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Welcome to another episode of Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson. And today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Jeremy Bryant, founder of No Story Lost. Jeremy has had an incredible diverse career journey, starting in accounting at PwC, moving to social entrepreneurship with his charity Meal Share, and now dedicating his efforts to helping families preserve their cherished memories through No Story Lost. In our conversation today, Jeremy opens up about the inspiration behind his ventures, sharing heartfelt stories about the importance of capturing personal narratives.
Adam Larson:He delves into how his background in accounting has shaped his career and the valuable insights he's gained along the way. Jeremy also gives us a behind the scenes look at the emotional impact the work he does for families, highlighting how storytelling can connect generations and create lasting legacies. Now sit back, relax, and join us as we explore Jeremy Bryant's remarkable journey right here on Count Me In. Well, Jeremy, I'm so excited to have you on the Count Me In podcast today. You have had quite the journey, whether starting in accounting at PwC to charities, to real estate portfolios, and now, your company, No Story Lost.
Adam Larson:And there's just a lot of things I wanted to cover with you today, but maybe we can start with what initially drew you to the world of accounting? Because it's not something that everybody can, like, say they are excited to get into. I mean, obviously, this is a podcast for people who are in accounting and finance, but not everybody, you know, goes there. So I just wanted to so because you didn't stay there.
Jeremy Bryant:What are you what are you talking about, Adam? Everybody everybody loves accounting. Yeah. First of all, thanks for having me on. I appreciate the chance to chat and share a bit of my story.
Jeremy Bryant:Hopefully, someone can learn a little better, maybe take something away from it. But to answer the question, what got me into accounting besides everybody's underlying love for accounting is that my dad was an accountant.
Adam Larson:Okay.
Jeremy Bryant:So, he has a firm called Dart Bryant up here in Canada, in Calgary. And growing up, I just thought that that was just the dreamiest job. You know, dad did it. What could be cooler than that? So early on in my life, I thought I wanna be an accountant.
Jeremy Bryant:And that, that carried right along until, probably until I was an accountant. But that was, that was the start of, that was the start of it.
Adam Larson:Wow. That was the start of it. So, so until you were an accountant, it sounds like you sounds like it didn't last for very long. What what kind of happened and did you learn things that you've so it's a 2 part question, like what happened?
Jeremy Bryant:Mhmm.
Adam Larson:But then also, did you have you taken things from accounting that have spanned your your career?
Jeremy Bryant:Yes. Yeah. Great. So, yeah, I'll, maybe I'll get into a bit of the story of what happened. Sure.
Jeremy Bryant:When we're making it so dramatic, you know, I, I really do appreciate, appreciate the education and everything I learned. But, yeah, I went to business school and then, got out of business school and started my career in auditing Okay. With with PwC and was on the kind of the CA route, sort of the chartered accountant route out here in Canada. But, when I got into that role, so especially and kinda specifically when I got into the big firm life, you know, working with with hundreds of people and working with big very big companies and being a very small piece of that. For me, I felt like, you know, I'm learning so much and getting an in-depth look at these businesses, incredibly interesting.
Jeremy Bryant:I've taken away so much from that, but at the same time, I was feeling like, that it wasn't having kind of the impact that I wanted on the overall scope. So, obviously, as a junior accounting coming in, your job is pretty narrow, you know, AR, AP. And, and for me, that wasn't, that wasn't something that, that I found myself wanting to do for a number of years. So one of the things, yeah, one of the things that I definitely learned and appreciated was just an understanding of how business works. And I've always been fascinated by businesses.
Jeremy Bryant:That was actually, I think, what got me first interested in accounting was I saw my dad work as an accountant for a lot of small mom and pop shops and that sort of thing. And he just helped people so much figure out their business, you know, get to see it in a different light, get to help them, you know, strategize and plan taxes and all these kinds of things. And I thought, I thought that that was amazing to help people in that way, and, and that needed a strong understanding of the business. So all that to say, and maybe the answer is a little bit answered in both, but I got a taste of the business world, fell in line with that, and but I just I just love working on businesses and strategizing and seeing what's going on, and I wanted to have, have more of an impact over one company than than I was at the time being a junior accountant on a very large team, the very large companies.
