Why Everyone’s Discovering Upstate New York

Gab Small (00:00)
I have met so many small business owners. And I would say that the most fulfilling part of what I’m doing is when I get an email from one of those small business owners, like after the video has been released, and they’re like, Gab, we have so many people that are coming into the business and they’re mentioning your video. And I’m not going to New York City or Boston, you know, I’m not going to these big cities that already have a huge amount of tourism.

Gab Small (00:29)
I’m going to smaller towns, places that are more off the beaten track. And so to know that I’m able to help a small business that has somebody that is just, you know, trying to make ends meet, serve their community and help them bring in more business, get more people to their area is hugely meaningful for me.

Christine O’Donnell (00:59)
Welcome to the good stuff. I’m Christine and I’m here today with Gab Smalls.

Gab Small (01:06)
Gab small. There’s no S at the end. That’s okay.

Christine O’Donnell (01:10)
And I’m here today with sorry. And I’m here today with Gab Small. I don’t know why I did that.

Gab Small (01:19)
It’s because my whole life people have said, Are you related to Biggie? And so people think Biggie’s smalls, but

Christine O’Donnell (01:27)
That is. That is. Maybe ’cause I I actually don’t know that many small

Gab Small (01:33)
Now you now you do. And for the record, no relation to Biggie. Look a

Christine O’Donnell (01:39)
okay, just checking.

Gab Small (01:40)
lot like him.

Christine O’Donnell (01:41)
I was thinking when you s sat in this chair. Biggie’s relative. Good adventure.

Gab Small (01:47)
Yeah.

Christine O’Donnell (01:47)
Yes. But wouldn’t that be awesome? Coolest.

Gab Small (01:50)
Yeah, that’d be the

Christine O’Donnell (01:51)
Do we know what his horoscope was? Mm. Cause I would say Pisces.

Gab Small (01:59)
Textbook.

Christine O’Donnell (01:59)
Maybe maybe. Yeah. What are you? Okay. that’s right. You just shared that.

Gab Small (02:02)
I am Aries. Yeah,

Gab Small (02:07)
so that’s like the headstrong, like bold fire sign, you know, all those those things.

Christine O’Donnell (02:13)
You’re the leader of the horoscope. Yes. Yeah.

Gab Small (02:16)
a lot of pressure.

Christine O’Donnell (02:17)
It really is. Are you okay?

Gab Small (02:19)
Cracking under the pressure.

Christine O’Donnell (02:22)
Speaking of pressure, how did you start your YouTube channel?

Gab Small (02:28)
It’s like a long, kind of convoluted story, I guess. Like I had back when I was in my early twenties, started a YouTube channel when I quit my job and went and traveled internationally. And then COVID happened and everybody stopped traveling. I came back to upstate New York. I had been living in California before then and

Gab Small (02:55)
I kinda like settled into life here, like learned to love upstate New York again. But I always had wanted to kind of get back to making videos. It was such a fun creative outlet for me. I always loved doing it and I loved travel and exploring. And so finally, I think it was last year, I was getting tired of hearing people make a lot of negative comments about upstate New York. Like, what is there to do there? It’s all country pumpkins, you know, there’s just a lot of negative stigma.

Gab Small (03:25)
And so I put out a video called Nobody Wants to Live in Upstate New York. It was very much flipping all the negative notions on their head and it just took off and it kinda made me realize that there is like a little bit of an underserved market of people wanting to know what life is like up here, people wanting to kind of have the highlights and the good stuff put out there because a lot of people are

Gab Small (03:52)
looking for affordable real estate and better places to move where they can have better quality of life and I’m biased, but I think this is a pretty great spot for that.

Christine O’Donnell (04:03)
Yeah, I was just watching your video on Gilbertsville.

Gab Small (04:10)
That’s tiny. But

Christine O’Donnell (04:13)
But

Christine O’Donnell (04:13)
the couple and what they’re building there and the amount of property they own and the amount of land that they own, it’s like they’ve found like what the American dream started out as, which is like find land, find cheap real estate, go where nobody else is. Yes. And but they’re using modern technology to grow their business. And it sounds like they’re really

Christine O’Donnell (04:42)
just doing a great job. They’re finding a lot of success and they seem happy.

