Since October 2017, we have been following Elevate Nepal’s progress as they try to rebuild in Nepal. In this update with co-founder, Dan Maurer, we hear about the completion of Sarsyu Primary School, plans for the 3rd annual Big Lebowski-themed bowling fundraiser, and have a discussion about moving from a startup to a growing nonprofit. For past episodes about Elevate Nepal, check out Episode 5, Episode 10, Episode 23, and Episode 36.
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Video of the completed primary school
- Big Lebowski Fundraiser
- Nepalese Coffee
- Nonprofit Lifecycles
- Do Good, Be Good Facebook Page
- Do Good, Be Good Website
[music]
00:05 Speaker 1: This is Do Good, Be Good, the show about helpful people and the challenges they face in trying to do good. Your host is Sharon Tewksbury-Bloom, a career do-gooder who also loves craft beer and a good hard tackle in rugby. Sharon speaks to everyday people about why they do good and what it means to be good.
00:25 Sharon Tewksbury-Bloom: Welcome. I’m your host, Sharon, and today is the first episode of 2020. Happy New Year, everybody! Long-time listeners will definitely recognize today’s guest, Dan Maurer. I have been following his journey on this podcast for almost as long as I’ve had a podcast, about two-and-a-half years. Dan and his best friend Anthony founded a non-profit in early 2017 called Elevate Nepal. If you haven’t heard my previous conversations with Dan, I would recommend going back and listening to those in order. I have links to those episodes in the show notes for today’s episode. However, if you don’t have time or you don’t want to, I completely understand and I think you’ll still get a lot of value out of my conversation on today’s episode with Dan. Enough talk. Let’s jump right into it. You just got back, right?
01:20 Dan Maurer: I just got back, correct. [chuckle] Next question.
01:27 ST: Where were you again?
01:28 DM: I was in Nepal, which is where we do work. Flagstaff is now almost becoming a place I visit, and I live here and I have a home here and this is where our business is. But just traveling so much for work, meaning Elevate Nepal work, being over in Nepal and also starting to travel a lot more domestically for stuff, like our coffee.
01:50 ST: You travel enough that you now call it travel domestically.
01:54 DM: Travel domestically versus internationally.
01:57 ST: Okay. Was Anthony with you on this last trip?
02:00 DM: He was. He was there for about six weeks. I was there for almost nine. That’s another thing that we’re learning about Elevate Nepal is we’re growing, which is awesome, but of course demands from each of us are becoming more and demands on each side of the globe. So we’re finding, when both of us are in one place, things don’t get neglected, but there isn’t boots on the ground, whether it be in Nepal or America. So it’s just almost naturally moving to the phase where he’s kind of the headquarters here in America, and then I’m heading up everything in Nepal, which we’ve realized this trip, probably more than any, that we really need that. We need someone in both places at the same time.
02:45 ST: So does that mean you drew the short straw or he drew the short straw?
02:49 DM: Well, in my opinion he drew the short straw. I mean, I get to spend half my year in Nepal which is great because we’re doing work for Nepal, so why not spend time there?
02:57 ST: So you’re gonna be spending… Are you gonna be spending like half a year in Nepal?
03:02 DM: It’s kind of working out that way. So just looking ahead for next year, I am heading back in early February. I’ll be there February, March, April, and then go back again probably October, November, December. So you’re looking at five, six months. And we kinda talked… When I showed up here is you’re always waiting for that downtime. You’re like, “Oh, in April, I’m gonna take some time off in May,” but recently, more of the past year, let’s say, is that time constantly gets filled with stuff, which is awesome because it shows that you are growing and your time is consumed with the life that you’re building. Yeah, sometimes it would be nice to have a week where you could just turn the phone off and disappear.
03:48 ST: There is a whole model around thinking about an organization like the seasonal seasons of nature.
03:56 DM: Right.
