a hard thing
to do. It is a hard thing to do and I
feel exactly the same way, like working with people.
Some people love talking in front of a camera and talking
(38:19):
about themselves and just yapping on and on, and that's
great. But some people it does not come
actually, and they'll climb up and not know what to say.
So making somebody feel comfortable and want to share is
really difficult. So I can appreciate the work
that goes in for this podcast too.
(38:39):
Yeah. Do you think you'll ever get
into like the docu series style level of like long form content?
It's pretty. Cool, I would like that.
Honestly, the thing that holds me back from that is I don't
want to get too bogged down by the technicality of gear.
I think that can it. It's really impressive to me,
(39:01):
but I hate don't necessarily want to spend too much time
learning such technical gear products.
I'd rather learn the more socialskills of personal.
Skills. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Maybe someday or working with
the team. Yeah, well, one thing I've I've
(39:22):
thought about doing is cause of like the the network has grown
and I like the idea of eventually start to doing these
types of things like in person. But like some kind of a hybrid
where it's like not the fightingchance series or not even
necessarily what Talbot does or any of the other guys where it's
like, oh, you know, it's just like a frame by frame kind of
walking through the day. It's like I would love to go in
(39:44):
with a specific area of their life and just like spend two or
three days getting to know them really well and then building up
that level of confidence or comfortability.
And then sitting down with him and recording like a really deep
1/2 hour session just about likehow they've been working through
something. And then like implementing kind
of the sport side of things. Because a lot of what goes on up
(40:06):
here is usually going on processing wise.
I think like during some of the sessions, especially the ones
that aren't necessarily as focused on interval work and
things like that when you can kind of process things, but.
That is not an easy thing to do because like what you're talking
about with the gear and whatnot,like, oh, how level, what level
of cinematography should you adopt?
How much money do you have in the budget and getting getting
(40:28):
brands on board for something like that?
It hasn't, it hasn't been super easy.
I've been shut down a few times.So we'll see.
Maybe I end up having to do it myself, but well, it sounds.
Like a cool project, it's would the end like products there be,
you know, a 30 minute kind of docu series about that person
and that aspect of their. I want it to be super long, like
(40:50):
not really cut up, like think like Joe Rogan and type of
interview, but like also intertwining with I don't know,
you know who rich Roll is. No.
You should check him out becauseit's for in terms of like your
interviewing technique, but he'sa really good podcaster.
His had on some of the Iron Man big people, but he also
interviews like professional cyclists and and actors and
(41:12):
stuff like that. But he has a piece of this where
he'll sit down for, you know, several hours with this person
and then every once in a while, like there'll be a little bit of
AB roll that'll kind of overlay with their topic of conversation
of them in the moment. But I want to like, take that to
the next level where like the conversation is continuous and
like with the action content andthe sitting down content so you
(41:35):
can tell like a broader story. I don't know, we'll see.
But yeah, if you want to partneron it and make it happen, let me
know. No, that actually sounds fine.
I don't think you would need to be too too technical if you.
Yeah, I could be. I'd like to hear more about it
but I don't know think it would be too difficult.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So with the clients that you
(41:55):
currently have, do you feel likeyou could still want to take on
quite a bit more like it's easy,easy enough to manage what
you've got coming out the pipeline?
Easy is not the word I would use.
I I have been talking to a few people recently and I think I'm
probably getting close to my capacity in terms of just time.
(42:18):
Like I don't want to spread myself too thin and feel like
I'm not delivering good the quality, good quality, Yeah.
And I don't want to lose my corporate job either.
So right now it's this hard balance to find.
Like it comes down to time management again, I guess.
Like, do I even have the time? And so I think I'm getting close
(42:43):
to that, that threshold, which is really exciting and also
makes me really sad. And I have to come to terms with
like potentially saying no to people, which I don't want to do
because I love, love shooting and I love working with these
athletes. But yeah, that's that's kind of
the point I'm at right now. What would it take for you to
(43:05):
have a desire to let go of the corporate job and move into this
new realm full time? The desire is there.
The desire is definitely there. So you'd.
Be. Yes, it would be.
I would need to find a way and I've been thinking about this a
(43:25):
lot the last few months. Specifically, I would need to
find a way where I could create a business that's fully that can
function without me showing up every single time.
Like, yeah, long term, realistically, I'm thinking 10
years down the road, I as much fun as I love.
(43:46):
Like I love going to races that I love traveling, I love working
every single weekend to shoot. Potentially 10 years down the
line, I won't. So I don't want to set myself up
in this business where I'm locking myself down to that life
forever. I don't want to get burped out.
So I'd want to find a way that Icould scale a company or like
(44:09):
scale this company so that I physically didn't have to be
there every single time. And if I can get it to a point
like that where it has a little bit more of a anatomy without
just me, then I would happily make the full jump.
I'm thinking about a few ways todo it, but nothing solid yet.
(44:31):
Yeah. Do you want to share any of
those half baked ideas? Yeah, I can.
They're very, very, very, very half baked, but it's.
Alright, we can. We can bake them to 75%.
OK, yeah, I'll get your input. Definitely we'll need to grow a
(44:51):
team. So having people editing and
shooting besides just myself, but then also adding more value
to it, like creating some sort of full circle brand like
(45:11):
Deliverable. So you could go to a brand and
say I've got a photographer, I've got an editor, I've got a
videographer, and I've got contracted athletes or
influencers that we can just offer you the full service to
shoot a campaign and then we getpaid.
(45:31):
And then I would just do the management of those types of
contracts. So it's kind of like athlete
management plus also media incorporated in that was
something that I was thinking about.
It's probably my strongest ideas.
I also have ideas in terms of like race directing and
technology but has less to do with my media so.
(45:55):
OK. Well, we'll come back to that in
a second. But like so you're talking about
essentially building a blueprintor team or I mean really like a
machine to where you can interact with somebody.
They go through this process, you get all of the pictures,
videos, whatever it all comes out the pipeline.
But my question to you, which iskind of a might be kind of hard
(46:15):
to answer, but like what is the thing that Roshak media, it is
Roshak media, right? Yeah, Yeah.
What is the thing that Roshak media like stands apart?
Like what makes unique is because I would assume like this
space is growing quite a bit andit's relatively competitive,
maybe not so competitive that you can't find because there's
still obviously a need. But like what it What do you
(46:36):
want it to set yourself apart with?
Yeah, that's that's the question, right?
Like I think it would. And I think things are already
kind of coming up. So I might be late to the game,
but like being able to offer both the media creation and the
athlete at the same time. But I know right now, like a lot
(46:57):
of athlete managers work really closely with photographers and
videographers. So it's almost like offering
them both the athlete and the content creation, but I don't
think there's some there's anything right now that's like
that full package. I could be wrong.
Yeah, no, that's a good idea. I'm like going back to the story
thing because I'm trying to figure out, is there a way that
(47:19):
you could always like guarantee you're always gonna draw a story
from whatever relationship you interact with?
Like almost like a not just any questionnaire, but like a
mandatory, Hannah sits down withthe athlete and the brand or
whoever's leading that project and the team, and you ask like
very specific set of questions to like get to the core root of
who that person is and why they're doing what they're
(47:40):
doing. Like none of this fluff, Like,
oh, I want to win Kona. It's like, yeah, sure, you want
to win Kona, but why do you wantto win Kona?
Because you have an insecurity inside because your dad won that
because you're trying to impresssomebody.
Like get that out and get that raw emotion.
Because like really if maybe this is oversimplification, but
I feel like with most people I talked to, we're all very
(48:01):
similar in like our source of motivations.
It's not that our experiences are exactly the same, but we've
all experienced some kind of hardship that's pushed us to
want to be ambitious in this wayor has done the opposite and
kind of buried our self worth and ability.
So we're like trying to find it.And I feel like those, those
things are like uncomfortable for people to talk about.
