Hey, everybody. Welcome to my guest tonight. I'm Jeff Revilla, your host. I've got an
amazing guest joining me. Jess MacMillan, the moment
marketer, speaker and keynote, the Uncaged pod.
She's the spark in the silence. The truth in the tale turns a
fleeting flash into a heartfelt trail. From upstate
roots to the uncaged, Jess MacMillan shows us how to
live life right. It's clarity, courage, connection and light.
I'm my guest tonight with Jeff Revilla. Shine bright. It's the
moment Marketer Bold and true.
Jess, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having
me. I'm so excited. You're the first guest that I didn't tell
that there was going to be a theme song about you. So hearing it in
the moment, what did you think of hearing a theme song
about what we're going to talk about tonight? Oh, my gosh. I love it so
much. I kind of wanted to jam out.
Well, that's a lot of people's reactions. You don't get that all the time when
you go onto a new show. This is My Guest Tonight and tonight we're going
to showcase Jess and tell her story, her hero's journey, and let's
see where we end up. But I believe you're in upstate New York and born
and raised or are. Have you been living there your entire life? Yeah,
so I've done a few traveling stints,
but I'm born and raised in upstate New York.
I've spent a long my whole life on the border
of the US And Canada. So I live
quite literally about five minutes from the border. So
it's always been a part of who I am is just hopping over to Canada.
My closest city is actually Montreal in
Quebec instead of Syracuse or Albany.
Those are actually downstate to me. So, yeah, I'm pretty much born and
raised and now I have my girls and we're all up here,
so. And I'm loving it. You're upstate upstate New York?
Yes. Yeah. Is it one of those areas in New York where there's like a
gray area on the border and you can meander
accidentally back and forth? Yeah, actually
a lot of the times, not tonight, thankfully, but a lot of the times your
cell phone service will d. You're in Canada
and so quite literally a lot of people here have to
make sure that their cell phone plans allow for
the intercon, like the international plans, because
it'll pick up Canada and then you get charged. So back when you used to
have to pay for per text message. I'm dating Myself here, but this
is a long time ago for the young listeners where you had to pay per
text message. It used to be like triple if they picked up on
Canadian towers. So you learn your lesson really quick.
You got to be efficient, but also accurate which towers you're trying
to connect to. Yes, yeah. And Upstate
New York, you started to go to school there, I believe. Was it
Potsdam? Yeah, sorry. So I went to SUNY Potsdam,
the State University of New York, which is
Potsdam, New York. It's a really small town, but
they have a few well known colleges in the area too. So there's also
St. Lawrence University and Clarkson University. So
if you're not familiar with SUNY Potsdam, you might know those
two other schools in the area. And when you started, you
walked onto campus, did you know exactly what you wanted to do or did you
have a major declared at that point? So I,
I actually started as an English teacher. And so I started
going to school and my little sister, who's just a little bit younger
than me, she was in high school. And I like to joke that I
went to my first student teaching kind of stint
where they kind of break you in and let you know what teaching is all
about. And I was unfortunate enough to
see what she was like in the classroom and
it was not fun for me. That was a fun day. So I
literally went back to school the next day and changed my major. And
so I moved to anthropology. I
have a really big interest in people and learning about people
and like their history and the culture and I love traveling.
So I, I have spent some time abroad. I
lived in Paris for a little bit. I've lived in Dublin, I lived in
Ireland for a little bit. So I've kind of just gone all
around. I've been to Florida, stayed a few months there.
So I always come back to upstate New York.
But I have this really big passion for just learning about other
people and it actually led me
to anthropology. And then I changed my major again
and landed into speech communication. And that's just where I
fell in love with speaking and public speaking and being on a
stage and really speaking to other people to
share knowledge with them, but to also kind of be
a lighthouse and let them know that I'm listening to them too.
And so that's really where it started. Was there a moment on your
journeys, on your travels, where, oh,
okay, I think I want to speak in front of people. I want to
present information to the world. Was there a moment or did
you see something somewhere that really sparked an interesting.
In public Speaking. So actually my
very first speaking kind
of person that I was introduced to, my grandpa, I was raised by my
grandparents. We were all quite close.
And my grandpa was volunteer of the year. He
owned. He had his own band, the Stardusters.