03:57 ST: And trying to think about your work year. Not like it has to line up with the seasons in nature, but thinking about do you have a period of winter, do you have a period of fall, do you have a period of summer, and a period of spring?
04:10 DM: Right.
04:11 ST: And if you’re in growth, then that’s spring. If you’re… Feel actively generating new projects and developing new things, that’s spring. If you’re just going full steam ahead on that, and it… Then that’s summer.
04:26 DM: Okay.
04:28 ST: Fall is like the time for putting to bed certain things like saying, “Oh, let’s evaluate this and decide that this needs to be turned over.” Turning over a new leaf.
[chuckle]
04:42 DM: Right, okay.
04:43 ST: So to speak. And spending time putting things to bed. And then winter is when you’re supposed to be refueling, resting for the next cycle.
04:56 DM: Well, I’ve been stuck in summer for about two years. But what a great season to be stuck in. [chuckle]
05:03 ST: Yeah, there’s people that move to places that only have summer, right?
05:07 DM: Well, in my 20s for four years, I chased the summer. So I didn’t have a winter for almost four years. What would that be? Not figuratively speaking. Actually speaking, I was in a summer, I never had cold weather. Now, figuratively speaking, with the business, I’ve been stuck in summer for two years. I think for so long you talk about… Probably in you and your business, “Oh, I’m starting this business,” or “I just started my non-profit.” Now it’s… Our portfolio has grown and we have our fingers in so many different projects in Nepal and in America. Yeah, I think you can’t say anymore, “I just started this.” It’s, we’re growing and growing quickly, but yeah, I don’t think we’re… I don’t think we’re mature yet [chuckle] That may never happen if it’s just Anthony and I at the helm.
05:56 ST: Well, that’s actually something they talk about is that for a lot of people it never happens because you never take that moment to step back and set up systems or to figure out, what’s the way we need to stabilize this. You’re just always in that momentum, forward growth, more, more, more phase.
06:00 DM: Right. I actually had an interesting conversation with a guy named Tony Jones over in Nepal. This guy is just incredible. He’s the one who first started Overland Expose. But he was the first one to have this idea, and he drove old military vehicles from London into Asia, back in the early 60s. So he crossed into Nepal in 1964, just shortly after it was opened, and then he grew that into a global business. And this guy has made millions of dollars, millions of times over, so he’s a great guy to talk business with. Anyways, we were sitting there talking about business and Elevate Nepal and where is it… Where it’s going, and he did… He said just what we did. What we just said is, “You’re not in the startup anymore, you’re in the growth.” And he goes, “That’s really the hardest phase because now you have to figure out how to make everything sustainable.” So when you’re just starting, it’s almost easier ’cause that’s all you’re doing. You really have no plan. You’re just hoping to survive until the next day or next week. But now you’ve survived those two, three years, whatever it might be, now how can you sustain this for the next 10, 20, 30? Which he said, and I believe him, that’s the hardest part of business.
07:28 ST: Well, I can think about that even from one of our first interviews when we were talking about how just trying to get people to take you seriously, and you’re telling them that this is what you’re doing now, and they’re like, “Oh, that’s so cute.”
07:39 DM: Right, right.
07:39 ST: “It’s so cute that you’re doing that,” that you think that that’s what you’re doing now, you know?
07:43 DM: Right, right.
07:44 ST: And I can see that from both of our sides, for me starting my business and you starting Elevate Nepal. It’s like, yeah, when you first did it, you had to try to take yourself seriously and most days you believed that you were really doing it and starting something.
07:58 DM: Right.
08:00 ST: But definitely the outside perception, jury was still out on whether this was something that was gonna really be a thing.
08:05 DM: Right, that’s true.
08:06 ST: And now you’ve kept it going long enough that people can’t deny that it’s really a thing. And you’re still at it.
08:11 DM: Right.
08:12 ST: So now they have harder questions for you about like, “Oh, okay, that wasn’t just some crazy idea you had. It’s something, some little project you were working on.”
