Podcast appearances and mentions of andrew yes

On today's episode you will hear part 4 of 4 of Russell's interview with Andrew Warner about the Clickfunnels start up story. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to the 4th and final installment here of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club, where he's going deep into the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you've enjoyed it so far. You know, throughout this entire interview, it was really fun. He brought my wife onstage and some of my partners onstage, and brought other people who didn't like me at first onstage and kind of shared all these things. I hope all you guys are enjoying it and really enjoying this interview. I hope that this starts making you think about your startup story. Some of you guys are living your startup story right now, and maybe you're depressed or nervous, or scared, or afraid or whatever. And hopefully this gives you motivation to know that I was there too. In fact, I'm still there many times, but it's okay and it's part of the game and part of the process. And someday you'll look back and you'll have someone like Andrew interviewing you about your startup story and you'll be so grateful for the trials and things you're going through now. So with that said, we're going to queue up the theme song, when we come back we'll listen to part 4 of 4 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club. Andrew: And I know a lot of you have asked me what's coming up next and Russell's going to talk about that, how you're going to get to Sales Force level, but why don't I take a couple of questions from someone. Is there anyone who's been sitting here going, “I can't believe Andrew didn't ask that.”? Is there anyone who has something standing out for them? Should we just have them onstage. Unknown person: We got mic's. Andrew: We got mic's from over there, okay. Audience member: Alright, a little bit deeper of a question. What is something, I know you're strong in your faith, family, God, I mean kind of all around, what's something that's really made you who you are? You've mentioned before that made you as a marketer with your dad, you're up late watching an infomercial. But what's something that inherently that could have been experienced, maybe a quote in the back of your mind that's just driven you, it could have been something that your parents taught you when you were young. What is, is there, it's kind of a little bit difficult of a question to look back, there's probably a million things. But what are one or two that really stick out, that make you the person that you are? Russell: I have a million thoughts just racing through my head. The one that just popped in the front, so I'll share that one, hopefully it's good. I remember when I was a kid my dad gave me a job to go clean the car. I went out there and I cleaned the car, I did my best job, I thought. And I came back in and I was like, “Hey dad, it's clean. Can I go play?” I was like, “Come look at it.” So he could let me go out and play. And he was like, “Well, is it good? Are you proud of it?” and I'm like, “I don't know.” And he's like, “Well, are you proud of it.” I was like, “I don't know.” And he's like, “Go work on it until you're proud of it, then come back and let me know.” And I was like, oh man. So I go back out, and I was like, “Am I proud of this?” and I was thinking about it, I guess technically I'm really not that proud of it. So I was like trying to do more things, trying to clean it better, and to the point where I was actually proud of it. And then I came back and I'm like, “Dad, okay the car's clean now.” And he's like, “Are you proud of it.” I'm like, “I am.” And he's like, “Okay, you can go out and play then.” I think for me that was such a big thing because it was just like, that internal “Am I proud of this thing that I'm giving, that I'm putting out there?” and if not, keep doing it until you are. And I don't know, that was one of those little weird dad moments that he probably didn't mean as a teaching opportunity, but definitely has been big for me ever since then. Andrew: Good question. Is there one on this side? While you're finding a person who has a question, Whitney, did you have more to say? You were going to ask more, right? Yeah, can you get the mic over to Whitney, please? She's right over here. I know I didn't ask your full question. Whitney: Hi Russell, how are you? Russell: Awesome, how are you doing? Whitney: Good. So with your business, what is, back to like when you were first starting, I kind of want to know, what's the one thing when your business was really hard, when you were really struggling, what's the one thing that kept you going? Just in the back of your mind. And then I have a second part of that. What would you say was your biggest failure and what was the greatest lesson you learned from it? Russell: That's not an easy question. Andrew: The biggest failure. Russell: Oh man. So the first question was, what was the first one again? Thinking about the biggest failure, I'm trying to…Oh, what kept it going? Andrew: Give me a sec. Are you going through that now? You are, what are you going through right now? Can you stand up and get close to the mic? I can see that this is a meaningful question for a reason. What's going on? Be open. Whitney: I'm just trying with my business, I'm trying to get my message out there. I'm really, I'm just baby parts of Clickfunnels, so I'm just figuring out how to do a funnel still. But my company is called Creating Powerful Women, so I am just trying to teach women how to grow a business while they grow their family at the same time. And I'm doing that right now, because I have 3 little tiny girls. So I'm just like, okay, I'm still trying to figure out this myself and then teach women how to do it at the same time. So it's just, I'm still in that struggle phase. Andrew: Is it partially because you feel like an imposter, how can I tell them what to do? That's what I was saying to you earlier. Whitney: When I don't even know. Yeah. {Crosstalk} Whitney: I feel like I need to have that success level before I can teach women to go out and do it. But the reason when I found you in the hall, and I said, “I want Russell to be vulnerable and tell like the nitty gritty parts of the story.” And those stories are what make people relatable to you, that's kind of where I'm at, as I realize that I grow a bigger following and a bigger audience when I'm more relatable to them, which I realize I don't need to be up at that level to do that. Andrew: I get that. Russell: So my question for you is, have you been working with women? Helping them so far? Tell me a story of someone you've helped. I'm curious. Whitney: So I went through post partum depression a couple of years ago, after I had a baby and a lot of the women I've been reaching out to when I shared those stories, those women have been coming to me saying, “Hey, how do you get through this struggle? I know you've gotten past that, so I want to hear the hard stories that you went through.” So a lot of the people who I've been coaching one on one have been people who have gone through those exact same things  that I have. Russell: Okay when you do that, and you share the stuff with them, and that clicks for them, how does that feel? Whitney: Like I'm fulfilling what I was put on this planet to do. Russell: That's the thing. That's the thing that keeps me going. It doesn't happen often, but it happens often enough that I crave that. I'm super introverted, so it's always awkward for people to come to me, but I still love when they come to me and they're like, “Hey, just so you know real quick…..” Like last night, we were in San Francisco, or San Diego, excuse me. Someone came up to me in the hall and I was kind of like, I'm nervous to talk to you but you're going to talk to me. And he said, “Hey, just real quick, you legitimately changed my life, you changed my family.” And started tearing up. And I was just like, I let myself feel that just for a second and then I go back to the awkwardness, but for a second I feel that. And It's just like ahh. That's what it's about you know. I use Voxer for my coaching clients. So every time they Vox me and say something like that, there's a little star button and I star it and it stores them in this huge thing of all the starred ones. So now days I'll go back and I'll listen to that and I'll listen to people like 2 years ago that said something about how something I did effected them, and it's just like, that feeling. Because everything we do in this life is for feeling's right. Everything is just a feeling we're looking for. We eat because we want a feeling. We did this because we, I wanted a feeling. We're doing everything for a feeling. So it's like if I can remember the feelings of the thing I'm trying to get, and I can experience it again, then it, that's what gets me and keeps me going.  