S1, E42: Epic Dental - Donald and Monica Bailey

What if you could solve dental anxiety and improve oral health with a simple ingredient? Join us as Donald and Monica Bailey, founders of Epic Dental, reveal their incredible journey from dealing with childhood cavities to discovering the power of xylitol. Donald shares his personal experiences and how they sparked the creation of innovative dental solutions. Beyond the business, we get an inside look at their life in Utah, balancing business growth, family life, and a popular TikTok account that tackles marriage, family, and mental health.

Discover the transformative impact of bringing a family member into a business and leveraging their unique skills. Hear how Monica’s natural talents and perspectives were the catalyst for overcoming challenges and driving success. We'll explore the importance of recognizing untapped potential within your immediate circle and the delicate balance required for couples to work effectively together, enhancing both their business outcomes and personal fulfillment.

Navigating parenthood while growing a business is no easy task. The Baileys share their journey of building a new home, managing a company, and expanding their family, emphasizing self-reflection and addressing attachment styles. From practical dental tips to their favorite dining spots in Salt Lake City, and the unexpected benefits of creating content on TikTok, this episode is packed with personal anecdotes, professional insights, and valuable advice. Tune in for an inspiring discussion with the Baileys as they offer a treasure trove of wisdom on nurturing both a successful business and a fulfilling family life.

Please be sure to like, review, follow, subscribe and share the podcast with your friends and family! See you next time 

https://smalllakecity.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

What is up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City Podcast. I'm your host, eric Nilsen, and this week we have Monica and Donald Bailey. Now Donald, and then eventually joined by Monica, started and run a business called Epic Dental which develops products with the ingredient xylitol to help people with oral health, especially people who feel like they're trying everything from brushing, flossing, mouthwash and still getting bad news when they go to the dentist. Now, outside of that, we also cover a lot of things from their TikTok accounts, offering marriage and family solutions and mental health advice, but we also talk about the food scene in Utah, their life and how it's all changed and especially how they do so much of their life together, from raising a family, running a home, running a business, running a TikTok and everything in between. So yeah, great people, very down to earth, a fun convo and a lot of really interesting tidbits there. So definitely an episode that you guys are going to enjoy, so enjoy.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Do you have siblings?

Speaker 1: 1:18

Yeah, so I have two sisters who are both older than me and then three stepsisters and a stepbrother. Um, but I'm the baby, so I always got the benefit of everything, quite literally awesome. Yeah, it is like I'm sick of people giving me shit for being like the baby. Getting all the benefits, like it's honestly just comes from a place of jealousy, most of the time like I'm sorry, you got most of the trauma and I got most of the benefit. Um, but yeah, it was always. It was always interesting, especially it's like parents split when I was 10. And so, but I was still the spoiled youngest child and everybody admits it.

Speaker 2: 1:50

But well, oftentimes the youngest. The youngest is spoiled when the parents split, even more right Because they're both competing. For how can I do a better job at making them love me?

Speaker 1: 2:00

Oh yeah, it's like all right. So it's like the ultimate reality show competition of who can love the youngest child the most. Mom and dad be like oh, that's what you got me for Christmas Sucks, you had to go for it. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. So it's always fun.

Speaker 1: 2:14

I think one of the funniest things about Utah is and I think this is kind of one of the things that first went through my head when I first I mean had McKenzie reach out to me was I saw Epic Dental. And it's funny with Utah because Utah is a dental city and state. Like I have actually three friends who are all Dr Bowen, that are dentists oh, interesting, it's a father-son duo, but the other one's not. And I mean so many friends that go away to dentistry come back, whether that's right away or not. I mean I've learned so much about dentistry and tooth care. My mom always taught me to trust everything the dentist says and I've learned that is not the case with most people. Most people it's a very fear-based experience and not a lot of trust.

Speaker 1: 2:58

So, yeah, big, big tooth guy, and I know that I'm like very derivative of everything that you both have accomplished, but I'm excited to hear more about the story and get to know you both better. But yeah, I mean kind of want to start, I mean from the top. I mean I mean, donald, I know that the story really starts with you and kind of everything that you started. But I know you said you were born here and then went away for a bit. But I love a little bit more of kind of like the context that was set in your childhood to get the story started. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 3:23

So I grew up as a kid with cavities Right, had them all the time and you know, back when I got it, you got the amalgam filling, so you had silver all up in your mouth and it looked horrible and it was bad and I hated the experience. One of the dentists that I went and saw he had hands that much better suited a uh, probably a cowboy than anything else. They were not small hands, they were not the ones you wanted in your mouth, right, and so I had all those rough experiences growing up. And when I came across Xylitol which is really what drives our product, what's what makes our product effective I was like, oh, this is really cool, Maybe this can really help me. And I got really excited about it.

Speaker 2: 4:05

It was a friend's father who had started a company and he put it in a nasal spray and squirting it up his nose. He's like it's great to wash your nose, It'll help reduce upper respiratory infections and I was like he needed help launching that business. His dad had developed his nasal spray and so I helped him write a business plan and I didn't really think twice about it. I got some ownership in the company in exchange for the business plan and moved out to San Francisco to pursue a job doing strategy consulting and I did that for a couple of years living in San Francisco, but San Francisco wasn't a great place to date and find a uh, a girl that shared the same values as I had. And so I came back to Provo thinking, hey, I can find what I'm looking for here and uh. And when I came back, I'd been admitted to BYU's MBA program. I was like I'll sit in on a couple of classes this summer and see what it's like, and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm learning nothing.

Speaker 3: 4:54

This is so basic, I know.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Don't get me started about MBA programs. I'm very contrary. Yeah, oh, I've worked with a lot of people who have worked at a lot or gone to a lot of very prominent schools and there's not a big correlation between it all. Granted, if you don't know anything about business, you want to change your career? You want to gain a network? There's a million reasons to do it, but it's it's the worst move.

Speaker 3: 5:15

Like you can. You can dive into a business and learn so much faster that way. You never need a master's degree and as business owners that are hiring, we don't care. We don't care if you have a master's degree.

Speaker 1: 5:25

It doesn't matter, you don't care if you have a degree period Like can you show up and anything else at youtube university, right, like it's funny, because, like people always be like, oh, did you always know, like, how to edit video, how to edit audio, audio engineering I'm like not a chance. But yeah, I mean like that's kind of one of the skills that I always look for in a lot of people is when was the last time you had to learn something, put into practice and show competence in it? And I mean that's easier than I mean, because a lot of the uh, traditional way that people have gone about it has been oh, I want to learn about psychology, I'm going to go get a master's in psychology or whatever that might be. And that's funny that you sat in these classes. You're like, well, you know a little bit now, but, um, but I also know that you like so part of your childhood, you mean you were here, you moved to Maryland, you moved to Florida. What made you move around so much in your youth?

