Always Lifting
Always Lifting is a new video podcast hosted by Karen Norheim, CEO of American Crane & Equipment Corporation. It’s part of a broader content platform exploring leadership, innovation, wellness, heritage, and grit – all through the lens of curiosity, resilience, and storytelling.
Always Lifting
The Big Cheese Storyteller: Freddy Vasquez | Always Lifting Ep. 2
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Host Karen Norheim sits down with entrepreneur, storyteller, and award-winning business owner Freddy Vasquez, founder and “Big Cheese” of FXV Digital Design. Fresh off his company’s recognition at the 2025 Greater Reading Chamber Business Excellence Awards—right alongside American Crane—Freddy shares his inspiring journey from designing MySpace pages to building a thriving digital design agency.
Together, Karen and Freddy dive into themes of:
🌟 Grit & risk-taking: how Freddy faced challenges and took bold leaps to grow his business
🌟 The ups and downs of entrepreneurship: from losing jobs and maxing out credit cards to building something lasting
🌟 Business culture: creating a workplace rooted in authenticity, teamwork, and creativity
🌟 Branding & storytelling: why personal and business branding matter for long-term success
🌟 Community impact: giving back through toy drives, school outreach, and local partnerships
With honesty, humor, and heart, Freddy reveals what it means to “create something awesome today” and how resilience, people, and purpose have shaped his success.
If you’re an entrepreneur, leader, or anyone chasing a vision, this conversation will leave you energized, inspired, and ready to take the leap.
📌 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share if this episode lifts you!
🔗 Learn more about FXV Digitial Design at https://fxvdigital.com/
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https://www.linkedin.com/company/fxv-digital-design/
Today's guest is a fellow entrepreneur, storyteller, and award-winning business owner. He is the creative force behind FXV Digital Design, which recently took top honors right alongside American Crane at the 2025 Greater Reading Chamber Business Excellence Awards. He knows what it means to lift a brand, a business, and a vision from the ground up. His journey is all heart, hustle, and honesty. Freddie Vasquez, welcome to Always Lifting.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me, Karen. That was a great intro. I need you to write all of my intros and my bios.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, can you have your own podcast, right? Yourself. So thanks for taking the time to switch sides of the mic and join me. And also shout out, like, thank you to our amazing space. We're we're not only you're a guest on my show, um, but also we're a guest in your building. You've created you've created this space where we can we can use it and other customers can use it. So like thank you. This is awesome.
SPEAKER_01It's our pleasure. Thank you for using it. It's cool. You guys made it look really cool, man. So I dig it.
SPEAKER_00It's it's fun and exciting to see it actually come together.
SPEAKER_01I know.
SPEAKER_00Um so I love on your website how you have your title, Founder and Big G's. Yeah. I I I love that. And I can t I can tell the entrepreneurial spirit just from being here in the building with your people and um having the pleasure to work with some of them. Can you just, you know, tell us about the journey of lifting your business literally into existence?
SPEAKER_01Holy cow, man. That's uh that's been how much time do we got? Right. Uh it it it was honestly, it it came out of necessity. You know, uh really what happened was, you know, I did the college thing, I went to school. Uh I was first started working in the music business. That was initially what I did. I worked in New York City, you know, Manhattan, 57th Street. It was great. You know, it's my hometown. And um Napster came out. If anybody remembers Napster, oh yeah. They came out and a lot of the new kids got let go. Interesting. Yeah, so I was, you know, kind of like flabbergasted by the whole thing, and that's when I went back to retail. You know, I started just working retail, working at a music store called Sam Goody. Can anybody remember? I remember Sam Goody too.
SPEAKER_00Speaking of my uh generation.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I was I worked there for a while, and then we realized, you know, Jill was uh, you know, my fiance at the time. We realized New York's too expensive, we gotta freak make a move. So we were set up with the jobs in Florida. So we had jobs in Florida. I left in October of 08. Two weeks after we got down there, place closed. Yeah. So I'm in Florida. I got you know, chill, we got our daughters to think about, one year lease. What do you do? And she said, Maybe you should try doing this graphic design stuff that you did on the site for real. And I was like, Oh, really? I never thought of it that way. I always did it like as a favor for friends, or when I was in a band, I used to make you know our cassette covers and all those things, flyers. So she took a crappy job and I ended up doing MySpace pages. That was like my big thing back then for bands. And uh we got into this groove where we started asking huge bands if they wanted their pages done for free. And it worked in the beginning, and we finally got high enough where we did a really huge band called Five Finger Death Punch. We did their MySpace, and then everybody wanted us to do them.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01And that was the beginning of actually getting paid to do this work that I did for fun.