And I think that any of us that are lucky enough to have those feelings, a lot of times we forget about them. No, remember that because that's the thing, when it's hard and it's painful and it's dark, it's that feeling that's just like, that's the, you remember that and you let yourself experience it again for a minute. And then for me, that's like, okay, I can get back up and I can go again. Andrew: Great question, I'm glad you asked it. How about one more over there? You know what, yeah, let's give her a big round of applause, please. Audience member: I was actually going to ask a little bit about that vulnerability. I was surprised, I'm big in the SAAS space, I've been to Dream Force, follow a lot of Clickfunnels. It's pretty rare to see a CEO want to put themselves kind of on the roasting side of things. You're from here, from Sandy. I was just kind of surprised, what was it that really compelled you to kind of want to come back and do this in Utah? When I saw your email I thought it was a clickbait scam. Russell: Oh it is, we're selling you something next. Audience member: I really thought I was going to come and it was going to be a video of your face spinning and it was going to be like, “Hi, we're here.” Because I follow Clickfunnels, but it's just really rare, especially being down in Utah county, that was kind of unique that way. Andrew: Wait, one sec. Does Clickfunnels allow me to actually place someone's city in the headline, like I want someone from San Francisco, you could. Oh, alright, I get it. Audience Member: It said like Idaho, we're in the surrounding areas, it's going out to 8000 people, limited seating. So as a marketer I was just like, is this a real thing? You know. So I showed up and I was excited to see you. But why come back to Utah, what does this event mean to you and why want to be vulnerable and kind of open up? I learned a lot about you personally that was great to hear from a business side. Russell: So my beliefs are, and I believe we have the best software company in the world, so I'm going to start with that. But if it's just about the software, then it comes down to who's got what feature. People are moving and shifting and changing because of the features. That's the thing. So Clickfunnels was like, no it has to be more and it has to be a thing. And it's interesting, people who sign up for Clickfunnels, who click on an ad, they come and sign up. That's why John can't do, it doesn't work that way. They sign up for a web, clickfunnels is a website builder for crying out loud. You boil it down, we are a website builder. That is boring. So people don't come for that. They stay for that. That's why they stay, that's why they stay. But they come because of a feeling, and they come because of a connection. I want to be able to take the videos from here because if I can more people who come through my funnels to hear this story, they're going to stick with Clickfunnels because they realize we have a soul. There's a reason behind this, it's not just the software company who's trying to make a bunch of money. We're actually, we have belief behind it. So that's why we do all these things. That's why I still write books. That's why we do videos. That's why we do vlogs. That's why we do this fun stuff, because it builds connection with people, and connection really keeps people staying, even if some other company's got a different feature than we do, or it's cheaper and we're more expensive, or whatever. So that's the big reason why we still do it. And then I thought it would be fun to come down here because I grew up not far from here and it's just kind of a fun thing. We've been working with the Harmon Brothers and we started another project with them and their family owns the Dry Bar Comedy Club, if you guys have ever watched Vid Angel, that's one of their families companies. When Vid Angel had their little hiccups, they shifted all the programming to this, the Dry Bar Comedy Club, so we used to watch all the comedians here. And I was like, this is like the coolest location to do something like this. And one of the other side jokes, I don't know if I shared this with you or if it was just in my head, but Andrew is famous for doing these big scotch nights, and as a Mormon I can't drink scotch. And I was like, what if we did this, but at a Dry Bar, just this funny play off of that? And it all worked out. Andrew: You know, usually at events I do scotch night afterwards and say, ‘Everyone come back to my room.' That's not going to go over very well. But Dave's been to mine. He drinks water and feels comfortable. We have good water for Dave. How about one more, then I want to get into the future. Audience Member: So you always talk about how, like for Clickfunnels you guys took like 6 tries to finally make it work, right. And how most of the time when you guys start something it doesn't work the first time, that's why you have audibles and all those things. So I was wondering as someone that, you know I'm starting and getting that, kind of like that lifts, what is the biggest thing that you see, versus like a flop funnel versus something that kind of takes off and explodes? What's the audible or the change that you normally do that shift or the message change or whatever it is, that makes it finally take off? Russell: Traditionally the difference between a funnel that works and doesn't work, I'd say it's probably 50% offer. Like if the offer's wrong it's not gonna, that's usually the first thing. But then if it's actually a good offer, that people actually want, second then is usually copy. So like what's the hook, those kind of things. And then design is probably 3rd. All that stuff that Theron and those guys didn't like at first. The things that, because it's not like we just made up this stuff, you saw 8000 funnels we tested and tried in the journey of 15 years of this, that now we know what things people convert on. So it's just like looking at stuff that you know is working and modeling it because you this structure works, this kind of thing. But usually when something is broken it's coming back and figuring out, this offer's not right. People didn't want it. And that was the problem with Clickfunnels. The offer, we took 4 or 5 times to get the offer right, and then as soon as the offer is right, you can tell when it's right because people will buy, even if everything else is bad, if your offer is amazing people will give you money for it, you know. So that's definitely the biggest part, and from there it's copy, then design, then all the little things that stress some people out, like me. Andrew: So I've got, we'll come back. I see there are a few people that have more questions; we'll come back to them in a moment, including you. I promise I'll do more. But you did tell me about all the different things you guys are working on now. Of all of them, what one is going to get you the closest to Sales Force level? Russell: That's a good question, there's so many things. So I would say, I'm going to ask you a question is that alright? Have you ever played bigger yet? Played bigger? Playing bigger?  Andrew: No, what do you mean by that? Russell: That's the name of the book right? Play Bigger? Andrew: Oh Playing Bigger, the book. No. Russell: Yes. So that's book's been interesting, if you guys haven't read it, it's one of the biggest ones as a team that we've been reading. But it's all about designing the category and becoming the king of that category. So I feel like we are the king of sales funnels, and that's our category, the thing that's going to be there. And then if you read through the book, the next phases are like, building out the ecosystem that supports you as the category. And the fascinating thing about sales force, if you look at it when, I probably shouldn't say this on video because someday Mark Benioff's going to watch this and be like, “I'll never give you money.” But sales force isn't great software, right. It's this hub that things are tied into, but the reason why they did 13 billion this year, they're trying to get to 20 billion is because they built this ecosystem. The ecosystem is what supports this thing and grows it up, and builds it. And that's like the next phase. So I think for us, it's like we have this, we have funnels which are the key. It's like the CRM for them, it's the central point. But it's then bringing all the ecosystem, it's building up all the things around it, right. Andrew: Letting other people create things on your platform, becoming a platform. Russell: Yes, becoming a true platform. Andrew: can you create a platform when what you want is the all in one solution when you're saying, “you don't have to plug in your chat bot to our software. We're going to be chat bot software.” “You don't have to plug in infusion soft, we've got email marketing in here or mail chimp.” Russell: It depends, because you look at Sales Force is similar too. They have their own things that they either acquire and bring them in, or they build their own, things like that. And I think it's a hybrid of that. I think it's, we allow people to integrate because some people have tools. We will, our goal is to always be the best sales funnel builder on planet earth. We may not be the best email auto responder in the world, we have one and that increases our revenue. And people who love us will use our email auto responder, but there may be some other one that's better. But it's not our big focal point. There may be a chat bot that's got more features and more things, that's not gonna be our focus to make it