DGTL Voices with Ed Marx - Holiday Traditions: A Personal Touch

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

On this episode of DGTL Voices, Ed and his producer, Erin discuss the podcast's success, upcoming changes, and their personal holiday traditions. They reflect on their experiences and share insights about gratitude, family, and the joy of connecting with listeners. The conversation highlights the importance of community and the excitement for future episodes featuring diverse guests.

Welcome to Digital Voices, where Healthcare and Life Science Leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move healthcare forward. Now your host, Ed Marks. Hey, welcome to Digital Voices, and I'm with Aaron. Aaron. Say hello to our audience. Hello, everyone. Aaron is the magic behind the scenes that makes everything happen. and in the podcast, you've been doing the podcast production, Aaron, for how long now?

Oh, nine months maybe. Nine months, all right. And it's been amazing. So some of the stats to date, we have 1.6 million downloads. So thank you everyone who subscribe. So please, if you don't subscribe. And thank you for everyone who listens and slash watches. It's amazing.

Out of that 1.6, I think it's about 200,000 discrete different. people have listened, which is pretty amazing when you think about it. Because I think some episodes, Aaron probably like attract, you know, one person because it's, you know, something that they identify with or someone they know and maybe they don't come back. But many of them do and subscribe. So it's awesome. And we've got some changes coming up in the new year. So Aaron, tell us a little bit about some of those changes.

Yeah, absolutely. We are going to start publishing the podcast like this. So you'll be able to see faces, the video. we're going to have a new introduction, a new intro and a new outro. So you'll still be able to listen. If that's your preferred way of getting digital voices, you'll still be able to listen to the podcast on Apple, on Spotify. But now we will also publish the video on YouTube.

And I'm so thankful for everyone like Aaron. There's been a few other individuals along the way that it helped. We still use Aaron, the original intro and outro. And that was from our first producer. And it's his voice. and some young person just came out of college and then he had a friend

who did the original music for it. So it was kind of cool. It worked great. We've been doing that, I don't know, for five years. What, 300-some episodes? Drop every week. Sometimes we do special bonuses, drop a couple in a week.

But it's just been amazing. So again, thank you everyone for listening and now watching as well. We really have a great time putting it on. And it's like my best way of learning. I get to hang out with all these amazing people every week. I just literally,

pinch myself when I'm putting together scripts and stuff. I'm like, dang, I get to meet this person and talk to them about leadership. And I'm always taking notes. And we shouldn't forget, Aaron, and we'll put it in the notes for this particular podcast that we also have a Spotify playlist. So one of the questions we ask everyone is what songs are on your playlist. And we have quite an eclectic mix. I use it when I'm not sure what I want to listen to.

I listen to digital voices because, again, it's very eclectic, a lot of different types of music on there. So thank you so much. So, Erin, I thought what would be fun is to share with the audience some of our holiday traditions. And so I know you've got some rapid fire questions. So you want to start? Sure. I can do those for you. So Ed, I see your tree in the background. I think I know the answer. Is it real or artificial? Hmm. Unfortunately, it's artificial. I wish we would take the time and do a real tree, but it's artificial. What about for you? So this one is artificial. This is our santa tree, but I am all about the real tree. So we actually, this year, went to a place where we cut one down. I love the smell.

I love watering it. Yes, real tree all the way. And if people know you and your husband, Jake, very outdoorsy people. So it makes total sense. And we're actually the same way outdoorsy, but we just haven't done the real tree. Maybe next year. Maybe next year. Well, yeah, and you can't cut it down in Texas, so.

Oh, it gave me a good excuse. Yeah, there you go. Okay, what about Christmas music, Ed? Speaking of music, how do you feel about Christmas music? No, I love Christmas music. Usually the day after Thanksgiving, that's our rule, is you can't play it before Thanksgiving. And you pretty much have to turn it off after New Year's. So I do typically kind of get tired after a while.

So by time New Year's comes around, I'm fine, turning it off. What about you all? Same. Love Christmas music. play it all the time at the house. You mentioned my husband. He's a big country music fan, so I've been introduced to a lot of,

like, cowboy country Christmas. It's my favorite now. But yes, love Christmas music. What about Christmas movies, Ed? What's your favorite Christmas movie? Do you all watch them? You know, we've probably seen Elf a few times. Okay.

That's pretty good. Die Hard. Is that a Christmas movie? I don't know. And then a wonderful life. That's always a good sort of. reminder about what's important in life. What about you all? Yeah, we we watch all the all the classics. Probably my favorite one. I'll recommend that not a lot of people include is family man with

Nicholas Cage. Highly recommend that's that's one of our top tens but Christmas vacation. Always good. Yeah. Okay. What else do we have? Eggnog. Yes or no? If it has alcohol on it. Yeah, there you go. I'll just go Bailey's. Okay. And then not so much Christmas, but is there something that you're releasing from the year going into 2026 or do you have a New Year's resolution? Wow. Yes.

I have not actually given a lot of time to that so far this year. Normally, we take a few days of a retreat at the end of every year and we renew our plans. We do have like these one page plans. and we haven't done that yet. So I haven't thought too much about the new year, but I'm always into like trying new things. So I'll have something on there to try something new. I really want to do base camp for Everest.

