Podcasts about andrew who

Today on The Patrick Madrid Show, Patrick answers the perplexing topic of the mark of the beast, unpacking its biblical roots and significance for our faith. Plus, Patrick tackles a tough question about the annulment process and marriage within the Church, offering heartfelt advice to those facing these challenges.   Anthony - What is the mark of the beast? (01:00) Teresa (email) – My husband was previously married and he refuses to go through the annulment process. (05:58) Natalia - Are tattoos going to be the mark of the beast? (18:49) Andrew - Who is Mary Magdalene in the bible? (27:34) Maggie – Please think of the powerlessness that those battling an addiction Paul (off-air) - When do you give up on a friend who has left the faith?

After Dark with Hosts Rob & Andrew – Who knew Joe Biden could speak to dead people or Kamala Harris had forged a US relationship with North Korea? Yet, that's what we saw on full display when Biden was asked if Congresswoman Jackie Walorski, who was killed in a car accident in August, was present during a WH event. Now mind you, Biden had eulogized her after her death...

After Dark with Hosts Rob & Andrew – Who knew Joe Biden could speak to dead people or Kamala Harris had forged a US relationship with North Korea? Yet, that's what we saw on full display when Biden was asked if Congresswoman Jackie Walorski, who was killed in a car accident in August, was present during a WH event. Now mind you, Biden had eulogized her after her death...

After Dark with Hosts Rob & Andrew – Who is the president who first gave it attention? No, not Barack Obama, the first black president, who had two terms in office. It was none other than President Donald J. Trump who suggested that Congress use its powers to make it a holiday. The Democrats co-opted Trump's idea and refused to move...

After Dark with Hosts Rob & Andrew – Who is the president who first gave it attention? No, not Barack Obama, the first black president, who had two terms in office. It was none other than President Donald J. Trump who suggested that Congress use its powers to make it a holiday. The Democrats co-opted Trump's idea and refused to move...

Andrew Warner has been part of the internet startup scene since 1997. Andrew and his brother built a $30 million per year online business, which they later sold. After taking an extended vacation and doing some traveling, Andrew started Mixergy. Mixergy helps ambitious upstarts learn from some of the most successful people in business.Andrew and I talk about his new book, Stop Asking Questions. It's a great read on leading dynamic interviews, and learning anything from anyone. We also talk about longevity and burnout as an entrepreneur. Andrew gives me feedback about my interviewing style, the direction I should take the podcast, and much more.In this episode, you'll learn: Why you need to understand and communicate your mission How to get your guest excited about being interviewed What to do instead of asking questions How to hook your audience and keep them engaged Links & Resources ConvertKit Gregg Spiridellis JibJab Ali Abdaal The Web App Challenge: From Zero to $5,000/month In 6 Months Groove Zendesk Help Scout Jordan Harbinger Noah Kagan Bob Hiler Seth Godin Morning Brew Alex Lieberman Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) Notion Sahil Bloom Ryan Holiday Brent Underwood Ghost Town Living Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator Damn Gravity Paul Graham Y Combinator Nathan Barry: Authority Ira Glass NPR This American Life Barbara Walters Richard Nixon interview Oprah interview with Lance Armstrong Matt Mullenweg Chris Pearson Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue Peter Thiel Gawker Nick Denton The Wall Street Journal Rohit Sharma SanDisk Jason Calacanis Dickie Bush Sean McCabe Daily Content Machine Jordan Peterson Tribes Warren Buffet Sam Walton Ted Turner GothamChess LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) Inc.com: Selling Your Company When You're Running on Fumes Chess.com Mark Cuban James Altucher Rod Drury Andrew Warner's Links Andrew Warner Stop Asking Questions Mixergy Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Andrew:The top 10 interviews of all time are news-based interviews. We, as podcasters, keep thinking, “How do I get enough in the can, so if I die tomorrow, there's enough interviews to last for a month, so I can be consistent, and the audience loves me.”That's great, but I think we should also be open to what's going on in the world today. Let's go talk to that person today. If there's an artist who's suddenly done something, we should go ask to do an interview with them.[00:00:32] Nathan:In this episode, I talk to my friend, Andrew Warner, who I've known for a long time. He actually played a really crucial role in the ConvertKit story in the early days, and provided some great encouragement along the way to help me continue the company, and get through some tough spots.We actually don't get into that in this episode, but it takes an interesting turn because we just dive right in.Andrew's got a book on interviewing. He runs Mixergy. He's been, running Mixergy for a long time. We talk about longevity and burnout, and a bunch of other things. He dives in and challenges me, and gives me feedback on my interviewing style. Where I should take the Podcast, and a bunch of other stuff. It's more of a casual conversation than the back-and-forth interview of how he grew his business. But I think you'll like it. It's a lot of what I'm going for on the show.So anyway, enjoy the episode.Andrew, welcome to the show.[00:01:25] Andrew:Thanks for having me on.[00:01:26] Nathan:There's all kinds of things we can talk about today, but I want to start with the new book that you got coming out.This is actually slightly intimidating; I am interviewing someone who has a book coming out about how to be good at interviewing. Where do we even go from here? You were saying that you have thoughts?[00:01:47] Andrew:I have feedback for you. I have a thoughts on your program.[00:01:51] Nathan:I'm now even more nervous.[00:01:52] Andrew:I've been listening, and I've been following, and I've been looking for questioning styles. Is there feedback I could give him? I mean, I've wrote a whole book on it. I should have tons of ideas on that.I don't. Here's the thing that stood out for me watching you. There's an ease and a comfort with these guests, but I'm trying to figure out what you're trying to do with the Podcast. What is connecting them? Are you trying to bring me, the listener, in and teach me how to become a better creator who's going to grow an audience and make a career out of it? Or are you trying to learn for yourself what to do?How to become closer to what Ali Abdaal doing, for example, or Sahil Bloom? Are you trying to do what they did, and grow your audience? Or is it a combination of the two?I think the lack of that focus makes me feel a little untethered, and I know that being untethered and going raw, and letting it go anywhere is fine, but I think it would be helpful if you gave me a mission.What's the mission that Nathan Barry's on with the Podcast. Why is he doing these interviews?[00:02:56] Nathan:Oh, that's interesting. Because it's probably different: my mission, versus the audience members' mission.[00:03:05] Andrew:I think you should have a boat together and, but go ahead.[00:03:08] Nathan:I was going to say mine is to meet interesting people. Like that's the thing I found that, podcasts are the pressure from two sides, one as a creator, as an individual online, like I'm not going to set aside the time to be like, you know what, I'm going to meet one interesting person a week and we're just going to have a conversation riff on something like that.Doesn't happen the times that, you know, the years that I didn't do this show, I didn't set aside like deliberate time to do that. And then the other thing is if I were to set aside that time and send out that email, I think a lot of people would be like, I kind of had to have a busy week. I don't know that I've, you know, like yeah, sure.Nathan, whoever you are. I did a Google search. You seem moderately interesting. I'm not sure that I want to get on that.Like a, get to know[00:03:58] Andrew:They wouldn't and it would be awkward. And you're right. The Podcast gives you an excuse. I think you should go higher level with it though. I think you should go deep to the point where you feel vulnerable. I think what you should do is say something like this, isn't it. You have to go into your own into your own mission and say, this is what it is.And just, so let me set the context for why this matters. I think it helps the audience know, but it also helps you get better guests to give better of themselves. I talk in the book about how I was interviewing Greg spirit, Dallas, the guy who created jib, jab, you know, those old viral video, it was a fire video factory that also created apps that allowed you to turn your yourself into like a viral meme that you could then send to your friends.Anyway, he didn't know me. He was incredibly successful. He was, I think, person of the year, a company of the year named by time. He was on the tonight show because he created these videos that had gone viral. And yes. He said yes, because a friend of a friend invited him, but I could see that he was just kind of slouching.He was wearing a baseball cap. It wasn't a good position. And then he said, why are we doing this? And I said, I want to do a story. That's so important. That tells the story of how you built your business. Yes. For my audience. So they see how new businesses are being built online, but let's make it so clear about what you did, that your great grandkids can listen to this.And then they will know how to great grandfather do this and put us in this situation. And that's what I wanted. I wanted for him to create that. And he told me that afterwards, if he had known that that was a mission, he wouldn't have put his hat on. He said that after that, he started thinking about the business in a more in depth way, visualizing his great grandchild.And then later on, he asked me for that recording so that he could have it in his family collection. So the reason I say that is I want us to have a mission. That's that important that yes. You could get somebody to sit in front of the camera because you're telling me you're doing a podcast, frankly.Right. You're with ConvertKit they're going to say yes, but how do you bring the best out of them? And that's it. And so that's why I'm doing this. And so one suggestion for you is to say something like.I'm Nathan, I've been a creator my whole life, but I'm starting from scratch right now with YouTube.I've got 435 people watching YouTube. It's not terrible, but it's clearly not where I want to end up. And so what I've decided to do is instead of saying, I've created the book authority, I wrote it. I'm the one who created software that all these creators are using a ConvertKit. Instead of, instead of allowing myself to have the comfort of all my past successes, I'm going to have the discomfort of saying, I don't know what it's like.And so I'm going to bring on all these people who, because maybe I've got credibility from ConvertKit are going to do interviews with me. And they're going to teach me like Alia doll and others are going to teach me how they became better creators, better business people. I'm going to use it to inform my, my, growth on YouTube.And by the way, You'll all get to follow along. And if you want to follow along and build along with me, this is going to come from an earnest place. Now I've obviously gone. Long-winded cause I'm kind of riffing here, but that's a mission. And now we're watching as you go from four to 500, now we care about your growth.Now there's someone giving you feedback and more importantly, there's someone who then can go back years later and see the breadcrumbs. Even if the whole thing fails and say, you know what?Nathan made it in virtual reality videos. And he's amazing. But look at what he did when YouTube was there. He clearly didn't do it, but he aspired right. I could aspire to, if I don't do it, I'll do it in the next level. That's that's what I'm going for with it. I talk too much sometimes and give people too much, too much feedback. How does that sit with you?[00:07:14] Nathan:I like the idea. I particularly love anytime a creator's going on a journey and inviting people along for it, right. When you're sitting there and giving advice or whatever else, it's just not that compelling to follow it unless there's a destination in mind. So I did that with ConvertKit in the early days of, I said, like I called it the web app challenge said, I'm trying to grow it from zero to 5,000 a month in recurring revenue.Within six months, I'm going to like live blog, the whole thing. people love that another example would be also in the SAS space, but, the company grew, they did a customer support software and they, I think. They were going from 25,000 a month to 500,000 a month was their goal. and they even have like, in their opt-in form, as they blogged and shared all the lessons, it had like a progress bar.You'd see, like MRR was at 40,000,[00:08:08] Andrew:Every time you read a blog post, you see the MRR and the reason that you don't remember what the number was is I believe that they changed it, you know, as they achieve the goal, they, they changed it to show the next goal on their list. And yeah, and you've got to follow along now. Why do I care? The groove, HQ or groove is, is growing a competitor to Zendesk and help scout.But now that I'm following along, I'm kind of invested now that I see how they're writing about their progress. I really do care. And by the way, what is this groove and why is it better than help scout and the others? Yeah. I agree with you. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think in conversations also, it makes a lot of sense.I think a lot of people will come to me and say, Andrew, can I just ask you for some feedback? I'm a student. Can I ask you for support? It's helpful for them to ask, but if they could ground me in the purpose, if you could say to somebody I'm coming to you with these questions, because this is where I'm trying to go, it changes the way that they react.It makes them also feel more on onboard with the mission. I have a sense that there is one, I'm just saying nail it, you know, who does it really good? who does a great job with it is a Jordan harbinger. He starts out his each episode is almost if you're a fan of his, it's almost like enough already. I get that.You're going to do an opt-in in the beginning of the Podcast. I get that. What you're trying to do is show us how to whatever network now and become better people. But it's fine. I'd much rather people say, I know too much about what this mission is. Then I don't.[00:09:26] Nathan:Do you who's afraid anyone else tuning in? What, what is Jordan's mission? What would he say is the mission that[00:09:32] Andrew:It's about, see, that's the other thing I can't actually, even though I've heard it a billion times, he's adjusted it. It's about, self-improvement making me a better person better, man. And so the earnestness of that makes me accept when he brings somebody on who's a little bit too academic who's, Jordan's interested in it or a little bit too practical to the point where it feels like I'm just getting too many tips on how to network and I don't need it, but I've got his sensibility.He's trying to make me a better person. And so I think with interviews, if you, if you give people the, the mission, they'll forgive more, they'll accommodate the largest and it does allow you to have a broader, a broader set of topics.[00:10:14] Nathan:Yeah. I'm thinking about the mission side of it. Like all of that resonates. and I love when an interview is questions are Like are the questions that they specifically want to know? It's not like I went through my list and this seems like a good question to ask instead. It's like, no, no, no, Andrew specifically, I want to know what should I do about, this?And I'll even call that out in a show and be like, look, I don't even care if there's an audience right now. Like this is my list, you know?[00:10:41] Andrew:Yes.[00:10:41] Nathan:But the, like if we dive into the mission, the one that you outlined doesn't quite resonate. And I think the reason. I think about, creators who have already made it in some way.And it starts to lose that earnestness. Like, honestly, I'm not that interested in, in growing a YouTube[00:11:00] Andrew:I don't think that that's I don't think that that's it for you. It's true. That's a little bit too. I don't know. It's it's a little, it's a little too early in the career. There is something there. I don't know what it is and it can't be enough. It can't be enough to say I need to meet interesting people because that's very youth centric and I'm not on a mission to watch you, unless you're really going to go for like the super right.And we're constantly aspiring, inspiring. the other thing it could be as you're running a company, you're trying to understand what's going on. No Kagan did that really well. I actually have the reason that I know this stuff is in order to write the book. I said, I have all my transcripts. I can study all the ways that I've questioned, but I also want to see what other people have done.And so Noah Kagan did this interview with an NPR producer. I had that transcribed to understand what he did and what he learned. One of the things that he did in that, that made that such a compelling interview is. He was a podcaster who wanted to improve his podcasting. And he, I think he even paid the producer to do an interview with him on his podcast so that he could learn from him.Right. And in the process, he's asking serious questions that he's really wondering. He's trying to figure out how to make a show more interesting for himself. Now. Clearly someone like me, who wants to make my Podcast more interesting. I'm like mentally scribbling notes as I'm running, listening to the podcasting.Oh yeah. The rule of three, like what are the three things you're going to show me?Well, yeah, at the end he did summarize it and he did edit. I don't like the edits at all because the edits take away some of the rawness of it and the discomfort which I personally enjoy, but I see now how he's editing it out.And it's, it's interesting to watch that progress.[00:12:32] Nathan:Yeah, I'm thinking through. The different angles that I could take with this. cause I like it and I feel like there's a, a thread that's not quite there. And I felt that on the show. Right. Cause people ask, oh, why are you having this guest on versus that guest? and it is that like, I, I find them interesting.There's also another angle of like probably half the guests maybe are on ConvertKit already. And so I want to highlight that. And then the other half of the guests aren't and I want them on ConvertKit and so that's an, you know, an incredibly easy, I can send you a cold email and be like, Andrew switched to ConvertKit.Right. Or I could be like, Hey, you know, have you on the show, we could talk. and we've gotten great people like in the music space and other areas from just having them on the show and then[00:13:18] Andrew:Can I give you, by the way, I know it's a sidetrack and I give you a great story of someone who did that. Okay. it's not someone that, you know, it's a guy who for years had helped me out. His name is Bob Highler every week he would get on a call with me and give me advice on how to improve the business.And then at one point he said, you know what? I need new clients. I want to start going after people who are, I want to start going after lawyers, helping them with their online ads, because lawyers aren't, aren't doing well enough.He started doing all these marketing campaigns because he's a marketer. And so one of the things he did was he got these cards printed up.He said, they look just like wedding invitations, beautiful. He, he mailed them out to lawyers. He got one, two responses. Like nobody would pay attention to a stranger, even if they were earnest and sending those out. And he goes, you know, and then he gets on a call. He doesn't even know what to say to people.If he just cold calling goes, I'm going to try to do that. And Andrew, I'm going to do an interview show for lawyers. He picked bankruptcy lawyers. He started asking them for interviews. They were all flattered because they also want another good Google hit. Right. And so they said yes to him and he asked them questions.Then I started learning the language. I forget all the different terms that he learned about how, about how they operate. But he said, inevitably at the end, they'll go after it was done. And say, by the way, what are you. And then he'd have a chance to tell them. And because he's built up this rapport and they trust him, they were much more likely to sign them.He signed up his customers, just like that, just like that. It's a, I think it's an, it's an unexplored way of doing it, of, of growing a business, taking an interest in someone, shining a light on them, helping them get that Google hit and helping them tell their story. And then by the way, will you pay attention to the fact that I've got a thing that if you like me, you might like also,[00:14:50] Nathan:So a few years ago, I was in New York and Seth Goden had come out to speak at our conference and he'd ever said, Hey, if you're in New York and want to make the pilgrimage up to Hastings on Hudson, you know, of outside the city, like come up and visit. And so I did that and it's so funny, cause it is like this pilgrimage to you, you like take the train up along the river. You know, I don't know what it is an hour and a half outside of the city. and I was asking Seth advice at his office, about like how to reach more authors. I think that was the question I asked him specifically and he just, he was like, well, what do authors want? And I was like, ah, I, some more books I guess.And he's like, yeah know. And so like we went through a series of questions, but he's basically what he came to was, find a way to get them attention so that they can grow their audience to sell more books. And he was suggesting a podcast is the way to do that. What's interesting is that's the side, like that's the other half of it, right.I want to meet interesting people. I want to, Like get more of those people that I find really interesting on ConvertKit pushed the limits of like, our customer base in, in those areas. And then the third thing is I want to do it in a way that's high leverage in my time. Write of, I want to do it.That creates something, for people watching and listening along so they can follow the journey. But I still don't see,I would say two thirds of that is about me, right?[00:16:18] Andrew:It's not only that, but all these things are byproducts more than they are the clear goal. You're going to get that. No matter what, if you just talk all day about what? No, not talk all day. If you do, what was it? I'm the founder of morning brew does nothing, but like a 15 minute, if that sometimes five minutes.[00:16:37] Nathan:Alex Lieberman.[00:16:38] Andrew:Yeah, just what, what goes on in his life now it's changed over the years or so that he's done it, but it's just, here's what we were thinking about today. Here's how I'm deciding to hire somebody BA done. He's just doing that. That's enough to get attention enough to also broaden his audience enough to bring us in and then so on.So I think if you just did nothing, but get on camera and talk for a bit, you'll get that. But I think a higher leverage thing is to tap into that personal mission and let all the others come through along the way and all the other benefits, meaning that you will get to meet people and change the way you think you will get to get people to switch to convert kit.And so on, by the way, that's such a, like an impressive thing for you to admit, to say, I want to have these guests on because I want to assign them up. I think a lot of people would have those ulterior motives and[00:17:23] Nathan:Oh, no, you got to just talk about, I mean, that's something you and I, for as long as we've known each other have been very, very transparent in both of our separate businesses and our conversations and it's just, everyone wants that. Right? Cause they're like, I think I know why Nathan is doing this, but he wants.And that would be weird, but if we go to the mission side of it, there's mission of like this, I'm going to improve the world side of mission, which definitely exists that can protect you. And I got my little plaque behind me. It says we exist to help creators are living. And so we can take that angle of it, thinking of like the, the goal journey side of things, since we're just riffing on ideas.One way that might be interesting is to make like a top 100 list of the top 100 creators we want on ConvertKit. And the whole podcast is about interviewing those people and reaching them. And, and so it could be like, this is what I'm trying to accomplish. And you're going to learn a whole bunch along the way as a listener, but you, you know, we check in on that.And then another angle that we could take that would be different is the, like we're going together. We're going to help the creator make the best version of their business. And so you make it more of a.We're both peers diving in on your business, riffing on it, you know, how would we improve it? that kind of thing.[00:18:43] Andrew:I think helping creators create a business, seems like something others have done, but not quite your approach, your style, the way that you will go and carve something is this is the thing that's over your head that says create. Is that something you carved in your wood shop? Then I saw on Instagram.Yeah, right. The sensibility of I've got to create it my way. Instead of that's a pain in the ass, I got a business to run who like, right. You're not going to see, for example, infusion soft, go, we need a plaque. Let's go to the wood shop. No, you're not. It's just not their sensibility. Right. Coming from a sensibility of someone who cares about the details, who every button matters in the software, everything behind your shoulder matters to you for yourself, even the stuff I imagine.If you look forward would have a meaning there, it wouldn't be random chaos. Is it random chaos in front of, on the[00:19:32] Nathan:The desk is random chaos, but there's a sign that says the future belongs to creators up there. And[00:19:38] Andrew:Okay. I think I might've even seen that online somewhere. So I think that coming, coming from the business point of view, With a sense of creator's taste, I think is something that would appeal to a lot of people. For whom seeing, for example, my take on business would be completely abhorring. All I care about is where the numbers are and what it's like.Right. Well, even allium doll's take on, it would not be, would not be right, because he's much more about every movement needs to matter. He can't just have a checkbox in notion it Ellis has to fire off five different other things that notion because otherwise you're wasting time. Why type five things when you could type one, right.It's a different sensibility. And I think you've always done really well drawing in that audience. I remember talking to a competitor of yours who started around the same time, also done really well about why you were, you were really growing tremendously faster. and they said he nailed it. He nailed who his audience is.It's the bloggers. It's these early creators who, who didn't have. Who didn't have anyone speaking for them. And you did that. And I think maybe that's an approach to saying, look, we are creators. And the business of creation is, or the business of being a creator is evolving and we want to learn about every part of it.And then it's interesting to hear how somebody growing their audience in an interesting way. How is somebody thinking about writing? I love that you asked Sahil bloom about how long it took him to write. I know he talks about it a bunch, but it's, it's interesting to hear him go with you about how it is like a five hour, seven hour writing job for him, right.To write fricking tweets. He's writing tweets, right? You've got people just firing off the tweet. He's spending five, seven hours on it. And, and he's also not a guy who's just like, right. It would be something if he was still in school playing baseball, and this is his intellectual, whatever. No, he's now running in investments.He's making decisions. He's helping promote his, his portfolio companies and he's spending five hours writing and he's doing it like one a week instead of one an hour. Right. It's all very interesting. And that approach, I think, ties completely well with ConvertKit.[00:21:41] Nathan:Okay. So where does that take us on like the mission or the hook for the show? Cause we're.[00:21:48] Andrew:Okay. Here's what I would do. I would, I would just keep riffing go. My name is Nathan Barry. You probably know me from convert kit. I'm doing this podcast because I like to meet interesting people. And here's the thing I'm trying to do or I'm I I'm doing it because I'm compelled to talk to these people who I admire.And I also want to learn from them about how they create and just riff on it. Like every week, even have every interview have a different one, until you feel like, oh, that's the one that feels just right. But if we just here, I want to have this person on, because I'm trying to learn this thing. I want to have this on because secretly I'm trying to see if I can get him to be at, see if I can get Ryan holiday to actually be on convert kit.Right. Boom. Now, now we're kind of following along as you're figuring it out. And that's also[00:22:29] Nathan:Yeah.[00:22:29] Andrew:The way, is Ryan holiday going to be on here or what?[00:22:31] Nathan:On the show,[00:22:33] Andrew:Yeah.[00:22:34] Nathan:Probably we were just talking the other day. We have a shared investment in a ghost town, So we, we often talk about that,[00:22:40] Andrew:Oh yeah. I've[00:22:42] Nathan:Other thing[00:22:43] Andrew:That ghost town. Oh, that's a whole other thing I've been watching that[00:22:45] Nathan:I need to have speaking of the ghost town, I didn't have Brent Underwood on because that Is an insane story of everything going on with town, but it's just been building this massive audience.[00:22:58] Andrew:Who's doing YouTube videos from there? He[00:23:00] Nathan:Yeah. And he's now got 1.2[00:23:01] Andrew:Yeah,[00:23:02] Nathan:Subscribers on YouTube, like 2 million on[00:23:04] Andrew:I had no idea. I watched him in the early days of the pandemic go into this place by himself. Almost get trapped, driving his car to get there. Right. I go, this is fun content. And usually when you watch someone like that and good morning, America go, and I'm going to jump out of this thing.And I've never jumped before, maybe whatever. I don't know.Yo, the producer's not going to let you die. It's fine. Here you go, dude. Who's just trying to get attention for this thing. Cause he has some investors who he wants to make sure get what they want. Yeah, you could die. What the hell is you doing?What? Like I'm going to, I'm going to go down this hole and see if there's anything over you yet. Dude, you could[00:23:41] Nathan:Yeah. It's, it's pretty wild. I actually, some of the weeks that he don't, he, that he didn't post the videos. I'd like, texted him, be like, Brett, you're still alive because you know, the video was the way that we knew every Friday, like, okay, Good Brent. Still alive, everything. Everything's good. Anyway, I got to have him[00:23:58] Andrew:All right. If you do talk to, if you talk to Ryan holiday, I feel like you totally nailed his writing style, where you, you said in one of your past episodes that he can take a whole historical story, sum it up in two sentences to help clarify the moment that he's writing about. And it's like a toss away thing, right? Just toss it away and then move on and go, dude. That's a whole freaking book. In fact, just turning the whole thing into just two sentences to fit in there would take silo, bloom five hours. You put it in a book with other, like there a bunch of other sentences. So that's good. But here's what I think you should talk to him about.Or here's my, my one suggestion. He has not talked about Marketing since he created, trust me. I'm a lot. Trust me. I'm lying, which was a phenomenal book that then I feel like he distanced himself from when he became more stoic and more intellectual. Fine. He is still a great, great marketer along your style, your tasty.And in fact, he's becoming the people who I can think of that are very, ConvertKit like philosophy in their creation plus promotion. He nails it, right? Art that takes so much pain that you've mentioned, and we've all seen it. He has boxes of index cards to create these sentences that most people would just throw away, not pay attention to, but are super meaningful.And at the same time, he knows how to promote. He knows how to get his ideas out there. He knows how to sell a coin that says you're going to die in Latin, that people put in their pockets that are more than just selling a coin. It's selling this transferable viral, real life thing. Right. So anyway. And is he should be on a ConvertKit too.[00:25:29] Nathan:He is, he is[00:25:30] Andrew:Okay. Good.[00:25:31] Nathan:Half of his list started in Berkeley. The other half are in the process of switching over. So, you know,[00:25:36] Andrew:Okay. Yeah, that's the hard part, dude. I I'm with infusion soft. I can't stand them. If you understand how much I do not like them. I do I ever talk negatively about anyone. No. Bring up politics, Joe Biden, Donald Trump. I got no strong opinion about anything you talked to me about, about infusions. Ah, but the problem is it's so hard to wean yourself off of these things because once you're in a system, that's it[00:25:56] Nathan:Well we'll make it happen. W w we'll figure out a way, but the new book landing page for it, I went on there and inspected element. It's definitely a ConvertKit for them. I was pretty happy about it.[00:26:06] Andrew:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So truthfully it was, I said, I'm not going to school around here. It would have probably been easier for me to go with, with infusion soft because then we all we'd have to do with tag people who were interested. And then I could, I don't want that. I don't want that nonsense because it comes with overhead.That becomes an obstacle to me, communicating with my audience by, by overhead. I mean, they've got historic legacy. Requirement's that mean I can't do anything right. You I'm on my iPad. I could just go in and send a message out. Or actually I haven't sent a message out. Someone else has sent a message out.Our publisher sent a message then from damn, ah, damn gravity. But I, but if someone says there's a problem, I can go in and see it.[00:26:44] Nathan:Right.[00:26:44] Andrew:And make adjustments. The whole thing just fricking works. Right?[00:26:47] Nathan:So I want to talk about the book more. Let's talk[00:26:49] Andrew:Sure.[00:26:50] Nathan:And now I have you here.[00:26:52] Andrew:Ben needs, us to talk about the book. He's the publisher.[00:26:54] Nathan:We'll get to that, then don't worry. Ben, we've got it covered. so you were giving unsolicited feedback, which by the way is my favorite kind of feedback. Okay.So as you've been listening to the show, what are some other things that maybe you recommended the book, maybe like as you set people up for interview questions, any of that advice that you would give beyond?We started with the men.[00:27:15] Andrew:I'm going to suggest that people who listen to you do pay attention to this. One thing that they should, I I'm interrupting you in a roadway now there's some good interruption that I write about in the book and I can tell you how to do it. Right. And I also have to say that there's some new Yorker that's built in, even though I've left New York a long time ago, that I, I always interrupt when we need to get into the bottom line.Okay. Here's one thing that I think people should pay attention with you. You don't just ask questions. You will, at times interject your own story, your own, take your own experience. And I find that a lot of times people either do it in a heavy handed way. It's like, look at me, I'm equal to you. I deserve to be in this conversation too.And that doesn't just happen on Mike. It happens at dinner parties or it's more like I have to be reverential. So I'm asking questions and it's me asking about them. And one of the things that I learned over the years, Getting to know someone interviewing someone, whether it's like you and I are doing in our podcasts and shows or doing it, in a, in a dinner conversation, it's not asking questions.It's not about saying here's my next thing. Here's my next question. It's overwhelming and draining to do that. You do need to say, well, here's me. You do need to sometimes just guide the person to say, now tell me how you wrote the book. Now tell me how long it takes to, to write a tweet, right? Whatever it is, you need to sometimes direct the person.And so I call the book, stop asking questions because that counter intuitive piece of knowledge is something that took me a fricking interview coach to help me accept that. It's true, but it helps. And you do it really well. And here's why you do it. Well, you interject something personal. Somehow you do it succinctly.You don't get rambling off. Maybe you edit that.No, no, because the videos are there. Yeah. It's, it's not edited. It's just you saying here's, here's my experience with this. And then when you come back and you ask something. It informs the guest about where you are and what they could contribute to that. It lets them also feel like this is a dialogue instead of them being pounded with demands of, in the forms of question.[00:29:15] Nathan:Yeah. Yeah. I think that for anyone listening and thinking about starting a podcast, it's really like, what's the kind of thing that you want to listen to. And I like it where the host is like a character in the, in the Podcast, in the episode where they're contributing content and it's not just like, oh, if I listened to Andrew on these 10 shows, I'm just going to get Andrew.Like, I want it where it's like, no, I'm getting the blend between these two people. And the unique things that come from that intersection rather than, you know, I've heard this[00:29:46] Andrew:Yes.[00:29:47] Nathan:I've heard about it.[00:29:48] Andrew:I think also it took me a long time years of, so I started doing this in 2007, give or take a year and I think. No one needs to talk about, I don't need to talk about myself. They don't care about me. They care about, you know, Paul Graham, who I'm interviewing about how he found a Y Combinator, someone.And I would get tons of emails from people saying, tell us who you are. Tell us a little bit about yourself. And I would argue with them and say, no, but I understand now on the outside, when I listen, I don't know who you are. And it feels very awkward to hear it. It feels very much like, I don't know why, where you're coming from.And so I don't know why I should listen. It's kinda, it's it's counterintuitive.[00:30:29] Nathan:Yeah. I think it just comes with comfort over time. Like, I, I don't know this for sure. If I bet if I listen back to my first podcast episodes, the ones that I did in like 2015. I have a different style because I bet I'm less comfortable or more worried about like, make sure that I shut up quickly so that the guests can talk more because people came here for the guest and then over time you just get more comfortable.[00:30:53] Andrew:So you wrote authority and I remember you, I remember buying it and I remember you bundled it with a bunch of stuff, right. And oh, by the way, it's so cool. I was listening to it on a run and I heard you mention my name in the, in the book I go, this is great and I'm running. but I remember you did interviews there.I don't remember whether the style matches up to today or what, but you did interviews in it. Right.[00:31:15] Nathan:I did.[00:31:16] Andrew:And what you had there that I think is always important to have with all, all interviews is you had a sense of like, well, the sense of mission, I knew what you were going for, because you were trying to say, here is this book that I've written on this topic.I'm want to bring these people in to bring their, their take on it. We were all kind of working together. And I feel like, when I look at my earlier interviews, I listened to them. The Mike sucks so badly. I was too ponderous. Cause I wanted to be like, IRA glass from, from NPR, from this American life.And you could hear the same rhythm, the same cadence, like I'm copying him. Like I'm his little brother trying to learn how to be like a real boy. but I had this real need. I was trying to figure out how these people were building companies that work to understand what holes I had in my understanding to see what was working for them that I didn't know before.And you could see that and it, it helps. It helped me continue. Even when I was nervous with the guest, it helped the guests know where to go. Even when I wasn't doing good job, guiding them and help the audience keep listening in, even when the audio stopped, because there's this thing that Andrew is trying to understand.And you almost feel like you're the sense of vulnerability. If it doesn't scare you away, then it makes you want to root.[00:32:40] Nathan:Yeah. And I personally love that style because I want to follow someone going on a journey and, and trying to accomplish something specific. But let's talk about the not just the book, but asking questions or in this case, stopping it, stop asking questions. What are the things that not even just specific to this job, what are the things that you listened to interview shows?And you're like, okay, here are the three things that I want to change or that I want to coach you on in the same way that I was coached on.[00:33:10] Andrew:Okay. So what I started to do is I go through my own transcripts. I mean, I had years of transcripts to see what worked and what didn't I already done that. So I said, I need to now add to it. And so I went back and looked at historical interviews, like when Barbara Walters interviewed Richard Nixon and got him so frustrated that he didn't want to ever talk to her again.Or when Oprah finally got to sit with Lance Armstrong, how did she do that? I think. You know, you know, let me pause on, on Oprah and Lance Armstrong. She got to interview him after he, he was basically caught cheating and he was about to come out and do it. Great. Get, I think the fact that she interviewed him, there's a lesson there for, for all of us who are interviewing, interviewing the top 10 interviews, I think of all time.And you go back to Wikipedia and look it up. You see art or interview podcast or interview, sorry, our news-based interviews. We as podcasters, keep thinking, how do I get enough in the can so that if I die tomorrow, there's enough interviews to last for a month or whatever, so that I can be consistent in the audience loved me.That's great. But I think we should also be open to what's going on in the world today. Let's go talk to that person today. If there's an artist who suddenly done something, we should go and ask to do an interview with them. If there's a creator, if there's someone. So for me, one of the top interviews that people still it's been years, people still come back and talk to me about is when Matt Mullenweg decided that he was gonna pull out Chris[00:34:35] Nathan:Pearson.[00:34:35] Andrew:Per Pearson.Pearson's, themes from WordPress. And I got to talk to both of them at the same time and I published it and it went all over the internet with all over the WordPress internet. So hundreds of different blog posts about it, eventually all the people in the WordPress world write a lot of blogs, but also it became news.And so we don't do enough of that.[00:34:57] Nathan:I remember that interview because I was in the WordPress community at that time. And I remember you saying like, wait, I'm in Skype and I have both of you in two different things and you pull it together and not to pull Ryan holiday into this too much, but that's where he ended up writing the book.Was it, he realized he was one of the only people who was talking to like both Peter teal and, who's the Gawker guy.Yeah. Anyway, people know, but, but being in the intersection of that, so you're saying find something that's relevant on the news[00:35:33] Andrew:Yeah. Nick Denton was the founder of Gawker. Yes. Find the things that are relevant right now. And when people are hot right now, and they know you and you have credibility in this space, they trust you more than they trust. Say the wall street journal, even right, where they don't know where's this going.I think that's, that's one thing. The other thing is I think we don't have enough of a story within interviews. If we're doing S if we're doing at Mixergy, my podcast and interview where we're telling someone's story, we want them to be somewhere where the audience is at the beginning and then to have done something or had something happen to them that sets them on their own little journey.And then we make this whole interview into this. Into this a hero's journey approach. So I think better when I have an actual company in mind, so, or a person in mind. So last week I was interviewing this guy, Rohit Rowan was a person who was working at SanDisk, had everything going right for him. His boss comes to him and says it, you're now a director, continue your work.But now more responsibilities he's elated. He goes back, home, comes back into the office. Things are good, does work. And then a couple of days later he's told, you know, we mean temporarily, right? And he goes, what do you mean? I thought I got, I got a promotion. No, this is temporary. While our director's out you're director of this department.And then you go back, he says, the very next day, he couldn't go back into the office. He sat in his car, just, he couldn't do it anymore. And so he decided at that point, he'd heard enough about entrepreneurship heard enough ideas. He had to go off on and do it himself. And so we did. And then through the successes and failures, we now have a story about someone who's doing something that we can relate to, that we aspire to be more.[00:37:13] Nathan:So, how do you, you, your researchers, how do you find that moment before you have someone on? Because so many people will be like, yes, let me tell you about my business today. And oh, you want to know about that? How'd, you know, you know, like, as you,[00:37:27] Andrew:Yeah,[00:37:28] Nathan:That hook in that moment? That actually is a catalyst in their own dream.[00:37:33] Andrew:It's tough. It's it takes hours of talking to the guest of, of looking online of hunting for that moment. And it takes a lot of acceptance when it doesn't happen. One of my interview coaches said, Andrew, be careful of not looking for the Batman moment. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, you're always looking for the one moment that changed everything in people's lives.Like when Batman's parents got shot. And from there, he went from being a regular boy to being a superhero. Who's going to cry, fight crime everywhere. His life doesn't really work that way. There aren't these one moments, usually the change, everything. So I try not to. Put too much pressure on any one moment, but there are these little moments that indicate a bigger thing that happened to us.And I look for those and I allow people to tell that without having it be the one and only thing that happened. So if Pharaoh, it, it wasn't that moment. It could've just been, you know what, every day I go into the office and things are boring. And I think I have to stop. What I look for is give me an example of a boring.Now he can tell me about a day, a day, where he's sitting at his desk and all he's doing is looking at his watch, looking at his watch and he has to take his watch, put it in his drawer so that he doesn't get too distracted by looking at his watch all day. Cause he hates it. Now was that the one moment that changed everything?It was one of many moments. It might've happened a year before he quit, but it's an indication. So when we're telling stories, we don't have to shove too much pressure into one moment, but I do think it helps to find that one moment that encapsulates their, why, why did they go on this journey? Why does someone who's in SanDisk decide he's going to be an entrepreneur?Why did someone who was a baseball player decide that he had to go and write a blog post? Why is it? What's the thing that then sends them off on this journey? It helps. And I would even say, if you can get that moment, it just helps to get the thing that they were doing before that we can relate to. So what's the thing that they did before.So anyway, we have two different types of interviews. One is the story-based interview where we tell a story of how someone achieved something great. And so that hero's journey is and approach. The other one is someone just wants to teach them. All you want to do is just pound into them for an hour. Give me another tip another tip another tip of how to do this.Like pound, pound, pound, pound pound. If you want the audience to listen. I think for there, it helps to have what I call the cult hook because I said, how do I, how do cults get people to listen to, to these people who are clearly whack jobs sometimes. And so studying one called I saw that what they did was they'd have a person up on stage who talked about how, you know, I used to really be a Boozer.If you came into my house, you would see that there'd be these empty six packs. I was so proud of leaving the empty six packs everywhere to show myself how much alcohol I can drink. My wife left me. And when she left me, she just told me that I hadn't amounted to anything in my life. And I was going nowhere.And I just said, get I here. Instead of appreciating that this was just like terrible. And I ran out of toilet paper and don't even get me started with what, what I did for that. And so you see someone who's worry worse off than you are on this path of life. And then something has. They discover whoever it is.That's the cult leader. And they say, now I've got this real estate firm I encouraged by, oh, by the way, all of you to come over and take a look at that at this, I couldn't believe it. My whole life. I wanted to buy a Tesla. I now have the Tesla S it's amazing. It's just so great. And I did it all because I changed the way I thought once I came in and I found this one book and the book told me, I mean, anyways, so what we try to do is we say, if you're going to have somebody come on to teach how they became a better blogger, let's not have them start over elevated where everything they do is so great that we can't relate, have them start off either relatable or worse.I couldn't write here's my grammar, mistakes. My teacher told. Right. And now what's the thing that they did. They pick them from where they were to where they are today. it's this real set of realizations. Now I want to go into that.Let's pound into them and see how many of those tips we can get. Let's learn that I want to go from where he was to where he is.[00:41:28] Nathan:Yeah, I liked that a lot. Cause my inclination would be like, okay, we're we're doing the, educational, tactical conversation. I'm going to facilitate it. Let's dive right in and let's get to the actionable stuff right away. So I like what you're saying of like, no, no, no. We need to, even though this is going to be 90% packed, full of actionable material, we need to dive in and set the stage first with the story and making it relatable.And I like it.[00:41:55] Andrew:Yeah,[00:41:55] Nathan:Oh, yeah. I was just, just in my own head for a second. Cause I say, ah, that makes sense a lot, so much so that I've had three different guests or listeners email me and say like, just don't say that makes sense as much would, now that I'm saying it on the show, I'll probably get more emails every time that I say it.Cause that's like my processing, like, oh, oh, that makes sense. As I'm thinking of the next question and all that, so[00:42:22] Andrew:I do something like that too. For me. It's IC,[00:42:25] Nathan:Everyone has to have something.[00:42:26] Andrew:I can't get rid of that and yeah.[00:42:28] Nathan:So what systems have you put in place on the research side so that you're getting this, are you doing pre-interviews forever? Yes. Are you having your[00:42:38] Andrew:Almost every single one, some of the best people in some of the best entrepreneurs on the planet, I'm surprised that they will spend an hour or do a pre-interview. And sometimes I'm too sheepish to say, I need an hour of your time and I need you to do a pre-interview. So instead of saying, I need you to do a pre-interview.I say, here's why people have done it. And I've paid for somebody to help make my guests better storytellers of their own stories. And truthfully people will go through that. Pre-interview even if they don't want to do an interview, they just need to get better at telling their story for their teams, their employees, their everyone.Right. and so I say that, and then they will take me up on the pre-interview and say, yes, I do want to do the pre-interview. and so what I try to do is I try to outline the story. Ahead of time in a set of questions. And then what we do is we scramble them up a little bit based on what we think people will tell us first and what will make them feel a little more comfortable.And then throughout the interview, I'll adjust it. So for example, no, one's going to care about the guest unless they have a challenge. No guest wants to come on and say, I'm going to tell you about what's what I really suck at or where I've really been challenged. If they do, they're going to give you a fake made up thing that they've told a million times to make themselves seem humble.So we don't ask that in the beginning. We don't even ask it in the middle. We save it till the very end. Now they've gotten some time with us. They've gotten some rapport, they trust us. Then we go into tell me about the challenges, what hasn't worked out for you. And we really let them know why tell people the higher purpose you want the audience to relate.You want them to believe you. You want them to see themselves in you, and to learn from you. We need. They tell us, and then I have it in my notes as the last section, but I use it throughout the interview. I sprinkle it. So the goal is to get the pieces that we want and in whatever order makes the most sense and then reshape it for the interview Day.[00:44:33] Nathan:So on the interview itself, you would, you would flip that and you know, okay, this is what I want to start with and, and dive in right[00:44:41] Andrew:Yup. Yup.[00:44:43] Nathan:Lose. They already told you about that. And so now, you[00:44:46] Andrew:Right,[00:44:46] Nathan:In and start with.[00:44:47] Andrew:Right. That helps. Now, if there's something I want to ask someone about that they're not comfortable with. One thing that I do is I, I tip them off. So Jason Calacanis invited me to go do, interviews with, with investors at one of his conferences. It was just a bunch of, investors. And I looked at this one guy, Jonathan tryst, and he looked really great.But he, what am I supposed to do? Ask him about what startups should do to run their businesses. He's never run a startup. His, he hadn't at that time had a successful exit. As far as I knew, like mega successful exit. He's just a really nice guy. You can tell he was going places, but that's it. And the money that he was investing came from his parents.So what is this rich parents giving their kids some money. Now he's going to tell everyone in the VC, in the startup and VC audience, how to live their lives. So I said, I'm either not going to address it, which I think most people are, or I have to find a way to address it where I'm not going to piss them off and have them just clam up on me and then go to Jason and go.This guy just is a terrible interviewer, which is not true. So what I decided to do was tip him off. I said, look, Jonathan, before we do this, before we start talking to the audience, I have to tell you, I saw it, that you don't have much of a track record as an investor. Your money came from your parents and you're not like a tech startup, like people here.If we don't talk about it, people who know it are going to think, oh, this guy, Jonathan, look, who's trying to pass him soft self off. I don't have to force it in here, but if you allow me to, I'd like to bring it up and let's talk about, and it goes, yeah, absolutely. If it's out there, I want to make sure that we address it and sure enough, we talked about it and he had a great answer.He said, no, this came from my parents. It's not my own money. I don't have as much experience as other people, but I took my parents' money. I invested it, fat parents and family and so on. We've had a good track record with it. And now have raised the second Fallon fund from outsiders who saw what I was able to do with the first one.And by the way, I may not have this mega exit as a startup investor, as a startup entrepreneur. But I did have this company that did okay. Not great. Here's what it did Here's what I learned And that's all informing me. And that's where I come from now. You've got someone talking about the, the, the thing that matters without pissing them off so much that they don't say anything else.And you feel like you feel superior as an interviewer. I got them. But in reality, you got nothing[00:46:57] Nathan:Right.[00:46:57] Andrew:Cares.[00:46:58] Nathan:I think that's a really hard line of talking about the things that are difficult and like the actual, maybe things that someone did wrong or lessons that they learned without just like barely dipping into it for a second. And I liked the format of tipping them off in like full transparency.So on this show, I had someone on who I really, really respect his name's Dickie Bush. He's one of the earlier episodes in this series and in it, he, okay. Yeah. So in that interview, one thing that I knew is that his, the first version of his course plagiarized text from another friend, Sean McCabe, actually Shaun's company edits is Podcast and all that.And I've known both of them for, for quite a while. I've known Sean for like, I dunno, six, seven years or something. And I was like, struggling with how to bring that up. And I wanted from the like founder, transparent journey, that sort of thing I wanted it brought up because I, I actually like, I'm happy to talk about like some pretty major things that I've screwed up and what I've learned from it.And I just think it makes a better conversation. And then from the interview side, I don't feel good, like doing an interview and not touching on that, but I didn't tip Dickey off to it. And I, that was one of the things that I've regretted that he gave a great answer. He talked about the lessons that he learned from it.It was really, really good, but I felt bad that I didn't set him up for the most success in like in setting up. And part of that, part of it is because even at the start of the interview, I was still wrestling with now, I'm not going to bring that up that, ah, maybe I should, it wouldn't be an authentic interview if I didn't like wrestling with that, I hadn't figured out my own, like made my own decision until we were in the middle of it.And so I didn't, I didn't set anybody up for success. And so it's an interesting line.[00:48:52] Andrew:It happens. And it seems like I'm now in the point of your transcript, where you, where you ask him, it's a 31 minutes into the interview. I think his response is great. He came in and he took responsibility for it. He says, yeah, that, that, that was a dramatic mistake, or a drastic mistake on my side and caught up in it.He wasn't the most articulate here and he'd repeated words. Like I, I, a couple of times, so I could see that he probably was uncomfortable with it. but I think his answer was great. I think, I believe that we all are broadcasting out, whether we know it or not, our intentions and where we're coming from, as some people are really good at faking it.And so I'm not going to talk about the outliers and some people are so uncomfortable that they're messing up the transmission, but for the most part almost. broadcasting our intentions. If you walk into that, Nathan, with the, I got to get him because he, he got one of my friends and I need him to finally get his comeuppance.He's going to pick up on that. And truthfully, it's such a small thing for a person like you who's, who's already a likable person. You have a lot to offer people, right? As far as like promotion and everything else, it will be forgiven, but it'll be picked up on, it's also something that people could pick up on, which is Nathan really want to know this thing.It's been bothering him for a while. And if you could, just, before you asked the question, say, where am I coming from with this? And know that the audience will mostly pick up on it. And obviously people are gonna like read in whatever they feel like, but trust that the vast majority of us understand, I think it'll work[00:50:21] Nathan:Yeah,[00:50:22] Andrew:You don't have to even tip. You don't have to tip off, but it does help. It, it definitely helps.[00:50:26] Nathan:It's interesting. I was watching an interview with, Jordan Peterson who wrote 12 rules for life. He's like a very controversial figure. And I was just often these controversies pass by, on Twitter and other places. And I realized like, oh, I don't understand them. And rather than jumping on one side or the other, at least try to like dive in a little bit and understand it.So watching this interview, and I can't remember, I think it was some major Canadian TV show or something, and that you would tell the interview was just trying to nail him it every possible chance, like whatever he said, just like dive in. And, so I think you're right, that you see the intention, like in that case, you would see the, the interview, his intention was specifically to try to trip him up in his words.And then in other cases where it's like, This is something that, you know, if you take the other approach, this is something that's been bothering me, or I want to talk about it. Like I genuinely want, you know, to ask or learn from this. It's a very different thing.[00:51:20] Andrew:I think people pick up on it. I remember you, you mentioned Seth Godin. I remember interviewing him when he wrote the book tribes back before people had online communities. And I didn't just say, okay. All our heroes, all the best entrepreneurs just run their businesses. Then don't run a tribe. I brought out books.I said, here's a book about Warren buffet. Here's the book by Sam Walton. The Walmart here's a book by Ted Turner became a multi-billionaire to creating all these, these media empires didn't have communities. They don't have tribes. And now you're telling me that in addition to my job, I also have to go and build out a tribe.It feels like, you know, an extra job. That just seems right for the social first. This just sounds right on social media and you could actually see. He's watching me as I'm saying it, and he's smiling, he's watching it because he's trying to read me, is this like what I get wrapped up? Is this going to be some kind of thing where some guy's going to try to be in the next Gawker media?Or is, is this a safe place? We're all doing that constantly. And then he also saw, okay, this is someone who really wants to understand this. And he's challenging me. I like a challenge. And you could see him smile with like, this is what I'm here for. And so I think when you come at it from a good point of view, people can see it and then you can go there and you can go there and you can go there and it will be shocking to you and them and the audience, how far you go. But when you're coming from that genuine place, they get, they get it.They want it.[00:52:44] Nathan:Yeah, that's good.I want to talk about longevity in like the online world. I think that so many people that I started following in say 2007, 2008, nine, and then I didn't start creating myself until 2011. most of them aren't around anymore. Like a lot of the big blogs, Yeah, just so many that I can think of.They're not around anymore. They're not doing this. You're at a point where like you started messaging in some form in what? 20, sorry, 2004 to somewhere in there and then interviews.[00:53:17] Andrew:Yeah, I keep saying 16. It's like, yeah. 2004 is when I started the interview started 2007 ish somewhere there. Give or take a year. yeah, long. I, I will say that there are parts of my work that I am burned out on right now. This year has been that, but I'm not on the interview. And the reason I'm not is because I do enjoy conversations.I hated them for a long time in my life because I just didn't know how to have them, how to have it make sense. I also didn't give myself permission to take the conversation where I wanted it to go. And it helps now to say, I can talk to anyone about anything. That's an opportunity that, that feels fun because I know how to do it.It's an opportunity to, it feels like, like, you know how everyone's so happy. You can go to YouTube and you could get the answer to anything. Well, I could go to anybody and I could get the answer to anything and talk about how they didn't have a customized to me, YouTube, not customized thing to me, I'm watching Gotham chess on YouTube.He's teaching me how to play chess, but he will not customize to the fact that every time I get into a car con defense, all the pieces like bunched over to my side. But if he and I did an interview, or if I do an interview with an tomorrow's entrepreneur, it's going to be about, here's the thing I'm trying to deal with.How did you get past that? Talk to me about what you're up to there.[00:54:31] Nathan:Yeah, that's definitely energizing. Okay. But what are the things that you're burnt out on? Because I think a lot of people are seeing that burnout. And so I guess first, what are you burned out on? And then second, we can go from there into like, what are you changing and how are you managing.[00:54:46] Andrew:I'm burned out on parts of the business behind, behind Mixergy I'm burned out on. I was aspiring to like unbelievable greatness with the, with the course part of it, with the courses, it didn't get there and I'm tired of trying to make it into this thing. That's going to be super big. I'm tired of that.[00:55:10] Nathan:His greatness there, like linda.com? Like what, what was that?[00:55:15] Andrew:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. She was one of my first interviewees and, and so yeah, I saw the model there and I am frustrated that I didn't get to that and I, I don't have a beat myself up type a perso

