May 26, 2023 • 45 mins
If you have been to any conference/convention in Utah for writing, gaming, or general nerdiness, chances are that you have felt the influence of Jared Quan! This master of networking formerly served as the President of the League of Utah Writers (where he met Dax), and has also served roles with Storymakers, Cultural Arts Society of West Jordan, EMAA, BigWorldNetwork, TEDxSaltLakeCity, Teen Author Boot Camp, LTUE, UVU Book Academy, Utah Poet Laureate Selection Committee, and countless events/organizations. Jared and Dax discuss the awesome creative community in Utah and how to build a network, a career, and a brand through relationships
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:35):
Every time I am at aconvention or a conference.
Jared Quan is there, and if you'veever been to a nerdy convention
or a writing conference here inUtah, chances are Jared's fingers
have been involved and he has beenpulling strings behind the scenes.
He is a master of networking and everytime I talk to him, it is such a joy.
(01:00):
Jared, thank you so muchfor coming in today.
Thank you so much.
I've always enjoyed workingwith you over the years.
It's, it's been exciting to seewhat's, what's happened as well.
So, who are you, Jared?
What is your story?
Boy, that is such a great question.
Well, you know born in thedark mists, I come out, you
know, with my thieves clothes.
(01:20):
No.
So for me, it's kind of funbeing an an event organizer doing
stuff from behind the scenes.
And this is one of the things I loveto live by is my, is my truth, right?
If people don't know anythingwent wrong, then you I did it.
Right?
Right.
Because I guarantee something has gonewrong and sometimes catastrophically
(01:42):
at all of these different events andvenues and if we can make it so people
are like, I didn't notice anything.
Everything was awesome.
I'm like, Yes.
Did
it, that is a successful slide ofhand role in which you have expertise.
Absolutely.
So I first met you when I moved toUtah about six years ago and became
(02:04):
involved with the League of Utah Writers.
And at the time you were, youwere the president, correct?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And you were tremendous.
What about the league?
You yeah.
The, so the League of UtahWriters turns 88 this year,
which is crazy to think about.
Established back in 1935, and everyyear it's had a conference every year.
(02:25):
It's had its writing, conference,conference, and it's contests and it's
got 33 chapters all over the state ofUtah to help people develop their writing.
So it's, it's like a trueFighters guild, right?
Like it, it helps train everybodyup wherever you're at, whatever your
skill level to get you ready forthe battle with the, the publishing
industry or indie publishing, dependingon what, what kind of quests you
(02:48):
really want to take on out there.
Very cool.
Very cool.
And there's been a huge amount of growthin the last 10 years with the League of
Utah Writers, and it's transformed a lot.
What's changed?
Why, why are more peoplejoining than ever before?
I think the League of Utahwriters was the worst kept secret.
(03:08):
Like it was one of those things where ithad always existed, it had always been
there, but people didn't know about it togo join it and, and become a part of it.
And what's been great is over thelast 10 years, it's established.
These tremendous partnerships withgroups like L t E or Storymakers or, or
Fanex, you know, to get out there and,and participate more in the community
(03:30):
as well as developed its role furtherby reestablishing things like Utah
Authors Day with the Utah State Governor.
So it's, it's started to play a largerrole in the state and worked so many
so well with other organizations.
Okay.
How did you get involved andwhat was your rise to power?
Yeah, this is a great story.
(03:51):
It's probably my favorite story.
So when I, I had gone to fan and thisguy had told me, Hey, you need to
check out the League of Utah Writers.
And I was like, okay.
I had never heard of him before,so I looked up online, joined the
chapter, so I go to my first meeting,I'm sitting in the back of the room
just like everybody else would.
This is my first meeting.
And I know it's weird to think ofme as like a super introvert, shy
(04:14):
person, especially if you know me now.
People are like, what?
Yeah, I was just in the back of the room.
You and me both.
Right?
So we're, we're, I'm, I'm backthere and the, the president
stands up in front of the chapter.
Well, she was the vice president.
She's like, Hey, the president hadto step down due to health issues.
I need to take over, butI need a vice president.
To help with the chapter, and Ilooked around the room and said,
(04:37):
well, good luck to whoever that is.
That's gonna be tremendous.
And, and about halfway into themeeting, it just kept kind of tugging
at the back of my mind like, Hey, youknow, this might be a, a, a tremendous
opportunity to step outside my comfortzone and give back to the community.
It's something that I've been desiring buthadn't figured out great paths to do so.
(05:00):
So I texted my wife and said, Hey,I just joined the Utah or the west
Jordan Arts Council as the secondassistant to the literary literary
chair, which is the person who sitsin the back of the room and nods their
heads and sets up chairs for events.
But I'm like, yeah, Ijoined that organization.
We've got five kids, right?
Three of 'em are autistic,one's got medical issues.
(05:21):
I, I definitely don't have time to be up.
Chapter Vice president, right?
And she texts me like immediatelyright back and says, this is
exactly what we talked about.
I'm like, oh, that's not, no, that'snot what I wanted for you to say.
But I'm like, okay, fine.
I, I'll, I'll step up.
So I emailed the, the chapter president.
(05:43):
I just said, Hey, if nobody else,you know, volunteers for the vice
presidency, I would love to be considered.
And I attached my LinkedIn link in there.
And when the meeting ends, I rememberthis her name was Eliza Crosby.
She stood up and ran across the room.
She's like, you're our new vice president.
And I'm like, you don'teven know who I am.
(06:04):
Like, this is literally my first meeting.
The only reason she knows what I look likeis because I had attached my LinkedIn.
A profile which has,you know, my face on it.
I'm like, oops, I did notmean for that to happen.
A fatal mistake.
Seriously.
Right.
So, so I said, you know, like otherpeople had to have like offered
(06:24):
to volunteer and they said, yeah,if nobody else stepped up, but.
Nobody sent a resume.
And I'm like, oh, shoot, LinkedIndouble burned me on that one.
No
LinkedIn.
Right?
And so that was my intro into theLeague of Utah Writers was on my
very first meeting, volunteeringto be the vice president of the
chapter of, of the, the Ochre chapterof the League of Utah Writers.
(06:48):
But that's where that onlyin that position could I
have done what happened next.
And that's where I discoveredthat the Arts Council.
Wanted to put on a big event butdidn't have a lot of volunteers and
they had funding and the League ofUtah Writers Chapter didn't have any
funding, but had a ton of volunteersand wanted to put on an event.
(07:08):
And I'm like, Hey, do youknow each other exist?
They met in the same building,by the way, and they did not.
They did not know each other existedor that they had the same exact goal.
And I was able to, to connect themand we put on the, the, the the
spring into books, which was atremendous event in West Jordan.
And that, that gave me the rise, therecognition to where the rest of the
(07:30):
league's like, Hey, who is this guy?
I think maybe we should havehim do more things like this.
Okay.
And then how long was itbefore you became president
of the league?
Yeah, it was like six months.
So of course, of course.
So and, and that's another great story.
So I, I put on spring in thebooks, it was very successful.
(07:52):
Everybody's excited.
I attend, I volunteer forall these other events.
I go to L t e, I go toStorymakers, just to volunteer.
And I get an email from thepresident of the League of Utah
Writers that says, you've been sodynamic and active in the community,
you've successfully put on events.
She said, Hey would you consider,you know, being president of the
(08:14):
League of Utah Writers, it, itmeans a lot, meant a lot to her.
There's a mand er, tremendousauthor and and leader.
And on that email, I rememberreading it like two or three
times and I was like, shocked.
I'm like, whoa.
I'm like, so brand new to the league.
So I typed out this fancy emailthat says, Hey, no thanks.
I'm really busy.
I'm a chapter vice president.
(08:35):
I've got five kids, all the same excuses.
I texted my wife, I just added onemore thing, and like a good writer.
I knew I needed it to beedited before I sent it.
So I asked my wife, I'm like,Hey, can you just look over this?
Before I send this, thatburned you the first
time?
It did.
And I didn't learn.
I did not learn.
(08:55):
Right.
So she sat down to edit and I wentto go get a drink and I came back
and she goes, yeah, I, I updateda few things and, and sent it off.
And So she sent it for you?
She did.
And, and I'm like, Okay, well, let me see.
As, as any author, letme see what was changed.
So I open it up and it's a, yes,I would love to absolutely be the
(09:15):
president of the League of Utah Writers.
What?
I'm like, I'm like, wait sneak attack.
Seriously.
Seriously.
So if anything, my, my wife's thesecret Mastermind behind my rise to,
to, to power, if you will to, to gettingbehind all these different things.
But that also gave me anextra level of courage, right?
(09:38):
I knew she had my back.
I knew that she really wanted,she was passionate about me being
successful in these different areas.
So as I jumped into the League of UtahWriter's Leadership, I'm like, okay.
I was so extra confident and less nervous.
Because I knew, if anything, at least atthe end of the day, my wife will love me.
(09:58):
And the events that I sawyou put on were fantastic.
I, I went to Quills conference whenI first moved to Utah and I guess it
was just the League of Utah WritersConference back then before the rebrand
when it became Quills Conference.
Yep.
But yeah, I loved it.
I learned so much.
I started volunteering.
And cause I write epic fantasy andthat's, that's my big dream, is
(10:19):
to be a published fantasy author.
My, some of my old writing groupfriends made fun of me saying the
whole reason I started the pro DM thingwas to procrastinate editing my book.
They're not wrong.
They're not wrong.
Here I am pro DM now, butI, I loved these events.
They were so much fun.
I got to meet so many greatpeople and eventually I, I
(10:40):
came to you with a proposal.
I said, Hey, Jared.
I'm in an MBA program and I, as partof my senior capstone I would like to,
you know, put in some volunteer hours.
I was thinking it'd be like a ye Like amonth or two of, you know, consulting and,
you know, write up a paper and help out.
And that was my mistake.
(11:00):
Cuz what did you do, Jerry?
Yeah.
