Episode 84– You can also listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google podcasts, and Amazon Music

About the Episode:

Bunny talks to Kristelle Siarza & Jace Downey about the work they do at Siarza, a New Mexico business, to help Asain owned businesses in Albuquerque and around the state. Jace and Kristelle are coworkers, friends and fellow podcast hosts. Learn more about what they’re doing to improve their community in the episode.

Links:
Siarza website
Stories, Success & Stuff podcast 
Siarza Instagram
I Love New Mexico blog page
Bunny’s website
I Love New Mexico Instagram
I Love New Mexico Facebook

Featuring:

Kristelle Siarza & Jace Downey

Kristelle is a seasoned figure in the business world. She’s a mom, CEO, non-profit founder, and entrepreneur specializing in digital communications and leadership. In 2014, she founded Siarza, an Albuquerque-based digital, public relations, and advertising firm known for its innovative approach. With their Land of Enchantment team, they’ve been making waves in the marketing arena, assisting clients from various industries – health, finance, non-profit, and more – with their marketing strategies. Their award-winning campaigns have garnered recognition both locally and nationally.

And joining Kristelle is Jace Downey, the Marketing & Research Coordinator at Siarza and a longtime Burqueña. She is their heart-centered problem-solver with a focus on simplifying the complex. Jace is all about building connections and fostering collaborative environments, earning appreciation from clients for her person-first approach to marketing strategies. 

When they’re not helping businesses innovate their reach, you can find Jace and Kristelle co-hosting the weekly podcast “Stories, Success & Stuff”, a show where unfiltered stories meet the raw exploration of business, marketing and personal growth as they stumble their way to success. You can catch their show on YouTube or any of your favorite streaming platforms.

About Siarza

As a full-service agency, Siarza helps clients with advertising, public relations and digital marketing. As an organization that strives in treating the team as family, each client receives a unique experience that molds with their organizational culture. Starting with a strategic plan for every client, no road map is ever the same. Siarza’s award-winning digital marketing practices complement the unique challenges of public relations and advertising. The model of the agency starts with storytelling, amplifies engagement and ends with results-driven project management. 

Learn more at siarza.com and follow on social media @SiarzaTheAgency

Episode Transcript

Bunny : (00:00)
Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry, and you’re listening to the I Love New Mexico podcast. Whether you’re a native new Mexican, who’s lived here for your entire life, or you’re just considering a visit, this episode is for you. Join us as we share a lot of New Mexico stories, talk about all things New Mexico, and include topics like what’s magical here, where you ought to visit, what’s happening, and the things you absolutely cannot miss in the land of Enchantment. We’re excited that you’re here, and we can’t wait to show you what an amazing place New Mexico is, because let’s face it, I love New Mexico On the, I Love New Mexico podcast. Today we have two special guests. We have Christelle, Siarza, moon. I hope I got that right. And, um, Jace Downey, who are two young women doing very exciting things in the state of New Mexico. Um, namely, I, well, I, I think it’s, you’re, you’re projected across the state, but you’re based in Albuquerque. So rather than me trying to read this bio that I got, which is, which is ultimately the most boring thing in the world for me to try to read it, I wanna hear your stories. Tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.

Kristelle : (01:25)
Well, I’ll go ahead and get started. So thanks, thanks for having us on the show, buddy. We really appreciate it. Um, my name is Kristelle Siarza Moon, and I’m the owner and CEO of Ciza. I’m also the founder of the Asian Business Collaborative, which is a nonprofit that’s aimed at helping Asian owned businesses here in New Mexico. Um, Jason and I are excited to share our stories, uh, with you about why we love New Mexico, um, because we, we both host, um, a really phenomenal podcast called Story Success and Stuff. It’s a podcast that celebrates a lot of the different entrepreneurial challenges, wins, trials and tribulations of being an entrepreneur, um, in this beautiful state or across the country. Um, and so, um, a little bit about my background. I actually moved, uh, to New Mexico. Uh, I moved to New Mexico in 2001 because of economic development, uh, economic development, uh, an economic development agency had recruited my mom’s company called The Gap, a little known clothing brand, of course. Um, recruited the gap here to Albuquerque in 2001. And my family is one of the first, uh, few families that actually opened up the center here, um, in the area. Um, and from there, it’s come full circle, um, being a person that’s contributing jobs, um, in New Mexico, um, as well as helping Asian owned businesses with some of the challenges that they face, um, uh, especially those that had experienced, um, major challenges during the pandemic. Um, so I’m really honored to be here. Ciza has really phenomenal clients across the state, and I, I say that Jace is a storyteller, um, and the entire company, um, are amazing storytellers, uh, as well. Uh, we’re amazing storytellers through social media, website, design, development, videography, uh, content development, you name it. So, um, thanks for this opportunity to be here. We’re excited to share some stories about our clients, some stories that we’ve shared on story success and stuff, um, and, and also, um, Jason’s stories as well. So,