Gab Small (04:47)
Yeah. They definitely have the best of both worlds because they ha they’re living somewhere that is crazy affordable. I mean, they’re b they were buying their properties for like fifty thousand dollars or something like that. And these are not like single family properties. These are these are investment properties that have multiple units in them. And granted they do need some work, but you’ve got that affordability and you know, then they’re have an online business and so you can sell to anyone in the world.

Gab Small (05:15)
That really is like kinda the dream. And for people in my generation that can’t afford houses in in big cities right now, you’re gonna have to go a little more rural if you wanna, you know, have that quality of life and still have things be affordable, I think.

Christine O’Donnell (05:33)
I’d love to know what does going rural mean to you? Does that mean like going hyper conservative politics-wise? Or does it mean having lots of land to garden or cultivate? Does it mean building an artist community? Like what does going rural mean? I

Gab Small (05:55)
And I think it can be all of those things that you just said. I think it depends on what you want, but I like that you mentioned like the hyper kind of conservative thing because I think that is something that people think that going rural has to be. Like, okay, I am giving up, you know, any kind of liberal, progressive, like ideology and I’m gonna be surrounded by people that don’t have the same worldview as me. And

Gab Small (06:21)
in Gilbertsville, as I saw, that was very much not the case. There’s a lot of artists living there. And one of the things I’m learning from going all to all these random towns in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York is that artists lead the charge a lot of the time. They are who is going to determine which towns are going to be up and coming. And eventually it’s sad, but they end up

Gab Small (06:48)
pricing themselves out of that town because it gets so nice once they move there that then they can no longer affood afford to move there and they move on to the next boat.

Christine O’Donnell (06:57)
I found myself like fantasizing as I was watching your video, being like, wow, so I could move out there, get myself a property, then have like just, you know, help people develop their shows and just do a bunch of e-commerce and everything would be okay. I would still be surrounded by people who get me. Yeah. And I was like, wow.

Christine O’Donnell (07:26)
That that would be cool. I think

Gab Small (07:28)
What and

Christine O’Donnell (07:28)
then I sorry, I was just gonna say, but then I found myself wondering, I bet how many other people like me are looking at this and being like, I wanna do what they’re doing. I wanna move to Gilbertsville now. Like I want to get in on this. Like this is brilliant. It’s like a gold rush, only different. And then that once that happens, then like will you have an up and coming place where you can afford to live there anymore because so many people have moved.

Christine O’Donnell (07:55)
But how long does it take to get there?

Gab Small (07:58)
Think it depends on the place, right? Like and but I do think it’s super cyclical. Like it gets super expensive and then people go to the next spot. But I mean, if you think about it, there’s only like a very specific type of person that could really like move there. I don’t think they have a school in town. So anyone with kids, that’s probably not a good move for them. They’re super far from like hospitals and health care.

Gab Small (08:23)
And so if you are an older person or somebody that has some sort of medical condition, that’s probably not a good spot for you. So, you know, you’re narrowing the type of people already that are gonna be like happy living there and driving what, like thirty, forty five minutes just to go grocery shopping.

Christine O’Donnell (08:41)
Mm-hmm. So tell me about your process. Do you have a thinking chair? Like how do you figure out like what’s my next video? How am I gonna do this? And is it do you have a team or is it just you?

Gab Small (08:57)
I would love if I had a thinking chair or some or some sort of like format to my creative process, but it is all over the place. Sometimes I have ideas when I’m driving, right? Because I’m gonna do a lot of driving and stuff and I’m pulling off and I have a Google Doc with ideas and I’m just jotting ideas down. Sometimes people reach out to me and they’re like, you have to see this place, here’s why. And it just really resonates with me for some reason.

Gab Small (09:24)
So it really depends. it is just me doing the research, the outreach to interview people, the video planning and the filming. I do have a video editor now that I just started working with, and that’s good because that takes a lot of time on the back end. I kind of miss it though, because I really like the creativity of editing, but that’s definitely the easiest part to to outsource for the first

Gab Small (09:53)
I guess, phase of this.

Christine O’Donnell (09:55)
So do you have a job in addition to what you’re doing on YouTube?