Enjoy part two of this classic episode series where Andrew Warner from Mixergy interviews Russell on the ClickFunnels startup story! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Alright everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope yesterday you enjoyed part one of the Clickfunnels start up story interview at the Dry Bar Comedy Club with Andrew. I love the way he interviews. I hope you're enjoying it as well. So we are going to dive right into part 2 of 4 from this interview. And again, if you're liking these interviews please, please, please take a snapshot on your phone, post it on Facebook, Instagram or wherever you do your posting and tag me in it and use hashtag marketing secrets so I can see that you're talking about it. I'd appreciate it. With that said, we're going to queue up the theme song, when we come back we'll start in on part 2 of the interview of the Clickfunnels start up story. Andrew: You know what, I've talked to a few of your people because they're so good, that Dave could really be a leader on his own, start his own company, he's got his own online reputation, the whole thing. I keep asking him, “Why do you work for Russell? What is it that lets you be second to Russell who's getting all the attention?” And I've got some answers and would you mind coming up here and in a second I'm going to ask you. No, come back here and I'll just bring you up in a second. Actually, you know what, it looks like you can come pretty fast. I thought that it would be a little bit more, I thought it would be more of a thing to get mics on people. And I realized if Collette can do it…. Okay honestly, dig down deep. Why did you want to stick with him? Brent: Through all that stuff? Andrew: Yeah. Brent: I don't know. My heart was just racing. As he started telling that story, it just makes me sick to my stomach. As you scroll down and look at all those businesses of, for years, every 30 days it was a new business launch, it was crazy. Always why I stuck with him is, you know, Collette mentioned that spirit. He's absolutely different than anybody else I've ever met in my entire life, a friend…. Andrew: Of what? Give me an example. Let's be more specific. Back then, not today, he's got this track record, adoring fans, I asked him to do an interview, everyone wants him on his podcast. Back then when it wasn't going so well. Give me an example that let you know this is a guy who's going to figure it out eventually, and I could possibly go down, watch him go to jail, but I believe that it's going to go up. Brent: Well, at the time when things are crashing, I saw him as the income stopped. And he had started a program that he loves, obviously wrestling, and he brought an Olympic wrestling coach to Boise and he brought all these amazing wrestlers to Boise and he wanted them to be able to train and get to the Olympics, he wanted to help them get there and live their dream. And you know, he was supplementing, at the time the business was paying for these guys to do a little bit of work for us, they weren't doing very much for us. But I saw him out of his own pocket, be paying for these guys. And I knew how hard he wanted to support them. And there was a day when my wife and I, we were struggling because I just, I was concerned about him financially because he was supplementing and trying to keep this business afloat, and we talked about things and I came into the office one day and I asked if I could talk to him and sat down, and kind of spoke in language that I normally don't speak in, I might have dropped a bomb or two. It was, I was so concerned I pretty much told him, I can't keep doing this, I can't keep watching you every month pulling the money that you saved for your family to try keep jobs for other people. I said, I'll leave if that helps you. And the fact that he stuck with people, that was the true character of who he is. Andrew: He kept paying your salary, kept sticking with you, and also constantly launching things. Brent: Absolutely. Andrew: That you've never seen anyone implement like him. Brent: You know some people call it faith or belief. He has this inherit belief that he can truly change people's lives. Andrew: That's it, even when he wasn't fully in control of his own. Alright thanks. Thanks for, give him a big round of applause, thanks for being up here. I feel like this is the thing that helped get you out of trouble and potentially, and getting out of potential jail. What is this business that you created? Russell: So we, during the time of that and this there was time, probably a year and a half-two years that we were trying all sorts of stuff. And again, marginal success on a lot of them, nothing like….and this was the one, we actually, this is before….I've done a lot of webinars and speaking from seminars and stuff like that, but this is right when auto webinars were coming out and Mike Filsaime had just done an auto webinar and a couple of people, and I felt like that was going to be the future thing. So we're like, what do we do the webinar on? We didn't know. And we flew out to Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher's office for two days and picked their brains, went to Rich Schefren's office for a day. And then on the flight home, I'm just like sick to my stomach. I couldn't figure out what's the thing that we could serve people the most right now. And on the flight home I was like, all the internet marketing stuff we do works for internet marketers, but we're way better at like local business. Like if a chiropractor implements like two things it works. Or if a dentist does it. But I was like, I don't want to be the guy going to dentists, but we could be the backbone for that. What if we created an opportunity where people could come in, we train them, and we connect them with the right tools and resources, and then they could go and sell to chiropractors and dentists. And that's what the idea was. We turned it into an offer called Dotcom Secrets Local, it was a thousand dollar offer at the time. Did the auto webinar for it, and it launched and within 90 days it had done over a million dollars, which covered payroll taxes and then got us out of debt to the point now we could stop and dream again, and believe again and try to figure out what we really wanted to do. Andrew: Dotcom Secrets Local to a million dollars within 90 days. And how did you find the people who were going to sign up for this. A lot of us will have landing pages like this, we'll have these funnels. How did you get people in this funnel? Russell: And this was pre-Facebook too, so it wasn't just like go turn Facebook ads on. But you know, one thing that happened over all the years prior to this, I'd met a lot of people and go to a lot of events and get to know everybody. And everyone I met, you know, you meet a lot of people who have lists, they have followings, they have different things like that. I just got to know them really, really well. And in the past I'd promote a lot of their products, they'd promote my products. So we had this one and we did it first to my list, and it did really well. So I then I then called them and I'm like, “Okay, I did this webinar to my list, these are the numbers, it did awesome. Do you want to do it to your list as well?” and they're like, “Oh sure. Sounds like a great offer.” We did that list and it did good for them too. And we told the next person and then, if you have a webinar, it's kind of like the speaking circuit, if you're good at speaking then people will put you all over the place. Same thing, if you have a webinar that converts, then it's easy to get a lot of people to do it. So as soon as that one worked and it converted well, then people lined up and we kept doing it, doing it, and doing it, and it was really quick to get to that spot pretty quick. Andrew: I went on Facebook recently and I saw webinar slides from Russell Brunson, I went to the landing page, Clickfunnels page and I signed up and I'll talk about it maybe later, but I bought it and I know other people did. And I've seen other people say, “Russell's webinar technique is the thing that just works.” I'm wondering how did you figure it out? How did you come across this and how did you build it and make it work? Russell: Yeah, so rewind back probably ten years prior to this, when I was first learning this whole business. I went to my very first internet marketing seminar ever, it was Armand Morin's Big Seminar. Did you ever go to Big Seminar? Anyway, I went to it and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be like, I showed up with my laptop and I was going to like, I thought we were a bunch of geeks going to do computer stuff. And the first person got onstage and started speaking and at the end of it he sold like a two thousand dollar thing. And I'd never seen this before. I saw people jumping up and running to the back of the room to buy it. And I'm like this little 23 year old kid and I was counting the people in the back of the room, doing the math, you know doing the math and I'm like, that guy made 60 thousand dollars in an hour. And the next guy gets up and does his presentation and I watch this for three days and I was like, I'm super shy and introverted, but that skill is worth learning. If someone can walk on a stage and make 100,000 dollars in an hour, I need to learn how to do that. So I started that. And it was really bad for the first probably 8 or 9 months. I tried to do it. I'd go to places and I just, I couldn't figure it out. And then I started asking the people who were good because you go there and all the speakers kind of talk and hang out, and I'd watch the ones that always had the people in the back of the room. And I'd ask them questions, I'm like, ‘What did I do wrong? I feel like I'm teaching the best stuff possible.' And they're like, ‘That's the problem, it's not about teaching, it's about stories, telling stories and breaking beliefs.” So for about the next two years I was about once a month flying somewhere to speak, and then when I would go I would meet all the speakers and find out what they were doing and I'd watch them and I'd take notes on the different things they were saying and how they were saying it. And then I kept taking my presentation and tweaking it, and tweaking it, and tweaking it. And you know, now 12 years later, I've done so many webinars, it kind of worked. The process works now. Andrew: You are a really good story teller and I've seen you do that. I've seen you do it, and I know you're going to do it even more. What I'm curious about is the belief system that you were saying, breaking people's…what was it that you said? Russell: False beliefs. Andrew: Breaking people's false beliefs. How do you understand what, like as you look at this audience, do you understand what some of our false beliefs are? Russell: If I knew what I was selling I could figure out for sure. Andrew: If you knew what you were selling. Alright we're selling this belief that entrepreneurship does work. And I know we're all going to go through a period like some of the ones that you had where things just aren't' working, other people aren't believing in us, almost failure, what is at that point, the belief system that we have to work on? What do you recognize in people here? Russell: So usually there's three core beliefs that people have. The first is about the opportunity itself right. So like with entrepreneurship, the first belief that people have is could I actually be an entrepreneur? And some people who actually believe that, they're like, I'm in. And that's an easy one. But for those who don't there's a reason and usually it's like, they saw a parent that tried to do it. And the parent tried to be an entrepreneur and wasn't able to and they saw that failure. Or they'd tried it in the past and they failed or whatever it is. So it's showing them that even if you tried in the past and showed different ways, let me tell you a story. And for me, I could show 800 different failures. But eventually you get better and you get better until eventually you have the thing that actually works. So I tell a story to kind of show that, to make them believe that, oh my gosh maybe I just need to try a couple more times. And then the second level of beliefs is like beliefs about themselves like, I'm sure it works for you, Russell or Andrew but not for me because I'm different. It's helping them figure out their false beliefs, and if you can break that, then the third one is like, then they always want to blame somebody else. “I could lose lots of weight but my wife buys lots of cupcakes and candy. So I could do it, but because of that I can't.” So then it's like figuring out how you break the beliefs of the external people that are going to keep them. Andrew: And how would you know what that is? How would you know who the external influencers are, that your potential customers are worried about? Russell: I think for most of us it's because the thing that we're selling is something that, one of our, Nick Barely said “Our mess becomes our message.” For most of us, what we're selling is the thing we struggled with before. So I think back about me as 12 year old Russell, watching Don Lepre, like what would have kept me back? And I would have been like, I can't afford classified ads. Like if you showed me how I can, if you could tell me a story of, oh my gosh I could afford classified ads. Now that belief's gone and now I'm going to go give you money. It's just kind of remembering back to the state that you were in when you were trying to figure this stuff out as well. Andrew: Who was who I met when we were coming in here that said that they were part of Russell's mastermind and I asked how much did you pay and he said, “I'm not telling you.” I can't see who that person was. But I know you got a mastermind, people coming in. I'm wondering how much of it comes from that? working with people directly, seeing them in the group share openly, and then saying, ah, this is what my potential customers are feeling? Russell: 100% At this point especially. People always ask me, “Where do you go, Russell, to learn stuff?” and it's my mastermind, because I bring, all the people come in and they're all in different industries and you see that. You see the road blocks that hold people back, but then they also share the stuff that they're doing and it's like, that's 100% now where I get most of my intell. Because people ask me, “Why, you're a software company, why in the world do you have a mastermind group?” And it's because the reason why our software is good is because we have the mastermind group, where they're all crowd sourcing, they're doing all this stuff and bringing back to us, and then we're able to make shifts and pivots based on that. Andrew: Somehow we just lost Apple, but that's okay. It's back, good. There we go. This is the next thing, Rippln. Russell: I forgot I put that one in there. Andrew: I went back and I watched the YouTube video explaining it. It's a cartoon. I thought it was a professional voice over artist, no it's you. You're really comfortable getting on stage and talking. But basically in that video that you guys can see in the top left of your screen, it's Russell, through this voice over and cartoon explaining, “Look, you guys were around in the early days of Facebook, you told your friends, here's how many friends you would have had, for the sake of numbers, let's say you told 7 people and let's say they told 7 people, and that's how things spread. And the same thing happened with Pinterest and all these other sites. Don't you ever wish that instead of making them rich by telling stuff, you made yourself rich? Well here's how Rippln comes in.” and then you created it. And Rippln was what? Russell: So Rippln was actually one of my friend's ideas, and he is a network marketing guy so he's like, “We're building a network marketing program.” And I'd like dabbled in network marketing, never been involved with it. And he came and was like, “Hey, be part of this.” And I was like, “No.” and then he sold us on the whole pitch of the idea, network marketers are really good at selling you on vision, and I was like, “Okay, that sounds awesome.” And then my role was to write the pitch. So I wrote the pitch, did the voice over, did the video, and then we launched it and we had in six weeks, it was like 1.5 million people signed up for Rippln, and I thought it was like, “This is the thing, I'm done.” My down line was like half of the company. And I was like, when this thing goes live, it's going to be amazing. And then the tech side of it, what we're promising people in this video that the main developer ended up dying and he had all the code. So they had to restart building it in the middle of this thing. And it was like thing after thing and by the time it finally got done, everyone had lost interest. It was like 8 months later, and I think the biggest check I got was like $47 for the whole thing. And I was just like, I spent like 6 months of my life. It was like a penny a day. It was horrible. Andrew: I'm just wondering whether I should ask this or not. Russell: Go for it. Andrew: So I stopped asking about religion, but I get the sense that you believe that there's a spiritual element here that keeps you from seeing, my down line is growing, the whole thing is working. Is any of this, does it feel divinely inspired to you? Be honest. Russell: Business or…? Andrew: Business, life, success, things working out, so much so that when you're at your lowest, you feel like there's some divine guidance, some divine hand that says, “Russell, it's going to work out. Russell, I don't know if I got you, but I know you got this. Go do it.” I feel that from you and I… Russell: I 100% believe that. Andrew: You do? Russell: Every bit of it. I believe that God gives us talents and gifts and abilities and then watches what we do with it. And if we do good then he increases our capacity to do more. And if we do good with it, increases our capacity… Andrew: if you earn it? If you do good, if you use what God gives you, then you get more. So you think that that is your duty to do that and if you don't do more, if you don't pick yourself up after Rippln, you've let down God. Do you believe that? Is that it? Or that you haven't lived up to… Russell: Yeah, I don't think I feel that I've let down God, but I definitely feel like I haven't lived up to my potential, you know. But also I feel like a lot of stuff, as I was putting together that document, all the pages, it's interesting because each one of them, looking in hindsight, each built upon the next thing and the next thing. And there's twice we tried to build Clickfunnels and each one was like the next level, and each one was a stepping stone. Like Rippln, if I wouldn't have done Rippln, that was my very first viral video we ever created. I learned how to pitch things and when we did the Clickfunnels initial sales video, because I had done this one, I knew how to do this one. So for me, it's less of like I let down God, as much as like, it's just like the piece, what are you going to do with this? Are you going to do something with it? It doesn't mean it's going to be successful, but it means, if you do well with this, then we're going to increase your capacity for the next step, and the next thing. But we definitely, especially in times at the office, we talk about this a lot. We definitely feel that what we do is a spiritual mission. Andrew: You do? Russell: 100% yeah. I don't think that it's just like, we're lucky. I think the way that the people have come, the partnerships, how it was created is super inspired. Andrew: You know what, a lot of us are selling things that are software, PDF guide, this, that, it's really hard to find the bigger mission in it. You're finding the bigger mission in Funnels. What is that bigger mission? Really, how do you connect with it? Because you're right, if you can find that bigger meaning then the work becomes more meaningful and you're working with become, it's more exciting to work with them, more meaningful to do it. How did you find it in funnels? What is the meaning? Russell: So for us, and I'm thinking about members in my inner circle, so right now as of today I think we had 68,000 members in Clickfunnels, which is the big number we all brag about. But for me, that's 68,000 entrepreneurs, each one has a gift. So I think about, one member I'll mention his name's Chris Wark, he runs chrisbeatcancer.com and Chris was someone who came down with cancer and was given a death sentence, and instead of going through chemo therapy he decided, ‘I'm going to see if I can heal myself.” And he did. Cleared himself of cancer. And then instead of just being like, ‘cool, I'm going to go back into work.' He was like, ‘Man I need to help other people.' So he started a blog and started doing some things, and now he's got this thing where he's helped thousands and thousands of people to naturally cure themselves of cancer. And that's one of our 68,000 people. Andrew: See, you're focusing on him where I think a lot of us would focus on, here's one person who's just a smarmy marketer, and here's who's creating….but you don't. That's not who you are. Look, I see it in your eyes and you're shaking your head. That's not it at all, it's not even a put on. Russell: It's funny because for me it's like, I understand because I get it all the time from people all the time, “Oh he's this slimy marketer.” The first time people meet me, all the time, the first time their introduced, that's a lot of times the first impression. And they get closer and they feel the heart and it's just like, “oh my gosh, I had you wrong.” I get that all the time from people. Andrew: Brian, sorry Ryan and Brad, are either of them here? Would one of you come up here? Yeah, come on up. Because they felt that way, right? Russell: I don't know about them. I know who you're thinking about. Audience member: I think it's Theron. {Crosstalk} Andrew: No, no stay up here, as long as you're here. Theron come on up. Audience member: If it wasn't me, then I'm going to sit back in the seats. Andrew: Are you nervous? Audience member: A little bit. Is there another Ryan and Brad? Russell: Different story, another story. Do you want to come up? Theron had no idea we were bringing him onstage. Andrew: Come on over here. Let's stand in the center so we can get you on camera. Does this help? Russell: Do you want me to introduce Theron real quick? Andrew: Yeah, please. Russell: So Theron is one of the Harmon Brothers, they're the ones who did the viral video for us. Andrew: I heard that you felt that he was a scam. What was the situation and how did you honestly feel? Theron: I don't know that it…well… Russell: Be honest. Theron: I know, I don't think that I felt that Clickfunnels itself was a scam, Russell: Just Russell. Theron: But that it just felt like so many of the ways that the funnels were built and the types of language they were using, it felt like it was that side of the internet. So I became very, well basically we were kind of in a desperate situation, where we had a video that had not performed and not worked out the way we wanted it to work out. Andrew: The video that you created for Russell? Theron: No, another client. Andrew: Another client, okay. Theron: And so our CEO had used Clickfunnels product to help drive, I think it was attendance to a big video event. And so he had some familiarity with the product, so he goes to Russell and at the same time Russell's like, “I'm a big fan of you guys.” So he's coming to us and these things are happening. Yeah, it was almost the same day. So we're thinking like this and we're like, “Well, they seem to really know how to drive traffic, to really know how to drive conversion. And we feellike we know how to drive conversion as well, but for some reason we missed it on this one.” So we're like, “Well, let's do a deal.” Andrew: What do you mean missed it? Okay, go ahead, go through to the end. Theron: We were failing our client. We were failing on our client. We weren't giving them and ROI. So we said, let's do a deal with Russell and we'll have our internal team compete with his team, and we're humble enough to say we're failing our client. We want our client to succeed, let's bring in their team and see if they can make a funnel that can bring down the cost for acquisition, bring up the return on investment for our client, and they were able to do it.  And then we said, what we'll do is we'll write a script, we'll take you through our script writing process, but we don't want to do the video because we don't want to be affiliated with you. Russell: The contract said, “You can't tell anyone ever that the Harmon Brothers wrote the script for you.” Andrew: Wow, because you didn't want to be associated with something that you thought was a little too scammy for… Theron: Yeah, we just didn't want our brand kind of brought down to their brand, which is super arrogant and really wrong headed. And in any case, so we go into this script writing training, and I wasn't following his podcast, I wasn't listening to enough. I mean, read Dotcom Secrets, those kinds of things are like, well, there's some really valuable stuff there, this is really interesting. A nd then as we got to know each other and really start to connect, like you said, heart to heart. And to feel what he's really about, and the types of team, the people that he surrounds himself with, I was like, wow, these are really, really good people. And they have a mission here that they feel, just like we feel that about our own group. And in any case, by the end of that 2 day retreat we're like, all off in private saying, “First of all we like what we've written and second of all, we'd really like to work with these guys and I think we're plenty happy being connected to them and associated with them.” So it's been a ride and a blessing ever since. Russell: We're about to start video number two with them. Andrew: You what? Russell: We're about to start video number two with them right now. Theron: Anyway, we love them. Andrew: Alright, give him a big round, yeah. Thanks. This was pivotal for you guys. Lead Pages, there's an article about how Lead Pages raised $5 million, and you saw that and you thought… Russell: Well, what happened was Todd, so Todd's the cofounder of Clickfunnels, and he was working with us at the time and he would fly to Boise about once a quarter and we'd work on the next project, the new idea. And that morning he woke up and he saw that, and then he forwarded me the article. And he's Atlanta, so it's east coast, so I'm still in bed. And he's got a 4 hour flight to Boise and he's just getting angry, because Todd is, Todd's like a genius. He literally, when he landed in Boise and he saw me and he's like, “We can build Lead Pages tonight. I will clone, I will beat it. We're going to launch this, this week while we're here.” He's that good of a developer. He, I've never seen someone code as fast and as good as him. He's amazing. So he comes in, he's mad because he's like, “This is the stupidest site in the world. We could literally clone this. Let's just do it.” And I'm like, “Yes, let's clone it.” And we're all excited and then he's like, “Do you want me to add any other features while I'm doing it.” And I'm like, ‘Oh, yes. We should do this, and we should do this.” And then the scope creep from the marketer comes, and we ended up spending an entire week in front of a whiteboard mapping out all my dreams, “If we could do this and this and what kind of shopping cart, and we could do upsells, and what if we could actually move things on the page instead of just having it sit there. And what if…” and Todd's just taking notes and everything. And then he's like, “Okay, I think I could do this.” And he told me though, “If I do this, I don't want to do this as an employee. I want to do this as a partner.” And at first I was like, ugh, because I didn't want to do the partnership thing. And then the best decision I've ever made in my life, outside of marrying my wife was saying yes to Todd. Said, “Let's do it.” And then he flew home and built Clickfunnels. Andrew: Wow. And this is after trying software so much. I have screenshots of all the different, it's not even worth going into it, of all the different products you created, there was one about, it was digital repo, right? Russell: That was a good idea. Andrew: Digital Repo, man. What was…. Russell: So I used to sell ebooks and stuff, and people would steal it and email it to their friends and I'd get angry. Andrew: Can I read this? How to protect every type of lowlife and other form of human scum from cheating you from the profits you should be making by hijacking, stealing, and illegally prostituting….your online digital products. Russell: Theron, why did you think we were…..Just kidding. So no, it was this really cool product where you take an ebook and it would protect it, and if somebody gave it to their friend, you could push a button and it would take back access. It was like the coolest thing in the world, we thought. Andrew: And there was software that was going to attach your ad to any other software that was out there. There was software that was going to, what are some of the other ones? It's going to hit me later on. But we're talking about a dozen different pieces of software, a dozen different attempts at software. What's one? I thought somebody remembered one of them. They're just the kind of stuff you'd never think of. There was one that was kind of like Clickfunnels, an early version of Clickfunnels for landing pages. Why did you want to get into software when you were teaching, creating membership sites? What was software, what was drawing you to it? Russell: I think honestly, when I first learned this internet marketing game, the first mentor I had, the first person I saw was a guy name Armand Morin and Armand had all these little software products. Ecover generator, sales letter generator, everything generator, so that's what I kept seeing. I was like, I need to create software because he made software. In fact, I even shifted my major from, I can't remember what it was before, to computer information systems, because I was like, I'm going to learn how to code, because I couldn't afford programmers. And then that's just kind of what I'd seen. And then I was trying to think of ideas for software. And every time I would get stuck, instead of trying to find something to do, I'd be like let me just, let me just hire a guy to go build that, and then I can sell it somebody else as well. So that's kind of how it started. Andrew: And it was a lot of different tools, a lot of different attempts, and then this one was the one that you went with. I think this is an early version of the home page, basically saying, “Coming soon, sign up.” The first one didn't work out. And then you saw someone else on a forum who had a version that was better. What was his name? This is I think Dylan Jones. Russell: Oh you're talking about the editor, yes. Okay, so the story was, Todd built the first version of Clickfunnels and Dylan who became one of our cofounders, I'd been working with Dylan as a designer for about 6 years prior. And he his hands, and we talked about this earlier, he is the best designer I've ever seen in my life, he is amazing. He would, but he's also, this is the pros and cons of Dylan. He, I've talked about this onstage at Funnel Hacking Live, so I have no problem saying this. He would agree. But I would give him a project, and I couldn't hear, he wouldn't respond back to me, and I wouldn't hear from him for 2 or 3 months, and then one day in the middle of the night he messaged me, “Hey, rent's due tomorrow. Do you have any projects for me?” and I'd be so mad at him, and I look back at every project we'd done in the last 3 or 4 months that other designers had done, and I'd just resend him all the lists, just boom, give him 12 sites and I'd go to bed. I'd wake up 5 or 6 hours later and all of them were done, perfectly, amazing, some of the best designs ever, and then he'd send me a bill for whatever, and then I'd send him money and he'd disappear again for like 5 months. And I could never get a hold of him. I'd be like, “I need you to tweak something.” And he was just gone. And that was my pattern for 6 years with him. And then fast forward to when Todd and I were building Clickfunnels, we were at Traffic Conversion and we were up in the hotel room at like 3 in the morning trying to, we were on dribble.com trying to find a UI designer to help us, and we couldn't get a hold of all these people, and all the sudden on Skype Dylan popped in, I saw his thing pop up. I was like, “Todd, Dylan just showed up.” And he's like, “Do you think he needs some money?” I'm like, “I guarantee he needs money.” So I'm like, “Hey man!” And Dylan messaged back. He's like, “Hey.” I'm like, “Do you need some money?” and he's like, “Yeah, you got any projects?” I'm like, “Yes, I do.” I'm like, “We built this cool thing, it's called Clickfunnels, but the UI is horrible and the editor is horrible and there's any way we could hire you for a week to fly to Boise and just do all the UI for every single page of the app?” and he kind of said no at first because, “I'm developing my own website builder. I might have spent 6 years on it, so I can't do it.” Andrew: It was this, he had something that was essentially Clickfunnels, right? Russell: No, no. It was just pages though, so it'd just do pages, there was no funnels. Andrew: Right, closer to Lead Pages. Russell: Lead Pages, but amazing. You could move things around. But he did tell me that, “I'm working on something.” So eventually we got him to come, flew to Boise, spent a week, did all of our UI, and then we went and launched our beta to my list. So we launched the beta, got some signups, and then a week before the launch, launch was supposed to happen, all the affiliates were lined up, everything was supposed to happen. He sends me, I don't know if he sent you the video, but he sends me this little video that's like a 30 second video of him demoing the editor he'd built. And I probably watched that video, I don't know, at least a hundred times. And I was just sick to my stomach because I was like, “I hate Clickfunnels right now. I can't move things on my pages, I can't do anything.” I was just, and I sent it to Todd and then I didn't hear from him for like an hour, and he messaged me back and he's like, “I'm pissed.” I'm like, “Me too.” And I'm like, “What do we do?” and I was like, “We have to have his editor or I don't even want to sell this thing.” And I called Dylan and I'm like, “Would you be willing to sell?” and he's like, “No, I'm selling it and we're going to sell it for $100.” It was like $100 this one time for this editor that designed all the websites. I was like, “Dude, it is worth so much more than that. Please?” and we spent all night going back and forth negotiating. And finally, we came to like, “I will give you this editor if I can be a cofounder and be a partner.” And Todd and I sat there, brainstorming and figured out if we could do it and finally said yes. And then him and Dylan and Todd flew back to Boise and for the next week just sat in a room with a whole bunch of caffeine and figured out how to smush Dylan's editor into Clickfunnels to get the editor to be the editor that you guys know today.