(48:23):
But if you can figure out how tolike you're saying, get
comfortable enough with those people, draw that emotion and
then weave that through the, thevisuals and the, the content,
then that would be it. But I don't know, I'm just
spitballing here. This is not gospel truth.
No, that's, that's an interesting idea.
If I could find a series of questions to ask that would
(48:45):
guarantee like somebody can openup and give a good story, that
would be amazing. I'm not sure that exists.
Like I feel like a lot of peopleare tough to crack, but.
Just ask them what makes you cry, what makes you really
happy. Don't be asked me like tell me
(49:06):
exactly what it is. Oh my gosh, that's funny.
So let me ask you that question there because now I want to, I'm
just curious, like what is something that you think about
that like, oh, that makes me want to cry.
Anything bad happening to my family?
Yeah. I mean, easy answer I but I'll
go deeper. Like when I was a kid, I had
(49:29):
this weird year where I was so anxious about something bad
happening to my family. It was like debilitating for my
family. It would get to the point where
my mom would be two minutes latepicking me up from gymnastics
practice and I would be calling every parents that I knew in the
phone book, like almost on the verge of calling the authorities
(49:52):
saying that my parents had. Got a car?
Exactly and I would never see them again so that I'm not like
that anymore and I don't carry that type of anxiety but
definitely still makes me sad. Yeah.
Where did that come from, do youknow?
Yeah, I have no idea. How old were you?
(50:12):
Probably 910. My parents are always late and
that maybe is why, and I'm neverlate as a result.
Can I ask you another personal question?
How old were you when your parents divorced?
I was 16. You're 16. 16 Yeah, so we'll do.
Yeah, I would have guessed that it would have been around that
(50:32):
time because like, sometimes kids still look at that way.
My sisters, I was definitely that way too.
Like whenever there was like some kind of crazy hardship
going on internally and with thefamily.
It would come out in a in another way.
Yeah, yeah. Like I I had like this weird
attachment like for the longest time and I thought this would
never go away. I thought I would never be able
(50:52):
to sleep over at like a friend'shouse without getting so
homesick. Like going to camp every year
was like this thing I really wanted to do.
But it's like as soon as the sunset and there's other reasons
for. I think that why this led to
that kind of behavior. But as soon as the sunset, like
I had this like, I need my mom, I need my dad.
And then it got so bad that likeduring some portions of my life
(51:16):
when I was like 13, like I didn't want to sleep anywhere
but like in my parents room. Like it was very strange.
And I it finally went away afterI went to college.
Even the first night of college,I called my mom like crying,
which I think a lot of dudes do.And they probably don't say like
mom, I miss you. You know, you're like this big,
this big disconnect. But yeah, I there's something to
be said. I think about like the
attachment and attachment disorders, whatever you want to
(51:39):
call them. It's just we're all humans and
we're all trying to figure it out, right?
Yeah, let's normalize it. People are have some weird
attachment issues and that's OK.Yeah, it is.
So do you want to have a family?Yes, definitely.
I always picture myself being like a young mom probably.
(52:00):
I'm glad that didn't happen for me.
Like not that I'm not young, butI'm glad that I have waited,
that talked to her and spent a lot of time alone and figuring
myself out because these opportunities, I just think
about it now like I was thinkingI'm sitting.
Outside, much harder to do with what you you're doing.
(52:21):
Yeah, yeah, by myself. And I love being able to do that
right now. So definitely eventually that
will be the ultimate goal, but still a few few years away,
yeah. A few years away?
So what? What is something on your mind
or something that's taking up like the most mental bandwidth
for you right now? That's a good question.
(52:52):
My mental bandwidth, OK, it would have been different
probably if you asked me that question a day ago and I'll
answer that right now. It's nothing like I I'm on
holiday, I'm enjoying my time a day ago.
It's probably I'm onboarding a few like new clients and just
(53:15):
being it keeping organization and track of that.
And the anxiety around making sure that I delivering good work
for these new trials is taking up a lot of mental space.
It it's scary like working with a new client and something goes
(53:39):
a little bit wrong. Like I was working with somebody
the other day and I forgot to turn on my mic receiver.
So 10 minutes of the first part of what we were shooting had no
audio and my heart just like dropped.
Yeah. And yeah, exactly.
(54:00):
I was able to kind of say like we need to reshoot some of this
audio is bad and it worked out fine.
But I think since I'm still kindof newer to especially this
longer form of content and working with new gear that I'm
still getting to get getting to know as well, keeping track of
(54:20):
all of those little things in a brain that is sometimes very
scattered is taking up a lot of mental.
Load Yeah, no, that's, that's that's no joke.
New stuff. I'm trying to think back, like
in the early days. Luckily I had someone helping me
with the podcast and the editing, but there were a couple
times where I forgot to just disconnect from the Wi-Fi and
(54:42):
use the wired connection. And so like, the lips got off
from the audio a few times. And that was because I, I didn't
like, clap in the beginning and all this stuff.
So like, yeah, I know that feeling of like the heart
sinking, especially after 10 minutes, an hour, any level of
conversation, because it's like,oh, now that's somewhat useless.
So that can be tough. Yeah.
And then you have to be totally humble and just say, hey, I
(55:06):
screwed up. Like we have to do this again.
So and once I have a relationship with somebody, I
don't mind doing that. But it's I'm still trying to
prove professionalism and I havea bit of perfectionist complex.
So yeah, that's been, that's been a difficult thing, the new
(55:29):
gear, tough to learn, but force it.
Do you feel like you have something to combat and to
control on the perfectionism complex?
What do you mean? Well, you said like you have a
bit of professionalism complex that you want to control.
What do you want to control it from?
Like what's? What's the worst case scenario
with that that could happen? I guess there's no worst case
(55:53):
scenario with like perfectionism, but I'll give you
an example. Like the first YouTube video I
put out for Trevor Foley, I was editing it in a cafe and I
didn't have my headphone, so I was editing it over the
background noise of the cafe that was going on.
And in one clip at the way that I faded the music in, like it
(56:18):
was just very abrupt. And I literally, once it was
posted, rewatched that part of the video until I wanted to die.
Like it was just so cringy to methat I didn't get that that
music shift perfect. But you know, you like, I was
like, I definitely could have sat there and been mad about
(56:41):
that for a long time. But then we made a second video
and all was good. So those kind of perfectionism
things are what I need to just move past quickly.
Otherwise it's going to be take up too much space in my head.
Yeah, no, for sure. Good deal.
So then you're going on this holiday.
Are you going to be headed back to Boulder afterwards?
(57:04):
Yes, headed back to Boulder. This is like my only big vacay
planned for the year. So we'll head back to Boulder
and continue to get things roll.And it seems like athletes are
slowly starting to make their way back to Boulder, or will be
soon at least. It's like April now.
(57:24):
So spring is spring is coming, which I'm excited for.
All those Tucson people can comeback up.
Yeah. Did you ever make it out to
Tucson at all? No, I wanted to, but I didn't
this year. My dad lives in Las Vegas and so
sometimes I'll spend a lot of time with him in Vegas in the
(57:44):
colder months because I don't like being cold in Colorado.
But I didn't this year and I wasplanning on maybe doing that and
going South to Tucson, but didn't happen.
Yeah. Well, maybe next year there's
some interesting projects I haveto tell you about that I've been
rolling around with. I don't know if you listen to
that. So probably not with Connor
(58:06):
Bollinger, Bollinger and Evan Price, but they were talking
about doing like an NFL combine for professional triathletes
down in Tucson next year just tolike see who could do the best
in the high jump, in the long jump and all that stuff.
Wait, that sounds so fun. Yeah, I'll have to hit you up
about that if you're interested in making something like that
happen, because I know they wantto make it happen.
And I think it would be super fun and also just funny, like a
(58:29):
very parody style, but get people interested in, you know,
watching content and during the offseason versus just like only
Lionel and Sam going back and forth on videos.