SPEAKER_00That's a great alignment of pulling together something that you loved into actually doing it. And right, sometimes these moments where we have huge transitions on our lives are not exactly planned for us. And uh and I I love the taking a challenge and a struggle and a situation and like finding a way to turn it into an opportunity. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's it's something that uh I mean I'm very proud of, obviously, trying, you know, making cash out of MySpace designs, but again, you know, when you have you know a future wife and two kids, what are you gonna do? And then for me personally, it's two daughters. So I got two daughters and a wife. Yeah, I'm old school, you know. My dad was the same way. So I'm like, I'm I'm a man, I gotta take care of my ladies, you know. So I figured it out. You know, then a a year into that we left. We figured out we couldn't be so far away from home. My wife loves doing research, did a ton of research, found this place called Why I'm Missing Pennsylvania with a good school district, and uh we moved up here, and um that's when I learned the power of networking. You know, I mean I I was uh I never really knew much about networking. I think networking is probably one of the biggest reasons as to why where we are today. Uh just meeting people and letting people know who you are, what you're about, um, what you can do for them, and of course, branding. Um so doing the the hardcore networking for Gs, I mean, all those years um definitely helped. You know, but the funny thing is um my business was doing pretty well and one of my clients was like, Hey, I need you on my payroll. And I was like, No, I don't want to go on your payroll, I got my own business to run. She's like, I need you on my payroll. I was like, I can't do it. She's like, Come on, what's the number? So I gave her some astronomical number, and she said yes, and gave me the most money I've ever seen in my life. And at that time I said, Well, uh it'd be stupid not to take it. I gotta buy a house, I gotta take care of my ladies. And so I took the job, fast forward five years, I got fired. And she let me go. She fired me back in 2016. So her business was here, mine was here. She fired me in 2016, said thanks for everything, I'll see you later. She found cheaper help because I I helped set everything up for five years. She found somebody who could do it for way cheaper, and that was it. So 2016, you know, down the dumps for two weeks. My wife smacked me around and said, you know, get your like, let's go, man. You're Freddie Vasquez, let's do some stuff. Uh my friend Russell Farbiar is who's out here, he's a great lawyer. He uh took me to networking meetings. And the rest is history, man. That was it.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, I love to talk about grit and and and American green. It's something we always talk about. Grit matters and Persimans, heart integrity, this idea of overcoming obstacles. I mean, you are very gritty, I will say. I mean, having overcome all those different challenges and yeah, that's uh but the universe kind of has a way of leading us to, you know, where we're meant to be. Absolutely. And um on that thread, I mean, I feel like, especially from our experience here and and you know, meeting, knowing some of the people you're you have working for you, uh your mantra, which I love, let's create something awesome today. I mean, I I feel like you found, certainly have found your sweet spot and our are um you're you've landed in an amazing place. Yeah. Uh or I would say there's a lot of hard work, I bet, that has gotten to you to the point where you're at now today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, you know, I'm nothing without my team. Okay, I'm gonna tell you that right out of the gate. Joe and Heather and Paige and Karina, and of course my wife, my wife keeps it all together. I'm nothing without them. But before all that, before I had the opportunity to even hire one person, yeah, it was tons of hard work, long hours. I remember stopping at about five or six, having dinner with the family, hung out with them till about nine when they went to bed, and then I just went back to work. You know, maybe I went to bed at two, maybe I went to bed at five, maybe I didn't go to bed. Um and I'm very proud of all that because hard work, just hard work got me to where I was, to where I had the opportunity to even, you know, have my first office, which took my brand to another level. Buying this building took my brand to another level. And that's when the real magic started to happen. So yeah, being gritty, you know, always, you know, just facing adversity, you know, with just just on your feet, you know, great things are gonna happen. But and then I found some people. You know, and then holy cow, man, when you don't have to do everything yourself or think yourself, being creative is rough, man. And it only goes so far. But you get one other brain in there, it's amazing. Then you get six.
SPEAKER_00Amplifier, right?
SPEAKER_01Forget about it. We're we're nuts over here, you know, and we have a great time doing it.
SPEAKER_00It's awesome. I think we have a lot of parallels in our um businesses and paths, and and I I think this idea around people is one of you know my values and something I've always um leaned into is that people are the most important part of your business, right? They really are. Um, no matter whether you're making cranes, doing digital awesomeness, or you know, um any other type of business out there, it it really comes down to people.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell It's always the people. There's I I can't do anything without them. You know, you mentioned at the beginning of our our little episode here, you mentioned the GRCA awards that we both you know won this year, which is we should just pull them out.
SPEAKER_00I mean, should we do like a whoop whoop? Like this is pretty awesome. I am oh these are great.