Speaker 2: 6:21

So my parents, really you know when you're, when you're a kid, you don't get to really choose where you're headed. You're just, you're part of the family and where the family goes, you go. So when inflation was really bad in the early eighties, my father had owned a construction company and it really just went belly up. It just was not a good opportunity and the opportunity he found took him to Maryland. So we went as a family and that's where I did my early elementary school years and I had a lot of fun experiencing something different. The East Coast is a very different vibe than the West Coast and it was neat.

Speaker 2: 6:54

When I was was 10 we moved down to florida and I. There's a lot to love about florida, but I didn't love my time in florida. It's uh, it's a hot, humid place and not really the vibe that I wanted. Um. So when I graduated I was ready to come out and go to byu, loved my byu experience. It was great. Um went to brazil for a couple years, served a mission. After I was done with that I finished up at BYU and when I finished up, pretty quickly got got out to San Francisco yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:24

So that's where, like strategy consulting comes in. Like, yep, so I also did. I've done strategy consulting and like I mean sell side M&A and impact investing, and so it's so funny because I mean going back to it. You can go listen to a professor who's done it 20 years ago talk about it. I mean bumps, shoulders with classmates, or you can just go do it and, like I've always been a believer in, if you want an MBA, just go do one of the corporate soul sucking jobs and it's going to suck but you're going to learn a lot really quickly and so it's funny. You're like, oh, I think I need to go back to school and get my MBA. And you get there. Like I did three projects on this last year alone. I could teach the class almost.

Speaker 2: 8:00

Yeah, I knew I didn't need an MBA. I was just doing it because I need an excuse to feel productive while I looked for a significant other. Right there you go. And since multitasking.

Speaker 2: 8:11

Yeah, I was multitasking, yeah, I was multitasking really. But after sitting in on a couple of classes I was like, oh, this is so not for me. So my friend who I had helped write a business plan, his business had taken off, somebody had seen his product at a trade show and when he wrote about it a bunch of his followers were like, and this is back in the day when there weren't influencers, right, this guy had an email list and a physical newsletter that he would mail to people's house of like a half million subscribers, so he would mail them out this stuff and he mailed about the product and that business took off. And so that guy that that friend of mine needed help. And so I was like, yeah, sure, I'll come work with you, I'm not sure we're going to get along right, we've had our own struggles here.

Speaker 1: 8:50

It's good to set the expectation. I'll be like listen, I like this product. We'll figure it out.

Speaker 2: 8:56

Yeah, that's what we did, and about six months in it was pretty apparent that it wasn't going to work having the two of us together, and so while I was there, I had developed a line of dental care products so Xylitol that he was putting in the nasal spray. He'd imported some gum from Finland and was like, oh, this could be good for your teeth. And he had some mints and I was like what we really need is a way to figure out how to make xylitol effective for people. So I developed a full system using gum, mints, toothpaste and mouthwash to optimize dosage amounts of xylitol so people could get the real benefits.

Speaker 2: 9:26

And I took a couple hundred thousand dollars I'd saved up I think it's about 180 at the time and I was like I can do something with this. I get off the ground. I pulled in a couple investors to build it up and we went into the hole for about a half million dollars before we started to finally turn the place where we built some profits, made some sales come and I grew that business so that it was a great business. I met my wife. It took me 10 years, by the way, from returning to Utah to meet this beautiful woman that's here with us.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Hey, it takes time to do it right, it really did right.

Speaker 2: 9:56

I dated lots and lots and Utah has a great dating culture for somebody that was looking for what I was looking for, but it was tough to find the one and that had a lot to do with my own issues in my own head. Right, I had what we call an avoidant attachment style. We can go into a lot of things like that style. We can go into a lot of things like that.

Speaker 1: 10:13

You can go on a two-hour detour, right.

Speaker 2: 10:22

Yeah, I didn't solve that even I. Just I knew I couldn't let this one go. She was way too much of a catch, and so I overcame some amount of my avoidance to really make that relationship happen and I'm so glad I did. And it was about how far into the marriage maybe five years into the marriage I was frustrated with the lack of progress I'd made at work. I really wanted to see more things happening. They weren't happening. I grabbed a book that somebody recommended called Traction, and Traction was about how there are different kinds of business people one that you'll often call a visionary, and a visionary can see the future and have a lot of great ideas, but they, they are often really bad at making things happen.

Speaker 1: 11:30

That's me I can think about things, I can strategize, I can brainstorm.

Speaker 3: 11:33

A thousand great ideas.

Speaker 1: 11:35

But then it comes and it's mostly to do with I've learned with, like, my ADHD, and then um and then like, but it always never made sense to me, cause I was like I can, I understand how everything works and puts together and I can conceptualize it all, and then it's just like putting all the pieces together, the implementation is hard.

Speaker 2: 11:51

Yeah, so that's my ADHD at work too, right, and I'm frustrated because life's good, we're making a few hundred thousand dollars a year, like it's not. It's not this bad thing, but it's not at all the life that I had imagined. Right, like it's funny, if we're going to talk local Utah stuff. So one of my first employees was Ryan Smith's little brother, brian Smith of the Utah Jazz now and Qualtrics, and he took me over to meet his family when Ryan was still working in his basement Right, and it was literally down in the basement of his dad's house. And it was great the ideas he had from a marketing perspective.

Speaker 2: 12:23

And I look at what he was able to produce and what I had produced over the same timeframe and I just kind of had to hang my head a little bit and be like this is not working. And so I said to my wife I read this book and it says I really need to partner with somebody that can help me with the execution and the implementation. And when I read about this, like this screams you, like this is exactly who you are, the person that describes I need to find. Is you Any chance you could come at least consult with us for a little bit and help me figure this out. And I brought her into the business and it has been game changing ever since.

Speaker 1: 12:55

I love that there was the five-year interview process. Like all right now, I'm confident we can make this happen.

Speaker 3: 13:02

Well, because with your business, I mean, it's like it's like trusting someone with your baby Cause it's like you've poured all these years of effort, everything is in it. So to trust someone else to move levers in your business is really, really hard, and my wife had no business experience really.

Speaker 2: 13:18

It was just like. This is how your brain works. I need your brain and she's always been brilliant, but having her apply that to the business was truly game changing Totally.

Speaker 1: 13:29

And going back to your point about like I don't care if you have an MBA, I don't care if you have a degree, like whatever. Like there's so many skills that translate to like, for example, one of my, my sister I mean she'd been a stay at home mom, she's a photographer as well, but like the amount of like that she executes, organizes and gets everything done. I was like hey, like, let me know when you need a job, ideas for you here. And cause, like so many people love to put a pedestal on all of these Um, I mean accolades that we've put so much value in over time instead of cause. I tend to be very iconoclastic in a lot of things that I approach. I hate the least favorite answer I get from anybody about anything. It's like well, this is how we've always done it. Why don't we just keep doing it?