Jace : (03:25)
Good deal. Yeah, I was gonna say, we got a whole, a whole, uh, office full of storytellers here for sure. That’s the, the basis of how we do so much of our work at Ciza, which is one of the things that drew me to it when I came back to New Mexico. Uh, I am one of those folks that left and has returned and left many times, and she just keeps calling me home. And so, me too. You know what I’m talking about. Yeah, I do. Yes. There’s so many of us, and I, when I was young, I was very much in that state of like, oh, I grew up here. I don’t wanna live here. I wanna go explore the world. And had even sometimes a negative perception of Albuquerque and of New Mexico. And I, I’ve continued to come back and win. I knew I was gonna stay and, and return to Albuquerque for at least a good long while. I knew I wanted to do it with a company that cared, a company that cared about the people, the community that was really focused on New Mexico. And one of the things that drew me to see Arza was the fact that, Krista, if, if you don’t mind me throwing this out here, she really wanted to make sure that there were great jobs available in this industry within New Mexico, because she noticed that a lot of folks were leaving. We’d get our education here, we’d be from here, we’d get all of our flavor from here, and then we would take it somewhere else, which I did too. I, I’ve lived in Los Angeles, I’ve lived in Colorado. I was in Austin for many years. And in that return home, it was great to, to meet someone and get to work with someone who is really dedicated to ensuring that we can stay in New Mexico if we want to, which I’ve certainly turned around to become really proud to live here. And, and honestly, some of the folks here within this office have helped with that. When I recognized that I, I was being called to stay in Albuquerque, I started asking, why do you guys love, love it here, why’d you move here? Or Why have you stayed here? And I got to discover New Mexico through other eyes and realize that there’s so many wonderful things about it. And so now I’m, I’m kind of a, a shoutout from the rooftops new Mexican .

Kristelle : (05:25)
So that’s, it’s an honor to be on the show, Ben.

Jace : (05:28)
Absolutely.

Bunny : (05:29)
Well, you’re so welcome. And, um, I, you know, I hear, I hear these stories all the time about people who are genuinely surprised, even people who are, are, um, lifelong residents or who left for a short period of time. Um, but that seems to be a real theme on, on the podcast, is that some somebody’s, um, you know, I felt like I needed to, you know, as, as a child, I always felt like I wanted to be away from here. And then as an adult, I’ve been genuinely surprised by how much, um, we have to offer. And, and, you know, we have a lot of listeners who are not from New Mexico, and they have never visited New Mexico. So I, um, I, I wanna hear some of the stories that you have about you and your clients, but I also wanna know, you keep using a phrase, um, crystal that is, um, agent owned businesses. And I want our listeners to be clear on what, what umbrella, what does that mean? What does that phrase mean to you? Agent owned businesses?

Kristelle : (06:38)
Yeah. So from, um, Asian owned businesses in New Mexico, um, run the gamut, um, in terms of the types of fields that they might, uh, be in, or industries they might be in, and Asian owned, uh, to us means whether they might be a quarter, a full first, second, third generation, and Asian owned businesses for us, um, needed for us here in New Mexico. Um, they really needed an outlet that was more inclusive, uh, understood the language barriers, the language challenges, and understood the culture, um, cultural and cultural, uh, culturalism. Um, and so that’s what the, when the Asian Business Collaborative was born, um, many folks, uh, from our sister organization, uh, that went to the New Mexico Asian Family Center. Um, they’re our sister organization because they focus on human and health services. And, um, at the New Mexico Asian Family Center, they got an influx of calls asking for folks to aid them with their businesses. And, and while they teach financial literacy at the New Mexico Asian Family Center, they realized that teaching business is not their forte as it shouldn’t be. But at the same time, there wasn’t resources that specifically helped the Asian community. So the Asian Business Collaborative was born out of the pandemic, um, with the three areas of case management, educ education, and advocacy.