SPEAKER_01I never thought in my wildest imaginations that I would have somebody give me an award for anything, you know, let alone my business. You know, so and I have like my own moments, you know, because I loved this when I got this. I was so proud of it. And um, you know, I sat there and I just thought to myself, I was like, dang, dude, you are broke as crap. I'm not gonna christen your podcast. You're broke as crap. We can keep it. And uh, you know, I sat there, I remember just the hours upon hours upon hours, and just somebody actually recognized what we're doing here, you know, um, which is amazing. But people are like the greatest thing. You know, I mean, I love people in general. I'm definitely an extrovert. I love meeting people, I love I'm a people pleaser, I'm terrible at that stuff. I just, you know, and then when you find a team that is just so great at everything that they do, you know, and what I really love about our team is that the first test, if you will, that we give anyone is the vibe check. Like, can you even hang out with us? Like, you know, how sensitive are you? You know, because the not that we're bad people, but like we like to just, you know, screw with each other, you know, we like to make fun of each other. I mean, Joe, he's like got the biggest target on his back, but he's so cool with it, you know, because it's all done out of love. Because my dad taught me that years ago, because my my sisters would bring home guys to meet them. And so they'd go up to him, my dad would shake the hand and go, Oh, how you doing? you know, and that'd be the end of that conversation. Or he would mess around with them and pull pranks or just make fun of them. And that's when you knew my dad actually liked the guy, uh huh. As opposed to he didn't like the guy and he didn't want to piss off his daughters, he'd just be like, Hi, how you doing, and that'd be the end of the conversation. He'd be cordial. You know, so we do that here. We see can they hang with us, can they be down with us, you know, do they have the same, you know, spirit as us. And what we find is that when you have all these people that align with you well together in the same room and everybody gets along well, there's absolutely nothing you can't accomplish. You know, and that's what we've done here. And the crazy thing is that honestly, I think I had my first hire in 22 or 23. So we're only talking about three years here. You know, so three, four years, we've taken this place from just me sitting behind a desk, you know, trying not to work, you know, 120 hours to awards and great photo shoots and people recognizing the brand and and the fun that we have, and it's all because of them.
SPEAKER_00And phenomenal like work that you guys do. Like the quality of the work, the the vibe and this culture that you've created is evident. And it's evident in our community. I think you have done a really great job of creating you have to create the team that actually can do all the work. But then branding and communicating that out to other people. I mean, I feel like you're a brand aficionado, you know, not just because it's the work you do, but you're doing it to, you know, um attract customers, but also, like you said, attracting the right employees. Um I don't know, the thoughts around that. Do you do you feel, I mean, I feel like we both have worked on our own personal brands. Yeah, absolutely. Um you know, it's something that I'm actually very intentional. I know you're intentional too. And do you have any thoughts around the importance of that and just sort of um as the brand aficionado, tips or things for people that might be listening to think about?
SPEAKER_01I think number one, you have to treat your brand as a priority. And people don't. You know, they think that what they do is fine, what they do is good enough. Um yeah, I put a post up on social like uh two years ago. I'm covering my bases. It's like they don't really respect it at all. They don't see the value in it. They see the value in uh making a sales call and hopefully closing the business. What I've learned is that when you when your branding is is priority and you make it just elevated, people start to pay attention, number one. But number two, the biggest thing is if you have a superior brand, people will see it subconsciously and know that you're gonna take care of them because of how much you're taking care of yourself. You know, if you can't even take care of yourself that well, you're not gonna give a crap about me. Why should I give you anything? Why should I pay you any amount of money? Why should I give you any of my business when you can't even take care of yourself?
SPEAKER_02Right?
SPEAKER_01So when you can take care of yourself and you show that your brand is elite, subconsciously everyone's going to trust you. Then you look like a leader in your industry. Then you end up becoming, for lack of a better term, the Gucci or the Louis Vuitton of that industry. You know, nobody can touch you. I've seen all your stuff, I've seen all the Karen Norham stuff on LinkedIn, all the podcasts you're on, all the awards you're winning, all the speeches you do. Who's better than you? Right? And the mindset that's out there, who's better than you? If somebody needs anything that has to do with your services or wants to speak to a woman who's elite in her industry, they're gonna call you because that's the brand you set for yourself. I'm trying to do the same thing in my realm right here. I'm trying to be the only person you need to think of when it comes to digital marketing in our space. But there's only one way to do that, and that's to be superior at branding, treating every little thing that you put out there as the most important thing you'll ever share with someone. Nothing can be just halfway. It has to be 120% better than the other person. And when you get that vibe out there, everyone will see it, everyone will respect it. And honestly, I'm sitting across from you right now, right? Freddie Vascadist from Queens. Nobody's. It's just sitting from across from you.
SPEAKER_00I think you'd call me Gucci, which I've never been like I was like, I'm like Gucci. That feels pretty cool. And uh, but yeah, no, I feel like equally honored to be here with you.