Gab Small (09:58)
So before I was doing this, I was doing marketing consulting work and I do still like consult with small businesses. And one of the nice things is I’m doing these videos and I meet a lot of great small businesses. and so I help out with mostly their social media and strategy and that kind of stuff. But this has far and away become the vast majority of my time.

Christine O’Donnell (10:21)
Yeah. So are y I’m just gonna say it. Like can can you make a living off of your YouTube

Gab Small (10:28)
Yeah, it’s you can. I mean, I do long form and so that’s a lot easier to monetize than something like short form video, just because people watch for longer, YouTube gets their attention for longer, they’re able to serve more ads, and so they pay out more. And my audience is also like overwhelmingly like older, and so YouTube I think typically pays more for older audiences because they have more spending power.

Christine O’Donnell (10:55)
Yeah. So how much have you learned about that side of things? And was that part of what you thought you were getting into when you started this process?

Gab Small (11:03)
No, I had no idea what I was doing when I started. I still have no idea what I’m doing. I’m figuring it out as I go and I love doing it. So that feels like the important part. But I do enjoy both the creative side and like the creating of the videos and then the business side as well, where I get to think about, okay, how is this gonna perform? Can this convert, you know, people to my email newsletter? You know, different kinds of strategies that are gonna help it.

Gab Small (11:32)
grow overall as a business.

Christine O’Donnell (11:35)
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Christine O’Donnell (11:38)
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Christine O’Donnell (12:08)
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Christine O’Donnell (12:37)
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Christine O’Donnell (12:57)
So one of the reasons we created the good stuff is because I I’m raising kids in the age of AI. And one of the things that they want, and you might have heard me talking about, is they always want to watch YouTube. And I really think that that’s where things are going. I think there’s gonna be more and more entertainment on YouTube in the future. And if anybody is watching this and they’re like, okay.

Christine O’Donnell (13:25)
I would love for my kids to get entertained. I’d love for them to watch something that’s safe, that’s educational, that will inspire them to create, not just consume. And I am hoping that good stuff might be one of those shows that they can watch with their parents and be like, hey, look at these people doing good stuff in the community. And I could get on that show. I could be a YouTuber if I did good stuff too. So how much

Christine O’Donnell (13:55)
has what you do now helped you to build relationships with people who you never would have gotten to know otherwise.

Gab Small (14:05)
Huge.

Gab Small (14:06)
That has been the part that has been the coolest silver lining that I never would have expected. I have met so many small business owners. And I would say that the most fulfilling part of what I’m doing is when I get an email from one of those small business owners, like after the video has been released, and they’re like, Gab, we have so many people that are coming into the business and they’re mentioning your video. And like

Gab Small (14:35)
And I’m not going to New York City or Boston, you know, I’m not going to these big cities that already have a huge amount of tourism and huge economies. I’m going to smaller towns, places that are more off the beaten track. And so to know that I’m able to help a small business that has somebody that is just, you know, trying to make ends meet, serve their community and help them.

Gab Small (15:03)
Bring in more business, get more people to their area is hugely meaningful for me.

Christine O’Donnell (15:09)
And that’s not a parasocial relationship. That’s a real relationship that you’ve developed.

Gab Small (15:14)
Totally.

Christine O’Donnell (15:15)
Yeah. See, I feel like that’s kind of like the magic of technology and like in ways, like the magic of the internet, right? Like there can be ways to create real relationships, real face to face in-person contact conversation, yet we’re still talking to people through a screen.

Gab Small (15:36)
I

Gab Small (15:36)
mean we met through the internet.

Christine O’Donnell (15:38)
Yes, we did. You met Allie and Allie was like, I know someone you should talk to. It is Internet

Gab Small (15:44)
Yeah, it’s so cool.

Christine O’Donnell (15:47)
friends. Internet friends, but like then hopefully you like build a real relationship. And then and I guess my my hope is that in this world where we’re all drawn to our screens so much, there will also be ways for people to remind us like,

Christine O’Donnell (16:05)
I gotta get out. I should go somewhere. I should do something. I should leave my house. I should go watch something in person, like at the movies or at the theater, or I should go in town or go to a community event or how do I get involved?