Adam Larson:Yeah. I mean, that's understandable. Like, not everybody can stay in in one role their whole time, and
Jeremy Bryant:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Adam Larson:Sometimes people wanna expand. But what I've learned is talking to people, especially through this podcast, is a lot of people start in accounting. They like you said, they understand the business, and then they become entrepreneurs because they understand truly the whole business. Because once you understand the numbers and understand how businesses work, you can you can become like, a lot of times we talk about, especially at IMA is, you know, becoming the business partner. You want to be that partner.
Jeremy Bryant:Mhmm. That
Adam Larson:partner you want your seat at the table, and you you're more than just a numbers person when you're in the accounting and finance team. And so that's huge. And so for you, you've taken that, and you've started, you know, a charity. You've done real estate. Maybe talk a little bit about those things and some of the lessons and and things you learned along the way there.
Jeremy Bryant:Sure. Yeah. Maybe I'll jump into the charity side of things. So Sure. When, when I left the accounting world, I took the leap to start a social enterprise.
Jeremy Bryant:So I started a charity. Okay. I started that with my cousin and my best friend, Andrew. So he was at another big firm. He was on the consulting side, but another one, the big four.
Jeremy Bryant:And we were both feeling like, oh, we're just going to work every day and, you know, not having not having that much impact and, you know, maybe making making some money for some people down the line, and and that's great. Mhmm. But are we are we at the end of the day helping somebody today? And that was a little bit tough to see at times. So we said, let's take the total opposite approach.
Jeremy Bryant:Let's start a charity. So we started a charity called Meal Share, which worked with the restaurants across Canada and in the US to provide meals to youth in need. Wow. We put a little logo next to a couple of menu items, And when somebody ordered a meal share item, they got their meal just like normal. And we would also provide one meal to youth in need.
Jeremy Bryant:So that was, that was about 10 years of our of our life that we, we jumped into that and and grew it, had an incredible team who came came around the idea and did some incredibly passionate people who, who loved what they did and were very skilled at it. Yeah. And, yeah, that, that was about 10 years of of our early career.
Adam Larson:Wow. I mean, that's that's a fantastic cause being able to share. I you know, I've read about other organizations doing something similar, but I think one of the biggest problems we have in the world today is hunger. And to be able to feel that making that impact, I can totally understand wanting to do that. You know, I have to ask, you know, what, you know, going from corporate, big time corporate, big four to a charity, you know, how did your accounting skills kinda help in managing navigating that route, especially because nonprofit is completely different from a for profit organization?
Jeremy Bryant:Mhmm. That's a good question. 2 things come to mind. 1, I think it maybe it's the obvious one that, you know, all business at the end of the day comes down to, to profit and expenses. So we're running a charity, oftentimes that was a razor thin margin.
Jeremy Bryant:And so I think understanding, understanding the numbers helps, numbers helps help us stay afloat. There's a lot of months where we didn't know we were gonna stay afloat, and, revenue is was tough to get and donations were tough to get. So I think a strong understanding of of kind of financial and making sure we're gonna be able to make make, you know, payroll this month helped us in a bunch of wave and a bunch of times. The other one that I felt was, was especially when we started Mealshare. It was a totally new idea.
Jeremy Bryant:So we hadn't heard about it before. Mhmm. And we were going out to restaurants to pitch them on joining this program that was ultimately gonna cost them a bunch of money. They were gonna give us money. We were gonna use it to feed the need.
Jeremy Bryant:And, and I felt like the credibility that I gained from having an accounting background Mhmm. And it helped that I did a big four, a recognizable name, and was just huge to get me in a bunch of doors. Yeah. I think, you know, somebody's if a restaurant owner, any business owner getting pitched by somebody, knowing that they're an accountant or have an accounting background helps kinda, you know, check off, okay, this person probably has an understanding of what they're talking about and and, has got this group. So I feel like that was a huge help.
Jeremy Bryant:When we started Meal Share, I was, went to maybe. So, you know, a young kid walking into these restaurants asking for asking for a big financial commitment. And so the credibility with it was huge helper for us.