SPEAKER_01So Right, I appreciate that. Yeah. But you know, like-mindedness and the same positive energy it attracts each other. Definitely. And the fact that I even get to work with American Crane for me personally is like, holy crap, who the hell am I?
SPEAKER_00Well, and I know on our journey to working together, um, you know, my marketing team, uh, Michelle came and interviewed you, and it was your branding, it was communicating your values, right? And it was um, you had said once in a an article that I read that really what you're doing um here at your company is storytelling and that marketing is just the tool. Well, in that process, you storytold to our team what it was you were going to deliver. Um, you were communicating the kind of quality that you bring, you were communicating the fun and the grit, which is really aligns with you know who we are. And we made a choice on that, and that choice was fantastic, and it's absolutely part of why uh the union between us happened. So it's pretty, pretty awesome. And and um yeah, it's it's important. You're right, that a lot of people don't think about it. So we're talking on our uh branding on the on the business level, and I think we've alluded a little bit to branding on the on the personal level. Um, you know, for me, I think of there was a speaker early on in my career. Um, I was at a conference and there happened to be somebody on the stage who was talking about personal branding and how important it is and how to show up and kind of how to know what you stand for and how to communicate that. Do you have any tips or tricks on that side for like people with their thinking about not just their business brand, but themselves? And because not everybody has a company like we do. Um what what do you think could be channeled in that direction to help them be intentional too?
SPEAKER_01So that's a great question. I've actually been thinking about that myself the past few weeks, and I'm thinking, well, what's worked for you, man? I was like, right. So I think the one thing that I've noticed is that everybody has something that's recognizable, right? And I think you need to to really work on that, you know, in my opinion. And and that would be like, okay, so for me, I talked to a lot of people, and when I was doing my rebrand of my business, because I did a rebrand a few years ago. Um they told me that, you know, you're the brand. And they're like, well, you're the brand, man. And that was just back when it was just me here still. You know, I was like, okay, so what does that mean? Like, all right, well, it's not just being you know happy and always out there and extroverted, but like people's like, you know, they what they see here. So he was like, you know, the glasses you wear, you can never change your glasses, that's like your thing. You know, uh yeah, I like them. I like it. Um I made a new logo that featured, you know, everything but the plugs in my ears, and he pointed it out, my good friend Dr. Bill, he's like, Well, what are your plugs? And I'm like, Well, I didn't think it was professional, put that in there. He's like, No, dude, that's like part of your thing, right? And then eventually this beard became part of it, you know, and that's just my barber's doing. It wasn't even me. He stopped cutting. He's like, We gotta let this thing grow out for a bit. Good luck in. Yeah, so you know, thank you. You know, so to answer your question, I think the first step is to see what makes you unique. You know, sometimes it is what you wear, the way your hair looks, you know, the way your facial hair, if you have any, might look, you know. I obviously follow a lot of guys, you know, like Gary V is one of them. The guy's his the things I always see with Gary Vee's always wearing those caps, and the guy curses a lot. You know, but that's like his two things that he does, you know, outside of even the knowledge that comes out of his mouth, you know. So you go through all these things, like, you know, even for me, uh uh like Shark Tank, you know, I love watching um, geez, I forgot her name. I think her first name's Lori. She did she does all the uh QVC. Everybody knows how she wears like the same dress every time for the most part. It might change a little bit, but just take a look at the style of dress that she wears.
SPEAKER_00I didn't notice that. You know what?
SPEAKER_01Go through it.
SPEAKER_00Great example of subtlety that is definitely playing on our human psychology and our brain. Uh, so interesting.
SPEAKER_01I could point her out in two seconds by the dresses she's wearing. You know, and I look at that, I'm like, wow, she always wears the same kind of dress every time. You know, so I say you want to start with something like that too, just separate yourselves from everybody else. Because I've learned that just by the photos we take uh for Burke's County of Living. We do photos uh the past three years, the face of issues, you know. And I said we'll never be like everybody else who just stands there and smiles. And this year it was actually, you know, confirmed because I just met somebody on Monday from City Council, and he was like, Oh, hey, I know you. I saw you in the in the magazine, and you guys were doing something that nobody else knew.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, was this the is this the bowling picture? I freaking love that. It's on your website too, and it was in the article I was uh looking at. And um oh yeah, those pictures, and those are your pictures um for anybody listening. Yeah, on the website in your about us. I love it. I love the humor. I yes, that's that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's very important. And I learned that a while ago because I actually lost work by having an inferior about us page on a website.
SPEAKER_00Interesting.