Bunny : (07:58)
Well, tell me some stories. I wanna hear about, um, the, how, how you’re changing the landscape for Asian owned businesses.

Kristelle : (08:06)
Yeah. So we, uh, some of, some of our, our stories, um, are unfortunate. Um, some of ’em are joyous. Um, a joyous one to start off with was, there was a gentleman who recently left a TaeKwonDo school about two years ago. I met him at the Asian Expon Marketplace, and, uh, which is a festival celebrating Asian owned, uh, goods and services. And when I met him, he said, I’m interested in opening up my own TaeKwonDo school. And so after a while, we, uh, we discovered that this gentleman had actually worked for other people, developed their curriculum, um, developed their, uh, services, really cultivated the culture of education, made the classroom very fun for them, or the Dojo, incredibly fun for them. And Kyle, uh, Kyle is his name, uh, and Trato Martial Arts Academy was born because he finally felt empowered to be his own business owner and not to work for anybody else while they took a lot of his intellectual property and educational lesson plans.

Kristelle : (09:09)
Um, so that was a huge success story for us, because that’s empowerment, right? Knowing that an Asian owned business who, um, who they, he was able to find all the resources and details that could possibly help him with his business. So we were really thrilled to see that. Um, the, the unfortunate part, uh, an unfortunate story that we helped with, um, actually the coming up here in the next two years is when Asian owned businesses, uh, and business owners were actually murdered at the place of their business, um, when we think about economic development organizations or entities that are, um, uh, stories of, of, of hope and, and help for Asian owned businesses, uh, when I created the, the organization, never did I think that I would be wor working with detectives and deputies, and never did I, I think that our team would be looking at, um, crime scene videos when really we should have been looking at human resource plans and educational materials.

Kristelle : (10:06)
And so the instance that had happened was at three Asian women were killed at the place of their business, and they were killed because of some of the anti, uh, anti, uh, Asian sentiment. They were also killed because they were purposefully targeted according to detectives. And, um, there was just this conversation of safety and security. Um, and so, uh, it was our goal to make sure that Asian businesses knew that there was options for them to feel safe in New Mexico, um, and to operate their businesses no matter what type of business it was, whether it be a massage, uh, health and wellness, food drinks, et cetera. And that was kind of the, the top, the tipping point for us to know that we’re not just a case management and economic development entity. Um, we are very much focused on helping Asian owned businesses know that they can feel safe and secure in their communities. So that’s two examples of some stories that we did here in New Mexico.

Bunny : (10:59)
And, um, I mean, that’s, so it’s, it’s really important work that you, I mean, how, who, who was doing this before? I mean, what did it exist?

Kristelle : (11:11)
Um, there were several iterations of what it could have been. Mm-Hmm. meaning, um, the New Mexico Asian, uh, association of New Mexico, uh, wanted to create its own chamber of commerce, but the typical Chamber of commerce model, coming from somebody that worked at a Chamber of Commerce, you’d have to pay to be a part of a chamber, right? Um, and Asians didn’t feel that that was really worth bringing together. And the traditional model of networking, uh, facilitating conversations, it just, it just wasn’t a right fit. Um, but we know that the community has always wanted a gathering place or gathering resources. Um, ever since the, you know, ever since the 1970s, especially during the Vietnamese diaspora, the community just really built itself around what it could. Um, but no, there was really no solid nonprofit as an acting chamber of commerce until the pandemic.

Bunny : (12:04)
So if somebody, let’s, let’s just, let’s talk about mechanics. If somebody, um, has a business, and I’m, I’m curious how it works, do they, do they find you, do you find them? Do, where do you start?

Kristelle : (12:20)
Yeah, it’s both, it’s, it’s a great question. So normally with an economic development entity, you go to the economic development entity looking for resources. And we have clients that do that. Um, we’re in maintenance mode right now, meaning that we’re, uh, we had lost a lot of, uh, of our funding, unfortunately, because of challenges in the community. Um, but we just regained our funding back recently. And, and the part that was on maintenance was the outreach mode. So for a very long time, people would come to us, but we would actually go to the community. And that was always really critical for us to find the individuals to find out what language are they speaking, what nationality are they, what are some of the challenges that they might be facing? And so, let’s say, for example, somebody says, I need some help on, um, a, a tax issue.

