A Letter For Josh Rosenthal

My friend, a mentor, and an inspiration

Josh Rosenthal is an incredible dude. He’s effortlessly cool in a high-brow outdoorsy sort of way, he’s super smart, a great businessman, and tough as fucking nails.

This guy runs and finishes, 100-mile Ultramarathons through brutal terrain FOR FUN. Right now he’s building a media empire around it, called Borderlands, and its SO GOOD. In fact, the first time I met him back in 2018 at his hip local coffee and tea shop that he started called Creek Tea, it was on the premise of helping him start and operate a unique Ultramarathon concept that started downtown Salt Lake City (where we both reside) and weaved it’s way up and around the Wasatch Mountain front. That race, the Salt Lake Foothills 50k is taking place on May 31st, 2025 so if you’re into that sort of self-torture you should go sign-up!

My good friend and business partner, Nate Stoltenow, introduced me to Josh one day back in 2018 at Creek Tea (a super cool tea and coffee concept Josh created) which I’ll always be grateful for (thanks, as always, Nate). I’ve always felt like it was an incredible flex to invite someone to meet, under business pretenses, to an establishment that you own and operate. I loved that Josh did that. In fact, I love almost all things that are a full-send of confidence. What was so baller about Creek Tea was that he designed the space personally to be his vision for a great meeting place. It was high-design, a curated aesthetic of comfort and warmth mixed with clean and cool. It felt designed and intentional, which is what made it great.

He wanted to bring people there to have business meetings, it was purposeful (and for him, convenient). It set a tone for how I thought of him: this is a guy with great taste for design and aesthetic, someone who liked quality and who very thoughtfully cared about branding and experience. It stuck with me. I think he wanted to make that impression.

We never did produce that 100-mile race together, I’m not entirely sure why, but it sort of fizzled away after a few meetings. Just wasn’t the right timing, maybe. Over the next 3-4 years I’d see him randomly around town - often times at Creek Tea because I hoped I’d run into him - but nevertheless we were acquaintances and not really friends or in business together. I really wanted that to be the case because he seemed like he had all these things that I wanted and didn’t have. He ran several successful and cool businesses, primarily a coffee business called La Barba Coffee and a bar concept called Seabird.

I was jealous.

From afar I sort of looked on and wished I could be THAT.

I wasn’t wise enough yet to realize this sort of jealousy hindered me. That it was actually a blocker to being more successful and actually doing the things in life and business that I wanted to be doing. It was unhealthy to me and unfair to Josh. In a lot of ways, unbeknownst to him, he helped me recognize this and throw it in the trash where it belongs.

In early 2022 I took a leap and started my own business (for real, like my family depended on it’s income to survive), called Levver. Coming off the heels of the pandemic and used to working from home in my office (where I attempted, pretty successfully to be overemployed for about a year) I figured I’d turn my new found confidence and hustle into a consulting business. During that winter/spring I reached out to a bunch of people in my network to get advice, strike up relationships, and start my journey to building Levver.

Josh was one of those people. He obliged immediately. To this day I’m not sure why, but we had coffee one day in April 2022. 2.5 years on from that day now, we’ve met for coffee or lunch regularly, sometimes weekly for long stretches. Our time together and conversations have been some of the most valuable and treasured things in my life. If he asks me to meet it takes priority over LOTS of things.

He’s helped me craft the business I want to own and operate and in turn I think I’ve helped him do the same with his new ventures Borderlands and Wylder. We ideate strategies together, think about monetization and potential partnerships, come up with positioning and messaging, and kick around half-baked ideas on new or interesting businesses. It’s collaborative. Sometimes it’s more about him and his needs, sometimes mine. I don’t have that kind of relationship with many people, it’s special, beautiful.

The amount of things that I’ve learned from him is endless and feels too valuable to even put words to. Most importantly he’s taught me how to be more of myself. He showed me the way on how to bring myself into my business and vice versa. For a long time (and still working through this, it’s a process) I kept my personal life separated from my work life. I thought this was a strength. Some bits would seep in here and there, but ultimately I thought I was protecting myself and my family in some way by orienting my life this way. Josh helped me realize this was impeding my progress in both places. It was holding me back.

For this I owe him a great deal. For this I truly love and admire him.

His impact so profound that when I landed on the concept of A Letter For, he was the first person that I thought I’d write a letter to.

So, this first one goes out to Josh.

With love and deep appreciation,

-Andrew

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