Speaker 3: 14:02

It's the worst answer.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Exactly, and so I'm always someone that's like ready to blow the whole thing up just to see how we can put it back together.

Speaker 1: 14:08

And if we ended up right where we were, then good, then we're more confident than where we were Right, and so I love that you have this experience. You're like, hey, listen, everything's going good, but it's like the cheesy book, the Good to Great, like upside, but like it's also cool to see how you understood your own weaknesses, your own blind spots, and said, well, I need someone who can fill these and help. I mean pair, well, and you're like, well, fun fact, it's actually gonna be the woman who's legally tied to me, and I mean my also roommate and everything in between, right, and so that's fun that there was this thing that you guys can tackle together and have that confidence in history in order to do so. So I mean, monica, from your point of view at this time, I mean what was going through your head? Were you like, yeah, not a chance. Or were you more like, yeah, like, let me roll up my sleeves and let's go do this.

Speaker 3: 14:57

What was interesting was, before he even proposed the idea of us working together, he said read this book. It's really interesting to me. This is where I'm stuck. And I read the book and it was like someone had taken all of my opinions out of my head and put it into a book. And so it just. It aligns so well with how I thought about things and I'd been watching him struggle and beat his head against the wall in so many places in the business for years. And I read the book and I basically came to him and said, yes, this is everything I've been telling you to do for years. But it's like he didn't believe it when it came from me. But in the book he was like, oh, this makes sense now. Like it just hit differently. And so then he was like okay, well, maybe it makes sense for us to work together.

Speaker 3: 15:35

And I was fully on board, like I was really in that place where I tried the stay at home mom thing. It wasn't really for me. I love being a mom, but having a balance of both work and home is a lot healthier for me. And so I just was really feeling like okay, my life is feeling stagnant. I'm struggling. I was looking for something anyway, and then to look at this opportunity, to feel like I could give him the business dreams he had always had, help him have the productivity and the growth that he wanted was huge, and to give me an outlet, and for us to be able to spend that time together, it was like, on every level, a win.

Speaker 1: 16:11

Yeah, and I think it takes the right partnership too, because for me, whenever I hear of a couple that works together, it takes me back to the office with Jim and Pam and I can't imagine again like waking up and let's fast forward to late seasons. Jim and Pam, they have two kids being like all right, I'm the kids up early, you go deal with that. I'll go get breakfast started. We'll do all this. I'll make coffee, do this. Cool, kids are out, daycare, school, whatever. Cool, get in the car. We're going to the office. All right, we're sitting next to each other talking about this.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Here comes Dwight again. Oh my gosh, Another meeting by Michael. And then wrap up everything at five, get back in the car, go grab the kids, go back Like the amount of time that you'd have to spend together and especially in like stressful situations, and make that work to the point where it's not like a year later, it's like, by the way, you're out of the business, you're out of my life and I need to go disappear for a year to reflect, I mean speaks.

Speaker 1: 16:57

I mean largely to both, both of you finding this way to live these values. Because, again, like and I don't know how aware you were to like some of these feelings that she had of being like, oh, I love being a mother, I love my kids, love my life, but there's, like this kind of missing factor and I don't know what it is and at the same time, you're having this feeling of saying I have this business, it's done great, but there's this missing part that I can now understand. And also it's amazing that you didn't take the book and be like see honey, see what I've told you about. Here's another person who would be nice that you guys could come together and do that. I mean, did it work pretty well from the beginning? Was there a little bit of a learning curve?

Speaker 3: 17:33

There's a learning curve, for sure, because I think for him at first the big part was okay, I'm trusting you to move things in my business, and what if you fail? What if you do the wrong thing? Because I mean, I think even if you bring in the most seasoned person possible, to trust someone else with your business is huge, because it's your whole future, it's everything you worked for for years, and so I feel like it was a process of building trust over months and years. And so what would happen is, you know, as I'm going through and kind of cleaning up operations in the business, cleaning up the culture, doing all these things to make it better, it's like cleaning out a hoarder's closet it looks way shittier before it looks better.

Speaker 3: 18:11

You're pulling everything out of the closet. There's stuff everywhere, people are stressed, people are wondering why it's changing, and so trying to get buy-in from the team was huge, and then trying to get buy-in from him was huge, and I feel like it took a lot longer to get that buy-in from him because he's seen the mess coming out of the closet and I had to kind of put it all back and say look how much better this functions and do that probably 50 times before he was like okay, there's a pattern here. I can trust this. It's not a one-off success. Like, you can do this and replicate this over and over and it's like.

Speaker 1: 18:40

I kind of respect that approach too because, again, like you don't want to bring someone in, especially being your spouse, and saying, like I trust you with everything, go do it. And like kind of like there's not a bunch of history to rely on, so you're like I don't, like, don't want to I mean rock the boat or anything and then also like to show a hoarder, their hoard and have them face. It is also a whole nother psychological. But to like have that be, like, hey, listen, I can do this. Here's another example. Here's another example. Here's another example is like the right way to go about it. My opinion.

Speaker 2: 19:11

Probably it was traumatic though I have to be honest, like I wanted to fire her more than once and we've we've had that honest conversation. Be with you, but I don't want to lose you. I just want you out of my stuff, right, and I treat it like my stuff instead of our stuff for a really long time, and I think that was a big challenge. I mean, it had felt like mine. It had been my baby for years before she came along, but it had not been what I hoped it could be, and so she really did help transform it into something far greater. But it took a minute to be like I'm willing to let you transform this thing.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Yeah, and I mean so, obviously, pre bringing her on, you have this hypothesis where, like hey, listen, I think there's these blind spots, there's this goal and I see this, this growth I have. I mean, how long um between bringing her on. I mean, did you feel like you were like, oh, it's working, this is, we're going in the direction we want to.

Speaker 2: 20:04

Man, it was a good two years before I really believed we were turning the corner Cool.

Speaker 3: 20:21

And for me I could see it a lot sooner, because for me first step was fixing operational issues that were just planning problems, where it's like we're not delivering to customers on time because of a planning issue. So that was the first thing, was kind of cleaning that up. The next thing I really looked at was a combo of company culture, because it's not what it needed to be Bringing a ton of accountability, because I think when you don't have accountability, you have people that are weighing down your business, that sit there because they have no reason to leave.

Speaker 3: 20:40

And so dealing with that.

Speaker 3: 20:41

And then the third thing that I did kind of in that first year was looking at process.