08:23 DM: Right. It wasn’t just a fling. It wasn’t a weekend romance.
08:28 ST: Yeah.
08:28 DM: It’s still going.
08:28 ST: So besides the questions you’re asking yourself about making it sustainable, I’m curious first on a personal level, from family and friends ’cause I know you’ve gotten a lot of support, but are there different kinds of questions that you’re getting now about where this is going, what you’re doing with your life?
08:44 DM: Well, that’s always a… It’s an ongoing question. “What are you doing?” So we finished our school, finished Sarchu Primary School, so that was a great accomplishment for Elevate Nepal and really just a proud personal feeling for Anthony and I. And new videos of that came out just a few months ago when we were over in Nepal. And I think that set off a lot of light bulbs for people just in terms of, “Wow, these guys are serious. Look what they just did.” I think people were very impressed by that and I think people are maybe starting to take us a little bit more seriously versus what they did a few years ago, so that’s good.
09:27 ST: That is good.
09:28 DM: Right. Or just even still the questions of like, “Oh, you have a PO Box? Oh, you have an office? Oh, you have bank accounts?” You think, “Well, what do you think we’ve been doing for the past three years?” This is a legitimate, incorporated non-profit. This wasn’t just a little project that Anthony and I are working on. But again having that school, I think, really gave us a lot of street credit across the board.
09:55 ST: I like that your calling it street credit.
[laughter]
09:57 DM: Well, yeah, sure.
10:00 ST: You just eliminated your street credit by calling it street credit.
10:02 DM: Aww, darn. Alright, that’s it for me. Thanks for having me.
[laughter]
10:06 ST: That totally took me off what I was actually gonna ask which… Or I was gonna mention that in my own business building process, I got this table worksheet thing one time that was about when you’re new and you’re trying to build that credibility. It was actually a worksheet of credibility builders, stuff that sometimes you take for granted, but you’re like, “Oh, if you have a legitimate email address that actually has a unique URL to it.”
10:33 DM: Right.
10:35 ST: Sharon@… Connect@sharonspeaks.com or Dan@elevatenepal.
10:40 DM: Right, right.
10:41 ST: People take you more seriously than if it’s something like goodgirl@hotmail [chuckle]
10:48 DM: That’s if you’re asking for money. Goodgirl@hotmail. “Can you please give money to the Nepalese people. Look, I’m a legitimate business, I swear.”
10:56 ST: I know. I didn’t mean to out myself, but that was actually my first email address ever was, Goodgirl230@hotmail.com.
11:04 DM: Maybe you should bring it back.
11:06 ST: I know it’s weirdly relevant now, that I have a Do Good, Be Good business name, but…
11:11 DM: Right. Right, I support it.
[chuckle]
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11:20 ST: Wow. I can’t believe I outed myself about that email address. So embarrassing. I just wanted to take a break from my conversation with Dan to remind you that anything that we’re mentioning during this episode, you can find links to that in the show notes which are on my site, DoGoodBeGoodShow.com. You can also follow this show in Facebook, Facebook.com/DoGoodBeGoodShow. And I don’t know if you know this, but you can subscribe for free. This does not cost you anything. Subscribe to the show in Stitcher, Google Music, Spotify, Apple Podcast. Whatever your podcast player of choice is, you can subscribe and that way you will never miss an episode. With that business out of the way, let’s get back to my conversation with Dan.
12:13 DM: I keep thinking, “Oh, next month it’ll calm down. Next month, it’ll calm down,” and you don’t.
12:21 ST: I have some background knowledge since I know you, or I know you through Jay, that you have…
12:22 DM: That’s scary.
[laughter]
12:22 ST: That you have picked up some side gig or temporary gig work here and there. I don’t know if you wanna talk about that, but I’m…
12:22 DM: Sure. Who do I have to plug for that?
12:22 ST: I’m like, “I don’t know if you reported this on your taxes or… “
12:22 DM: No, everything I’ve done is always legal.