Gab Small (16:21)
Yeah. So I yeah, I completely agree. And like you have to put yourself out there to do those things is something I’ve learned repeatedly from the people that are really like integral parts of their community. They host a weekly potluck or you know, they go talk to people in the park when they’re out for a walk. Like you put yourself out there, you ingrain yourself in the community, and I think that’s where like so much of meaning in life comes from.

Gab Small (16:51)
I I hope this isn’t depressing, but I do a lot of like thinking about what am I gonna be happiest about on my deathbed? Like w what are the things that I’m going to be happiest that I did.

Christine O’Donnell (17:02)
Yeah, I think about that too.

Gab Small (17:04)
okay, good, it’s not just me.

Christine O’Donnell (17:07)
And and what are the things?

Gab Small (17:10)
Definitely connection with people is I really think what it’s all about is like who are the, you know, strongest relationships that I’ve built? Like what are some of the memories and shared experiences that we had together? Who have I helped? All of those things. What do you think? What do you think you’re gonna think about on your deathbed?

Christine O’Donnell (17:30)
think I’m going to want to think of like the special moments where I was in the moment with people and not thinking about my phone or g doing work or or really anything but really sharing quality time with someone. I have an example because this just happened the other day. Ava, my daughter who you might have met briefly, she and I were just it was a storm it was storming out the other day. And so like

Christine O’Donnell (18:00)
We couldn’t go outside really, but like just we didn’t want to be inside anymore. And I didn’t want to like watch any more TV. Like I just didn’t want to watch any TV. I didn’t really I wasn’t really encouraging that. And so we sat on rocking chairs on the front porch and we played a card game. And we just we played Go Fish. She kind of made up some rules. And I was like, I don’t think this is the right way to play it, but like

Christine O’Donnell (18:28)
Anyway, we like finagled it so that we were c we like made a new goldfish and it still worked. And yeah, it was it we had a lot of fun. And I’m just like those like like moments like that where I’m like not really thinking of anything else, but like we’re both enjoying the storm, we’re watching the clouds move and seeing the rainfall and then playing playing in game and like having fun and just it’s

Gab Small (18:54)
Yeah. Simple. Like another time. Like I picture like you guys are in like you know, it’s like the eighteen hundreds and you’re in nightgowns and there’s like candles in the window. I don’t know. It just s it sounds beautiful, but it’s like we don’t think to do those things anymore.

Christine O’Donnell (19:09)
Yeah, it was just so simple. And I was like ha like ’cause we can the the first game she brought out was like this like ball game and you like capture the balls and I’m like, No, we’re not, that will be too difficult to capture those balls while their rain is falling.

Gab Small (19:24)
Yeah.

Gab Small (19:25)
It it you remind me of my husband and I started doing this thing very early on when we first started dating and it was his idea and I thought it was such a great idea. Right when we are about to go to sleep, he will ask me what made you happiest today. And we started doing it. It’s a routine. Every night we ask each other what made you happiest today? And it’s such a fun way to like reflect back on the day.

Gab Small (19:50)
And you start noticing patterns that typically the thing that made you happiest that day wasn’t like a big thing like, I got a promotion or had this really you know, it’s like the little moments like sitting on the porch with your kids playing, you know, a game or like some r random interaction that you had with a stranger where, you know, they complimented your chews or

Gab Small (20:16)
You know, you just like kind of met someone and you feel locked in sometimes, you know?

Christine O’Donnell (20:21)
You feel like a real connection happen. Yeah. And it’s like, Wow.

Gab Small (20:25)
Are we are we feeling that right now?

Christine O’Donnell (20:28)
What is happening?

Gab Small (20:30)
I’m feeling it.

Christine O’Donnell (20:31)
Just

Christine O’Donnell (20:32)
it feels really good when you meet someone and you’re like, Hey, I get you. And we barely said anything. Yeah. And it’s really nice. So what does like a day in your life look like, or maybe like a week in your life when it comes to coming up with a process? I know you not really have a process, but like you there’s some sort of process, right?