Adam Larson:Mhmm. That's amazing. I mean, having the name definitely helps a lot of times. And then also being able to have the talk behind it and being able to support it with documentation and everything you need is is huge. And, you know, a lot of that comes back to having good data visualization skills, being able to tell the whole story and see the whole picture, I'm sure.
Jeremy Bryant:Yeah. One, one other thing that actually just came to mind too when we talk about, what helped us in meal share that we learned from the accounting world, I think would actually be going back that feeling that I had when I felt like, oh, I'm not having that much of an impact here. Mhmm. Am I really making a difference? Yeah.
Jeremy Bryant:I think that was something that we focus a lot on in terms of engaging with our staff to make sure that they do know that they're having an impact. Mhmm. They're really trying to find passionate staff for the job that we're trying to fill. I think if I've done one thing well in my career, I suspect it's been working with amazing people, people who are more talented than me in different ways, and differently talented, and incredibly passionate at all the companies that I've been involved with. And I think that's probably something that I learned a little bit in that, in that experience that I had, where I wasn't feeling really engaged.
Jeremy Bryant:I wasn't feeling like I was a super important, you know, member of the team making a big impact. So at Meal Share and other companies, always try to do a great job at engaging with our staff, you know, that they're part of the success, they're making an impact, they're valued, and they make sure that, you know, what's important to them, we're trying to focus on too. So if, you know, if they want more learning opportunities or growth in different ways, we try to stay aware aware of that.
Adam Larson:So maybe we can dig into that a little bit. What are maybe can you give some examples on how you've done that? Because that, you know, you hear people say that a lot, you know, making sure they feel that way. But what are some things that you did to help do that? Because it's it's easier to say that than to actually help them feel that.
Adam Larson:You know what I mean?
Jeremy Bryant:Yeah. Yeah. But the one thing that I think has been important for our work, and so this this holds true at Mailshare, holds true at No Story Lost and other companies, is when we hire, we spend a great deal of time trying to find the perfect person for that role.
Adam Larson:Okay.
Jeremy Bryant:So when we are at Mealshare, our hiring site was called dreamjobs@mailshare.ca. And, and anybody who we hired, we tried to make sure that this role was going to be a dream job for them. So it seems a little bit crazy to me sometimes when I think, okay, I'm hiring somebody, for example, for maybe an admin role. Mhmm.
Adam Larson:And I
Jeremy Bryant:think, ah, does anybody I wouldn't wanna do this myself. I'm I'm really bad at this. I'm not good at the details. And, you know, this surely, this can be a dream job for anybody. But we found if we look hard enough, we would find somebody who absolutely loved that role.
Jeremy Bryant:And if we can do a good job articulating that role about what's important about it, you know, what they're gonna be required to do, what they need to be really great at, what they're gonna get out of it, if we can do a great job at articulating that, and then spend enough time looking in the right places, we're gonna find somebody who at the end of the day, they say, This is my dream job. I love doing this. I love organizing information. I love, you know, whatever whatever task it is for the the job. So I think it starts at that a big part of it.
Jeremy Bryant:Because if you have the right person in the right role, it's really easy to get people motivated and get passionate about what they're doing. So I think that's something that we did well with, was really think through what the role is, what the outcomes are, what we need somebody to be good at, what they're gonna be spending their time doing, and then, try to find strategic places where those types of people might be hanging out that we can spread the word and, and get them aware of the job and hopefully come in over to join.
Adam Larson:That's really cool. I like that. I think sometimes organizations may rush into things or it's really hard because people you sell yourself one way in an interview. It's kinda like a first date, you know, and it's it's almost like you need to have a few dates to get to know the person a little
Jeremy Bryant:bit better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's always funny looking at some how different hiring practices are.
Jeremy Bryant:Yes. Where a company like ours, we would spend an absorbent amount of time through that hiring process, getting to know people, make sure they get to know us, make sure they get to know different people on the team, because they're gonna be working with us. Mhmm.
Adam Larson:So
Jeremy Bryant:are they gonna fit in? Are they gonna like who they're working with? And then, and then get to know them. Whereas on the flip side, you know, I talked to quite a few people who say, yeah. I guess I'll post a position on Indeed, and things showed up.
