Colby Hall (@colbyjameshall) is a stand-up guy, a statesman, a sales veteran, a hustler, traveler, man of faith, and a dear friend 🥰

He currently serves as the Executive Director of Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR), which is a non-profit organization geared towards economic revitalization in Eastern Kentucky.

After graduating from the University of Kentucky and several years of cutting his teeth in various inside sales roles down in Atlanta, GA – his incubation period as he calls it – he had built up the necessary skills, emotional intelligence, and business acumen to tackle the hills and hollers of Appalachia.

He and his team are relentlessly focused on providing fiber broadband internet to the entire region, closing accessibility gaps, and providing connectivity to rural areas of the state, allowing residents to compete for jobs on a global scale, small businesses to thrive in e-commerce, and students to receive the best education possible via non-traditional instruction.

Together in a partnership with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), they’ve been able to put 4,000 people to work remotely since 2015, impacting countless Kentuckians and exponentially improving the quality of life for the region.

Over the course of this interview, he drops many quote-worthy insights and takeaways, as well as some of the things he’s learned along the way, why he pivoted away from the medical field in college (40:32), how studying abroad in Chile and later living as an Expat in Ibiza developed his emotional intelligence (41:50), how he used that EQ as the foundation of the cold calls he made as a budding salesman (56:59), how he eventually got involved with SOAR (1:05:48), and the approach he takes to life each day (1:27:17).

This is a special dude and a special episode, so I hope you enjoy this episode half as much as we enjoyed playing it for you, because we had a ball 🥳

If you do, please let us know by dropping a quick rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or on the Facebook page for the show, @realtalkwbennyt.

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Credit Statement: Intro music is Outside by Ikson. Outro music is As It Sets by Ikson. Check out his other tracks here ➡️ https://www.iksonmusic.com