Show Notes

• Learning to hunt
• The culture of people who love the outdoors
• Career path that led to CEO at CarbonTV
• Thriving in a historically male-dominated industry
• “You can do whatever you want…”
• Life at CarbonTV
• Conservation and environmental stewardship
• Wildlife, nature and the outdoors
• Mentoring and empowering young people
• Carbon Unwind, a meditation app

Connect With Julie McQueen

✩ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julesmcqueen
✩ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julie.mcqueen.56

Summary

Julie McQueen is a leader and innovator in the digital media industry, and is currently the President and CEO of CarbonTV, the #1 streaming video platform for the outdoor enthusiast. She also hosts Outdoor Weekly, a popular show on CarbonTV, that covers the latest news and trends in the outdoor community. Julie discusses her love for the outdoors, and life as a CEO.

Full Transcript

Brian
Welcome to another episode of LifeExcellence with Brian Bartes. Join me as I talk with amazing athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers, and others who have achieved excellence in their chosen field so you can learn their tools, techniques and strategies for improving performance and achieving greater success. Julie McQueen is a leader and innovator in the digital media industry and is currently the president and CEO of CarbonTV, the number one streaming video platform for the outdoor enthusiast. She oversees strategy, operations and growth of CarbonTV, which offers thousands of hours of original and licensed content on nearly all connected devices and screens. Julie also hosts Outdoor Weekly, a popular show on CarbonTV that covers the latest news and trends in the outdoor community. As a passionate advocate for conservation, empowerment and well-being, Julie also created Carbon Unwind, a meditation app that helps people sleep, meditate and relax to stories and sounds of the outdoors. Julia is a popular keynote speaker and she leverages her diverse skills and interests to distribute engaging and impactful content for millions of monthly viewers. Welcome, Jules and thanks for joining us on LifeExcellence.

Julie
Thank you for having me. This is great.

Brian
It’s great for us too. Jules, you live a fascinating, adventurous life. I can’t wait to learn more about you. It was interesting to learn that although you have three older brothers, neither they nor your parents were hunters and yet you learned to hunt as a teenager. What sparked your initial interest?

Julie
Sometimes I try to go back and revisit that time in my life to see what it was that sparked it. I don’t know if I saw a photo of somebody with an animal, I don’t know where that curiosity came from. But around the time I was 18 – somewhere around there – I decided that this is something I wanted to do. So I went and got my hunter safety course, which is the course that you have to go through before you can go legally purchase a hunting license, and it all just snowballed from there. I knew that – number one – this was a lifestyle that was important to me and also this is what I wanted to spend my life’s work doing.

Brian
Was that something that your parents supported and encouraged you to do? I guess you were 18, I don’t know if you were still living at home or not but it seems…just interesting…I know…I have four kids, for example, and if my 18 year old daughter came to me and said, hey, Dad, I want to get into hunting – I’m not a hunter, by the way – that would have just struck me as a bit unusual, although I certainly would have supported her and encouraged her.

Julie
My parents were very supportive. They were both in the army. That’s how they met. So they introduced us to firearms and guns and the outdoors, camping. They’ve always been very supportive. I’ve had a number of different careers that were a little bit different throughout my life and I’m very fortunate to come from a family that no matter what that dream is, they believe that I can do it. So when I told them that I wanted to work in the hunting industry, they didn’t even blink an eye, they just thought this was the most wonderful thing and that I could do it.

Brian
Well, I know in researching for the show that your parents had been incredibly supportive. You’ve mentioned a couple bits of wisdom that your mother has given you that I know you carry with you so I can see that support. In researching for the show, it seems like once you put your mind to something you go all in. Is that how it played out with hunting?

Julie
It really is. I knew immediately that I wanted to spend as many days outside as possible. So it wasn’t really even about the hunting, that was more the vehicle to put me outside, something that I could create a sustainable lifestyle; you can fill your freezer that way, you spend more time in nature around animals. It wasn’t really about the hunting, per se, but my main goal was how many days per year can I spend in the outdoors and this industry really supports that. There are very few days that we’re out there that we actually pulled the trigger on an animal, but there are hundreds of days where we’re photographing them, studying their behaviors, really understanding their ecosystems. So the hunting lifestyle was really the way for me to spend the most time outside in nature and then, as a byproduct of that, my freezer is always full of very good organic meat.

Brian
Do you fish too?