Speaker 3: 20:45

There was no defined process anywhere in the business and the problem was everything lived in people's heads. If someone you know didn't like the changes and we're going to leave, they're bringing that knowledge with them. So I had to get everything out of everyone's head into an SOP or a business process, because you can never have an employee hold your business hostage. You have to have all that information on paper so that if someone gets hit by a bus or walks out the door, you can just keep rolling without them, and people don't like that. They feel more needed and they feel more comfortable if they feel like the company can't survive without them, and so you have to have people with the level of maturity to understand hey, this has to work for both of us, and you don't have to hold the business hostage to be needed. You can show up and bring value and bring your strengths, that you have and how your brain is built to work, and that is what brings value and makes you indispensable to a company, not holding knowledge hostage.

Speaker 1: 21:35

And you are the person at every company that everybody needs but no one wants to be. Yeah, like I am. I always love again because, like, if I'm like, oh, I don't know how to do this and I don't, like, I can either go sit with this person for an hour just ask him questions or I can go peruse this doc control f to whatever I need to and figure it out. So I, I see how you coming in and hearing how donald like very similar and aligned with him on that, like the two p's of the pod, like the ying and the yang, that could make that work. So I love that that. And again, coming back to it's funny how it was the person that you married along that was going to help with all of this and it's fun that you could do that and then again, not just bring her in because you're married to her, but bring her in because you do see this value, it does get validated and you're able to start. I mean bring her along to the journey that you want to accomplish together.

Speaker 2: 22:22

Yeah, I'm so grateful I did. It's been an incredible journey and it wouldn't have been the same with another partner. Right when I get to go home and share the same house with the person that I spend all day with, a lot of people would be like I can't do it because they want to run from the difficult things. It forces us to have those conversations Other people just avoid and when you have those conversations you fix things for real. You get down to the root cause and you really solve what's up, and that makes a huge difference in every aspect of our lives.

Speaker 1: 22:52

See, that does not sound like an avoidant attachment style to me. He's grown so much.

Speaker 3: 22:58

Because I think in those early days I mean like if you look at what happens in, I think, any marriage relationship you're blending these two worlds together you have less space to be able to run, because when you're single it's easier to just kind of pretend like your problems aren't there. So I think being married or in a relationship it holds a mirror up to who you are, what your habits are, what's healthy, what's not healthy with what you're doing. And that's part of why people say marriage is hard. And it's the same thing with parenthood. When you have those kids come along, they show all the unhealed parts of you, all your trauma you haven't dealt with, all of the crap you've been holding on to.

Speaker 3: 23:33

And that's what makes parenthood hard is you have to grow and be a better version of you. And it's the same thing with a business partner. They're all just versions of the same thing and so if you can grow with that, you're way, way better off. But that's where the hard really comes from. And when we went through this we had our first, who was a toddler. I was pregnant with our second when I first kind of onboarded onto the business and started changing things. We had sold our house in Sandy because we were building a house up in Fruit Heights and so we were kind of going through the building process, changing everything at the business. Having a baby, you know, very calm.

Speaker 1: 24:11

Not at all yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:14

And then trying to figure out, okay, how do we work together and deal with all the unsolved stuff that we didn't have to solve until we started working together, and so I mean, it's just layer after layer of putting pressure on each of us to grow as individuals, and so I think those were some of the hardest years because we had to really each look at ourselves and say what needs to be different. But I feel like we're so much better off as a couple, as a business, as individuals, because of the work we did then.

Speaker 1: 24:40

No, I mean, that's exactly it. I mean, if you can have someone who I mean even amongst, I mean selling house, buying house, kids pregnant, bring them on and all of these other things that get caught in the midst and also be like, hey, let's take a real look at ourselves and how we interact A lot of late nights.

Speaker 2: 24:57

It doesn't happen like that. You know, it's when I'm super angry at her and she's angry at me. It's that friction that causes I'm right, no, yeah, yeah, oh we've.

Speaker 2: 25:06

It's that friction that causes the soul searching. You're like why is this person that I love and respect seeing this situation so differently than me? And what is it that I need to understand? And that is kind of where I started to uncover oh, I have this avoidant attachment style, right, that's when I started to he had no idea before. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what attachment styles were at all.

Speaker 2: 25:27

I went into the therapist and I'm like dude, I'm even keel all the time. I don't feel this huge range of emotions. My wife, on the other hand, she's everywhere. What's with that? And he's like no, no, no, what's with you? He's like you should have emotions. He's like having emotions is not a normal thing. And I was like oh really, I just thought this was this great gift I had to give to the world, right. And it's when you start to reflect internally on those things and it's not like that first time he said that I was like oh, okay, I believe you and this makes sense. I was like no, dude, this is how I've been at forever. This is great. This is so chill. It's not at all. And that's when I started to really grow.

Speaker 1: 26:02

So I mean and like that's. I mean my therapeutic experience in a nutshell is cause like my mom would always put me in therapy when I was a kid, but I'd never like cause again. With like therapy there has to be a voluntary. Like there's something I feel needs to change and I don't know how to do this and people tell me this, but like I can't see there's so many blind spots you don't even know the blind spots on blind spots and unconscious bias and history that impacts so much of what you're currently doing that you have to address. Like there's so many things that can compound on itself. And like when I was a kid, my mom like because my parents got divorced, there's a lot of just like events in my life.

Speaker 1: 26:35

I was like all right, let's, um, let's go talk to someone, and I'll never forget there's one time I walked in and I mean he child therapist. I was probably like eight or nine and I sit down and he's like so, how's it going? I'm like good. He's like so your mom probably told you you want to come talk to them? Like yeah, I don't want to. He's like that's okay, you don't have to. I'm like okay. So I sat there for an hour and just stared like I'm gonna do it, go do whatever I want to. Like he just starts like I mean writing notes, charting I can't doing other stuff, sending emails and then comes back. He's like, all right, any any other talking like. He's like all right, goes back to it. He's like, well, have a good one, oh, it's nice. And then compare back to like now where I sit down and it's like I mean again, like you have to like start peeling at this onion and it's like it's more and more bitter and your eyes are starting to like get more and more watered as you go through it. But at the end of the day, the outcome how hard it can be during that time is so much better because then now you have this great outlook like this is why I do this. This is how I behave in these situations. I can empathize with my wife and how she sees things, and now, because I see why she does things, how she does things, how she interacts, that I can be better. And then, likewise, on the other side, I mean it works both ways and I mean there's it's, it's, it's an interesting process, but like it's very. I've never had someone go through therapy, like, yeah, it wasn't worth it, like I didn't get anything from this and and being able to end up on the other side of much healthier, happier and better person Cause, like I'm a big fan of personal development, like any way that I can be happier, be better, improve in one way shape or form is always something I, um use in my therapist is a very big key part of that. That's awesome and so okay.