What did you do?
So that's one of the, the pieceswhere, I mean, I, I, first of
all, I absolutely accepted it.
I thought that was an amazingthing to have that opportunity.
But one of the, one of the interestingthings is when you're leading an
organization is, especially when it'sall volunteer, is getting the right
crew together, if you will, right?
(11:21):
To getting the right team together.
And sometimes you come across peoplewith such unique and gifted skills.
You have to do everything you canto recruit that individual into
the spot that you know is justgonna make everything better.
So when Dax came along and heis like, yeah, I'd love to do
this, I said, yeah, absolutely.
As a matter of fact, I thinkyou would be perfect over here.
(11:43):
I think you would be perfectto the League of Utah.
Writers serving in a reallyimportant role as well.
Yeah, I was the executive treasurernot for a couple of months, but for
an entire year until I was able totrain someone else to take over for me.
And I, I stepped into that andI wasn't an accountant hadn't
ever run a business before.
(12:04):
I was just an MBA student and I hadto take all the finances for the
league, figure out how to report them,how to keep everything organized.
Deal with all of the you know, accountsreceivable and accounts payable, and
it was a lot of work during that year.
Probably didn't work on mybook too much that year.
(12:26):
But that experience actually gaveme a lot of the skills that I needed
to eventually start my own business.
Two years later, like I don't think Iwould've had the technical know-how of.
How finance works enough to start DungeonMaster Direct had it not been for my
time with the League of Utah writers.
(12:46):
So Jared, even though you got me, eventhough you tricked me into a bigger role
than I expected that was like essentialleveling up experience that I needed.
So thank you, Jane.
I don't know if I've thankedyou enough for that, but Yeah.
Well, and it made this happen.
Every, every, yourcontribution to the league was.
Amazing and it helped us.
(13:07):
Your skillset in there helpedus really take on some really
big, some really big quests.
It really let us go out thereand, and accomplish some
really big, ambitious things.
So it was a very mutual very grateful thatyou were willing to take into that role.
Despite it being a year and, anda little prolonging of the book.
(13:27):
Yeah, it I,
I wasn't ready to do it for a second year.
I'm so glad I was able to train someoneelse to take over it and then, you know,
started having kids and blah, blah, blah.
Pandemic happened, started a businessand, you know, I wish I could be
more involved with the league now.
But I, I've seen you other placessince then, more than just the league.
How, how long were youpresident of the league and.
(13:51):
How are you involved with the league now?
Yeah, great question.
So the, the role of the league leadershipwhen it goes to the president, typically
it's a three year term of service.
You serve one year as a president-elect,kind of apprenticing, and then
you are put into the role ofthe president of the league.
So you're taking on all the, the mainresponsibilities and then you serve
(14:12):
as past president so that you serve asa senior advisor to the team and help
train the, the new president-elect.
When I got to president somethinginteresting happened for the league.
They really enjoyed the stuff that,that I was doing and the organization
as a whole with the, the team we hadassembled our accomplishments were
(14:33):
so well received that they actuallyamended their bylaws to then allow me
to serve a second year as president.
So that was a big deal, youknow in 88 you extended your
presidential
term.
I did.
And, and
it was, it was a dangerousslippery slope to Tyron could.
But I have to say, you, you handledthat with grace and with humility,
(14:56):
and you did such a good job.
Like we did not want to let you go.
And, and it was a lot of fun.
You know, being able toparticipate that way.
And then I served because that thepresident who came right after me got to
serve two terms because of the new rule.
And I served as the pastpresident for two terms.
Currently I serve as, as the outreachchair for the league, as well
as the, the grants chair for theorganization, which is really cool.
(15:19):
But you're right, during this time, andthis was kind of interesting, so my second
year as president, we had accomplishedso much that it had really gathered the.
It, it got the attention of, ofthe rest of Utah's organizations
in, in the literary field.
Everybody wanted to know what the secretsauce was to the League of Utah writers.
(15:40):
So I was then invited to be on theboard for the Storymakers conference.
At that time, it wasthe l d s Storymakers.
To, to participate on their board,which was really interesting to
see their dynamic and the waythey, they ran and operated things.
At the same time, I was invitedto be on the committee for L T U E
live the Universe and everything,which is a tremendous conference.
(16:02):
Mm-hmm.
And next year is the 42nd l t e.
So, you know, that's going to be big.
That's the one.
Matter of fact, listen LTU e is important.
You should go every year, butif you're, if you only get one
shot to go, 42 is always the one.
Because of course it's, it's basedon Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy, and 42 is the answer.
(16:23):
So we don't know.
Maybe at that conference everybody willbe picked up by aliens and the earth
will be destroyed, and that is the onlyplace you could, you could hitchhike off.
We don't know, but
Douglas Adams tried to warnus years and years ago.
Exactly.
We just didn't read the message.
Deep, deep thought didn't quite giveus all the information we needed.
But when, when that happened, Ialso was very fortunate because I,
(16:46):
I was able to join TEDx Salt LakeCity and their organization, which
is not a literary organization.
So it was one of those where theysaw what I was doing and anybody
who's watched a TED Talk knows howimportant those are and, and what kind
of effort goes behind putting those.
So it was a tremendous honor to.
(17:07):
Go participate on their board atwhere I, I currently serve as well.
And the last one, well, I've servedon many different organizations,
but the last one I'm currentlyinvolved in is the Teen Author
Bootcamp by writers Cubed over there.
The future looks brightfor teens, so we're, we're
excited.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
And so I've seen you at all,all of these conferences.
(17:29):
I was at STORYMAKERS a few weeks ago.
We hung out.
I've seen you at L T E and I feellike every time we sit and talk,
it's like a masterclass and.
How to be awesome likeJared, how to meet people.
And anytime someone comes upto me and they're like, Hey,
I'm new to the community.
I'm a writer.
I write fantasy, or Iwrite sci-fi, or I do this.
And they're like, who should I meet?
(17:49):
I'm like, where's Jared?
Where's Jared?
And I stop everything that I'mdoing and I take them to you.
And I've introduced probably a dozenpeople to you just in the last year alone.
Be like, Hey, have you met Jared?
Welcome to the Jared Quan experience.
He is a networking machine, andyou get people involved and you
get people excited, and you are alegend among the community here.
(18:13):
Thank you for saying thatone, and I'm really excited.
One of the.
The people that Daks introduced to mewere working on putting on an event
either later this year or next year.
That, that has a lot of potentialI'm really excited about.
Well once, once it's ready to be releasedwith details, it will be out there.
But just know, yes.
But there's some greatthings in the works.
Awesome,
awesome.
(18:34):
Yeah.
And you actually came to one of my events.
About a month ago.
Talk, let's talk about DeadWars and your experience because
you weren't involved in this.
I came to you a little bit too late.
We had like, two weeks ago, I'mlike, Hey, Jared, how do I do this?
And you're like, well, let me knownext time because you were super busy,
but you still came as a participant.
Why, what?
Why were you there at Dead Wars?
(18:55):
Well,
first of all, anything that you do, Idefinitely wanna support any chance I get.
And I think, Be your tremendousleadership skills and opportunities.
Somebody to follow.
Absolutely.
But this was a very special event withtheir, an attempt at breaking the World
record at something is not an easy feat.
(19:16):
It's, it's not somethingto be taken lightly.
It is going for the crown jewel.
It is going for, you know, thegoing after the big boss, you know,
to, to tackle something like that.
Presents.
Unforeseeable logistical issues that youdon't know until you're in the heat of it.
And then you're like,how do we deal with this?
(19:37):
We didn't foresee this problem.
So being there to support wasthe, like the bare minimum.
I could a absolutely do.
I wish they could havedone even more, of course.
But what was fun about it, I,I loved because my oldest son
Duncan, he loves d and d as well.
And when I said, Hey, listen.
My good friend Dax is putting this on, andit's an attempt to break the world record.
(19:59):
He's like, what are wegoing, what are we doing?
I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
We're going.
So when we showed up, it was, it wasso well put together and organized from
the get-go, which I really appreciated.
People understood where they, they neededto go, where they need to send to people.
So that level of organization peopledon't understand that is very complicated.
So I knew right from the, fromthe, from the bat that this was
(20:22):
gonna be such a great event.
So the experience was gonna be top notch.
Now you got to come in incognito mode.
You weren't wearing a suit, you weren't,you were wearing a baseball cap and
basketball shorts, and I almost didn'trecognize you without, you know,
your trademark Jared Qu brand suit
you.
You are not the only one.
So what's cool is there are so many reallyneat people that we both work with in the
(20:44):
community that were there to support it.
That we're like, wait, is that Jared?
Like they did, like, they came up andthey're like, I didn't, I, they're like,
I had to walk past you two or three timesto, to just verify that was Jared, right?
Like, that's, so I was, I wasn't in,in that, in that kind of incognito.
And, and part of the reason Idid that, and, and it was very
purposeful, is I really didn't want.
(21:07):
In any way to take away from the event.
I really wanted people to focus onthe event and how cool it was to be
there and participate and I just wantedto be there to support it as well.
So so it was very incognito,but very purposeful incognito
and which was a lot of fun.
It was really exciting to beable to support it in that way.
(21:27):
Okay.
And how did you feel in that event?
What.
What were some of the emotions thatcame to mind as you're battling to
fight Vener with your son and with withover a thousand other great people in
this wonderful team, this wonderfulnetwork of players and fighters and.
(21:50):
Man, it was, it was amazing.
It, it's, I can't put it into wordsbecause the experience itself was, was
so unique and so powerful to have thatsense of community in that moment.
Now, here's a little fun fact.
I tend to always play a thief.
I, I, I'm a thief in, inany d and d game I can get.
(22:13):
And typically I'm a very You know,chaotic, neutral thief and who sometimes
will be out for themselves and sometimeshelps the little guy just cuz they
can't what my character would do.
Right.
Right, exactly.
I'm like, this is what's happening.