Gab Small (20:53)
There’s a little bit of a process that’s kind of emerging. usually when I’ve decided to do a video on a specific location, however that idea came to me, whether somebody emailed me or I was doing research and I found it, the first thing I’ll do is line up the dates and a hotel to stay in because I need somewhere to sleep. And then I start f trying to find like restaurants, local businesses, like other kind of

Gab Small (21:22)
places that people might want to visit if they were to go there. And usually they have to align somewhat with like my values, like I’m never gonna reach out to a McDonald’s, you know what I mean? Like those those like chain places that is not what I’m trying to do. And then I go out there and I usually have like a pretty rough outline for my schedule for the day, what I’m gonna do, who I’m gonna meet with and talk to. And then as I’m doing it, I’m kinda taking notes in a Google Doc.

Gab Small (21:51)
‘Cause now I have a video editor and he needs to know what parts are good, what parts I think should be cut. And then after I finished all the footage, it gets uploaded, sent off to the editor. He takes care of it. I usually spend a couple hours doing final tweaks on it, and then it gets uploaded to YouTube and scheduled for a Wednesday night at five PM.

Christine O’Donnell (22:14)
So do you do one a week?

Gab Small (22:16)
One a week, yeah. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, but they are long form videos and I have to travel to a location each time, so y there’s a lot of travel that’s involved in my schedule and so it is definitely a large undertaking.

Christine O’Donnell (22:32)
but you’ve amassed a pretty large audience. Like people are watching your videos. It’s

Gab Small (22:36)
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Flattering.

Christine O’Donnell (22:40)
have there been comments that you’ve that have taken you and do you spend time reading comments and responding

Gab Small (22:45)
I do, yeah. I read pretty much all of them. and it’s nice because the internet is an interesting place. And so you never really know what you’re gonna get. But I will say that like ninety-nine percent of what I get is really nice. People are just happy to see upstate New York being portrayed in a positive way and learning about different places they can go, learning about different local businesses they can support, all that stuff.

Christine O’Donnell (23:15)
Have you done anything for the two fifty yeth anniversary?

Gab Small (23:20)
Kind of. I was working with a local company in Kingston, Hamilton and Adams and they had like a really cool line of clothes. They they do awesome, like upstate clothes, like hats and hoodies and stuff. And so I did work with them on helping promote that their line for that. But no, nothing super specific to that, mostly because time specific and event stuff is very hard because it is very short lived and then it quickly becomes dated and irrelevant.

Gab Small (23:50)
So with long form content I’m trying to create stuff that at least has a little bit of staying power.

Christine O’Donnell (23:56)
one of the things that I teach is trying to create content that is both newsworthy and evergreen. So how do you find something that is gonna be interesting to people, grab their attention, feel like something they need to watch because it’s so interesting, but it’s gonna be here forever. Like

Gab Small (24:17)
Yeah.

Christine O’Donnell (24:17)
how long is the internet gonna exist, right? Like so finding a way to do both, I feel like is one of

Christine O’Donnell (24:24)
the things that I have found has been successful for some of the podcasts that we’ve

Gab Small (24:28)
Totally. Yeah, it’s a balancing act, right? Like I find that usually for making it evergreen, it’s it’s some sort of a story that like people can resonate with. Like the Gilbertsville video you said, like it made me think like I could do that. Like it could be somewhere that I move and it would be beautiful and simple. So that is a universal feeling that like a lot of people have is like where can I live that I’m gonna be the happiest?

Gab Small (24:57)
And you know, as far as like making it a little more newsworthy, I find that the trend of like affordability, real estate, that kind of stuff that like everyone is feeling right now, like groceries are expensive, housing prices are super high. You know, that’s just something that everyone is seeing right now.

Christine O’Donnell (25:15)
The ads in your videos, or at least the ones that I saw, were all for a camping, like the R V the do

Gab Small (25:22)
I love that. Yeah.

Christine O’Donnell (25:26)
you know what ads go in your videos or?

Gab Small (25:28)
No, YouTube has a ad serving platform that is like completely uniquely customized to the viewer, so you must be somebody that likes the outdoors.

Christine O’Donnell (25:37)
I do like the outdoors. You know, I married an Eagle Scout. I married an Eagle Scout who is also a sixth sixth degree black belt from the what is it those Paul Bunyan? What is Paul Bunyan? The lumberjack capital of the world, Stillwater, Minnesota. And he hates outside.