Speaker 1: 28:18

So you guys have this business Monica's dialed in. She's the ops culture's doing better. All these SOPs are getting written. You get to be able to have this visionary standpoint and really I mean be the one at the helm of the ship instead of trying to put all the fires and patch all the holes and deal with all of the crew. Um, and the business keeps growing. I mean, what does life look like after that? I mean I'm sure I mean Monica's now spending more time at work, and then kids are still doing. Their house is probably getting built. But did life change a lot outside of the office or did you kind of maintain a lot of normalcy moving forward?

Speaker 2: 28:49

I mean, every time you add a child into the mix it changes exponentially, right? So people tell me after three it starts to just be the same. But for us we went from. I went from single With my avoidant attachment and just living in my own world to adding my wife. Us we went from I went from single with my avoidant attachment and just living in my own world to adding my wife in. I was like whoa, this is hard. Then we added that first kid and I was like oh my. And the second one comes and I was like I don't, how are we? We're not doing this. Man, this is so hard. I need you to be a stay-at-home mom. I can't have you at the business anymore. I know you've done great things for the business, but come home, watch the kids. I have stuff I want to accomplish and then our daughter rolls around.

Speaker 3: 29:35

And she came pretty close to our second that was about a thought plan.

Speaker 2: 29:37

That was a surprise, for sure.

Speaker 3: 29:38

So yeah, she's like 19 months after our second and we're just yeah, and the house had been finished.

Speaker 2: 29:44

At that point We'd moved in, but we were just spent and I would describe myself as a tired man. Ever since that, yeah, it's been a crazy 10 years, but we're kind of at that inflection point. So about 14 months ago we decided to start making TikToks and put our message out to the world. We'd not done that before. We decided to start making TikToks and put our message out to the world. We'd not done that before. All that tired energy kind of disappeared Not all of it, a lot of it disappeared as we tried to start focusing on sharing messages that could help people, and so we started promoting our products. We saw really tremendous growth.

Speaker 3: 30:17

Huge growth.

Speaker 2: 30:18

So what I had been building up to hoping to find that hockey stick where we really started to see things has really finally come to fruition and it's been super exciting for us and, I feel like, has let us add value to customers who we can help, obviously. But we also have done stuff on our own channel, just giving experiences that we've had as parents, giving lessons about those experiences for us. I'm not saying that everybody should do things the way we do things. We're not some role model parent that everybody should follow. But it's been fun to share things that we've learned and to see people gravitate and say, oh, I could find that useful and that would be awesome. And so it's been. It's been a not all smooth sailing but a heck of a lot more fun.

Speaker 3: 30:59

Well, cause I think you know, like both of us, like we're in this situation together where we don't have a ton of family support. I feel like there's so many people out there, especially in Utah, where they have these super involved grandparents and all this family around and, you know, like a huge group of friends. That's really not what we've experienced at all, and so we've really been out there kind of on our own trying to figure out how to do all of it. So I think when you fight really hard to learn knowledge and you're reading books and you're learning stuff, when you feel like you found something that actually works for you, like passing that on is such a huge gift because you don't want someone else to have to work that hard for that knowledge. So that's really kind of what we do with our channel, the Bailey's channel, where it's just kind of the two of us talking about life and business and kids and all of that.

Speaker 1: 31:42

It's us sharing for free knowledge that we worked really hard to learn, yeah, and I mean, obviously you guys are the only people to have a business, work together, have kids and have any sort of friction, and it's always good to have like a place where people can easily find a lot of that. I mean nuggets of knowledge and like so much wealth that you can gain from that. Because, again, like I mean, because, again, like I mean, there's silly, there's whatever you want on tiktok, you're gonna find it right. And there's so many people it's like yeah, like oh, do you want to go sit down and read a book? Like like, my life is crazy, I can't like right, but to be able to share that and like I'm, I mean I love it's funny, like with the podcast, it's been I mean two things like one, creating content's really Like I think anybody who feels any sort of stuck in life, go create something.

Speaker 1: 32:25

It doesn't have to be, I mean, you don't have to go try to be an influencer. You don't have to go try and like make YouTube videos. I mean go paint, go build something, go, I mean whatever it could be. Do something with your hands. And I and we live in a world where people do less physically and it's so much more digitally, that I tell people get away from it and do that.

Speaker 3: 32:44

Well, because we're built to be builders and creators and people end up consuming so much and it's like, if you're feeling stagnant, if you're feeling depressed, find something to build and create and it's game changing.

Speaker 1: 32:55

Totally, and I mean the more that it can have a positive outcome on people, the better, and even if it helps, I mean also like when and on the other side of things, like with a podcast, it's fun because there's so many different things I can do. Like it's and it's been fun because, like in any given day, I'm like okay, do I want to go reach out to more guests? Do I want to go reach out to more advertisers? Do I want to go work on SEO optimization? Do I want to go um, organize all my files?

Speaker 1: 33:20

Like there's always 20 million things I can do, but because I have other things in my life that demand my responsibility, I have to prioritize it all and I can't do it all, and so I do have to like, try new things, test, learn. Some things fail, some things don't, some things go great, some things go terrible, some things somehow go worse, and it's fun to find that sweet spot. And so to be able to find a place where and it's fun to find that sweet spot, and so to be able to find a place where A like you're creating something, you're doing another thing together and you're adding value to other people's lives, where they can see that and I mean in a very quantitative way say like I'm going to follow, I'm going to watch, I'm going to share, not only as value to their life, but this is like, oh, like I can help people, like make their life, life a little bit better, which I've never met, someone who's like, oh, I helped someone's life today and improve their situation, but like I hated that.

Speaker 1: 34:04

I need more selfishness. I want to do more for me, more greed. So, no, no kudos to you guys for for for understanding that. And then taking, I mean the chance, cause there's very few people of of the age of 25. We're like, yeah, I think, I think TikTok is going to be my thing, right, and but like, but it's also the same thing, like. Then you do find you're like, oh, actually this isn't just like dance videos, and I'm not saying you guys don't create dance videos or I don't see Donald dance?

Speaker 2: 34:31

We don't, but it was funny because I thought TikTok was just dance videos. And then one day we're actually moving warehouses, changing facilities so that we can accommodate our growth, and the orders are going off the hook. I'm looking on the website and I'm looking at Amazon. I'm going like, why are we selling $30,000 on Amazon today? That's not what we used to do. Why is the website going crazy? And I asked our customer service person at the time, who was answering the phones, find out where all these people are coming from. They said TikTok. I was like TikTok, like the dancing videos these people are coming from. They said TikTok, I was like TikTok, like the dancing videos. Why are they finding us on dance? It was one of our customers had made a video saying, hey, I use this gum and let me tell you why I use this gum and how it's been amazing for my smile. I used to struggle with cavities and he just held it up, yeah, and that it was less than a minute long video.