Julie
I do, I fish as well. I’ve been very fortunate, I’ve been able to go fishing in a lot of very beautiful places.

Brian
I guess for me…you mentioned that sometimes you go out and you don’t shoot anything, I have a lot of friends who are hunters. I live in Michigan and Michigan in the fall is a big deer hunting season. I know friends who go up weekend after weekend after weekend, and maybe go a whole year without killing anything. I’m not sure if for them it’s the love the outdoors, I think it might be a love of hanging out with their buddies and getting away for the weekend. But I can see where that lifestyle is attractive. I guess for me, the idea of not shooting something or going out and being on the lake all day fishing and not really catching anything, that just comes up short a little bit somehow; maybe it’s the achiever in me.

Julie
It’s kind of this cultural thing. I feel like people who love the outdoors, they do build a culture around that, they have their traditions, some of them have their hunting trips. I know Michigan is really big, like in northern Michigan, people go up to their hunting camp and this is a tradition every year where they might not see those people other than [at] deer opener. So it’s really kind of a beautiful culture that people develop around the hunting tradition. And that goes throughout the entire world, there’s really a lot of depth to that even for the ones who maybe don’t hunt; they still show up in camp, they want to hear the stories at the end of the day, they want to enjoy the great food, have a beer around the campfire. There’s really a lot that goes along with hunting. I think that is kind of a misconception, that we’re just out there killing the animals. But really, there’s just a lifestyle that’s built around it.

Brian
That’s a really good point, Jules. Most people I know who take up hunting continue it – as you were describing and as we talked about – for recreation throughout their lives, but you took it a step further and made a career out of it. Walk us through your career path. You alluded to that a little bit earlier but walk us through that path that eventually resulted in you becoming president and CEO of CarbonTV.

Julie
A lot of people talk about finding your passion in life and then building a career around that and they say, oh, you never have to work a day in your life if you’re doing what you love. I can see some truth in that and in the beginning of all of this, my thought was, how do I just immerse myself into it? How do I really dive in and become a part of this community? So I began volunteering as a camera person, and I would go film people on their hunts, and I would sit up in a tree with a camera – and back then the cameras were huge it wasn’t like today where we have these little tiny, easy cameras; we were carrying very large camera equipment around – that gave me the opportunity to spend more time out there. I would go to camps and I would film people and document that. Then that turned into owning a production company. So I just kind of grew that business, built relationships within the industry and started producing TV shows for the outdoor space, and commercials and infomercials and anything that we could get our hands on that had to do with the outdoors. That business allowed me to make a lot of great connections and to network really deeply within the outdoor space. And I loved it. I was, at one point, spending 250 days a year outside just in the field producing different shows. I was also hosting shows at the time, so I was in front of the camera and behind the camera and I was running line production and field production, that means from soup to nuts. I was planning all of the things, getting the filming permits, making sure that I was able to line all of these hunts up for different people. Then that production company allowed me to move into more of a corporate role afterwards but still on camera; I’ve had multiple shows over the years. But then I felt like I was really ready to take it to the next level from a business standpoint, which is really my passion, running companies, and the opportunity presented itself. Carbon TV already existed. I actually aired my content there for a short time after I had left the network. When they went through an acquisition back in 2017 they reached out to me – CarbonTV did – and wanted to talk about the future of the industry, kind of where I saw things going. I didn’t even know it at the time, but I was interviewing for the job to take over the business, and it just kind of snowballed from there. I ended up taking it over in early 2018. It really started from a grassroots effort, volunteering in the field and then producing shows, understanding what the producers are going through when they’re in the field, understanding what the editors are working on when they’re editing the TV shows, understanding all of their relationships within the industry and how all of the companies work together. That ultimately led to take over CarbonTV, become the president and then the CEO. And now I find myself sitting at the helm of this incredible company, and it’s still a little bit unbelievable to me.

Brian
So it sounds like what really jazzed you – at least initially – was the production side of things, the technical side of things and that’s probably still very much a part of what you do because of how CarbonTV operates. Was it more that than the outdoors and then you came to appreciate the outdoors? Or was it sort of both of those things happening concurrently?

