Never Been Asked That

He's spent 30 years building economies in places most people overlook... but the most surprising thing he's built is a case for a city he wasn't born in.

Joe Raso is the President and CEO of the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation. He's led EDCs across Iowa, Colorado, and North Dakota, consulted from the vendor side of a software company serving economic development organizations across North America, and spent eight years becoming Fargo-Moorhead's most fluent external advocate, as a transplant who chose to stay.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Why 70% of regional economic growth has nothing to do with attracting new companies, and everything to do with the ones already here

• What Joe learned about how EDCs actually behave when he spent two and a half years selling software to them from the outside

• The sharp difference between being nice and being kind, and what it costs to hold that distinction in a culture that defaults to niceness

• The Colorado Springs chapter: facing public criticism, and what holding all three accounts at once taught him about accountability

• What Joe actually means when he uses the word flourishing as a mission frame, and what decision that word has already changed

Key moments:

(00:00) Intro

(00:04:51) Kurt Warner, Hy-Vee, and the road not taken

(00:13:38) Saving 150 jobs

(00:25:03) The 70% rule

(00:37:27) The Ice House philosophy

(01:15:41) Thinking in hours: AI and the speed of change

(01:19:02) Nice doesn't cut it: the difference between niceness and kindness

(01:30:56) Colorado Springs

(01:43:18) The vendor side of the mirror: what you see when the mission isn't yours

(01:56:04) What it costs to care more about a place than people who grew up there

(02:11:41) What flourishing actually means as a decision, not a statement

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Joe Raso:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephmraso/

https://gfmedc.com/

https://www.instagram.com/gfmedc/

Dan Tinquist spent 15 years doing everything a good father and a good pastor was supposed to do… but it took his 7-year-old son’s words on a camping trip to show him he still wasn’t really home.

Dan Tinquist is a former worship pastor turned coach for high-achieving executives. He’s built his practice around helping men see, hear, and know their own children, all while still practicing it on himself.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Why “I’m so glad to have you back, Daddy” became the moment that changed everything, even though Dan did his best to always be available.
• The difference between men who lack information and men who lack a space to stop performing.
• Why “vacation daddy” isn’t what kids actually want, and what they’re really asking for.
• The family culture framework built on connection, contribution, service, and adventure.
• Why independence is the wrong goal for fatherhood, and what interdependence looks like instead.

Key Moments:

• (01:00:00) Intro: the camping trip moment that started it all
• (01:18:39) Why home should be where kids find themselves
• (01:28:23) The Thursday 5:15pm test
• (01:51:06) We don't lack information, we lack spaces to stop performing
• (02:03:26) You were strong for me
• (03:02:53) The family culture framework: connection, contribution, service, and adventure

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Dan Tinquist:

⁠https://confidad.com/⁠

⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/5GAIpAUrKVKZ0zppsJjyHO⁠

⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@confidad⁠

Blain Mikkonen keeps choosing to spend his time on what he loves... even if it costs him more hours, more risk, and more work than the easier path would have.

Blain Mikkonen is the co-founder of Grain Designs and The Pines. Nearly twenty years in, he's still making the same choice on purpose: doing the right thing, even if it’s harder.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Why he chose furniture over a career in architecture
• The choice to work seventy hours doing work that was his, instead of forty for someone else
• Choosing to have the harder conversation and push back a delivery date rather than let quality slide
• Deciding what came next in the shop instead of walking away when the money fell through
• Choosing to step back from the grind so his kids actually know him

Key moments:

• (00:00) Intro
• (01:49) Choosing furniture over fifteen years of someone else's drawings
• (08:37) Seventy hours that were his, not someone else's forty
• (22:06) Choosing the harder conversation over cutting the corner
• (1:24:11) Deciding what came next instead of walking away
• (1:38:12) Choosing who does what they're actually good at
• (1:53:09) Choosing to be present while his kids are young
• (2:08:42) The first desk, kept for what it marks, not what it matches

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Blain Mikkonen:

https://graindesigns.com/

https://thepinesvenue.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/blain-mikkonen-aa8b4ab5/

The confidence cost her everything, she rebuilt it form nothing.

Dayna Del Val spent thirteen years running one of the region's most visible arts nonprofits and became one of its most recognizable leaders... but leaving it made her irrelevant almost overnight.