Speaker 3: 35:16

But that video got like a million three views in that first week, or so we sold an extra $80,000 of product in a week Like we did nothing differently and we're like, okay, this is really cool.

Speaker 2: 35:26

I was like, okay, maybe there's something in this TikTok thing, Maybe we should start making videos, but I'm not gonna dance. Are you gonna dance, dear? And we had to figure out what it looked like to create content for that channel, which was another fun project to work on.

Speaker 3: 35:38

Well, find something that fit us, cause I think that's what's so cool about TikTok is, one, you can just be yourself and there's going to be people out there that resonate with you and they like that. You don't have to do what everyone else is doing. And two, the algorithm is just incredible where it can find the people to like whatever you like, and it's just amazing.

Speaker 1: 35:56

Yeah, whether it be xylitol gum, whether it be some sort of my uh, uh, my got my favorite cleaning, um, it's the word I want to use. Device yeah, uh, from tiktok, right, I was like all right, what's this? Device not to hear about it like the amount of things and like random things I learned and late night like, uh, just knowledge, you can get free therapy.

Speaker 3: 36:20

Basically, on tiktok, there's so many cool videos talking about like everything you know psychology related, business tips, parenting tips, like it's just amazing when people are freely sharing knowledge with each other. It's just amazing, yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:34

And then on top of it. You see, like, oh, like, I just can't imagine seeing your face. Why, why is this doing well, like what is going on, and then to find out it's like this app that you've heard about, on, like, I mean, from all around, like I thought this was a very different thing and now I have so many questions.

Speaker 2: 36:50

It's exactly what happened, right. I was like will you download that app and see if you can find this thing?

Speaker 3: 36:56

And I think the first 24 hours was bizarre, because you know you have to scroll past the stuff that you're not into for it to kind of learn what you like. So at first you're like, okay, there's a lot of weird stuff on TikTok. And then after 24 hours it's like, okay, we know who you are as a person and it will serve up the most random stuff. Like somehow it knows that I like doing, like you know, kitchen garden kind of stuff, but also that I like designer handbags, but also that I like business content but also emotional, health and psychology. Like it's amazing how it can just pull together a picture. And then we were both hooked and we just started like every night scrolling right next to each other, sending videos back and forth, and that's fun.

Speaker 3: 37:34

That's so funny.

Speaker 1: 37:34

Again, another thing that you guys can do together somehow spend more time and then be happy about it, and I mean it speaks to your guys' relationship and being able to learn and grow together. So kudos to you guys for making it happen.

Speaker 3: 37:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:45

Thanks.

Speaker 1: 37:45

So I guess I mean I don't know how much time there is outside of family business tick tock, but I mean outside of that I mean anything else you guys like to enjoy, especially around Salt Lake, or we're foodies, man.

Speaker 2: 37:57

So, uh, the very first moment I pulled up here I was like oh guess what dear it's right next to vaulters.

Speaker 3: 38:02

I love vaulter's going there since they opened yeah, um, we obviously miss the vaulter's.

Speaker 2: 38:08

Not there anymore, but um, there are, there are. Yeah, we love, we love to eat, we love to go out and favorite restaurant yeah, have just good foodie experiences.

Speaker 1: 38:17

So what are some of your favorite places besides vaulter's?

Speaker 3: 38:19

yeah I like hsl a lot, like the cauliflower appetizer it's so good you pass the vibe check like have you had the biscuit that they have? Incredible. So yeah, we love that. We're always good for. You know a good steak, so we'll do Bombara. They have a good steak. We'll do Riscris, you know.

Speaker 2: 38:37

Capital Grill.

Speaker 3: 38:38

Capital Grill.

Speaker 2: 38:39

Chasing down steaks. Those are all good ones.

Speaker 1: 38:47

I think Bombara is a fun vibe that a lot of people in salt lake have an experience based on. I, I see there. So we like that and also just got a facelift not too long ago too. Like that's one. There's a couple places that you go. You're like, oh, I didn't know this was going to be like this. I've driven past it a million times on second south, next like hotel monaco, but never been inside. And so there's a couple of those like the, the one gem. It's not there anymore, uh, because it's getting developed in apartments, but like Coachman's, it was on State and 13th. You drive past and you're like that's got to be a front for something. Like there's no way. And I think their slogan was like come in and be surprised. And there was.

Speaker 1: 39:18

It was at my last job and we had this like client lunch and it was with this director who I mean very down to earth guy, like super funny and just reasonable, I guess for another word, and he's like, hey, do you want to come to this lunch with us? It's just kind of like business development, like, yeah, sure, let's go, I could use lunch. And we pull in and I look at him I'm like where? So is this like your business. What are you doing? Like do I need? And then we go in. He's like no, trust me. And so this guy, he's known forever. They sit down and they always like he's like literally order anything. It's like cheesecake style-esque menu, just huge, so much, and I sit down at. Orson was like I am pleasantly surprised.

Speaker 1: 39:54

And so I think like Salt Lake, especially recently, with how much is going on and then so many new restaurants popping up, it's, and if you're not a foodie like there, there's no better way to do it. Like I had a family in town from oregon last weekend and so for that context, when I was living in seattle, I had family in portland, especially my cousin and his boyfriend. He's a chef and they both I mean wine of files foodies. And so they would come up and say cancel your plans. I'd go down and say cancel your plans. And that's really when I started to appreciate like good food, food.

Speaker 1: 40:26

And so now every time they come into town, I'm like, okay, let me plan then, because they would always be the ones like don't touch a menu, don't make a plan, we have everything. And so now every time they come, I'm like I've got you. Don't touch a menu, don't touch a plan. So I mean we ended up going to like bar gnome and then we went to mateo and then we actually ended up coming back here to edison for some drinks after. But they're like these are like cool places. What's going on here?

Speaker 3: 40:48

Have you ever done a class at fillings and emulsions or been to that bakery?

Speaker 1: 40:53

I've been there, yeah, cause it's a I think it's a sister um restaurant to Doki Doki, I remember Right, and Doki Doki has like, uh, my favorite, like crepe cake, like that's what I got turned onto and then ended up making one. But yeah, feelings in a mold.

Speaker 2: 41:12

They're ice cream.

Speaker 1: 41:13

Oh yeah, macaroon, macaroon, macaroon, there we go yeah, they're macaroons, yeah, yeah, now we're back those. That was one I saw. Right, I was like, and we're in the car.

Speaker 3: 41:31

Yeah, they class. They're so much fun. It's like a great date night Great thing to do with friends.