SPEAKER_01I lost to uh uh there was a company in San Francisco looking to hire us, and we came in second to this other company. I did my due diligence. I said, Hey, listen, thank you for giving us a shot. What did I do wrong and what can I improve on? And he literally said, All your work was great, but your about us page was terrible. And I was like, What are you talking about? I went to the website and I was like, okay, well, maybe he's right. I guess I could have done. But that one thing right there told me that human factor is huge, branding is huge. Now, when you work with us and you go to that about us page, which coincidentally is the second or third most visited page on a website, they're gonna see who you are. Yeah. And now we're gonna look like a bunch of bowlers, you know, from the movie Kingpin. I think it's having a great time. But how do you not look at that and go, oh, I want to work with those dudes. Absolutely. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00And I think it's true whether your product is something that you're directly working with consumers or business to business like we're doing, or even equipment like this. There is a there's a human psychology behind this that is, you know, I it I'm sure there's studies. I know we know it's proven because this is things that we do in our world uh for sure. Um the other piece of that, I mean, it's all kind of paid off because you're getting these testimonials now out. And honestly, what a gift that you for asking that that customer that you lost, right? Like what a gift that feedback is and to be able to take an action on that.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell You have to, you have to you have to ask why didn't this work out? I mean, I I need to learn. You're gonna be learning till you know you call it a day, right? Like you're forever learning. I still learn things today, my staff teaches me things. Um I need to know why I didn't win at certain things. And when I ask them that, um I get this this feedback that I'm gonna do. You'd never you'll never be told because I learned that growing up. You know, I was in a band for 15 years. Okay. And you asked people, How do we do you guys were great? You guys are great. But then I remember the flip side when I would go see my friends' bands, and some of them were terrible. And I'd be like, You guys were awesome, man. That first song, forget about it. It was the best thing I ever heard. People are just gonna fill you full of smoke. You know, so when I physically, you know, call you out in a way and just say, Hey, what did I do wrong? Please tell me. A lot of times people just let me know that, well, it was too much, or this, or that. But this was like one of the best pieces of advice I ever got. When he said you're about us, page is just lacking. And I was like, crap, man. The human factor and and brand is enormous. And I mean, I can definitely say for certain, like eight times, nine times out of ten of all the work we get, a lot of it just stems from just our vibe, how we you know respect ourselves, how respect our clients, and just the relationships you build. Because any relationship you have in your life, when it is just like top notch, only greatness is gonna come out. And when you have any little rift in that, it's not gonna be good.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And and our job, right, as as owners or or c presidents, CEOs, whatever, uh we own the responsibility of the reputation, which is you know the brand, as well as the culture, which is your vibe, and making sure that all of that stays on point so that you can, you know be out there and and getting the work. I feel like it's part of our job. Like branding really it is part of our job. It's not just creating the pieces, right? It's it's it's being able to communicate that storytelling about who we are and why people might want to work with us.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're we're essentially the brand ambassadors. Yes. Like first and foremost. Absolutely. We know how we carry ourselves helps our personal brand, sure. But we almost have the opportunity to do that because of where we come from. You know, so it's like, yeah, I'm Fred of Vasco, so I'm Matrix and Digital Design, so like how is that hanging out? You know, and if I can't make that just a hundred percent, it's gonna be detrimental to everything that we're doing. So branding, branding, branding. I'm just uh I'm huge on it. Huge. Like I hope that in my next, you know, chapter of life, it's literally just consulting on branding. Like I would just love to do that for people and just say you need to do A, B, C, D, and E. You know, and if until you don't do this, don't come back to me.
SPEAKER_00I think that would be you would be giving people a gift of a lot of great insights. On this similar thread, I mean, I think we can say branding and these pieces are definitely keys to your success. Is there anything else when you think about your company's growth? And you know, we know our awards were related to growth in our businesses. Um, you know, what else is out there or what else do you think has contributed to that success?
SPEAKER_01Risk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Risk taking. Just you you can't be afraid. You know, I I like to you know, I like to use the uh my pool analogy, you know, with people and kids. I talk to these entrepreneurial classes every year. I tell them we just gotta jump in the pool. Right? I'm like, but hear me out. Hot day, you're there with your family, you walk up to the pool, the first thing you do is put your toe in, and you're like, oh, it's cold. And you put a little bit more in. Oh my goodness, I can't get in. This goes on for what, 20, 30 minutes till you're finally in the pool. And then when you're finally in the pool and you're hanging out, having a good time, oh, this is great, this is nothing, it feels awesome. You know what would have happened if you just jumped in? In about 20 seconds, you'd have been like, oh, this is great, this is fine. Yeah, because that's just being a human being. Okay, so you have to put yourself in situations that suck, you know, that you have to be afraid, right? If you're not afraid, you're not doing anything we're talking about. Okay. I was scared out of my wits doing this, like just building a MySpace page. Wait, I I don't have to go to work today and get the money. I know that's gonna come in every week, right? I went and got an office. I was so comfortable working in my home for so many years, had no overhead. And I said to myself, if you're ever gonna grow, man, you have to take a risk. So I literally doubled my bills in one day by renting an office. Right? And I was like, Well, what are you gonna do now? Are you gonna sit here and hope things happen or are you gonna make things happen? So I jumped in the pool. And guess what? In a few uh seconds, I was used to the water. That was 2017. By 2019, I owned the building. And when I went to go buy the building, I emptied out my bank account. And that is not a joke. My bank account said zero. Zero. I took everything out, gave it right to the person that bought the building. I signed some papers, sat out front, smiled, took a picture with my wife and my dog, and said, Well, here we go again. You know, and all I did was I I charged a crap ton of credit cards. I had plastic coming out of everywhere, maxed out, grand opening. My wife thought I was nuts. You're spending so much money and everything. What are you going to do? You are insane, you're spending too much money. Then the grand opening happened, and everybody and their mom showed up. People that were just in the neighborhood walking by. I got jobs from that because people were driving by going, What is going on over there?