But when we got there and I toldmy son, I said, Hey, I'd love
to go there cuz I knew there wasgonna be pre-generated characters.
(22:33):
I let him pick for me.
I said, what, whatcharacters are we gonna be?
So he picks up two sheets.
One is a thief and one is a paladin.
And he's like, which one do you want?
I'm like, no, you, you.
Which one do you want to give me?
He goes, I give you the Palladin.
And I've never played the Palladin.
I mean, I have on like Diablo,but I've never like played the
(22:56):
Palladin in, in d and d at all.
And I, matter of fact,that was the coolest thing.
I I thought so highly of the event.
I actually framed my sheet from the gameand I've got my official Dead Wars card
to sh card to show that I was actually.
Present and there I love my character,my character, trior who's, who's
(23:18):
named after Trior from Final Space.
My character Trior was just,I got into that character.
The group got into the whole thing.
We got into the rally when everybodywas doing the battle cries, and we,
we could hear that the people whowere doing the Calvary and we could
hear the people who were on thewalls and we could hear the people.
Who were, you know, the city guards,we could hear everybody's cheers.
(23:42):
And we knew okay, in that momentit's so much bigger than yourself.
And it just, it was so empoweringboth as a team, as an individual and,
and as the acting went throughoutthe event and everybody was just
stirred and would get so emotional.
And that's what I lovedis then the characters.
They would let thecharacters like express that.
(24:04):
That deep frustration or that deepanger, or they'll be like, oh, you,
you know, you're part of those forces.
This is what I'm doing to you.
We're gonna do this, and they'dbattle cry a certain way.
So the event itself was, was just beyondbelief, and I can't tell you, I'm sure
you've heard this for many people.
I can't tell you how many peoplehave approached me afterwards and
(24:24):
said, how did you hear about it?
I would've been there.
The only, the only problemis the only problem is.
Like we were kind, theevent was kind of maxed out.
Like you, we couldn't fit anotherthousand people in there and mm-hmm.
Easily, more than, more thanthat would love to have attended.
That we
had to close registration like a weekand a half early, and then come up
(24:48):
with a wait list on the morning ofto get people in those extra spots,
and some people had to turn away.
We just ran out of space in themall and we're, I've already been
talking with Andrew on how arewe going to top this next year?
What, what are we gonnado about the venue?
So much fun.
Yeah.
But yeah, I would recommend it to anybody.
It was, it was way cooler than anyindividual campaign I've ever played in.
(25:14):
It was way cooler in experiencefor the whole team than any team
game that I've played together.
When you're a part of the big army,when you're all together for the
same cause, that was super cool.
It is my truest desire that someoneelse out there is going to hear
of our event and beat our record.
(25:39):
Because that'll give us anexcuse to come back even harder
and then crush their record.
There you go.
That's what I want.
It's, it's not enough tojust do this every year.
Like I want there to be that competition.
I want there to be that, youknow, that, that pride of we were
there at the beginning, we'regoing to take back our crown.
(25:59):
So I'm hoping that we have more andmore events like this and we can
really, you know make an impact on.
On the community here, cuz there's sucha huge community in Utah of nerds and
people think Utah and they're like,oh, that's where the Mormons are.
But yes, there are Mormonshere, but they're also nerds.
And there's an overlap too.
(26:20):
Yeah.
Absolutely that, that overlap of,of nerds and geeks and writers.
I think we have morewriters than most states.
Mm-hmm.
When I bring in guests from other places,they're like, how do you have so many.
Authors.
How, how many, how do youhave so many published people?
Like it's, it's in the water.
We have a specialingredient we put in there.
(26:40):
There's,
there's a spring.
There's a spring.
Yeah, we've, there are numerous, likeNew York Times bestselling authors who
live within, you know, 30 minutes of us.
Absolutely.
Now, it would be very interestingif Brandon Sanderson ever took
up that, that battle call.
To break the record, dragonSteel has about 5,000 attendees.
(27:01):
I'm just saying there's a,a real possibility there.
I am talking to Dragon Steel about things.
I'm good friends with Dan Wells, whois the Vice President of Narrative.
Last year I was, I actuallyran a game at Dragon Steel.
We ran a Game of Honey Heist and wewere also raising money for charity.
We were thinking, oh yeah,this maybe we'll get to raise.
(27:22):
$500,000.
We ended up raising $7,000 inthe middle of that game and
Brandon doubled it to 14,000.
And so Wow.
That was super fun.
And I'm already talking to them aboutplanning the next two Dragon steel things.
Can't talk about it just yet, but.
And they were one of the mainsponsors for a Dead Wars.
(27:43):
And Dan Wells was there ontable number one, and I got to
make some guest appearances asVena to terrify his players.
But, you know, they're, they'regreat people to work with.
And people were asking, they'relike, oh, dragon Steels here.
Is Brandon coming?
Is Brandon gonna be here?
And I knew Brandon wasn't coming,but I didn't tell that to people.
I just let them think and let them wonder.
(28:03):
And that's,
you know, that's what you donext time, is you have a little
pre-recorded video from Brandon.
As a, as a side character, you know,to, to play into the, the overall piece.
I thought, oh, whoa, he's into it.
Cause he
really, yeah, we'll, we'll talk to him.
We'll talk to him.
We'll see.
There you go.
He's, he's a busy guy,busy guy, writing books.
(28:25):
Just a little bit to keepwriting books just a little bit.
Great guy, great guy.
Saw him at Storymakersjust a few weeks ago.
Got to shake his hand and you know,thank him for everything he's done.
And it was cool.
I was very fortunate.
I, I actually, I don't know if, and youmight know this already, so two days ago
I helped deliver 2,600 Brandon Sandersonbooks to West High School to get to every
(28:47):
high school kid at West High School.
To ensure that everybody had, ofcourse, a little bit of summer reading,
but because we also acknowledged thatWest High School in, in Utah and Salt
Lake, it has a, a large populationof students that probably couldn't
afford to go out and just buy books.
And we wanted to ensure thateverybody had the opportunity to,
(29:09):
to have a, a high quality book thatthey could then take and read and
hopefully ignite, ignite that passion.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
If you're gonna get into the BrandonSanderson fandom, the first one's free.
Right?
Right.
The little sample.
Right,
exactly.
A little sample.
Little sample.
And then, you know, I can't see it cuzmy desk is in, I've got all my leather
(29:31):
bound Brandon Sanderson books up there.
I actually have, oh, I dowanna share one thing with you.
When I did that honey heist I saidit in the world of spo, right?
Oh, we were a bunch of bears, a bunchof thieves actually who were trying to
steal the honey shard from a moving train.
And it was super fun and we actuallyhad custom dice made for it cuz you play
(29:56):
honey heights with V6 s but then wow.
They are custom, they have mis bornsymbols with bears and bees on them.
That is amazing.
It was so much fun.
And we, as part of the challenge, whenpeople would donate, we would one,
I would have guest stars that werecharacters from Brandon Sanderson books,
(30:16):
but in, you know, animal form, we hadkoan the, the Wind Runner Shama bat you
know, Seth Bebe Villano you know, allsorts of funny things, but we were also
drinking tubes of honey as people weredonating and they, we each had like
(30:37):
40 of those tubes and we all crashedand we were all in pain and miserable.
And I haven't eaten honey since,haven't eaten since last November.
So we're trying to figure out how arewe going to top last year's honey heist.
But, Not actually use honeybecause we're all sick of it.
So, so that's, that's pretty fun.
That's pretty fun.
(30:58):
Yeah, there's so manyawesome things coming off.
We already hinted that we've gotanother project that you and I are
working on for next January, hopefully.
And other things are coming.
So if someone moves into this community,or maybe they've, they've been here for
a while and they're looking to become awriter, they're looking to get into d and
d or where would you recommend the start?
(31:21):
Yeah.
So you, you Google decks?
No.
Well, yeah, I would, I wouldactually recommend that.
But you also.
There are so many writingconferences in Utah.
Almost every weekend, some library,some school, some professional
organization is, is holding a littlemini writing conference or a full
professional writing conference.
So for from the writing side, ifyou just wanna get involved in the
(31:44):
community, just going to one of those.
And those are very, What's coolis, is Utah is both a very, like,
let's, let's have you come join us.
You know, let's, but no pressure.
You don't have to, you don't haveto sign up to be vice president
of the chapter if you show up.
That's, that's only if you you know, textsomebody and ask them if you should be.
That was an anomaly.
(32:04):
That was an anomaly,
A hundred percent.
But there's so many groups.
The League of Utah writers with33 chapters all over the state
means that most likely there'ssomebody within a rock's throw of
you that you can go hang out with.
A lot of 'em meet virtually whenit comes to like d and d pieces.
There are so many gaming storesin Utah that are so, so cool.
(32:27):
They, they embrace, they're so welcoming.
You could go in there, talkwith the, the shop owners.
Almost every single one of 'em hasa d and d night that you can go.
Hang out and meet otherpeople, which is really neat.
And was that one just last night, it was
blessed, right?
Exactly.
And it, or, you know for, fordepending on what your fandom is.
(32:48):
You can't miss with, you have Dragonstill here when you have L t U E, when
you have story makers, you have the leagueholding conferences or if you're younger,
the teen out their bootcamp, you know,for, for those teens or tweens, you know,
coming up in, in the wanting to be inthe community and, and do more things.
So there's, so there's a, there's aplethora of options in Utah to get along.
(33:11):
Did you say have a plethora of pinatas?
Exactly.
That's exactly right.
So many ways that's sofamous that he's infamous.
So, ah, this.
We are she's so much fun to talk to youand get excited about these events, and
I'm planning out like the next year ofall the cool things that I want to do
(33:35):
because when the pandemic hit, a lotof these things went virtual or went
dark for a little bit and that's whenI started my business and my business
really thrived and the pandemic,I started my business one exactly
one month before the pandemic hit.
I got my business license right.