Speaker 1: 41:36

I like that's actually one thing. I do love a good cooking class. I feel like every time I've done it it's either been for like a date or like some sort of like work off site, but it's always like something fun. You learn, like you learn how to sear a steak, and you feel like super cool, or you've actually just like fun stuff, cause I mean I do enjoy cooking, but I don't have time to just like sit in a kitchen for two or three hours and like struggle through something or learn a ton. And I actually just started watching a season three of the bear, which always makes me feel like I need to be a better cook, and I am a better cook than I am. But yeah, totally with you. I mean, there's like few things in life that we all collectively get to enjoy the experience of, and we all have to eat food, we all have to drink something or else we're going to die.

Speaker 3: 42:16

And so it might as well make it a great experience.

Speaker 1: 42:19

Might as well surround yourself with cool people. Might as well find new ways to enjoy it. And like the people that are like, oh, I could eat a Walmart burger every day, I'm like you haven't lived yet brother who hurt you Right.

Speaker 2: 42:32

Yeah, so many people don't get how invigorating food can be right. They treat it like kind of a chore. I'm just supposed to eat. I'm like, what world did you grow up in, man?

Speaker 3: 42:43

Well, and I think, like, when you can, when you can take your time, like you said, surround yourself with interesting people, have amazing conversation while you're having amazingly prepared food, like it's just the best experience.

Speaker 2: 42:54

We, we were at this meeting, I told you in Austin and one of the guys there he's, he was. He's the owner of a really large company down in Austin and has moved out of it. But his favorite thing to do when he goes to new cities is take like a handful of people that he knows, like three or four people, and then invite two people he doesn't, and just go sit around and have a dinner and it's a great way to resolve the oh, let's all go catch up for coffee and you've got like 15 meetings that you don't want to have.

Speaker 2: 43:22

He's like you just do one meeting and you all network right here here together and it ends up building value for everybody. And I was like, oh, it's brilliant, and when you can do that around food, it just it feels good yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:32

I mean and especially and we kind of touched on it when we were walking around Edison but like um, the the dynamic of the city has changed so much and I mean the broader area and like before, I mean especially in like my childhood and as I talked to others, food was a task that needed to be done and it usually in like Utah tends to be very frugal because of I mean the LDS culture, but like I mean it was always how much? How can we get as much food as quick as possible and get everybody fed Right? And then now it's been fun to see I mean better restaurants, high quality restaurants, and like honestly, see people's face when I go out to dinner with them. Like, oh, we can sit here and enjoy each other's company and have good food and talk about and connect. I'm like bingo, right, that is half of like the human experience and the joy it can provide.

Speaker 1: 44:15

How did you do anything otherwise? And it's fun to see people like have, these things start to click? And like I mean I'm sure it's with those same Austin lunches. People like have do you not see my schedule? Did you not know? Like what? What do you mean? And then they walk out like that was a really good time. Thanks for including me, right? So, yeah, I mean, totally agree with that, yeah, so let's go back to the products for a little bit, cause I know that I mean it started off as this nasal spray.

Speaker 2: 44:53

You had this idea. But I mean was the oral care benefits of using xylitol. So the research at the time showed that if you use xylitol regularly, like in a chewing gum, you could reduce the incidence of dental caries or cavities. So if you could get rid of cavities by chewing gum, it sounds like the easiest thing to do, right, like we all want to brush our teeth and have good breath when we wake up in the morning and all that. But a lot of us still brush and got cavities.

Speaker 2: 45:12

And I know people who to this day brush show up at the dentist and they're like, oh my gosh, how'd I get another cavity? So what I said was let's take all the research that's out there. Some of the studies show it works and some of them have given us questionable results. And when I scatter, plotted them against each other, I saw, oh, there's like this dosage threshold that if you get to you get good results and if you don't, you don't get good results. And I said, how can I help people get at least six grams of xylitol every day?

Speaker 2: 45:40

And when I looked at that research and saw here's what you need to do we put it in a gum, a toothpaste, a mouthwash and then mints and so kind of pick the ones that fit best for you. The gum and the mints are necessary. You have to use one or the other for sure, because you're not going to get there just using a toothpaste or a mouthwash. But once we start introducing that to people, they go to the dentist and these are people who had struggled consistently with cavities. They'll show up and their hygienist would be like what are you doing differently? Your mouth is so healthy right now.

Speaker 1: 46:08

Whose teeth did you steal and how did you get that?

Speaker 2: 46:10

Yeah, it was kind of that vibe and that's what happened with my wife. She struggled with cavities all growing up and before we met she'd always had cavities when she'd go to the dentist. And I introduced her to the product and it was just game changing. The dentist used to just shrug his shoulders and be like you should be, like, hey, what do I need to be doing? Like I brush and I'm flossing, I'm doing the stuff I'm supposed to, and he'd just shrug his shoulders and be like I don't know that's what happens?

Speaker 1: 46:33

Bad roll of dice, too bad. Anyway, let's schedule a follow-up for these three cavities.

Speaker 2: 46:42

It's so frustrating, but it's not a have an acid-producing bacteria in their mouth that interacts with all the other acids that they consume.

Speaker 2: 46:49

So when you sip on a coffee all day long or a soda or a sports drink, all you're doing is bathing your teeth in acid and that acid pulls calcium and phosphate out of your teeth and your saliva would love to redeposit it, but it can't as long as the pH of your saliva is acidic, and it's going to be acidic when you're consuming things all day long, and then, if you have this bad bacteria when you consume any kind of carbohydrate, it will take that carbohydrate and turn it into more acid. So it was helping people understand that you could address cavities by getting rid of the acid. That really started to make a difference, and that's the story we started to share on TikTok and that's what we were amazed at, like how quickly you could get million view videos. We put our first video out, I think, on February 27th, and it was like March 1st or 2nd that we watched a video that was a million views and we're like oh, apparently this is a message people need to hear. They've never heard it before. Let's start talking.

Speaker 2: 47:44

So it was great.

Speaker 3: 47:44

People have had that scenario where they get cavities, they don't feel like they're getting help from their dentist and some people just stop going to the dentist because they built so much distrust. And other people are like I guess I'm just doomed to cavities forever and they have all the stress when they have to take their kids or when they have an appointment. It's one of the most anxious experiences that we have in our modern world and there's just no reason for people to go through that, like if you're using the right tools, you can solve the acid problem, solve your cavity problem, and then you never have to feel that again.

Speaker 1: 48:12

Yeah, cause I mean even like, what kind of what we started with is like. No, a lot of people don't like going to the dentist. It's a very stressful experience for a lot of people especially. I mean pair that with I mean a feeling of hopelessness of every time you go it's like all right. So we got to book a couple more appointments after this to get this all figured out. Like great Love this. Why do I come back here and then say, hey, it's almost like the Billy Mays, but like, but wait, there's more, we can, we can, there's, there's another tool in the pocket, especially if people don't know, and to many issues that people are seeing. Not because, like again, like your mouth and your teeth are such an intricate part of your confidence, your personal identity and to see that change happen is amazing. Like because, again, like, I'm very much in like the dental algorithm and so and like everything from like dental surgery to dental hygiene, to like it's an interesting niche, but I'm in it and I can't get out of it.