Kristelle : (13:05)
Um, so we actually don’t try to solve the tax issue. Uh, we actually try to partner them with an individual from a, an entity that will help them, um, answer the questions that they’re looking for. Like, how do I co overcome a tax debt? What does it look like to, to figure out what, um, what, who I need to talk to at the IRS is my tax status, the right status. And so rather than us advising, we partner them with educational resources that will give them the answer that they’re looking for. But if the individual doesn’t actually speak English very well, or they speak English well, but the comprehension level might be in question, that’s when we wrap them with language access. So thanks to our friends at the New Mexico Asian Family Center.

Bunny : (13:48)
And, and what, um, is, do you, is there a percentage of, um, businesses in New Mexico? I mean, do you have that in your head that are Asian owned, or,

Kristelle : (13:57)
Or, yeah. So normally economic development entities can put a number as, as, so the number of businesses that are operating. But because business licenses and, and, uh, demographic data are only applicable to the individual, we actually don’t have hard numbers because of the, the example of, uh, a lack of equity when it comes to economic development, right? However, what we know is that we’ve touched over 300 to 350 businesses, um, in the state of New Mexico. Wow. And we know that there’s more that need our help. Um, so that’s roughly the demographic number. Um, at, in, or the actual number. Demographically though, uh, we know that the population in the metro area is between 40 to 50,000, um, up to 60 if you’re wanted to include the outskirts of New Mexico as a whole. Uh, and sometimes people say, there’s not a lot of Asians in my community.

Kristelle : (14:48)
Um, you just need to look, um, not even harder, right? So if you’re a person in Taos and you see a strip mall, you might see a nail salon, a massage business, um, or, uh, your favorite Asian restaurant that’s an Asian person owning the business, um, you might see somebody on your board and say, Hey, we’re actually looking for leadership, but we can’t find that element of diversity. They might not actually be at the board level. They might actually be in the management supervisory level. Um, you just need to look within, um, not even look closer. Um, so we’re finding that, um, there’s a lot of invisibility among the Asian community in New Mexico, um, and luckily our partners in the different communities of color are really opening up those doors for us.

Bunny : (15:32)
Well, I’m interested in hearing Jace from you. Like what, tell me some of your favorite stories about the, the people that you’ve been able to work with.

Jace : (15:41)
Oh, we get to work with, with a gamut of different businesses and organizations throughout New Mexico. We work in many different industries from finance and healthcare, nonprofit. We do some government, we get to do some work in the tourism and hospitality space, which is really, really fun and wonderful. Uh, well, we, it was, I I’m pretty heart centered. I’m a sucker all the way. So I love our projects with some of the nonprofits here in New Mexico. We do a lot of work with Albuquerque Healthcare for the homeless. Uh, hope works as well, has been a client of ours. I live downtown. So these are, these are my neighbors. These are people that I interact with. These communities that they’re helping are people that I, I’m seeing out in the day-to-Day. And marketing’s really interesting and Crystal knows that I, I came from kind of an anti-marketing stance earlier on when I was an entrepreneur.

Jace : (16:31)
And then I recognized how important it is as a bridge to letting people know that their problem they have has been solved somewhere, and that that’s accessible or in cases of some of our nonprofits, that there are needs being met, and the people who who have them maybe don’t know about it. And so marketing is such a great way to tell stories and to share information so that things are accessible when maybe they wouldn’t be known before. And so actually getting to work with the community and with neighbors and going out to, to speak, uh, at high schools and things like that is one of my favorite things. Our, our, one of our top pillars is community. And it’s something I’ve learned from Krista, even though I spent most of my life here. I don’t walk into a room without somebody knowing this woman next to me, or I’ll be out and someone will go, Hey, we have a mutual friend. Did you know? And I, man, she is so deeply invested and rooted in this community, and it shows up, uh, in, in our fund. It shows up in our work, and it shows up through our show story success and stuff as well. I mean, if you want an interesting person on she knows them , she goes, she’s gonna have that contact you. You

Bunny : (17:40)
And you guys are so funny because we, I mean, uh, obviously the listener, somebody who’s listening on their phone or the radio can’t see you, but these two are pointing to each other, other, it’s o we’ve o obviously got a, a mutual admiration, um, going on between the two of you, which, which is obviously important, um, when you’re changing lives. So, um, yeah,

