Dan and Noelle Tell All!

ChopSaver inventor Dan Gosling and his wife Noelle talk about entrepreneurship and marriage. (Originally recorded on Facebook Live on March 18, 2021. Full transcript below.)

Dan Gosling:

Okay. I think this time we’re on. Hey, everyone it’s Dan Gosling, The ChopSaver Guy, and it’s Thursday, right at this moment. It’s two o’clock Eastern time. This is a Facebook live and it looks like we’re rolling. Last attempt I did it said it failed. So we’re trying it again. So content videos, what’s going on here. Obviously the world puts out lots of content and Facebook live, Instagram live, YouTube, nothing new. But it’s kind of new to us, kind of new to me, uh, here at ChopSaver. And we are experimenting literally in real time with these tools, um, been going live on Instagram and Facebook for the last couple of weeks, with the assistance of my wife. Now we are doing another experiment here in that I’m hoping that she will join me in a second here. And if she doesn’t, she might just pop in and we’ll figure it out that way. So why am I interviewing my wife in my home from separate rooms again? It’s to help me learn the tools of this, because I’d like to start interviewing other people, uh, people in the ChopSaver world, um, people in the ChopSaver realm around people of, uh, ChopSaver users, expertise, things like that. So I think I got a request from my beautiful wife to join this little conversation, padding connecting.

Noelle Tretick Gosling: Hi, I’m just in the other room.

Dan: I know you’re in the other room, but this is, I know it’s, it’s live. I was just explaining to, to all of our thousands of listeners and followers, what we’re doing here. And that is literally, I am learning these tools and learning the tools of how Facebook live works, the best place to sit, lighting. As you see myself squirming around here, and that’s my beautiful wife Noelle with Louie, Louie, our cat. Oh my gosh. You couldn’t see it, but the way you held up his eyes just then he looked like devil kitty, get on the replay.

Noelle: Instead of green light green eyes.

Dan: So I’m going to turn off the noise maker in my room. Maybe that’s better. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Can you hear you just fine?

Noelle: I hear you just fine.

Dan: Okay. So last time we did this a couple of days ago on Instagram and your connection was less than stellar at times. So kind of curious how that works today. You’re right. Your beautiful face is filling the screen. I must say. Can you see that? There you go. That’s nice.

Noelle: You don’t like it. Seeing an eyeball?

Dan: Well, no, you’re beautiful.

Noelle: Yeah. Okay. How’s that?

Dan: Good! Very good. Hi. Okay. So again, we could have done this little interview with each other, but the point was for, to learn how these connections work, because in the future, I’ll be doing interviews with people that are not in my home. That are not married to me that are not right, just down the street. It could be people who knows across the world.

Noelle: That’s right. I am your guinea pig

Dan: As, as yes, I guess that’s probably, you are my guinea pig when it came to ChopSaver, as a matter of fact.

Noelle: Yeah. I can remember quite a few stories trying out the early products and our son who’s 22 now was four or five at the time. I think he was like in the first or second grade and we were down in Brown County, Indiana.

Dan: You’re going to tell that story?

Noelle: I was horrified. I was so embarrassed. He had ChopSaver in these little white tubes. Nothing else on them!

Dan: I Don’t think it was even called ChopSaver then.

Noelle: Oh no, we didn’t even have a name for it. It was just stuff squished into a tube. And Dan went off, he went into the ditch, got the car, stuck in a ditch off the road. And that’s also a long story. But anyway, there were some really nice kids who came up and pushed the car out of the ditch. And Dan rolled down the window and said, “Here! As a thank you. This is the best stuff you ever tried. Best lip balm on the planet!” And Anthony and I were just horrified because who knows? I don’t know if they even tried. This strange man handing out strange stuff, unlabeled,

Dan : Yeah, some strange dude hands you a white tube and says, put this on your lips. Um, maybe you wouldn’t do it that maybe 15 years ago you would, but probably not now sadly. But yeah, that’s how passionate and excited I was about the product. And I still am to this day. And I, I like to think that my wife, Noelle, if you’re just joining us, I’m interviewing my wife, Noelle today. And we’re just talking about ChopSaver and things in general, maybe get a little into some marriage tips. At least those things that have worked for us because we have survived and thrived now for 20, nearly 25, 25 years in April of marriage, marriage, we were together.

Noelle: We’ve been together 30.