Speaker 3: 49:07

And I send it to all my dental friends.

Speaker 1: 49:09

But yeah, I mean like nobody wants to have any of these like arduous experiences and you can do to take it away. I mean especially something new that most people don't know about and can provide so much benefit. Then sign them up, and especially if it's something as easy as like hey, do you chew a piece of gum or take a mint in a day, they're like I'm open to it, I'm already doing everything I can, and then be like oh, we're already brushing here, Swap it out with this. Yeah, have a good one.

Speaker 3: 49:31

Well, and what's amazing is if you look at the scientific literature, if you start kids early on, you know when they're babies or even just while the mom is still pregnant using xylitol regularly, you can set your kids up for a cavity-free life, and it's incredible. Study after study shows this. There was one where they had pregnant moms using the xylitol gum and then the control group that didn't. Then they followed the kids years later. The kids never, ever had xylitol, but the ones whose moms used it never got cavities, or at least a significantly reduced rate of those. And the reason why is when the mom changes her oral flora, then what gets passed on to the kid is a healthier microbiome, because they're picking that up from their family.

Speaker 3: 50:08

So it's not the cavities or genetic, but it's the fact that these bacteria get passed down from the caregiver to the child. And so when people start their kids off, you know early on as those teeth are coming in using xylitol. You know whether it's we've got like a spiffy's tooth wipe that's formulated for babies, or if they're using the mints or the gum as their kids, then they're set up for success years later and they're not trying to dig out of a hole that's been built their whole life yeah, I mean, especially if you can build a habit around it, like my dental hygienist shout out taylor, um, she, I remember because I've never been a good flosser like no one is.

Speaker 1: 50:41

It's a lie, it's like, well then, I talking to my, her boss, my friend and dentist, one of my best friends and dentist, brandon, I was like, so how, how many people floss regularly? He's like define regularly, right, so fair. And so like I was talking to her and she's like well, when's the last time you floss? I was like, bro, you were there and um, and she's like, hey, here's what, here's what I do, here's what helps. She's like just get some flossers, stick them in your car, have an invisible place Every time you get in and you'll start to be like oh yeah, I'm sitting here Might as well. And it's in the same way, like I mean, I have a thing in my car that usually, every single time I get out, I was like, yeah, we could use it, we could use a little piece of gum, and so I mean it a problem that a lot of people have.

Speaker 2: 51:25

Yeah, absolutely Totally agree with that Water flossing. That's my recommendation. So I don't know if you've ever used a water flosser. I find it so much easier than running that string around every way.

Speaker 1: 51:35

It's like kind of fun.

Speaker 2: 51:36

You're like well it's a giant squirt gun, right. What kid doesn't love a squirt gun? I'm a kid at heart, so it's it's, it's great for that.

Speaker 1: 51:50

Yeah, no, I mean kudos for finding, I mean again like it's fun to see the progress of, like okay, I'll help you with your business, see how this could be. And then it's like, little by little, there's all of these learnings and growth that you've done. So kudos to you, donald, for learning along the way, because a lot of people could be more stubborn and be more, I mean, egocentric of more. No, honey, shut up, I can do this Like you don't know anything.

Speaker 1: 52:06

And to again like take your time marrying the right person, finding out that right person can help you, partner in solving these, realizing that there are blind spots in your life that you can identify and again help with this partnership grow even better. And then again like seeing like TikTok as a way that the people are doing it, develop that in your own life to provide value in other people's lives, both I mean from families, mental health, um and and and oral care. And then also continue to just, I mean bring that message home. I mean kudos to both of you and everything that you've felt. I mean a lot of people don't have that. Uh, I mean kind of. I mean not just like a growth mindset, but also having that, that, um, just personal development mindset, and learning along the way. A lot of people are a little bit more stubborn than that, so kudos to both of you and all that you've accomplished together.

Speaker 2: 52:48

Thanks. You give me too much credit. She deserves most of it. I beat my head against the wall until finally I realized this hurts more. There's got to be a different way, right, and I am grateful for all the help I've had to get there.

Speaker 1: 53:01

It was worth the 10 years.

Speaker 2: 53:03

Right, yeah, exactly Exactly.

Speaker 1: 53:06

Well, guys, before we wrap up, I want to ask the two questions. I always end every episode with One. If you guys could have someone on the Small Lake City podcast and hear more about anyone's story and kind of what they're up to, who would you want to hear from? Ooh, that's a fun question, let me think about that. No wrong answers.

Speaker 2: 53:22

So I think it'd be fun to have Derek Porter on the beauty beauty industry group CEO, who just became the new voice of the music and the spoken word. Yeah, like, I think that's kind of a fascinating story there. I think that would be cool. Yeah, I don't know him at all, but yeah, I think that could be a fun one.

Speaker 1: 53:41

I have an interestingly way too many touch points with beauty industry group. It's like super. So I mean they had their old warehouse, which was on fourth west, in between fourth and sixth north, that I would drive by all the time, be like what is this green building? And then at the old, when I was doing strategy consulting, we were pitching their um investors and so I'm putting together this deck and I'm like here it is again. And then in my current job there were a customer of ours. I was like here they are again. So it's funny that once again there's a sign here. Usually I believe in threes, but I think this is number four. So yeah, no, yeah, definitely, and I think it's such a under the radar business that a lot of people don't know about. In Utah that's grown, I mean massively.

Speaker 2: 54:23

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3: 54:25

Yeah, I think also, um, kimber James of Borboleta uh, she's, she's a friend of ours, um, and they're doing awesome things in the lash industry. She started selling, I think, like out of her car, and it's just grown it to be something bigger, and so she's got a fun story to share.

Speaker 1: 54:39

Yeah, no, love good stories, love growth stories, love good people. Uh, like it. And then the last question is if people wanna find more about Epic Dental, find you guys on TikTok. Where's the best place to find that?

Speaker 2: 54:53

Yeah, epicdental is our handle on TikTok, or epicdentalcom, you can find us. Or if you really are like, oh, I'm sold, this is something I need, amazoncom, just look up Epic Gum, you'll find it.

Speaker 1: 55:03

Cool. Yeah, well, I mean, thank you both for coming on. It's awesome to get to sit down and know you guys better and everything that you're up to, and it makes you the best at it all. But, yeah, thanks again for joining.

Speaker 2: 55:12

Hey, thanks for having us.

Speaker 1: 55:13

Absolutely.