On this episode... - NFL Draft Talk w/ Andrew - Who reached and who landed steals? - Derby and Golf talk

Thank You: harrys.com/badfriends & http://helixsleep.com/badfriends & https://www.doordash.com code: badfriends & http://meundies.com/badfriends Subscribe to our YouTube: http://bit.ly/BadFriendsYouTube Follow Alex Wark: https://www.instagram.com/warkalex 0:00 Happy 2021! 4:21 Our Review: Gary Oldman in Tiptoes 11:15 We Call Our Fan With Gigantism 24:32 "Could I Date Your Sister?" 28:15 Our Christmas Gifts 35:05 Jerry Seinfeld: The Other Story 37:55 Our Review: The Yorkshire Ripper 41:15 The Snow Chains Incident 48:45 Bobby vs Andrew: Who's More Valuable? 51:50 The Newlyweds Game More Bobby Lee TigerBelly: https://www.youtube.com/tigerbelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobbyleelive/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/bobbyleelive Tickets: https://bobbyleelive.com/ More Andrew Santino Whiskey Ginger: https://www.youtube.com/andrewsantinowhiskeyginger Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheetosantino/ Twitter: https://Twitter.com/cheetosantino Tickets: http://www.andrewsantino.com/ More Bad Friends iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bad-friends/id1496265971 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badfriendspod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/badfriends_pod Official Website: http://badfriendspod.com/ Opening Credits and Branding: https://www.instagram.com/joseph_faria & https://www.instagram.com/jenna_sunday Credit Sequence Music: http://bit.ly/RocomMusic // https://www.instagram.com/rocom Character Design: https://www.instagram.com/jeffreymyles Produced by George Kimmel & Bryce Hallock - 7EQUIS Podcast Producers: Jenna Sunde, Joe Faria, Andrés Rosende

BACK AT IT WITH ANOTHER WEEKLY PODCAST, FROM THE BOYS AT THE ALOHA PRESS.   THIS WEEK THEY DIVE DEEP INTO THE WINNER OF THE PGA TOUR, ANDREW WHO, AND EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS ON THIS WEEKS NEWS AND EXPERIENCES.  CHECK OUT THE NEW ALOHA PRESS STORE AT WWW.THEALOHAPRESS.COM  