Dayna Del Val is an executive presence coach who helps leaders humanize their message and present it confidently, instead of hiding behind their slides. She's built a coaching practice spanning Los Angeles, New York, Germany, and London out of sixty cold calls she made after losing her professional network almost overnight.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Where her unshakeable self belief actually started, decades before she had any evidence to back it up
• Why the title she spent thirteen years earning turned out to matter more than she ever let herself admit
• The real reason so many leaders hide behind their slides instead of their actual message
• What it looked like to lose nearly her entire professional network overnight, and how she rebuilt it from sixty phone calls
• The conversation that convinced her and her husband to go public with his recovery from alcoholism

Key moments:

• (00:00) Intro
• (01:01:33) You’re Going to Be Miss America!
• (01:12:12) Practically Perfect in Every Way
• (02:01:18) Nobody Gives a Hoot About Your Slides
• (02:50:27) It Only Took One Night to Become Irrelevant
• (03:43:42) The Beauty Comes After the Darkness

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Dayna Del Val:

https://www.instagram.com/dayna_delval/

https://daynadelval.com/

https://daynadelval.com/brave-middle-ground-podcast/

Curtis Sullivan built his business on the science of a gentler goodbye... but the reason families choose him has nothing to do with science.

Dr. Curtis Sullivan is the founder of Eternal Tides, a pet aquamation service in the Fargo-Moorhead area. He's helped more than 600 families say goodbye to their animals, and he built the space they walk into with his own hands.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Why grieving families choose a person, not a process, and the bias his first customers revealed
• The pricing change behind "love doesn't have a weight limit"
• The no do-overs ethic, and the phone call that made it personal
• How grief shows up differently across generations, from first losses to final goodbyes
• Building goodbye by hand: reclaimed wood, memorial boards, and why intention is the whole point

Key moments:

• (00:00) Intro
• (03:47) Love doesn't have a weight limit
• (06:45) How grief differs across generations
• (10:16) Can you still bury a pet in the backyard?
• (18:35) The no do-overs ethic
• (32:05) What the hard days sound like
• (49:57) From grief to craftsmanship
• (1:03:48) What you do when no one is watching
• (1:09:52) A question from the last guest

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Dr. Curtis Sullivan:

https://www.eternaltidesfmwf.com/

https://www.instagram.com/eternaltidesfmwf/

https://www.instagram.com/eternaltidesfmwf/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/eternaltidesfmwf/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisjsullivan/

He built the life he wanted. The foundation was poured before he could walk.

Jack has never known a single day on earth where he wasn't loved... but the confidence people see in him now was earned through redlined papers, rejection reps, and a $20,000 pay cut.

Jack Yakowicz is Director of Operations at AdShark and a writer, musician, and speaker in the Fargo-Moorhead community. He's built marketing teams from scratch, written his own job description - twice - and turned "what's the worst that could happen?" into a career philosophy.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Growing up under a "cloak of protection," and why a loving circle is the real backdrop of success
• A published-author mom who redlined his childhood writing, and how early critique built his voice
• Walking into two companies with no open positions and creating the roles himself, including a $20,000 pay cut at 26 to bet on himself
• The Snapchat message to Riley that was never about dating, only the endgame
• Fatherhood, faith, and why he now fears death differently: "the legacy lives on"

Key moments:

• (00:00) Intro
• (00:00:28) Built or discovered: a life that started with love
• (00:14:31) The mom who redlined everything
• (00:33:26) Writing his own job description, twice
• (00:55:25) The Snapchat that went straight to endgame
• (01:10:03) The birthday gift and the delivery room
• (01:23:08) Build the life you want outside of work

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Jack Yakowicz:

www.adshark.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-yakowicz-0028b487/

https://www.instagram.com/jacksunyak/

She built a company, raised kids, and cared for her dying mother, all at once. Then she won an award and felt nothing.

She had proven everything she set out to prove... but the people she was trying to prove it to were never going to give her what she needed.

Alexandra Lund is an entrepreneur, author, and founder who built a sign company from the ground up in Bismarck, ND. She scaled it, got featured in national trade publications, and eventually sold it. But the most interesting part of her story is not what she built. It is what it cost her, what she learned while she was in it, and how she figured out what she actually wanted.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Growing up in a small town with a dad she could never please and a mom who named her Alexandra so she could go by Alex on a resume and no one could discriminate before she got in the room
• What it was like to be a woman in a male-dominated industry where men would walk in expecting to meet someone at the front desk, and she was the owner
• Running a business, installing wraps three weeks postpartum, nearly backing over a light post at the bus depot because she hadn't slept, and still not asking for help
• The garage moment: one disrespectful comment, a crying breakdown, a call to her husband, and a Monday morning conversation with her partners that changed everything
• What she found on her neck three days before her last day of ownership, what the doctor said, and what she thought about on the way to the emergency room

Key moments:

• (00:00) Intro
• (01:01:00) The Season After the Sale
• (01:12:56) The Drive to Prove
• (01:31:25) Achievement Without Fulfillment
• (01:48:49) The Health Scare and the Wake-up Call
• (01:59:31) The Hidden Weight of Motherhood and Leadership
• (02:14:13) Introvert, Visionary, Operator
• (02:26:19) Redefining Success
• (02:28:28) The Story You Are Living Now

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Alexandra Lund:

Alex's Website

Alex on LinkedIn

Alex on Instagram

He's spent eight years convincing nonprofits to believe in themselves. The harder sell has always been himself.