So it was perfect timing for me, butI've been isolated in doing things
(33:57):
from home and I've, I've made friendsall over the world and that's cool.
But it's, it's so exciting to getout and be in person and go to these
awesome opportunities and get involvedagain, and I highly recommend anyone
else within the sound of our voice tobe involved, to volunteer, to network.
(34:19):
So we, we've talked aboutwhat beginners can do.
Yes.
What if someone's ready to take the nextstep in their career, if they want to
become a professional, if they want to getinvolved if they want to start building
their network, what advice do you have for
them?
Absolutely.
And this is where itbecomes incredibly powerful.
I mentioned this in, in my book, mynetworking book that I recently published.
(34:43):
Oh, show
us that book.
Show us
the cover.
You know what?
I don't have it sitting rightnext to me, but I bought a
copy from you and I'm sure it'ssomewhere important right now.
Maybe like under my pillow.
I don't, no worries.
Somewhere.
It's somewhere.
It's called Networking An Honest.
Connection.
Right?
So the, the piece to it, the thing thatI discovered early on, and the way that
(35:06):
I can get all these organizations to dothings the way that I can gain access
to these different groups of courseyou can go to jared Quan.com that will
take you to the, to the books and,and my Twitch stream and other things.
The cool thing here is for thatintermediate person ready to move to
the very next level, and really youdon't have to wait to, to intermediate
to start some of this practice.
(35:26):
But it's time to start small questing.
You know, everybody knows ifanybody's played any sort of R P
G or of course a d and d there.
There's those little earlyquests that help you level early
on it's, Hey, my dog's lost.
Can you go find it in the woods?
Hey, you know, there's abear attacking the village.
Can you go find it and, and deal withit, you know, in whatever way that is.
(35:51):
So, you know, it's.
It's one of those things where there'sa networking version of that and
that's where you start to set yourselfout to just go have conversations
with everybody you possibly can.
And when you do, you start usingthis wonderful weapon of curiosity.
It's what I call the skeleton key of,of networking, because there was a study
(36:15):
that was put out there that says, Nowpeople are terrified of talking in public.
People are terrified of talkingto strangers, but if they're
gonna talk to people, they're60% more likely to talk to you.
If they're talking about themselves now,I don't want you to go up to somebody
and start talking about yourself.
They're definitely gonna lose interest.
(36:35):
It's just one of those things thatthey don't have any reason to listen.
There's no investment yet.
But what's cool is when you go up and youask somebody, you know, just a, a curious
question and it doesn't need to be.
A specific, what can you do for me?
There doesn't need to be anoutcome from this piece because
it's an early, early quest.
Hey, you know tell me about yourself.
You know, what kind of books do you read?
(36:56):
Hey, what, where do you go?
Like, where did you grow up?
Like what, help me understand, like,what was it like, because everybody has
such a unique point of view that you'llfind after three or four questions deep.
And I do recommend just keep askingquestions based on their previous answer.
Just start, just startdigging these things out.
You'll find that there's a point wherethe two of you have something in common
(37:21):
and you might have had something incommon on the first or second, but
go all the way to like the fourthor fifth question, and then that's
when you're like, that is so cool.
I don't know if you knew, but Iwent to that high school also.
I know it was two years different,but, and then you could start
reminiscing and then suddenlyyou have a genuine connection.
And then that causes them towant to be curious about you.
(37:44):
Now, this is all the early question.
You just, you've saved the village ahundred times from the bears or dogs
or raiders or whatever, which is great.
It's the grind, right?
It's mm-hmm.
I hate to say, I hate to call it grinding.
Grinding is synonymous with gameslike World of Warcraft, where
you just spent like a hundredyears trying to go get Matt's.
And things like that.
(38:04):
Yeah.
And in d and d I discourage, grinding.
I don't use the XP system,I do milestones system,
you know?
Right, right.
So I don't want it to make it soundlike you have to go out there and give
yourself, I need a hundred thousandhours of talking with other people.
I don't want
to, I need to collect the heartsof 100 new people at the time.
Right, right.
It's, you know, it's, but whatit is, is, is it's building, it's
(38:28):
starting to build that initial bridge.
Because what will happen is afteryou talk with enough people, You'll
notice that people have, you know,they'll, they'll express like a,
a need or a want at some point.
I really wish I could do this.
I really want to do that.
And then you'll talk to somebodyelse who has the answer to that.
(38:48):
And you'll say, Hey, haveyou two met each other?
Now, that's what Dax doesfor, for people, right?
I, I do like you taught me that.
And now that is like so much funfor me to do at conferences because
it's scary for me to go up and talkabout myself or ask people questions.
But it's so much fun and so rewardingand there's so, and there's not
too much pressure on me when I'mlike, Hey, have you met so-and-so?
(39:11):
And then I make those connectionsand they get excited and I
help get, get it started.
I learned that from you, Jared.
I learned that from
you.
Oh man.
That, that means a lot thatyou, that you say that.
Because it, that's such a superpowerbecause those two people will help
each other out and they'll level upand they'll accomplish great things.
But what's really cool, Because youdidn't ask for anything, and you
(39:34):
shouldn't just say, Hey, I'll connectyou to you if you pay me a fee of
you owe me, you know, or whatever.
Right?
There shouldn't, thereshouldn't be a toll on it.
It should be one of those things whereyou make it organic, but what happens
naturally because we, humans, it'sweird to think about this is in a, in
a day and age where sometimes it's hardto think of humans as good people by
(39:56):
default, but really when you introduceindividuals, they help each other out.
There's a genuine.
Level of gratitude that they'rewilling to go do anything for you.
They will go fight war for you.
They will go join your parties,they'll go be a treasurer.
They'll, they'll go do things that,that they would never normally naturally
(40:16):
do themselves because they understandboth what was given to them, but
also they see a, a better version ofthemselves cuz they've leveled from that.
That interaction and suddenly they'reready to take on the party and ready to
go out and, and venture into the world.
So it's, it's those kinds of littlepieces that suddenly, before you
(40:36):
know it, you know, one day I, I, Iwake up and people are like, man,
you're just involved with everybody.
It is, it's kind of like all thekingdoms are like, whatever you
need, Jared, let's go do this thing.
I'm like, cool.
I could call in all thekingdoms, go to go do something.
All the organizations, I'mlike, let's go do this.
And, and we've done that a coupleof times where I'm like, Hey,
(40:57):
we all, here's a focused goal.
And all the organizations are like,without hesitation, yes, this just
needs to be happened, and it'sa decree and announcements and
everybody, and whatever resources wecan, they're, they're ready to go.
And that's the kind of power thatthat little questing does for you.
That's what people, the, the videogames really don't translate very well.
(41:21):
How amazing it would be if after allenough of those little side quests that
you need to go fight some army and allthe people you helped show up, right?
Mm-hmm.
So if you skipped all the sidequests, they're not there for you.
Because you didn't stop to help them.
This is what, this is the, they're,everybody will show up to help you
if you help them in the opening.
(41:41):
That's the Avengers endgame moment.
Yes.
That's the one.
All the portals open and all yourfriends, everyone in your network,
everyone you've built a genuineconnection with, they come to your
battle cry and Oh, I love those feelings.
And we had, we had that.
We had that at Dead Warsand it was so much fun.
Yes, we did.
I, I'm looking forward toQuills Conference this year.
(42:03):
I am going to be teaching at Quillsand ah, there's gonna be, ah, so many
fun things that we're going to doand I'm so glad that I've learned so
much from you in the last few years.
And seriously, I couldn't be where I'mat as a professional DM if it wasn't
for the things that I learned servingwith you, serving the league, and
just being involved in the community.
(42:24):
So, Jared, thank you.
You made this possible.
You're awesome.
I, I don't know what to say.
Thank, thank you foreverything that you've done.
I think what's the coolest thing is you,you saw those things, but you took it
to the next level, way above anythingI could have ever done or imagined.
(42:46):
That's a, a whole different discussionis how to convince people that they're
ready to take on the boss, right?
Because in a video game,you can die and come back.
But in real life, when you go to slay abig project, if you don't feel like you're
ready and you fail, then your, your fearis that you never get another shot at it.
It's convincing people that they're ready.
(43:07):
That's a whole differentconversation for us to have.
How to convince people to, to take onthe boss and have their back doing it.
But you know, I really appreciateeverything that you've done.
I mean, you've done someremarkable things in the community.
I'm really excited about what's.
It's gonna happen next for you and thed and d community in Utah and the world.
Cuz I know that your presence isn'tjust Utah, which is really cool.
(43:29):
It's, it's a powerful thing to,to band together for, for the
support of the community to helppeople cuz everybody deserves it.
Thank you so much, Jared.
Again, if you want more Jared inyour life, check out jared Quan.com.
It has the links to all thethings that he's done, all the
(43:50):
books that he's written, allthe events that he is a part of.
And if you're ever at one of these eventsand you see Jared k Quan in his suit
and sometimes his hat, or if you see me.
Come up, introduce yourselves,because we are actually introverts
with extrovert skill sets.
So we love it when people come up.
We love it when peopleintroduce themselves, and we
will introduce you to others.
(44:10):
We will help you find where you canhelp, we can help you find where you
belong and help you get into this.
So, I, I hope the next conference wego to, we, we make a lot of new friends
and makes new, genuine connections.
Thank you again, Jared.
Do you have any final
words?
Yeah, absolutely.
(44:30):
I, I second what Daksaid, come up, talk to us.
You know, don't be intimidated.
I mean, you probably aren't, you're
probably we're scary looking.
Like that's the thing we'reyou look like a mob boss.
Especially when you have yourhat and I'm just bald in a beard,
like I'm every Marvel villain.
And so I look scary, butwe're really nice people,
right?
But, but we get it, you know?
(44:51):
We ourselves have been inyour shoes where we didn't.
We may have not known anybody, or we mayhave known some people or, and we may have
been to an event a hundred times and beena little bit hesitant to talk to people.