Julie
I think it was the outdoors first, and then I realized that the opportunity lies within the technology around it. So there are different ways that you can work in the outdoor space, of course, there are so many different avenues that you could take if you just wanted to spend time outside. But for me, it was understanding that TV production is a huge part of the outdoor culture, people want to not only tell those stories, but people want to live vicariously because maybe they can’t go on those types of adventures themselves and they want to watch somebody else doing it. So, , just kind of marrying all of that together and understanding that there’s a need for this that, , there will never be a day where people don’t want to tell stories because at our core we are we’re all storytellers. Every culture, from the beginning of time, we pass stories down; now we just do it with technology. And, , I think that as we see things progress on the filming and production and everything around the outdoor space, it really comes back to the same thing, as thousands of years ago, people sitting around a campfire after they were out for the hunt, , in all different cultures. So, yeah, I think for me, it started off as wanting to spend time outside and then understanding the opportunity lies around the storytelling about the outdoors.

Brian
Wow. It’s wonderful that you’ve been able to carve out a career that really is a great marriage between both of those: the love of the outdoors and the skill and appreciation for the technical side of things too.

Julie
Yeah, it feels good. I love knowing that we enable people to tell those stories.

Brian
I was smiling when you were talking about telling stories, because I was thinking about the last fish I almost caught and it was about this big. And every time I tell this story it was bigger and bigger. I guess that’s all part of it. Jules, I don’t want to stereotype but I don’t know many women who are avid outdoors women, I have lots of male friends who hunt like we were talking about earlier; not really any women other than now I know you. Is that your experience, too? Has that been an area of focus for you at all at CarbonTV?

Julie
Yes, actually. So when I first got into the business about 20 years ago, I was the only female that I knew at the time. I knew of other females but back then things were very different. We didn’t have social media, we didn’t have a lot of the access that we do now. So it was very rare to see a woman or even a young woman really diving into the outdoor space. But I’m really fortunate because I got in so early that I was able to see a lot of other women start coming into the industry, legitimately wanting the same things that I wanted. And for the past 15 years or more I’ve actually known some really incredible women in this industry who have worked so hard and put their heart and soul into the same goals that I had; how much time can I spend outside? How can I spread this beautiful message of loving animals, loving wildlife, wanting what’s best for them, but also supporting the hunting culture? It used to be more rare than it is now. It’s becoming a lot more popular for women to be open about wanting to go hunting or fishing or even just adventuring on their own. I think technology has really helped that, we feel safer because we have access to things that can help us when we’re out there if we don’t feel one hundred percent comfortable or confident. On the content side of things I’m really actually very proud to say that CarbonTV has the most female led outdoor content of anybody. That’s been a passion project of mine. A lot of women are out there producing different shows, hosting different TV shows or podcasts, and telling those stories from a woman’s point of view with the female perspective. So over the years, I’ve really tried to give them a good home where they have a voice and we support it, we get behind it on the marketing. We make sure that people know that this is where they can find content because a lot of people assume that if you’re watching a hunting show that it’s a bunch of men sitting around maybe in a hunting camp. That’s still true, but a lot of times those men have daughters or wives who also either have an interest already in the outdoors, or the man wants them to have an interest and wants them to feel comfortable going along on his hunting trips or going adventuring outside. So I think it’s really important for us to tell the story from a female perspective and for young women and little girls – and even fully grown women – for all of us to have access to content from women who are out there experiencing things and showing us that it can be done.

Brian
Do you have data on the audience side? You talked about the content production, that you have more women than ever actually producing content, producing programming on CarbonTV. Do you have data on your audience? Is that growing as well, the female audience side?

Julie
When I first started at CarbonTV and took over the operations and started diving into the content library and trying to diversify that a little bit, I would say our female audience would be around ten percent, which is very low. Now it hovers around 25-28%, which is very high. Any type of outdoor content – if you have women actually watching that content – above 10 to 15% I would consider that a win. And it just keeps growing, the more women that we’re bringing in and making them feel like they’re at home on the content side, on the producer side, the more women at home are watching that content. I think last time we checked, it was between 25-28% female audience.

Brian
That’s pretty significant. You’re obviously thriving in a male dominated industry – not to continue to talk about male versus female – but I think your experience and success can inspire not only women who might find themselves in industries that are male dominated, but really anyone. I think we can expand it to anyone who faces obstacles in their career or life. What lessons have you learned along the way, in the 20 years that you’ve been in the business, that might be helpful for others too?