Jeremy Bryant:And I think that's I think, you know, if the wrong person showed up, who might seem like the right person, and maybe, like, Yeah, no, this could be a fine job. But I think at that point, it's pretty tricky to get them really motivated and really aligned, or assuming if you find that person at the beginning who, you know, they, they really care about what you're doing in terms of high level Mhmm. Goal to do innovation. They care about what you care about, that's important to them, then I think I think it kind of leads to more success when I come Mhmm. Spend more time to begin.
Adam Larson:That makes a lot of sense. Now you mentioned just before about no story lost. That's the one, you know, your current organization that we haven't talked about.
Jeremy Bryant:Yeah.
Adam Larson:Maybe you can explain what the company does and the importance of capturing stories.
Jeremy Bryant:Yes. So No Story Loss is a is a business where we help families capture their loved ones' stories, memories, and advice. So clients purchase one of our biographies biography packages, and then we take care of all the details. So oftentimes, someone will purchase it for their mom or their dad, occasionally for themselves. And from there, we start by setting up a series of interviews with a storytelling.
Jeremy Bryant:So we'll get mom or dad on the phone, and we'll ask them all about their childhood, their best stories, their best memories, and we'll ask them about their formative years, so, you know, the time they got in trouble in high school. We'll talk to them about dating and when they met and fell in love with The 1, talk to them about having kids and their career and looking back and advice. And then once we have all those, we take those and we transcribe them, clean up the writing, take out the ums and the ahs, combine different ideas, and, then we'll add their family photos and lay it all out very nicely and design, print, and deliver a beautiful cotton table book right to their door. So families end up with, with a nice family heirloom that they can cherish and pass down through the generations to come.
Adam Larson:Wow. So it must be interesting being able to hear all these different people's stories and being able to tell it or give it back to them in this beautiful way. You know, how what impact that has that had on you and the people you work with as as this these get developed?
Jeremy Bryant:Yeah. I'll start by me telling you about how we first came up with the idea of Okay. Story Loss. For me, it was, my dad got sick about 10 years ago now, just a little bit under. And, and he got diagnosed with cancer and had a 50% chance of surviving.
Jeremy Bryant:Mhmm. Happy to say he's doing okay now. He's he got the right side of the coin on that one, and he's doing great. But at the time, it was just such a scary time for a family. He's he's kind of the rock of the family.
Jeremy Bryant:The Yeah. You know? So without him, we'd be, you know, be a bit lost. So it's just a really scary time. And we had a camping trip that we were planning to go on, and then he got diagnosed.
Jeremy Bryant:So I said, Dad, do you still want to go? Like, you got to go into this chemo treatment. But he said, You know what? This is more important than ever. Let's go on a trip.
Jeremy Bryant:So I went on camping for a couple of days. I printed off and brought with me, I think I had about 80 questions that I wanted to ask my dad. So a bunch about his childhood, how he met my mom, and all that kind of stuff. And I asked him all these questions and wrote down some notes, and I heard, of course, his classic stories, which were great, but I also heard some new ones, like, things that I had never heard before. Questions that just blow blew me away, and, yeah, things that I just had no idea about my dad.
Jeremy Bryant:And, that was just an incredible experience. I got back from that, and I called my cousin and partner on the business, Andrew, and said, Man, we gotta find a way to help other families get this too. Because for me, those notes and those stories that I had from my dad were so important. So, yeah, it had a huge impact on me, just getting to do my dad's project. We've since done some other other family members' projects.
Jeremy Bryant:And, for our customers, it's the same experience. We have, no story lost, we have a happy tier guarantee, to call it. So in the early days of the business, when we first started, we were doing off the side of our plate or in the side of our desk. We, we started to joke around about how we measure success by the number of clients who cried happy tears. And so if we had a client who called us after they got their book, we said, you know, found out how, how their reveal went, and oftentimes they'd say, oh, we just, you know, we just whacked, it was just amazing.
Jeremy Bryant:And we describe these happy tears. So that was, that was our first joke at our our own success, our measuring of success. But the more that we've been in the business, the more we thought, you know what, let's just formalize this. And so our promise to customers is if they are not so happy with their book when they get it, if they get to cry happy tears, we'll happily refund all their money and have yet to, have yet to need to do that. So I'll let you say families are pretty thrilled when they get to get to see their bucks.