Jace : (18:02)
I hope so. We, we actually went to the same high school, though we did not know each other in high school. We hung out with very different friend groups. Uh, and it wasn’t until we came back together that we realized we had all of these cross sections of our lives, and though we had similar starting places, we went off to live very different lives. Crystal became a mom and just kind of rocked it in the business world and, and created her own successful business here in Albuquerque. And I went off kind of as a, a, a wild one, uh, out into the world to, to experience things off the beaten path, and then coming back together with that community mindedness with that desire for more inclusion, uh, of voices and, and things like that. And that’s kind of where stories success and stuff was born. We often don’t agree, and we can be found, uh, being like, okay, I see what you’re saying, but here’s the opposite opinion on that. And finding that that diversity of thought is really important, uh, for the show and for the work that we do as well. And so we, we decided to bring that together and, and kind of stumble our way to success publicly, uh, through the show and through very different means. We’re both really big on finding our own paths to success and making sure that others know that’s an option as well.

Bunny : (19:21)
So I wanna hear about story success and stuff. Talk about, um, what, what, you know, where I, I get an idea of where that came from, but who are you talking to? What’s, what are you hearing? What, what are the su success stories and what, and, and, and, and how, I mean, I’m sorry, but how much fun is it to do a podcast? Oh, yeah.

Jace : (19:43)
It’s the most fun.

Kristelle : (19:44)
Yeah, most definitely. So I, uh, our company has always wanted to showcase the talent that we have internally from video production and, um, audio production. And so we had ventured into a podcast concept about a two years ago, but it wasn’t until Jace came on board with us as our marketing coordinator, um, marketing research coordinator, um, that really helped us be successful in the podcast space. So we, I owe all of it to Justin and Jace in terms of making this podcast, um, was the beautiful product that it is. So how it started though was, um, so we had ventured in to kind of talk about the, the work that we do and the quality work that we do, but, um, as Jace was working, was work, shopping, this internally, kind of helping me understand what direction we wanted to take. We really wanted folks to look at this podcast as a way to get to know myself and also to get to know the company through Jason’s stories and Jason’s experiences.

Kristelle : (20:47)
And we wanted people to get to know the company. ’cause the type of clients that we like to work with, uh, we can rattle off, you know, target audiences. We can rattle off industries all, all day long. Um, but the type of people we wanna work with are people that would get along with us, or people that would see, uh, our vision of New Mexico or see, uh, a different perspective. Somebody that’s willing to be kind, somebody that’s willing to be humble, somebody that’s willing to, to be challenging. Um, those are the type of people that we wanted to potentially recruit as clients or even staff of ciza. So we just really wanted to kind of open up our eyes into what agency life was like and what business owner life was like. Um, because obviously business owners hire people at Ciza. And, and while that’s really great, um, sometimes it, it’s more of, you know, the best.

Kristelle : (21:37)
Like, I was talking to somebody recently, I said, the best type of clients for Ciza are the type of people that really wanna get to know our staff and our team that are, we are invested into them as much as they’re invested into us. Mm. And we felt like the podcast was a really great outlet for it. So while, um, and I also just wanted to have fun with it, right? I think that was the most important thing was that it, you can, it can be really daunting and very salesy to kind of market the agency through, through ads, through call to actions, through through, um, social media posts. Everybody says that we’re really fun around here. Um, but many agencies have actually come up to both Jason and I and have said like, this is a really brilliant show just to really, you know, peer into the eyes. And they would quote things from the podcast like, like, uh, like for example, Jace is holding up, um, a, a mug from story success and stuff. And we all, we said was, wouldn’t it be really cool if we had our own mugs that said story success and stuff? And all of a sudden it was at our desk, like a

Jace : (22:36)
Fan a fan made us had these, had them made for us. That’s so cool. And sent us to the office, which was really fun. It was

Kristelle : (22:42)
Such a troop. Yeah, it was so great. And then I’ve also said something along the lines of like, our Christmas episode was just like, we really appreciate closure and we really appreciate how it’s the end of an era. And it was our transition into season two. I went to a conference in Palm Springs and met with a friend from Alaska, and she’s like, I love that Christmas episode. And so it’s become just a phenomenon of people from little places, from places you least expect that just share the same story and don’t feel alone with the entrepreneurial stories.