He sang at the Lake Placid Olympic
center, the national anthem. So he just loved
having a mic. And I mean, if you gave that guy a mic, you were
not getting him off the stage anytime soon. And so I grew up with
that. But my first memory of really being like,
I want to do that. I actually saw Wayne Dyer, and I don't know if
you're familiar with him. He's like a spiritualist. He works
with Hay House, or he did work with Hay House. He's passed now. But he
was on stage speaking about Taoism.
Taoism. And he was barefoot and he was on stage and he was
just wearing, like, the coolest, like, I mean, he looks so
relaxed, and he was just wearing these, like, really flowy clothes.
And he had just got off the plane from Hawaii and he
just seems so Zen. And I was like, that's. I want to be that. I
want to do that. I want to talk about just being go
with the flow. And I mean, my talk's not like that now. I'm
a lot more energetic than Wayne was on stage that first day.
But that's really where my love started. Was it. Did you
go back through, like, the course catalog at college and be like, what. What is
most like Wayne Dyer? How do I get. How do I get
into this lifestyle? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And so
I actually started my most memorable class, I would say, is persuasive
speaking. And so it
really tapped into something in me because it
also. The professor really used rhetoric
principles from Greek philosophers. So I
got to do like, this anthropologic, like, type
course where also took in, like, you could speak
on what you wanted and you could be really Zen. And then you were also
speaking in front of the class. And so this was about 15
years ago. And I still have people come up to me and tell me that
they remember my speech from that class. And so I just
remember really shining and loving it so much. Did you have, like, a
little area rug and do the presentation barefoot? Oh, I
wish. I wish that was allowed. I. You trust me. I tried to convince
the professor, but it was a no go. So if I
wanted a 4.0, he said, I have to stick to the script.
So you're studying public speaking and media and you get out of college
and are you drawn towards Conferences or
are you drawn towards the stage or do you kind of fill the gap in
between? Well, so I actually took a left turn
and left SUNY Potsdam and ended
up going to massage school in Ithaca, New
York. So kind of Zen and really trying to tap
into that spiritual part of myself. And so I
went to school there. I completed the program. I tried
out as an entrepreneur, as
a massage therapist, but my passion just wasn't
there. So I actually had more success
in my massage therapy practice teaching other massage
therapists how to market than I did actually putting hands on
people. So that's kind of where it
started, was that other spas were tapping into my marketing
skills and I was getting questions on more of
the marketing side of things than I was on the spiritual or
massage therapy side of things. And so it went
from there. And I was kind of struggling to be a massage therapist full time,
especially in, you know, a small town, and just dealing with all of the struggles
that comes with being in a small town and being
young and really my first kind of business experience
with no business acumen or skills prior.
And I ended up taking a job at one of
the local credit unions. And I started at the front desk
where I was greeting people and basically the face of the company
and a marketing position opened up and I
fell in love with marketing. I just, I excelled.
I loved it so much. And so I spent the next few
years at that credit union just really growing as a
marketer, you know, taking any sort of class
or course I could, because my background is in communication
and speaking and writing, and it's not necessarily in
design or graphic, graphic design or
social media or the digital side of things. So. So
I really just tried to take in as much as I could
and I took a little bit of time away to have my
two babies and now I'm back at a different credit union, but
basically running the whole marketing department for them with three
branches and then doing all of the other things that I do on the
side. When you go back to the early days of the massage
business and consulting with other massage businesses,
what were some of those early techniques and early tips that you
were giving away? And do any of the. Did any of that crossover into
the financial products and. Or to the banking industry? Absolutely.
So my biggest, my
biggest takeaway, I think even for massage therapists, even
for solopreneurs, now that I work
with, it's really all about
lifting above the noise. So there's so much going on,
people are busy, the feeds are full.
I mean, people just, I mean you could scroll for hours and still not see
what you're meant to see. And so
something that I told the massage therapists were
to kind of rise above it. You want to be seen. And
so get out into the public, don't hide, don't
be afraid to call the newspaper, don't be afraid to send out your own press
releases. Newspapers are usually looking, I mean, it's
a little bit more outdated, but up here it's still really utilized
the newspapers. And so even the radio
stations, you know, send your press releases out. You don't
need to have somebody else do it for you. And so that was my
biggest one, was just to get, to get in the face, to get in
somebody's face about it and really share what you're all about.