Adam Larson:That's pretty amazing. That is one of those guarantees that hopefully you'll never have to do, but it's it's a touching time. And if families are dealing with potential loss or, you know, things like that, do you have to deal with the, you know, the psychology side or maybe helping deal with grieving families in that way as you're going through this. Have you had to navigate those waters at all? I'm sure that it's very touchy and and and it's very delicate as you're dealing with families when going through those situations.
Jeremy Bryant:Yeah. That's, that's been a big part of the business. I'd say is, is, yeah, being aware that some families are gonna come to us when, you know, dad turns 80, everybody's happy and healthy, and they just want an amazing birthday gift for him. Yeah. And that's great.
Jeremy Bryant:And a whole other side is is when mom gets a call from the doctor that says, we found something, and, we don't have people on here. Mhmm. So we'll get we'll get lots of those kind of phone calls. You know, a family just got bad news, and, they, you know, they wanna get those stories before it's too late. So those are, you know, those are always such important projects for us.
Jeremy Bryant:They're really meaningful. Every project is, but, you know, when we know that there's a timeline that's so visceral Yeah. It really changes it. Yeah. We've had, yeah, lots of really emotional times there.
Jeremy Bryant:We've had clients who have passed away, in some cases, just after we finish their interviews, which is, you know, super sad, and get to talk to the family and see how they're doing. And, and also, you know, obviously, it's nice that we know, hey, we've got these interviews secure and safe. We can still make the book, and we get to give a book that is, I think, in some cases, just way more meaningful when someone's gone. Yeah. And other times, we've the the saddest one for us or for me is, we've had this happen a few times where someone will sign up for a project and will say, okay.
Jeremy Bryant:Let's schedule your interviews. One works for you. They say, oh, you know, in a couple weeks, and have had people pass away in that meantime. Yeah. That was really tricky, you know, just knowing that, in some cases, those those stories kinda go away with a person.
Jeremy Bryant:Mhmm. So it's it's tough being with the family after that and talking to them. But, yeah. Anyway, obviously, lots of emotional projects. And, and then again, a whole bunch of ones that are just really happy and, and just happy emotion.
Jeremy Bryant:None of the other, other kind of sad emotions mix in with that.
Adam Larson:Yeah. I can see it's had a huge impact. Just your face as you're talking about it, you know, it's just I can see the emotion and the impact that it's had on you and that it gets me excited. I love stories. I love hearing stories.
Adam Larson:I love listening to stories. And it also makes me think of how many stories have been lost throughout the centuries. You know, if you look at the history books, most times, the victors are the one who write the history books.
Jeremy Bryant:That's right.
Adam Larson:So you don't get the other side of the story. Yeah. And I think what you're doing is hugely important because a lot of times when you're growing up, you don't actually always hear everything that's happened. And then suddenly, randomly, one time you're sitting with somebody like you with your dad, you hear something new you haven't heard before. And you're like, wait, I want more of that.
Jeremy Bryant:Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Larson:And so I I think this is a huge impact because I think telling the right story, whether in business or personal I mean, obviously, no story loss is more a personal thing, but telling the right story is huge no matter where you are and being able to tell stories. And maybe maybe for our listeners, you can give some advice on, you know, how do you tell a good story? Because, you know, whether you're in business or whether they wanna, you know, check the link in the bio if you wanna check out No Story Lost, we'll have it in there. Mhmm. But we'll totally have it in there for the audience.
Adam Larson:But, you know, if you want to tell a good story, what are some things what are some pointers you can give our audience?
Jeremy Bryant:So one of the things that comes to mind, and again, this is kind of stem wise to another story I shared, but going back to the basics and thinking through it at the beginning. Okay. One thing that's really important to us always is who's the audience. And we have a lot of families that, they'll say, oh, you know, we'd love to do this for grandpa. We're gonna get him to do a project, and then he'll come back to us in 2 weeks and say, we talked to grandpa, and, you know, he says he doesn't have any good stories to tell.