the best, but we've got one built in to make it. So theer will be, that's kind of our thought, that we will have the things included, so if people want to go all in they can use it. But if they love yours because of these things, they can still bring that and still bring it in. You know, and then as we grow, who knows what the next phase is. Is it acquisitions, finding the best partners? People that most of our members are using, start acquiring companies and bringing them in, internally similar to what Sales Force does, growing the platform. Andrew: Just keep letting people build on your platform and then does that make the platform more valuable, or do you guys get a share of the money that people spend on these external tools? Russell: Both, I think. Stripe for example, Stripe, I think we process 1.7 billion dollars through Stripe. We make over a million bucks a year from Stripe referral fees, for just letting them connect with us. So there's value on both sides because it makes the platform more valuable because people can use it easier, but we also make money that direction as well, and those type of things. Andrew: Okay, what is Actionlytics, Action… Russell: Actionetics. Andrew: Excuse me. Russell: So that was Todd's name. He loved that name. So Actionetics is, it's what we call internally, follow-up funnels. So we have sales funnels, which are page one, page two, page three, page four. Then a follow-up funnel is send this email, send this text message. “Here's the retargeting pixels, here's the thing.” So it's the follow-up funnels. It's all of the communication that's happened after somebody leaves the page with your audience. Andrew: And that's a new product that you guys are creating? Russell: Yeah, it's been, actually we make more revenue from Actionetics than we do from Clickfunnels right now. We've never marketed it outside though. Andrew: I can't get access to it, it asked me for my username and password. I said, I don't have that, so how do I sign up for it? Russell: it's only been in beta. So we opened up at Funnel Hacking Live, people signed up there. And then we kept it down for a year, then we opened it, so two Funnel Hacking Lives we opened it, and then my birthday we opened it. So that's it. But we have, it's over, 12-13 thousand members who have upgraded to that. And then we're probably a couple weeks away from the actual public launch where people will be to get, everyone will be able to get access. Andrew: And already people are spending more money on that than Clickfunnels? Russell: Yeah, because it starts at $300 a month versus $100. So it's the ascension up. So they go from $100 a month to $300 a month and then the new one, it scales with you. Because we're sending emails and Facebook message, it gives us an ability to grow with the platform as well, and not just have a $200 a month limit. Someone might pay $1000 or $5000 depending on how big their lists are. Andrew: You're really good at these upsells, you're really good at these extra features. How do you think about what to add? How do the rest of us think about it, based on what's worked for you? Russell: Okay, that's a great question, and everyone thinks it's a product, the question most people ask is, what price point should my upsells be? It has nothing to do with that. It has 100% to with the logical progression of events for your customer. So when someone comes to you and they buy something, let's just say it's weight loss. So they come to you and they buy a weight loss book right, and let's say it's about how to get abs. So they buy that, the second they put their credit card in and click the button, in their mind that problem has now been solved. I now have six pack abs, the second it's done. And people don't think that. So what people do wrong is the next page is like, “Cool, you bought my abs book. Do you want my abs video series?” it's like, “No, I just solved that problem. I gave you money. It's been solved.” So what we have to think through, for logical upsells is like, “okay, I just got abs, what's the next logical thing I need?” So it's like, “Cool you got abs now, but how would you like biceps? We can work it out. This is my training program to grow here.” For funnels it's like, here's this funnels software, or here's this book teaching you how to build funnels, but after you have a funnel you need traffic. So traffic's the next logical progression. So as soon as someone's bought something, the customer's mind, I believe, that problems been solved. And it's like, what's the new problem that's been opened up, because that problem's been solved. That's the logical… Andrew: I got my email addresses because of Clickfunnels, the next problem I'm probably going to have is what do I send to people? And that's what you're solving. What about this, fill your funnel, it's a new software. Russell: Yeah. Andrew: What is it? Russell: How do you know these things? That is good, you have been digging. So I'm writing my third book right now, it's called Traffic Secrets, and then on the back of it we have software that's called Fill Your Funnel, that matches how we do traffic with the book. So when someone reads the book, you login and the way we do traffic, we focus very heavily on influencers. We call it the Dream 100. So you come in and you login and you're like, “Here's the people in my market. There's Tony Robbins, there's Andrew..” you list all these people and it starts pulling all our data, scraping all their ads, their funnels, everything  and shows you everything that's happening in their companies, so you can reverse engineer it for what you're doing. Andrew: So if I admire what John is doing for you guys, I could put you in the software, you'll show me what you guys are doing, and then I'll be able to scrape it and do it myself. You're nodding. And you're okay with that? John: It's awesome. I'm excited. Russell: Excited. Andrew: Have you been doing that? Is that part of what's worked for you guys at Clickfunnels? John: Yeah, we like to, we call it funnel hacking. We like to look and see what other people are doing. Andrew: So you're actively looking to see what other, man as an interviewer that would be so good for me to understand what people are doing to get traffic to their sites. Alright, so… Russell: We buy everyone's product, everyone's. I bought Drew's like 6 times. Yeah, you're welcome. Just because the process is fascinating to see. Andrew: And then the book. What's the name of the book? Russell: Traffic Secrets. Andrew: Why is everything a secret? What is that? Russell: I don't know. Andrew: No, I feel like you do. I remember I think it was… Russell: It all converts, 100% because it out converts. Andrew: Because the word, “secret” out converts? In everything? Russell: Everything. I used to onstage be like, “The top three myths, the top three strategies, the top three lies, the top three everything” and like “secrets” always out converted everything else, and then it just kind of stuck. Andrew: And then that's the name of this book. I'm looking here to see…yeah, Melanie, she told me when you organized this event you said, “Secret project”. That's it. Russell: If I just tell people what's happening then they like, “Oh cool.” I need to have to build up the anticipation. Andrew: Even within your team? Russell: Especially within the team. Yes. Andrew: Especially. So secret is one big thing. What else do you do? Russell: Secrets, hacks… Andrew: No, within the team. So now you get them interested by saying it's a secret. Russell: So I'll tell them a story, I'll tell them the beginning of a story. I'll be like, “Oh my gosh you guys, I was listening, I was cleaning the wrestling room and I was going through this thing, and I was listening to Andrew and he was doing this campfire chat and it was amazing. And he's telling this whole story, and I have this idea, it's going to be amazing. But I'll tell you guys about it tomorrow.” So what happens now, is they've got a whole night to like marinate on this and be like, “What in the world?” and get all excited. And then when they show up, they're anticipating me telling them, and then when I tell them, then I get the response I want. If I tell them they're like, “Oh cool.” I'm like, no, you missed it. I need that, in fact, I'll share ideas all the time, I'll pitch it out there just to see. I know it's a good idea because Brent will be like, “I got chills.” Dave will start freaking out, and that's when I know, “Okay, that was a good idea.” If they're like, “Oh that's cool.” I'm like, crap. Not doing that one. It's the same thing. Andrew: I've heard one of the reasons that you guys hang out together is one, he's an extrovert and you're an introvert, but the other one is Dave will one up you. Russell: It starts the process. This is the bubble soccer event we did. Initially it was like we're going to have influences, or we were launching the viral video and like we need, let's bring some people into it. And then we were asking how someone could bring big influencers, like “you have to do something crazy. Like get a Ferrari and let them drive over it in a monster truck.” I was like, “That seems extreme.” I was like, “What if we played football on the Boise State Stadium?” And Dave's like, “What if we did bubble soccer? What if we tried to set a Guinness book of world records…” and then next thing we know, we're all Guinness book of world record champion bubble soccer players. It was amazing. Andrew: And that's the thing that I've heard about your office environment. That it's this kind of atmosphere where, see for me, look at me, I've got that New York tension. When I talk to my people and I talk to everyone it's like, “You've gotta do something already.” And you guys like fun, there's a ball pit or whatever in the office. Am I right? You go “we need a, we're gonna create a new office. Let's have a bowling alley in it and a place to shoot.” That's the truth. Russell: It is the truth. It's going to be amazing. Andrew: Does he also tell you, “We need to do something this weekend. Date night, it's a secret.”