SPEAKER_00Amazing.
SPEAKER_01And at the end of that day, Karen, let me tell you, at the end of that day, my favorite memory of all time. Me and my wife were in the front conference room, everybody was gone, doors locked. And she looks at me and she goes, Now we know why you do what you do. And that just made everything for me. And I was like, Yeah, I'm not crazy. I just gotta take a risk, and it's gonna work out because I believe it's gonna work out.
SPEAKER_00You had a vision, you executed, you stayed with it, even when you know your wife is saying, Hey, is this the best idea? And you know, you took that risk and it's paid off.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's a great example of um being comfortable, being uncomfortable. And I feel like I feel like that's a muscle we can exercise and get better at. I don't know if you feel the same way, right?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00You're sort of that um on a small scale, it's um it might be just that tension, like the few, five seconds before you jump in the pool, right? Or versus not. It's such a great analogy. Um, but yeah, like the more we can be okay with that, and then that leads to us being able to take bigger risks and other pieces. I mean, I agree. That's that's it's so important for a success and grow and for kind of amplifying that flywheel, right? To get it keep going. And um amazing.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um you talked a little bit in there about the pool analogy, which actually leads me to something else I wanted to ask you about. Um so you, I think, went to a local high school and happened to run into my nephew.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, right? Joey.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you so tell me about um, you know, it could be that experience, but then also it you do a lot of outreach and that part of your your sort of, if you mentioned your networking and meeting people, but also it's giving back to the community. Absolutely. Yeah, tell me a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so well, Joey just was a happy accident. Yeah, I went to his high school. Uh, one of the teachers actually knows a friend of mine, and uh, she put me in touch with him and said, Hey, you know, he needs a speaker for his class. I think it was some sort of entrepreneurial class. I said, Yeah, what the hell? I'll I like that stuff. I like doing it. So went and did it. Um, did the class. Got an interesting group of kids. You know, some of them are cool, some of them are like, you know, I'm just waiting for the period to end.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, 15 year olds, right? I'm sure it's uh fun crazy energy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was cool. You know, I did my thing and I was like, okay, I'm gonna get out of here. Teacher said, Thanks a lot. And I was like, Can you just can you have somebody just walk me back? You know, I just don't know where I am. This place is huge. He's like, Yeah, and then uh I think Joey raised his hand. He's like, You're welcome back. I'm like, all right. During that speech, I talked about American Crane. You know, I brought it up. I was like, Yeah, one of the you know best clients we have now is American Crane. I went from some guy making MySpace pages to working for this multimillion dollar company that's doing all these great things. You know, for me it's wild, you know, this great trip I'm on. He's like, So uh you said that you worked for American Crane. I'm like, yeah, they're great clients. He's like, oh, my mom works there. Like my mom works there. After I find out who his mom is, right? He's like, and my aunt works there. I'm like, who's your aunt? Who's your mom? And I go, Stephanie. I'm like, Stephanie, I'm like, you you mean like Karen's sister, Stephanie? He's like, yeah, Karen's my aunt. I'm like, oh, so your dad is, you know, we're going through the whole thing. I was like, wow, man. I was like, yeah. I was like, you know, it's funny. I was like, I never met your mom or your aunt. I was like, I've been working for them for I think over a year now. I've only met Michelle and Aaron. And uh we had a cool little talk, and he got me back to the office, and it was cool just to like, you know, vibe with him, you know, and just talk with him and see like how he was hoping to like, you know, do certain entrepreneur things as he got older. Then I ran into him again at the dinner, which was awesome. And I was like, what's up, man? He looked, I think he grew in the little span of time that I saw him because I was going like this, what's up, man?