Julie
I think that it’s very important for us to surround ourselves with a community that’s supportive of our goals. So I understand that some women come from a home or community that maybe isn’t educated on the thing that they’re passionate about and that’s not their fault. But when you surround yourself and really dive into a community of like minded people, you can really do anything. I’m very fortunate because I was supported by, not just my family and friends, but also the hunting community. They really rallied around, not just me, but a lot of the first females who came into the business and were legitimately trying to have a voice and share stories and have a purpose. I would say be mindful of who you surround yourself with, because that can make or break anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s a male dominated industry or not. I think that just kind of goes throughout life in general. But even if it’s outside of the hunting realm, if it’s a male dominated industry and you’re a female, I think we’ve broken down those barriers. I don’t think there is a glass ceiling anymore. I think that there were hundreds and hundreds of women even before me who came through and slowly just broke down those barriers and made sure that if you have your wits about you and you’re doing it for the right reasons, if your intentions are good and you are legitimately doing your best, you can pretty much do anything you want in today’s world. I was told that from the beginning. My mom always told me you can do whatever you want just put your brain to it and you’ll figure it out. So when young women reach out to me – which they do a lot through social media or through different avenues like at an event – I try to spread that message, it doesn’t matter what they want to do – if they want to be a taxidermist, if they want to be a hunting guide – absolutely you can do all of the above. Doesn’t matter if you’re a girl.

Brian
Well, I think you’re a great messenger for that because you have operated in what historically has been a male dominated industry, what still is an overwhelming percentage of men. But you’re right, it’s very different today. Women have made great strides in every industry and are now presidents and CEOs and owners of companies, and top executives, doctors and every other thing that that men have historically been. I think you’re a great advocate for that and I love that you are spreading that message.

Julie
I think so, too and you’re absolutely right, it crosses outside of the industry that I work in; you’re seeing more and more women really succeed in places that 50 years ago, 100 years ago, nobody would have thought that would be possible.

Brian
Yes. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about CarbonTV to understand what you do better. It seems like you serve two markets – correct me if I’m wrong – the first is providing a best in class video platform that enables outdoor producers, like you talked about, to gain exposure. So if I had a show or an interest in something and started to create a show, then I could, I guess, be hosted by CarbonTV – for lack of a better way to describe it – to have that be the platform. And then the second is obviously providing a wide range of programming for the outdoor enthusiast. Tell us more about both segments and if I got anything wrong, please correct me on that.

Julie
We provide a service where we license and distribute video content from producers and in turn they’re out in the field, they’re producing this content, and then we give them a way to get it out to the public. CarbonTV is known for – everybody who watches it – outdoor content. I also want to say that it falls outside of hunting and fishing. Somebody who has no interest in hunting and fishing, we still have a lot of content that falls outside of that realm in separate verticals. A few years ago, one of my top priorities was to diversify the content library so that anybody who loves the outdoors is going to want to come to CarbonTV and consume content. That falls into things like agriculture, aviation is a very big one for us, survival, overland, cooking; all of these other things that people who just love being outside would also appreciate. What we do is we find people who are creating that content. A lot of times they find us and then we have a conversation. I’m on every single one of those calls because it is my passion. I like to get to know the producers to understand what they’re trying to work towards, what their goals are and then ultimately, we develop a licensing and distribution contract with them. CarbonTV is on every major endpoint. We call it an OTTAVOD network – Over The Top Video On Demand – that means if you’re on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, even if you just go buy a new Vizio television at Walmart, we’re pre-loaded in that software so you can automatically find CarbonTV and all of our content no matter where you’re watching or streaming. So it’s helpful for the producers, specifically in the outdoor space, because right now mainstream media has really put a lot of censorship on anything that has to do with hunting – fishing a little bit but not as much – but hunting specifically because of guns, weapons, even archery equipment. So Carbon TV has become the home for them to distribute that content in a safe way, where millions of people are still watching it. But because of the nature of our business it’s a safe spot unlike someone…YouTube, for example, censors people who are hunting in a lot of cases because it goes against their community guidelines. So over the years we have really developed this great relationship with producers where they feel safe sharing their content with us. The primary side of the business is making sure that all of the producers feel like they have a true home for the content that they are out there pouring themselves into.

Brian
What is it that causes mainstream media to censor those shows? Is it the weapons? Are there animal rights issues? What is it specifically that causes them to not want to show that programming?