[laughter]
12:49 ST: So you talk about having a limited time, and then on top of that, if you are sometimes picking up gig work or part-time work here and there, I’m sure that’s yet another way that your brain and time are being subdivided. It’s interesting ’cause in the business world they talk a lot about the importance of having relentless focus and being able to both niche your business so that you’re very clear about who you serve and what you do, and just do that one thing, and don’t divide your business up into multiple things. And then also from a productivity standpoint, personally being very focused about what you’re gonna get done. And I’m still questioning whether that’s even true or at least true for all people. And honestly, I haven’t even tried it because I just realized that every year that I’ve been in business, I’ve still done some sort of sub-contract work for somebody else at some point during the year.
13:46 DM: Right.
13:46 ST: Usually like for a few moths. And taking my time away and focus way to go and do a few months of some gig. Personally, as I’m planning for 2020, I’m like, maybe it would be interesting to find out what happens if I try for an entire year to just do my business and not take on any other contracts and not be able to do anything else. Would it make this mind-blowing difference to my ability to grow the business?
14:15 DM: Probably the biggest investment we could have in the growth period for Elevate Nepal is Anthony and I spending more time on Elevate Nepal versus having to work a side gig, which could consume 20 to 40 plus hours of your week. Imagine if you could put that time into actually growing that business. So, like for you, if you take two months off to go do a side gig and then come back to your main focus, it’s really time lost. And time is money and time is growth. So that’s one thing we’re really focusing on for 2020 is putting more of an investment in ourselves, which ultimately will grow the organization. I truly believe that.
15:00 ST: You talked about how you’ve made a decision that you really need to have one of you in Nepal and one of you in the States. Part of me is super sad about that because one of the amazing things when you started this was your wonderful long-lasting friendship and this great relationship that you guys have. And the fact that this is now necessitating that you spend time apart, have you talked about that? How do you feel about that?
15:26 DM: I do love how every time we talk about Elevate Nepal, it always comes back to Anthony and I. And it’s not just you. It’s everybody always asks, “Are you guys gonna be okay away from each other?” And it’s like, “Oh my goodness.” Well, Anthony has been in Phoenix for 18 months, maybe? Maybe, almost two years, I can’t remember. I’m kind of like becoming a dog where I have no concept of time, but Anthony and I being away from each other, was that the question?
15:55 ST: Yeah, how is this gonna impact your friendship?
15:58 DM: I don’t think it will. Anthony… Well, first off, he’s getting married next year, so congratulations to him. His wonderful bride-to-be, Julia, they’ve been together forever. This is a very good thing because other than Julia who is just an amazing human being, nobody will ever be able to stand Anthony longer than me, especially Julia. She actually has to live with him and spend the rest of her life with him, where I can just run away to Nepal or say that’s enough out of you.
16:27 ST: I was waiting for the burn to come in there.
[laughter]
16:29 DM: Right. No, but our friendship is great. It’s amazing how much we can ignore each other and… But also get things accomplished. I can’t imagine doing this with anybody else. What was the question?
16:48 ST: That you have no concerns about your friendship with Anthony.
16:51 DM: Oh, right.
16:51 ST: You’re glad to be living very far away from him.
16:54 DM: Yup, exactly.
16:55 ST: You don’t know how his wife will deal with it.
16:58 DM: I know.
17:00 ST: After they’re married.
17:00 DM: Yeah, I know. I know what to do.
17:01 ST: Okay, I did wanna go back to the Sarchu school. I did see the photos on Facebook. I was one of those people that was impressed.