On today’s episode you will hear part 2 of 4 of Russell’s interview with Andrew Warner about the Clickfunnels start up story. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear in this part of the story: Find out from an employee of Russell’s, Brent, why he stuck with the company through potential bankruptcy and jail time for Russell. Find out who thought Clickfunnels seemed like a scammy company and therefore didn’t want others to know they’d worked with them. And hear how Clickfunnels actually finally came to fruition after many other failed software company attempts. So listen here to hear how Todd and Dylan became cofounders of Clickfunnels and together got the project off the ground. ---Transcript--- Alright everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope yesterday you enjoyed part one of the Clickfunnels start up story interview at the Dry Bar Comedy Club with Andrew. I love the way he interviews. I hope you’re enjoying it as well. So we are going to dive right into part 2 of 4 from this interview. And again, if you’re liking these interviews please, please, please take a snapshot on your phone, post it on Facebook, Instagram or wherever you do your posting and tag me in it and use hashtag marketing secrets so I can see that you’re talking about it. I’d appreciate it. With that said, we’re going to queue up the theme song, when we come back we’ll start in on part 2 of the interview of the Clickfunnels start up story. Andrew: You know what, I’ve talked to a few of your people because they’re so good, that Dave could really be a leader on his own, start his own company, he’s got his own online reputation, the whole thing. I keep asking him, “Why do you work for Russell? What is it that lets you be second to Russell who’s getting all the attention?” And I’ve got some answers and would you mind coming up here and in a second I’m going to ask you. No, come back here and I’ll just bring you up in a second. Actually, you know what, it looks like you can come pretty fast. I thought that it would be a little bit more, I thought it would be more of a thing to get mics on people. And I realized if Collette can do it…. Okay honestly, dig down deep. Why did you want to stick with him? Brent: Through all that stuff? Andrew: Yeah. Brent: I don’t know. My heart was just racing. As he started telling that story, it just makes me sick to my stomach. As you scroll down and look at all those businesses of, for years, every 30 days it was a new business launch, it was crazy. Always why I stuck with him is, you know, Collette mentioned that spirit. He’s absolutely different than anybody else I’ve ever met in my entire life, a friend…. Andrew: Of what? Give me an example. Let’s be more specific. Back then, not today, he’s got this track record, adoring fans, I asked him to do an interview, everyone wants him on his podcast. Back then when it wasn’t going so well. Give me an example that let you know this is a guy who’s going to figure it out eventually, and I could possibly go down, watch him go to jail, but I believe that it’s going to go up. Brent: Well, at the time when things are crashing, I saw him as the income stopped. And he had started a program that he loves, obviously wrestling, and he brought an Olympic wrestling coach to Boise and he brought all these amazing wrestlers to Boise and he wanted them to be able to train and get to the Olympics, he wanted to help them get there and live their dream. And you know, he was supplementing, at the time the business was paying for these guys to do a little bit of work for us, they weren’t doing very much for us. But I saw him out of his own pocket, be paying for these guys. And I knew how hard he wanted to support them. And there was a day when my wife and I, we were struggling because I just, I was concerned about him financially because he was supplementing and trying to keep this business afloat, and we talked about things and I came into the office one day and I asked if I could talk to him and sat down, and kind of spoke in language that I normally don’t speak in, I might have dropped a bomb or two. It was, I was so concerned I pretty much told him, I can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep watching you every month pulling the money that you saved for your family to try keep jobs for other people. I said, I’ll leave if that helps you. And the fact that he stuck with people, that was the true character of who he is. Andrew: He kept paying your salary, kept sticking with you, and also constantly launching things. Brent: Absolutely. Andrew: That you’ve never seen anyone implement like him. Brent: You know some people call it faith or belief. He has this inherit belief that he can truly change people’s lives. Andrew: That’s it, even when he wasn’t fully in control of his own. Alright thanks. Thanks for, give him a big round of applause, thanks for being up here. I feel like this is the thing that helped get you out of trouble and potentially, and getting out of potential jail. What is this business that you created? Russell: So we, during the time of that and this there was time, probably a year and a half-two years that we were trying all sorts of stuff. And again, marginal success on a lot of them, nothing like….and this was the one, we actually, this is before….I’ve done a lot of webinars and speaking from seminars and stuff like that, but this is right when auto webinars were coming out and Mike Filsaime had just done an auto webinar and a couple of people, and I felt like that was going to be the future thing. So we’re like, what do we do the webinar on? We didn’t know. And we flew out to Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher’s office for two days and picked their brains, went to Rich Schefren’s office for a day. And then on the flight home, I’m just like sick to my stomach. I couldn’t figure out what’s the thing that we could serve people the most right now. And on the flight home I was like, all the internet marketing stuff we do works for internet marketers, but we’re way better at like local business. Like if a chiropractor implements like two things it works. Or if a dentist does it. But I was like, I don’t want to be the guy going to dentists, but we could be the backbone for that. What if we created an opportunity where people could come in, we train them, and we connect them with the right tools and resources, and then they could go and sell to chiropractors and dentists. And that’s what the idea was. We turned it into an offer called Dotcom Secrets Local, it was a thousand dollar offer at the time. Did the auto webinar for it, and it launched and within 90 days it had done over a million dollars, which covered payroll taxes and then got us out of debt to the point now we could stop and dream again, and believe again and try to figure out what we really wanted to do. Andrew: Dotcom Secrets Local to a million dollars within 90 days. And how did you find the people who were going to sign up for this. A lot of us will have landing pages like this, we’ll have these funnels. How did you get people in this funnel? Russell: And this was pre-Facebook too, so it wasn’t just like go turn Facebook ads on. But you know, one thing that happened over all the years prior to this, I’d met a lot of people and go to a lot of events and get to know everybody. And everyone I met, you know, you meet a lot of people who have lists, they have followings, they have different things like that. I just got to know them really, really well. And in the past I’d promote a lot of their products, they’d promote my products. So we had this one and we did it first to my list, and it did really well. So I then I then called them and I’m like, “Okay, I did this webinar to my list, these are the numbers, it did awesome. Do you want to do it to your list as well?” and they’re like, “Oh sure. Sounds like a great offer.” We did that list and it did good for them too. And we told the next person and then, if you have a webinar, it’s kind of like the speaking circuit, if you’re good at speaking then people will put you all over the place. Same thing, if you have a webinar that converts, then it’s easy to get a lot of people to do it. So as soon as that one worked and it converted well, then people lined up and we kept doing it, doing it, and doing it, and it was really quick to get to that spot pretty quick. Andrew: I went on Facebook recently and I saw webinar slides from Russell Brunson, I went to the landing page, Clickfunnels page and I signed up and I’ll talk about it maybe later, but I bought it and I know other people did. And I’ve seen other people say, “Russell’s webinar technique is the thing that just works.” I’m wondering how did you figure it out? How did you come across this and how did you build it and make it work? Russell: Yeah, so rewind back probably ten years prior to this, when I was first learning this whole business. I went to my very first internet marketing seminar ever, it was Armand Morin’s Big Seminar. Did you ever go to Big Seminar? Anyway, I went to it and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be like, I showed up with my laptop and I was going to like, I thought we were a bunch of geeks going to do computer stuff. And the first person got onstage and started speaking and at the end of it he sold like a two thousand dollar thing. And I’d never seen this before. I saw people jumping up and running to the back of the room to buy it. And I’m like this little 23 year old kid and I was counting the people in the back of the room, doing the math, you know doing the math and I’m like, that guy made 60 thousand dollars in an hour. And the next guy gets up and does his presentation and I watch this for three days and I was like, I’m super shy and introverted, but that skill is worth learning. If someone can walk on a stage and make 100,000 dollars in an hour, I need to learn how to do that. So I started that. And it was really bad for the first probably 8 or 9 months. I tried to do it. I’d go to places and I just, I couldn’t figure it out. And then I started asking the people who were good because you go there and all the speakers kind of talk and hang out, and I’d watch the ones that always had the people in the back of the room. And I’d ask them questions, I’m like, ‘What did I do wrong? I feel like I’m teaching the best stuff possible.’ And they’re like, ‘That’s the problem, it’s not about teaching, it’s about stories, telling stories and breaking beliefs.” So for about the next two years I was about once a month flying somewhere to speak, and then when I would go I would meet all the speakers and find out what they were doing and I’d watch them and I’d take notes on the different things they were saying and how they were saying it. And then I kept taking my presentation and tweaking it, and tweaking it, and tweaking it. And you know, now 12 years later, I’ve done so many webinars, it kind of worked. The process works now. Andrew: You are a really good story teller and I’ve seen you do that. I’ve seen you do it, and I know you’re going to do it even more. What I’m curious about is the belief system that you were saying, breaking people’s…what was it that you said? Russell: False beliefs. Andrew: Breaking people’s false beliefs. How do you understand what, like as you look at this audience, do you understand what some of our false beliefs are? Russell: If I knew what I was selling I could figure out for sure. Andrew: If you knew what you were selling. Alright we’re selling this belief that entrepreneurship does work. And I know we’re all going to go through a period like some of the ones that you had where things just aren’t’ working, other people aren’t believing in us, almost failure, what is at that point, the belief system that we have to work on? What do you recognize in people here? Russell: So usually there’s three core beliefs that people have. The first is about the opportunity itself right. So like with entrepreneurship, the first belief that people have is could I actually be an entrepreneur? And some people who actually believe that, they’re like, I’m in. And that’s an easy one. But for those who don’t there’s a reason and usually it’s like, they saw a parent that tried to do it. And the parent tried to be an entrepreneur and wasn’t able to and they saw that failure. Or they’d tried it in the past and they failed or whatever it is. So it’s showing them that even if you tried in the past and showed different ways, let me tell you a story. And for me, I could show 800 different failures. But eventually you get better and you get better until eventually you have the thing that actually works. So I tell a story to kind of show that, to make them believe that, oh my gosh maybe I just need to try a couple more times. And then the second level of beliefs is like beliefs about themselves like, I’m sure it works for you, Russell or Andrew but not for me because I’m different. It’s helping them figure out their false beliefs, and if you can break that, then the third one is like, then they always want to blame somebody else. “I could lose lots of weight but my wife buys lots of cupcakes and candy. So I could do it, but because of that I can’t.” So then it’s like figuring out how you break the beliefs of the external people that are going to keep them. Andrew: And how would you know what that is? How would you know who the external influencers are, that your potential customers are worried about? Russell: I think for most of us it’s because the thing that we’re selling is something that, one of our, Nick Barely said “Our mess becomes our message.” For most of us, what we’re selling is the thing we struggled with before. So I think back about me as 12 year old Russell, watching Don Lepre, like what would have kept me back? And I would have been like, I can’t afford classified ads. Like if you showed me how I can, if you could tell me a story of, oh my gosh I could afford classified ads. Now that belief’s gone and now I’m going to go give you money. It’s just kind of remembering back to the state that you were in when you were trying to figure this stuff out as well. Andrew: Who was who I met when we were coming in here that said that they were part of Russell’s mastermind and I asked how much did you pay and he said, “I’m not telling you.” I can’t see who that person was. But I know you got a mastermind, people coming in. I’m wondering how much of it comes from that? working with people directly, seeing them in the group share openly, and then saying, ah, this is what my potential customers are feeling? Russell: 100% At this point especially. People always ask me, “Where do you go, Russell, to learn stuff?” and it’s my mastermind, because I bring, all the people come in and they’re all in different industries and you see that. You see the road blocks that hold people back, but then they also share the stuff that they’re doing and it’s like, that’s 100% now where I get most of my intell. Because people ask me, “Why, you’re a software company, why in the world do you have a mastermind group?” And it’s because the reason why our software is good is because we have the mastermind group, where they’re all crowd sourcing, they’re doing all this stuff and bringing back to us, and then we’re able to make shifts and pivots based on that. Andrew: Somehow we just lost Apple, but that’s okay. It’s back, good. There we go. This is the next thing, Rippln. Russell: I forgot I put that one in there. Andrew: I went back and I watched the YouTube video explaining it. It’s a cartoon. I thought it was a professional voice over artist, no it’s you. You’re really comfortable getting on stage and talking. But basically in that video that you guys can see in the top left of your screen, it’s Russell, through this voice over and cartoon explaining, “Look, you guys were around in the early days of Facebook, you told your friends, here’s how many friends you would have had, for the sake of numbers, let’s say you told 7 people and let’s say they told 7 people, and that’s how things spread. And the same thing happened with Pinterest and all these other sites. Don’t you ever wish that instead of making them rich by telling stuff, you made yourself rich? Well here’s how Rippln comes in.” and then you created it. And Rippln was what? Russell: So Rippln was actually one of my friend’s ideas, and he is a network marketing guy so he’s like, “We’re building a network marketing program.” And I’d like dabbled in network marketing, never been involved with it. And he came and was like, “Hey, be part of this.” And I was like, “No.” and then he sold us on the whole pitch of the idea, network marketers are really good at selling you on vision, and I was like, “Okay, that sounds awesome.” And then my role was to write the pitch. So I wrote the pitch, did the voice over, did the video, and then we launched it and we had in six weeks, it was like 1.5 million people signed up for Rippln, and I thought it was like, “This is the thing, I’m done.” My down line was like half of the company. And I was like, when this thing goes live, it’s going to be amazing. And then the tech side of it, what we’re promising people in this video that the main developer ended up dying and he had all the code. So they had to restart building it in the middle of this thing. And it was like thing after thing and by the time it finally got done, everyone had lost interest. It was like 8 months later, and I think the biggest check I got was like $47 for the whole thing. And I was just like, I spent like 6 months of my life. It was like a penny a day. It was horrible. Andrew: I’m just wondering whether I should ask this or not. Russell: Go for it. Andrew: So I stopped asking about religion, but I get the sense that you believe that there’s a spiritual element here that keeps you from seeing, my down line is growing, the whole thing is working. Is any of this, does it feel divinely inspired to you? Be honest. Russell: Business or…? Andrew: Business, life, success, things working out, so much so that when you’re at your lowest, you feel like there’s some divine guidance, some divine hand that says, “Russell, it’s going to work out. Russell, I don’t know if I got you, but I know you got this. Go do it.” I feel that from you and I… Russell: I 100% believe that. Andrew: You do? Russell: Every bit of it. I believe that God gives us talents and gifts and abilities and then watches what we do with it. And if we do good then he increases our capacity to do more. And if we do good with it, increases our capacity… Andrew: if you earn it? If you do good, if you use what God gives you, then you get more. So you think that that is your duty to do that and if you don’t do more, if you don’t pick yourself up after Rippln, you’ve let down God. Do you believe that? Is that it? Or that you haven’t lived up to… Russell: Yeah, I don’t think I feel that I’ve let down God, but I definitely feel like I haven’t lived up to my potential, you know. But also I feel like a lot of stuff, as I was putting together that document, all the pages, it’s interesting because each one of them, looking in hindsight, each built upon the next thing and the next thing. And there’s twice we tried to build Clickfunnels and each one was like the next level, and each one was a stepping stone. Like Rippln, if I wouldn’t have done Rippln, that was my very first viral video we ever created. I learned how to pitch things and when we did the Clickfunnels initial sales video, because I had done this one, I knew how to do this one. So for me, it’s less of like I let down God, as much as like, it’s just like the piece, what are you going to do with this? Are you going to do something with it? It doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful, but it means, if you do well with this, then we’re going to increase your capacity for the next step, and the next thing. But we definitely, especially in times at the office, we talk about this a lot. We definitely feel that what we do is a spiritual mission. Andrew: You do? Russell: 100% yeah. I don’t think that it’s just like, we’re lucky. I think the way that the people have come, the partnerships, how it was created is super inspired. Andrew: You know what, a lot of us are selling things that are software, PDF guide, this, that, it’s really hard to find the bigger mission in it. You’re finding the bigger mission in Funnels. What is that bigger mission? Really, how do you connect with it? Because you’re right, if you can find that bigger meaning then the work becomes more meaningful and you’re working with become, it’s more exciting to work with them, more meaningful to do it. How did you find it in funnels? What is the meaning? Russell: So for us, and I’m thinking about members in my inner circle, so right now as of today I think we had 68,000 members in Clickfunnels, which is the big number we all brag about. But for me, that’s 68,000 entrepreneurs, each one has a gift. So I think about, one member I’ll mention his name’s Chris Wark, he runs chrisbeatcancer.com and Chris was someone who came down with cancer and was given a death sentence, and instead of going through chemo therapy he decided, ‘I’m going to see if I can heal myself.” And he did. Cleared himself of cancer. And then instead of just being like, ‘cool, I’m going to go back into work.’ He was like, ‘Man I need to help other people.’ So he started a blog and started doing some things, and now he’s got this thing where he’s helped thousands and thousands of people to naturally cure themselves of cancer. And that’s one of our 68,000 people. Andrew: See, you’re focusing on him where I think a lot of us would focus on, here’s one person who’s just a smarmy marketer, and here’s who’s creating….but you don’t. That’s not who you are. Look, I see it in your eyes and you’re shaking your head. That’s not it at all, it’s not even a put on. Russell: It’s funny because for me it’s like, I understand because I get it all the time from people all the time, “Oh he’s this slimy marketer.” The first time people meet me, all the time, the first time their introduced, that’s a lot of times the first impression. And they get closer and they feel the heart and it’s just like, “oh my gosh, I had you wrong.” I get that all the time from people. Andrew: Brian, sorry Ryan and Brad, are either of them here? Would one of you come up here? Yeah, come on up. Because they felt that way, right? Russell: I don’t know about them. I know who you’re thinking about. Audience member: I think it’s Theron. {Crosstalk} Andrew: No, no stay up here, as long as you’re here. Theron come on up. Audience member: If it wasn’t me, then I’m going to sit back in the seats. Andrew: Are you nervous? Audience member: A little bit. Is there another Ryan and Brad? Russell: Different story, another story. Do you want to come up? Theron had no idea we were bringing him onstage. Andrew: Come on over here. Let’s stand in the center so we can get you on camera. Does this help? Russell: Do you want me to introduce Theron real quick? Andrew: Yeah, please. Russell: So Theron is one of the Harmon Brothers, they’re the ones who did the viral video for us. Andrew: I heard that you felt that he was a scam. What was the situation and how did you honestly feel? Theron: I don’t know that it…well… Russell: Be honest. Theron: I know, I don’t think that I felt that Clickfunnels itself was a scam, Russell: Just Russell. Theron: But that it just felt like so many of the ways that the funnels were built and the types of language they were using, it felt like it was that side of the internet. So I became very, well basically we were kind of in a desperate situation, where we had a video that had not performed and not worked out the way we wanted it to work out. Andrew: The video that you created for Russell? Theron: No, another client. Andrew: Another client, okay. Theron: And so our CEO had used Clickfunnels product to help drive, I think it was attendance to a big video event. And so he had some familiarity with the product, so he goes to Russell and at the same time Russell’s like, “I’m a big fan of you guys.” So he’s coming to us and these things are happening. Yeah, it was almost the same day. So we’re thinking like this and we’re like, “Well, they seem to really know how to drive traffic, to really know how to drive conversion. And we feellike we know how to drive conversion as well, but for some reason we missed it on this one.” So we’re like, “Well, let’s do a deal.” Andrew: What do you mean missed it? Okay, go ahead, go through to the end. Theron: We were failing our client. We were failing on our client. We weren’t giving them and ROI. So we said, let’s do a deal with Russell and we’ll have our internal team compete with his team, and we’re humble enough to say we’re failing our client. We want our client to succeed, let’s bring in their team and see if they can make a funnel that can bring down the cost for acquisition, bring up the return on investment for our client, and they were able to do it.  And then we said, what we’ll do is we’ll write a script, we’ll take you through our script writing process, but we don’t want to do the video because we don’t want to be affiliated with you. Russell: The contract said, “You can’t tell anyone ever that the Harmon Brothers wrote the script for you.” Andrew: Wow, because you didn’t want to be associated with something that you thought was a little too scammy for… Theron: Yeah, we just didn’t want our brand kind of brought down to their brand, which is super arrogant and really wrong headed. And in any case, so we go into this script writing training, and I wasn’t following his podcast, I wasn’t listening to enough. I mean, read Dotcom Secrets, those kinds of things are like, well, there’s some really valuable stuff there, this is really interesting. A nd then as we got to know each other and really start to connect, like you said, heart to heart. And to feel what he’s really about, and the types of team, the people that he surrounds himself with, I was like, wow, these are really, really good people. And they have a mission here that they feel, just like we feel that about our own group. And in any case, by the end of that 2 day retreat we’re like, all off in private saying, “First of all we like what we’ve written and second of all, we’d really like to work with these guys and I think we’re plenty happy being connected to them and associated with them.” So it’s been a ride and a blessing ever since. Russell: We’re about to start video number two with them. Andrew: You what? Russell: We’re about to start video number two with them right now. Theron: Anyway, we love them. Andrew: Alright, give him a big round, yeah. Thanks. This was pivotal for you guys. Lead Pages, there’s an article about how Lead Pages raised $5 million, and you saw that and you thought… Russell: Well, what happened was Todd, so Todd’s the cofounder of Clickfunnels, and he was working with us at the time and he would fly to Boise about once a quarter and we’d work on the next project, the new idea. And that morning he woke up and he saw that, and then he forwarded me the article. And he’s Atlanta, so it’s east coast, so I’m still in bed. And he’s got a 4 hour flight to Boise and he’s just getting angry, because Todd is, Todd’s like a genius. He literally, when he landed in Boise and he saw me and he’s like, “We can build Lead Pages tonight. I will clone, I will beat it. We’re going to launch this, this week while we’re here.” He’s that good of a developer. He, I’ve never seen someone code as fast and as good as him. He’s amazing. So he comes in, he’s mad because he’s like, “This is the stupidest site in the world. We could literally clone this. Let’s just do it.” And I’m like, “Yes, let’s clone it.” And we’re all excited and then he’s like, “Do you want me to add any other features while I’m doing it.” And I’m like, ‘Oh, yes. We should do this, and we should do this.” And then the scope creep from the marketer comes, and we ended up spending an entire week in front of a whiteboard mapping out all my dreams, “If we could do this and this and what kind of shopping cart, and we could do upsells, and what if we could actually move things on the page instead of just having it sit there. And what if…” and Todd’s just taking notes and everything. And then he’s like, “Okay, I think I could do this.” And he told me though, “If I do this, I don’t want to do this as an employee. I want to do this as a partner.” And at first I was like, ugh, because I didn’t want to do the partnership thing. And then the best decision I’ve ever made in my life, outside of marrying my wife was saying yes to Todd. Said, “Let’s do it.” And then he flew home and built Clickfunnels. Andrew: Wow. And this is after trying software so much. I have screenshots of all the different, it’s not even worth going into it, of all the different products you created, there was one about, it was digital repo, right? Russell: That was a good idea. Andrew: Digital Repo, man. What was…. Russell: So I used to sell ebooks and stuff, and people would steal it and email it to their friends and I’d get angry. Andrew: Can I read this? How to protect every type of lowlife and other form of human scum from cheating you from the profits you should be making by hijacking, stealing, and illegally prostituting….your online digital products. Russell: Theron, why did you think we were…..Just kidding. So no, it was this really cool product where you take an ebook and it would protect it, and if somebody gave it to their friend, you could push a button and it would take back access. It was like the coolest thing in the world, we thought. Andrew: And there was software that was going to attach your ad to any other software that was out there. There was software that was going to, what are some of the other ones? It’s going to hit me later on. But we’re talking about a dozen different pieces of software, a dozen different attempts at software. What’s one? I thought somebody remembered one of them. They’re just the kind of stuff you’d never think of. There was one that was kind of like Clickfunnels, an early version of Clickfunnels for landing pages. Why did you want to get into software when you were teaching, creating membership sites? What was software, what was drawing you to it? Russell: I think honestly, when I first learned this internet marketing game, the first mentor I had, the first person I saw was a guy name Armand Morin and Armand had all these little software products. Ecover generator, sales letter generator, everything generator, so that’s what I kept seeing. I was like, I need to create software because he made software. In fact, I even shifted my major from, I can’t remember what it was before, to computer information systems, because I was like, I’m going to learn how to code, because I couldn’t afford programmers. And then that’s just kind of what I’d seen. And then I was trying to think of ideas for software. And every time I would get stuck, instead of trying to find something to do, I’d be like let me just, let me just hire a guy to go build that, and then I can sell it somebody else as well. So that’s kind of how it started. Andrew: And it was a lot of different tools, a lot of different attempts, and then this one was the one that you went with. I think this is an early version of the home page, basically saying, “Coming soon, sign up.” The first one didn’t work out. And then you saw someone else on a forum who had a version that was better. What was his name? This is I think Dylan Jones. Russell: Oh you’re talking about the editor, yes. Okay, so the story was, Todd built the first version of Clickfunnels and Dylan who became one of our cofounders, I’d been working with Dylan as a designer for about 6 years prior. And he his hands, and we talked about this earlier, he is the best designer I’ve ever seen in my life, he is amazing. He would, but he’s also, this is the pros and cons of Dylan. He, I’ve talked about this onstage at Funnel Hacking Live, so I have no problem saying this. He would agree. But I would give him a project, and I couldn’t hear, he wouldn’t respond back to me, and I wouldn’t hear from him for 2 or 3 months, and then one day in the middle of the night he messaged me, “Hey, rent’s due tomorrow. Do you have any projects for me?” and I’d be so mad at him, and I look back at every project we’d done in the last 3 or 4 months that other designers had done, and I’d just resend him all the lists, just boom, give him 12 sites and I’d go to bed. I’d wake up 5 or 6 hours later and all of them were done, perfectly, amazing, some of the best designs ever, and then he’d send me a bill for whatever, and then I’d send him money and he’d disappear again for like 5 months. And I could never get a hold of him. I’d be like, “I need you to tweak something.” And he was just gone. And that was my pattern for 6 years with him. And then fast forward to when Todd and I were building Clickfunnels, we were at Traffic Conversion and we were up in the hotel room at like 3 in the morning trying to, we were on dribble.com trying to find a UI designer to help us, and we couldn’t get a hold of all these people, and all the sudden on Skype Dylan popped in, I saw his thing pop up. I was like, “Todd, Dylan just showed up.” And he’s like, “Do you think he needs some money?” I’m like, “I guarantee he needs money.” So I’m like, “Hey man!” And Dylan messaged back. He’s like, “Hey.” I’m like, “Do you need some money?” and he’s like, “Yeah, you got any projects?” I’m like, “Yes, I do.” I’m like, “We built this cool thing, it’s called Clickfunnels, but the UI is horrible and the editor is horrible and there’s any way we could hire you for a week to fly to Boise and just do all the UI for every single page of the app?” and he kind of said no at first because, “I’m developing my own website builder. I might have spent 6 years on it, so I can’t do it.” Andrew: It was this, he had something that was essentially Clickfunnels, right? Russell: No, no. It was just pages though, so it’d just do pages, there was no funnels. Andrew: Right, closer to Lead Pages. Russell: Lead Pages, but amazing. You could move things around. But he did tell me that, “I’m working on something.” So eventually we got him to come, flew to Boise, spent a week, did all of our UI, and then we went and launched our beta to my list. So we launched the beta, got some signups, and then a week before the launch, launch was supposed to happen, all the affiliates were lined up, everything was supposed to happen. He sends me, I don’t know if he sent you the video, but he sends me this little video that’s like a 30 second video of him demoing the editor he’d built. And I probably watched that video, I don’t know, at least a hundred times. And I was just sick to my stomach because I was like, “I hate Clickfunnels right now. I can’t move things on my pages, I can’t do anything.” I was just, and I sent it to Todd and then I didn’t hear from him for like an hour, and he messaged me back and he’s like, “I’m pissed.” I’m like, “Me too.” And I’m like, “What do we do?” and I was like, “We have to have his editor or I don’t even want to sell this thing.” And I called Dylan and I’m like, “Would you be willing to sell?” and he’s like, “No, I’m selling it and we’re going to sell it for $100.” It was like $100 this one time for this editor that designed all the websites. I was like, “Dude, it is worth so much more than that. Please?” and we spent all night going back and forth negotiating. And finally, we came to like, “I will give you this editor if I can be a cofounder and be a partner.” And Todd and I sat there, brainstorming and figured out if we could do it and finally said yes. And then him and Dylan and Todd flew back to Boise and for the next week just sat in a room with a whole bunch of caffeine and figured out how to smush Dylan’s editor into Clickfunnels to get the editor to be the editor that you guys know today.