SPEAKER_00You know, oh yeah, I was, yeah, it definitely keeps crying. I think we're all we're all now shorter than uh than Joey. And he made such an impression. I mean, he was talking about you and was so excited about this story. Uh, between the time you saw him at the school till us being at that dinner together. Yeah, like I mean, so we we heard all about it, and I think that's the the power. I mean, it's it's it's a small world, one, but two, like you we could see the ripple effect you have by inspiring with your story on Joey, and just think about all the other uh kids in that room and who knows who you touched. And um just I know you do this in other schools and other things that you reach out on, and it's such so wonderful because by being role models, you know, it's something I really believe in. We create these ripple effects and we just never know who we're gonna touch and how that's gonna play back. And we know that there were people that rippled to us, right? And inspired us. So kudos.
SPEAKER_01No, thank you. I just um you know, a lot of it stems from just you know, my upbringing. You know, my parents were amazing. My mom, you know, my dad taught me hard work, but my mom taught me how to love. You know, that was what my mom did. And uh, you know, my parents were were poor, both of them, but growing up in their families. You know, my mom was one of uh ten. My dad was one of eight. Oh wow, big families. Wild families, man.
SPEAKER_00Good family reunions or par or uh parties, I would say.
SPEAKER_01You know, like my mom's part of the family and things like that. And then growing up, uh like my mom's family would get a lot of help from the local churches and the local nuns. Um so you you tend to just realize, like, oh man, you know, if it wasn't for this help they were getting, um, who knows what that would be. So as I got older and I've grown more fortunate, I mean, number one thing was, well, you know, what are we doing to give back? You know, and and that's why we started the toy drive. We do a toy drive every year. Um, and it's Berks County businesses helping out Berks County kids. It's grown to the point where we're doing this in conjunction with 40 other small businesses in the area. It's 40 of us, you know, collecting gifts for kids, local Berks County kids. You know, not that there's anything wrong with helping out the whole world. Right. Don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_00I love I love impact. Like the impact you can feel in your community.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it feels good. And you know, we're we're talking about concern for kids, opportunity house, married shelter, children's home of writing, you know, all these great organizations we collect every year for them to make sure those kids have you know something to look forward to. And I implore everybody out there, if you're listening to this, please check out what's going on in your local community because a lot of the requests as these kids make, they're not toys. Right. Everybody thinks right away they want toys. No, it's literally toiletry bags or backpacks or t-shirts or underwear. Because they have nothing. Absolutely nothing.
SPEAKER_00And don't you think so when you you know, what number one, I think we both do the outreach pieces in our companies and in our lives because we believe in it. We just want to pay for it for all of the things and people who have lifted us over the years. But it also, I mean, it's great for your employees, it's great for your business, it's great for networking, like there's no reason not to do it, right? Like it's it's a it's a lift all the way around for for everybody involved.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, ultimately, you lift yourself, you know, and just just from a personal standpoint, the fact that I can give something to somebody, if I can feed them, I can clothe them, I can make them happy for a few moments, I mean, that's it.
SPEAKER_02That's a good feeling.
SPEAKER_01You know, that's I love that feeling, you know. And I feel like, you know, um you know, but to quote Roberto Clemene, he said it. He said that if you're putting a cert to help people and you don't, you're wasting your time. You know, and that's why he's right here. That was Roberto Clemente. Yeah, because of everything that he did. I mean, the man lost his life being philanthropic. That's what he did. Oh wow. Yeah, crashed on a plane on uh believe it was New Year's Eve, going to help out people in I want to say the Dominican Republic, please, if I'm sorry if I got that wrong. But he got on the plane because he found out that they were stealing the food before it was getting to the people who needed it. So he went on the plane to make sure I got there and the plane went down.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So that's that's wild. He lost his life helping people. So that's what we have to do as human beings. You know, having businesses are great. You know, having accolades are amazing. You know, I love what we've built here. But at the end of the day, you have to help your fellow man. You know, that's what you should be doing to make everyone be able to have just a little piece of just peace, if anything, you know, on this planet that we we hang out on.
SPEAKER_00So agreed. And so is there someone in your journey? We're talking about lifting up others, right? We're talking about um lifting up our communities. Is there anyone who lifted you that o over the course of your journey that really sticks out?
SPEAKER_01I mean, the number one answer is my wife. Yeah. You know, she's just everything to me. You know, she's my world, you know. I love my parents. They definitely they had me going to be a few. They usually do. I mean, most of us. Not maybe not all, but yeah, you know, they they instilled values, I guess you could say. But when it came time to Yeah, absolutely. But when it came time to the nitty-gritty, you know, who's my number one fan? Who believes in me the most? It's my wife, Jill. You know, I'm nothing without her. You know, so she's the rock. She's, you know, uh she makes sense. She's common sense. You know, she puts me in my place in a good way. You know, it's like, hey man, you should be doing you should be zigging instead of zagging on this one.
SPEAKER_00It's good to have a truth speaker in your world, right?