17:12 DM: Thank you. It was truly real and you realize what you had actually accomplished when we were there in November. The school starts at 10 o’clock. We showed up about 9:30, we had a look around, we saw everything. We’re like, “The school is complete. I can’t quite believe it.” Your brain can’t believe what your eyes are seeing. So 9:30, we did a tour of the school, talked to the head master. He was very thankful, said how happy he was. And then at 10 o’clock, the students started to arrive, and they slowly started to trickle in and I said, “Oh, can we get a picture with all the students?” So they said, “Yeah, everybody will be here in the next five minutes.” So they called all the students. Watching them all march towards the school, it was almost like… We’re talking kids from four years old up to almost 18 years old, and they had all their blue uniforms on. It was the marching of the ants. I was like, “Look at all these kids, oh my goodness.” And 700 kids we saw filing towards the… Towards of school.
18:16 DM: So that was a moment where you’re like, “Wow, look what we were able to do.” And I say “we”, not Anthony and I or Elevate Nepal, there were so many people who contributed to this project, hundreds of people all over the world. That was the moment where, yeah, a moment of feeling obviously mostly proud, but just amazed at what was able to be accomplished, and mostly based at look at how many people… Students there are. That was just wow. When you see 700 kids in front of you, that’s a lot.
18:48 ST: I mean, did you know it was gonna be 700 students when you started out?
18:48 DM: I knew that but that was the first time I had seen…
18:48 ST: Knew it as a number but didn’t know what that looked like.
18:48 DM: Right. I mean, 700 look small on paper. I mean, one million looks small on paper. But when you see something physically in front of you, that’s a big number.
18:48 ST: Yeah, absolutely. Did you get to speak to any of the people who were involved in the building, and some of their thoughts on completing the project?
18:48 DM: Yeah, so the main builder is actually a guy who’s on… Not the head but called, let’s say, the vice president of the school board. So that was really cool ’cause he could see the whole idea and mission behind it and how they would like things laid out and done because he’s directly involved with the school. So he was kind of our main point of contact. He, like I said, was just unbelievably happy and grateful for everything and, also a nice guy. So after he saw the school nearly complete, he then ended up going to the government. And I won’t go into how the whole chain of that works ’cause we don’t have enough time. But basically he went to the local government asking for additional assistance for the school, and he was able to get 40 computers donated. He was also able to get some equipment donated, so we could open up a science lab, which they had never had before. Also, there’s a full on library there now as well. And then with the science, they’ve expanded into chemistry, biology, and then they’ve also started doing an agriculture program. So now that the Nepalese government sees that they have a facility to actually educate children, they’ve decided to start giving some stuff. So that was another great feeling of we really accomplished more than we set out to do.
20:32 ST: Do you have any sense of how the school building now compares to what they had before the earthquake?
20:38 DM: It’s a lot bigger. It’s earthquake-resistant, so that is great. We had the design approved by engineers out of Kathmandu which is approved by the Nepalese government, standards that were put in place after the earthquake to prevent structures from crumbling if there was gonna be another one, and there will be, it’s a very active fault line. That’s a good feeling in knowing that you can sleep well, that you’ve built something up to earthquake standards. So if there is another big shake, those kids are gonna be safe.
21:11 ST: Nice.
21:12 DM: Which is very important.
21:14 ST: Yeah, seems relevant.
21:16 DM: Right, exactly. But that’s why the old school crumbled because it was mostly just made out of stone and mud as most structures are and were in Nepal, so when that ground starts to shake, there’s not much to hold it together.
21:29 ST: Yeah, it just strikes me that you took multiple challenging industries…
[laughter]
21:33 DM: Right, right, exactly.
21:35 ST: Than try to become a master of all of them.
21:37 DM: Right, right.
21:40 ST: Like build a school for children and have really well-tasting coffee that…
21:48 DM: It’s world-renowned.
21:48 ST: It’s world-renowned from bean to cup.