In this week's #INM #podcast Andrew(Who owns a sex-doll) and Dakarai introduce their #LifeStrange segment where they discuss news stories from around the world and delve into the strangeness of life. Stan #Lee https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/stan-lee-dead-marvel-comics-real-life-superhero-was-95-721450 Rich People Looking for Aliens https://www.space.com/42384-breakthrough-initiatives-alien-life-search-mission.html Mud is basically alien https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/11/bubbling-pool-mud-moving-california-dont-know-why-geology/ Y'all creatives are screwed https://nypost.com/2018/11/09/robots-will-soon-match-humans-in-creativity-emotional-intelligence/

This week I'm joined by the wonderful Dr. Al Cummins. We chat about his beginnings in spirit work, what led him to the saints, and we also get into his Geomancy work.  Connect with Al through his website and be sure to check out his awesome tumblr as well. We are also proud to carry his new book A Book of The Magi and Cypriana: Old World which he is featured in.  If you are interested in supporting this podcast though our Patreon you can do so here. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. Thanks for listening! If you dig this please subscribe and share with those who would like it. Andrew   If you are interested in booking time with Andrew either in Toronto or by phone or Skype from anywhere click here.   Trascription   ANDREW: So, welcome to another episode of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. Today, I am on the line with Al Cummins, and I've been following Al's work for some while now. I've been looking at his look at geomancy, and I've been following some of his work on saints and other things, as well as a bunch of collaborative projects that he's done with people who I hope will certainly be future guests of the show as well. So, but, in case people are just coming to this discussion and don't know who you are, Al, why don't you give us a quick introduction? AL: Sure, sure. Hello! Well, firstly, thank you for having me on; it's great to get to finally chat to you. ANDREW: Yeah, my pleasure! AL: My background is kind of one of those dual forking pincer movement things of academic training in the history of magic, which I did through the University of Leeds, and then did my doctorate at the University of Bristol and Professor Ronald Hutton about early modern British magic primarily, but some wider European influences as well. It's inevitable when you're talking about Renaissance magic that you're going to bring in, you know, the big guns of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and things like that, so obviously there's a Continental influence going on there. And my other, you know, the other prong of that two-forked pincer movement, is I've been a practitioner and a diviner and a consultant sorcerer for a number of years and I love the interplay of the two, as I'm sure many of your listeners do as well. That false dichotomy that is often set up between those that just study and those that just do, and I've never met a serious magician who wasn't also someone who had made a real effort to learn about his or her field and be up on the current academic research. Likewise, in academic conferences, it's often, after a couple drinks, you know, people are a lot more … looser and willing to talk about what they've actually tried and things like that. And so, I like existing in that kind of gray place between being both a practitioner and a scholar of this stuff. ANDREW: I think that that … I mean, it's kind of one of the … I mean, maybe it's been a plague of every era, but I feel like it's especially a plague of the modern era, or the time in which we find ourselves. AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: This sort of duality or multiplicity between things, you know? AL: Mmm. ANDREW: I remember trying, I periodically go through these sort of journeys [static 00:02:36 through [00:02:44] when I talk about how I talk about that. A sort of bridge of divination, philosophy, psychology, you know, and magic, you know? AL: Right! ANDREW: To me, they're indistinguishable from each other when we look at them as a whole. And we can draw lines in different places, and that can be functional, but to me, there's no division between doing a piece of magic and talking about somebody's psychology or thinking about somebody's psychology as it's involved. You know? AL: They certainly don't have to be mutually exclusive. And one of the things I like to riff on when we're talking about … I was asked recently to talk … whether I subscribed more to a spirit model or a psychological model, and I kind of did that classic attack the question thing of refusing to ally with one or the other, based off the fact that, you know, psychology, psychiatry, these are both, as far as I'm aware, 15th century French terms. It is not anachronistic for us to look at the magic of the 16th and 17th centuries as being something that combined an understanding that there were spirits and there was also pyschology, and that someone who was mentally unwell in some way, or had an impairment of mental or cognitive or emotional faculties, might also attract spirits who might haunt them. Likewise, the Devil could work through, if you read these heresyographies, could work through the agency of madness, and induce it. And so, rather than producing this very simple set of straw men of either at all in your head, or at all the actions of spirits, or energy, or however you want to frame your model of quote unquote objective magic. Big heavy scare quote fingers there! [laughs] You are inevitably bringing in an aspect of both, so one of the most famous spiritual physicians, kind of a cunning man, certainly an astrologer physician, an angel summoner, and magician, Dr. Richard Napier of the mid-17th century, who was regarded as an expert in the impairments of mental faculties, people came from a long way away to work out whether ... you know … would ask him to work out whether or not the patient was possessed, haunted, under the influence of witchcraft, or the ministrations of the Devil himself, or was physically unwell, producing brain disease symptoms, or was mentally unwell after dealing with a trauma of some kind, or any combination of those factors, right? ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: These were not mutually exclusive things. And in fact, you know, often if you were suffering from one, you would probably start to develop the symptoms, at least, if not the underlying pathologies of the others as well. And so, one of the ways Richard Napier worked around this was divination through both astrology and geomancy, and also through summoning the Archangel Raphael, who he seems to have had a very very close relationship with, and ... [laughs] Such a close relationship! On the one hand, people like William Lily, one of the most famous astrologers of the 17th century and John Aubrey, who was a sort of Fortean of his time, helped repopularize Stonehenge and things like that—both of them visited Napier relatively frequently, apparently, or at least several times, and remarked that he would go and had an angel closet of some kind, which was not an uncommon way of these practitioners to do their thing, apparently, and would, you know, stand there and invoke angels for an hour or two, and then go and do his consultations. But the thing I like pointing out about Napier is that such was his close relationship with the Archangel Raphael that he would call up the medicine of God to do these kind of consults for him or these referrals, and frequently disagree with the angel's diagnosis! [laughing] Which I love! This is not someone who is an iconoclast, he's not doing this to like, you know, raise a middle finger to God or anything. He was regarded as an incredibly pious practitioner, but I think that's an interesting set of relationships in terms of how to navigate a spirit and psychological model and also use spirits to investigate that and to not necessarily believe everything of the signal that you are given, right? Or everything of the noise that you are given? To be able to discern which parts of that seem more sensible than others. ANDREW: Well, I think that, I mean there are a couple ... There's a bunch of things now that you say that are really interesting. But let's talk about the first one first, which is, I think that it's something that is unfortunate, and it doesn't seem very common these days, is this sort of capacity to differentiate or understand the distinction between what might be spirit … purely spirit ... I mean, as you say, it's a muddle, right? AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: But what parts of it, or in what ways might we be able to discern, is this a spirit-caused situation? Is this a psychiatric-caused, you know ... or all these other models that you talked about? You know? And it's one of those things where, I remember working with clients and sort of receiving instructions from the spirits that I work with about how to interpret what I see as their energy ... AL: Mmm. ANDREW: ... in ways that point between these different pieces, right? AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: ... who have this certain kind of energy pattern ... You know, they would more often than not have these more psychiatric issues or so on ... AL: Yeah. ANDREW: ... unless [laughs], unless, they were like super hard core meditators and really really evolved ... AL: Hmm. ANDREW: ... at which point those patterns would kind of merge, you know, which was always very interesting to me, you know? AL: That's fascinating. ANDREW: There might be ways in which people had, you know, like, people talk about premature kundalini awakenings or, you know, other kinds of things, that there are these states that might be helpful later on ... AL: Hmm. ANDREW: But which, when they emerge unbidden or they emerge alongside other kind of things just cause tremendous problems, you know? AL: Right. And that's interesting from a perspective of a consultant and a diviner for someone, and for clients, especially, where, you know, you have identified the pattern of energies at work, it's now, often, I find, your job to find a way that that's useful, right? ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: Which I think is ... you know … sometimes, the useful thing is to say, that would be a decision that would end in rack and ruin, it doesn't look like it's going to help you, right? Or, it's ... I mean, I read with geomancy very often for clients, so—I primarily read playing cards and geomancy these days, and there are figures that can fall that portray danger, deceit, the potential for addictive behaviors, and a variety of other overly impassioned vice kind of like problems. And it's … the figure is Rubeus, and refers to the spilling of blood. It's considered bad for all things except that which requires bloodshed. Now, that means from a medieval/early modern perspective, it was good for phlebotomy, and it could occasionally be useful for voiding ill humors through that bloodletting stuff, and there are kind of some equivalencies that you can find, like nowadays, other kinds of … it can recommend going to see your doctor, that kind of thing. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: But finding a way for Rubeus to do something useful in a chart ... if it's spilling something, you know, I have before now found myself having to take a bottle of red wine to a crossroads and upend that, as a means of, like, placating a spirit or working through a set of very martial energies and workings, for that to be useful. That set of virtues, that pattern was present once the divination confirmed it, and especially with the attendant spirit contact around it, it was also bringing that thing in, right? And so, finding a way that that's useful in some way, to be either the thing that is subject to it or the thing that is enacting it in the world, finding a way for that violence, in this case, to be useful in some way, to break an old pattern or to stand up to someone or any number of those other things. ANDREW: So, when people come to you for a geomancy reading, are they people who are going about their lives and are just inclined towards divination? Or do you find that it's people who are sort of inclined towards more, I don't know, for lack of a better word, sort of esoteric or kind of occult and philosophical kind of approaches to life already? AL: Yeah, I wonder that myself sometimes. I think a materialist overculture, if I can, you know, briefly jump on a soapbox, produces a statistical slide towards people who are already aware of magic and, you know, think it's worth paying a professional to divine for them. So, often there's someone with some kind of practice or some kind of set of beliefs, or even just, you know, have witnessed things happened or have had experiences that lead them to suggest that there's something valid for them in this. I get a range of people. I get some people who are, you know, some of my clients are, you know, classic people seeking divination, at a crossroads in their life. You know, recently divorced, or wanting to change career, or wanting to do something different at that crossroads? I also work with a lot of artists and event coordinators and things like that to plan events and ritual and ceremony and works of art, as well, and it's something that I like to point out to people who are, use the idea of a professional diviner or consultant being someone that would be useful to have on board a project, which is that this doesn't have to be, in much the same way that other magicians talk about magical work, doesn't have to be triage, doesn't have to be "oh god oh god oh god, emergency emergency, I need to, you know, pay my rent," or something. Those are valid things … ANDREW: Sure. AL: … to get help about and to need to deal with, but so much better is prevention than cure, right? ANDREW: Well, I, you know, not to say that we might not find ourselves in a martial sign that requires some kind of bloodletting or other kind of, you know, easing but, yeah, but if we're on top of it, on the regular ... AL: Right. ANDREW: You know when the thermometer starts to rise, we can deal with it then, before it kind of gets too high, right? AL: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I find divination and consultation something that I end up doing for people who are not necessarily looking to massively change their lives as much as enrich them, right? It's not just people who are unhappy and it's certainly not just people who are desperate, which I think is also a little kind of … It's a bugbear of mine that, the idea that you would only ever consult, you know, a card reader or a professional astrologer if you were, like, desperate in some way, and I think that's a very unfair characterization of ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: ... people. Most, you know, the vast majority of my clients are people who take their divination very seriously, who employ it in a very mature and responsible manner in order to have better … to … rather than abnegate responsibility, to take that responsibility on more, and that's, you know, the role of a diviner, right? Is someone that can help someone chart the hauling coherence of influences around them, and empower them further, to be able to make better decisions and live their better life, right? ANDREW: Mmmhmm. And especially, I mean, to kind of come full circle here, if the people are dealing with a muddle of unknown problems and consequences, you know ... AL: Mmm. ANDREW: ... from spirits to mental health to physical health to whatever ... AL: Mmm. ANDREW: ... being able to sort that out, if the person is willing to take ownership of that and work with it, and go from there. I mean, that can be one of the most profound things ever, right? You know? AL: Absolutely. ANDREW: You actually can remove this spiritual influence, and then what you're left with, you know, while still no small thing, is then adjustable by other realms, you know, or other practices. AL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know? It's really, it's quite wonderful, you know, and .... And sometimes even knowing just, you know, knowing that it's in fact none of those, it's like, "Hey, you know what? This is not a spiritual thing." AL: Right. ANDREW: "Let's go back for this, you're good," you know? And that in itself is quite a liberation, because it gives an answer, even if it's, you know, even if then it leaves other questions, right? AL: Yeah, exactly, yeah! And it's also, you know, one of the things about divination as diagnostic technique is that it's bespoke, right? It's for that individual, at that particular time in their lives, with these particular choices and influences and patterns of virtue around them, right? So, it's by necessity a site-specific, time-specific, person-specific thing. It deals with … there is a ritual that is going on between diviner and client there. You are locating the client as a locus about which these forces are present, right? And in naming them, we are also kind of bringing them to light in some way and apprehending them in some way ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: ... and that hopefully becomes useful as well. And this is especially useful when diagnosis becomes not just prognosis but also an attempt at treatment and remediation, magically speaking, which is something that I think is very important, is not just telling someone, "this is the nature of your circumstances and conditions, good luck with that" [laughs], and signing out, so much as saying, "okay, well, you know, this is the difficulty in your career path at the moment. Let's see whether we can boost the positive influences that say that yes, there is a path for you in this career," for instance, for that kind of question, and also, "let us try and address this issue here in the tenth house with your current boss, who is clearly attempting to undermine you in some way," right? So, you can look at both the negative factors and attempt to rebalance them or address them, or secure the positive factors of the reading as well. And I think it's very easy for us to jump immediately on our, you know, cleansing baths and things like that when a reading comes up negatively, and, as well we should, but to kind of not think we need to do anything if a reading suggests that there is a good path ahead, and something I, you know, I sometimes recommend is, you know, if you get a really great reading, you should secure that in some way. Right? You should nail that thing down, and, like ... ANDREW: Yeah. AL: Keep that good luck in your pocket, in some way. ANDREW: Well, it's like in cowry shell divination, and divinations within the Orisha traditions, right? They say that the Iré, the form of blessing that can arise ... AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: That it is, that it can be tremendously fleeting, right? AL: Right. ANDREW: And that in fact, you know, when we see that come, when we see that there are blessings, and especially if they're sort of predicted firmly and there's nothing else to do about it … Well, the thing to do about it is still to be, like, diligent and tend it and pay attention to it … AL: Yes. ANDREW: … and, you know, and maybe make offerings even though they weren't specifically asked for ... AL: Yes. ANDREW: ... you know, to do things, to really hold that and sustain that, because, you know, it can turn to negativity so simply and so easily, and then it's very hard to get it back where it was before. AL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know, so, this notion that success is permanent or solid is, you know, seems really kind of dubious to me at best, you know? AL: Right. It's not this carrot that gets dangled in front of you that says if, you know, you just put in another five years at something you don't like, then eventually you will have made it and that will be the solid state, unending success of a predeath bliss, right? It's a nonsense. Yeah, we constantly have to fight for our blessings, and to secure them. And, you know, what was that beautiful ... Obviously, it was terribly sad that Ursula Le Guin passed recently, but it did mean that people were sharing a lot of her work, and her quotes, and that one about love seems particularly relevant here: "Love does not sit there like a stone; it must be remade constantly like bread." Right? The idea of constantly having to keep up the good things, the effort to enjoy the things in life and to enjoy each other. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah. It never ends, right? AL: [laughs] Hmm! Right, right. ANDREW: Well, actually it ends. But then it really ends. AL: [laughs] ANDREW: So, the other thing that you mentioned earlier when we were talking was this idea of arguing with spirits, you know ... AL: [laughs] Right! ANDREW: ... You know, a person who would argue with the, you know, with the angels, and so on, right? And I think that it's such an important thing for people to consider, right? You know? Like, especially, you know, I mean, whether we're talking about ancestors, or whether we're talking about angels, or you know anything else or in between or wherever other ways, you know. It's … I think that, sort of, being open to wrestling with them about things, and you know, tussling out what is true or what's the real deal, you know ... And I don't mean, like, in the goetic way, like, "No, I'm not going to give you that, I'm only going to give you this." AL: Mmmhmm. [laughs] ANDREW: ... "Don't take advantage of me." ... AL: [laughs] ANDREW: But just, you know. I know that there are times, you know, in, like, spiritual masses, or with one of my guides in particular ... Well, she'll come down with a message and I'm like, "Dude, I'm not saying that!" AL: [laughs] ANDREW: "There's no way I'm saying it that way!" You know? AL: Right, right. ANDREW: And yet, people, you know, I think that, you know, there's lots of ways in which people believe that they should, you know, pass this along as like a pure testament of truth … AL: Right. ANDREW: … or the unequivocal goal of the situation, right? AL: Yeah, being, the idea that being a channel for spirit means that you don't have to worry about tact, or bedside manner, or, you know, offending people, that you are speaking a profound and unquestionable universal truth, yeah. I … I'm obviously a bit tedious at that, especially in divination. Certainly, I can share the experience of having a familiar spirit that helps me divine that says things in my ear in ways that I definitely wouldn't say to a client! Very blunt, shall we say … Mmmhmm! AL: … if not mean, occasionally! ANDREW: Yeah. AL: You know, also savagely accurate, to her credit. But yes. So, that again is a job of a diviner, right? To demonstrate that tact and that clarity that allows the best way for the medicine to be administered, right? The medicine of the consultation, the medicine of the regimen that might emerge from that, the story medicine, of, like, "this is how your current situation looks, the potential medicines, so this is what you could do about it," and, again, to evangelize about geomancy, for instance, one of the things that we can do is not just look at the clients or the person asking the question, the querent in the first house, we can also look to a couple of different houses depending on the exact nature of the context of the consultation, for how the diviner, how you, are being perceived, and crucially through those two things, you can then work out one of the best ways ... You can look at how the client will take your advice. You can look at how you can phrase it, you know? And so, you can read a chart and have attendant spirit guides saying, "You're going to need to phrase this very gently, this client is not going to be able to take you, you know, speaking plainly about this thing." Likewise, sometimes it's clear that you have to be incredibly blunt, and that that's what will be most useful, and if you aren't, then the client will jump on the one detail that they wanted to hear and ignore the other ones. And that's, that is in part, it's very easy to complain about quote unquote bad clients, but that's also something that I think diviners need to take a little bit of responsibility for. It's not just your job to plunk a message down in front of someone. It's also your job to, I think, help them unpack it and make it available and useful, and something that they can actually apprehend and engage with. ANDREW: Yeah. I also think that it's ... It can be part of the job of being a professional diviner to sort out and be clear with yourself, who do you not work well with, right? AL: Right. ANDREW: You know, who do you just not, who do you not like? What situations do you not want to, you know, deal with? Right? Like, you know, where are your strengths and weaknesses, you know? AL: Mmm. ANDREW: And not in a like, you know, a mean-spirited or even judgemental way, but like, well, are there certain kinds of situations where, for whatever reasons, I have no slack for that. AL: Right. ANDREW: And if the person comes up with that, I'm, you know, I might read for them, but I'm definitely not going to get magically involved in it, because my attention and my energy doesn't flow well, in those, because of that, you know? AL: Yeah, yeah. ANDREW: And I think that we as diviners can take way more agency in the process than I sometimes see people taking, you know? AL: Hmm. Yeah. I think so. Hmm. ANDREW: So, the other thing that I wanted to ask you about, though, the thing that I was curious about that's been sort of on my mind of what we would get to when we were on the show, was, so there's this great big revival, in my, from what I see, of working with saints these days. AL: Hmm. ANDREW: You know, and I see like lots of people, in the various spiritual and occult communities, kind of going back to working with saints and sort of having a magical relationship with them and those kinds of things. And, you know, you're definitely one of the people out there doing that work. Right? AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Were the saints always your companions? Or some saints? Was it a thing that you rediscovered? How did that happen for you? AL: Mmmm. Hmmm. Well. That's the great question. I did not grow up practicing Catholic. My family are Irish Catholic by birth lottery, as they would put it, and certainly in my house, my folks, these days, kind of agnostic, but certainly when I was growing up, fiercely, devoutly, socialists, atheists. But, as a result of the kind of family that I grew up in, we would be taken round an awful lot of churches and historical houses and manna houses and national trust properties and that kind of thing, partly so that my father could sit there and, or stand there and ask, you know, how many workers do you think died to build this structure? So , my early engagement with high churches and that kind of stuff was very much of a sense of like, there are a lot of dead people underlying this thing that still exists ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: And that certainly still informed how I approach saint work, in terms of, or saint devotion, I should say, really, in terms of how long it's been an active part of my practice. Certainly, learning from my great grandmother, before she passed, that there was a set of Irish naming traditions in the family, that there was a particular reason why ... [laughs] "Your middle name is Joseph, Al! Because you're named after your uncle Harry, whose middle name was also Joseph," as an example of this kind of thing that was done. It's like the whole idea of first born will be called this, second born will be this, third will be this, but then we also include what happens when they aren't all male and a variety of other circumstances. So, there were naming traditions I discovered, and, in attempting to understand my great grandmother, who was a remarkable woman, in terms of being a tiny little Irish Catholic lady. We'd no idea exactly how old she was. She ... Her father bribed the village clark to lie about her age so that she could come over to England and train as a nurse earlier. So, we're not entirely sure how old she was. But she was a devout Irish Catholic, set the table for dead relatives occasionally, certainly spoke about them like they were there, and also taught pranayama yoga for about 45, 50 years, and was a very early adopter of that in Woolhampton, in the U.K. So, she was an interesting and odd lady, and so, certainly trying to understand her through these two practices of, like, you know, rich dense energy kind of work and breathwork stuff and all the things that pranayama is, and this intense devotion. You know, she would talk about, you know, I would ask her, “how do you square these things?” And she'd say, "Well, I just don't tell the priest." [laughs] "It's not his business. I make sure I'm doing my breathing next to a pillar, so if I do pass out, then, you know, I won't cause a fuss..." ANDREW: Uh huh. You'll wake up eventually, so it'll be all right. AL: Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, "I see a sanctifying mass, and this opening effect of that, and I want to be as receptive as I can to that, so I open myself up as much as I can, and then I zip myself back up, and I go about my day." And so, that was very inspiring to me, and my earliest set of actually practicing things, rather than just reading Crowley or whatever else, was chaos magic. The idea of it not all having to fit into one cosmology, that you could do several things, and that that, you know, there wasn't even a negative capability of that, that you could have … you could be a Catholic who did pranayama. Obviously, you could do those things, but the idea of mixing spiritual traditions, or at least parallel practice of them, was an influence. I think the first set of things that I ended up doing more formally, in terms of what felt like magic, rather than what just felt like, you know, going to a Saint Stevens church and, you know, enjoying the peace and quiet, and taking on the aspect of seeking calm, and that kind of thing … The first sort of work that was like, all right, I have this saint in front of me, and all sorts of incenses, and I'm trying to work a spell with him, was Cyprian. AL: Oh, right. So, the first spellwork, shall we say, I did with a saint was after I was recommended to work with Saint Cyprian of Antioch. I made a sort of pilgrimage for a birthday to California to a particularly famous hoodoo candle store and came in and was just beginning my doctorate and so asked, you know, "What would you advise?" of the owner, "What would you advise that I take on in terms of a candle or a spell?" You know, I wasn't looking for, I wasn't shopping around for a patron. I was just wanting to work a particular thing, an academic success kind of ongoing working. And, you know, she asked, "Well, what is it that you're doing? What's the nature of this research?" And after I'm telling her, it's about the history of magic, she says, you know, "Well, obviously you should be buying this Cyprian candle, and this is how you can work it," and fixed it front of me and showed me some of the bits and pieces and showed me a couple of other things as well. But that was the start of, yeah, a relationship that's only deepened, where, yeah, my ... And a variety of things occurred after that. Again, saint work is very tied to ancestor work for me, and certainly the dreams I had after I started working with Cyprian, of ancestors coming to me, you know, proud that I was finally working with a nice Catholic saint ... ANDREW: [laughs] AL: ...Despite his hideous reputation, and rightly, you know, and justifiably so, he's not necessarily someone whose earlier history or career is particularly admirable or something that you would want to repeat in terms of selling the equivalent of roofies. But, nevertheless, they were delighted that I was even engaging with this stuff at all, on a more formal level, and that for me was one of the big ... Along with the fact that, you know, when I took things to him, they worked out the way I wanted them to, or they worked out for my benefit. Along with offering me a set of challenges of things to work on, of things to work through, was how it bolstered my connection to my ancestors. And ... ANDREW: And I find it's quite interesting how ... I mean, so there's the baseline layer of, like, "Hey, I need more money," or "Hey, I want success in my academic career," or, you know ... AL: Uh huh! ANDREW:... "...cause I'm hoping to have a baby..." or whatever the things are that people, you know, want and need that they go to saints for. But at the same time, I feel like you really kind of hit on something there, which is sort of the unexpected second level of that process, which is, you know, you go to them, and they're like, "Yeah, sure, give me a candle, and I'll do this thing for you, no problem," right? But if you stick around with them for a while, then they start, like, working on you, right? AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: They start tinkering with you in a way to bring out some kind of evolution or change or growth or ... you know? AL: Yeah. ANDREW: That's certainly been my experience, right? AL: Yeah, and I think this is especially the case when you start taking on a saint, not just as someone that helps you in a particular aspect of your life, but as a patron of your ... Either your main career, or even of all of your magic, and that's certainly ... Cyprian is one of those, for me, is someone I go to for any work I do for a client or for myself and when you allow a patron to ... When you allow yourself space in the container to allow a patron to hold space for helping you make decisions about things that aren't just, you know, "Oh, this is the saint I go to for money work," right? If you have a relationship with that saint in other aspects of your life, if you're going to them about, like, you know, asking for the clarity to be able to make a useful decision about, you know, a new relationship that's just started or something like that, you're giving them more space to be able to help you. Right? You're opening up more roads, if you want to phrase it like that, for them to, like you say, start working on you in ways. ANDREW: Yeah, and it's ... I think it's a very ... I think it's fascinating and a powerful way to go. And I think it's really helpful. And I also notice that a lot of people are very uncomfortable with being that open with spirits. AL: Hmm! [laughs] ANDREW: And with having that level of dialogue about everything that's going on in their life with spirits, right? AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, there's, you know, I mean, there can be, a) a very sort of transactional relationship that people have, like, "I'll give you this, you give me that." AL: Mmm. ANDREW: But even if it's relational, there's this sort of, I don't know if it's a legacy of parenting issues in the West or whatever, but ... AL: [laughs] ANDREW: You know, there's this sort of, "Well, you know what, but they don't get to tell me how to live my life," right? AL: [laughs] Yeah. ANDREW: Do they not? Is that what's going on? Like I think about that with the Orishas. Do they tell me how to live my life? Not in the way people mean it, right? AL: Mmm. ANDREW: But certainly, in a way that most people would be relatively uncomfortable with. I'm going to hear their advice and do my best to live it all the time, because the space in the container that I have with them allows for that and allows, and makes things happen that otherwise would never happen separately, you know? If I was stuck in my head or in my sense of self too strongly. AL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And being able to discern what your head is wanting and what is useful for your life path is some deep stuff, right? And is going to require a different engagement than, you know, "How do I solve this current immediate problem," right? ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: "How do I live my best life?" is a different question, and requires a ... Yeah, my experience of being involved for a couple years in Lukumí Orisha worship is that, yeah, it's a very different ball game in terms of, you know, it's an established tradition with an actual priestcraft of actual work and learning. And that's not to say that other traditions don't also have those things, but the level of commitment, and of taking on good advice and attempting to live it every day, right? Is a really important thing, and something that other traditions when they do well, do very well as well. But that, if we're talking Orisha, that's been certainly my experience, is that that closeness is also, you know, rewarded with the calm and the coolness and the development of good character that we're attempting to achieve, to leave the marketplace of the world in a better place than it was when we got here, before we go back home to heaven. ANDREW: Yeah. And I also think that, like, it's also interesting that, you know, again, it's sort of part of the, you know, legacy of modern thinking in some ways, you know, this sort of idea that, you know, a saint or spirit might only kind of govern one limited aspect, and, while I think that that's certainly true of some classes of spirits, that their spectrum of influence or their … from a human point of view, is limited and you might want to keep it there ... AL: Sure. ANDREW: You know, these sort of relationships with saints and things like that, you know, this idea that you can be open to messages that are not necessarily within their, you know, official textbook definition wheelhouse ... AL: Right. ANDREW: ... is also very fascinating. You know, I started working with St. Expedite a long time ago. That's kind of part of my bridge from ceremonial stuff into African diasporic traditions, as a sort of, you know, a syncretism for other spirits. And then, when I finally sort of landed in my Orisha tradition and sort of removed all my stepping stones that had gotten me there, St. Expedite was the only one who stayed. You know? AL: Hmm. ANDREW: And he was like, "No, no, dude, I'm not leaving, no, I'm with you now." And I was like, "Oh, okay!" I didn't quite catch that distinction as it was going on. And then … But, by way of sort of the differences, you know, he sort of, wasn't prominent, I wasn't really working with him for like 15 years, or something like that, just had my pieces tucked away amongst my relics of other times and things that I don't do much of any more. And then all of a sudden, I came across this painting I had done of him, and he was like, "Dude, I'm out, you've got to put me out now." AL: [laughs] Hmm! ANDREW: And when, and, the messages that I got from him were all about my art work, and not about, sort of ceremony, and spirits, or working with the dead or, you know, other things like that ... AL: Huh. ANDREW: And so, it was this very interesting thing where he came forward with this message, that is not entirely incongruous with his nature per se, but certainly not where I would think to start with, you know? AL: Yeah. ANDREW: And, you know, I'm sitting here looking at him as we're talking... AL: Hmm. ANDREW: And he's kind of like nodding his head, like "I was right, dude, that's it!" AL: [laughs] I love that, that's beautiful, the idea of some particular aspect of your life that they would manifest their advice and their power in that isn't, that you're not going to read in some, you know, in some encyclopedia of saints or the Golden Legend or some botanic pamphlet, but that that's something that you've come to, yourself. It reminds me of the way that people sometimes talk about plant allies as well, and I think this is a wider aspect of what we mean by spirit patronage, right? That that spirit might be, you know, you might get on famously and become, you know, fast friends, and that that plant might then be willing to work in ways that, again, aren't in, you know, aren't in the encyclopedias of herb magic or Cunningham or any of those other things ... ANDREW: Sure. AL:... isn't keyworded that like, this plant that you work with every day and consider a patron of your greencraft and of your life in general, would do a thing that might be unusual, you know, might be added to a bath or a charm bag or something that wasn't typically included in that kind of thing. That's certainly a relationship I have with rosemary, where ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL:... beyond its noted capacity for memory, and, you know, its necromantic value and its purifying and asperging uses … I have in the past had definite spirit contact to say, "You should include me in this bath for something completely different, because I am one of your, you know, because I want to be involved in this and I can further empower it." And confirming that through divination as well, which I think is also something that gets underreported is that, again, spirit contact and nonrational ways of knowing and spirit communication can also be facilitated by computational divination, you know, you can still throw your, your sticks, your shells, your things to confirm that that is the spirit saying that thing and it's not either you or some other spirit or, you know, some other option of things. And so, in confirming that, yeah, I was putting rosemary in everything for a while. Because it was standing up and saying, like, "Yeah, I can do this too, I can do this too, I can do this too." ANDREW: Yeah. I've had a similar experience with burdock. AL: Hmm. ANDREW: You know, where people … Especially with sending people to work with it? AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Because here in Toronto, it's prevalent everywhere at a certain point in the year, you know, it just takes over everything, you know, that energy will be like, "Yeah, tell them to come and collect some of this part of me, and do this thing with it and all..." AL: Nice! ANDREW: "Or help them in this way," or you know. I remember somebody was like, somebody had to like, somebody who was trying to let go of some childhood stuff and the plant basically came in and said, "Hey, tell them to come and find the biggest one around and dig up my whole root, and when they're done, they'll be healed." And it took them a long time! You know? AL: Yeah, yeah yeah. ANDREW: Because it was big and spreading. But it was profound, and it was transformative for that person by their report, so. AL: Right. ANDREW: There are many reasons that can happen. But also, as you say, that verifying it, you know, whatever your divination tools for verification, or checking with a spirit that you have more concrete mechanisms with or whatever, I think that that's so important, because, you know, this sort of, free will and idea that I can just sort of intuit anything and that could be the answer, it's like, well, eh, maybe, possibly... AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: ...but, I get very twitchy about that at times, because stuff starts to come out, where it's like, "Well, yeah, but you know what, that's actually not a good idea, and these other ways are,” or, “This is kind of toxic, or kind of … you know?" AL: Yeah, and that's where ... Exactly, exactly. And that's where using a divination technique that is definite, that is computational, that is like, "No, that card says this thing," isn't like a, you know, a fudge, isn't like a coin on its side, computational, but also that provides qualified answers, so not just flipping a coin of like, yes or no, is this what the spirit said? But, you know, a three card throw, that allows for, you know, two reds and a black, meaning yes, but...? Right? Or two blacks and a red meaning no, but ... ? Right? Which allows, not just the confirmation of the thing that you think you're receiving, but also allows the spirit to give you extra information as well. To say, "Yes, you heard me right about that stuff, but you also need to check this other thing that you haven't checked," or "No, that's not what I said, but, you are on the right track in terms of this direction." Have I cut out again? AL: [laughs] I think I may have cut out again, briefly, there. [laughs] ANDREW: I heard your comment about two reds and a black, or two black and a red? And then you stopped. Want to start again? AL: Yeah. AL: All right. So, I think it's very important to have a divination system that can provide not just a yes or no response to what you think you've received from spirit contact but that you are also able to give a qualified answer of “yes, but,” or “no, but,” right? ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: That you have some form of throwing that doesn't just give you a thumb's up or a thumb's down, but that also offers the spirit a chance to say, “Yes, that's what I meant, in that case, but you've also forgotten that you need to deal with this thing as well.” Or, “No, that's not what I meant, but you're on the right track in terms of thinking in this way,” all right? So, it's not just about a gatekeeping of which images and which contact gets in and which doesn't, but also, you are continually negotiating and allowing yourself to have more space to hear a more nuanced transmission. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah, and I think the idea of developing nuance is just so important, right? AL: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I mean, whatever divination tool you're looking at, you know, I think this idea that we could sort of have a, you know, in the exact same way as we're talking about the saints, right? You have a real relationship with your divination system; it's conveying information that goes well beyond, you know, yes or no, or even like, yeah, it's pretty good, or not good. There are so many other pieces that start to emerge from the practice and then getting to know those things that then facilitate the shaping of it, right? AL: Mmmhmm, yeah. ANDREW: Yeah. AL: Yeah, I think so. And, you know, that can be a sign that you're making deeper engagement with a saint, is when they start coming out with stuff that you haven't read somewhere, right? That you haven't ... and that's not license for everyone to be, you know, "Oh, well I dress Expedite in pink, and, you know, I never offer him pound cake," that's no excuse to throw away tradition. But that is a sign where, if you're working respectfully, most traditions have a notion that, like, there's going to be idiosyncracies. There's going to be particularities and personalizations both in terms of how the spirit works with you and how you work with the spirit. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah. AL: Right? ANDREW: And variations by geography and culture. AL: Absolutely, absolutely! Yeah. ANDREW: Cause I grew up with nothing religiously, you know? Like nobody considered it, nobody was for it, nobody was against it, you know, people were sort of like vaguely slightly a little bit mystic at times, but there was kind of nothing, you know? So like, the first time I remember going to church was when I was like 11 and my parents had gotten... had separated, and we lived in a small town and my mom was trying to find some community. So we went to the Anglican church, but, you know, I didn't have any connection to any of those things, so, you know, and never mind if I was from like a totally different culture than sort of the Western culture of something else engaging with this. AL: Yeah. ANDREW: It might just be like, "You know what? You don't have pound cake, but you got this other thing like cake, that looks good,” you know? AL: Right, right. And this is especially the case when you're looking at quote unquote folk practices, you know, what people who weren't rich did, and continue to do in many parts of the world, that, you know, that San Rocco, that Saint Roch, doesn't behave like the one four villages down. You know, one of them is more about warding off plague, because he warded off a plague once, or several times, right? And the other might be more about bringing in the harvest, because that's, you know, that's the famine that he avoided by being petitioned, right? And successfully performed a miracle. And so, yeah, the terroir of spirit work, that sense that like, this particular place dealt with, you know, this aspect of that spirit that was called the same thing that they called it down the road, or a different spirit sharing that name, or however it ends up shaking out, you know, whatever your ontology of the situation seems to suggest. That's super important, yeah, that there isn't, you're not necessarily dealing with a wrong way of working with them, so much as a different way. But that again is not something that emerges from just wandering through, you know, reading 777 and deciding that you're going to cook up a bunch of stuff, right, over a nice cup of tea? That's the result of many hands working for a very long time, and requiring something done about an immediate danger, and certainly I'm thinking of San Rocco in southern Italy, you know. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: Cause if the saint don't work, it gets thrown in the sea! [laughs] ANDREW: Yeah, sure, right? AL: Or put in front of the volcano. ANDREW: Yeah. yeah, and that's always an interesting thing to consider, right? We can make a, you know, a thought form, or whatever you want to call it. We can create spiritual energies to accomplish certain things, but the sort of depth and the history of energy, prayer, offering, and kind of the lineage of different places, you know, like the saint in that village versus the saint in this village. AL: Right. ANDREW: You know, I mean, I think that those create something very different over time, and whether that all comes from the same source or whatever we choose to believe that that is another matter ... AL: Right, right, right. ANDREW: But this sort of idea that if we're going to work with somebody in a certain way, like if we want San Rocco to do this thing versus that thing, then we might want to take a bit more of that other town's approach, or, you know, see what are the differences in practices that might help call that energy out in that way. AL: For sure. For sure. ANDREW: Not unlike singing certain songs in the Orisha tradition or, you know, playing certain beats or making certain offerings, bring out different faces of the spirits, right? AL: Mmm. ANDREW: You know? There are the ways in which ... the way in which we approach them, and what we give them, is also part of their process and channel of manifesting that opens up these different capacities in a different way, you know? AL: Right, and crucially, you're dealing with diaspora as well, you're dealing with how does a tradition or a set of traditions try and remember not just its own thing, but remember the traditions of their brothers and sisters, right? Who were, you know, no longer, can sometimes no longer remember where it is they're from, right? ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: And, and, and that's a really important thing. It isn't just, you know, oh well, you know, the ... [laughs] I don't know, fatuous example, oh the Elegua of Brooklyn doesn't receive toasted corn, he asks for like Pabst Blue Ribbon or whatever, right? ANDREW: Uh huh. AL: This isn't something that you can just like, decide, or, you know, think you've had an experience without confirming any of this with any of the initiated priests of that tradition, right? Likewise, the diaspora of, say, again to continue that example, cause it's one I'm more familiar with, through the work of my wife in Italian folk magic, of San Rocco in south Italy … There are different expressions of him in the New World, you know, there's a very long running procession through New York's Little Italy, that's one of the most celebratory saint festivals I've ever been to, over here. Sometimes, I'm sure, you know, you've had similar experiences that even a saint that is considered holy and happy has a kind of somberness, especially when we're celebrating their martyrdom, whereas ... Yeah, the San Rocco festival in New York is a joy. There are confetti cannons, it's delightful. And, but it's also very reverent. You know? The ... Certainly, the central confraternity do it barefoot and, you know, make a real effort that it's a community event and those kinds of things, and, that's where modifications come in as well. That's where traditions develop and grow and live and breathe and stretch, is in actually interacting with a new land, and with different communities, and kinds of people and those are where, like, "Oh, we couldn't get this kind of wine so we got this other kind of wine," those kinds of things, things like substitutions as I understand it start to come in. But it's something that occurs from within stretching out, it's not something that can be, you know, with that etic emic thing, it's not something that an outsider can then take something of, and claim anything like the same sort of lineage, and the same kind of oomph, the same kind of aché, the same kind of virtue or grace moving through that thing. ANDREW: We can't claim substitutions because it's hard to get that thing, or whatever, right? AL: Right. ANDREW: You know, and they only really take off when, you know, when it's required. But I'm going to tell you right now, and everybody else listening, if there's ever a procession for me, I would like it to have confetti cannons. AL: [laughing] ANDREW: That definitely is a part of a cult that I would like to bounce, so, let's make that happen sometime. AL: [laughter] AL: For sure, good to stick around and be useful! ANDREW: Yep. So, we're kind of reaching the end of our time here, but I also wanted to touch on your new book, which is out. AL: Yes! ANDREW: Yes. So, The Three Magi, right? Tell me, tell people, tell me, why, what is it about them that draws you? Why did you write this book? Where did it come from? AL: It came from … That's an amazing question. There are a couple things. One is that I have a very central part of my practice that is about working with dead magicians, and working with the attendant spirits around them. And a kind of necromancy of necromancy, if you want to put it like that. From specific techniques to a kind of lineage ancestor sense, from the fact that my doctorate was handed to me by hand shake by someone who had hands laid on them, who had hands laid on them, back to the founding of the charter and having a sense of that. The spiritual lineage of academic doctors, and in studying the dead magicians of the 17th century, for instance, and how they were interested in, say, Elias Ashmole, interested in forming this kind of lineage of English magic. That feels a little bit Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell at times, to be honest. ANDREW: Sure. AL: So, I've been interested in dead magicians for a while, and had found them kind of turning up in my practice and helping me do my history of them. You know, they were very invested in how they were being portrayed, funnily enough. And the magi became a locus, a way in which I, as someone that wasn't necessarily, certainly from the outside, looking like I was living a terribly good pious early modern Christian life, could be talking to these Christian magicians. It was a way of framing ... Well, we all appreciate the magi, right? Who are both ... and that's another fascinating point, like Cyprian, you know, arguably more so than Cyprian, they're both Christian and not. They are the first Gentiles to make this pilgrimage, they're utterly essential to the nativity narrative, they're also, you know, categorically astrologers, and probably Babylonian, and drawing on a variety of older traditions, certainly around Alexander the Great, and his invasions into various different regions mirror some of the kinds of mythic beats of their story, of the magis' story ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: So there was this sense of, I was already working with dead magicians, I was interested in the role of magic in the traditions and saint devotion and things that I was already exploring, and I've always been attracted to liminal spirits and found working with them very helpful, the ones that exist on a threshold between things, the symmetry gates , the wall between two things, the border crosses, if you like. And, their unique status as a cult is also interesting as well in that, by the 14th century, certainly, they are considered saints, you know, Saint Gaspar, Saint Belchior, and Saint Balthazar. But they're also utterly important to that tradition but kind of outside of it, but also legitimizing it, and certainly this is how their cult played out from the vast popularity of their pilgrimage site in Cologne, which became one of the four major hubs of pilgrimage, which was a big deal, right, in the medieval period. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: Into the exploration into the so-called New World, where, again, the kings were employed by both colonizers, there was a concept of preconquest evangelization, the idea that the message, the good message of the Nazarene had extended to the quote unquote savages of the Americas, which is why the Mayans had crosses, supposedly. That they had civilization, so they must know about Christianity, because that's the only civilization that builds, you know, that's the only culture that could allow a civilization to occur. And so this frames the conquest of the New World, again the quote unquote New World, as a matter of reminding people that they were already Christian. And one of the ways that this was done was to tell colonized people that one of the kings who came from afar was from them. And thus, their king had already acquiesced to the will of, you know, these white colonizers, or these, you know, these European colonizers. But, in doing that, they also allowed colonized and sometimes actually enslaved people a sense of, like, autonomy, that they had a magician king ancestor, that even though that was being annexed on the one hand, it was also, it also fomented political dissent. And so that notion of a powerful and politically ambiguous set of figures became really really interesting to me. ANDREW: Mmm. AL: It also, you know, in terms of personal anecdotes, they also became more significant when I moved to Bristol and I was touring as a performance poet and a consultant magician and diviner, and I was getting cheap transport a lot because I was also a student, and I was getting the megabus, if you're familiar with that, and it stopped just outside of one of the only chapels dedicated to the three kings in Europe, which happens to be in Bristol. And so, I would see them every day as I was setting out on a journey, and so I started looking for them in grimoires, and finding that most of the spells that are considered under their aegis, or their patronage, are works of safe travel. Right? Are works of journeying, right? Of going, of adoring, and then returning via a different way, right? ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: And that model has greatly inspired me, I mean, directly, in terms of the work I was doing, working with the land I had and the places I had and the opportunities I had to make quick offerings when I needed to, you know, make sure I was nursing a nasty hangover on a five hour journey, you know, going to a gig somewhere. But also, you know, getting off the bus at the end of journeys and saying thank you and gathering dirts and using that in that way. And certainly, the idea of them being patrons, not just of where you pilgrimaged to, but the patrons of pilgrims themselves, feels very powerful to me. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AL: And that sense of them, that we don't pray to them, that we pray like them, also feels to me very much like an important necromantic aspect of the ancestor cults around them, that we imitate them, that we too are on a journey, looking for the light that points to majesty, of some kind, whatever that is. That we too are on a journey in terms of passing from life to death, and maybe to return, right? To be a bit mystical. I find it very interesting that occasionally the magi, or lithographs of the magi and the star, find their ways into, or are venerated in, some houses of Haitian Vodou, right, where they refer to the Simbi, and that notion of spirits that have died and then died again and crossed over again to become spirits of some kind. And that mass of the idea of not simply working with a saint who is that thing, that you are working with the elevated soul of someone that used to wander round in a human body and is now, in theory, sat at the right hand of God, right? You're also working, or you can also work, with an attendant set of dead folk who cohere around that point of devotion, because they also worshipped like that. And that's again, that sense of like ancestral saint work for me is very important, not just who ... what icon am I staring at, but who, what spirits, what shades do I feel around me who are also facing that direction? Right? And who am I in communion with, and who am I sharing that communion with? ANDREW: I love it. Yeah, I mean there's reason why people use the term, "spiritual court," right? AL: Yeah, yeah. ANDREW: Who are we all, whose court are we at and who are we all, you know, lining up with in that place and so on? AL: Yeah! ANDREW: I love it. Well, thank you so much for making the time today, Al. AL: Oh sure, yeah! No, it's been great! ANDREW: You should definitely check out Al's book. We have it at the shop. It's available in other places too. And if people want to come and hang out with you on the Internets, where should they go looking for you, Al? AL: Oh, they can find me at my website, which is http://www.alexandercummins.com. There's my blogs there, there's a bunch of free lectures, you can book my consultation services through that, jump on the mailing lists to hear about gigs I'm doing, in wherever it is I am [laughs], touring around a bit more these days, which is lovely to be on the road. Just got back from New Orleans, which was great to see godfamily there and to do some great talks I really enjoyed. So yeah, my website … ANDREW: I also have an archive of premodern texts, scans of texts, grimoiresontape.tumblr.com, if people want to check out, you know, any of these texts from 17th century magicians that I've been kind of digging up, that's certainly something I'm encouraging people to do, is do that. I teach courses through my good friends at Wolf and Goat, Jesse and Troy, just finished a second run of the Geomancy Foundation course that I run, and I'll be setting up to do a course introducing humeral theory and approaches to the elements and that kind of embodied medical and magical kind of practice stuff, which, hopefully, you know, diviners and people like that will be interested in. One of these underlying things for a lot of Western occult philosophy and magical practice that doesn't necessarily get looked at a lot. ANDREW: Yeah. Well, we'll have something for us to have a further conversation about at some point, then. AL: Oh yeah, I'd love that! Yeah, for sure! ANDREW: Well, thanks again Al, and, yeah, I really appreciate it. AL: Oh, great! No, no, it's been a pleasure. Thank you, Andrew.