Yeah, I think that'd be really interesting.
Like a big thing that I'm tryingto figure out is how do we get
more people that are interested in triathlon and watching
triathlon. So I think funny things like
(58:49):
that, I think that's a really good idea.
Yeah, for sure. Sweet.
Well, Hannah, thank you so much for taking the time.
I know you probably have a lot of vacationing left to do.
I think it's pretty early there in the morning, so hopefully you
have a full day of chilling ahead of you.
But thank you so much for comingon.
Let me dive into who you are as a person and look forward to
(59:10):
seeing how you continue to grow throughout this year and the
years to come. And hopefully Rocheck Media just
becomes the biggest media company in all of Triathlon.
Thank you, Seth. I really appreciate the
opportunity to come on and chat with you.
Awesome. Thank you so much to Hannah for
coming on the podcast today and sharing with me who she is and
what she's got going on. Be sure to keep your tabs on
(59:31):
Rocheck Media. I'm sure she's going to continue
to keep growing and we'll be seeing more of her.
So thank you so much Hannah, forcoming on the podcast.
Really appreciate it and hope that you enjoy your time in
Australia. If you met to this point in the
podcast though, I just want to say thank you so much for being
here. If you would be interested in
getting a weekly newsletter thatgives the high points that I
have learned from the past guests of the week, then feel
free to check out the link in the description below to sign up
(59:54):
for that newsletter. If you are on YouTube, if you
could like comment, subscribe, turn on the notification bell
that helps to continue to grow this podcast channel.
If you are listening on any of the podcast platforms such as
Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any of those, if you could also like
comment, subscribe, review, anything that you can do on
those really does continue to help.
And yeah, just check out the show notes.
Thank you guys so much for beinghere.
(01:00:14):
Really appreciate you allowing me to do this every single.
Day it seems like now. Thank you.
We'll catch you in the next one.Bye.
How's it going everybody? And welcome back to another
edition of the Stupid Questions podcast.
Today on the pod, we're going tobe talking with Hannah Roshak.
She is a Boulder, Co native and a media content creator and all
things people person with Rocheck Media that she just
started not too long ago. You may recognize her from some
of the Trevor Foley YouTube videos that she's been helping
edit. And Oz also been doing just a
(00:22):
lot of picture and video contentfor different athletes from Gwen
Jorgensen to working with Rudy Project, obviously Trevor Foley
and a few others. So thank you so much for jumping
in with us, and I hope you enjoythis conversation with Hannah.
This is my my first ever podcast.
Super excited. I was telling telling my dad
(00:43):
about it cuz he's big on saying yes to like any opportunity that
comes around and very different backgrounds.
But he he was like, you're gonnabe the first Roshak.
I think that's a very done a podcast.
So that's awesome. Already beating him.
Yeah, for sure. What does your dad do?
He was a He's retired. He was ACFL of a a
(01:06):
cybersecurity. Company.
OK, wow, so C-Suite executive definitely a leader then.
Do you feel like you have garnered and gained some of the
ambitions of your dad? Definitely.
That's how well my dad was the reason that I got into
triathlon. So.
Oh really? Yeah, He retired and had to
(01:29):
harness his energy somewhere else, I guess, and picked up
triathlon, you know, casually asan age grouper.
And I went and watched his first, no, sorry, his 2nd 70.3
in Salem, OR And I fell in love with the sport.
I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
(01:51):
And yeah, so that's kind of whatkicked off my my obsession as
well. Yeah, for sure.
How long ago was that? That was 2021, so almost four
years ago. OK, nice.
Yeah. So I'm pretty new to the world's
as well, Yeah. Well, you've been taken it by
storm. You're making friends relatively
(02:11):
quickly. That's the easy part, making
friends. Everybody's so, so nice in the
community. But yeah, like, it's, it's been
really fun, especially this lastyear feels like quite a
whirlwind of meeting people and getting my my fingers in the
network. So yeah.
Well, congratulations. And I should say also, First
(02:33):
off, just thank you so much for coming on, taking the time out
of your schedule. I guess you are in Australia
right now if I'm not mistaken. You just got there, so I'm sure
you're feeling a little jet lagged.
Yes I just got here 24 hours agoand I was bragging to my mom on
the phone yesterday that I didn't feel any jet lag.
It was like 2:00 PM and then I went home and showered after
(02:58):
going to the beach and literallylike 3 hours later I was asleep
at 5 for like didn't make it to dinner.
So the jet lag did get me, but I'm sure it'll be fine in the
next day or two. Yeah, for sure.
What part of Australia are you in again?
I flew into Sydney and then I was thinking about going to the
(03:20):
long the Pro Series race but I don't think it's going to work
out. So I've just taken a proper
holiday and going to go out to the Gold Coast and urban to
Australia, so I'm excited to be here.
Yeah, that's a huge trip. Are you there solo?
Is that because you said you were thinking about going to the
70.3? Is this trip literally just for
(03:41):
a vacation or did you have some kind of work interest in
business intertwine. It's just for vacation.
I haven't had a good holiday vacation time off in a while, so
I wanted to go somewhere far away and this seems pretty far.
(04:01):
So just here by myself. Yeah, I'm glad, like, glad.
I'm taking it now before things ramp up for the season.
Yeah, for sure. Cool, cool, cool.
Well, we'll get into that. I want to hear all kinds of
different things, but the first question I'd love to open up
with is the deeper 1. You might know what's coming.
I don't know or or not, but who is Hannah?
(04:27):
That is a great question to get to know someone.
I guess just ask them right out who they are.
Well, I like to say Hannah is a collage of literally all of the
people that I've met in my life.So I feel like I've been
influenced throughout these verydifferent eras of myself and
(04:50):
taking on little traits of everybody that I've been around.
I'm definitely a lot like my family, but I'll give you a
brief rundown. I've had a lot of different
interests in my life. Similar to you, I grew up a very
competitive gymnast. OK, I wasn't competitive so oh.
(05:12):
OK, that was my life. Like till I was 18 years old, I
was elite gymnastics, which definitely gave me that
obsessive traits about things that I'm interested in.
And then the sport was just really hard on me and my body
(05:37):
and mentally. So I left that pretty young.
By 18, you're kind of either going to make it or you're
already over the hump of being the best that you can be in
gymnastics. It's a very young sport.
So I decided to focus on academics and I went to school
and studied neuroscience, workedin a neuroscience lab during
(06:01):
school and after school for a little bit studying Parkinson's
disease, which was really cool. And I think that gave me a
really analytical, an act for analytics and love for data and
science, which I've taken with me throughout the rest of my
life. But the lab was a very isolating
(06:24):
experience. You're sitting there with your
like, test subjects, which in mycase, where I studied
Parkinson's disease and fruit flies.
So it was not a very and fruit flies, yeah, it was not a very
social experience. So I had a bit of 1/4 life
crisis and I moved to Vietnam for two years.
(06:45):
OK. Wow.
Yeah, that's huge. Yep, Yep.
It was a really cool experience doing that, but it was over
COVID, so that was different than what I was expecting.
But I got to travel around the country a lot and meet a lot of
great people. Then eventually came back and
joined the corporate world in tech as an analyst, data
(07:09):
analyst, which is that analytical side coming back in.
But throughout this whole journey, I've been really
inclined and love media. My cousin was a husband, a
photographer for the past 15 years and I would always shadow
her around with my little digital point and shoot Canon
(07:32):
camera when I was 11-12 years old.
So I've carried this camera iterations of it, of course,
with me throughout my whole lifeand all of these different eras
of me. And so my most recent era, which
is a love for triathlon, I thinkthis one will stick, but we'll
(07:52):
see. It's it's just been a perfect
combination of a love for sport and a love for media and
documenting and storytelling. So beginning last year, I kind
of started to take that more seriously and dedicated to
creating media for triathletes, athletes, brands and events and
(08:19):
it's been a blast. Yeah, for sure.
