Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. I’m thrilled to start 2017 with just the dearest person in the world, Robyn Jones. Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project.
Robyn Jones: Thank you for having me.
Toni: You’re welcome. So, Robyn, take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Robyn: Well, my name is Robyn Jones, and I am the publisher of Berks County Living, which does the Get Inspired! Project. I’m so happy to take my turn and do this with you, and we love that you do this for all of our readers and subscribers and our website fans, because it’s such a neat experience. It’s very exciting, so I’m happy to be a part of it now myself.
Toni: Me too. Thank you to Berks County Living for providing the opportunity and, as you and I have talked about many times, people love that you do this.
Robyn: Yeah. It’s really neat. I love reading what people say, and I think part of why I’ve always thought, “Oh gosh, I don’t know if I want to do this,” is everyone’s answers are so good that I don’t even know what I’m going to say! I’m hoping that it works well for me, too. Just how people feel about inspiration is…it’s so different. If you interviewed 12 people today, everyone is going to have a different answer, and that makes it so neat, I think.
Toni: It does, and that’s why the longevity of this project is ridiculous, but it’s because people like to be inspired and have their own take on it. Let’s go into the Project.
Robyn: Sure.
Toni: Alright. What does inspiration mean to you?
Robyn: Well, I think of inspiration more as like a feeling; something that almost sort of takes over you. I don’t know. I almost think it’s like a physical thing, in a sense. If I’m hearing someone talk about something, or I’m reading about something and I start to put it in my, “How can I relate this to me in my personal or professional life?” it’s like wheels start turning in my head. I almost sit up straighter, and I really get myself thinking, “Oh, we could do this and that.” I think if I’m with friends, they’re like, “Oh, there she goes!” They can tell that it’s happening. It’s sort of like if you watch a TV show and they do a flashback and you see the person sitting there, but then you see a side little thing going, it’s sort of like that’s what happens in my head, how I could see what’s inspiring me, and how to put it into action.
Toni: So it’s really almost like a physical feeling and cerebral at the same time for you.
Robyn: Yeah. That’s true.
Toni: So you can feel it in your gut when it happens.
Robyn: Right. Then it keeps going, I think, sometimes. It keeps like, “Oh, oh, oh.” It’s exciting, I think.
Toni: When was the last time you were inspired?
Robyn: Actually last night. We’re having an event with the magazine called “Celebrate Women,” which is an interactive event. It’ll be our second annual piece. I just started thinking, “Last year was really good, but how can we make it better this year, and who can be involved?” We want the tables to be interactive versus…you know sometimes if you go to a trade show kind of thing and people have tables and there’s literature, and you just walk around, but it’s sort of boring, and you’re like, “I don’t want to go over to that table because they’re going to try to sell me something.” You are going to want to go over to that table if they’re giving chair massages or hand massages or doing your hair or something. I was trying to think, what businesses can we attract, and what will each table do? As it was happening, I was like, “Oh! Oh! This could do this, and this could do that. Won’t this be fun?” I just kept thinking, “Oh, maybe we could do…add this.” Just lots of ideas come up.
Toni: Oh, that sounds like it’s going to be an amazing event. You are inspired. You are the publisher of this glorious magazine and website. Can you give another example of how you’ve taken this inspired feeling and put it into practice either personally or professionally?
Robyn: I think what’s nice about the magazine is we can do all positive pieces. It’s nice to be able to learn about something or hear, for example, in our show earlier we were talking about the chili cook-off this week. The Take the Chill Off event is really what I should have said. It’s going to Mark Goldstein of Blankets of Hope, and he’s going to create these blankets. Well, I don’t know if I ever would have known about Blankets of Hope if I didn’t learn about it. Even though it was a while ago I thought, “We have to do something about him. How could we do that, because he’s so inspiring?” In one of our future issues, we’re going to do something about guys who give back to the community in such a big way, and he’s one of the people we’re going to ask to feature. It’s all comes together. Sometimes it takes a while to get good ideas in, but I always think if it’s a good idea, it doesn’t really go out of date.
Toni: That’s a great mentality. What a great vehicle you have to spotlight people like that. That inspires me. So Robyn, who in Berks County inspires you?
Robyn: Well, there’s so many people, and I think if we had done this interview a while ago, I would have chosen a Berks County business leader, a nonprofit executive director, or there’s just so many people. An owner of a small business. Right now, I’m going to cheat a little bit and say someone who’s from Berks County and spent 24 years of his life in Berks County, but is currently living in Virginia, and that’s my nephew, Justin. Justin is the one who made me “Aunt Robyn,” which is very exciting, and I take that aunt role very seriously.