? Russell: Maybe I need to do more than that, huh. Andrew: Yes, does he use persuasion techniques on you? Russell: It doesn't work on her. Andrew: No. Russell: She's the only person I can't persuade. It's amazing. My powers are useless against my wife. It's unfortunate. Andrew: Do you actually use them, or when it comes to the house you go, “come on, I'm tired already, just…”? Russell: I tried to do something today and she was like, “That was the worst sales pitch ever.” I'm like, “Dang it. Alright, I'll try again.” Andrew: Hey Siri, text my wife “I've got plans for tomorrow night. So good, Russell just told me about it. I'll tell you later. Secret.” Period, send. Russell: That's amazing. Andrew: Wowee. Does anybody know how I can get a babysitter here. {Audience speaking indistinctly} Andrew: They're a little too eager to spend time with my kids. Thank you. Alright, I said I would take a few more questions. I know we're almost out of time here. Who was it, it was someone on the right here that was especially, you looked, uh yeah you, who just pointed behind you. Audience Member: Hi, okay, Russell I've been in your world since about 2016.. Andrew: Hang on a second, who the, I'm sorry to curse, but who the f**k comes to a software event and goes, “I've been in your world.”? This is amazing about you. I'm in San Francisco, there's nobody that goes, “I'm so glad I've been in the hubspot world.” It doesn't work that way. I'm sorry, I had to interrupt. Okay. I've been in your world. He's selling you software, you're in his world. Sorry. Audience member: You have to listen to his podcast, it's a.. Andrew: I've listened to his podcast. It's just him talking. Audience Member: He talks about it, it's a universe. He creates a universe. Andrew: You know what, here's the thing that blew my mind. I thought it was him in a professional studio, I saw him in San Francisco, he's talking into the voice recorder on his phone. Okay, yeah. I gotta feeling that Russell's going to go, at some point, “Religion is just an info product. I think I could do a better job here.” Alright, yeah. Audience Member: okay, I entered the Clickfunnels universe in 2016 and since that time, I came in with a lot of hopes and a lot of, it was just a really exciting experience to have you break down the marketing, you really simplified it right. So I see that, I'm an ambassador for the one comma club challenge right now, and people are coming in with such high hopes and such tremendous faith and trust in you. And I have a friends that I brought into it and everything and they're coming in, just like, they're really staking a lot on how they've persuaded to join your universe. Sorry, universe is the wrong word. But from that, I guess the question is, there's a few things. I think a lot of people are afraid of that type of responsibility in the products that they're delivering, and of course there is a tremendous failure rate of people who don't get what they're persuaded in. So there's a lot of magnification on the two comma club, and the people there that are the successes, but the question that I have is, the responsibility that you feel for that, I feel that you feel the responsibility because you're constantly looking for new ways to simplify, bring in new coaches, bring in the new team, make products and offers that are completely irresistible. Truthfully, I went to Funnel Hacking Live, I'm not spending any money, 20 thousand dollars later. I mean it was truthfully so irresistible, but you've crafted such unique things in an effort to truly serve that client and really get them to the place that they're looking to go. So I'm not sure if the question is coming out, but there's a lot of responsibility that all these bright eyed, bushy tailed you know, wannabe marketers are coming in really truthfully feeling the genuine just truth that you're telling them, but then there's a big crash and burn rate too, which is normal in that space. I'm not sure what the question is. Andrew: Congratulations  to the people in the two comma club, what about the people in the no comma club. What do you feel is a sense of obligation to the people who aren't yet there? What do you feel about that? Russell: Is that the question? Andrew: Is that right? Audience member: I guess the question is, there's two parts, one is the responsibility that other people are feeling, the fear that they're feeling to put something out there because they're afraid of a failure rate. So just like, Whitney over there was talking about, she's got those fears. So there's normal fears that come along with that, so how you deal with that, in that it's not because of lack of delivery on your end, but there's still people who are spending tremendous amounts of money, or small amounts of money that just aren't getting what it is. So it's really about your internal feelings about that topic. Russell: It's a good question. There's a lot of different ways I could answer it. I'm trying to think, for me it's a big reason I do have a con stripe, because I do feel like I have a huge obligation to people who sign up for our stuff. So I'm always thinking, how do we simplify this, how do we simplify it? What's the best way to do it? What's the thing? But that's also what creates innovation right. It creates the ideas, it's that, how do we serve these people better? How do we serve them better? Probably the best analogy, in fact, Brandon over here was working on a video that he sent me last night, that I had a chance to watch, it was really cool. We had Sean Stephenson speak at the second Funnel Hacking Live. Was anyone there for that one? A couple of you guys. Sean Stephenson, if you know him, is the 3 foot giant. He's this little dude in a wheel chair, one of the coolest humans on earth. And he told this story, it was funny because man, I had another emotional connection watching it last night actually, watching it. And he talked about stories like, “How many of you guys here are upset because you got 17 followers on Facebook and you've got 13 likes on your YouTube video, and you're pissed because of all this stuff.” And I think of a lot things that way. “I'm trying this thing, I'm not a millionaire yet, I'm not making any money, blah, blah, blah.” And they're upset about that right. And what Sean said, he's like, “Do you know how they choose who they're going to save when a helicopter is flying into an ocean and there's a boat that's wrecked with all these people. Guess how they choose who they're going to save?” and he said, “What happens is the helicopter drivers, they fly over there and go down to the people, going to save them, and guess who they save, they save the people who are swimming towards you.” He says, “That's how you do it. If you try to save everyone, it will drown you, it'll drown the boat, and everybody dies. But you save the people who are swimming toward you.” And then he came back and said, “Those 17 likes on your video, those are the 17 people who are swimming towards you. You have to understand that.” So for me it's like, we talk about the money because that gets people inspired, but when it all comes down, the really internal belief, no one really cares about the money. They want the feeling of the connection and the help and they want to change the world. They have their thing, and so it's like, we talk about the money because it gets people excited, but I don't know anybody who that's the real reason why they're in business. They're in because they want, they want to help those people that are coming towards them. So you notice when you get deeper into the culture, it's not just money, money, money, money. It's how do you serve, how do you impact, how do you change the world, how can you get your message clearer, how can you do those things? And when you shift from the money to that, then the money starts magically coming. So for me, it's just like how do we get more people thinking that way more often. I don't know if that's the right answer or if that helps at all, but it is definitely something I feel a big obligation for but I also feel like I'm super grateful for the people who are willing, I'm grateful to Don Lepre, spent all that money doing the infomercial on that thing. And I didn't implement it back then, when I was 14, right. I'm grateful to the next guy who re-inspired me and I bought the thing and didn't do anything and then next person and all those things, because eventually it stuck. So for