Dan: Yeah, something like that. And we’ve known each other for even years before that. And I knew of Noelle because my first college roommate went to high school with her and used to talk about the amazing Tretick family. They were all musicians. Their parents were violin, virtuosos taught at Ball State University and what amazing people they were and how, especially how amazing his friend Noelle was. So I kind of knew about Noelle for many, many years. We didn’t really get to know each other until we both ended up in Indianapolis as working musicians. And you remember gigs, you remember like performing in a group with other people and an audience, all of you out there musicians. Remember those days? That’s how we met all those many years ago in, um, orchestra situations, freelance situations, recording sessions, church jobs. We both often were fortunate enough to be employed by the Indianapolis Symphony on many occasions. Um, and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, which I was a founding member of. And there she would be, or in fact, I was personnel manager for a number of years of the chamber orchestra. So I had the power of course, with the conductor’s permission to hire people in town. And I would often hire Noelle. So sometimes she was my employee before she would, before she was my wife. You remember those days?

Noelle: Yeah. You hired me as an extra and then I auditioned for the orchestra and then you didn’t have to hire me anymore. I was a regular member.

Dan: Right, yeah. So we would see each other a lot. We were working, not always the same jobs, but very often it would be the same jobs, whether it was playing extra on a large work with the symphony or recording session. And then I got into this ChopSaver thing and slowly over time, my schedule changed to where I wasn’t playing as often I was working from either home in my home office or I was at a trade show promoting ChopSaver or traveling. So that was new for us. That was a challenge, especially those first couple of years. So Noelle this is live therapy.

Noelle: No, it was hard. I think maybe a lot of people don’t know I’m a violinist. And so I married a trumpet player and so we had violin and trumpet going on in the house all the time. And so, um, when Dan practiced, I would put on my big, my big head ear protectors that I use when we used to go the see the Indy 500, those work really well by the way. And you can use them when you have a small child as well when they’re in a screaming fit. But anyway, um, but I, I, we use them as a joke mostly, but I, I miss wearing those because I don’t hear Dan practicing as anymore. But yes, when, when you decided to create a, a lip balm, I, uh, I just came in one day after rehearsal and you had all of these products that you had gotten at a local health food store all over the counter. There was dozens and dozens, a little bottles and all kinds of little things. And I thought, you’d lost your mind. You’re going through a midlife crisis. I didn’t know what was going on, but I just quietly ignored you. And I thought you’d get over it. And you didn’t. And our son at the time was about five and he’d say “Something’s strange with daddy!” And I said, well, we’ll just leave him alone for a little while, shall we? So you have been left alone for about 12, 13 years.

Dan: Well, it’s been longer than that and I haven’t been left alone, but there have been times when I did feel, um, like, yeah, this is something I started and I have to make it successful. And it’s something that you aren’t always going to understand, or you’re not going to want to have understand it, or you just simply didn’t have time for it because you were still very busy playing. And at one point you had what, 24, 25 students and a very active freelance career. So we were, you know, we were never, I don’t think our marriage was ever in danger, but it was definitely a transition time for us. And if you fast forward to now with COVID now that Noelle is not as, I mean, like sadly, like most musicians around the world, not nearly as busy as they used to be for reasons that are completely out of their control. Um, mainly COVID. She does have more time on her hands and she’s gotten more interested in what I’m doing. And as we are broadening our market actually to, uh, specifically, we seem to have been discovered recently more recently by women, not just musicians, but women that love the product. And my wife, this is a woman, she has a unique perspective on this kind of a product. In fact, you have the ChopSaver with you?

Noelle: Do you know? I was just thinking that I’ve got it. I gotta carry you over here with me because I, I just realize I, I don’t have it in here with what did I do with that? Oh, I might have to, just a minute everyone. I might have to go in the kitchen. And grab one out of my purse. This is I’m so well-prepared.

Dan: So if you get too close to where I am, people might hear you double. So you might have to go back to your, your cave.

Noelle: I won’t say anything. I’m in my, my woman cave.

Dan: She has a great office of her own, by the way. She’s one of these, one of these videos. We’ll just make it a tour for her little world.

Noelle: Yeah. I like my little world in here. Um, yes. Hold on. Everybody take a Dramamine patch. I’m moving around this. That’s a nice thing about having a holding, holding onto your phone here. Here you go. Okay. What do you want to know?

Dan: Well, now that you went to all that trouble, tell them your top secret.

Noelle: My top secret and I’ve been doing this for over 10 years is, uh, I ChopSaver. I put it on your, my eyes every single night and it takes away bag-olas. Okay. It’s hard to tell this is kind of.