Jace : (23:17)
So, and I’d say that’s the biggest thing, though. We’re very different people, and we may disagree from time to time. One thing that we hold similar is transparency, and the idea that this like, oh, I’m fine and I’m always successful and I have it all together. Yeah. Let me meet that actual person. Our, our director of client services might actually be that person. She’s one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met, and she always does seem to have it together, but we kind of have our own tidy little messes going on as human people, and so does everyone else. You’re right, we wanted to normalize that. And not a lot of people in a c-level position are willing to talk transparently and vulnerably about what it’s like to run a company, to be at the top by yourself, to be trying to be a, a new wife and a mom of a teenager, which sounds just terrifying to me.

Jace : (24:14)
And running a business and running a nonprofit and doing board work and volunteer work in the community, like that stuff is hard. And, and my my life has its own challenges too, of course. But we don’t hear that side often, and that the path to success is messy and that it’s not a straight line. And so we both were really insistent that on this show, we were gonna be open and honest and transparent. So much so that makes some, some folks uncomfortable. They’re like, oh, CEOs aren’t supposed to talk about that stuff. Agencies aren’t supposed to share that stuff. Nope. That’s done. That era is done. We wanna be allowed to be full people. And that means being fully messy sometimes too. And that was really important for us to share in, in the show. And I think it’s one of the reasons that people have connected with it, where we don’t know what success means. We know what it means for us at different stages, and we’re allowing that to grow. Mm-Hmm, , but we’re both really big on having a self-defined life and not having a, a prescribed life. Unless that’s your jam. And then rock that, then that’s great too.

Kristelle : (25:22)
Yeah. So I, and the last thing I’ll say too is that the biggest compliment that I get about the show is they feel Jace in so many ways that they never thought that they would whenever, because yes, folks that are listeners are from my network, and they’re also from very much Jace’s network. But if they’re not, you know, one of the biggest compliments that I receive is that Jace is like the conscience, the voice of conscience, that they never realized that they needed . And, and like, I know that sounds really ridiculous, but, and I think, and I know she’s laughing, but I mean that, like, there are times where us, you know, sometimes we have little town syndrome, like if you might be from Clovis and you might be saying like, you know, uh, nobody understands how I’m feeling. All of a sudden Jace really resonates and, and strikes a chord with folks, um, from especially being a person that we call a New Mexico return to center or return to center being somebody that comes back, right? . Um, so I had definitely have to compliment Jace on that aspect of, um, when people wanna hear stories about what it’s like. Um, Jace really comes in from a, sometimes from a scientific brain, from a philosophical brain, from a analytical brain, from a research brain. And these, these different modes or, um, resonate with anybody that’s listener, that’s a listener no matter what their background is. Mm.

Bunny : (26:36)
I think, uh, what you said before about, um, entrepreneurship is, um, a lonely, um, and, and frequently unless you, because because part of, part of what happens when you’re an entrepreneur, which is what I am, um, you’re so busy working in your business that you don’t have time to work on your business. So you don’t have time to, um, maybe learn from other people who have come before you. You get, and I’m, in fact, I’m involved with a coach right now talking about the messy middle piece of my business, because you get, and I know my business looks like it’s really put together well, but you get stuck sort of in the middle and, and having something like your podcast that you can listen to, like on your way to yet more work or another nonprofit meeting or, um, I, I, I mean that’s, it’s such an important gift to give to entrepreneurs because man, we’re all scrambling every single minute. You know, we only, we only eat what we kill, right? . And it’s, you gotta go out and kill something every day that people don’t like that analogy, but it’s the one I learned early on. And so when you’re so busy in the hunt and in the development that you don’t get to hear other voices say it’s okay. Yeah. That your business is not perfect every day, and that you’re stuck in the messy middle of things. Like, what, what a great, what a great thing you’re doing.

Kristelle : (28:05)
Oh,

Jace : (28:06)
Well, thank you. And, and the fact that like, that’s not going off the, the path that is the path, right. I’m, I’m finding that’s a good way to put

Bunny : (28:12)
It. Yeah. Yeah.

Jace : (28:13)
That’s part of it. It’s not, you’ve not done something wrong. It’s failing is part of it, and falling is part of it, and Right. I, I found myself having a new catchphrase that I’m sure has annoyed everyone in my life, but it’s, oh, we have an episode for that and we do, it’s called Loving Life with Windy Erwin, uh, all about working in the business, on the business, creating a life that you love as an entrepreneur. Uh, so season two, love, loving life with Wendy Ern for that very thing, but I, yeah, that’s my new catch up. Oh, we have an episode for that .