Patrick is one of those people who walks into rooms radiating certainty. But the version of him that wakes up before a keynote, quietly running through every reason it could fall apart, is just as real... and he thinks that version is actually the better one.

Patrick Kirby is a fundraising consultant, speaker, and author based in Fargo, ND. Over nearly a decade, he has helped hundreds of nonprofits raise more money, build better cultures, and stop doing things the way they have always been done.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Why the most confident person in the room is usually fighting the hardest internal battle
• How theater, Les Miserables, and a hallway at Anne Carlson Center permanently rewired how he sees the work
• The moment a new boss asked 'Is this a bit?' and accidentally handed Patrick his exit ramp
• Why donors are exhausted by tragedy and what joy has to do with fundraising
• What Rick Rubin got right about audiences, and why Patrick stopped writing for anyone but himself

Key moments:

• (01:00:00) Intro
• (01:00:40) Presence Over Pitch: What people get wrong about Patrick first
• (01:03:08) The Introvert Few People See: The reset time behind the stage
• (01:09:02) Story Is the Strategy: Theater, musicals, and learning to be uncomfortable
• (01:13:10) Losing the Race, Finding the Gift: From sales rep to healthcare recruiter to nothing
• (01:19:24) The Humor and the Edge: When personality became the differentiator
• (01:23:36) The Discipline Behind the Energy: Standards, curiosity, and letting clients go
• (01:47:58) The Hallway Moment: Anne Carlson, the kid who wasn't supposed to walk, and the boss who asked the wrong question
• (01:55:00) People Are the Real Work: The obsessive balance between care and business
• (02:01:38) The Audience Comes Last: Joy, storytelling, and why sad isn't a fundraising strategy
• (02:14:53) Audacity and Self-Belief: Rick Rubin, unreasonable confidence, and what happens when you stop caring what people think
• (02:35:45) Leading beyond motivation into action

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Patrick Kirby:

• Patrick Kirby’s Website
• Get one of Patrick’s Books
• Patrick Kirby on LinkedIn
• DoGoodBetter on YouTube
• Patrick Kirby on Instagram

He built one of the most recognizable brand universes in his city... but nobody asked him to.

Nathaniel Navratil is a designer, creative director, and equity partner at Drekker and Brewhalla in Fargo, ND. He's the hand behind the identity, the merch, the labels, and the culture that turned a hotel and brewery into a destination.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• Why "follow your passion" might be the worst advice you've ever been given
• What it actually feels like to walk into a room and know you've outgrown it
• The difference between building your castle and building someone else's
• How he landed one of the most creatively ambitious projects in his city before anyone else even tried
• Why the through line across everything he's made isn't skill or strategy. It's fun.

Key moments:

• (00:00) Intro
• (00:42) Identity Before the Work
• (00:20:09) Skill Over Passion
• (00:57:29) The Work Ethic Origin Story
• (01:00:17) When Effort and Skill Weren't Enough
• (01:04:38) Misalignment & Environment
• (01:07:22) The Reset Year
• (01:28:41) The Craft Behind the "Goofy"
• (01:33:31) Alignment
• (01:37:06) The Universal Lesson
• (01:48:26) The Brewhalla Moment

Curious what you think we should have asked.

Follow Nathaniel:

⁠https://www.instagram.com/nathanielnavratil/⁠

⁠https://www.instagram.com/studio.foley/⁠

⁠https://dribbble.com/nathaniel-navratil⁠

⁠https://www.behance.net/nathaninavrati⁠

He reaches a billion people a day from a small town in North Dakota… but most of them have no idea he exists.

Marlo Anderson is the founder of National Day Calendar, the platform behind nearly every national day you've ever seen trending, shared, or celebrated. They've grown from 20–30 national days in 2013 to over 1,700 on the calendar today, with a reach that's been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, cited by the Today Show, and built without a single dollar of outside funding.

In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into:

• How a curiosity about National Popcorn Day became a billion-person platform

• What the "school of hard knocks" actually taught Marlo about failure, risk, and timing

• Why AI has completely reinvigorated him and what it means for small business

• The real reason people celebrate national days (it's not about the food)

• What it felt like to get a late-night call from someone in crisis who dialed National Day Calendar

Key moments:

(00:00) Intro

(00:49) Who is Marlo? Curiosity, failure, and the “can-do” spirit

(10:39) Artificial photosynthesis, AI, and the falling cost of big ideas

(27:22) How National Day Calendar started and almost didn't survive

(53:39) What celebration really does for people in a divided world

Curious what you would have asked.

Follow Marlo Anderson:

⁠National Day Calendar⁠

⁠Marlo Anderson on Instagram⁠

⁠Marlo Anderson's Website⁠

⁠Marlo Anderson on LinkedIn