me, it's like I'm going to keep creating offers and keep doing cool things, and trying to inspire people because it might not be the first or the second or the fifth, but eventually if I keep being consistent on my side, it's going to keep getting it and eventually the right people, those who actually have something they want to share, something they actually care about what they're doing will figure out the way. And we're just going to keep trailblazing and trying to do our best to make a path that they can all follow. So that's kind of how I look at it. Andrew: Great question. Let's close it out with one more. Yes. Dave did you find someone, because I just found someone right here. Why don't we do two more then? Since you found one and I found one. What's your name? Sorry, Parker? Parker. Go next. There we go, let's go to Parker next and we'll close it out with him. Parker: Alright, so the biggest question I have for you Russell is, I've seen you guys' amazing group you guys have at Clickfunnels, and every time I go in your guys' office it's nothing but excitement, energy, and not only you don't have to inspire your workers to work for you. They come there excited and hearing your amazing stories that John and Brent had of, they stayed with you for all this time and you pushed them and they pushed you and there's this amazing cycle. I'm curious as far as, because I want to have an amazing group like that one too so I can affect the world the same way that you have, and even do better than you did. And that's a completely admiration thing, that's I don't know. Dave: Cut from the same cloth here. Russell: That's his dad. Dave's son. Andrew: Oh got it. That makes sense. Parker: The question I have for you is, how do you find those people? Is it nothing but like a whittling out process or do you see these characteristics already in the people that you have? Andrew: One sec, how old are you? Parker: I'm 20 years old. Andrew: 20 years old and you admire your dad and the guy that he works with so much that you want to not just be like him, but be more like him? Can you take of my kid tonight? Sorry, that's amazing. Does your dad come home with this energy like this energy like, “We're going to capture the world. This is what we're going to do.” Parker: it is the funniest thing. Oh my gosh. Every way you see him online, social media, whatever the heck it is, it's exactly the same way he is at home. When you see him on the tv talking about like, “Oh this is…” or when you interviewed him. Andrew: I've watched his podcast, I see that thing. {Crosstalk} Parker: you know as much as I do then. Andrew: What did he motivate you to, like to sell as a kid, or to upsell as a kid. Parker: So he would like talk to us like he was a sales person basically, in the aspect of he talks about things as far as, this person did a terrible job at selling. They could have done this, this, this and this.” And we're like 10 years old, I think at the time, I think. I don't know. It's more of a recent change since he joined clickfunnels and he's got this amazing excitement and energy. It's an amazing thing and I wish to have to people like my dad when I become a, when I start to do my own thing. Andrew: It is contagious isn't it? Parker: yeah, it totally is. Andrew: And I've been watching, what's this new Vlog that you've got. It's on Russell, it's on Russell Brunson's YouTube channel right? I'm at the end of it going, “Hell yeah, why am I taking a shower now. I gotta go, I got stuff to do.” Right. These guys are out there taking over San Francisco, that's my city. So I guess you're feeling the same way at home. Now, he's there twice, he suddenly owns a place. So your question was…? Parker: My question was basically, how do you find these amazing people to work, not only for you, but with you and to help you accomplish your dream? Is it whittling out process or it you have innate ability to find people? Russell: So as you were saying that I started thinking, I'm thinking about the partners on our team, who none of them came through like a help wanted site. None of them came through like, Brent went to church with me and he showed up every single week, every single month, he was my home teacher and showed up every single month consistently and we became friends and we did stuff together. John married my cousin. We were on the boat in the middle of the lake and he pitched me on a network marketer opportunity and I was like, I love this guy. And then I pitched him back and we just, and it was amazing. And then Dave, we were at an event like this and we had a signup sheet if you wanted to take the speakers out to dinner and Dave ran back and signed up every single line under mine. So I went to every single meal with him for 3 days. I think it's just, I think a big part of it, I think most entrepreneurs can't build a team because they're waiting to build the team. And I think for me, I didn't know what I was doing so I just started running, and what happens when you're moving forward and motion is happening, people get attracted to that. And some people will come for bad reasons and they'll leave, and I've been taken advantage of multiple times, things like that will happen, but the right people will stick around. But it's all about, it's the motion right. That's what people are attracted to. If something's happening. I don't know what's happening, but I want to be on that train and they start coming. So I think it's taking the initiative of “Okay, I'm going to start running and I have no idea if anyone's going to follow me ever. But If I do this and I keep doing it consistently then people will.” And you know, it's been a consistency thing. I'm 15 years into this business now, 8000 funnels deep. But it's a consistency, and when you do that and you're consistent, then the right people will just start coming into your life. But not waiting for them initially. If I would have waited to build my team initially, we wouldn't have a team. Everyone we met was like in the, as we were having motion, the right people started showing up. Andrew: Alright. Thanks. Speaking of, thank you. How many people here are actually at Clickfunnels, if you work at Clickfunnels. Can you guys stand up if you work at Clickfunnels. There you go. I feel like at the end of this everyone's going to want to go and meet Russell. Everyone's going to want to go and mob him. And he's not that social, number one. Number two, I feel like you're going to pass up these fan-freaking-tastic conversations, I've gotten to know the people who work here a lot really well in preparation for this, I really urge you to see the guys, the people who are wearing these t-shirts. Get to know them. Push them into a corner, understand what's working for them. And really, you're fantastic people, thanks so much for helping me do this. And thank you for having me on here. I really appreciate you being open, being willing to let me take this anywhere. You said, “I understand what Andrew is trying to do. He's trying to figure this out. I'm going to let him run with it and let him make the magic happen.” And I think we made a lot of magic happen. Thanks so much for having me here. Russell: Yeah man, it was amazing. Andrew: Thank you all for coming, I'm looking forward to meeting every one of you. Thanks.

Enjoy part three 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--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed episodes 1 and 2 of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club where he was telling the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you are enjoying this interview series so far, and I hope also this motivates you guys to go over to the mixergy podcast and subscribe to everything that Andrew does. Like I said, he is my favorite interviewer and I think that what he does is second to none. So I hope that you guys enjoy him as well, and go subscribe to the mixergy podcast. But with that said, I'm going to queue up the theme song, and when we come back we will start into part 3 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview. Andrew: I actually got, I did see, I don't know, I didn't see the video you mentioned, but I did see what it looked like. Here's one of the first versions. He compared it to Clickfunnels, he said, I mean to Lead Pages. He said, “Look at how Lead Pages has their stuff all the way on the left, all the controls.” Oh you can't see it. Oh, let me try it again, let me see if I can bring up the screen because this is just, it's just too good. Hang on a second. I'm just constantly amazed how you're able to draw people to you. So this is the article from Lead Pages, this is the first landing page from Clickfunnels, this is what he created before, this is what you guys did together. This is your editor and h e said, “Look, if you're on Lead Pages, their controls, their editor is all the way on the left and it's just moving the main content to the right, which is not looking right. And I prefer something that looks like this, with a hundred pixels on the left, a hundred pixels…” I go, who knows a hundred pixels, it's like you, what is this? Russell: Dylan is obsessed with that type of stuff, it's amazing. Andrew: Obsessed. And you draw people like that. You draw