Julie
Yes and yes – all of the above. Typically, a lot of times, it’s the weapons. If there’s a firearm, even in an image they have AI that will detect that and they will blacklist it, they’ll shadow ban it, a lot of times de-monetize the channels that have any form of weapon, including archery equipment. My stance on that is that these people are not doing anything wrong, everything they do is legal and ethical and within our rights. So we try to be supportive of people who are out there just doing the things that they want to do culturally, as long as it’s within the bounds of legal and ethical. So mainstream media has definitely put a lot of pressure on people who are out there creating that type of content. The animal rights activists also are a big part of that; I see that more on social media than I do on distribution. You might see a little bit of it on YouTube and some of the different platforms but social media is very tough on hunters because of the animal rights activists. A lot of times I just kind of chalk that up to they’re just uneducated, they don’t understand the ways that we are managing wildlife. Hunters are the reason why wildlife is flourishing in all of the states. There are a lot of reasons behind that.

Brian
You talked earlier about your background on mainstream media or network television with outdoor programming. Have you found over time that that programming has come over to CarbonTV or other OTT platforms from mainstream media because of that censorship or just changing programming?

Julie
Yes, I definitely noticed that. I have a long, long history in this industry. I know a lot of people and a lot of them, I aired with them on those networks back in the day. It doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to still have a show on a linear network, as we would call it. In the outdoor space, we have Outdoor channel and Sportsman channel, Pursuit channel. But I don’t know a lot of people who have cable television anymore. Most of what we’re seeing is streaming; people have cut their cable cord years ago and now they’re just streaming their content, they want something on demand instead of more of a linear feel. A lot of those shows have come over to Carbon. I’m really proud of that because I know they trust us. They’ve built legitimate businesses out of their shows, they have incredible sponsorships and partnerships with companies and brands that need that exposure. Those brands are supporting the shows, needing for people to see that content to understand the product or whatever it is they are working towards. I’ve definitely seen a trend in the past three to five years of shows that were historically on a traditional network moving over to have a bigger digital footprint. We’re very easy to work with in that way. We are totally fine if they want to stay on the network, we do a non-exclusive deal, they can still air on CarbonTV and we work in partnership with them. Because in my opinion, the more people who have access to that content, the better it is for all of us so we don’t try to pigeonhole people and say, oh, no, you can’t. You can keep doing everything else that you were doing previously. I want them to be successful and if that’s working for them, we want to be a part of that success.

Brian
It seems like the networks would fight that a little bit, like they would want exclusivity. Is that not the case?

Julie
Very much. Yes, they do. And a big part of that reason is because the networks don’t have a big digital footprint. I think it’s just a competitive nature between businesses. But because it doesn’t go vice versa for us, it’s easy to say that we’re here to share the love and for them, they’re trying to keep producers more exclusive to their network because they just feel a little bit threatened by that. But for the producers’ sake and to look at what’s best for them I think that we should be more in support of what’s best for their businesses.

Brian
Other than networks, who is your competition and what sets CarbonTV apart from other programming in the outdoor space?

Julie
It’s a really unique situation because we were the very first, we’re the largest. Carbon TV was started about ten years ago and we have grown very rapidly. The next closest competitor to us is called Waypoint. They’re about half our age, maybe half our size. They’ve come up in the industry, and I think they’re more fishing focused than we are, which is great, because they think they’re doing well on the fishing side. But there’s really not a close competitor, as far as someone that’s our size with our strength and the forward thinking model that we have. But that doesn’t mean I’m not constantly looking over my shoulder and watching and paying attention to if there are any other networks coming up, and making sure that we’re thinking of ideas ahead of everybody else. Our big focus is making sure the user experience is always excellent so people want to keep coming back to Carbon and they don’t get frustrated. There are very few competitors in our field, the ones that are there, they have their own separate type of business.

Brian
Makes sense. I know you’re an advocate for conservation of the outdoors. What are the biggest threats to wildlife habitats? Is environmental stewardship an area of focus either for you personally or for CarbonTV? We talked a little bit about animal rights and guns, and without getting too political on it, in terms of conservation is that something that you’re active with personally and with CarbonTV?