We are more than happy to talk to you.
We are more than happy to help andassist where it makes sense, where we
can and introduce you to other people.
So absolutely take theopportunity to come meet us.
(45:15):
We wanna meet you genuinely,like we really wanna know who you
are and how we can help you out.
And we'll see you at the next big event.
Everybody have a good one.
Every time I am at aconvention or a conference.
Jared Quan is there, and if you'veever been to a nerdy convention
or a writing conference here inUtah, chances are Jared's fingers
have been involved and he has beenpulling strings behind the scenes.
He is a master of networking and everytime I talk to him, it is such a joy.
(01:00):
Jared, thank you so muchfor coming in today.
Thank you so much.
I've always enjoyed workingwith you over the years.
It's, it's been exciting to seewhat's, what's happened as well.
So, who are you, Jared?
What is your story?
Boy, that is such a great question.
Well, you know born in thedark mists, I come out, you
know, with my thieves clothes.
(01:20):
No.
So for me, it's kind of funbeing an an event organizer doing
stuff from behind the scenes.
And this is one of the things I loveto live by is my, is my truth, right?
If people don't know anythingwent wrong, then you I did it.
Right?
Right.
Because I guarantee something has gonewrong and sometimes catastrophically
(01:42):
at all of these different events andvenues and if we can make it so people
are like, I didn't notice anything.
Everything was awesome.
I'm like, Yes.
Did
it, that is a successful slide ofhand role in which you have expertise.
Absolutely.
So I first met you when I moved toUtah about six years ago and became
(02:04):
involved with the League of Utah Writers.
And at the time you were, youwere the president, correct?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And you were tremendous.
What about the league?
You yeah.
The, so the League of UtahWriters turns 88 this year,
which is crazy to think about.
Established back in 1935, and everyyear it's had a conference every year.
(02:25):
It's had its writing, conference,conference, and it's contests and it's
got 33 chapters all over the state ofUtah to help people develop their writing.
So it's, it's like a trueFighters guild, right?
Like it, it helps train everybodyup wherever you're at, whatever your
skill level to get you ready forthe battle with the, the publishing
industry or indie publishing, dependingon what, what kind of quests you
(02:48):
really want to take on out there.
Very cool.
Very cool.
And there's been a huge amount of growthin the last 10 years with the League of
Utah Writers, and it's transformed a lot.
What's changed?
Why, why are more peoplejoining than ever before?
I think the League of Utahwriters was the worst kept secret.
(03:08):
Like it was one of those things where ithad always existed, it had always been
there, but people didn't know about it togo join it and, and become a part of it.
And what's been great is over thelast 10 years, it's established.
These tremendous partnerships withgroups like L t E or Storymakers or, or
Fanex, you know, to get out there and,and participate more in the community
(03:30):
as well as developed its role furtherby reestablishing things like Utah
Authors Day with the Utah State Governor.
So it's, it's started to play a largerrole in the state and worked so many
so well with other organizations.
Okay.
How did you get involved andwhat was your rise to power?
Yeah, this is a great story.
(03:51):
It's probably my favorite story.
So when I, I had gone to fan and thisguy had told me, Hey, you need to
check out the League of Utah Writers.
And I was like, okay.
I had never heard of him before,so I looked up online, joined the
chapter, so I go to my first meeting,I'm sitting in the back of the room
just like everybody else would.
This is my first meeting.
And I know it's weird to think ofme as like a super introvert, shy
(04:14):
person, especially if you know me now.
People are like, what?
Yeah, I was just in the back of the room.
You and me both.
Right?
So we're, we're, I'm, I'm backthere and the, the president
stands up in front of the chapter.
Well, she was the vice president.
She's like, Hey, the president hadto step down due to health issues.
I need to take over, butI need a vice president.
To help with the chapter, and Ilooked around the room and said,
(04:37):
well, good luck to whoever that is.
That's gonna be tremendous.
And, and about halfway into themeeting, it just kept kind of tugging
at the back of my mind like, Hey, youknow, this might be a, a, a tremendous
opportunity to step outside my comfortzone and give back to the community.
It's something that I've been desiring buthadn't figured out great paths to do so.
(05:00):
So I texted my wife and said, Hey,I just joined the Utah or the west
Jordan Arts Council as the secondassistant to the literary literary
chair, which is the person who sitsin the back of the room and nods their
heads and sets up chairs for events.
But I'm like, yeah, Ijoined that organization.
We've got five kids, right?
Three of 'em are autistic,one's got medical issues.
(05:21):
I, I definitely don't have time to be up.
Chapter Vice president, right?
And she texts me like immediatelyright back and says, this is
exactly what we talked about.
I'm like, oh, that's not, no, that'snot what I wanted for you to say.
But I'm like, okay, fine.
I, I'll, I'll step up.
So I emailed the, the chapter president.
(05:43):
I just said, Hey, if nobody else,you know, volunteers for the vice
presidency, I would love to be considered.
And I attached my LinkedIn link in there.
And when the meeting ends, I rememberthis her name was Eliza Crosby.
She stood up and ran across the room.
She's like, you're our new vice president.
And I'm like, you don'teven know who I am.
(06:04):
Like, this is literally my first meeting.
The only reason she knows what I look likeis because I had attached my LinkedIn.
A profile which has,you know, my face on it.
I'm like, oops, I did notmean for that to happen.
A fatal mistake.
Seriously.
Right.
So, so I said, you know, like otherpeople had to have like offered
(06:24):
to volunteer and they said, yeah,if nobody else stepped up, but.
Nobody sent a resume.
And I'm like, oh, shoot, LinkedIndouble burned me on that one.
No
LinkedIn.
Right?
And so that was my intro into theLeague of Utah Writers was on my
very first meeting, volunteeringto be the vice president of the
chapter of, of the, the Ochre chapterof the League of Utah Writers.
(06:48):
But that's where that onlyin that position could I
have done what happened next.
And that's where I discoveredthat the Arts Council.
Wanted to put on a big event butdidn't have a lot of volunteers and
they had funding and the League ofUtah Writers Chapter didn't have any
funding, but had a ton of volunteersand wanted to put on an event.
(07:08):
And I'm like, Hey, do youknow each other exist?
They met in the same building,by the way, and they did not.
They did not know each other existedor that they had the same exact goal.
And I was able to, to connect themand we put on the, the, the the
spring into books, which was atremendous event in West Jordan.
And that, that gave me the rise, therecognition to where the rest of the
(07:30):
league's like, Hey, who is this guy?
I think maybe we should havehim do more things like this.
Okay.
And then how long was itbefore you became president
of the league?
Yeah, it was like six months.
So of course, of course.
So and, and that's another great story.
So I, I put on spring in thebooks, it was very successful.
(07:52):
Everybody's excited.
I attend, I volunteer forall these other events.
I go to L t e, I go toStorymakers, just to volunteer.
And I get an email from thepresident of the League of Utah
Writers that says, you've been sodynamic and active in the community,
you've successfully put on events.
She said, Hey would you consider,you know, being president of the
(08:14):
League of Utah Writers, it, itmeans a lot, meant a lot to her.
There's a mand er, tremendousauthor and and leader.
And on that email, I rememberreading it like two or three
times and I was like, shocked.
I'm like, whoa.
I'm like, so brand new to the league.
So I typed out this fancy emailthat says, Hey, no thanks.
I'm really busy.
I'm a chapter vice president.
(08:35):
I've got five kids, all the same excuses.
I texted my wife, I just added onemore thing, and like a good writer.
I knew I needed it to beedited before I sent it.
So I asked my wife, I'm like,Hey, can you just look over this?
Before I send this, thatburned you the first
time?
It did.
And I didn't learn.
I did not learn.
(08:55):
Right.
So she sat down to edit and I wentto go get a drink and I came back
and she goes, yeah, I, I updateda few things and, and sent it off.
And So she sent it for you?
She did.
And, and I'm like, Okay, well, let me see.
As, as any author, letme see what was changed.
So I open it up and it's a, yes,I would love to absolutely be the
(09:15):
president of the League of Utah Writers.
What?
I'm like, I'm like, wait sneak attack.
Seriously.
Seriously.
So if anything, my, my wife's thesecret Mastermind behind my rise to,
to, to power, if you will to, to gettingbehind all these different things.
But that also gave me anextra level of courage, right?
(09:38):
I knew she had my back.
I knew that she really wanted,she was passionate about me being
successful in these different areas.
So as I jumped into the League of UtahWriter's Leadership, I'm like, okay.
I was so extra confident and less nervous.
Because I knew, if anything, at least atthe end of the day, my wife will love me.
(09:58):
And the events that I sawyou put on were fantastic.
I, I went to Quills conference whenI first moved to Utah and I guess it
was just the League of Utah WritersConference back then before the rebrand
when it became Quills Conference.
Yep.
But yeah, I loved it.
I learned so much.
I started volunteering.
And cause I write epic fantasy andthat's, that's my big dream, is
(10:19):
to be a published fantasy author.
My, some of my old writing groupfriends made fun of me saying the
whole reason I started the pro DM thingwas to procrastinate editing my book.
They're not wrong.
They're not wrong.
Here I am pro DM now, butI, I loved these events.
They were so much fun.
I got to meet so many greatpeople and eventually I, I
(10:40):
came to you with a proposal.
I said, Hey, Jared.
I'm in an MBA program and I, as partof my senior capstone I would like to,
you know, put in some volunteer hours.
I was thinking it'd be like a ye Like amonth or two of, you know, consulting and,
you know, write up a paper and help out.
And that was my mistake.
(11:00):
Cuz what did you do, Jerry?
Yeah.
What did you do?
So that's one of the, the pieceswhere, I mean, I, I, first of
all, I absolutely accepted it.
I thought that was an amazingthing to have that opportunity.
But one of the, one of the interestingthings is when you're leading an
organization is, especially when it'sall volunteer, is getting the right
crew together, if you will, right?