people like Dave, who is just phenomenal. Dave, the traffic and conversion event that he was just talking about, is that the one that you went to? Dave: The one after that. Andrew: The one after that. Okay, we'll come back to that in a second then. So this became your next version, you brought on a new partner, and then you did a webinar with this guy. Who is this guy? Russell: It's Mike Filsaime, one of my first friends online. It actually wasn't a webinar, it was a live event. He was doing a live event in San Diego and he was like, “You have to come and sell Clickfunnels.” And I was like, “Nobody's buying Clickfunnels.” We had a free trial and like, we couldn't give it away. It was crazy. And he's like, “Well, you're on this website, you're picture is there, you have to come and sell Clickfunnels, and I need you to sell it for at least $1000.” Because the way it works, if you speak at someone's event, you sell something, you split the money 50/50. So he's like, “It needs to be at least $1000.” And I was all bummed out. I didn't want to do it. And the event actually started, but they were streaming it live online, so I was actually sitting at our office in Boise, watching it as I'm putting together my slides to create Clickfunnels, and then flew out to the event. And then we had a booth, and I don't know if I told you this, we had a booth and Lead Pages had a booth right across the little hallway, skinny hallway. And Todd's wife was manning our booth and then Lead Pages was right there, and it was so funny because she was not shy at all about talking about Lead Pages. She's like, “Yeah, we're like Lead Pages except for way better. We can do this and this.” And the other guy is sitting there like, right in front of her as she's telling them everything. And it was..anyway, I digress. It was pretty funny. Andrew: By the way, she's still at it. I saw a video that you guys created, you were talking to her and she goes, “I will be Clickfunnels.” I go wait a minute, you still had that fire, okay. So you were at that event. Russell: So we're at the event and there's probably, I can't remember, 150-200 people maybe in the room. So I got the slides up and Dylan was there and he was like, when we got to the funnels he was going to demo the editor, so I did the whole thing, showed the presentation and we demo'd Clickfunnels and at the end of the thing I sold. And I've been good onstage, but by far, that was the first time in probably 8 years that I'd seen a table rush, where people are stepping over the things, jumping around, trying to get to the back to buy as fast as they could. Andrew: What did you say to get them to want to do that? Russell: We made a really, I mean we gave the presentation, and gave a really good offer at the end. They get a year of Clickfunnels for free, plus they get training, plus they were going to get all these other things for $1000. Andrew: It was $1000 training and a year of Clickfunnels for free, and then they become long term members. And it was also called, Funnel Hackers? Russell: Funnel Hacks, yeah. Andrew: Funnel Hacks. And that's the thing that became like… Russell: The culture. Andrew: This culture, this tribe. It wasn't just they were signing to learn from you, they were becoming funnel hackers. That's it. Russell: I mean, that wasn't planned though. It was like, I was trying to think about a sexy name for the presentation, so I'm like ah, Funnel Hacks. And somebody owned FunnelHacks.com, and I'm like, I'm still doing the presentation that way. And then later we made t-shirts that said, “Funnel Hackers” and then now we got 4 or 5 people have tattooed that to their bodies, it's really weird. But anyway, that's what happened. We did that and we sold it and I remember going to dinner that night with the guys who were there, and Todd and his wife and everything. And we were all excited because we made some money finally. But I was just like, “You guys don't understand, like I've spoken on a lot of stages, and I haven't seen a table rush like that.” And I remember back, there was a guy, he passed away a couple of years ago, his name was Fred Catona. And he was a radio guy. He was the guy who did the radio commercials for, do you guys remember, it's got the guy from Star Trek, what's his name? Audience member: Priceline. Russell: Priceline. He did the Priceline radio commercials and made that guy a billionaire. And he told me when we were doing the radio ads, “This is what's going to happen. We're going to test your ad and if it works, I'm going to call you on the phone and let you know you're rich. Because if it works, it means you're going to be rich.” So I remember going to dinner that night and I told the guys, “Just so you guys know, we're rich.” And they're like, “What do you mean? We made $150,000.” I'm like, “No, no, no. The way people responded to that, I've never seen that in my life. We're rich.” The response rate from that, I've never seen. Andrew: And then you went to webinar after webinar after webinar. Russell: On the flight home that day I'm texting everybody I've ever met. “I got a hot offer, this webinar crushed it. We just closed whatever percent of the room at Filsaime's event. Who wants to do it?” And we started filling up the calendar. Andrew: And the idea was, and you told me you did 2 to 3 some days. And the idea was, they would sell somebody on a course, and then their members would then hear how your software and your funnel hacking technique would help up what they just bought and then they would sign up. You're still excited, I can see it in your face. And then this thing took off. And then you started doing an event for your culture, your community, and this guy spoke, Tony Robbins. Russell: Oh yeah, there's Tony. Andrew: One of the first ones. Was he at the very first one? Russell: No, he came to the third one, was the first one we had him come to. Andrew: Yeah? Why do an event? Why do your own live event? Russell: So we've done events in the past. I know events are good, but I'd sworn off them because the last event we did, I think we sold 3 or 400 tickets and less than 100 people showed up and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “We'll never do events again.” And as soon as this, as soon as Clickfunnels launched and it was growing, everyone's like, “We want to do a meet up. We should do an event.” All the customers kept asking. And against my, I didn't really want to do it, but at the same time I was launching my book, and I had won a Ferrari in this affiliate contest so I was like, “What if we did an event and we had the Ferrari there and we gave it away and then we're…” we had other ideas for giving away other cars and it became this big, exciting thing that eventually turned into an event. And that was the first Funnel Hacking Live event in Vegas, and we had about 600 people at that one that showed up. And that's where it all kind of, it all started. Andrew: And it built how much, how many people are you up to now? Russell: Last year we had 3500 people and we're on track to have about 5000 at this year's event. Andrew: 5000? Yeah. Russell: Those aren't free tickets. Each ticket's $1000, so it's…. Andrew: So how much is that in total revenue? Russell: From the event? Andrew: Yeah. Russell: So ticket sales, last year was $3 ½ million, this year will be over $5. But at the event we sell coaching so last year we made $13 million in coaching sales at the event as well. Andrew: Wow, would you come up here for a second, Dave? Do you guys know Dave? Yeah, everyone knows Dave. You know what's amazing… {Audience catcalls} Andrew: That's amazing. Dave: I don't know who that is. Andrew: A catcall. I saw a video, you guys have this vlog now, a beautifully show vlog. You guys went to sales force's conference, you're looking at the booths and in the video, do you remember what you did as you saw the different booths? Dave: I think that one I went and asked what the prices for each of the booths were. Andrew: Yes, and then you multiplied. And he's like, you're not enjoying the event, you're calculating ahead, how much. “10,000 that's 100,000….” It's like wow, right. You do this all the time? Dave: Yeah. It's a lot of money in an event like that. Andrew: And you think, and if this was not your event, you would be doing the same calculation trying to figure out how much they brought in today. Wowee. Alright when you went to sales force did you calculate how much money they probably did from their event? Dave: We were doing that the whole time, absolutely. Andrew: You saw the building, you had to know… Dave: Oh my gosh. 61 stories. Andrew: Why? Why do you guys want to know that? Why does, how does that… I want to understand your drive as a company and I feel like this is a part of it. Figuring out how much money other people are making, using that for fuel somehow. Tell me. Dave: I think it actually goes back to Russell and his wrestling days. We had the experience of going to Chicago right after that, and super just exhausted. And it was one of those things where he literally landed, we walked down and we're underneath the tarmac and all the sudden Russell goes from just being totally exhausted to a massive state change. Where he's literally right back where he was with his dad and