21:49 DM: Well, I think that speaks…
21:51 ST: And run a bowling fundraiser which was still…
21:53 DM: Right, my goodness. Well, I think it speaks to the ambition and drive of Anthony and I. Just for example, we went to this other part of Nepal to research a future project ’cause, of course, we gotta do something next, right? We probably went to… Oh, let’s call it eight different villages, where we were looking at sanitation for schools. Toilets and clean drinking water is basically what we were looking for. The first six villages we visited, there was a need for clean drinking water and new toilets and hygiene education, but we were able to get to all these by a four wheel drive Jeep, so more or less easy. A long journey, but we could drive to the front door of these places. The second day on our research, we went to this other spot that we had to drive for three hours on a four wheel drive road and then walk three hours up the hill. And that was a high need area and we left that village being like, “Yeah, let’s do that one.” We’re like, are we out of our minds? We could easily start with something lower, a lower budget that would be easier to do, but we see something even more challenging, and we’re like, “Yeah, let’s attack that one.” We never wanna do something easy, I guess.
23:06 ST: Before we wrapped up, I had to get a quick update on the annual fundraiser for Elevate Nepal, a Big Lebowski-themed bowling night.
23:14 DM: Yeah, no, we’re doing it again. Third annual Big Lebowski-themed fundraiser, Starlight Lanes, February 1, 2020.
23:21 ST: It’s amazing how you have a weird idea one year, and then suddenly it becomes this annual thing that you have to do every year.
23:27 DM: Well, you know what’s hilarious about it is, the first time we did it, we had no idea if this was gonna work, and it worked and it was a huge success. Last year we did it, year two, and it was also a huge success. So in those two years, we raised almost $30,000. Sarchu was an $80,000 budget, right? That’s 35% of the school was paid for by this Big Lebowski-themed party, basically.
23:56 ST: Have you shown pictures of the fundraiser to your partners in Nepal?
24:00 DM: Some of them. Like, [24:01] ____ knows about it, and what they mostly know is it’s a bowling fundraiser.
24:06 ST: And what do they think of it?
24:08 DM: Well, they see the pictures of me with the mustache and Anthony with the Jesus costume on. Yeah, they laugh and they find it funny.
24:14 ST: Are they as into the Big Lebowski?
24:18 DM: They are not. No, not many people… And by “not many”, nobody knows about it. [chuckle] At least the ones that I’ve talked to.
24:25 ST: They see the costumes and they’re like, “These are very strange costumes. I have no idea why you chose that.”
24:29 DM: They’re like, “Oh, cool. Brought in money, right?” We’re like, “Yeah, we got money.” “Oh, okay, great.”
24:34 ST: So, you’re sticking with it?
24:35 DM: Sticking with it.
24:36 ST: Big Lebowski, bowling…
24:38 DM: Yup.
24:38 ST: Costumes.
24:40 DM: Yup. Same idea. One thing that we are promoting this year is premiere sponsorships. The whole evening cost Elevate Nepal like $4,000. It’s like a $4,000 party. So we’re looking for sponsors to help absorb those costs. Which the main costs are renting out the bowling alley itself, paying for the food, ’cause we give free food to everybody there, and then also paying for the entertainment. So we actually have… Two of the premier sponsors are already covered. The Local Joint, which is a medical marijuana dispensary out of Phoenix, Arizona, is the sponsor for the event. And then our second sponsor who’s sponsoring the night’s entertainment is Aspey, Watkins, Diesel, which is a law firm here in town. So thank you to both of them for coming on board.
25:24 ST: Is there any humor involved in those being co-sponsors?
25:24 DM: Well, it is… Well, first with the… With the first person to come up for grabs to sponsor the whole event was The Local Joint, Anthony and I kind of looked at each other, and we’re like, “Oh, that’s perfect. It’s very fitting.” And hats off to The Local Joint. They have been a huge supporter of Elevate Nepal. Not just this, but other fundraisers they’ve done in Phoenix.
25:24 ST: I just feel like it ties in with the Big Lebowski theme.
25:24 DM: It does, it does, and I think they’ll… They will be there that night, and I can’t remember if they will be giving out some Swag as well. Everybody, come out and sign up. We’ve been lucky the past two years, I think we’ve only had two, maybe three lanes open each night, so we haven’t officially sold out. So the goal is this year is to sell out the place, and the goal this year is to raise $20,000 in the night.