SPEAKER_01That's what she's she's the real boss. You know, she runs this place now, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you, Jill, for for lifting you up and helping you on this amazing journey and taking you to where you are. You know, is there something when you you have a lot of fire? I can tell you have a lot of passion. Like, I actually think we could just keep talking, um, shooting the sh. You might have to bleep that out.
SPEAKER_01I own the place, you can do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00Okay, good. Um so what what what really fuels your fire? Like, or is there, you know, any sort of chemistry or things that you even do if you ever get sort of you know, we all even people sometimes think that, you know, because we're owners or because, you know, I'm I tend to be a very upy person. I know you probably tend to be an uppy person, but we have moments. Everybody has moments where they're tired and and they they need to kind of lift themselves up and kind of re-spark that. Is there anything that you do or anything that you know just kind of energizes you?
SPEAKER_01Um, I I guess you know what it is, man, for me, it's um I still get a kick out of people seeing things that we do and just giving me like a smile and go like, wow, that is awesome, man. And I'm like, yeah, it is, right? Like that's pretty cool, man. You know, like we we've we're given these opportunities to do these great projects around town. And we all work really hard on them as a team. And when we see the reaction from people, you know, they give us their testimonials or or just their pure gut, like, yo, that is awesome, or the comments people leave. That just makes it all better. Yeah, you know, and and I guess I mean, I don't want to be a downer, but I think it stems from growing up for me. Like growing up was rough, you know. Um school sucked. Kids kids are cruel. Yeah. I'll leave it at that, right? So when you're beaten down for so many years, you know, and told all this negative, to get a little bit of positive, you ch you tend to want to hold on to it. Yeah. Um, but then I realized when you become adults, you know, it's a little different, you know. And but now I I seek, I guess, maybe, you know, uh the approval of people when it comes to like a professional standpoint because of the work we we do. So when they just gave me that pure reaction of like, dude, that is so cool. That's all even use yelling, just almost yelling right now, saying, that bowling picture, that was amazing. I'm like, hell yeah, it was. Like, why wouldn't it be?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well deserved. Well, those like it those little sparks, right? Can mean so much. And and and it's you know, I I I get it. I totally get it. Yeah. Uh I I think that's that's great.
SPEAKER_01Please and thank you go a long way in life. They do. And and when you're, you know what, when you're at a Wawa or something like that, next time, just tell somebody, good morning, I hope you have a great day. Because this one woman did that to me about a couple years ago. She looked at me, she's like, Good morning, I hope you have a great day. And I looked at her, I said, You don't know how much I needed that today. I said, Thank you very much. So just a little bit of positives that you can put in people's, you know, lives every day, you'd be surprised. You'll never know what you're gonna hit.
SPEAKER_00Smile makes you feel good too, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Less what well, less muscles to smile than a lot more muscles to frown, right? That's I think that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00Something something about that. Well, to kind of wrap us up here a little bit, you know, we've had actually I have another question for you.
SPEAKER_01Do it.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So you've said that you might be a little Viking and that you're headed possibly to Norway. And we know my father is from Norway and um, you know, one of my favorite places. So, like, yeah, just like tell me a little bit about being a little Viking and um and uh anyway, just your excitement about heading to Norway and um that piece.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Yeah, 23 and me said I had a little Viking in me. I was like, all right, I got this email, and they're like, hey, we just we're getting deeper into DNA, so you have like the smallest percentage of a Viking something, like descent. And I'm like, get out of here. I was like, you tell me I got a little bit of that in me.
SPEAKER_00I would say, I like to say that to be successful in life and in business, you have to be a Viking. And I would say that you are all Viking. You devise, I like to say that you have to be a gardener, right? We gotta invest in ourselves, invest in our people, go through the grind, be gritty, keep going, cycling through the seasons. You have to be a uh warrior, you've got to train in your craft, you gotta be so good at what you're doing that you can do it without thinking. And then when the battles arrive, you gotta go, right? You gotta jump in the pool, be uncomfortable, be comfortable being uncomfortable. And then last, you have to be a storyteller and like the stories you tell yourself, which obviously you've told amazing stories to take yourself from your upbringing and some of those difficulties growing up, and even um obstacles along your way to get you to where you are today, and then telling the story to your employees and your family and and that whole storytelling of what you do about your business. So to me, you're all Viking. Thanks.
SPEAKER_01I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00You're welcome. So, Freddie, thanks for bringing the energy, honesty, and insights here to Always Lifting. And uh, your stories really proof that you lead with passion and purpose. And um, I think the lift is real. And it's you've lifted everyone you've lifted everyone around you, and thanks for taking the time to be with me today.
SPEAKER_01Well, Karen, thanks for having me on your show, man. It's a it's an honor. Straight up honor. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00Freddie is an absolute creative powerhouse. What a fun conversation. Check out the show notes for more information on Freddie and FXV Digital. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and always lift.