Andrew was content, serving and supporting the ministry of others. I thank God for the Andrews at Crosspointe. These servants are the bedrock, of this ministry. Interestingly enough, it was quiet Andrew—Who led raucous Peter—to Jesus.

- Happy Father's Day and congrats Mikey B! - We acknowledge several of the dads and father figures in the Potter series! - Pottemore continues to troll Andrew - Who the eff is Fleurble Laffalo? - We review the new 20th Anniversary editions of Philosopher's Stone - Amazon.co.uk has some questionable shipping methods - Can we expect future anniversary editions of other Potter books? What special content would they feature? - We discuss some of the notable members of each of the Hogwarts houses - Flitwick the dueling champion, Draco the occlumens and Lockhart the momma's boy! - Snape was the only Death Eater able to produce a patronus - Eric takes issue! - Listeners share what they would change about Sorcerer's Stone - Next week we conclude our Fantastic Beasts character discussion with Newt Scamander and a very special guest!

In episode 6, we finish the story of the Rosewood Unicorn, along with meeting Theresa who runs a comforting bookshop, and seeing what happens when the Dean Drops In. Music: Creepy – Bensound.com.   James: Here are some totally made-up tales brought to you by the magic of the internet.     We start with the Dean Drops In.   Andrew: The head librarian looked up from her desk at the sound of a knock of the door of her wood panelled office.   James: Perhaps, she thought, it was her assistant with the soup for lunch. But, no, standing in the doorway was the Dean of the University.   Andrew: "May, I come in?" he said in his patrician drawl that he had spent years perfecting.   James: "Of course, Dean," she said drawing a chair for him on the other side of her immense desk.   Andrew: "I wondered if I might speak to you about the little subject of books?" He said.   James: "Ah, yes, books," said the head librarian, "they are indeed in my remit."   Andrew: "Yes," he said, "I was wondering if that is really the most efficient way for us to work? Do you think we might re-visit the whole topic?"   James: The head librarian thought for a moment. This was a familiar pattern with the Dean, walking in and sparring with members of his faculty, threatening to take away certain responsibilities or authority. But this, she felt, was going further.   Andrew: Books had always been at the heart of University life and at the heart life and at the heart of learning and culture and damn if she was going to lose them.   James: Although the library contained a large number of things that were not by any stretch of the imagination books, she felt that reducing herself to only looking after those would inevitably see the library become part of some other faculty, such as languages or perhaps the modern hearts.   Andrew: She turned over in her mind the best way to conquer this threat to her domain. What could she do?   James: Smiling gently at the Dean, she walked around the large desk flicking open a small drawer as she went and withdrawing a jewel-encrusted dagger.   Andrew: This she delicately plunged into his back behind the middle of the rib cage, up into his heart and withdrew it wiping it on her handkerchief.   James: "Chelsea," she called for her assistant, "file this under D for dead things."     And now: Part II of the Rosewood Unicorn.   Andrew: The day dawned bright and fair. There was not a cloud in the sky. It was the 17th birthday of the Princess Caroline.   James: She rose early and was dressed in the most sumptuous clothes by her maids and prepared for the full day of celebration before her.   Andrew: In the morning she toured around the capital city meeting, greeting, receiving birthday wishes from the loyal subjects of the king among whom she was so popular.   James: At lunch there was a great banquet with many of the princes from surrounding kingdoms vying for her hand in marriage, not knowing, for the king had never disclosed to anyone the deal he had made with the Man in Black.   Andrew: The afternoon she had for recreation, for it was her birthday after all. She went for a pleasant walk in the gardens and played a game of tennis.   James: And just before the evening meal, as she had for so many years, she played briefly with the unicorn toy that she had been given so many years ago. Although it was no longer alive, she still loved it with a strange passion from her past.   Andrew: After a busy day, her birthday ended with a simple meal for the most immediate members of the royal family in their private dining room. They had a delicious, but not extravagant meal, and had come to the end of it.   James: There was a knock at the door to the royal suit.   Andrew: "Who could that be?" said the Queen. "This is a very late hour for us to be interrupted by an urgent message or an embassy from a foreign power."   James: The King signalled to one of the servants to open the door and inquire who it was at this late hour.   Andrew: The double doors were flung open and framed in silhouette against the flickering candlelight from the corridor behind, was the Man in Black.   James: "I have come," he said, "as we agreed."   Andrew: Well, there ensued a rather complicated conversation. The King had a great deal of explaining to do. The Queen was unhappy. Princess Caroline was unhappy. Tears were shed, voices were raised, but the Man in Black was implacable and the King was a man of his word. There was no way around it other than Princess Caroline should immediately pack her things and leave.   James: Tearfully she looked around her rooms deciding what she would take with her. There was no need, perhaps, for many of the things that she normally liked to wear or many of the books that she usually read from. She packed a small bag, taking with her only a couple changes of clothing and the unicorn.   Andrew: The Man in Black had a fine black horse, strong and sturdy waiting in the courtyard, steam rising from his nostrils as it stamped its hooves and shook its head. "Climb aboard," he said.   James: She swing herself up behind him. The bag pressed between the two of them. Almost as a wall between her and, as she thought of him, her captor.   Andrew: They rode through the night. Across lands that the princess had never seen before and had barely known existed. Across forests and fields, mountains, valleys, they forded rivers, until at length they came to the far off land where the Man in Black ruled.   James: A dark, sinister castle thrust itself out of the naked rock. Towers twisting towards the sky. Around it a dark and menacing forest stretched as far as the eyes could see. As the Man rode his horse, Caroline behind him, down the single, narrow path through the forest, she, tired from their journey, gradually slipped off to sleep.   Andrew: The next day, the princes awoke. At first, she was aware of being in a comfortable bed so familiar to the one that she had slept in for many years. But soon she realised that, no, she was not in the bed chamber that she had grown up in, but she was in a different castle in a different land starting a new life.   James: She crept out of her bedroom and started to explore around the castle very soon finding the main hall where the Man in Black was taking breakfast.   Andrew: "Ha-ha, my dear, you are awake," he said with great charm and courtesy. "We'll you join me for breakfast? I have all the goods that one could possibly want to eat."   James: As he spoke, she realised that she was hungry and sat down to eat some of the most delicious fruits and meats that she had ever tasted.   Andrew: The spread was vast and she ate her fill and was sitting in quiet contentment when her husband spoke.   James: "Now you have come to live here you will, of course, have all of the benefits of my country. The best food, the most delicious wine, the most compliant servants; however, I do regret that you will never be able to go back and see your family again. That is just the way that these things work, I'm afraid."   Andrew: The princess was heartbroken. She said nothing and left the table and returned to her room, tears brimming in her eyes.   James: She threw herself down upon the bed attempting to smother her tears in the pillow. Before long she felt a touch on her arm. She started, looking down her arm she noticed the unicorn and it tossed its head.   Andrew: "What on earth," she exclaimed looking down at the toy from her childhood. "But all those years ago you, surely you, I remember ..."   James: It nudged her with its horn gently and then cantered up to her face.   Andrew: "Oh, you've come back to me just at the moment which I needed a friend. Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said, kissing it on its back.   James: That night Caroline waited until she was certain that all in the castle were asleep before taking the unicorn in her pocket and creeping down to the great hall.   Andrew: There, she gathered up the things that she would need for a long journey and made her way outside through the kitchens.   James: The circle of the trees of the dark forest surrounded the castle and she could not see the path. So thinking that any direction was as good as any other, she picked one and started walking.   Andrew: The forest at night was strange and eerie but she was a confident young woman and with her trusty unicorn and her provisions, she strolled ahead without fear.   James: She walked through the night and as the first hints of dawn started to be visible through the dark trees, she finally came across a clearing and in the centre of the clearing was the castle.   Andrew: She was bitterly disappointed. "Oh, I must have taken a wrong turning somewhere or followed a path that came around. What a foolish mistake to make." But she realised that it would be futile to try and leave again during the daytime when she could be seen by everyone in the castle and she returned to the great hall for breakfast.   James: The following night she tried again. Once more as dawn started to creep across the land, she found herself back at the castle.   Andrew: She made several attempts over the following nights to escape. Each time taking a different path, recording the path that she had gone down by making a mark on the barks of the trees, but each time it brought her back to the castle at daybreak. Then while sitting down to breakfast the Man in Black addressed her.   James: "I told you, but you did not believe me. There is no way that you can leave this place and see your family again."   Andrew: "And indeed why would you want to? Here you will have a life of complete contentment. We have a peaceful land where we are unchallenged in our rule. You will have a life of ease and joy. You should accustom yourself to it and not seek to escape."   James: Caroline ran from the table up to her room and threw herself down on the bed in despair.   Andrew: "Oh, what shall I do?" she said to the unicorn as they played together. "What shall I do? It is comfortable here and life could be easy and it is impossible to escape, but I oh I miss my family so. What shall I do?"   James: That night she did not try to escape and as she lay sleeping the unicorn thought.   Andrew: The unicorn was a sensitive beast and hated to see the mistress who it loved in so much pain and discomfort. "How can I help?" it thought. "How can I help her to escape?"   James: The unicorn understood the magic that controlled the forest and the routes through it. The unicorn made of rosewood from the great tree that stood at the centre of the forest, was well aware of exactly how the Man in Black's magic constrained the Princes Caroline. The unicorn knew that this particular spell was powerful and woven through the very fabric of the castle and the forest itself and that only one thing could cause it to fail.   Andrew: The unicorn, a magical animal, understood the ways of the occult and knew that the only way to break the spell and to transport the princess back to her childhood home where she so longed to go, was to burn a part of the magical forest that formed that the impenetrable boundary around the castle along with an item from the desired destination of the traveler. The unicorn rooted around through the possessions that the princess had brought with her from her home and found one of the scarves that had been given to her in her childhood.   James: Now all of the unicorn had to do was to burn this with part of the rosewood heart of the forest. But now the Princess Caroline never went outside. She always wanted to stay within her room and play and the unicorn could not deny her that.   Andrew: Although it bided its time hoping for an opportunity to be taken outside so that it could collect something from the forest, the days turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months and the princess was beginning to waste away with sadness and despair.   James: Seeing her condition, the unicorn knew that it could not wait and that its chance to get outside into the forest might never appear. It took the scarf, wrapped it around itself and when the princess was not looking, cantered into the fireplace where it burned completely.   Andrew: The day dawned bright and fair. There was not a cloud in the sky. It was the seventh birthday of the Princess Caroline.   James: She woke excited for the day's festivities ahead and as she always did, she started her day by playing with the delicate and beautiful swan that she had been given for Christmas. Made by the finest toy maker in the land.   Andrew: The door of her bedroom opened and her kindly aunt and uncle beamed down on her. "Come my child, let us have a celebratory breakfast on this your special day. A happy birthday to our beloved child and the most special girl in all the land."   Alternating: Theresa was a pleasant lady who ran the bookshop in town. Every time she wanted a breath of fresh air, she would walk outside into the square and sit on a stone bench beside the fountain. One day while perambulating, she encountered a small boy who was without his parents. He looked lost and sad. "Are you okay?" she asked. "No," he said, "I've lost my mummy." Theresa took him by the hand and went inside the bookshop. She picked him a book to read and made some tea. As he read to himself, she patted him on the head. He sighed contentedly. "I'm not scared any more."   James: I've been James and I'm here with Andrew. These stories were recorded without advanced planning and lightly edited for the discerning listener. Join us next time for more totally made up tales.  