(11:21):
To getting the right team together.
And sometimes you come across peoplewith such unique and gifted skills.
You have to do everything you canto recruit that individual into
the spot that you know is justgonna make everything better.
So when Dax came along and heis like, yeah, I'd love to do
this, I said, yeah, absolutely.
As a matter of fact, I thinkyou would be perfect over here.
(11:43):
I think you would be perfectto the League of Utah.
Writers serving in a reallyimportant role as well.
Yeah, I was the executive treasurernot for a couple of months, but for
an entire year until I was able totrain someone else to take over for me.
And I, I stepped into that andI wasn't an accountant hadn't
ever run a business before.
(12:04):
I was just an MBA student and I hadto take all the finances for the
league, figure out how to report them,how to keep everything organized.
Deal with all of the you know, accountsreceivable and accounts payable, and
it was a lot of work during that year.
Probably didn't work on mybook too much that year.
(12:26):
But that experience actually gaveme a lot of the skills that I needed
to eventually start my own business.
Two years later, like I don't think Iwould've had the technical know-how of.
How finance works enough to start DungeonMaster Direct had it not been for my
time with the League of Utah writers.
(12:46):
So Jared, even though you got me, eventhough you tricked me into a bigger role
than I expected that was like essentialleveling up experience that I needed.
So thank you, Jane.
I don't know if I've thankedyou enough for that, but Yeah.
Well, and it made this happen.
Every, every, yourcontribution to the league was.
Amazing and it helped us.
(13:07):
Your skillset in there helpedus really take on some really
big, some really big quests.
It really let us go out thereand, and accomplish some
really big, ambitious things.
So it was a very mutual very grateful thatyou were willing to take into that role.
Despite it being a year and, anda little prolonging of the book.
(13:27):
Yeah, it I,
I wasn't ready to do it for a second year.
I'm so glad I was able to train someoneelse to take over it and then, you know,
started having kids and blah, blah, blah.
Pandemic happened, started a businessand, you know, I wish I could be
more involved with the league now.
But I, I've seen you other placessince then, more than just the league.
How, how long were youpresident of the league and.
(13:51):
How are you involved with the league now?
Yeah, great question.
So the, the role of the league leadershipwhen it goes to the president, typically
it's a three year term of service.
You serve one year as a president-elect,kind of apprenticing, and then
you are put into the role ofthe president of the league.
So you're taking on all the, the mainresponsibilities and then you serve
(14:12):
as past president so that you serve asa senior advisor to the team and help
train the, the new president-elect.
When I got to president somethinginteresting happened for the league.
They really enjoyed the stuff that,that I was doing and the organization
as a whole with the, the team we hadassembled our accomplishments were
(14:33):
so well received that they actuallyamended their bylaws to then allow me
to serve a second year as president.
So that was a big deal, youknow in 88 you extended your
presidential
term.
I did.
And, and
it was, it was a dangerousslippery slope to Tyron could.
But I have to say, you, you handledthat with grace and with humility,
(14:56):
and you did such a good job.
Like we did not want to let you go.
And, and it was a lot of fun.
You know, being able toparticipate that way.
And then I served because that thepresident who came right after me got to
serve two terms because of the new rule.
And I served as the pastpresident for two terms.
Currently I serve as, as the outreachchair for the league, as well
as the, the grants chair for theorganization, which is really cool.
(15:19):
But you're right, during this time, andthis was kind of interesting, so my second
year as president, we had accomplishedso much that it had really gathered the.
It, it got the attention of, ofthe rest of Utah's organizations
in, in the literary field.
Everybody wanted to know what the secretsauce was to the League of Utah writers.
(15:40):
So I was then invited to be on theboard for the Storymakers conference.
At that time, it wasthe l d s Storymakers.
To, to participate on their board,which was really interesting to
see their dynamic and the waythey, they ran and operated things.
At the same time, I was invitedto be on the committee for L T U E
live the Universe and everything,which is a tremendous conference.
(16:02):
Mm-hmm.
And next year is the 42nd l t e.
So, you know, that's going to be big.
That's the one.
Matter of fact, listen LTU e is important.
You should go every year, butif you're, if you only get one
shot to go, 42 is always the one.
Because of course it's, it's basedon Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy, and 42 is the answer.
(16:23):
So we don't know.
Maybe at that conference everybody willbe picked up by aliens and the earth
will be destroyed, and that is the onlyplace you could, you could hitchhike off.
We don't know, but
Douglas Adams tried to warnus years and years ago.
Exactly.
We just didn't read the message.
Deep, deep thought didn't quite giveus all the information we needed.
But when, when that happened, Ialso was very fortunate because I,
(16:46):
I was able to join TEDx Salt LakeCity and their organization, which
is not a literary organization.
So it was one of those where theysaw what I was doing and anybody
who's watched a TED Talk knows howimportant those are and, and what kind
of effort goes behind putting those.
So it was a tremendous honor to.
(17:07):
Go participate on their board atwhere I, I currently serve as well.
And the last one, well, I've servedon many different organizations,
but the last one I'm currentlyinvolved in is the Teen Author
Bootcamp by writers Cubed over there.
The future looks brightfor teens, so we're, we're
excited.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
And so I've seen you at all,all of these conferences.
(17:29):
I was at STORYMAKERS a few weeks ago.
We hung out.
I've seen you at L T E and I feellike every time we sit and talk,
it's like a masterclass and.
How to be awesome likeJared, how to meet people.
And anytime someone comes upto me and they're like, Hey,
I'm new to the community.
I'm a writer.
I write fantasy, or Iwrite sci-fi, or I do this.
And they're like, who should I meet?
(17:49):
I'm like, where's Jared?
Where's Jared?
And I stop everything that I'mdoing and I take them to you.
And I've introduced probably a dozenpeople to you just in the last year alone.
Be like, Hey, have you met Jared?
Welcome to the Jared Quan experience.
He is a networking machine, andyou get people involved and you
get people excited, and you are alegend among the community here.
(18:13):
Thank you for saying thatone, and I'm really excited.
One of the.
The people that Daks introduced to mewere working on putting on an event
either later this year or next year.
That, that has a lot of potentialI'm really excited about.
Well once, once it's ready to be releasedwith details, it will be out there.
But just know, yes.
But there's some greatthings in the works.
Awesome,
awesome.
(18:34):
Yeah.
And you actually came to one of my events.
About a month ago.
Talk, let's talk about DeadWars and your experience because
you weren't involved in this.
I came to you a little bit too late.
We had like, two weeks ago, I'mlike, Hey, Jared, how do I do this?
And you're like, well, let me knownext time because you were super busy,
but you still came as a participant.
Why, what?
Why were you there at Dead Wars?
(18:55):
Well,
first of all, anything that you do, Idefinitely wanna support any chance I get.
And I think, Be your tremendousleadership skills and opportunities.
Somebody to follow.
Absolutely.
But this was a very special event withtheir, an attempt at breaking the World
record at something is not an easy feat.
(19:16):
It's, it's not somethingto be taken lightly.
It is going for the crown jewel.
It is going for, you know, thegoing after the big boss, you know,
to, to tackle something like that.
Presents.
Unforeseeable logistical issues that youdon't know until you're in the heat of it.
And then you're like,how do we deal with this?
(19:37):
We didn't foresee this problem.
So being there to support wasthe, like the bare minimum.
I could a absolutely do.
I wish they could havedone even more, of course.
But what was fun about it, I,I loved because my oldest son
Duncan, he loves d and d as well.
And when I said, Hey, listen.
My good friend Dax is putting this on, andit's an attempt to break the world record.
(19:59):
He's like, what are wegoing, what are we doing?
I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
We're going.
So when we showed up, it was, it wasso well put together and organized from
the get-go, which I really appreciated.
People understood where they, they neededto go, where they need to send to people.
So that level of organization peopledon't understand that is very complicated.
So I knew right from the, fromthe, from the bat that this was
(20:22):
gonna be such a great event.
So the experience was gonna be top notch.
Now you got to come in incognito mode.
You weren't wearing a suit, you weren't,you were wearing a baseball cap and
basketball shorts, and I almost didn'trecognize you without, you know,
your trademark Jared Qu brand suit
you.
You are not the only one.
So what's cool is there are so many reallyneat people that we both work with in the
(20:44):
community that were there to support it.
That we're like, wait, is that Jared?
Like they did, like, they came up andthey're like, I didn't, I, they're like,
I had to walk past you two or three timesto, to just verify that was Jared, right?
Like, that's, so I was, I wasn't in,in that, in that kind of incognito.
And, and part of the reason Idid that, and, and it was very
purposeful, is I really didn't want.
(21:07):
In any way to take away from the event.
I really wanted people to focus onthe event and how cool it was to be
there and participate and I just wantedto be there to support it as well.
So so it was very incognito,but very purposeful incognito
and which was a lot of fun.
It was really exciting to beable to support it in that way.
(21:27):
Okay.
And how did you feel in that event?
What.
What were some of the emotions thatcame to mind as you're battling to
fight Vener with your son and with withover a thousand other great people in
this wonderful team, this wonderfulnetwork of players and fighters and.
(21:50):
Man, it was, it was amazing.
It, it's, I can't put it into wordsbecause the experience itself was, was
so unique and so powerful to have thatsense of community in that moment.
Now, here's a little fun fact.
I tend to always play a thief.
I, I, I'm a thief in, inany d and d game I can get.
(22:13):
And typically I'm a very You know,chaotic, neutral thief and who sometimes
will be out for themselves and sometimeshelps the little guy just cuz they
can't what my character would do.
Right.
Right, exactly.
I'm like, this is what's happening.
But when we got there and I toldmy son, I said, Hey, I'd love
to go there cuz I knew there wasgonna be pre-generated characters.
(22:33):
I let him pick for me.
I said, what, whatcharacters are we gonna be?
So he picks up two sheets.
One is a thief and one is a paladin.
And he's like, which one do you want?