Gab Small (26:02)
Your lumberjack doesn’t like the outside.

Christine O’Donnell (26:04)
I tried

Gab Small (26:06)
Wait, what wait, what doesn’t he like about outside he doesn’t like doing anything outside?

Christine O’Donnell (26:10)
just

Christine O’Donnell (26:10)
used. There are bugs. There’s dirt out there. Yeah. I so I’m in I’m like don’t wear shoes outside. I love to just be barefoot in the backyard. I mean crunchy. I love it. Yeah, I’m s I’m I know, right? But I just but Steve like starts ticking. Like he he just is like, don’t bring that he will wash my feet. I’ll like step on the front porch and he’s like, wait.

Christine O’Donnell (26:39)
And he’ll like go get a w a wet washcloth and like like literally because I’m like so annoyed. He he cleans the dog’s private parts after the after he comes inside. What? ‘Cause ’cause he doesn’t want if there’s like a little bit of pea left on his private part for it to like get on the couch. I think he has O C D

Gab Small (27:02)
Well I gotta guess what horoscope he is.

Christine O’Donnell (27:04)
I wonder if you can. I I think it’s surprising.

Gab Small (27:09)
I think he might be a Virgo. No, is he Capricorn?

Christine O’Donnell (27:14)
What is he? You would never guess. What is he? Because he should go with the flow. Be mysterious. Okay.

Gab Small (27:20)
Okay,

Gab Small (27:21)
go with the flow and be mysterious.

Gab Small (27:26)
He really is.

Christine O’Donnell (27:30)
my god. he’s an Aquarius. right.

Gab Small (27:37)
That ’cause my mom and my sister are both Aquarius and they are nothing like that. So

Christine O’Donnell (27:44)
And I just you know, he’s his own kind of Aquarius.

Gab Small (27:48)
Do we

Gab Small (27:48)
think that horoscope might not be based in scientific fact and a hundred percent applicable?

Christine O’Donnell (27:53)
At

Christine O’Donnell (27:53)
all times? I mean there’s a chance.

Christine O’Donnell (27:59)
But I sure am a tourist.

Gab Small (28:01)
I know, right? Aries textbook right here.

Christine O’Donnell (28:05)
Yeah.

Christine O’Donnell (28:05)
I think about that, but I’m like, but I really do think that I but it might just be because I’ve been that. Like, you know, you’re like, well my birthday’s April twenty eighth. So I Yeah.

Gab Small (28:14)
Need to be like this.

Christine O’Donnell (28:17)
Or I don’t need to be, but I just like I am. So there’s like now I have a reason. Yeah. ‘Cause we’re all searching.

Gab Small (28:24)
It’s just so nice to have somebody list off character traits like this is you and be like, Okay, yep, sounds great.

Christine O’Donnell (28:30)
Thank

Christine O’Donnell (28:30)
you. Appreciate it. Now I know who I am. I know who I am now. Thank you, Horoscope. I also know what to expect in the future.

Gab Small (28:39)
I

Gab Small (28:39)
know like all my goals for the month because of you.

Christine O’Donnell (28:44)
Or or the bad stuff, right? I shouldn’t spend money this month or I should do this this month. My boyfriend’s gonna break up with that.

Christine O’Donnell (28:56)
How do you respond to people who are like, so you’re an influencer?

Gab Small (29:06)
Like I’m trying not to visibly cringe on camera. I ha like I guess I would like self-identify more as a creator and a creative type just because that like I’m artistic, like I’m creating videos, like I have like my favorite toys are cameras. You know what I mean? Like that like that’s just kind of how I think about it. As far as how people react to

Christine O’Donnell (29:30)
They’re

Gab Small (29:32)
are a little bit of like mini documentary.

Christine O’Donnell (29:34)
You could enter them into a film showcase.

Gab Small (29:36)
I don’t know about that.

Gab Small (29:39)
So that’s kind of how I see it. When I reach out to businesses to be in the videos, a lot of them are really excited because again, these are not highly trafficked areas a lot of the time. And so they are actually not used to people reaching out saying, I wanna make a video and put your business in it and they’re excited. Sometimes, you know, they’re not interested or they got burned by an influencer in the past, which is something that I come up against often.