Well, thanks for giving me that rundown.
There are like 5 different things I kind of wrote down that
I would love to dive into more, so thank you.
This makes my job very easy. Going back to gymnastics like
that obviously was a big piece of who you were from a young
age. So first question around that,
(08:41):
when did you first come in contact with gymnastics?
I was really young. I think I was two years old.
The neighbor that was living next door was a few years older
than me and she was in gymnastics.
And my parents would send me over there and she would teach
me how to do somersaults and cartwheels and I just loved it.
(09:03):
So my parents put me in gymnastics class, I think when I
was 2 1/2. And shortly after, maybe a year
after it started to get pretty competitive and pretty serious.
By 5 years old, they were telling me that you have to
choose between soccer, gymnastics or dance and
gymnastics, you got to pick 1. So that was definitely my my
(09:26):
focus growing up was being beinga gymnast.
Yeah, so like when you say, you know, becoming pretty
competitive around 3-4 and five years old, I don't know many 5
year olds that are just like, oh, I want to go be competitive.
So was this, was that truly likeyour focus or was this parents
and outside influences seeing potential?
And they were like, hey, you could be really good at this.
(09:48):
And you're like, oh, you kind ofwent along with it.
It was probably pretty influenced by my parents.
I was the first kid. So I think my mom particularly
saw that there was some, there was some love for it and there
was some skills. So she she pushed it initially,
yeah. But by the time I was, you know,
(10:08):
a little bit older, I think I took on that passion for her.
It wasn't always just her interests.
Yeah. So I would assume that as you
got into it more and you even mentioned like elite gymnastics,
you know, the the ultimate penultimate goal I would assume
would be the Olympics. So when did that dream start to
(10:29):
grow within you? And till it be like you latched
onto that and like that was the focus.
For a while I, I would say it was around 11-12 years old.
We had this group of very competitive, highly like skilled
gymnasts that I was a part of. It was about eight of us.
(10:49):
And we worked very closely, longhours, like 40 hour weeks in the
gym with our coach. She was from Belarus.
And it was, it was just my life.Like everybody's goal was to go
to the Olympics or at least go to the trials.
And if you didn't make the Olympics, at least you would get
(11:11):
like a full ride scholarship forgymnastics in college.
Yeah. And so I would say like that
goal started to become the goal around that time.
We went to a training camp in inRussia, even 1 summer to train
for, for with the like Olympic training camp.
(11:35):
And it was actually in Belarus, but we also got to go to Russia,
which is pretty cool. So yeah, it was a very
competitive few years and then injury takes its toll and goals
kind of shifted by the time I was 1415 years old.
Yeah. What kind of injuries did you
sustain? Lots of little broke like little
(11:57):
fractures. I think the one that kind of
sealed it for me was AI had likea little fracture in my back
after a bad fault. And that kind of just, it kind
of just sticks with you. And I was like, can't be feeling
50 years old at the time. I'm, you know, 14.
So I also just wanted to focus on other things like school and
(12:21):
friends. And there's not always time for
that with competitive gymnastics.
Gymnastics. Yeah.
Was it hard for you to kind of sunset that dream for wanting to
go toward the Olympics or was was it easier because you were
sustaining those injuries and you just you really did have on
their interests? Yeah, I think it was easier for
(12:41):
me. A lot of girls, that was their
only dream. Their eggs were all in one
basket. But my parents at the same time
also pushed academics and also pushed you're going to go to
you're going to go to school, you're going to get a good job.
It's not going to be gymnastics won't be your life.
So when the reality came that elites Olympic gymnastics wasn't
(13:07):
going to happen, that it was notas devastating to me I guess.
Yeah. What are some of the aspects of
that chapter of your life that you feel like you still carry
with you today in terms of the lessons learned and how you deal
with life? There's definitely some good
ones and some bad ones. I'll start with the the good
(13:30):
ones. I'm, I've become very good at
time management because I had togrowing up.
When you spend so many hours in the gym, it's like you have to
learn how to manage your time. Otherwise you're not going to
get homework done, You're not going to be able to see your
friends because it's like working a full time job when
(13:52):
you're in primary school. So I think that I've definitely
carried with me also sticking tothings when I don't necessarily
want to, like sticking out some hard times.
I know that I can withstand extended periods of something
kind of being rough and maybe not wanting to do it anymore but
(14:15):
not quitting. I think I've over rotated on
that a little bit and I've learned to let go of things now
that don't serve me. But I will stick out some like
tough periods, and I think that's been advantageous for me.
(14:37):
I would say the worst traits that I carried over from this
time of my life is like not trusting my gut instincts as
much. When you're being told that when
your gut instinct is to not fliponto your head over a four inch
wide beam and do this really scary skill that you feel like
(15:00):
you're going to fall and you're going to crack your head open,
but you have to do it and your coach is telling you to do it
and everybody else is making youdo it, then you start to not
trust your gut instincts as much.
And that's definitely something that I've had to kind of gain
the confidence back in adulthoodto trusting those gut instincts
(15:24):
that they're there for a reason and I don't have to listen to
somebody telling me to do something that I think is not
the right thing to do. Yeah, for sure.
So you said you like exited thispart of your life when you're
like 1415. That was probably, I don't know
how many years ago 10 years is. Ten years ago, yeah.
OK, so you're learning back thatconfidence now.
(15:45):
Do you feel like you're still are struggling with like gaining
back that Oh like I can trust mygut instinct.
I would say yes, I think it's still work in progress.
I think for a while it was even like finding that gut instinct
again. It was, it wasn't even there.
(16:06):
It was just gone. And now I feel like I, I can
feel the gut instincts again. And I've really been working on,
like I said, like exiting thingsand knowing what it's telling me
and getting out of places or ideas or situations quicker and
(16:29):
just being more like agile with what I do in terms of what that
got instinct to sign me. But I think it's still a work in
progress. Yeah, yeah, we're all a work in
progress, so I'm sure it'll comeback.
Just keep keep leaning in, keep keep testing it for sure.
So one more thing on the gymnastics, I know from being
(16:49):
not even at like a super competitive level that there's a
lot of emphasis put on obviouslythe physical body and you know,
you want to strengthen conditionand whatnot.
But I know for the girls who I was surrounded with, several of
them like received pressure fromcoaches around like, hey, you
weigh too much or hey, you know,you need to weigh a little bit
more. So there's like this constant
observation internally and from even from others of like how you
(17:13):
look. Do you feel like that that
affected you and the way that you've moved on?
Yeah, probably unfortunate. Unfortunately, like it was just
especially that era of gymnastics, coaches were not shy
of telling you like, we have a competition this weekend, you
should skip dinner this week. Like it.
(17:35):
Yeah, it was just how it was. And they're not from the state,
so it's overlooked a little bit,but I would say I got out pretty
easy with it. Like I have an amazing support
system, family, parents that do nothing but hype me up and like
(17:55):
tell me how amazing and great I am.
So I never really struggled too much with the the body image
issues. That's awesome.
It is definitely, you know, as still an athlete myself, like
it's something that I'm conscious about.
I want to be healthy and I want to fuel myself properly and I
want to stay in good physical form.
(18:19):
But yeah, luckily it was it was not too bad.
Yeah, so the support system you're talking about, you know,
your mom and your dad being ableto speak truth in life, into
your life as you grew up. And even to this day, it sounds
like you're pretty close with your dad.
Like I'm telling you to say yes to the podcast.
How crucial or how yeah, how crucial has it been to have that
(18:44):
relationship with your parents growing up and bringing you
through your different chapters of life so far?
Oh gosh, it's, it's been literally everything.