Julie
We’re very active and I am personally as well, I have been for a very long time. Thank goodness in the outdoor space we have some incredible conservation organizations and foundations who really put the work in; they’ve got boots on the ground, doing these incredible projects for wildlife. We’re in full support of that. CarbonTV is the video streaming partner for a lot of those. One of them is the Mule Deer Foundation and Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife. They have an event every year called the Western Hunt Conservation Expo. They auction off these hunting tags, they auction off a lot of incredible items for people to go on these adventures, and that money is going right back into conservation for wildlife and for habitat. Aside from that, they also – year round – have these projects in place where volunteers are in the field helping wildlife in so many different ways. You just don’t see that from a non-hunting community very often. For example, they work on water catchment projects in areas where there may not be enough sustainable water sources for wildlife; these people are going out there and actually building water catchments to catch rainwater so that the wildlife has access to it. They’re putting up wildlife friendly fencing where the animals aren’t getting trapped in that fence and get their leg caught and they’re dying. These are all coming from conservation organizations that are based on hunting and based on people like me who love the outdoors, love wildlife, love to hunt. But we’re out there trying to help the wildlife in a lot of different ways. Wildlife and habitat management are very high up on our list of priorities. A lot of times the way that we work towards that is in partnership with those organizations or foundations. We’re very tight with the Wild Sheep Foundation. I just gave a speech for them up in BC. While I was there, they were telling me these incredible stories about these sheep captures where they’re up in helicopters and they are netting sheep. They put a net down, they catch the sheep and they’re running tests on the sheep to make sure they’re healthy, to make sure that there’s no disease spreading around, to make sure that the herd is going to survive and if there’s a problem, they can relocate that herd to an area where they will survive. It’s very expensive and it takes a lot of volunteers and a lot of time and effort. But that’s the most beautiful thing about the hunting and outdoor community is these people are so passionate about wildlife and so in love with these animals, that this is what they’re devoting their time to year round. Part of my job passion is telling those stories. If it weren’t for companies like CarbonTV, a lot of people would never know that these types of projects are happening, where people who – yes, of course we like to hunt, that’s part of wildlife management – but we’re also out there trying to help the animals in so many different ways.

Brian
That’s great. It seems like you have a great life, you get to travel and do what you love. What do you enjoy most about the career in life you’ve created for yourself?

Julie
The people, I love the people. I just came out of trade show season, they pack all of our trade shows into about two or three months, and we all arrive in the same cities, in the same places, big convention centers, and depending on what it is, we’re all there for some reason. This community has the greatest people; a lot of them I’ve known forever, some of them I meet for the first time but we all have one common passion and that is the outdoors and wildlife. So I would say that my joy comes from knowing that, first of all, I’m making a difference in an industry and a community that means so much to me, and so much to my people. But it wouldn’t be anything if it weren’t for the the other like minded people that I’ve surrounded myself with. I could work all day as hard as I want but if we don’t have support from people around us, it doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been very blessed and it’s been really fun. Every day I wake up and just have to pinch myself and can’t believe I get to do this every day. But it’s a real job, I mean, I am the CEO. There’s a lot of behind the scenes paperwork that I wish didn’t exist sometimes but in the end it’s all about the wildlife. It’s all about enjoying nature and the outdoors and surrounding ourselves with people who also love the same things.

Brian
Yes, an awesome environment to be in. Jules, one of the things that I admire about you the most is that you dream big, and not just for yourself, you also advocate for others to dream big, too. By the way, that’s something that you and I have in common. One way that you help others is through mentoring and empowering young people, you’ve talked already about young women and empowering them, especially as it relates to the love of outdoors. Share more about how you do that and why it’s so important to you to pour into and add value to others, especially young people.

Julie
The way I look at that is, if I had had a mentor when I was 18 or 20, just trying to get into the outdoors, it would have changed the course of my life. I would have found my passion a little faster if I would have had somebody that I could reach out to, it would have changed everything for me. So I’ve made myself very much available to young people, young ladies specifically, who maybe they don’t know for sure if it’s something they’re passionate about, that they want to look into that, they want to kind of test it out and see if it’s something they would love. I give my phone number out to all of them; they can call me anytime, we can talk about what their goals are, see what it is that they’re trying to accomplish. I’ve sat on a few different boards over the years that are specifically geared towards mentorship, and getting youth outdoors. Because, like you said at the very beginning, I come from a home with three older brothers and nobody ever thought that I would love the outdoors like I do. If they had only seen that spark, if somebody had just seen a little bit of a spark there, it could have changed everything. I’m not saying that I would want things to be different but I think that we should be giving those opportunities to young people if they want it. A lot of these mentorship programs, they fund and take kids outdoors or mentor these young kids on how to learn different skill sets about being outside. I think that is so crucial because even if that young person grows up and they say, hunting is not for me, well, that’s totally fine but odds are they’re going to meet somebody or know somebody in their life who is passionate about it, and then they have kind of a deeper understanding about that. I think it’s our responsibility to nurture the ones who do have that passion and to give them access and opportunity and education to pursue it.