Dan: Bags under the eyes, right?

Noelle: This is crappy light. But, um, but yeah, just put it under your eyes. I’d like to get rid of the wrinkles. That would be really nice, but anyway, yeah, sure. You can use it on your lips, but this is the best place because it has arnica. Arnica is an herb. Anti-inflammatory herb.

Dan: So Arnica, because that, the thing that this, that started all this. I had a student tell me years ago about how he treated a lip injury from a marching band accident with arnica. And that’s how I became obsessed with weird ingredients and natural products and came up with the ChopSaver formula. So again, we have survived a lot, I think in our 25 plus years. And I actually, the other day I was asking, Noelle said, do you think opposites attract? And I, I knew what she would say. And of course she didn’t say what I thought she would say. When I said do opposites attract and talking about us, of course, what did you say?

Noelle: I said, opposites do attract because you are completely different than I am. You’re quiet. And you’re a deep, deep, profound thinker. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. What you see is what you get, you know, you just never know what’s going to come out. But, um, I think that’s worked very well for us. You know, you’re the yin of my yang and, you know, you’re the, what everyone says. I don’t know if they say that, but anyway, it works for us.

Dan: Well, what’s interesting about that question is my first response was no, we’re not opposite all. I was seeing all the commonalities. I was saying the fact that we were both came from musical families. We both came from large families. We were on the lower end in terms of age of the birth order in our families. I’m the youngest of five. And Noelle’s the second youngest of five kids. Um, again, musical influences. We have a similar religious slash spiritual background, which I think can be very helpful in a relationship. So I saw all of that is of course, you know, we’re so much alike and interesting that same question posed to her. And she came up with completely different answers, which is what makes a cool marriage really cool. You know, someone, but you’re always growing. You’re always evolving. And you’re you find that other person’s growth, sometimes it’s scary and worrisome, but most of the time, it’s, it’s pretty fascinating to see that go on. And if you have created that space for each other, again, we’re not trying to give marriage advice per se. This is just our perspective, how things have worked for us. But I did come up with three, the three Cs of a good marriage. And I say, I came up with chemistry, communication and compassion. Now chemistry doesn’t have to just mean, you know, animalistic physical attraction. But that doesn’t hurt. Noelle’s is a stunningly beautiful woman. And there is definitely that, but chemistry is also, do you like being in the same room with that person? Does that person make you smile? Does that person make you laugh? Um, are you just comfortable? Do you feel good when you’re around them or do they bring you down? You know, hopefully you’re not going to marry someone that, or spend much time with someone that brings you down. That’s certainly not the case with Noelle. What does chemistry mean to you, Noelle?

Noelle: Oh, you told me. Everything you said ditto. Um, no, it, it just means a feeling towards someone that just doesn’t ever go away. It’s just been exactly the same since the day I met you.

Dan: And it’s hard to describe.

Noelle: It is hard to describe it’s it’s it’s chemistry. It’s, it’s just that, you know, that feeling. I think if we did a movie together, we wouldn’t need to act, we would just have chemistry.

Dan: Well, yeah, I mean, I think about it. When you see, like you watch a movie and you just see two actors and maybe they’re individually really beautiful, but in their relationship on screen, sometimes it just doesn’t work. Um, that’s, you know, there’s chemistry there. In our case, chemistry in a, in a home or in a marriage, you know it, when you see it, you know, when you feel it. And, but I would say it’s something that you have to, um, you don’t want to take it for granted if the thing that attracted you at the beginning of your relationship are suddenly not there. If you’re, if you’re not as compassionate a person, if you’re not as empathetic, if you, if you seem to have lost your, your, your mojo or whatever it is, that that was, it made you so attractive in the beginning. You want to keep cultivating that, and that means, you know, taking care of yourself, taking care of your body means eating well. I mean, so all those kinds of things, cause it’s, it helps your health and you want to be healthy for the people you love. Uh, communication, the other C.

Noelle: Yeah. That’s important. That’s important. I think communication is really key in our relationship because when you were changing your, your path, your trajectory in life, and I just was not real comfortable with it because I was used to you being a musician and we worked together and suddenly you were an entrepreneur and that was difficult. And I could have really gotten very bitter and held a grudge. I did for a very short time. And, um, after a while I just realized we need to communicate. We need to be open and talk to each other about it. Um, and I was very fortunate to be with somebody who would listen to my thoughts and I’d listened to your thoughts and we have gone through it. There have been quite a few books and articles written by spouses of entrepreneurs. And it’s pretty interesting to read that we have one thing in common and is that is the trying to keep your angst at bay, um, because you see debt building up and you see a whole different lifestyle.