I'm like, no, you, you.
Which one do you want to give me?
He goes, I give you the Palladin.
And I've never played the Palladin.
I mean, I have on like Diablo,but I've never like played the
(22:56):
Palladin in, in d and d at all.
And I, matter of fact,that was the coolest thing.
I I thought so highly of the event.
I actually framed my sheet from the gameand I've got my official Dead Wars card
to sh card to show that I was actually.
Present and there I love my character,my character, trior who's, who's
(23:18):
named after Trior from Final Space.
My character Trior was just,I got into that character.
The group got into the whole thing.
We got into the rally when everybodywas doing the battle cries, and we,
we could hear that the people whowere doing the Calvary and we could
hear the people who were on thewalls and we could hear the people.
Who were, you know, the city guards,we could hear everybody's cheers.
(23:42):
And we knew okay, in that momentit's so much bigger than yourself.
And it just, it was so empoweringboth as a team, as an individual and,
and as the acting went throughoutthe event and everybody was just
stirred and would get so emotional.
And that's what I lovedis then the characters.
They would let thecharacters like express that.
(24:04):
That deep frustration or that deepanger, or they'll be like, oh, you,
you know, you're part of those forces.
This is what I'm doing to you.
We're gonna do this, and they'dbattle cry a certain way.
So the event itself was, was just beyondbelief, and I can't tell you, I'm sure
you've heard this for many people.
I can't tell you how many peoplehave approached me afterwards and
(24:24):
said, how did you hear about it?
I would've been there.
The only, the only problemis the only problem is.
Like we were kind, theevent was kind of maxed out.
Like you, we couldn't fit anotherthousand people in there and mm-hmm.
Easily, more than, more thanthat would love to have attended.
That we
had to close registration like a weekand a half early, and then come up
(24:48):
with a wait list on the morning ofto get people in those extra spots,
and some people had to turn away.
We just ran out of space in themall and we're, I've already been
talking with Andrew on how arewe going to top this next year?
What, what are we gonnado about the venue?
So much fun.
Yeah.
But yeah, I would recommend it to anybody.
It was, it was way cooler than anyindividual campaign I've ever played in.
(25:14):
It was way cooler in experiencefor the whole team than any team
game that I've played together.
When you're a part of the big army,when you're all together for the
same cause, that was super cool.
It is my truest desire that someoneelse out there is going to hear
of our event and beat our record.
(25:39):
Because that'll give us anexcuse to come back even harder
and then crush their record.
There you go.
That's what I want.
It's, it's not enough tojust do this every year.
Like I want there to be that competition.
I want there to be that, youknow, that, that pride of we were
there at the beginning, we'regoing to take back our crown.
(25:59):
So I'm hoping that we have more andmore events like this and we can
really, you know make an impact on.
On the community here, cuz there's sucha huge community in Utah of nerds and
people think Utah and they're like,oh, that's where the Mormons are.
But yes, there are Mormonshere, but they're also nerds.
And there's an overlap too.
(26:20):
Yeah.
Absolutely that, that overlap of,of nerds and geeks and writers.
I think we have morewriters than most states.
Mm-hmm.
When I bring in guests from other places,they're like, how do you have so many.
Authors.
How, how many, how do youhave so many published people?
Like it's, it's in the water.
We have a specialingredient we put in there.
(26:40):
There's,
there's a spring.
There's a spring.
Yeah, we've, there are numerous, likeNew York Times bestselling authors who
live within, you know, 30 minutes of us.
Absolutely.
Now, it would be very interestingif Brandon Sanderson ever took
up that, that battle call.
To break the record, dragonSteel has about 5,000 attendees.
(27:01):
I'm just saying there's a,a real possibility there.
I am talking to Dragon Steel about things.
I'm good friends with Dan Wells, whois the Vice President of Narrative.
Last year I was, I actuallyran a game at Dragon Steel.
We ran a Game of Honey Heist and wewere also raising money for charity.
We were thinking, oh yeah,this maybe we'll get to raise.
(27:22):
$500,000.
We ended up raising $7,000 inthe middle of that game and
Brandon doubled it to 14,000.
And so Wow.
That was super fun.
And I'm already talking to them aboutplanning the next two Dragon steel things.
Can't talk about it just yet, but.
And they were one of the mainsponsors for a Dead Wars.
(27:43):
And Dan Wells was there ontable number one, and I got to
make some guest appearances asVena to terrify his players.
But, you know, they're, they'regreat people to work with.
And people were asking, they'relike, oh, dragon Steels here.
Is Brandon coming?
Is Brandon gonna be here?
And I knew Brandon wasn't coming,but I didn't tell that to people.
I just let them think and let them wonder.
(28:03):
And that's,
you know, that's what you donext time, is you have a little
pre-recorded video from Brandon.
As a, as a side character, you know,to, to play into the, the overall piece.
I thought, oh, whoa, he's into it.
Cause he
really, yeah, we'll, we'll talk to him.
We'll talk to him.
We'll see.
There you go.
He's, he's a busy guy,busy guy, writing books.
(28:25):
Just a little bit to keepwriting books just a little bit.
Great guy, great guy.
Saw him at Storymakersjust a few weeks ago.
Got to shake his hand and you know,thank him for everything he's done.
And it was cool.
I was very fortunate.
I, I actually, I don't know if, and youmight know this already, so two days ago
I helped deliver 2,600 Brandon Sandersonbooks to West High School to get to every
(28:47):
high school kid at West High School.
To ensure that everybody had, ofcourse, a little bit of summer reading,
but because we also acknowledged thatWest High School in, in Utah and Salt
Lake, it has a, a large populationof students that probably couldn't
afford to go out and just buy books.
And we wanted to ensure thateverybody had the opportunity to,
(29:09):
to have a, a high quality book thatthey could then take and read and
hopefully ignite, ignite that passion.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
If you're gonna get into the BrandonSanderson fandom, the first one's free.
Right?
Right.
The little sample.
Right,
exactly.
A little sample.
Little sample.
And then, you know, I can't see it cuzmy desk is in, I've got all my leather
(29:31):
bound Brandon Sanderson books up there.
I actually have, oh, I dowanna share one thing with you.
When I did that honey heist I saidit in the world of spo, right?
Oh, we were a bunch of bears, a bunchof thieves actually who were trying to
steal the honey shard from a moving train.
And it was super fun and we actuallyhad custom dice made for it cuz you play
(29:56):
honey heights with V6 s but then wow.
They are custom, they have mis bornsymbols with bears and bees on them.
That is amazing.
It was so much fun.
And we, as part of the challenge, whenpeople would donate, we would one,
I would have guest stars that werecharacters from Brandon Sanderson books,
(30:16):
but in, you know, animal form, we hadkoan the, the Wind Runner Shama bat you
know, Seth Bebe Villano you know, allsorts of funny things, but we were also
drinking tubes of honey as people weredonating and they, we each had like
(30:37):
40 of those tubes and we all crashedand we were all in pain and miserable.
And I haven't eaten honey since,haven't eaten since last November.
So we're trying to figure out how arewe going to top last year's honey heist.
But, Not actually use honeybecause we're all sick of it.
So, so that's, that's pretty fun.
That's pretty fun.
(30:58):
Yeah, there's so manyawesome things coming off.
We already hinted that we've gotanother project that you and I are
working on for next January, hopefully.
And other things are coming.
So if someone moves into this community,or maybe they've, they've been here for
a while and they're looking to become awriter, they're looking to get into d and
d or where would you recommend the start?
(31:21):
Yeah.
So you, you Google decks?
No.
Well, yeah, I would, I wouldactually recommend that.
But you also.
There are so many writingconferences in Utah.
Almost every weekend, some library,some school, some professional
organization is, is holding a littlemini writing conference or a full
professional writing conference.
So for from the writing side, ifyou just wanna get involved in the
(31:44):
community, just going to one of those.
And those are very, What's coolis, is Utah is both a very, like,
let's, let's have you come join us.
You know, let's, but no pressure.
You don't have to, you don't haveto sign up to be vice president
of the chapter if you show up.
That's, that's only if you you know, textsomebody and ask them if you should be.
That was an anomaly.
(32:04):
That was an anomaly,
A hundred percent.
But there's so many groups.
The League of Utah writers with33 chapters all over the state
means that most likely there'ssomebody within a rock's throw of
you that you can go hang out with.
A lot of 'em meet virtually whenit comes to like d and d pieces.
There are so many gaming storesin Utah that are so, so cool.
(32:27):
They, they embrace, they're so welcoming.
You could go in there, talkwith the, the shop owners.
Almost every single one of 'em hasa d and d night that you can go.
Hang out and meet otherpeople, which is really neat.
And was that one just last night, it was
blessed, right?
Exactly.
And it, or, you know for, fordepending on what your fandom is.
(32:48):
You can't miss with, you have Dragonstill here when you have L t U E, when
you have story makers, you have the leagueholding conferences or if you're younger,
the teen out their bootcamp, you know,for, for those teens or tweens, you know,
coming up in, in the wanting to be inthe community and, and do more things.
So there's, so there's a, there's aplethora of options in Utah to get along.
(33:11):
Did you say have a plethora of pinatas?
Exactly.
That's exactly right.
So many ways that's sofamous that he's infamous.
So, ah, this.
We are she's so much fun to talk to youand get excited about these events, and
I'm planning out like the next year ofall the cool things that I want to do
(33:35):
because when the pandemic hit, a lotof these things went virtual or went
dark for a little bit and that's whenI started my business and my business
really thrived and the pandemic,I started my business one exactly
one month before the pandemic hit.
I got my business license right.
So it was perfect timing for me, butI've been isolated in doing things
(33:57):
from home and I've, I've made friendsall over the world and that's cool.
But it's, it's so exciting to getout and be in person and go to these
awesome opportunities and get involvedagain, and I highly recommend anyone
else within the sound of our voice tobe involved, to volunteer, to network.