Gab Small (30:06)
And I feel for them ’cause there are small businesses, like especially like hotels and stuff, like they have people reach out and then not show up and that’s a room that they have had like booked out for somebody and it’s like a level of trust that I would never violate. and so that’s just kind of like the level that I try and hold myself to to make sure that I’m building trust with the small businesses. but then it’s kind of cool because like

Gab Small (30:36)
There’s not a lot of people doing this in upstate New York. And so, you know, even as far as like Rochester and Buffalo, when I go there, like people will stop me in the streets and be like, I watch you on YouTube and they give me a hug. Like it they feel like they kind of like n know me a little bit, which is like a really beautiful thing that they feel like that kind of connection immediately. Yeah,

Christine O’Donnell (31:00)
Aw, that is wonderful.

Gab Small (31:02)
it’s cute, it’s great.

Christine O’Donnell (31:04)
Well, what are you doing this week? What is your story?

Gab Small (31:07)
This week I just got back from a long trip. I was gone out in western New York. I was in Buffalo and Jamestown and at the Chautauqua Institute doing videos. So it was like a lot of filming and meeting people this week. And I got back like midday yesterday and then I

Christine O’Donnell (31:28)
Like three videos?

Gab Small (31:30)
Yeah. Okay. And they sat down on my couch and I put Netflix on and I did nothing.

Christine O’Donnell (31:37)
I have just finished so I watch a lot of historical fiction. and I just finished Jamestown, which is like about the people who came over and settled or colonized America, like from their perspective, but like the mixing pot of like the people, the Native Americans, they brought slaves for the first time to Jamestown. And like how many people detested that.

Christine O’Donnell (32:06)
Because so many English were like migrant workers. And so they like felt for these African people who were brought to Jamestown to then be no, not migrant workers, indentured servants. And so, but they were turned into slaves. And there were some people, at least it’s not us. And then there were others who were like, This is awful. How can you do this to people? And so there was this whole conflict, not to mention like the Native Americans were like, get off our land, yo, like

Christine O’Donnell (32:34)
We saved you when you were dying and now you’re like taking more land from us. And so anyway, as we are about to celebrate two hundred and fifty years of

Gab Small (32:45)
Just clean, good hearted stuff, nothing bad. You have a wonderful laugh. You have a contagious laugh.

Christine O’Donnell (32:54)
Thank you. I I just I’m glad to be laughing. But yeah, so that’s what I’ve been doing. And I just I guess I keep thinking about it because of the newsworthy and evergreen part of it all, where it was like I and then I I when I watched your sh your show, I was like, hey, this is the American dream right here, what they’re doing in Gilbertsville.

Gab Small (33:16)
This

Christine O’Donnell (33:19)
I’m sorry you did

Christine O’Donnell (33:22)
you did this. No. I just enjoyed it. I was like, wow, that’s a good point. I gotta watch more of these videos and figure out where I should be buy buying investment property. Yeah. Yeah.

Gab Small (33:33)
For real. We all do.

Christine O’Donnell (33:36)
You know, when I can afford to. Yeah. And my husband says it’s okay.

Gab Small (33:41)
You need his permission, don’t forget.

Christine O’Donnell (33:44)
But like I would ask him. We would have a conversation. Yeah. Sometimes I do things he doesn’t like though. S

Christine O’Donnell (33:57)
Well, on that note, thank you for being here on the good stuff. if people want to check out your show and or learn more about you, send you an idea, what should they do?

Gab Small (34:07)
And they can go to YouTube, Gab Small, leave a comment on one of the videos, or you can check out my website. There’s a forum to submit ideas. It’s gabsmall.com.

Christine O’Donnell (34:18)
Are you taking sponsors?

Gab Small (34:21)
Kind of. I’ve I would say I’m very picky about it though. McDonald’s, if you are watching this, don’t even bother reaching out. I won’t even hear a word of it.

Christine O’Donnell (34:32)
No, I have some ideas for you once the camera stops rolling.

Gab Small (34:35)
It’s not McDonald’s, right?

Christine O’Donnell (34:38)
Well, my husband says. I’m kidding.