Jeremy Bryant:He's not really sure if he wants to chat about them. You know, he doesn't feel like his life's interesting. We say, No, no, no, grandpa. Think about the audience. It's your grandkids.
Jeremy Bryant:Like, you know, in that case, any story that you have is gonna be exciting for your grandkids or your kids. And so in business, I think it's the same way. You know, if, if a founder you know, maybe they're the founder led company, and they're starting to wonder, Oh, he's gonna retire. She's gonna retire in the next handful of years. Let's get a couple of stories down about the early side of the business.
Jeremy Bryant:They might think, Oh, it wasn't that exciting? You know, it started in a garage, and and then my buddy's basement and and that sort of thing. But I think thinking through the audience, you know, you're not telling someone who cares about the business or cares about you as a person. And so I think that that's really helpful. I think thinking about the audience is a good place to start for any, any story.
Jeremy Bryant:Yeah. And then with that in mind, so specifically what we do at No Story Lost is we really are more on that family side focus. We we do some corporate stories, but our bread and butter is is talking to parents and grandparents.
Adam Larson:For sure.
Jeremy Bryant:So I think, you know, thinking through things like what was different when you grew up. For talking to my dad, he's only, you know, not quite 70s, probably getting getting up there. But, but for him, maybe growing up doesn't seem that remarkable. But when he tells me a story about how he used to go down to Main Street, trade a bike in for the day for a horse, for another kid who brought a horse to Main Street and makes swaps for the day. That's just mind blowing for me.
Jeremy Bryant:That just doesn't happen in today's day and age. So I think, you know, when he thinks about stories, if we say, okay, what, you know, think about me, think about my my little girl one day reading it, tell stories about, you know, that are just gonna blow her mind when, when she doesn't have the same thing that you grew up with. So Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Larson:That's really cool. Yeah. I used to have a phone that had a cord attached to it. It was crazy, and you had to dial it.
Jeremy Bryant:Yeah. Yeah. Which for, you know, for those of us that experienced that, it's not remarkable, but thinking thinking ahead 10, 20 years, you know. Mhmm. What is a cord?
Jeremy Bryant:That's that's the first question there is gonna be. Yeah.
Adam Larson:Yeah. What is a cord? Nothing has cords. What is that? Yeah.
Adam Larson:Yeah. Plugging in? I don't understand.
Jeremy Bryant:Plugging in. That's gonna be how we age ourselves. Yeah, cords, I guess.
Adam Larson:I mean, so what do you see in the future for a long story? No story lost. Sorry. What do you see in the future for no story lost? Are you guys gonna get, you know, virtual reality versions of your stories going on in the future?
Adam Larson:Or what are you planning?
Jeremy Bryant:Yes. There's so many possibilities. One of the things we've talked a lot about is that, customers come to us with personal experience. So there's another product out there that people can do by themselves, or they can try and get mom and dad to write down their stories. You know, we are, kind of a white glove service where when a family comes to us, we say, we will take care of everything.
Jeremy Bryant:Mhmm. There's not gonna be a hiccup here. We have our happy cure guarantee that you can you can rely on. So I think for us, we will continue to focus on that personal touch. Mhmm.
Jeremy Bryant:So matching a family with the perfect interviewer Yeah. Then the perfect writer, and, and make sure that we take that seamlessly through. So to be honest, I think the future for No Story Lost right now just looks like more of what we're doing, helping more families, we hope Mhmm. Capture their loved ones' stories. But, you know, fast forward 5 years, who knows?
Jeremy Bryant:Maybe maybe we will be doing, you know, VR stories. Mhmm. But I suspect, customers are gonna continue to come to us for what they love, which is coffee table books that they can they can share with friends and family around, around the, you know, the dinner table, around the around the coffee table, and, keep that personal touch.
Adam Larson:That's amazing. Well, Jeremy, I it was so great getting to know you and hearing your story a little bit, and I look forward to our audience checking out No Story Lost. And, it was really great to meet you, and thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Jeremy Bryant:Thanks for having me. Anybody can reach out to to us, at our our website, no story lost.com. And, and if you're interested, we'd, we'd love to help capture your guys' stories.
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