So my parents are divorced, but I'm equally as close to both of
them. They're they're my best friends
and they've been like by supportsystem through each crazy idea
(19:05):
or chapter I wanna embark in. And I think they're both like
crazy smart and funny and I hopeto be half as cool as either one
of them when I'm when I'm their age.
So the other their support has been the whole reason I'm here
(19:26):
doing what I do literally every step I make in my life.
That's a beautiful thing. I wish more people had that, but
that's really awesome that you have that.
So going into the next chapter, I guess, is kind of the college
neuroscience working with fruit flies.
What level of influence did theyplay into that?
And yeah, tell me that story a little bit.
(19:49):
Yeah, that was more and that's aworld they are not in.
My dad worked in, he was a business guy.
My mom was a stay at home mom for a while, but she also worked
in. Politics.
So they didn't know the world ofscience at all.
And that was what my interest was.
So they were very supportive, but they couldn't, you know,
(20:12):
help me. Like they couldn't hold my hand
through it. They could just help me from
afar, which was really good for me to kind of take those big
steps by myself and pave my own way kind of for the first time,
I would say. But they were there when I
(20:33):
graduated, you know, they were there.
Any big presentation I gave on my research, they would fly out
to to the hospital and give watch me give those
presentations. So they might not know not know
what I was talking about, but they were in the back causing
the ruckus, cheering loud anyway.
(20:53):
Yeah, that's awesome. So then what led to the point
where you were like this is I don't know.
I don't even know what you were thinking.
You said you had a like 1/4 lifecrisis and you kind of dropped
this piece of your life. It was just lacking, I guess,
and some things. What was it lacking in and what
led to the eventual move to Vietnam?
Yeah, I really wanted to study abroad in university and didn't
(21:17):
get the chance because I was hada very like heavy course load.
So when I was not loving my lab position, about a year after
graduating, graduating college, then close the chapter.
We finished the paper on Parkinson's and I've just
figured it is a good time to go and do something.
(21:40):
It's a good time to leave the job.
It's a good time to move to EastAsia.
So I had visited Vietnam when I was on spring break in
university and I really liked itthere.
It was cheap, it was way different than anything I'd ever
done before, so I thought it would be a cool experience to go
(22:03):
live abroad there for a little while.
It was only gonna be 6 months ora year maybe, but COVID happened
a week later and the borders shut so I was there for two
years. Wow, was that scary during the
when that shut down and you wereno longer able to go anywhere?
Yeah, it was definitely really scary just because I don't speak
(22:25):
Vietnamese. I didn't really know anybody in
Vietnam. So my first instinct was
definitely to move back. But they had a very different
approach to handling COVID. Like it was very strict right
off the bat. And so eventually there was no
COVID cases in the country within like a month and we could
(22:47):
travel around pretty freely. We just had to wear a mask
versus the states. They were in the like made of
big shutdown. So yeah, by the time that that
happens, that I was like, oh, mysituation's actually better.
So I'll just hang out here untilthe states calms down and took a
while. But yeah, that was what
happened. Yeah, that's crazy.
(23:07):
Did you learn? I mean, after being there for a
while, did you start to learn any of the local languages?
Sati good make me seem really bad but not.
Nothing, you learn Nothing. Hello.
Goodbye. Where's the bathroom?
That was pretty much it, huh? Yeah, I could order food, yeah,
but it was a very difficult language.
I wish. I wish I put more emphasis on
(23:29):
it, but I am not a language brain at all.
I'm one of those classic Americans that can only speak
one language, unfortunately. But that's OK.
You were born into the greatest language.
Or I mean, maybe that's a littlebit terrible thing to say, but
you were born into the easiest to maintain for the world of
business. But obviously, I mean, you, you
learn probably a, a good bit about yourself because you're
(23:51):
not, you're not going around anddoing a lot of things.
You're, you have more time to your thoughts.
I mean, two years is a long time.
So what did you do to pass the time?
Did you do a lot of thinking, a lot of reading, just traveling
around like what happened? Yeah, it was a lot of being
alone, which is not something I'm afraid of.
(24:12):
I love my own company. But I also got weirdly into like
aerial acrobatics, so aerial yoga, but like circus type.
And I found a really cool community of local girls and
also like expat girls. So we for a good year and a
half, I spent a lot of time doing all circus.
(24:36):
Is it like silks and stuff? Yeah.
Silks in the hoop. Yeah.
And I think my gymnastics background of my like, upper
body shoulders are just built for that kind of thing.
Yeah. So I spent a lot of time doing
that. I don't do that as much anymore,
but it was a, it was a fun era, I'll say.
(24:57):
It was a short one, but a good one.
Yeah, that's wild. So when you came back, is that
when you decided to like jump right back into finding a
corporate job and working for the the technology company?
Yep, Yep it would. It wasn't something I'd done
before, but I figured my analytical skills would
translate pretty well so taught myself how to do a little bit of
(25:19):
coding just to get myself in thedoor, and I ended up really
liking the tech world. I still work a full time job in
tech remotely fully remotely yesyeah, which works out well which
I also love I love Chong who myself in the business world
too. I think it gives me a really
(25:42):
good perspective in my personal business.
So yeah, that's when I I came back and started learning the
ropes of the corporate ladder. Yeah, for sure.
So then you get introduced to triathlon, I guess before COVID,
and then you've got that two year stent.
You come back, you start gettinginvolved in it more.
When did the idea start to hatchand grow for I guess really
(26:04):
becoming an entrepreneur and going out and trying to figure
out how to make it work in the media space?
Hey guys, sorry to interrupt really quick.
Just wanted to share something. First of all, this is not a paid
ad. However, if you've been watching
and listening for a while, you'll know that I talk about
precision fuel and hydration or drink out of this bottle
constantly. That is of my own money.
I pay for all the products, the gels, the tablets, the bottles,
(26:25):
all for myself. I reached out to them and asked
if I could get some stuff to offer to our listeners for you
guys, just as a way to say thankyou for listening to the pot.
So First off, if you want 15% off, you can use code in all
caps Seth Dash PFH for 15% off. So that's Seth Dash PFH for 15%
off of all the products. Or you can just go to the link
(26:47):
in the show notes. That is visit dot PFANDH dot COM
forward slash Seth Dash Hill. Again, it's in the show notes.
However, this is the big thing. If you guys want to book a free
20 minute call with their team to be able to get a strategy for
how to revolutionize really, if you guys are into this, how to
(27:09):
revolutionize the way that you do your sports nutrition,
specifically on the sodium and hydration front.
This has been huge for me in thepast couple years.
It's really helped me to performbetter and I think it can help
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(27:31):
dh.com/seth Dash hill slash dashcalls.
Anyway, check out the show nuts.I'm sorry, I'll quit talking.
And again, that code is Seth Dash PFH for 15% off.
All right, thank you guys so much.
Again, this isn't a paid ad, butI had to share that with you
guys. So I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you. Back to the show.
(27:52):
Yeah, it was kind of a, it's a very rolling, like slow forming
idea, I guess I when I moved back, I was craving community,
so I started volunteering at races just because I love the
environment and I needed something to do on the weekends
that was not sitting in my houseor going on runs by myself.
(28:16):
So I started volunteering for a company that throws races in
Boulder called BBSC and loves the the team and the squad.
And they started hiring me back as a race coordinator and
eventually AI went and became race director certified with the
team at USA TS like endurance Exchange.
(28:42):
And so I'd say that was when I kind of started to become more
serious on the other side of triathlon.
Before then I was just kind of racing them casually myself and
I started doing media for the races that I wasn't working the
like coordination or operations on and loved that side of it.
(29:04):
I think when it started to take a shift to the pro side was I
was just running into more and more pros.
I became friends with a few. I think really cool people like
especially Trevor Foley has really helped me get acquainted
into the world more deeply. So it's it's a multiple prong
(29:30):
approach, but events and then making the right connections has
really started to snowball this endeavour.
