Category: Entrepreneurship

Lessons learned from my entrepreneurial pursuits

December 2025 milestones: 5-years on the job, 1,000 reviews as a hiking guide and more


I’m deeply grateful to my network for the inspiration and encouragement that so many of you have given me along the way.

Here are a few highlights I’m celebrating this month:

✨ Milestone #1: Five years at the University of Phoenix!

Huge thanks to Russ and Jenn for taking a chance on me as a web content author in the height of the pandemic and later promoting me into leadership. In May 2025, I stepped into a Marketing Manager role—and I absolutely love working with my small but mighty team. (Pictured here with my teammate Meg, who also hit the 5-year mark recently.) Not pictured: April – one of the sharpest leaders I’ve ever worked with.

✨ Milestone #2: 1,000 reviews as a hiking guide!

What started as a side hustle in 2019 has grown into something truly special. I’ve had the privilege of meeting incredible people from all over the world. If you’re curious, check out the City Sun Times feature on my popular night glow hike.

✨ Milestone #3: Completed the first course of my Master of Management program—with an A!

That’s right. I’m back in college after a 35-year break. Formal education has a way of waking up parts of your brain that you didn’t know were asleep.

Not a December milestone, but worth noting: earlier this year, I released the audiobook version of my second self-published nonfiction book, Romancing The Blatt.

What’s next?

I’m focused on growing in my full-time role and aiming to achieve expert level in 2026. I’ll keep building my guide business while balancing work and my master’s program—and yes, there are a few more books in the pipeline.

In short, I’ve been busy, and I plan to stay that way. After experiencing a couple of months without work during the pandemic, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here’s to growth, adventure, and making every step count!

A marketing lesson for self-published authors

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Even though you don’t know if the seed will sprout, you should still plant it. That’s the lesson I learned recently in my self-publishing journey.

My first self-published book

In October 2019, I published my first book: Arizona Bucket List Adventure Guide & Journal. I followed all the advice from the “experts” on how to promote my book.

My goal has never been to earn a top spot on any lists, but rather to get the book into the hands of as many people as possible who are looking for tips on discovering some of the many natural wonders in Arizona.

Any good marketer knows that one of the simplest ways to get free publicity is to send a press release to media outlets.

I sent out press releases a few times within the first year that the book was in print.

The result? Nothing. At least not right away.

My last attempt at a press release was in October 2020. Rather than follow the traditional who, what, where, why format, I tried a different approach. I repurposed one of my blog posts as a story that could be published as authored content by any of the publications that chose to run it.

Still nothing; until seven months later.

I was more than a little surprised when, a week into the month of June, I noticed book sales were on pace to be stronger than any month since December. Summer months in Arizona are generally so hot that people don’t like to travel here during that time of year. As a result, my book sales and blog traffic usually slow to a crawl in the months of June, July and August. I had no idea what was driving the extra interest in June and frankly, I was too busy to delve into it and find out.

Sales spiked unexpectedly

A few weeks later, I happened to search my name on Google and saw a result that I had never seen before. Although the source was a new one, I recognized the headline: 8 Free and amazing places you should add to your Arizona bucket list. It was the headline of the blog post I repurposed.

It turns out that a hyperlocal newspaper in Phoenix called CITY Sun Times published my article on May 30. Sales began to spike a couple of days after that.

One of the drawbacks to media publicity like that is you lack the ability to track clicks and sales like you can with other forms of marketing. Therefore, it’s hard to determine exactly how much lift I received from the article. But, who can argue with free publicity?

When I compared year-over-year sales, they were roughly 225% higher for the week immediately following the article in the CITY Sun Times than for the same seven-day period a year earlier. In fact, more books were purchased in that week than in the whole month of June in the prior year.

After sending at least three press releases to over 75 media outlets in Arizona and not getting anything published, I had pretty much given up on the practice. All it took was one publication to run my story to restore my hope in press releases as a viable marketing tactic.

The takeaway

Here’s the moral: When you feel like the stuff you’re doing to grow your business is a waste of time and energy, do it anyway. You never know when the seeds you planted are going to sprout and grow.

The whole experience has me considering what other nuggets from my blog that I can package into other press releases in the future.