Um, it’s completely, it, you’re footing feels like it’s slipping all the time. Not just one big thing. You’re just, you feel like you’re on ice. And I felt that way for a long time. And, um, not until this pandemic hit, did I start to realize what you were trying to do. Because I’ve had the time being out of work, uh, to help you and in helping you, I’m realizing how hard you work and how many hats you have to wear and how much communication skills, how many communication skills you need to talk to many different people in your field. And I watched you in awe. It’s amazing. So I’d say communication is like one of the most important Cs in the three, even though I haven’t heard the third one, What is the third one Dan?

Dan: Well, first of all, that was very touching. Um, um, that’s very sweet of you to say all that and very honest of you and yeah, it hasn’t been, there’s no roadmap. I mean, life is weird enough if you, even if you’ve got a, like a regular nine to five job and you worked for the same company for a long time, which is getting less and less common anyway, everyone is, is, you know, going through a change as especially now. But for you to realize that, Hey, the entrepreneurial thing and starting a company with kind of, there’s no script here, we’re kind of writing it as we go. That’s a challenge. And you have I’ve definitely seen you change and evolve and be more accepting and more, here’s the third C, more compassionate. And compassion obviously it goes both ways. I have to be aware of and compassionate towards the changes I was going through and what it was doing to you and to our marriage. Um, I think looking in the long run, we’re going to look back on this and say, these were all tremendous growth events that we have both benefited from. But you had to be, you know, the, the mad scientist in the kitchen, if that’s all I focused on to the exclusion of my wife, or the exclusion of friends and family or my son, you know, then I’ve gone too far. That’s, it’s one thing to be dedicated to your business. It’s another thing to be obsessed to the point where you are, you’ve lost sense of the things that are really important to you, but that doesn’t mean that those changes that I’m going to don’t affect the people around me that have to be open to and compassionate towards you and how those changes might affect you.

Noelle: Yeah. Compassion is very important. Yeah. Have compassion. And then you have to add an H to that humor. We need lots of humor. We do have a lot of humor. We laugh at ourselves. You have to laugh at yourself. You have to laugh at, you always make me laugh. I somehow make you laugh because I do something silly. And our son writes down some of the silly things I do. He’s got a whole blog of mom’s silly things and that’s good. It, it, it it’s, it adds, um, you know, it makes you closer. It’s good.

Dan: Yeah. And it’s never done to make fun of you. Sometimes you it’s a twisting of a word or something you say that is uniquely yours. And that makes us chuckle. It makes us laugh. So we, and because of that, we like to keep track of them. So yeah, sometimes you write them down. So I would say your connection is a little better than it was on Tuesday.

Noelle: Oh, I know there was one point on, on, uh, on Tuesday I looked like the, um, what do you, what did you call, um, you know, Arnold, Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back,” you know, the Terminator. I think like the Terminator after he had his face yanked off with an eyeball hanging out, it was so jarring because I turned my head and it was like, it was, um, wow. He was like, you know, I got up on the wrong side of the bed. No, I’d say this is a little better.

Dan: Yeah. Your, your connection is still not fantastic, but I just need, it just tells me that when I interview other people maybe from around the country around the world, to tell them to create as good a connection to the innerwebs as they possibly can. Right. So that’s a thumbnail discussion of Dan and Noelle’s marriage. Pretty fascinating stuff. Isn’t it. So, I don’t know, we will post this. This will stay on the Facebook page. Uh, lately I’ve been turning these into YouTube videos and putting them on the ChopSaver blog and promoting them that way. So people can, you know, if they’re curious about me with the company or the inner workings of how one entrepreneur, actually two very entrepreneurial people, because Noelle is very entrepreneurial her self how they make it work. This just kind of the tip of the iceberg and gives you a little insight as to how people who clearly madly love each other. Still make it work just how crazy life can be.

Noelle: Yeah. I want to know what it, what happens if I walk into your room with you?

Dan: Well, you’re going to hear double because of the mic.

Noelle: Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Dan: So on that, I think we’re both signed off.

Noelle: All right. Thank you for watching. Bye everyone.

Dan: Thanks for helping Noelle. Love you!

Noelle: Oh, you’re welcome. Stay well, stay safe. Bye everyone.

Dan: Bye-bye.