And so that's one of the big things that's on there and hoping it'll happen in 26. What about? Amazing. Don't you dare tell Jake because he'll try to tag along. Yeah. No resolutions, really. We have a kind of a new mantra in our home, no bad days. Even on the worst days, it would be someone else's best day, right? The worst day that we might be having would still be someone else's best day and just really trying to practice gratitude and and thankfulness for all of our many blessings. Yeah, I like that.

Including you, Ed, I'm so happy to be here with you and to have taken on this new role and to be meeting so many new people and doing so many new things. Yeah, it's fun. For our audience, Aaron and I have known each other for at least 10 years. I think so. And then we were able to work with one another when we were both with TecmaHendra. And so it was just natural. as Mark's advisory grew

to have Aaron come over and help as our chief operating officer and it's great because our families know one another and Jake and Simran we've all been together and so it's quite fabulous so yeah we've really enjoyed it

and we get to hang out together every once in a while at hymns and Vive and all the big celebrations that take place in the world of healthcare tech and that's a lot of fun so Aaron what about any unique holiday or Christmas traditions?

You know, with two little ones, it's all Santa all the time. I have so far been able to avoid the elf on the shelf. I like to say I'm not interested in having a narc in my house. I say to the kids, you're good. Santa knows you're good. We don't need an elf to tell him. But, yeah, all Santa, one of the things that we do on Christmas Eve, we, leading up to Christmas Eve, we gather a lot of toys that they no longer play with or don't want. And we put them in bags and leave them under the tree.

And Santa takes those toys to those less fortunate who may not get as many toys. So that's one of the new traditions that we're starting with the kids. But yeah, all the Santa stuff, all the cookie decorating. It's so fun. Yeah, no, I love that. We give honor, you know, part of my family background history is Jewish. So we have menorah. We, you know, because usually around this time is also a lot of Jewish holiday and celebration.

And then we do Christmas, as you can, again, see with the Christmas trees. We do hang stockings. So there's a stocking for everyone, grandkids, kids, kids, dogs. And so we open presents on Christmas Eve. And then we do the stocking stuff for, But as because our children are older now, we no longer do gifts. So we have under the tree, there's just some symbolic things. And so we all pitch in.

Simran usually finds a family like what you all do with some of your gifts and toys. And we find a family. We just pour all that money into that family because we're all, you know, older. I love that. But for our grandkids, though, we still do traditional gifts. And then the biggest thing we do is see that pile right there. I'll show you what that is because this is really important

because our audience can get involved with this. So at our house, we have a gingerbread house contest every year. We actually put it on Facebook and Twitter and we asked for people to vote.

So there's two categories. The grandkids category and then there's the adult category. So we have literally 10 of these going at one time. And then, like I said, after an hour or so, we'll ask people to vote.

And actually got quite a few people voting. So it's kind of fun. But I feel kind of bad, you know, for the smaller grandchildren whose artwork may not be as, you know, mature some of the others. And so we need to figure out like an age multiplier or something, give them a little bit of a cushion on their older brothers and sisters. But anyways, that's one of the things. We just started that probably in the last three or four years, but it's been kind of fun. Is there a prize or just glory? I think it's just glory.

Okay. Like bragging rights for the next year. But they're all into it. I mean, that's the thing that they talk about now. It's like, I haven't heard the word Santa. I just hear like, hey, when are we doing the gingerbread contest? So if I remember, I'll send a picture of the winning gingerbread house and we'll put it somewhere in the show notes or something like that. But yeah, Aaron, this has been fun.

The podcast, again, digital voices undergoing some changes that you talked about still coming out once a week. We've toyed with doing it more often. We have such a backlog, as you know, of guests. And so we've thought about dropping a couple a week, but then at the same time, it's like, no, we don't want to, we don't want to overstay our welcome. I think once a week is good except for when we do special drops, like on Nurses Week or Veterans Day or things like that. But super excited about this next year and digital voices. We have so many amazing guests. I mean, we're recording just in the last couple of days with Intermountain CEO, Mayo CEO, ECU CEO.

It's just amazing, you know, Ascension CEO and then the CEOs of various companies that are doing good work. and then just great leaders. And then every once in while, we go outside the box a little bit. We bring in musicians. We have the musical coach for Morgan Wallen coming up and Bailey Zimmerman. So that's kind of fun as well.

Just learning from other industries, fashion. And as you can tell, we don't need the fashion lesson, Aaron, you and I. I mean, check us out. So anyway, super excited and really appreciate everyone, taking the time to listen. I know there's a lot of different choices. I listen to a lot of different podcasts,

and it's hard to listen to all of them that you want, but so many of you have chosen to listen to digital voices and we're truly thankful. And we're always open to ideas and new guests. So if you ever have new ideas, want to interact, engage with us, you know how to reach Aaron and I. So thank you again for listening,

being one of those 1.6 million downloads. Yes. Thank you. And Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, everyone. Thank you for listening to Digital Voices. We hope today's conversation sparked ideas, reflection, and connection. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify podcast so you don't miss an episode.