And I gotta imagine banking probably has all kinds of
regulations and you're kind of navigating these waters of,
you know, what you're allowed to post and how do you get through some of
those challenges when there's, you know, laws involved and
disclosures involved. What are some things that work in
banking and meet all those legal requirements?
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the number one things that I learned
very early on working at the credit union was to cover all your
basis. So even if it's not a legal requirement to still
have the disclosure there. And it's actually something that I recommend
to a lot of spa owners or massage therapists that I talked to
today. You know, when you're going to sign a little
form, the intake form of, yes, I agree to have this massage and
I tell the massage therapist to protect themselves. And that goes for
anybody that's in business. I wholeheartedly believe that
you should have a disclosure somewhere on your website. Somewhere,
anywhere. Just to be able to have that layer of protection,
whether you implement it or not, that's another story. But just to have it
there so you can say that you're covered and
it's there for people to find. And, you know,
some, a lot of coaches nowadays,
you know, podcast hosts even, you know, on my podcast website, I have a disclosure
there saying, you know, anything that you learn is not necessarily,
you know, 100% true, advice that you need to follow
and, you know, everything with, with your discretion. And so
I think nowadays it doesn't hurt to, to cover all your bases.
Do all these little tactics that you're deploying. Is this where you
develop kind of the, the thought process behind the
moment Marketer. Yeah. So,
and, and it really starts. But I am, I'm a, my
favorite thing to do is learn. And so when I went to school,
I learned as much as I could. I took extra classes. I had a major,
I had double minors. I. I read over
100 books the past year. I love learning,
and I think it's a testament to anybody who wants an
education to really. There's so many avenues to do
it. So whether you're not actually going into a
physical school building, but if you're listening to podcasts or
you're reading books or you're reading articles or whatever it is.
And so, you know, just really
getting those. That knowledge base
to start off with. And so one of the books that I read that really
shaped the Moment Marketer is a book by
Chip Chip Heath. And it's the
Power of Moments. And it really talks about
how we can rise above the noise and the ways
to do it. And there are some really successful marketing
campaigns that are doing it.
It's been one of my favorite things to work on, and it's one of my
favorite things to work on in the credit union as well. I
just love making memories for people because memories are what
stick, and that's what keeps somebody coming back for more. If they
have a good memory, they're going to want to experience that again and again.
And so I believe all marketing should be based around
creating memories. When you're at the bank, do you ever
get to meet other business owners? Or somebody says, hey,
Jess does marketing. She's our marketing director.
Do you want to bounce some ideas off her? Do you ever get to
talk business or talk shop in the bank? All the
time. All the time. And so some of my
things that I do at the credit union to kind of lift above the noise
is I really believe in going out into the community. And so
I've kind of made a little bit of a name for myself in the community
of the marketing girl that goes around and tells and, you know, you can ask
her questions about things. And, you know, the credit
union also has a podcast that I help created and
deploy. And so I have business owners, local business
owners. You know, a lot of times, I will just say this. A lot of
times credit unions have podcasts where they talk about
themselves or they talk about the financials or the state of membership
or things that are going on within the credit union. And so
the goal of this podcast was to really shift that narrative and bring it out
into the community and focus on the leaders in the
community. And so a lot of times I'm meeting with these people that are
business owners or leaders. Just really
great People that are hard working people and might
not necessarily have read all the marketing books I've read.
Have all those interactions, plus being the moment marketer.
Is that kind of what led you to form the keynote, Be the
moment? Yeah, absolutely. So I actually took
a mic drop workshop class
with Jess Ekstrom. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her, Jeff,
but she has an entire club that's
a public speaking club like Toastmasters used to be, but
it's just for women. And so I joined this club and it's a lot about
creating your signature keynote. So that way you're ready to
talk about it. And so moments and
memories have been something that's deeply precious to me, something that
I enjoy doing and something that I love creating for other people.
And so be the moment was really born out of all of this work. It
just accumulation of all my passions come together.
And so in the keynote, I actually do speak about
kind of the five steps of building those memories.
Do you remember like, so all, you know, you studied this in college,
you're building this experience through different clients.
Now you have a keynote. Do you remember the first time you were asked
to present that keynote or how did the, the first time you got to share
that on stage come about?
So I actually, so I, I'll take it back to my very first
speech that I ever gave. It was a speech
that talked a lot about memories and forming memories. And it was
a deeply personal. It wasn't necessarily my keynote.
It was actually about drunk driving.
And so I have. My dad was an alcoholic.
He is an alcoholic. And so, but he's been sober for
14 years. And you know, I talk
a lot about the memories that built
my childhood. And so I remember
talking about the memories that were made because of
alcoholism and how that
affects me today and how
much of an impact it should have on somebody else to not get behind the
wheel and when they're drunk. And so
I would say my, my, my very first
speech moved me to tears, but it also moved a lot
of other people to tears. And that
started my speaking career, but it also started
where I started collecting memories. Because not only did I,
you know, reminisce about memories on the stage, but, but that is a memory in
itself of how powerful speaking can be.
One of the things I've picked up from doing this podcast and learning about public
speaking is that example you gave is
immensely personal to you. It's very personal. And a lot of
people get on stage and they try to relate to everybody
and they try to Relate to everybody by telling vague generalities
and very open stories that anybody could,
and it ends up that nobody relates to general stories.
So when you say you told this really personal story,
it moved you to tears. It moved the audience to tears. Was it, do you
think when you tell a personal story like that the, the people in
the audience really can hone in and identify
their experience and tie it better to your experience than being
some, some general story? Yeah, absolutely, Jeff.
So the thing that I talk about and how to
create a memory, one of the steps is to connect.
And you connect by telling a personal
story that will hit someone. Your goal is not to
connect with everybody. Your goal is to connect with the right
person. And so being able to share a
personal story or a pain point or anything,
your why, the reason why you created my guest tonight, Any of those
reasons, that's what you sell,
that's what you market, and that's what you talk about. Because that's what's
going to make the difference. Yeah, it's the personal
connections, the personal stories that build rapport
with the audience faster than trying to appease everybody. So
be yourself, right? Tell your story when you're on stage.
Yeah. So you're, you're, you're busting out
with, you have, you know, clients through the bank, you know, you're going into
the community, you're talking, you're up on stage, you have this
keynote. And I'm guessing you have all these stories that kind
of led you to a newer project that you're launching in
July of this month, July 2025. The trailer is already out.
Can you give us a little, a little taste of what
the uncaged pod is going to be about? Yeah, absolutely. So
my memories again of my grandpa with the mic. And then I
also had my grandma, who was a really strong, bold woman.
She raised me to kind of be the same. She was really
unfiltered, really unbothered. So one of the
stories that I like telling that kind of inspired the whole podcast is my
grandma was a bigger woman and she took me out for ice cream. I must
have been, I don't know, maybe like nine or ten. And a man
actually came up to her and said, you're too fat to be eating ice cream.
And my grandma laughed in his face, like full blown
laughter. And I mean, she went to her deathbed
telling that story, laughing about how ridiculous that is that
somebody would come up to her and tell her she's too fat for ice cream.
Can you imagine somebody being too fat for ice? She Goes, I'm the perfect person
to eat ice cream because I'm too fat. And so she used to talk about
it all the time in that sense. And so it just really left me knowing
that I don't need to be bothered by somebody else's opinion.
And so I really want women to be able to understand
that they don't have to be caged down by this notion that they
have to please other people or that, you know, somebody else's
judgment is the be all, end all
of their lives. And so it was kind of born out of that.
My daughter is turning one on July 23rd, and
so I thought, what better way to honor my grandma than by
giving this podcast, sort of like a love
letter to my daughter, to both my girls, and to
really just, you know, share all of these remarkable stories
from all of these women that just really
live uncaged like my grandma did. And I have to tell you, Jeff,
it went so quick. I opened up
my guest recording probably
about a month and a half ago. I'm booked out
through the end of the year with two episodes releasing a week.
So, like, I was not expecting this. I have tried
podcasting before, and I got maybe two episodes in and
then quit and just because it wasn't the right time, and I didn't know what
I was doing, and I was too busy, and I was in school, and I
was doing all these other things, and I was like, okay, well,
I'll try it out and I'll maybe do, like, 10 episodes and see how it
goes. And I'm already on my 50th tonight.
I actually have an interview after this, so it's just going
incredibly quick. How many have you recorded so far?
30. 30? When do you have any of them edited,
ready to go? Are you going to start dropping them soon? Yeah, so July
23rd, I'm dropping the first three, and then my
fourth one will be dropped that Saturday, and then I'll
have new episodes every Wednesday and Saturday with
a new woman sharing her story every single Wednesday and Saturday.
Oh, wow. And what's the website? Yeah, so it's the
UncagedPod.com and, you know,
I'm always looking for guests. They won't be released until
probably 2026, but if you're interested,
you can always fill that out, too. Um, I'm a big
cheerleader for other women and business owners and allies,
and so anybody who wants to come on and share their message with
women living uncaged, they're more than welcome to.
And, yeah, it's Just been, it's been great fun. And you mentioned your roots are
in upstate New York. You have the, the job, the
speaking, the family you're raising and your hands are
full. You know, right now you got a busy rest of 2025. But where
do you see maybe this podcast or your speaking going
in the next three to five years down the road, is there
opportunity to travel to conferences or could people
bring you into their world, their conference? Yeah,
absolutely. So I'm always open for new bookings.
I actually just won an award for marketing from the Marketing
association of Credit Unions, the Mac Awards,
as it were. And so I will actually be going down
there and October to accept the award
on the credit union's behalf. And so
yeah, I'm just always. And that's actually like my third
conference in October. I have two other ones booked. I can't remember the names of
them off the top of my head because it's been a long day. But yeah,
that's, I'm, I'm super busy. But I love it and I love
traveling and I take my girls with me because I think they need
to see strong women doing it. And so yeah, it's a
family affair wherever I go. That's awesome. Yeah. So
down the road, more engagements. You know, taking the podcast on the road
is an option and it sounds like a lot of fun and looks you're going
to have your hands full for the next couple of years for sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, with a two year old who will be three in November and a
one year old next week, I am, I definitely have
my hands full. And I just want to say I have so
many things planned. I want to do so many more like marketing
things I've got coming down the pipeline. So yeah, stay
tuned and definitely follow me on the uncaged pod because that's where it'll all be.
That's the best place to hear the podcast. But if they want to connect with
you directly, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
Yeah, so hello@theUncagedPod.com
is my email. My email goes directly to my phone and that's literally
the only thing that goes directly to my phone. For whatever
reason, I do not follow Instagram and
Facebook as well as I should for a marketer, I will be the first one
to admit it. My social media skills are not up there. So
definitely send me an email or message me via
the website because I will get it then. But other
than that, yeah, I just look forward to connecting with everybody.
This has been a lot of fun. I'm a marketer at heart, myself. And to
hear the uncaged pod coming our way, and I can't wait to see
how that grows over the next six months. We know you got 50 episodes going
to be released, so stay tuned. TheUncagedPod.com
Jess, let's hear that theme song.
Upstate Roots to the uncaged mic checked MacMillan shows us
how to live life right. It's clarity, courage, connection,
and night. I'm my guest tonight with Jeff Revilla. Shine bright
the moment Marketer bold and true let's dive in
chest it's all about you
let's
dive that's where.
I don't know if this counts as upstate New York, but we had our honeymoon
in at the Finger Lakes, and my wife and I do not
know where it was. We can't. We
all. We know. We know it was in the Finger Lakes,
but. And all we know is when you parked, like, the town walked kind of
sloped downhill towards the lake and. But we
don't know what town it was or where we stayed.
All we know is we spent, like, a couple nights in the Finger Lakes. We
have no clue where. We try to find it on a map, and we cannot
piece together where we were for our honeymoon. Oh, my gosh. I have to tell
you, that sounds like Ithaca. So Ithaca. The
lake is, like, the lowest part, and then everything else is
built up around it. And so when I went to massage school, it was
actually in Ithaca, and the building
sat up on a high hill, and you could look down out over
the lake. So that sounds just like Ithaca. You might have to look it up.
Maybe that's where we were. All I remember is I left
my sweatshirt at the hotel room, and they had them mail it back to me.
They were really nice about it, but I probably should have looked at the return
address. Yeah, there you go.