Brian
I love that you’re adding value in that way as you mentor others. What’s the most important message you share about your journey and how others can achieve success, whatever that looks like for them, even if it doesn’t involve the outdoors?

Julie
I think everybody’s picture of success is going to be very different. If you had asked me ten years ago what is your idea of success, it would have been how many days this year do I get to be outside. That was my vision of success. The money didn’t matter. None of the great trips mattered, nothing else mattered to me but how many days this year will I be outside doing something, doesn’t matter what it is, even if it’s running camera or charging batteries. Now, my vision of success is – I’m responsible for a lot of people and their success so it really trickles down – so my idea of success now is making sure that CarbonTV is as healthy as possible, that our producers are very happy and they feel like they have a true home. My vision of success now is how are we more in support of the conservation organizations or the foundations or the NGOs – anybody who’s out there trying to do really good work towards common goals. How do I help them become more successful because all ships rise with the tide. My vision of success has become very different over the years and so I think when we are having conversations with…whether they’re a young person or somebody our own age, understanding that what they envision for success right now is going to probably change. It’s going to look very different for them in one year, two years; all of that is going to shift and making sure that they have a community around them that can be in supportive no matter how they change.

Brian
That’s well said. One thing I know about being outdoors is that it’s incredibly peaceful. I know you love being outdoors, you love nature. How did being drawn to nature yourself lead to the creation of Carbon Unwind, your meditation app?

Julie
Carbon Unwind actually happened during COVID, which a lot of things happened during the pandemic. For us, that was an opportunity. We’re a tech company, I consider us a tech company. Nobody knew what was going to happen during that time, it was all up in the air. I have the smartest, most creative, wonderful team working with me at Carbon and I didn’t want them to not know what their future looked like, or to not know that they had projects to be working on; media had to go dark for a while. I mean, that was just the fact of the matter. There was nothing we could do about it. So I’m a person who meditates and I believe in it, I think that it makes me a better person if I meditate every day. I have a degree in psychology so we kind of just took the entire team and pivoted over and said, okay, the developers are now going to develop a new app, my creative team is going to create everything around it. My director of production and programming is now going to be hiring voice-over artists and writers and authors to write these stories. So we created Carbon Unwind to be a way for people to connect to nature; the study of eco-psychology, right? Connecting through nature, finding your inner peace. Everything on that app is nature-based in some way and it was a success. Everybody on Carbon went over to Unwind, developed this incredible app that I’m so proud of and it’s just beautiful. Then after everything came back to normal, which shifted everybody back to CarbonTV, we ended up licensing out that content library. There are other apps who wanted to do the same thing but they did not invest as much into the content production so they ended up licensing our library away from us. I consider it a success.

Brian
Oh, what a great story. Great pivot, first of all, and definitely in alignment with your personal interests and also something that’s very beneficial. I’ve tried meditation at different times. I’m not as habitual is you are about it. What advice do you give our listeners and viewers who maybe are like me, they know it’s a good thing conceptually, but just haven’t quite gotten there in terms of making it the daily habit that it should be?

Julie
There’s a saying – I wish I could take credit for it – you should meditate for 20 minutes a day, unless if you’re very busy, then you should meditate for an hour. [Laughter.] I believe that, I do. I think that it really enables us to clear our mind and it’s not like you have to sit there and not think of anything because that’s impossible, our brains are just firing constantly. But it’s really just controlling your breathing, controlling your thoughts. You don’t have to be sitting in a certain position, you don’t have to be in a specific room. That’s why a lot of the meditations, they’re walking meditations, they’re grounding meditations; go outside and put your feet in the grass, they’re visualization meditations. There are a lot of different ways to meditate. I think that people kind of have a misconception about that. Even if you just close yourself off for five minutes in the morning or whenever you have a few minutes to spare, and focus on your breathing and clear your thoughts. Also, if I have a very big problem at work, I will go in my meditation room and I will sit on it. I will just think about and focus in on that one problem. It’s not like I’m clearing my mind, I’m actually just flooding it with all of the possibilities and all of the thoughts that could possibly come in and allowing myself that time to breathe through it. I feel like every time I do that, I walk out of that room just a little bit more clear. Sometimes it’s just about giving yourself grace in that moment to let your brain do the things that it’s supposed to do.