26:16 ST: You’re in town for it. You’ll be there? Anthony will be there?
26:17 DM: I’ll be there, so…
26:19 ST: It’ll be the brief sighting of both of you in the same place at the same time?
26:23 DM: Exactly. You’ll see Anthony and I both there, February 1, 2020, Starlight Lanes.
26:29 ST: I asked Dan if there was anything we missed.
26:33 DM: March of 2020, we are doing our first ever health camp, and we’re partnering with a non-profit out of Sedona, which they are called Humanitarian Efforts Reaching Out. They have done work all over the world for the past 15 years. Team of doctors that go into these countries and set up health camp for a certain number of days, doing basic check-ups… The health check-ups, also doing vaccinations, providing medicine and vitamins, eyeglasses. They contacted us about a year ago to see if we would like to partner together, and I said, “Sure, let’s do it.” So this has kind of been a new part of our business, yes, where we’re running the logistics and helping facilitate bringing a different skillset over to Nepal that’s very, very highly needed up in these remote villages. I mean, most of these people have never been to a doctor, ever.
27:27 ST: Wow.
27:30 DM: Right. So I’ll also bring in an acupuncturist with us and a gynecologist.
27:38 ST: Do you get time for… You talked about how you have to learn a lot about these different topics. But I mean in terms of professional development, just about non-profit management or…
27:49 DM: No.
27:49 ST: Productivity or anything like it, do you get time for any of that?
27:51 DM: No, it’s… No, we’ve made it all up and have learned it as we’ve gone. I’m sure seminars and conferences and workshops would be great for Anthony and I, but it is quite amazing too with how successful we’ve been. And again I say “we” with help of so many different people. Anthony and I knew nothing about non-profit. We had never worked for a non-profit. We had maybe done a little bit of volunteer work, and that was it. So we decided to start a non-profit and then we’ve learned everything about running one, which I think can be good in the sense because you are fairly ignorant. So you’re open to any suggestion and any ideas. I guess you don’t have a preconceived notion of how it should be going into it, which can be good or bad. I think it’s been good, though.
28:42 DM: It’s good in the start-up phase.
28:43 ST: It’s been good in the start-up phase, right. But we’ve talked, especially this trip we had a long talk about moving forward is… Okay, we only see a team of two or three, let’s just call it a team of two for the sake of the argument, for at least the next year. Okay, how are we gonna keep things moving, how are we gonna make them grow and not burn ourselves out? So we’ve learned a lot more about prioritizing in terms of what individually we’re focusing on, but what we’re focusing on as an organization as well, which is very important, because otherwise you’re just gonna fry yourself out. As much as you love it, and I absolutely love what I’m doing and we both do, we had the conversation of, Anthony said, “I’m gonna get married and maybe I’ll be coming to Nepal less frequently or for not as long of trips,” but he’s like, “I’m still 100% on board with this. Let’s keep it rolling.”
29:39 ST: Wow, I can’t believe how much Dan and Elevate Nepal have accomplished since the last time we spoke. I always really enjoy catching up with him. I hope you enjoyed listening in on our conversation. Today’s episode was produced, edited, recorded, and pretty much everything else by me Sharon Tewksbury-Bloom. I did get some help with mixing from my dad, John Tewksbury. Thanks, dad. Music in this episode was Bathed in Fine Dust by Andy G Cohen, found in the free music archive and released under Creative Common Attribution International license. Once again, you can find links to anything mentioned in today’s episode at DoGoodBeGoodShow.com. And if you’re on Facebook, you can join us at facebook.com/DoGoodBeGoodShow. What would really help is if you share this episode with a friend. Know anyone who might be interested in this topic? Please share. The next new episode for Do Good, Be Good will be out in two weeks. Until next time, this is Sharon Tewksbury-Bloom, signing off.
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