(34:19):
So we, we've talked aboutwhat beginners can do.
Yes.
What if someone's ready to take the nextstep in their career, if they want to
become a professional, if they want to getinvolved if they want to start building
their network, what advice do you have for
them?
Absolutely.
And this is where itbecomes incredibly powerful.
I mentioned this in, in my book, mynetworking book that I recently published.
(34:43):
Oh, show
us that book.
Show us
the cover.
You know what?
I don't have it sitting rightnext to me, but I bought a
copy from you and I'm sure it'ssomewhere important right now.
Maybe like under my pillow.
I don't, no worries.
Somewhere.
It's somewhere.
It's called Networking An Honest.
Connection.
Right?
So the, the piece to it, the thing thatI discovered early on, and the way that
(35:06):
I can get all these organizations to dothings the way that I can gain access
to these different groups of courseyou can go to jared Quan.com that will
take you to the, to the books and,and my Twitch stream and other things.
The cool thing here is for thatintermediate person ready to move to
the very next level, and really youdon't have to wait to, to intermediate
to start some of this practice.
(35:26):
But it's time to start small questing.
You know, everybody knows ifanybody's played any sort of R P
G or of course a d and d there.
There's those little earlyquests that help you level early
on it's, Hey, my dog's lost.
Can you go find it in the woods?
Hey, you know, there's abear attacking the village.
Can you go find it and, and deal withit, you know, in whatever way that is.
(35:51):
So, you know, it's.
It's one of those things where there'sa networking version of that and
that's where you start to set yourselfout to just go have conversations
with everybody you possibly can.
And when you do, you start usingthis wonderful weapon of curiosity.
It's what I call the skeleton key of,of networking, because there was a study
(36:15):
that was put out there that says, Nowpeople are terrified of talking in public.
People are terrified of talkingto strangers, but if they're
gonna talk to people, they're60% more likely to talk to you.
If they're talking about themselves now,I don't want you to go up to somebody
and start talking about yourself.
They're definitely gonna lose interest.
(36:35):
It's just one of those things thatthey don't have any reason to listen.
There's no investment yet.
But what's cool is when you go up and youask somebody, you know, just a, a curious
question and it doesn't need to be.
A specific, what can you do for me?
There doesn't need to be anoutcome from this piece because
it's an early, early quest.
Hey, you know tell me about yourself.
You know, what kind of books do you read?
(36:56):
Hey, what, where do you go?
Like, where did you grow up?
Like what, help me understand, like,what was it like, because everybody has
such a unique point of view that you'llfind after three or four questions deep.
And I do recommend just keep askingquestions based on their previous answer.
Just start, just startdigging these things out.
You'll find that there's a point wherethe two of you have something in common
(37:21):
and you might have had something incommon on the first or second, but
go all the way to like the fourthor fifth question, and then that's
when you're like, that is so cool.
I don't know if you knew, but Iwent to that high school also.
I know it was two years different,but, and then you could start
reminiscing and then suddenlyyou have a genuine connection.
And then that causes them towant to be curious about you.
(37:44):
Now, this is all the early question.
You just, you've saved the village ahundred times from the bears or dogs
or raiders or whatever, which is great.
It's the grind, right?
It's mm-hmm.
I hate to say, I hate to call it grinding.
Grinding is synonymous with gameslike World of Warcraft, where
you just spent like a hundredyears trying to go get Matt's.
And things like that.
(38:04):
Yeah.
And in d and d I discourage, grinding.
I don't use the XP system,I do milestones system,
you know?
Right, right.
So I don't want it to make it soundlike you have to go out there and give
yourself, I need a hundred thousandhours of talking with other people.
I don't want
to, I need to collect the heartsof 100 new people at the time.
Right, right.
It's, you know, it's, but whatit is, is, is it's building, it's
(38:28):
starting to build that initial bridge.
Because what will happen is afteryou talk with enough people, You'll
notice that people have, you know,they'll, they'll express like a,
a need or a want at some point.
I really wish I could do this.
I really want to do that.
And then you'll talk to somebodyelse who has the answer to that.
(38:48):
And you'll say, Hey, haveyou two met each other?
Now, that's what Dax doesfor, for people, right?
I, I do like you taught me that.
And now that is like so much funfor me to do at conferences because
it's scary for me to go up and talkabout myself or ask people questions.
But it's so much fun and so rewardingand there's so, and there's not
too much pressure on me when I'mlike, Hey, have you met so-and-so?
(39:11):
And then I make those connectionsand they get excited and I
help get, get it started.
I learned that from you, Jared.
I learned that from
you.
Oh man.
That, that means a lot thatyou, that you say that.
Because it, that's such a superpowerbecause those two people will help
each other out and they'll level upand they'll accomplish great things.
But what's really cool, Because youdidn't ask for anything, and you
(39:34):
shouldn't just say, Hey, I'll connectyou to you if you pay me a fee of
you owe me, you know, or whatever.
Right?
There shouldn't, thereshouldn't be a toll on it.
It should be one of those things whereyou make it organic, but what happens
naturally because we, humans, it'sweird to think about this is in a, in
a day and age where sometimes it's hardto think of humans as good people by
(39:56):
default, but really when you introduceindividuals, they help each other out.
There's a genuine.
Level of gratitude that they'rewilling to go do anything for you.
They will go fight war for you.
They will go join your parties,they'll go be a treasurer.
They'll, they'll go do things that,that they would never normally naturally
(40:16):
do themselves because they understandboth what was given to them, but
also they see a, a better version ofthemselves cuz they've leveled from that.
That interaction and suddenly they'reready to take on the party and ready to
go out and, and venture into the world.
So it's, it's those kinds of littlepieces that suddenly, before you
(40:36):
know it, you know, one day I, I, Iwake up and people are like, man,
you're just involved with everybody.
It is, it's kind of like all thekingdoms are like, whatever you
need, Jared, let's go do this thing.
I'm like, cool.
I could call in all thekingdoms, go to go do something.
All the organizations, I'mlike, let's go do this.
And, and we've done that a coupleof times where I'm like, Hey,
(40:57):
we all, here's a focused goal.
And all the organizations are like,without hesitation, yes, this just
needs to be happened, and it'sa decree and announcements and
everybody, and whatever resources wecan, they're, they're ready to go.
And that's the kind of power thatthat little questing does for you.
That's what people, the, the videogames really don't translate very well.
(41:21):
How amazing it would be if after allenough of those little side quests that
you need to go fight some army and allthe people you helped show up, right?
Mm-hmm.
So if you skipped all the sidequests, they're not there for you.
Because you didn't stop to help them.
This is what, this is the, they're,everybody will show up to help you
if you help them in the opening.
(41:41):
That's the Avengers endgame moment.
Yes.
That's the one.
All the portals open and all yourfriends, everyone in your network,
everyone you've built a genuineconnection with, they come to your
battle cry and Oh, I love those feelings.
And we had, we had that.
We had that at Dead Warsand it was so much fun.
Yes, we did.
I, I'm looking forward toQuills Conference this year.
(42:03):
I am going to be teaching at Quillsand ah, there's gonna be, ah, so many
fun things that we're going to doand I'm so glad that I've learned so
much from you in the last few years.
And seriously, I couldn't be where I'mat as a professional DM if it wasn't
for the things that I learned servingwith you, serving the league, and
just being involved in the community.
(42:24):
So, Jared, thank you.
You made this possible.
You're awesome.
I, I don't know what to say.
Thank, thank you foreverything that you've done.
I think what's the coolest thing is you,you saw those things, but you took it
to the next level, way above anythingI could have ever done or imagined.
(42:46):
That's a, a whole different discussionis how to convince people that they're
ready to take on the boss, right?
Because in a video game,you can die and come back.
But in real life, when you go to slay abig project, if you don't feel like you're
ready and you fail, then your, your fearis that you never get another shot at it.
It's convincing people that they're ready.
(43:07):
That's a whole differentconversation for us to have.
How to convince people to, to take onthe boss and have their back doing it.
But you know, I really appreciateeverything that you've done.
I mean, you've done someremarkable things in the community.
I'm really excited about what's.
It's gonna happen next for you and thed and d community in Utah and the world.
Cuz I know that your presence isn'tjust Utah, which is really cool.
(43:29):
It's, it's a powerful thing to,to band together for, for the
support of the community to helppeople cuz everybody deserves it.
Thank you so much, Jared.
Again, if you want more Jared inyour life, check out jared Quan.com.
It has the links to all thethings that he's done, all the
(43:50):
books that he's written, allthe events that he is a part of.
And if you're ever at one of these eventsand you see Jared k Quan in his suit
and sometimes his hat, or if you see me.
Come up, introduce yourselves,because we are actually introverts
with extrovert skill sets.
So we love it when people come up.
We love it when peopleintroduce themselves, and we
will introduce you to others.
(44:10):
We will help you find where you canhelp, we can help you find where you
belong and help you get into this.
So, I, I hope the next conference wego to, we, we make a lot of new friends
and makes new, genuine connections.
Thank you again, Jared.
Do you have any final
words?
Yeah, absolutely.
(44:30):
I, I second what Daksaid, come up, talk to us.
You know, don't be intimidated.
I mean, you probably aren't, you're
probably we're scary looking.
Like that's the thing we'reyou look like a mob boss.
Especially when you have yourhat and I'm just bald in a beard,
like I'm every Marvel villain.
And so I look scary, butwe're really nice people,
right?
But, but we get it, you know?
(44:51):
We ourselves have been inyour shoes where we didn't.
We may have not known anybody, or we mayhave known some people or, and we may have
been to an event a hundred times and beena little bit hesitant to talk to people.
We are more than happy to talk to you.
We are more than happy to help andassist where it makes sense, where we
can and introduce you to other people.
So absolutely take theopportunity to come meet us.
(45:15):
We wanna meet you genuinely,like we really wanna know who you
are and how we can help you out.
And we'll see you at the next big event.
Everybody have a good one.
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