Brian
Does it take 20 minutes or an hour if you’re extra busy?

Julie
I mean, I wouldn’t say…three minutes is awesome. If you can sit for three minutes and just take some deep breaths, it’ll do wonders for you; (Brian: Baby steps, right?) That’s right, baby steps.

Brian
Jules, as you know our show is called LifeExcellence. I wonder what does excellence mean to you?

Julie
What does excellence mean to me? My definition of excellence would be when you end your day, feeling completely at peace with whatever that level of accomplishment was just for that day. I think as humans a lot of times we can become overwhelmed, especially with social media where we’re seeing highlight reels of other people’s lives and oh, they’re so successful, or beautiful, or rich or perfect. Excellence to me is I know I gave it my very best in this moment and I could not have done one more thing to make it a success. That is excellence. I think sometimes there’s a balance necessary and if we give ourselves a little bit of grace, that we are human and not everything’s going to be perfect but we can work towards accomplishing our goals, lifting others up with us, and having kind of a positive experience in life. You sleep better at night, enjoy your day, just a little bit happier every single time. I think to me, at this point in my life, that is excellence; knowing that there’s not one more thing that I could have done to make everything around me successful and that day I gave it my all.

Brian
I love that, thank you. I like the idea at the end of the day of contemplating that and thinking about that and really recognizing and appreciating that; that that’s been done or if it hasn’t, maybe thinking about that too, either way, but being very grateful for the output for that day, for the accomplishment of that day, for just realizing that you did put everything you had into the day and that that was excellent. I think to close your eyes and and go to sleep with that thought at the end of the day would be a pretty good way to end any day.

Julie
It’s not going to be every day and that’s okay, too. I think it’s okay to forgive ourselves for having an off day once in a while – we’re all just human. We seem to be very forgiving of other people when they make a mistake, but we’re very hard on ourselves, especially when we’ve accomplished certain things in life or people hold us to a certain standard. If there is a failure in my day it’s really hard to not take that personally and feel like I’m judging myself. But for me, the word excellence is like there’s really nothing else I could have possibly done to make it as great as it could be.

Brian
That’s great. Jules, I read that you describe yourself as a change agent and that you like doing things that haven’t been done before. Looking forward over the next three to five years how might that play out for you personally? How do you see it playing out in your leadership role at CarbonTV?

Julie
I love the word change agent. That is how I describe myself when things haven’t been done before. It interests me a lot. There are not a lot of things you run into that haven’t been done before in today’s world, but in business I have a team around me that’s smarter than I am by far. They bring these incredible ideas and I think I’ve created kind of a culture at CarbonTV where they feel comfortable. ?They feel safe bringing me any idea; just brainstorm, just throw it out there on the table. If it’s not a great idea, okay, that’s cool, because I have a lot of not great ideas too. The biggest part of being a change agent network is helping other people feel comfortable bringing you their ideas, especially if you’ve done the right thing and surrounded yourself with people who are smarter than you. My job is to recognize when something they bring to me has not been done, or needs to be done, or has potential to change something about our environment. I’m a risk taker in that way so I love it when people bring me things that other people aren’t talking about yet. Professionally, I think that CarbonTV is…we have some things in the works right now that are definitely in that change agent category, which is really fun. Personally, that’s just the way I live my life. I’m constantly trying to think of how do I take it one step further? How do I take what I’ve already built, this incredible platform, and take it to the next level? How do we expand on that, increase the number of people in the community or help people tell stories in different ways not just through video content. I think that it’s one of my favorite qualities about myself, that I just I love when people can really be vulnerable and honest about what’s really going through their brains and not feel like they can’t share that, because that’s where the best ideas come from.

Brian
I love that. I can’t wait to see how it plays out over the next three to five years. I definitely encourage our listeners and viewers to check out CarbonTV at carbonTV.com. Jules, thanks so much for being on the show. It’s great getting to know you and I appreciate everything that you’ve shared today.

Julie
Thank you, Brian. It’s been so great being here.

Brian
Thank you. Thanks for tuning into LifeExcellence. Please support the show by subscribing, sharing it with others, posting about today’s show with Julie McQueen on social media, and leaving a rating and review. You can also learn more about me at BrianBartes.com. Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.