My nephew right now is battling testicular cancer. I think that really could be a negative thing, but he’s turning it into such a positive thing. His attitude and how he’s going through this is just spectacular. Inspiration doesn’t even match how he’s being. I think this is really cool. He’s doing a blog, which I think has the cutest name ever. It’s called “A Ballsy Sense of Tumor.”
Toni: Oh my gosh.
Robyn: Which of course, ballsy relates to the testicular, and then the tumor instead of humor, and he is very funny. This blog talks about how he’s going through dealing with cancer. He’s 25 years old. He shouldn’t have to be dealing with this, I don’t think. He walks you through how it’s happening. He’s creating awareness for how things are going, and he is just remaining so positive about that and looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. Sure, he has bad days, but he tries to figure out good ways to go along.
A couple of year ago, my dad had some issues. My dad’s philosophy on cancer was to the doctor, “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.” I think that sort of inspired my nephew too to be like, “This is my mantra. My grandpa did it, and I can do it,” and he can. My sister is also super-inspiring in this. If I was her, I think I would have crumbled as I’m sort of crumbling now just trying to talk about it. She also is like, “Nope. We’re all going to be positive. We’re not allowed to be negative. He’s going to get through this, and it’s going to be fine.” Just how they’re dealing with it as a family is just so impressive.
Toni: What have you taken away from this, from watching this? I know; I have to say that I have heard you talk about the Aunt Robyn days where you get them alone for a day, right?
Robyn: Yeah. Intentionally.
Toni: Since they were…
Robyn: Actually, this last year might have been the first year that I didn’t do it with my nephew, because he lives in Virginia now, but he’s even come home and we’ve done it.
Toni: To be with you. That’s so cool.
Robyn: Spend a day with Aunt Robyn, which is 24 hours of non-stop fun. Sometimes longer, but it’s sort of neat, because I have two nephews and a niece, and growing up, sometimes you have to do, “Oh, your little sister wants to do this or your brother wants to do this,” so this is just their day. I usually come up with what we’re going to do, but if they don’t want to do it, we wouldn’t do it, because it’s all about them.
Toni: What has inspired you the most about his journey? What would it be, Robyn?
Robyn: I think his maturity. To me, he’s my little nephew, and he’s not. He’s a man who is going to conquer this. He’s going to fight every day for it. I’m so proud that he wants to share it with others, too. Having testicular cancer is something that you don’t really talk about a lot, but he’s doing it in a way that you should be able to talk about it, because women, you talk a lot about breast cancer, and you are supposed to check your chest for lumps and that kind of stuff. You don’t really ever hear anything about checking your testicles for lumps. Thank goodness he knew to do it. I didn’t even know you were supposed to do that.
Toni: Right.
Robyn: So he’s telling people, “You should,” and he’s saying the right wording, and he’s saying funny wording, too. His blog is so amusing.
Toni: Where can we find his blog?
Robyn: It’s called www.aballsysenseoftumor.com.
Toni: Okay.
Robyn: He does three posts a week, and they’re sort of different themes. He did a funny thing recently about his college vernacular involved the word “balls” a lot, and he’s like, “Now it’s sort of taken on a different meaning,” but it’s funny, because he was like, if someone wanted to wimp out on something he would say, “Oh, you’ve got no balls.” “Now he’s on the ball.” It’s funny, and he’s totally witty, which I totally appreciate.
Toni: It has come full circle for me with you, because you defined inspiration as something that moves you to action. That’s what inspiration means to you. It’s a feeling. It’s a gut feeling. You allow others to have a spotlight in the magazine and search for those people with ideas and what they’re doing, and you create an awareness for others. It doesn’t surprise me that you would be inspired or that your nephew is doing exactly the same thing, and you are inspired by him, because what you put into practice, he is doing as well.
Robyn: Wow. That’s dead on.
Toni: Yeah, and it’s very, very cool. So, what would you like your legacy to be?
Robyn: I don’t know. I think just sort of simple. I think I just want to be remembered as a nice person. I don’t know. I think my sense of nature is to put others’ wants and needs often in front of my own, and it’s because I want to do it, and I think that I…I don’t know. I think I would want to be remembered as, “Boy, she would do anything for me, and if she said she would do something, she would do it.” I don’t know. When I lost my dad, so many people said nice things about him, and I think I just want that, too.
Toni: You know what? I can only speak for myself and I know that your reputation in Reading and Berks County and beyond is supreme. You are an absolutely wonderful example of how human kindness is at play. So thank you. Thank you for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project. Thank you for providing the opportunity for others. Good luck to your nephew.
Robyn: Good. Thank you. He needs all the positive support he can get.
Toni: Absolutely. Thank you again for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Robyn: Thank you.