Welcome to the second episode of Totally Made Up Tales, an experiment in improvised storytelling in the digital age. We hope you enjoy our tales of wonder and mystery. Let us know what you think! Music: Creepy – Bensound.com.   James: Here are some Totally Made-Up Tales, brought to you by the magic of the internet.   This is the story of Dr. Rich. Andrew: Once upon a time, there was a doctor who specialized in curing diseases only of the very rich. Inevitably of course, they were in some way or other. James: He would travel round in his large, black car made specially for him by Mercedes-Benz himself, and visit them one by one, his rich clientele, ringing on the doorbell and asking, "Are you ill?" Andrew: In fact, one of the things that he had identified, and the reason why he himself was so successful, was that he realized that money did not in fact make you happy, but filled you with a deep sense of malaise. James: In fact, to put it simply, money made you ill. Andrew: His expertise was to remove money from the rich in order that they could feel better, and indeed many of his patients who were bankrupted by his bills went on to lead happy, fulfilled, virtuous lives. James: Even before they'd got to that state, merely at the point that he presented them with the bill for having cured their sniffle or subdued their pox, or whatever it is that he had been called upon to do today, they felt better, relieved, as if the air was flowing more freely through their lungs, as if the blood was moving more smoothly through their veins. Andrew: The problem was that over the course of his long and successful career, he himself became extremely wealthy, deeply unhappy, and died. James: There was no one who could minister to him in his last days. He was as ill as you could possibly get from money, and indeed was quite capable of diagnosing himself as dying of wealth, and yet, without having trained an apprentice or one to come after him, there was no one who could cure him. He died sad, despondent, very, very wealthy, but utterly ill.   Josephine Andrew: wanted James: children, Andrew: but James: her Andrew: husband James: was Andrew: emperor James: of Andrew: France. James: "Not Andrew: tonight," James: he Andrew: said James: repeatedly. Andrew: The James: end.   Keyhole Andrew: surgery James: is Andrew: performed James: using Andrew: keyholes, James: which Andrew: are James: available Andrew: from James: B&Q Andrew: and James: similar Andrew: retailers.   Judith James: went Andrew: to James: Cardiff Andrew: for James: her Andrew: sister's James: wedding. Andrew: It James: was Andrew: a James: beautiful Andrew: weekend James: full Andrew: of James: dancing, Andrew: sunshine, James: and Andrew: happy James: bridesmaids. Andrew: The James: bride Andrew: herself James: was Andrew: sick, James: and Andrew: vomited James: all Andrew: over James: the Andrew: vicar. James: The Andrew: end.   Victor James: went Andrew: to James: war Andrew: and James: fought Andrew: bravely James: time Andrew: and James: time Andrew: again. James: When Andrew: he James: returned, Andrew: he James: discovered Andrew: his James: country Andrew: had James: changed Andrew: and James: he Andrew: no James: longer Andrew: belonged. James: The Andrew: end. James: Now, Abigail the Mistress Milliner. Andrew: Abigail was a milliner, and made the finest hats in the kingdom. James: She was renowned from city to city. The aristocracy would always use Abigail's hats, or risk the disapproval of their peers. Andrew: She was totally dedicated to her craft. It was her life's work, and every fiber of her being, every drop of her blood was dedicated to the making of hats. James: Since she had passed from apprentice to journeyman to master hat maker, she had had one perfect master work in mind; the ultimate hat. Andrew: It was a hat that she knew once she had made it, there could be no better hat made by human hand until the end of time. James: She had resolved at the tender age of twenty-two to dedicate her life to creating the best hats she always could while always striving towards the perfect hat. Andrew: It was rumored that she kept in her safe at the back, behind the box in which she kept her money and other valuables, a small box in which she was working on a secret project. James: Many rumors were started about the project. Many rumors were started about the safe and about the other things that she had done to protect her most vital and important secrets. Andrew: Other milliners throughout the kingdom were jealous, suspicious, and met together one evening in the back room of a dusty tavern to discuss their suspicion. James: One of them, Brian the Hatter, was convinced that she had already created the ultimate hat, but was withholding it for fear that others would copy her work. Andrew: "There is only one way for us to find out, brothers and sisters," he said, "and that is, we must take possession of the box within the safe." James: So began the most delicate planning. Milliners around the country contriving a way to steal a box from within a sealed safe that even the most dedicated cat burglar would have had difficulty getting near. Andrew: "Let us hold a festival," they proposed. "Yes, let us hold some kind of celebration, some distraction, some occasion on which everybody's back will be turned." James: They worked their connections long and hard, and finally were able to persuade some lady of the court, and through her some gentleman of the court, and through him some knight of the court, and through him, some lady of the bedchamber, and ultimately to the king and queen themselves that there should be a grand banquet where all the greatest people of the land would come, and of course the desire for the best hats would be unrivaled throughout history. Andrew: So it was that in the following days and weeks as the banquet was made ready that there were queues around the block to every suit maker, every boot maker, and every hat maker in the kingdom as more and more finery was demanded so that everybody could appear at their very best at this once-in-a-lifetime feast to be given by the royal family. James: Of course, nowhere were the queues longer nor more densely packed than outside the shop of Abigail the Milliner. For many months, she serviced the next person who came through the door, measuring them, measuring their head, considering the weight of their brow and the movement of their lips and of their nose, and taking into account the other clothing that was being made for them. Day and night, she would work in the back, making hats from the measurements she had taken. Andrew: Each customer demanded a hat finer than the one that the customer before had received, and so it was that after a lifetime of training, even she was nearing the end of her store of creative energy as each masterpiece, slightly better than the one before, went out the door in its beautifully wrapped box. James: Meanwhile, Brian the Hatter and his cohorts were plotting how to get inside the safe. Andrew: "Would it be better for us to cut a hole in the wall and slide it out into a side street, or cut a hole in the floor and let it down into the vaults of the cellars or the sewers below?" James: "Perhaps we should cut through the top of the building and employ a crane or some small children with rope to haul it up high into the gables and from there escape across the rooftops of the city." Andrew: "May I make a suggestion?" Came a voice from the back of the room.   "Of course, go ahead brother. Tell us your suggestion."   "What we should use is the psychology of the artist." James: Well, they were all very impressed with this idea, even though most of them didn't really understand, and they voluntarily gave up control to the owner of the voice, Mr. Jim Blacklock. Andrew: "The true artist is only satisfied when his or her craft is applied as close to the standard of perfection as it is possible for human endeavor to reach. Each person has demanded a hat more superior than the one before. How many more hats can this woman make before she is forced to reveal the greatest hat of all time?" James: The hatters, from their conniving congregation, went out back into the land and plied their connections and persuaded the lords and ladies who had got early hats from Abigail the Milliner to go back for better ones now that there were better ones available to their peers. The line once more became long and winding throughout the city, and Abigail, working as hard as she ever had, wracked her brains for more ideas to top the last ones that she had put out. Andrew: Finally, when the line had dwindled to one person, and that person had been handed their finely-wrapped box and left and the door swung closed and the little bell rang and she was left alone, she knew that she was spent. She had no more hats available for her to make. It would be impossible for her to service another customer, and indeed there were no more customers. Everybody owned a hat of hers who had a head to wear a hat on. James: Just then, there was a knock at the door. Andrew: "Who could this be?" She thought to herself. "A customer who had left behind a pair of gloves, or wanted a duplicate invoice for tax purposes." James: She got out of her chair and felt her way across the dark shop front and opened the door. In front of her was the king. Andrew: "Your majesty." She said, and curtsied low, for she was a very correct lady. James: "Abigail," began the king. Andrew: "If your majesty has come in search of a hat, I'm afraid I must disappoint you, for I have no more hats left to make." James: "Come, come," said the king, for he was a kindly man, but also used to getting his own way. "Come, come, you would not disappoint your monarch." Andrew: "It would pain me to do so, sir, but I really do not see how I could supply a hat finer yet than any that I had supplied without ... " James: There Abigail stopped. Andrew: "Without ... ?" Said the king. James: "I should not have spoken." Said Abigail. Andrew: "Yet you did speak," said the king, "and now you must surely explain yourself." James: "The only way, your majesty, that I could hope to top the previous hats that I have made for all in the land and to satisfactorily clothe your royal head, would be to open the book that I have been keeping these last forty years as I have worked on perhaps an impossible dream of the perfect hat." Andrew: At this, the king's eyes lit up, for he was a man who liked the finest things, and the idea of owning the most perfect hat that had ever been made or could ever be made appealed very deeply to his regal heart. James: "I must have it." He said, and left. Andrew: Abigail wept, for she knew that the hour had come where either she must make the most perfect hat of all time, or she must leave this place that she called home, abandon her shop, her career, her profession, and begin a new life somewhere else, for no one had ever successfully denied the king his wish and lived. James: Uncertain of what her choice would be, she stole back to the back room and opened the safe, and within it moved past the money boxes and the certificates of birth and death and the other precious objects that were necessary for a satisfactory and legal life in this complicated time, and at the back pulled out a small tin which contained folded paper of her notes over the years. Andrew: She reviewed the scraps, shuffled them, paced, lit a fire, made tea, stoked the fire, paced, shuffled the papers, and so continued through the night, all the way through to the crow of the cockerel and the rising of the sun. James: She was still pacing when her young apprentice entered the shop in the morning, expecting to be up and at the business before she was. He was surprised, and did not attempt to hide it. Andrew: "Mistress Abigail, whatever is the matter? You seem troubled, agitated, as if you haven't slept." James: "I haven't!" She cried. "I can't sleep. I cannot sleep until I ... Until I at least try." Andrew: So it was that they embarked together on making sense of the diagrams that she had drawn, and little by little began to compose the finest hat that had ever been made. James: There was every conceivable material, Andrew: and yet somehow, even though it was composed of parts as diverse of silk and leather, it formed a beautifully coordinated whole in which every part was neither too much nor too little, but in perfect proportion and place. James: Spent, they sat on the floor and looked up at the perfect hat. The ultimate hat. The end, indeed, to millinery itself. Andrew: As to the rest of the story, well of course the king collected it and wore it and achieved universal admiration. The great feast was, exactly as it promised to be, huge, memorable, spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Abigail was, as you would expect, done. Done with her career. There was no way that she could continue now. James: As for the other hat makers, well, walk down a high street in your town any day you like and try to find a milliner's shop. They're all gone now. All gone.   I've been James, and I'm here with Andrew. These stories were recorded without advanced planning and lightly edited for the discerning listener. Join us next time for more Totally Made-Up Tales. Andrew [outtake]: "Would it be better," they said, "if we cut a hole in the floor and let it down into the core of the earth?" No, no, that's a ludicrous idea. Sorry.

**WARNING** Audio is a little off on this one - Apologies : /   #QOTD, courtesy Andrew: Who you got tonight: Rangers, or Capitals? #QOTD, Gary: How are you guys liking the whole black & white/color transition?   #LINKS RSVP TO EPISODE 100: https://www.facebook.com/events/1432361237066830/ GARY'S NEWEST MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@garyvee/when-you-don-t-celebrate-your-wins-you-hold-your-company-back-c925b99847d1  