Yeah, well, what do you what do you see the future like do you
have and did you have a specificgoal of like getting connected
as fast as possible and taking photos and videos?
I mean, I know you said, you know, you started out
volunteering your race directingand then I guess you happened
(29:53):
about upon the opportunity of, of creating media, but when you
started this business, was it like, oh, I want to grow to this
point and get it to here. Yeah, I definitely set goals
right away. So when I started having the
idea, like I could create content for these athletes and I
could tell good stories and I could help them sell themselves
(30:13):
to sponsors and to the public, then I started to set goals on
who, Not specifically who I wantto be, but like how involved I
want to be and what kind of client book I want to have in
six months time. So that shift was probably
(30:36):
January of 2024. And then yeah, I just, I think
it's really easy, like I said, really easy to make connections
in this world. Like social media is so powerful
and in the last few months, 6-7 months, I feel like everybody's
(30:58):
been wanting to, you know, get content and up level that as
well. So it's made my job really easy
of just making some good connections.
Yeah. So how do you land on this is, I
guess, maybe a little bit personal of a question, but how
do you land on the amount that you're able to charge?
(31:20):
Or like, how do you value your set of skills in a way that just
works for the athlete? I assume it's different maybe a
little bit for everybody, but how have you navigated that?
Oh, here's how much I should charge.
Here's how much I should enter in that stuff.
It's a good question. And despite my corporate job
(31:41):
where I've worked in pricing, this is not something that I am
very good at for my own business.
But I, it's a reason that I likekeeping a full time, full time
corporate job is I can keep my prices really low and prioritize
the projects with people I want to work on, people I want to
(32:01):
work with, sponsors I want to work for.
So my philosophy right now is tokeep things lower and to keep
the barrier to entry low. I don't want that to be the
reason that I'm not working withcool people or cool sponsors or
cool events. So that's kind of my
(32:22):
methodology. It does differ, you know, I know
athletes are not ranking in likeNBA type money.
Yeah, some. Some of them are raking in, but
yeah, not definitely not many. It's a growing sport 100.
Percent, Yeah, yeah. So I, I, I definitely don't do
it for that right now. Yeah, So what makes a good
(32:44):
client in your eyes? Communication for sure, which is
hard. It's not a lot of a lot of
people like they, they know triathlon, but they don't know
media and they shouldn't. That's not their job.
Like that's my job to make good content for them and they can
(33:06):
just focus on training and beingthe best athlete that they can.
But it it's like sometimes speaking a language to a client
that maybe doesn't know the language.
So I definitely have learned to err on the side of over
communicating, over communicating about expectations
of the deliverable or about timelines because otherwise
(33:30):
things can get lost in translation and they can just be
mix UPS. But I would say that would be
the biggest thing that makes a good client is being willing to
over communicate and share theirexpectations.
Yeah, for sure. What what kind of goals do you
have? Like where do you want to be
with your media company in the future?
(33:52):
Have you thought about like whatyour end goal is?
End goal I don't see an end but I definitely know where I want
to take this. I am really focusing on
building, I'm going to shift to building like a brand around my
(34:13):
own media company. So giving more behind the scenes
of how things are shot. I think it's kind of a cool
story to tell, like hanging out the back of a truck to get bike
shots. That's how things are made.
That's how content is made. And I would, I'd like to work
with, you know, some, some cool athletes and some big events.
(34:39):
But the main goal for the next little while is to build a
personal brand around my media. Yeah.
Who is? If you could choose any client
to work with and any big brand what what would those two be?
That's, that's a tough question.I, I would have to, just for the
(35:02):
experience and the knowledge, I'd like to work with Iron Man,
like specifically for a race. They work with some of the best
people in the industry. So at least just learning from
those people would definitely bea goal.
And I think it'll be one that I accomplished pretty quickly.
(35:22):
So I'm excited about that. Feeling confident, That's good,
yeah. I'm feeling confident.
I don't think there's a specificathlete I'd, I'd say I want to
work with. Like I wanna work with people
that wanna work with me and havea passion for creating cool
content and let me kind of just be weird and creative about it.
(35:44):
But there's so many cool athletes out there.
Like working with any of them. I would be, I'd be super stoked.
Yeah, that's a good, it's a goodsafe answer.
As you, as you grow into this space, like you're taking
pictures, you're doing video. I think something we can both
agree on is like the ability to tell a story is what truly
(36:07):
people gravitate to. And if you're wanting to
leverage that for brands or an athlete, whoever you know, get
more people on board if you tellthat story.
So how do you like what is your method or methods that you're
finding out work in order to draw out the story from the
individuals and the brands that you work with?
Yeah, that's something I've beenworking on a lot because I've
(36:29):
also been kind of shifting into more long form content.
So working with athletes to create YouTube videos.
So it gives more of a platform to tell a story.
It's not 32nd, a 32nd reel or a picture even.
It's you have more of an opportunity to tell a story, but
finding the right way to interview in a way that seems
(36:52):
natural and draws out some good information that people actually
want to hear and listen to. That is really important and a
skill I'm still trying to up level.
Like before shooting a, a video for any one of my clients, I'll
go and I'll listen about good interview techniques I take from
(37:13):
your podcast, good, good ways tointerview because I think you're
a pretty good interviewer. So.
Thank you. Appreciate that.
Yeah. But yeah, I think that's a very
important part of storytelling is right asking the right
questions. Yeah, Yeah, it's not an easy
thing. I I love doing this after, I
think this would be like episode100 and maybe 135 or something
(37:36):
like that. But the reason I say that is
because like I've talked with a lot of different people and some
people it's super easy to to talk with and some people it's
actually super not easy to talk with.
Like I've had some conversationswhere I'm like, man, I don't, I
hope this is going to go well. And then sometimes I get pushed
back. So it's like every person is so
different in the way that and their level of comfortability.
(37:58):
But I'm like, in my own experience, I'm trying to figure
out how to hone in to get peopleto just feel as comfortable as
possible as quick as possible, which seems a bit manipulative
if I'm being completely honest, but it's like it's a hard thing
to do. It is a hard thing to do and I
feel exactly the same way, like working with people.
Some people love talking in front of a camera and talking
(38:19):
about themselves and just yapping on and on, and that's
great. But some people it does not come
actually, and they'll climb up and not know what to say.
So making somebody feel comfortable and want to share is
really difficult. So I can appreciate the work
that goes in for this podcast too.
(38:39):
Yeah. Do you think you'll ever get
into like the docu series style level of like long form content?
It's pretty. Cool, I would like that.
Honestly, the thing that holds me back from that is I don't
want to get too bogged down by the technicality of gear.
I think that can it. It's really impressive to me,
(39:01):
but I hate don't necessarily want to spend too much time
learning such technical gear products.
I'd rather learn the more socialskills of personal.
Skills. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Maybe someday or working with
the team. Yeah, well, one thing I've I've
(39:22):
thought about doing is cause of like the the network has grown
and I like the idea of eventually start to doing these
types of things like in person. But like some kind of a hybrid
where it's like not the fightingchance series or not even
necessarily what Talbot does or any of the other guys where it's
like, oh, you know, it's just like a frame by frame kind of
walking through the day. It's like I would love to go in
(39:44):
with a specific area of their life and just like spend two or
three days getting to know them really well and then building up
that level of confidence or comfortability.
And then sitting down with him and recording like a really deep
1/2 hour session just about likehow they've been working through
something. And then like implementing kind
of the sport side of things. Because a lot of what goes on up
(40:06):
here is usually going on processing wise.
I think like during some of the sessions, especially the ones
that aren't necessarily as focused on interval work and
things like that when you can kind of process things, but.
That is not an easy thing to do because like what you're talking
about with the gear and whatnot,like, oh, how level, what level
of cinematography should you adopt?
How much money do you have in the budget and getting getting
(40:28):
brands on board for something like that?
It hasn't, it hasn't been super easy.
I've been shut down a few times.So we'll see.
Maybe I end up having to do it myself, but well, it sounds.
Like a cool project, it's would the end like products there be,
you know, a 30 minute kind of docu series about that person
and that aspect of their. I want it to be super long, like
(40:50):
not really cut up, like think like Joe Rogan and type of
interview, but like also intertwining with I don't know,
you know who rich Roll is. No.
You should check him out becauseit's for in terms of like your
interviewing technique, but he'sa really good podcaster.
His had on some of the Iron Man big people, but he also
interviews like professional cyclists and and actors and
(41:12):
stuff like that. But he has a piece of this where
he'll sit down for, you know, several hours with this person
and then every once in a while, like there'll be a little bit of
AB roll that'll kind of overlay with their topic of conversation
of them in the moment. But I want to like, take that to
the next level where like the conversation is continuous and
like with the action content andthe sitting down content so you
(41:35):
can tell like a broader story. I don't know, we'll see.
But yeah, if you want to partneron it and make it happen, let me
know. No, that actually sounds fine.
I don't think you would need to be too too technical if you.
Yeah, I could be. I'd like to hear more about it
but I don't know think it would be too difficult.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So with the clients that you
(41:55):
currently have, do you feel likeyou could still want to take on
quite a bit more like it's easy,easy enough to manage what
you've got coming out the pipeline?
Easy is not the word I would use.
I I have been talking to a few people recently and I think I'm
probably getting close to my capacity in terms of just time.
(42:18):
Like I don't want to spread myself too thin and feel like
I'm not delivering good the quality, good quality, Yeah.
And I don't want to lose my corporate job either.
So right now it's this hard balance to find.
Like it comes down to time management again, I guess.
Like, do I even have the time? And so I think I'm getting close
(42:43):
to that, that threshold, which is really exciting and also
makes me really sad. And I have to come to terms with
like potentially saying no to people, which I don't want to do
because I love, love shooting and I love working with these
athletes. But yeah, that's that's kind of
the point I'm at right now. What would it take for you to
(43:05):
have a desire to let go of the corporate job and move into this
new realm full time? The desire is there.
The desire is definitely there. So you'd.
Be. Yes, it would be.
I would need to find a way and I've been thinking about this a
(43:25):
lot the last few months. Specifically, I would need to
find a way where I could create a business that's fully that can
function without me showing up every single time.
Like, yeah, long term, realistically, I'm thinking 10
years down the road, I as much fun as I love.
(43:46):
Like I love going to races that I love traveling, I love working
every single weekend to shoot. Potentially 10 years down the
line, I won't. So I don't want to set myself up
in this business where I'm locking myself down to that life
forever. I don't want to get burped out.
So I'd want to find a way that Icould scale a company or like
(44:09):
scale this company so that I physically didn't have to be
there every single time. And if I can get it to a point
like that where it has a little bit more of a anatomy without
just me, then I would happily make the full jump.
I'm thinking about a few ways todo it, but nothing solid yet.
(44:31):
Yeah. Do you want to share any of
those half baked ideas? Yeah, I can.
They're very, very, very, very half baked, but it's.
Alright, we can. We can bake them to 75%.
OK, yeah, I'll get your input. Definitely we'll need to grow a
(44:51):
team. So having people editing and
shooting besides just myself, but then also adding more value
to it, like creating some sort of full circle brand like
(45:11):
Deliverable. So you could go to a brand and
say I've got a photographer, I've got an editor, I've got a
videographer, and I've got contracted athletes or
influencers that we can just offer you the full service to
shoot a campaign and then we getpaid.
(45:31):
And then I would just do the management of those types of
contracts. So it's kind of like athlete
management plus also media incorporated in that was
something that I was thinking about.
It's probably my strongest ideas.
I also have ideas in terms of like race directing and
technology but has less to do with my media so.
(45:55):
OK. Well, we'll come back to that in
a second. But like so you're talking about
essentially building a blueprintor team or I mean really like a
machine to where you can interact with somebody.
They go through this process, you get all of the pictures,
videos, whatever it all comes out the pipeline.
But my question to you, which iskind of a might be kind of hard
(46:15):
to answer, but like what is the thing that Roshak media, it is
Roshak media, right? Yeah, Yeah.
What is the thing that Roshak media like stands apart?
Like what makes unique is because I would assume like this
space is growing quite a bit andit's relatively competitive,
maybe not so competitive that you can't find because there's
still obviously a need. But like what it What do you
(46:36):
want it to set yourself apart with?
Yeah, that's that's the question, right?
Like I think it would. And I think things are already
kind of coming up. So I might be late to the game,
but like being able to offer both the media creation and the
athlete at the same time. But I know right now, like a lot
(46:57):
of athlete managers work really closely with photographers and
videographers. So it's almost like offering
them both the athlete and the content creation, but I don't
think there's some there's anything right now that's like
that full package. I could be wrong.
Yeah, no, that's a good idea. I'm like going back to the story
thing because I'm trying to figure out, is there a way that
(47:19):
you could always like guarantee you're always gonna draw a story
from whatever relationship you interact with?
Like almost like a not just any questionnaire, but like a
mandatory, Hannah sits down withthe athlete and the brand or
whoever's leading that project and the team, and you ask like
very specific set of questions to like get to the core root of
who that person is and why they're doing what they're
(47:40):
doing. Like none of this fluff, Like,
oh, I want to win Kona. It's like, yeah, sure, you want
to win Kona, but why do you wantto win Kona?
Because you have an insecurity inside because your dad won that
because you're trying to impresssomebody.
Like get that out and get that raw emotion.
Because like really if maybe this is oversimplification, but
I feel like with most people I talked to, we're all very
(48:01):
similar in like our source of motivations.
It's not that our experiences are exactly the same, but we've
all experienced some kind of hardship that's pushed us to
want to be ambitious in this wayor has done the opposite and
kind of buried our self worth and ability.
So we're like trying to find it.And I feel like those, those
things are like uncomfortable for people to talk about.
(48:23):
But if you can figure out how tolike you're saying, get
comfortable enough with those people, draw that emotion and
then weave that through the, thevisuals and the, the content,
then that would be it. But I don't know, I'm just
spitballing here. This is not gospel truth.
No, that's, that's an interesting idea.
If I could find a series of questions to ask that would
(48:45):
guarantee like somebody can openup and give a good story, that
would be amazing. I'm not sure that exists.
Like I feel like a lot of peopleare tough to crack, but.
Just ask them what makes you cry, what makes you really
happy. Don't be asked me like tell me
(49:06):
exactly what it is. Oh my gosh, that's funny.
So let me ask you that question there because now I want to, I'm
just curious, like what is something that you think about
that like, oh, that makes me want to cry.
Anything bad happening to my family?
Yeah. I mean, easy answer I but I'll
go deeper. Like when I was a kid, I had
(49:29):
this weird year where I was so anxious about something bad
happening to my family. It was like debilitating for my
family. It would get to the point where
my mom would be two minutes latepicking me up from gymnastics
practice and I would be calling every parents that I knew in the
phone book, like almost on the verge of calling the authorities
(49:52):
saying that my parents had. Got a car?
Exactly and I would never see them again so that I'm not like
that anymore and I don't carry that type of anxiety but
definitely still makes me sad. Yeah.
Where did that come from, do youknow?
Yeah, I have no idea. How old were you?
(50:12):
Probably 910. My parents are always late and
that maybe is why, and I'm neverlate as a result.
Can I ask you another personal question?
How old were you when your parents divorced?
I was 16. You're 16. 16 Yeah, so we'll do.
Yeah, I would have guessed that it would have been around that
(50:32):
time because like, sometimes kids still look at that way.
My sisters, I was definitely that way too.
Like whenever there was like some kind of crazy hardship
going on internally and with thefamily.
It would come out in a in another way.
