Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living magazine. Today I have Ali Bechtel with me. Welcome!
Ali Bechtel: Hi, Toni. Thanks so much for having me.
Toni: You’re quite welcome. Thanks for coming in. So, Ali, take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Ali: Of course. I was born and raised in Berks County. I moved away for a few years to go to school at the University of Pittsburgh, but then did move back. I work full-time currently as a digital marketing expert for a local company here in the county. I also freelance for several different publications and local businesses in the area as well. I’m fortunate enough to write for Berks County Living, which is a great experience for me, and I also write as a reporter for www.wfmz.com and several other local businesses as well.
Toni: Wow, you’re a busy lady!
Ali: I am. It keeps me out of trouble.
Toni: That’s good. Let’s go into the Project. What does inspiration mean to you?
Ali: Inspiration is really kind of a funny thing to me, because you never know when it’s going to strike and where it’s going to strike, and really what’s going to inspire you. I think that it’s important to find little moments of inspiration in every day. I do every day when I’m outside. There’s always just that one moment during your day that’s just really kind of peaceful or beautiful or inspiring, and it kind of sets the tone for your day. I try to look for those little moments every day.
There’s also those big kind of ‘ah-ha’ moments that sometimes come out of nowhere, sometimes are inspired by other people that really just inspire me and motivate me to set a new goal or start a new project, or even sometimes make a big life change.
Toni: Oh, wow. I like the fact that you seek it as well as know when it hits you, so that you’re purposeful about seeking it.
Ali: Absolutely. I’m in a creative position full-time. I’m in a creative position with my writing, so inspiration is something that’s very important to me.
Toni: So you said that you can be inspired to set a goal that you see something that’s beautiful. How do you put whether you’re seeking inspiration or you’re going through it and you went, “Whoa! That was really inspiring!”? Can you give me an example of when that happens how you’ve put that into practice here in Berks County?
Ali: Absolutely. Any time that I find a little moment of inspiration I try to channel it into my work. So sometimes it’s just at the most inopportune moments. I’m trying to fall asleep or I’m in the shower or something, and just an idea strikes me.
Just the other day I was out at the Wyomissing Park for a run, and it was just a gorgeous day. It had been cloudy for several days, and it was just one of those very peaceful, serene kind of moments that refreshes you for the day. I went back to my office, I sat down, and I plowed through an entire article, just because I had just a refreshing take on my day.
Toni: Oh wow – so it reset your day and allowed you to have a different mindset going into it.
Ali: Absolutely.
Toni: Have you ever, in all of the writing that you do or even in digital marketing, have you ever been surprised and inspired by what you’re writing about or who you’re writing about?
Ali: Absolutely, all the time. Particularly in my work for Berks County Living, because I have the opportunity to interview and meet so many local business owners and entrepreneurs, and they’re so incredibly inspiring to me. My mom started an ice cream parlor when I was 13 years old, so I got to see firsthand how difficult it is to start a business and to build something successful from scratch like that. I have no end of respect for the huge entrepreneurial community that we have here in Berks County, and being able to work with them and share their stories is very inspirational for me.
Toni: Do you ever get any of those moments when you’re in the middle of an interview and you go, “Oops! That one hit me sideways!”, and I have to, for me, stick my fingernail in the palm of my hand so that I’m not brought to tears by someone inspiring me. Has that happened to you?
Ali: All the time. It happens to me all the time, yes. The people in this area are so passionate about their businesses. I’m sure that’s true for everybody, but it’s great to see how hard everybody works and what a great community it is, because really they all work together very closely, especially in the smaller communities like you see in West Reading and things like that. They’re so dedicated, and some of them are doing such great things for such great causes. It’s incredible.
Toni: Does that dedication inspire you?
Ali: Absolutely.
Toni: How so?
Ali: It’s probably one of my biggest sources of inspiration. Just seeing their dedication is motivating for me. I do my freelance work as I said, so it’s kind of a little side business on its own. Just seeing their success and their motivation motivates me to rise to that level as well.
Toni: That’s cool. Who in Berks County inspires you?
Ali: I would say all of the entrepreneurs and small business owners that I’ve had a chance to meet, and all the ones that I haven’t, because I take their success and their motivation as an inspiration for me, and it really helps me to try to make the changes and do the work to get to where they are.
Toni: Is there anyone in particular that you can think of that might inspire you? The word ‘dedication’ screams as you’ve spoken to it as far as you’re really inspired by dedicated people, and it seems as though you draw a lot of experience from the entrepreneur, right? Are there certain people, though, that have inspired you along the way that you thought, “Wow – that’s something.”?
Ali: As I said, I do have a lot of inspiration and draw a lot of inspiration from my mom, because I get to see her run her business, work full-time, and do all these things every day. I also just very recently had the opportunity to interview the Murphy family for Murphy Jewelers, Dr. Pugliese, and so many of the other members of the community that I am fortunate to write about. They have had their businesses and their families for generations. They’ve dedicated their entire lives to what they do, and that’s something that’s really special to me, somebody that can really spend that kind of time and spend their whole life on what’s important to them.
Toni: It’s really staying with it, isn't it? That’s the dedication you’re referring to. It’s staying with something.
Ali: Absolutely. That can be difficult, because life gets in the way. To really stick with those things is difficult and it requires really a special kind of person.
Toni: What do you want your legacy to be?
Ali: I have never really given a whole lot of thought to a legacy before, but I like to think that the opportunities that I have to work with the local business owners around here and to share their stories can possibly help further their success, but more importantly, I hope that I can share the way I’m inspired by them with all of the readers for Berks County. Just because you don’t own a business or something like that doesn’t mean that you can't be inspired every single day by the people that are around you, and I just hope that being able to share their stories is inspirational for the readers as well.
Toni: So it’s paying the inspiration forward, isn't it, for you?
Ali: I hope so, because it’s so motivating and enlightening and just a wonderful experience to feel that ‘ah-ha’ moment, so I hope that everybody has the opportunity to do that on a regular basis, not just once.
Toni: There are a few times during the Get Inspired! Project interviews that I wish we were being filmed, and today would be one of them, because the passion that comes through your eyes when you speak about how hard people are working and the community that they’re building and staying with these businesses, and how that inspires you and the joy you get from interviewing them come across. I hope that the listeners of the Get Inspired! Project can feel that through this interview with you. This is fantastic.
Ali: Thank you. I hope so, too.
Toni: You’re welcome. Thank you for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Ali: Thank you so much for having me.