Kristelle : (28:40)
Yeah. Well, and I, it’s, it’s definitely the inner Jace in my head that’s saying, oh, yeah, we, we really do have a, a voice for that. We, we talked about, um, we’ve talked about love, we’ve talked about competition. Uh, we definitely talked about how we welcome people to, to consider, you know, being, um, rather than enemies being colleagues, right. Being friends. Mm-Hmm. and lifting each other up and welcoming them or, or celebrating them and their successes. Um, yeah, there’s multiple different episodes that we stand upon and multiple different, um, emotions. In one episode, there’s times where it’s like peeing in your pants, laughing , uh,

Jace : (29:18)
Which we’ve never actually done, by the way. No, not yet. Just so that it’s clear not

Bunny : (29:22)
Yet . And

Jace : (29:22)
So No, no pants have been ped Yeah.

Kristelle : (29:24)
Yet, but we, but then there was, there was one episode that a, a friend of ours, um, a friend of the, the show, um, had said, I can’t believe how ironic it was that the episode about grief, the episode about grief, um, came in and it was around the time of, of a loss of, of her own. And we talked about how whenever you transition a new part in your life, um, grief comes with success. Um, or grief can be very, um, meaningful and beautiful in different ways, but people react to grief differently. And rather than hiding it, really accepting and sitting in it. Um, so there’s just, it’s been, um, it’s been a really exciting journey on this podcast, and we hope new Mexicans really love this to, and, and bring in GE and bringing in guests from all across the country. Um, we, we just really hope that new Mexicans really love this. And, and, and it obviously shows how much of an investment that the both of us have made into this phenomenal state and how much we love the people here. We love the stories, um, that we’re telling about it. Hmm.

Bunny : (30:25)
Tell me where people can find the podcast.

Kristelle : (30:27)
Yeah. Um, so it’s on your favorite social, social media channel. It’s on the website, cso.com. Um, we have a beautiful vlog, uh, complimenting the podcast as well on YouTube, um, and on your favorite streaming podcast format, so we’re on Spotify, we’re on, um, apple, apple Podcasts. Um, we’re also on listen fm, so if anybody has a a preferred method, we’re on it. Um, Buzzsprout even. And if we’re not, email us, I’ll get us on there. . Yeah.

Bunny : (30:57)
Let us know. I’m the same way. Like, wait, wait, wait. And, and it’s called, um, stories, success and stuff, right? That’s right, yes. . And I want you to spell Ciza for folks, because sometimes I, you know, I, I hope that people always look at our notes. We’ve got links for everything, but, um, I, you know, we’re all moving fast. So spell tell them where they can also find your website.

Kristelle : (31:22)
Yeah, so you can find us@crza.com, and that’s spelled S as in Sam, IAR as in Robert, Z as in Zebra, a.com or.net. And, um, anybody can also find us on their favorite social media channel, uh, at czo, the agency.

Bunny : (31:43)
And where, if, if you own, if some of our listeners own an Asian owned business, is that the same place that they

Kristelle : (31:52)
Look? No, it would be different. Great question. So it would be Asian A-S-I-A-N pi bc.org, so that’s asian pacific islander business collaborative.org. Um, or Asian Business Collec Collaborative on their favorite social channel.

Bunny : (32:11)
Okay. Good. Well, I want people to find you because you’re doing really important work and, um, you just look like you’ve, and sound like you’re a lot of fun. So, yay. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank

Kristelle : (32:23)
You. Thank you. Thank you for having us in the best of luck to all of your listeners and to this incredible show. Absolutely. Thank you for highlighting New Mexico

Bunny : (32:31)
In such a beautiful way with, with each unique episode. I’m having so much fun. I don’t know if anybody else is enjoying this, but this is great fun for me, and in the middle of, you know, running businesses and being the chair of a foundation and it’s, it still is worthwhile to stop and listen to other people’s stories. And that’s what I say all the time is that stories save us in lots of ways and, um, they’re just such an important part of life. So thanks for sharing yours. Absolutely.

 (33:00)
We have an episode for that

Bunny : (33:03)
Thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to the I Love New Mexico podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with your friends on social media or by texting or messaging or emailing them a copy of the podcast. If you have a New Mexico story that you’d like to share with us, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our email address is I love New Mexico blog@gmail.com and we are always, always looking for interesting stories about New Mexico. Subscribe, share, and write a review so that we can continue to bring you these stories about the Land of Enchantment. Thank you so much.