Part 2 of this amazing story is here!In June 2016, Andrew Hundley became the FIRST juvenile lifer in Louisiana to be paroled following the U.S. Supreme Court's Miller and Montgomery decisions that prohibited the mandatory sentencing of children to life without parole. It was clear that he was not the same 15-year-old who went to prison in 1997 to the parole board who approved his release.Since his release from Angola, Andrew has earned a Masters degree in Criminology, is founder of the Louisiana Parole Project and is known in all circles of justice as the real life Andy Dufrane.Whatever side of this issue you sit, you will not want to miss this episode.In this episode Woody and Jim sit down with him for an in depth interview you are not going to believe on Bloody Angola Podcast.#BloodyAngolaPodcast #LouisianaParoleProject #AndrewHundleyLouisiana Parole Project website:https://www.paroleproject.org/Check out P2P Podcast (Penitentiaries to Penthouses) Here:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-p2p-podcast-penitentiaries-2-penthouses/id1646270646?i=1000586120763SECOND CHANCES PART 2 TRANSCRIPTJim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Bloody- Woody: -Angola.Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.Jim: I'm Jim Chapman.Woody: I'm Woody Overton.Jim: And we're back for Part 2, Woody Overton.Woody: Part 2, Second Chances with our main man.Jim: Andrew Hundley. How are you?Andrew: I'm well.Jim: I feel like we just talked to you. [laughs]Andrew: Thanks for having me back.Woody: Yeah, [crosstalk] right. Andrew, I just want to say that it's an amazing story, y'all. You've got to go listen to Part 1. I don't think we've maybe done one or two series on Bloody Angola that-- actually series, one or two episodes that went past episode 1.Jim: The only one that we did was Archie Williams.Woody: No. Brent Miller.Jim: Yeah.Woody: So, two, you'll be the third. Thank you for being here, I really appreciate it. Y'all go back and listen to the first one if you haven't.Jim: Yes, please do.Woody: When we left off last, you were at state police barracks out at JESTC, and you gotto finish telling me how you got swung.Andrew: Yeah, I had unauthorized female visitor, to keep it PG. [laughter]Andrew: I had a female friend who visited me at the office I worked at one evening. I knew that wasn't supposed to happen. It happened. And I understand that you keep visitors off of the premises because you never know who's going to be coming out there, what they're going to be bringing out there.Jim: I ain't hating on it. I don't blame you. [laughs]Woody: [crosstalk]Andrew: [crosstalk] -I'm not the first guy to get in trouble and probably not going to be thelast guy that got into that kind of trouble. Jim: Some things are just worth it. [laughs]Woody: Everybody you see today and the rest of your life got there because two people had sex.[laughter]Andrew: But it was against the rules. They actually didn't move me immediately because my job that I had--Woody: They didn't want to release you.Andrew: I had to finish some job responsibilities. But they said, "Hey, you're going to have togo." I said, "I want to go to Angola."Jim: And wow. Before you say anything else, that's just like-- Woody: You're one of the only people ever said that--[crosstalk] Jim: Yeah, you might be the only one to utter that sentence.Andrew: Well, and I recognize and I had done enough time and met enough people who had been to Angola and who, in prison speak, were successful at Angola. They had done well. And I wanted to be a trustee. At state police barracks, I was a trustee but the only place as a lifer going if we say back into DOC, I couldn't go to DCI or Wade or Hunt or any of these other prisons [crosstalk] have to go to Angola.Jim: What year was this?Andrew: Oh, that was in 2012, 2013. Jim: So, it was post Burl Cain? Andrew: No, Burl was still there. Woody: Burl was still there.Jim: Okay.Andrew: When I first get there, I actually go to Bass. For my first couple of months, I was a cell block orderly at Bass, paying my penance. As soon as I got there, they told me, "Look, keep your nose clean, out of sight, out of mind for a couple of months, and we've got a job for you." They told me this as soon as I got there.Woody: That's really cool.Jim: Your reputation preceded you some way probably.Woody: Another unique thing about what you're saying is, I don't think people understand-- I would say you might have a better number on than me. Most people at Angola are nevergetting out, like 80% or something like that. But to go in and have to do 10 years to make trustee without a low court or high court writeup, holy shit, bro, that's almost impossible. So basically, they're telling you, "Keep your nose clean, lay low for a couple of months and you shake it out, we got a job for you," basically, you almost were like getting credit for time served already.Andrew: Right. They gave me credit. Look, I had a unique experience. Woody: Meaning, credit under the trustee program.Andrew: I used to tell people I did my time like Benjamin Button. [laughter]Jim: In reverse.Andrew: Yeah, I did my time in reverse. Most people start at Angola and they're either going to die there or there are some old timers who after they've been there for a few decades, they'll allow a transfer to a prison closer to their home if they request it, if they have space. For me, I ended at Angola and did my last few years there.Woody: I got to interrupt because I'm visual. You ask to go to Angola, and had you ever been to Angola before?Andrew: I'd been only for boxing matches. I had been there for those kind of trips.Woody: So, you're taking that ride up, or they giving you the ride up and you hit the gates and you go inside the wire the first time. Do you have any different impression? What was your impression?Andrew: I was thinking, "Oh, man, I hope I made the right decision." [laughter]Woody: Right, because this is like the Harvard of convicts.Andrew: Yeah, because I'm starting to second guess because it's like, well, if I would have gone back to the smaller prison, I was big fish in a small pond. And now, I was telling myself, "You're just another lifer here. You're going to be lost in the shuffle." But thankfully, I wasn't lost in the shuffle. Thankfully, my reputation did-- I did have a good reputation.Woody: I'm sure somebody called and gave them a heads-up and say that, "You better get your hands on this dude because he's the bomb."Andrew: I got there. You go on this review board as soon as you get there, and it's medical, mental health, security, classification, and they're trying to figure out where they're going to send you. A lot of guys will start off in a cell block, or some guys will go into medical facilities. Some guys will be under mental health observation. And never having lived at Angola but new Camp J is not the place to be.Woody: Right.Jim: Don't send me to Camp J.Andrew: The major who was on the review board is like, "Hey, I got a call about you. Let me see what they want--" He's telling pretty much everyone on the review board like, "Someone's about to make a decision where this guy's going to go. We're not going to make the decision." He gets off the phone and says, "We're sending him to Bass." And I was like, "Okay. Where is that?" He's like, "You're going to Camp J." And I'm like, "Oh, my God. I thought I'm coming here to be a trustee."Jim: You're sending me to lockdown.Andrew: And I'm going to lockdown because you go to J when guys on death row screw up. They get sent to J, to the cell blocks at J because people would rather be in their cell on death row-Woody: Absolutely.Andrew: -than be at J because J is wild. Now look, today J has been shut down for a fewyears because of talk about-- Jim: [crosstalk] -reason for that.Andrew: Look, Camp J is four cell blocks and one dorm. They have a few guys in a dorm that are cooking for the guys there. They're taking care of the place, taking care of the yard. You hear J, you assume the cell block. Just having worked in the cell blocks, these are guys with significant mental health issues.Woody: Most of them, yeah.Andrew: They're throwing feces on each other. They're throwing stuff on the guards. They're guys who've been back there so long and there's this mentality in prison, bar fighting. And you make enemies in a cell and you throw stuff on so many people. You've seen this guy, he comes out on the tier for his shower. Y'all stay up all night cursing at each other because that's just how time is done. And then, you get into it with so many people, you're back there a couple of years and they say, "Okay, it's your time to come out." Like, "Oh, no, I can't go into population because I've threw crap on so many people."What these guys don't realize is, look, all y'all have thrown crap on each other. Y'all cursed each other out, talked about threatened to kill each other. You get out, chances are, "All right, man. We're in population now, we're going to put that stuff behind us." But so many of those guys, they've developed these enemies, and then they just dig their hole deeper and deeper. There are guys who've been back there decades and refuse to come out of their cells.Jim: Damn.Woody: The listeners know, like you're talking about, to get sent to Camp J, not the dormitory, but to get housing and cell on Camp J, you had to break a rule in prison. Not just regular fist fighting. It's fighting with weapons or attacking an officer or raping someone or whatever it may be, it's a serious infraction. You don't get classified and sent to Camp J immediately, most people. You get sent to wherever, and then if you're so bad that you can't follow the major rules inside-- those rule infractions, they could be a street charge too. But if you're so bad that you can't live in the general population with the worst of the worst, or what's considered to be the worst of the worst in America, you got to send to Camp J. It's a huge mental issue. I agree with you, like 90% of that shit is mental.Andrew: They call it the Behavioral Management Unit.Woody: Yeah, right.Jim: [chuckles] That's one way to put it.Woody: You lock them up and throw away the key.Andrew: The reason that they had to shut it down was it's an old cell block, and they couldn't repair the cells. Guys would open up cells, jump on guards.Jim: Oh, my God.Andrew: [crosstalk] So, whenever they sent me, they said Bass, which is the name of the dormitory, the general population dorm for the guys that work and serve. Luckily, it was like, "No, we're sending you back here," they did me a favor because it's like, hey, they recognize, "This is a guy that's done a lot of time. We have something in mind for you. So, we're going to put you on timeout."Woody: And show you what the worst could be if you want to fuck up. Jim: Yeah.Andrew: They told me, "Give us a couple of months." Those couple of months, it's like no one else talks to me after that. I remember day 30, day 45, I'm thinking to myself, "These people told me-- they've forgotten all about me." I remember seeing the assistant warden over the camp after I'd been there about two months, said, "Hey, I don't know if you remember me," he's like, "Yeah, I remember you." "You haven't looked at me. You haven't acknowledged me. Just want to make sure." He said, "Have you hit your two months yet?" "I'll hit my two months at the end of this week." He said, "Okay, we'll see what happens." Two days after I hit my two months there, they came to me and said, "Hey, we're moving you to Camp F, and you're going to be working out on the range crew. We're going to make you the clerk on the range crew."Jim: That's awesome.Andrew: What it ended up being, obviously Camp F is the old timer camp, class A trustee. Iwas in my 30s, I was the youngest guy at Camp F. [laughter]Andrew: By like 20 years.Woody: Yeah.Andrew: The youngest guy. There may have been guys that weren't quite that much older than me. But I go back there, and I have this job and I didn't realize how great of a job they were giving me. 18,000 acres, the thing that's awesome about the range crew is you have trustees that get to leave whatever camp, leave the main prison, get outside the fence, be on the property. But the thing that's awesome about the range crew is cattle there-- on just one little spot of the prison, there's cattle from the front to the back of the prison. So, when you're on the range crew, you have access to the entire prison. When I say the entire prison, I mean the property.Jim: So, you were a cowboy?Andrew: I was a cowboy. I wasn't born a cowboy. Jim: [laughs]Andrew: I learned how to ride a horse. Learned how to take care of cattle. The cows at Angola are 2000 head of cattle, not counting the bulls and not counting, given time of the year, when mamas are dropping calves. There are actually a lot more cattle there but every cow is on state property control. They're branded, they're tagged.Woody: Oh, my God. I remember-- [crosstalk]Andrew: When John Kennedy was State Treasurer, he used to give DOC hell, "How the heck do you lose a cow?" I was a guy that if I read that in the paper, I would think the same thing, "Well, how the heck do you lose a cow?" And I learned on 18,000 acres, it's really easy to lose a cow because if a cow goes in a drainage canal and dies--Woody: Or a gator gets--[crosstalk]Andrew: You're hoping that the buzzards are going to tell you where they are. So, part of my job was to keep up with the cattle that were on state property control and to do continuing inventories, order the meds, order the vaccines, along with just general clerical responsibilities around the range.Woody: You have a brain that I don't because my entire state career every fucking year when I had to fill out these property forms and serial numbers and I hated that shit. I'd rather be kicked in the nuts than have to fill out one of those. You were doing it every day all across the whole scale.Andrew: And then, another job responsibility I had once I got the job was assisting with the management of the rodeo as it relates to the rides. In my job, I was responsible for the fall and spring rodeos, to get the riders signed up and to assign the rides. There are people who-- the stock contractor comes in. There's, obviously, Alan Barton and his crew are managing what's going on inside the arena. There are acts coming in. Security is getting the public in. There's the hobby craft. There's the concessions.But the guys that are participating, someone has to organize them, someone has to decide who's getting what ride. It's sort of interesting because that's really a high-pressure thing because everyone wants a ride and everyone wants to be on this shoot. My responsibility was being the guy that fairly distributed rides for people who signed up. In the middle of the rodeo, you'll have guys who are on a horse and then they hurt themselves, but later in the day they were supposed to be on the poker table. So, I have to keep track of that and replace them in real time.Jim: Wow. Did you have anybody helping you?Andrew: I had people that would help me, but I'm the kind of guy that- Woody: Nobody is going to do it--[crosstalk]Andrew: -nobody's going to do it as good as you.Jim: [laughs][crosstalk]Jim: Struggle with delegation. [laughs]Woody: You were the CEO of everything that state workers--Jim: Well, if you do it, it's done right. [laughs] Or if it's wrong, it's your fault. And that's important.Andrew: But I can remember people ask me often about what I'm missing. I think there'll come a point in my career where I'll move out in the country, get a piece of property and have cow because there are days when you work around cattle, you just get this gunk in your nose at the end of the day, especially when we're pushing cows, got them in a catch pen, working them, and you just get all this muck in your sinuses, I miss that. I had to be in prison to really feel this sense of purpose and enjoying-- there were times I forget I was in prison. I forget I have my-- [crosstalk]Jim: Wow. It's almost like [crosstalk] you're so involved.Andrew: -sentence because I was in nature. I was working around these animals, got run [unintelligible [00:19:15] people. I think people have this idea that brahma bulls, the meanest thing that you could come across and know a mama cow that you're pulling the baby from will run your ass over. Well, I've been run over quite a few times and been kicked by cows. So, it was a great experience for me.The other thing I should say about my experience at Angola that was totally different from everywhere else I had been. Obviously, I was an outlier everywhere else I was having a life sentence. I would see people come and go. There were a handful of lifers at Wade, a handful of lifers at DCI. But when you get to Angola, everyone has life or everyone has 50, 100 years. They're not going to do that sentence. You every once in a while got a guy that somehow ended up at Angola that's going to be going home, but that's the outlier.And I got to meet so many older guys who had been there for decades. Some of the best people I ever met with in my life, I met in prison, and they were in prison for murder. I know that the general public can't get that, or they think I must be twisted to see that. But you see who a person becomes. I'm not meeting people in their worst moment. I'm meeting people years later after they've developed, they've taken responsibility for whatever brought them to prison and they've changed their lives. So, I think that had a big impact. Frankly, seeing a lot of death at Angola, going to funerals at Angola and seeing people buried and their headstone being on the penitentiary property, it's life changing.Woody: We did an episode on the Lookout Point and the call for making-- and all that stuff, that Burl really stepped up the game on.Jim: That's exactly right.Woody: [crosstalk] -we missed an episode. My mama sent me the article afterwards. Governor Edwards, when he passed, they had them make his coffin and he was buried. But then, his wife or some family member had him dug up and cremated. But so, we did Billy Cannon's. [crosstalk]Jim: Yeah. We definitely talked about that. It'd be a good point to bring up Burl Cain brought two very, very important things to Angola, in my opinion. He brought religion and he brought education at a level no prison had ever seen in the country. Everybody makes mistakes, Burl became very powerful, and with that, there became maybe some problems. But probably the most well-known warden in the history of the country, I would say. Would you agree? Did you ever have any dealings with him?Andrew: Oh, certainly. My favorite story about Burl, and he would do this to a lot of people, you always knew Burl was the boss and Burl had the vision. If you were going to work for Burl, you were going to carry things out the way Burl wanted it done. Burl had a whiteboard in the ranch house where he would often hold court around lunch. If there was an assistant warden, staff member who had to see Burl, Burl had a convict he wanted to come see him, you'd get called up to the ranch house and he had a whiteboard. Burl used to draw a circle on the whiteboard and then put a dot in the middle of it. He'd hand you the marker and say, "That's where I am. I'm the dot. Show me where you are. Are you in the circle? Are you outside the circle?"Woody: Wow.Jim: [chuckles] That's pretty awesome.Andrew: And he would tell you, "Draw it. I want to see. Where are you?" If you'd put that dot inside the circle next to him, "So, well, let me know if you're with me, because if you're not with me, we'll draw your dot outside of the circle." I think that's a perfect encapsulation of who he is. He had a vision. He knew how he wanted to do it. Obviously, it's hard to stay in one place. He was at Angola over 20 years. That's unheard of. No one will ever be warden of the penitentiary--Woody: I know this off the record that numerous times, and actually tapped Jimmy Le Blanc to be head of the Department of Corrections, he turned it down. He believed in so much in what he was doing in Angola. When he was warden at DCI, when I started-- I trained at Angola, I think it was Camp F is where the--Jim: Yes.Woody: Yes, I slept in a dormitory there and everything, but my mom was raised on the [unintelligible [00:24:08]. So, we say Bloody Angola, the Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. That's more of a catch-all. Certainly, it's not a nice place to be, but it's certainly not to 19--[crosstalk]Jim: '65, '64.Woody: -when they had [crosstalk] yards and shit like that. I forget the name of certificationprogram, it's a national thing run by the government. Andrew: HOST?Woody: Yeah, that certifies prison. You got to really-- Andrew: Oh, ACA.Woody: American Correctional Accreditation, something like that. But Angola was nowhere near that when Burl got there, and he did all that too.Jim: Right. Leader of men, there's no doubt about it. Now, I believe the head of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.Andrew: Correct.Woody: Most listeners don't know the Montgomery case comes out, how did you learn about it? How did you hear about it? And what happens next?Andrew: US Supreme Court actually has made a series of decisions that affected how we sentenced juveniles. I mean, it's not that long ago the first decision where they looked at adolescent brain science was Roper, and it was new science. It's sort of what everyone who was a kid or had kids, knew kids or immature kids are impulsive. And the Roper decision, that's when they said, "You can't execute a juvenile anymore." I mean, that's just in the last couple of decades that we haven't been able to execute-- The Supreme Court said, "Stop executing juveniles."Woody: I was a police officer when that came out.Andrew: And they said, "Hey, kids are different from adults, and we have to treat them different than adults." Eventually, there was the Miller decision. And all these decisions, we're in prison, we're watching the news, we're reading the newspaper, we're keeping up with it. The guys who are going down the rabbit hole, staying in the law library are telling everyone what's happening. So, we're just watching it. The Miller decision came out in 2012, and that decision said that you can't give a juvenile a mandatory life without parole sentence. Well, if you remember in the first episode, I said when my judge sentenced me, there was only one sentence.Woody: Mandatory without.Andrew: If my judge would have had an option and gave me life anyway, the Supreme Court decision wouldn't have affected me because the Supreme Court didn't say you can't give a juvenile a life without parole sentence. It said it couldn't be mandatory. The judge has to have leeway. But Louisiana and some other Southern states--Woody: They still followed it.Andrew: We're fighting it, the retroactivity, because they said, "Okay, well, this only affects new cases. It can't affect all these old cases." I actually went back to Acadia Parish in 2013 after Miller. I was fortunate my family could afford to hire an attorney for me. The judge who was there for my trial was still on the bench.Jim: Oh, wow.Andrew: He agreed for me to come back in. He said, "Now, I have an opportunity to give you a different sentence. I'm going to sentence you to life with parole, and I'm going to let the Department of Corrections figure out what that means," because there wasn't a law in the book that said what does-- life is still life in Louisiana, whether you're a juvenile or not. The parole board wouldn't schedule a parole hearing for me, obviously, because there's nothing that says that.Woody: To set the precedent.Andrew: Yeah. We're hearing from all of our attorneys that this isn't going to affect old cases. So, in January of 2016, the US Supreme Court ruled in a case called Henry Montgomery, Baton Rouge case. A black guy, he was 17 years old, when he shot an East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputy. Not to argue that case, Henry, he shot someone who happened to be a sheriff's officer. He didn't know it was a sheriff's officer, but still, he shot a sheriff's deputy, and he was held accountable and was initially given the death penalty, ended up with a life sentence. His case made it to the Supreme Court. I remember we initially thought, "Man, that's such a bad case to make it to the Supreme Court," because everyone in prison knows you don't--Jim: When it involves a police officer--Andrew: You don't commit a crime against a police officer because you're not going to getany mercy.Woody: So the listeners know, when they submit to Supreme Court, Supreme Court has a right to turn down the hearing of the case. They don't have to hear it.Andrew: Right. So, they agreed to hear it. In January of 2016, they reviewed it favorably. Henry Montgomery, what his attorneys were arguing was that Miller's retroactive, and it affects Henry and people who've already been in prison, not just new cases. The Supreme Court agreed, and it put me at the front of the line.Jim: When he says the front, the very front.Andrew: The very front. It's not because I obviously wasn't the person who served the most time. I wasn't the person who had the most certificates. I was at the front of the line because most other guys in my position, they couldn't afford to hire attorneys, and other courts didn't want to fool with it. There weren't any local judges that were looking to start resentencing people. Everyone's like, "Oh, let's wait and see what the Supreme Court does." Well, my judge looked for the-- was happy to hear when my attorney went and said, "We were going to file for a hearing for a change in sentencing." He says, "Let's set a date."Woody: I'm sure also, I know what he told you originally, but I guarantee that the judge looked at-- that you did your time, you didn't let your time do you. You totally turned your life around, or you've been on a straight and narrow other than the one time at JESTC. [chuckles]Andrew: That's true. He put all that stuff into the record, and that obviously helped me. So, when the Montgomery decision came down, my attorney petitioned the parole board and said, "You owe him a parole hearing." At that point, the state of Louisiana had not issued-- the legislature hadn't changed any laws. So, he was arguing because of what the Supreme Court said, "Because his district court already sentenced him, you have to give him a parole hearing. You can't hold the legislature's inaction against him." The parole board agreed and actually got an opinion from the attorney general's office that said I was parole eligible.I go before the parole board in June of 2016, I'll be honest with you, even though I knew I was rehabilitated, knew if I get out, I'm going to do well, I still know I committed a horrible crime. I was in my 30s. I was 34. I'm telling myself, "I'm going to be denied," and I'm preparing my family, I'm going to be denied. This is the sort of a process and every couple of years I'll be able to reapply. And in 10, 15 years, they're going to get tired of telling me no, and I'm going to come home one day. And I'm going to tell y'all, my biggest fear, I didn't say this in the first episode. My biggest fear while I was incarcerated wasn't about someone hurting me, wasn't about being raped or being stabbed or even not getting out of prison. That wasn't my biggest fear. My biggest fear and what would keep me up at night was the fear that my parents would die while I was incarcerated.Woody: Yeah, I get it.Andrew: Because I've seen men whose parents died. Mom's the last person with you. Andwhen mom goes, everyone else goes.Jim: And they had your back the whole time you were in prison.Andrew: They didn't make excuses for me, but they showed me love. They visited me.Woody: Shoutout to your folks, man.Andrew: They answered my phone calls, and my mom and dad just sustained me. I went to prison as a 15-year-old, and even although my body matured, there was part of my-- I never went off to college. I never got that first job.Woody: The growth experience.Andrew: I was emotionally dependent on my parents' love and affirmation. So much of me furthering my education and doing good things in prison was so when my parents would come and visit me, I could say, "Guess what I'm doing?"Woody: They could be proud.Andrew: I say all that to say that whenever I had the parole hearing, I prayed, and I just prayed. "I know I'm not going to make it this time, but please, God, just let me come home while my parents are still alive so then I can be there for them as they've been for me for my whole life." Luckily, that day, I have a parole hearing. Generally, they tell you after the hearing, you've been granted or you've been denied. They threw a curveball, and they said, "We want to take this under advisement. We want to think about it." I understand I was the first juvenile lifer after Montgomery with a parole hearing. The parole board generally doesn't hear at that point, murderers going up for parole.I go back to my life in prison. I tell myself, "You're going to be denied. You're going to get a letter in the mail in 30 days that said, 'You've been denied. Apply again in two years.'" I'm back on the range crew. I'm back doing my job. I'm worrying about cattle. I'm worrying about inventories. I remember it was 10:30 on Thursday, June 9th. My supervisor is a guy named Alan Barton, June 9th, 2016, his phone rings, and he answers it, and he looks at me, and I could tell whatever that the call was about, it was about me. And so, I'm wondering, "What's this about?" Nowhere did it come into my mind this has something to do with parole. And he's like, "Okay, okay, okay." He hangs up the phone, and he looks at me, and he says, "Pack your shit." In prison, when you hear, "Pack your shit," it's usually one of a couple of things, but it could also mean you're going to the cell block.Woody: Right. It could mean you're getting swung. The other one is you're going home.Andrew: You're going home. This is how much I didn't allow myself to believe I was going home. I was prepared to go home. [crosstalk] Immediately, in that split second, "What are the things--? Do they know I brought a brick of community coffee back to the dorm to get to this old timer. What do they know? I got some extra chicken out the kitchen." And he says, "You're making parole." And I was just like, "Wait. What?" He's like, "The parole board granted you, and you're releasing now." I lived at the office of the range crew at the lake house, at the hog lot, this is prison jargon. Like, 80% of my properties out there because I go back to the dorm to sleep and then come back to work and work all day. He says, "Pack your stuff," and I was like, "Man, if this is a bad message, I don't want to pack all my stuff. So, let me go to the camp and see." He's like, "I'm not bringing you back. You're going home."So, it took me going to the camp and then giving me my release papers to sign before I believed it. They said, "Do you want to call anyone?" I said, "Yeah, I want to call my mom." So, they give me the phone, I call my mom. She answers, and I said, "Hey, do you know anything about me?" She says, "Yeah, we're coming to get you." I said, "How long have you--" My mom knew one hour before I did.Woody: Wow.Andrew: My attorney called her from the parole board to say, "Hey, the parole board just called me in to say that they're granting Andrew's parole." It was great that my mom knew for an hour before I called her. She knew she was waiting on that call. My sister had just graduated medical school. My parents were packing her up, getting ready to send her off for her residency. So, just thinking, my younger sister finished medical school, they're packing her up, and at the same time, their son's releasing from prison.Jim: What a day.Andrew: I was told at 10:30. I got up that morning thinking, "I may die here. I may get out in a few years." At 10:30, they said, "You're going home today." At 04:00, I was walking out the front gate with my family.Woody: Wow. One of the few people--Jim: For the first time outside since you were 15. Woody: Outside of the gates of Angola.Andrew: Right. Packing, getting all my stuff gathered, and all these old timers and these juvenile lifers who've been there all this time are coming up to me, "We're so happy for you, man. This is awesome." I remember thinking to myself, "Man, how much grace that they have," because if I was in their shoes, I would be saying, "Why this guy?"Jim: Yeah. People try to sabotage people getting out sometimes in prison. Andrew: "This guy's only been here 19 years. Why is he getting out?" Jim: You would almost think there'd be jealousy there.Andrew: Yeah, and I'm sure there was but guys were just showing me so much love. The last two guys I talked to before I get out were two juvenile lifers. One had been in for 40 years. One had been in for 50 years.Woody: Wow.Andrew: They say, "You're going to be the guy that helps the rest of us get out." I don't think they meant literally, but like, "You're going to get out, and you're going to show that people can get second chances. Man, you could do well." I was like, "Man, I'm sorry that it's me." They're like, "No, no, man, get the hell out of here. You're going to do well." We're driving down that road that I didn't know if I'd ever leave. My sister asks me, "Well, now what?" I had all these plans on paper, but now it's like, "Oh,-Jim: Now, it's real.Andrew: -it's real." I told myself what came to me is, "I've got to find a way to help people. I've got to find a way to help these people that I've left behind." So, through that guilt of leaving my friends behind was born Louisiana Parole Project.Woody: Wow.Jim: And what a beautiful project, and we're going to get into that. I do want to say, because I sense you had a little bit of guilt with you that you were the first, and there were these people that in your mind are more deserving because they had spent longer time and all ofthat. For me, looking from the outside, I think you had a lot of-- and I don't even know if you felt this pressure, but I would have thought you would have had a lot of pressure on you because anybody who was against that ruling is watching you to wait for you to fail. "Y'all going to see. Y'all going to see, they let these guys out and watch what happens. They're going to screw up again." Wow, were you the total opposite of that, number one. Probably far exceeded even people with the best of intentions, expectations, and that's what we want to get into. But you did. You were the first, and that was great.You also were carrying a heavy burden, just like these guys told you, you're going to be the one that they use as the example. So, I'm sure in the back of the mind, they were thinking, "Be a good example because you can screw it up for all of us." [chuckles] So, you were just that. Now, I want you to tell us about your Louisiana Parole Project and what it does and the value of that for these released convicts, inmates, people.Andrew: I come home in June of 2016, I recognize-- my dad gives me a truck. I knew I couldn't go back to Eunice, Louisiana. Everyone knew me for the worst thing I did. They either loved me or hated me but there weren't opportunities there. And I wanted to go to college. Heck, I was 34 years old, getting out of prison from this life sentence, smart guy. I've already earned these credits. Testament to the prison system, I felt getting out, like, "Man, I've earned all these credits. I have to go to college." Whereas if I wouldn't have had those opportunities, I might look and go, "Damn, I'm not ready to invest four years of my life. I got to go into the job market right away." So, I enrolled for college right away. But then, I started telling people, "Man, I want to find a way to help these guys. I realize I'm coming out and with this ruling, I'm just the first. There are going to be other people coming home. How do we create opportunities for people when they come home?"I'm going to be okay because my family is going to make sure that I have opportunities to be successful. I had built a network for myself in prison that I know, "Hey, I'm going to take advantage of this network to find a good job and to hang around good people and have volunteer opportunities." The guys coming home and I had enough common sense to know that, "Hey, the first few people who come home are going to affect it for everybody. So, we need to make sure the first guys who come home are successful so that stakeholders, namely parole board, governor, judges, keep giving people chances." This was an abstract idea and literally just starting, building it out from my experience, from the experience of the first few people that came home, what did they struggle with when they first come home. And we've built a program. We're a nonprofit organization, so I had to figure out how to build a nonprofit organization, how to set it up.Jim: Not easy.Andrew: My first job was actually someone clued me into working at Pointe Coupee Detention Center. I taught pre-release at the detention center for a short time. There's a curriculum, and it's actually this curriculum I taught in the inside at Angola, at Camp F in my spare time. So, I have a job. My first paycheck goes to chartering the organization with the Secretary of State's office and the local clerk at court's office. And then, applying to the IRS for the 501(c)(3) status. All that costs money. So, I'm just figuring out the administrative part of building the organization, asking funders for money. It's the chicken before the egg. I'd say, "Hey, this is what we're going to do." Well, funders would say, "Well, what have you done?" "Well, I haven't done anything."[laughter]Jim: "That's what we need you for."Andrew: "We need the funds." "Well, come back to us whenever you've done something." A lot of volunteer work, part time, going to college. And then finally, we had a couple of funders that took a chance on us. I mean, fast forward from 2016 to today, we operate a residential reentry program in Baton Rouge. We work with people who've been convicted all over the state that are coming home, and we work with people who've done 20 years or more, because we recognize these are guys who are more likely to listen to their peers. And it's a pure mentorship program. Same concept with AA. If you're an alcoholic who's going to AA, your sponsor is going to be another alcoholic.Woody: Somebody's who been through it.Andrew: Who's been through it and so we had the same mindset. We're going to have people who've come out of prison, who've been successful mentoring other people who come out of prison. Initially, that was an odd mindset for law enforcement, for probation and parole for DOC, because their job is usually keeping ex-cons away from each other. But today, we own and operate nine transitional houses in Baton Rouge. We own these homes outright. Seven houses for men, two houses for women. When they come home from prison, we're giving them a safe, stable place to stay. We have rules, we have expectations, but some of the things, our clients have served 20, 30, 40, 50 years in prison. So, it started out with these juvenile lifers coming home. And the legislature passed a bill in 2017 that also allowed something-- some people call it 40-Year Lifers, some people call it Disco Lifers. There's a group of about 120 lifers during the 70s that had parole eligibility before the legislature in '79 made life, life without parole. There was a bill that restored parole eligibility to some of those guys.Woody: I didn't know about that.Andrew: We helped some of them get back out. Jim: Wow.Andrew: And the governor has been signing commutations. And a big part of why he's signing commutations is because we say, "Hey, if you give this person a second chance, our program is going to help them rebuild their life." He took a couple of chances on people, and he's been signing more and more commutations. He's in the last year he's in office. Last week, he signed commutations for 12 lifers. These people are going to come through our program. To date, since 2016, we've had over 370 men and women who were once serving life or de facto life sentences have gotten out of prison. I know people hearing this go, "Wait a minute, 370 lifers?" Yeah, 370 lifers and de facto lifers, people sentenced to 50 years, 99 years, 200 years have come home. The reason you haven't heard about it is because they're not going back to prison.Jim: Period.Woody: Because they had made-- [crosstalk] Jim: Yes.Andrew: Our recidivism rate is 1%.Jim: 1%, y'all. Let that sink in.Woody: But you got to give them the other side of the scale. The average just on general recidivism rate is in the 40% range.Jim: Yeah.Woody: Which means almost one out of two that get out without Andrew's program aregoing to offend again. Jim: I'm sorry. Go ahead.Andrew: I said this to y'all before we went on air. I have a unique perspective where I did time, I'm a criminal justice practitioner, and I got my master's degree in criminology. So, one thing I learned actually getting the book education is when we hear like, "Almost one out of two people return to prison," the problem is it's the same couple of guys that go back and forth, back and forth. And they actually--[crosstalk]Jim: Yeah. Quadruples the number.Woody: Regardless, take those guys out of the equation, 1% is a stupid, crazy number in agood way.Andrew: We start working with our clients before they're released.Woody: Let's do it like this. You showed a picture of two people that you picked up yesterday, tell us what the process is going to be for them, from where you start until hopefully where it is.Andrew: Sure. So, two lifers came home yesterday. One served 41 years, one served 38 years. We started meeting with them months ago when we knew they had opportunities to come home. One was given a commutation by the governor, went through the pardon process successfully. The other guy was actually resentenced by the Orleans District Attorney because it was determined that he was overincarcerated. He was someone, after reviewing his case, they decided that he was less culpable than his co-defendants and he shouldn't have got a life sentence. So, they made a deal with him. He pled guilty to time served, came home. Anyway, we started working with him and it's just how much what our organization's reputation is. We go in, ex-cons--Woody: I was going to say, you go to Angola.Andrew: Go to Angola and the warden lets us in to go and see guys and prepare because they know we're not going in to bring in contraband. We're not trying to get anyone to escape. We're trying to get people out the right way, but we've got to go and prepare them for what to expect. To be frank, I've got to go in and determine, is this someone I want to help? Not everyone who applies to be our client, we accept. We turn down a lot of people. We look at the prison record and we also read between the lines. Having done time, someone who's done time or worked at Angola--[crosstalk]Jim: Real knows real. Andrew: Real knows real. Jim: [chuckles] As they say.Andrew: We want to make sure that it's someone who's taken responsibility for their actions and addressed the things that brought them to prison and bettered themselves and they're ready to come home. People, you're different at 25 than you were at 15. You're a different person at 35. You're a different person at 45.Jim: Amen.Andrew: A lot of my clients are 60- and 70-year-old men who are taking up unnecessaryspace at Angola.Jim: If you're judged by your worst mistake you ever made, everybody would hate everybody. Everybody, stop for a second, think about the worst mistake you've ever made, and then think about if everybody knew about that if they'd hate you or strongly dislike you. People change.Andrew: We pick our clients up at the front gate of the prison when they're released. We bring them to our program. Our clients, things we all take for granted, they've never used a cell phone, they've never used a debit card, they've never paid for gas at the pump, they've probably never opened a bank account. Who has been incarcerated for decades and still has their birth certificate and their Social Security card? These people, if they came home and didn't have the support, they'd just crumble, like, "Where do I start?" And their families, many of them have outlived their families. The ones who do have families, families love them, but they don't know where to start. So, our job is to prepare people to be successful. We're not putting people up for life and giving them a place to stay. We're training people to be self-sufficient.Woody: Like a transition.Andrew: It's a transition. We want you to learn the skills you need. I give someone their first cell phone they've ever had. [crosstalk] After a week, they're going to be like a 10-year-old with the first one. So now, we got to teach you how to put the phone down. Now, we've got to teach you what workplace etiquette is. We've got to teach you that when you went to prison, what was considered flirting is considered harassment. We've got to teach you what this institutionalization that you've had, "Hey, in society, we're more accepting of different people, different ideas. You've got to let that old thinking go." A lot of guys obviously come home with skills, and now we're--Jim: Mad skills, especially trade skills.Andrew: So, we're looking to do-- and I shouldn't just say, guys, we work with women too. Once they go through our initial program, we feel confident. Now, we're working to find them jobs. We give them transportation. We're going to transport them to their parole officer. We're going to transport them to their job. We bring them to the grocery store. We bring them to their medical appointments. Initially, "Hey, we're going to take care of all your needs. Now, we're going to teach you how to be self-sufficient." Our goal is we're turning tax burdens into taxpayers. We're not just getting people out and saying, "We're saving the state money, because that's one less person you have to pay for," we're turning these people into taxpayers. We're not just turning them into taxpayers when they're working. We're getting them volunteer opportunities. They're volunteering in the communities they live. I tell clients, "Go join a church." Some of them say, "Hey, I'm not into church." And I say, "You go find your church, find you an AA group, find you some group. Start showing up. After you're there three or four times, someone's going to recognize you and say, "Hey, you want to go to lunch? Hey, tell me about yourself.'"Woody: Integrate them into the community.Andrew: When people get in trouble, 9 times out of 10, it's because their family doesn't know what they're doing. There are no connections. What we find that's worked is we want all these tentacles into them. I'm going to tell you we're a parole officer's best friend because our parole officers have no problems with their clients because oftentimes, the guys out onparole, mama may not know where you're at, but that parole officer is keeping in contact with you, a Parole Project client. These are people who were convicted of the worst crimes, and they're the most successful group out there.And then, the mode is some of our clients who've come out been successful, we've had people start their own small business. We have homeowners, state employees, carpenters, welders, cooks. The people, you walk into Walmart and you don't realize the guy who's checking out next to you just got out of prison doing 30 years. You're in church, the person in the pew next to you is someone who came home. And that's the point. What does someone who's been in prison look like? We're training them to not only to blend in, but to give back to the community.What I would say is we've proven in Louisiana, a place where life without parole is something that is exactly what it means. And we've just accepted that, "Well, we give people life, and we can't let them out because they've done something so bad, they can't get out," or we keep them there so long, they can't adjust to society. We're proving that wrong, and we're proving that. And this isn't like a bleeding heart speech, because I'm not a bleeding heart. I don't believe-- there is a reason we have prisons, there's a reason we hold people accountable. Well, we can hold people accountable, and then we can take a look back and see, is someone worth redemption? Is someone rehabilitated? Someone worth a second chance? And it's a resounding yes. There's a way that you can support someone.One thing I hate to hear is, "He's been in so long, how can we let him out?" What I say is, "Shame on us as a society if we keep someone in prison so long, the reason we can't let them out is because we've kept them in prison so long."Jim: That's a great way of putting it. And you know what? I think your nonprofit does more than anything else, is the same thing that you get inside prison from the staff if they're doing it right, hope. The biggest reason that people reoffend, in my opinion, is they try other things, they hit a bunch of roadblocks, and it's the only thing they know. If you have a felony on your record and you go apply for a job and you have to disclose that felony, and you do, you're doing the right thing, it's hard. Look, I'm not saying they didn't earn the right to have to struggle with that, but it's hard for people to give you a second chance. It is not easy. I'm not someone that lived in that life, but I've seen a lot of people pass through my life that have had that struggle. I've seen people turn back to the only thing they know, because it's the only way they can make money, is by slinging drugs or doing whatever it was that put them in prison to begin with.Your program is really helping them adjust and teaching them that there's another way because anybody who's respected, even the worst of us, when you're respected for the right things, for being a good person, paying your taxes, all those things, you have a self-respect that you don't want to go back to that life.Woody: And then, second chance also-- Jim: It's hugely important.Woody: -what you just hit on, people come out and they can't get the jobs or people are like, "I'm not hiring a con," through second chance, through your program, somebody did take a chance. They're probably the best damn employee in the world. They're like, "Can you give me like 10 more of them?"Andrew: I was about to say two points I want to respond to as it relates to second chances, there is not an employer that we've gotten someone connected to-- a lot of times, it's a lot of work, getting this employer to take a chance, and I understand it. He's got to think, how isthe public going to feel about it? How are my other employees going to feel about it? There's not an employer who doesn't come back and say, "Hey, if you have another guy, I'd be willing to hire another guy." We have multiple employers, car dealerships in Baton Rouge, state government agencies that have multiple clients working for them.As it relates to hope-- We talked about Warden Cain, the current warden of Angola, Tim Hooper, is really a good man, and he's doing good things up there. But as it relates to hope, prisoner-on-staff violence is down at Angola. Prisoner-on-prisoner violence is down at Angola. Participation in educational and self-help programs are up. Why is that? Because people in Angola are seeing people go home. And not only go home, but they're seeing them stay home and stay successful. They know guys' success, guys communicate, and it gives people hope.Jim: So, light at the end of the tunnel.Andrew: What I tell people, even the hardest person who says, "I don't believe in any of this, lock them up. Why should I care about prison conditions?", if you don't care about the thousands of people who live in Angola, care about the employees who work there.Jim: That's right.Andrew: Because they should go into a safe environment. What I can tell you is, it's a safer place to work whenever there are people going home and there is hope in the prison. Hope is a good thing.Woody: Absolutely.Jim: This is a damn good episode. One more thing-- Woody: [crosstalk]Jim: Chills. How can people help support your program? Woody: Say the full name.Jim: We're going to link all of that too.Woody: [crosstalk] -links and everything. We're going to put it across all our stuff because I believe what you're doing is really awesome. Y'all, they are nonprofit, and you fund it through donations and stuff, right?Andrew: Yeah. Jim: In grants. Woody: Grants.Andrew: Grants and individual donations. So, our name is Louisiana Parole Project. Our website is paroleproject.org. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, @paroleproject. Check us out, you'll see-- If you're wondering what does someone look like coming out of prison, take a look at our social media. We call it the Money Shot, is the guy walking out of the front gate.Jim: [laughs] I love it.Woody: Hey, I'm going to follow--[crosstalk]Jim: The Money Shot.Woody: When we leave the studio, I'm going to go follow.Andrew: And people can donate to our organization online at paroleproject.org. Your donation, no matter how large or small, helps us buy someone coming out of prison, a pair of shoes, helps someone go to driving school, fund the cost to getting their driver's license, gets people started. We are a nonprofit organization, and all of our money goes to supporting people. It's a good investment. What I could tell you is, is it costs taxpayers thousands of dollars to keep people in prison for life. The older you get, the more expensive it costs.Jim: Doubles.Andrew: It does. It's a good return on the investment. We have been ill served by politicians who have fostered the idea that keeping people in prison forever makes us safer. We've led the country in incarceration because of life sentences, and it didn't affect crime. The people who are committing crimes today are not the guys getting out of Angola. So, there's a difference. When we hear some people are like, "Ah, I'm not into these reforms that are happening," what I can tell you is without a doubt, because I see it, I work with these guys, they're not the guys committing crime. They're the guys who are paying taxes, giving back to their community.Jim: Well, thank you for that and keep up the good work on that end. One more thing before we let you get out of here. You got a child and a wife now and we haven't even mentioned that. His wife's a doctor, y'all. How about that?Woody: Yeah.Andrew: Yeah. I'm a lucky man. God's shown me a lot of favor. The best job like I've everhad now is I'm dad to an 11-month-old daughter. Jim: Beautiful.Woody: Aw. Congratulations.Andrew: It's been a wonderful experience. Woody: Congratulations.Jim: Well, keep killing it, man. Keep doing the good work.Woody: Hey, you know what? I would like to ask you back again sometime. Jim: Please.Woody: Because this is [unintelligible [01:02:21]. This is important.Jim: Very important. Thank you.Woody: Thank you.Jim: Thank you very much. We appreciate you.Andrew: Thank you.Woody: Our favorite episode we've ever done. Episodes actually that we've ever done.Jim: Yeah, it was great. We hope y'all enjoyed this. Follow the Patreon, subscribe to us, if you'd like more information, and hopefully you would on the LPP, we're going to link all of that in the description of this podcast. Just scroll down, you'll see it there. You can click on it and help.Woody: When you hear it, if you're moved like I was, share it because we want everybody to know this story.Jim: That's important. Yes.Woody: And we've told you, it'll always be something different coming out of Angola. This isas far in the positive spectrum as we've ever been. Jim: 100%. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. Woody: I'm Woody Overton.Jim: Your host of Bloody-Woody: Angola.Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim: Peace.Our Sponsors:* Check out Factor and use my code bloodyangola50 for a great deal: https://www.factor75.com/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy