Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Colton Trcic of Fountain Hills, AZ

Colton Trcic shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Colton, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
Integrity is critical to be successful in my opinion. You can be the smartest person in the room or you can be the most energetic and charismatic person in the room but without integrity both people will never produce meaningful results. If you cannot do what you say you are going to do no level of intelligence or charisma will ultimately get you to where you want to go or create results for your business or your customers. I strive everyday to live in integrity and I hold my team at Hard Copy Media to the same standard so that we call can produce amazing work together.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hard Copy Media is a film and media production company located here in Fountain Hills, AZ and we specialize in crafting visual storytelling that helps businesses achieve their marketing goals. We’re on a mission to build a more connected world through storytelling and we help our clients craft their stories into compelling video marketing assets that drive their businesses forward. We’ve worked across a wide variety of industries and spaces but some of the work we’re the most proud of has been in service of healthcare, non-profit, and socially impactful causes and businesses both nationally and locally. Storytelling is a universal language and we love working with our clients across their customer journeys and across industries to create video and marketing material that fosters deeper understanding and connection between their businesses and their clients.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
Playing with Legos and cardboard as a kid was the first time I felt powerful. Not in the traditional sense perhaps but in the sense that I could take various pieces, that separate didn’t create any unified thing, and with creativity and some vision I could make something new and bring all of the pieces together to craft a single unified object. I played with Legos (and still do) endlessly as a kid in the days before pre-planned licensed Lego sets and built all of my favorite creatures, space ships, and movie props with those little plastic bricks. I also made legions of vehicles, forts, and other fun toys out of cardboard, packing tape, and hot glue. The mess would always really start when it came time to paint my creations… but I always loved, and still love, taking raw materials of any kind and building something new out of them.

Is there something you miss that no one else knows about?
I honestly miss the early days of social media, before it was a businesses within a business, before algorithms took over, before it became a tool of misinformation and division. Those early days when you logged onto Facebook and just saw what your other real-life friends were doing in their lives. There weren’t 9,000 notifications from 4-5 different social media platforms, there were like two places you cared to check in on once or twice a day and you’d post things for potentially no one to see but just to put it out into the universe regardless. There was something innocent, charming, and unhinged about it that felt so inconsequential in the moment but now feels like yet another job or side hustle that you have to keep up with.

On that same note I desperately miss when people just had hobbies and not side hustles. I think the rise-and-grind culture has gone too far and the idea that we have to maximize our every waking moment and every activity we’re even remotely good at is exhausting and robs the joy from the simple little things that are ultimately what makes up life. The vast majority of people don’t work to afford a hobby to then monetize the hobby but social media would absolutely make you think that way looking at people’s feeds. I miss when people did things purely because it made them happy and not to be performative on social media or attempt to monetize their experience or their hobbies online.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Whose ideas do you rely on most that aren’t your own?
My peers and my team are my go-to people for fresh ideas. If I feel I cannot crack the code to a creative project there is nothing more invigorating or eye opening than having a creative brain storm with a bunch of other creatives. You get to see how everyone else interprets the task at hand, how they would approach it, how they think through the different aspects of the project, and their spin on the ultimate deliverable. I might not take all the ideas always but certainly some of them and sometimes the entire game plan I’ll take on if it sways my way of thinking significantly. Running a quality brain storm or creative session is truly one of my favorite parts of doing the type of work that I do because I get to experience a variety of outside perspectives in quick succession.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
I’m not neglecting my health. I see a lot of entrepreneurs who sacrifice their sleep, their diet, their fitness, their family, and their overall well being when starting their businesses and they tend to only regain them long after they’ve “made it” and I refuse to do that. Do I work nights, weird hours, and at times long stretches without a day off? Yes, absolutely. But that’s the exception, not the rule. Since I started Hard Copy Media I’ve made a point to find balance in my life one way or another even during the most hectic of times. I still go to the gym, I control my diet as best I can and avoid stress eating, I unplug and spend time with my family and my wife, and I find time to indulge in my own hobbies and interests. I have refused the “grind harder, sacrifice it all for a small amount of time to have it all in the long run” mentality because I simply see a trend of that not working. Marriages are ruined. Family milestones go unattended to. Health and wellbeing diminish greatly. And sure – you might have a great business at the end but you’ve lost so much of what you had already in life during that journey. I’m only a young man once who is able to physically do things and travel and experience things that this body and this level of health can afford me – it might not be that way in the future – and the loved ones around you might not be there or might not be able to do the same things in the future. Enjoy every day, don’t sacrifice it all, find a chaotic balance and live every day so that everyone around you knows how much you love them and how much you would do for them. I think that taking on this mentality from day 1 will mean that in the next decade as I continue to grow this business I will have experienced more of the best parts of life and grown stronger and deeper in all of my relationships in life instead of missing out and damaging them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https:www.hardcopymedia.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/hardcopy_media/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hardcopymedia
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Hard-Copy-Media-61578020907772/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HardCopyMediaLLC/videos