Yeah, yeah. Like I I had like this weird
attachment like for the longest time and I thought this would
never go away. I thought I would never be able
(50:52):
to sleep over at like a friend'shouse without getting so
homesick. Like going to camp every year
was like this thing I really wanted to do.
But it's like as soon as the sunset and there's other reasons
for. I think that why this led to
that kind of behavior. But as soon as the sunset, like
I had this like, I need my mom, I need my dad.
And then it got so bad that likeduring some portions of my life
(51:16):
when I was like 13, like I didn't want to sleep anywhere
but like in my parents room. Like it was very strange.
And I it finally went away afterI went to college.
Even the first night of college,I called my mom like crying,
which I think a lot of dudes do.And they probably don't say like
mom, I miss you. You know, you're like this big,
this big disconnect. But yeah, I there's something to
be said. I think about like the
attachment and attachment disorders, whatever you want to
(51:39):
call them. It's just we're all humans and
we're all trying to figure it out, right?
Yeah, let's normalize it. People are have some weird
attachment issues and that's OK.Yeah, it is.
So do you want to have a family?Yes, definitely.
I always picture myself being like a young mom probably.
(52:00):
I'm glad that didn't happen for me.
Like not that I'm not young, butI'm glad that I have waited,
that talked to her and spent a lot of time alone and figuring
myself out because these opportunities, I just think
about it now like I was thinkingI'm sitting.
Outside, much harder to do with what you you're doing.
(52:21):
Yeah, yeah, by myself. And I love being able to do that
right now. So definitely eventually that
will be the ultimate goal, but still a few few years away,
yeah. A few years away?
So what? What is something on your mind
or something that's taking up like the most mental bandwidth
for you right now? That's a good question.
(52:52):
My mental bandwidth, OK, it would have been different
probably if you asked me that question a day ago and I'll
answer that right now. It's nothing like I I'm on
holiday, I'm enjoying my time a day ago.
It's probably I'm onboarding a few like new clients and just
(53:15):
being it keeping organization and track of that.
And the anxiety around making sure that I delivering good work
for these new trials is taking up a lot of mental space.
It it's scary like working with a new client and something goes
(53:39):
a little bit wrong. Like I was working with somebody
the other day and I forgot to turn on my mic receiver.
So 10 minutes of the first part of what we were shooting had no
audio and my heart just like dropped.
Yeah. And yeah, exactly.
(54:00):
I was able to kind of say like we need to reshoot some of this
audio is bad and it worked out fine.
But I think since I'm still kindof newer to especially this
longer form of content and working with new gear that I'm
still getting to get getting to know as well, keeping track of
(54:20):
all of those little things in a brain that is sometimes very
scattered is taking up a lot of mental.
Load Yeah, no, that's, that's that's no joke.
New stuff. I'm trying to think back, like
in the early days. Luckily I had someone helping me
with the podcast and the editing, but there were a couple
times where I forgot to just disconnect from the Wi-Fi and
(54:42):
use the wired connection. And so like, the lips got off
from the audio a few times. And that was because I, I didn't
like, clap in the beginning and all this stuff.
So like, yeah, I know that feeling of like the heart
sinking, especially after 10 minutes, an hour, any level of
conversation, because it's like,oh, now that's somewhat useless.
So that can be tough. Yeah.
And then you have to be totally humble and just say, hey, I
(55:06):
screwed up. Like we have to do this again.
So and once I have a relationship with somebody, I
don't mind doing that. But it's I'm still trying to
prove professionalism and I havea bit of perfectionist complex.
So yeah, that's been, that's been a difficult thing, the new
(55:29):
gear, tough to learn, but force it.
Do you feel like you have something to combat and to
control on the perfectionism complex?
What do you mean? Well, you said like you have a
bit of professionalism complex that you want to control.
What do you want to control it from?
Like what's? What's the worst case scenario
with that that could happen? I guess there's no worst case
(55:53):
scenario with like perfectionism, but I'll give you
an example. Like the first YouTube video I
put out for Trevor Foley, I was editing it in a cafe and I
didn't have my headphone, so I was editing it over the
background noise of the cafe that was going on.
And in one clip at the way that I faded the music in, like it
(56:18):
was just very abrupt. And I literally, once it was
posted, rewatched that part of the video until I wanted to die.
Like it was just so cringy to methat I didn't get that that
music shift perfect. But you know, you like, I was
like, I definitely could have sat there and been mad about
(56:41):
that for a long time. But then we made a second video
and all was good. So those kind of perfectionism
things are what I need to just move past quickly.
Otherwise it's going to be take up too much space in my head.
Yeah, no, for sure. Good deal.
So then you're going on this holiday.
Are you going to be headed back to Boulder afterwards?
(57:04):
Yes, headed back to Boulder. This is like my only big vacay
planned for the year. So we'll head back to Boulder
and continue to get things roll.And it seems like athletes are
slowly starting to make their way back to Boulder, or will be
soon at least. It's like April now.
(57:24):
So spring is spring is coming, which I'm excited for.
All those Tucson people can comeback up.
Yeah. Did you ever make it out to
Tucson at all? No, I wanted to, but I didn't
this year. My dad lives in Las Vegas and so
sometimes I'll spend a lot of time with him in Vegas in the
(57:44):
colder months because I don't like being cold in Colorado.
But I didn't this year and I wasplanning on maybe doing that and
going South to Tucson, but didn't happen.
Yeah. Well, maybe next year there's
some interesting projects I haveto tell you about that I've been
rolling around with. I don't know if you listen to
that. So probably not with Connor
(58:06):
Bollinger, Bollinger and Evan Price, but they were talking
about doing like an NFL combine for professional triathletes
down in Tucson next year just tolike see who could do the best
in the high jump, in the long jump and all that stuff.
Wait, that sounds so fun. Yeah, I'll have to hit you up
about that if you're interested in making something like that
happen, because I know they wantto make it happen.
And I think it would be super fun and also just funny, like a
(58:29):
very parody style, but get people interested in, you know,
watching content and during the offseason versus just like only
Lionel and Sam going back and forth on videos.
Yeah, I think that'd be really interesting.
Like a big thing that I'm tryingto figure out is how do we get
more people that are interested in triathlon and watching
triathlon. So I think funny things like
(58:49):
that, I think that's a really good idea.
Yeah, for sure. Sweet.
Well, Hannah, thank you so much for taking the time.
I know you probably have a lot of vacationing left to do.
I think it's pretty early there in the morning, so hopefully you
have a full day of chilling ahead of you.
But thank you so much for comingon.
Let me dive into who you are as a person and look forward to
(59:10):
seeing how you continue to grow throughout this year and the
years to come. And hopefully Rocheck Media just
becomes the biggest media company in all of Triathlon.
Thank you, Seth. I really appreciate the
opportunity to come on and chat with you.
Awesome. Thank you so much to Hannah for
coming on the podcast today and sharing with me who she is and
what she's got going on. Be sure to keep your tabs on
(59:31):
Rocheck Media. I'm sure she's going to continue
to keep growing and we'll be seeing more of her.
So thank you so much Hannah, forcoming on the podcast.
Really appreciate it and hope that you enjoy your time in
Australia. If you met to this point in the
podcast though, I just want to say thank you so much for being
here. If you would be interested in
getting a weekly newsletter thatgives the high points that I
have learned from the past guests of the week, then feel
free to check out the link in the description below to sign up
(59:54):
for that newsletter. If you are on YouTube, if you
could like comment, subscribe, turn on the notification bell
that helps to continue to grow this podcast channel.
If you are listening on any of the podcast platforms such as
Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any of those, if you could also like
comment, subscribe, review, anything that you can do on
those really does continue to help.
And yeah, just check out the show notes.
Thank you guys so much for beinghere.
(01:00:14):
Really appreciate you allowing me to do this every single.
Day it seems like now. Thank you.
We'll catch you in the next one.Bye.
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