he and his dad are walking that same path to go to, I think it was Nationals. And I saw Dan Usher, who was doing the filming, capturing that moment and it's that type of a thing for Russell. Where all the sudden it's the dream, where as soon as you see it, it can then happen. And Russell's just been amazing at modeling, and again the whole idea as far as just going at a rapid, rapid speed. I mean it's “Ready, fire, aim.” Andrew: It's not you gawking at the sales force, what's the sales force event called? Dave: Dream Force. Andrew: Dream force. It's not you gawking at how well Sales Force's event, Dream Force is doing, it's not you having envy or just curiosity, it's you saying, it's possible. This is us. That's it. Dave: It's totally possible. Andrew: It's totally possible. We could get there. And when you're sizing up the building, you even found out how much the building cost. Who does that? Most people go, “Where's the bathroom?” How much does the building cost? Dave: There's a number. Andrew: It's you saying, “We could maybe have that.” Dave: We can have that, yeah. Andrew: Got it. And so let's go back a little bit. I asked you about Traffic and Conversion because the very first Traffic and Conversion conference you went to, you guys were nobodies. Nobody came and saw you. Dave: We were put out in North 40 pasture, way, way far away. Andrew: And some people would say, “One day I'll get there.” you told Russell, “Today we're going to get there.” Dave: Well Russell wanted, he was speaking and so whenever you're speaking at an event, it's important that you fill a room, like this. And there's nothing worse than having an event and having no one show up. It's just the worst feeling in the world. And so he's like, “All we need, I gotta find some way of getting people into the event. I wish we had like some girls who could just hand out t-shirts or do something.” And I was like, we're in San Diego, that's like my home town. Russell: Dave's like, “How many do you need?” That's all he said. Dave: It's just a number. It comes down to a number. How many do you want? So we ended up having, within an hour or so we had 5 girls there who were more than happy to dance around and give out t-shirts and fill the room. Andrew: and the room was full? Dave: Packed. Andrew: Packed. And why wouldn't you say, “One day, the next time we come to Traffic and Conversion, the tenth time we're going to do it.” Why did it have to be right there? Dave: It's always now.   Andrew: It's always now. Dave: It's always now. Andrew: It's always now. It's never going to be the next funnel, it's never going to be the next product launch. I'm going to do whatever we can right now, and the next one, and the next one. That's it. That's who you are. Dave: That's how it works. Andrew: And now you're a partner in the business. $83 million so far this year, you got a piece of that. Dave: Yes. Do i? Russell: Yeah. Dave: Just checking. Andrew: Do you get to take profits home now? Dave: We do. Andrew: You do, you personally do? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Are you a millionaire? Dave: Things are really good. Andrew: Millionaire good from Clickfunnels? Dave: yes. Andrew: Really? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Wow. And you're another one. I was driving and I said, “What was it about Russell that made you work for him? What was it?” and you said, “I've never seen anyone implement like him.” Give me an example of early days, something that he implemented…you know what, forget that, let's not go back to Russell. As a team, you guys have gotten really good at implementing. Give me an example of one thing that you're just stunned by, we did it, it came out of nowhere, we could have been distracted by funnel software, we could have distracted by the next book, we did this thing, what is it? Dave: You're here on this stage with JP, and this was what 6 weeks ago? Andrew: and this whole thing just came from an idea I heard. You use Voxer. Why do you use Voxer? Russell: I don't know. Andrew: Because you like to talk into it. Russell: Yeah, and you can fast forward, you can listen at 4x speed, you can forward the messages to people really easily, it's awesome. Andrew: and it's just train of thought, boom, here's what I think we're going to…No, it's not that. I heard it's, “I have a secret project…” Russell: “I'll tell you guys about it later.” And they all start freaking out. “Tell us now.” Andrew: “Secret project. I don't know what it, it's going to be exciting.” They don't know what it is, going to be excited. Russell: Do you know how it started, this one? I was cleaning my wrestling room listening to you, and you were, I don't know whose event it was, but you were at the campfire, it sounded like. And you were doing something like this and I was like, I want my own campfire chat to tell our story. And then I was like, “Dave, we should do it.” And now we're here. So thanks for coming to our campfire…. Dave: That's how it happens. Andrew: And that's exciting to this day. Alright, thank you. Give him a big round, thank you so much. You know what, I didn't mean for this to come onstage, but I'm glad that it is. This made you laugh when you accidentally saw it earlier too. Why is this making you laugh? What is it? Russell: So we're not shy about our competitors, even when they're our friends. So one of the companies we're crossing out is his. That's why it's funny. Andrew: It's one of my companies. That's Bot Academy there. It's also a company I invest in, that octopus is ManyChat, I've been a very big angel investor and supporter of theirs. I'm not at all insulted by that, I'm curious about it. You guys come across as such nice, happy-go-lucky guys. Dave asked me if I want water, I said “Dave I can't have you give me any more things. I feel uncomfortable, I'm a New Yorker. Punch me, please.” So he goes, “Okay, one more thing. I'm going to give you socks.” So he gave me socks. Really, but still, you have murder in your eyes sometimes. You're crossing out everybody. This is part of your culture, why? Russell: It comes back, for me its wrestling. When I was wrestling it was not, I don't know, there's different mentalities right. And I did a podcast on this one time and I think I offended some people, so I apologize in advance, but if you're in a band and everyone gets together and you play together and you harmonize, it's beautiful. When you're a wrestler you don't do that. You know, you walk in everyday and you're like, those are the two guys I have to beat to be varsity. And then after you do that, you walk in and you're like, “Okay who are the people I have to beat to be in the region champ, and then the state champ, and then the national champ?” So for me, my entire 15 years of my life, all my focus was like, who's the next person on the rung that I have to beat? And it's studying and learning about them and figuring their moves and figuring out what they're good at, what they're bad at so we can beat them. Then we beat them and go to the next thing, and next thing, and next thing. So it was never negative for me, it was competition. Half the guys were my friends and they were doing the same thing to me, we were doing the same thing to them. I come from a hyper competitive world where that's everything we do. And I feel bad now, because in business, a lot of people we compete against aren't competitive and I forget that sometimes, and some people don't appreciate it. But that's the drive. It's just like, who do we, if I don't have someone to, if there's not someone we're driving towards, there's not a point for me. Andrew: And even if they're, even if I was hurt, “I accept it, I'm sorry you're hurt, Andrew. I still care and love you. We're going to crush you.” That's still there. Russell: And I had someone, so obviously InfusionSoft was one of our people we were targeting for a long, long time and I had a call with Clayton and someone on his team asked me, “Why do you hate Infusion Soft so much?” I was like, “I don't, you don't understand. I don't hate, I love Infusion Soft. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for Lead Pages, I'm grateful for….” I told them, have you guys seen the Dark Knight, my favorite movie of all time? And it's the part where Batman and the Joker are there and Batman is like, asks the Joker, “Why are you trying to kill me?” And the Joker starts laughing and he's like, “I'm not trying to kill you. The reason I do this is because of you. If I didn't have you, there's no purpose behind it.” So for me it's like, if I don't have someone to compete against, why are we playing the game? So for me, that's why we're always looking… Andrew: It's not enough to say, it's not enough to just say “we're playing the game because we want to help the next entrepreneur, or the next person who's sick and needs to create…” no, it's not. Russell: That's a big part of it, but like, there's something… Andrew: Yeah, but it's not enough, it's gotta be both. Russell: My whole life there's, the competition is what drives me for sure. Andrew: And just like you're wrestling with someone, trying to beat them, but you don't hate them. You're not going to their house and break it down… Russell: Everyone we wrestled, we were friends afterwards. We were on the same Freestyle and Greco teams later in the season, but during, when we're competing, we're competing and everyone's going all at it. Andrew: Everyone's going all at it. That's an interesting way to end it. How much more time do we have? How much more time do we have? I'm going to keep going. Can I get you to come up here John, because I gotta get you to explain something to me? So I told you, I was online the other day, yeah give him a big round. I was online the other day, I don't even know what I clicked, I clicked something and then I saw that Russell's a great webinar person, everyone keeps telling me. Well, alright, I gotta find out how he does it. So I click over, “Alright, just give your email address and you can find out how..” Alright, I'll give my email address to find out how he became such a great webinar presenter. “Just give a credit card. It's only $4.95, so it comes in the mail.” It comes in the mail, that's pretty cool. Nothing comes in the mail anymore. Here's my credit card. It goes, “Alright, it's going to mail it out. Would you also like to learn how to use these slides? $400.” I go, no! I'm done. Russell: Welcome to the funnel. Andrew: Welcome to the funnel. I'm done. But I'm going to put in Evernote a link to this page so I don't lose it so I can come back. I swear. I did it. And this is my receipt for $4.95. Don't you ever feel like, we're beyond this? We're in the software space now, we're competing with Dropbox, we're not competing with Joe Schmoe and his ebook. And you're the guy who sold the, who bought the ad that got me. John: I know. Andrew: I asked you that. Do you ever feel a little embarrassed, “We're still in the info market space.”? John: No, I think it's the essence of what we do, of what Russell does. We love education. We love teaching people. I mean, the software is like the backend, but we're not software people. I mean, we sell software, but we teach people. All these people here and all the people at all of our events, they just want to learn how to do it better. Andrew: I don't believe it. John: Okay. Andrew: I believe in him. I don't believe in you. I believe that for you it's the numbers. Here's why I don't believe it. I'm looking in your eyes and you're like, “I'm giving the script. I'm good, I'm doing the script.” I see it in your eyes, but when I was talking to you earlier, no offense. This is why he does what he does. When I was talking to you earlier, you told me about the numbers, the conversion, how we get you in the sales funnel, how we actually can then modify…That's the exciting part. Don't be insulted by the fact that I said it. Know that we have marketers here, they're going to love you for being open about it. What's going on here? What's going on, keeping you in this space? John: Okay, from my perspective. Okay so, initially it was self liquidation on the front, which is what I was telling you. It was the fact that we were bootstrapped, we didn't have money to just like throw out there. We had to make sure we were earning enough money to cover our ads. And Russell had all the trust in the world in me, I don't know why he did, but he did. And he's just like, “Spend money, and try to make it self-liquidate.” I'm like, “Okay.” So we just had to spend money and hope that we got enough back to keep spending money. Andrew: And self-liquidate means buy an ad today and make sure that we make money from that ad right away and then software. John: Yeah. Andrew: And then you told, and then software's going to pay overtime, that's our legacy, that's our thing. And you told me software sucks for selling. Why? John: Software sucks, yeah. Andrew: Why? Everyone who's in info, everyone's who in education says, “I wish I was a software guy. Software is eating the world, they're getting all the risk back.” I walked through San Francisco; they think anyone who doesn't have software in their veins is a sucker. John: I asked the same thing to myself, you know. I was running ads, I'm like why can't I just run ads straight to the offer? Why do I have go to these info products? I want to get on the soft…. And then I was like, I feel like it's kind of like marriage. Like it's a big thing to say like, “You probably already built websites, but come over, drop everything you're doing and come over here and build websites over here on our thing.” And it's like, that's a hard pull. But “Hey, you want to build webinars? Here's a little thing for $5 to build webinars.” Now you're in our world, now we can talk to you, now you can trust us, now we can get you over there. Andrew: Got it. Okay, and if that's what it takes to get people in your world, you're going to accept it, you're not going to feel too good for that, you're just going to do it and grow it and grow it. John: Yeah. Andrew: What's your ad budget now? See now you're eyes are lighting up. Now I tapped into it. John: We spend about half a million a month. Andrew: half a million a month! John: Yeah. Don't tell the accountant. Andrew: Do you guys pay with a credit card? Do you have a lot of miles? John: Yeah, we do. In fact…. Andrew: You do! How many miles? John: In fact, the accountant came into my office the other day and said, “Next time you buy a ticket, use the miles.” Andrew: Are they with Delta, because I think you guys flew me out with Delta. John: Yeah, American Express is where we're spending all our money. Andrew: Wow. And you're a partner too? John: Yeah. Andrew: Wow, congratulations. John: Thank you. Andrew: I don't know you well enough to ask you if you're a millionaire, I'm just going to say congratulations. Give him a big round. John: Thank you. Andrew: Wow, you know what, I actually was going to ask the videographers to come up here. I wrote their names down, I got the whole thing and I realized I shouldn't interrupt them, because they're shooting video. But I asked them, why are you, they had this career where they were flying all over the world shooting videos for their YouTube channel. I'm sorry, I forgot their name, and I don't want to leave them out. Russell: Dan and Blake. Andrew: They were shooting YouTube videos, they were doing videos for other people. I said, “Why are you now giving it up and just working for Clickfunnels all the time? More importantly, why are you so excited about it?” And they said, “You know, it's the way that we work with Russell.” And I said, do you remember the first time that you invited them out to shoot something? What was it? Russell: It was the very first Funnel Hacking Live we ever had, and probably 2 weeks prior to that, one of our friends had an event and Dan had captured the footage, and he showed me the videos. “Did you check out my Ven Video?” I'm like, “Oh my gosh, that was amazing.” And I said “Who did it?” and he told me. So I emailed Dan and I was like, “Hey, can you come do that for Funnel Hacking Live?” And he's like, “What's Funnel Hacking Live?” So I kind of told him, and he's like, “Sure.” And it was like 2 weeks later and he's like, “What's the direction?” and I was like, “I don't know, just bring the magic man. Whatever you did there, do that here.” And that's kind of been his calling card since. He just comes and does stuff. Andrew: Bring the magic. He wants to have those words painted on the Toronto office you guys are starting. Literally, because he says you say that all the time. And the idea is, I want to understand how you hire. The idea is, “I'm going to find people who do good work, and I'm going to let them do it.” What happens if they wouldn't have done it your way? What happens if it would have gone a different direction? Russell: I see your question, and I'm not perfect. So I'm going to caveat that by, some of the guys on my team know that I'm kind of, especially on the design and funnel stuff, I'm more picky on that, because I'm so into that and I love it. But what I've found is when you hire amazing people like Todd for example, doing Clickfunnels. The times I tried to do Clickfunnels prior, build it was like, me and I'm telling developers, “here's what to do and how to do it.” And like there's always some loss in communication. With Todd, he's like, “I know exactly what I would build because I want this product too.” And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I'm like, “That's a good idea.” And he's like, “I did this too.” And I'm like, “That's a good idea.” And it's so much easier that way. So when you find the right people, it's not you giving them ideas, it's them coming to you with the ideas. And you're like, “that is a good idea. Go do it.” And it just makes, takes all the pressure off your back. So for us, and it's been fun because I look at, man, the last 15 years of all those different websites and the ups and the downs, the best people have always stuck. So we've got 15 years of getting the cream of the crop. It's kind of like, I'm a super hero nerd, but it's like the Avengers, at the end of, when Clickfunnels came about we had this Avenger team of people. And we're like, now we've put in our dues, now it's time to use all of our super powers to do this thing, and it all kind of came together. Andrew: Build it and build it up. And then as you were building it up, you then went to Sales Force. You guys invited me, you said, “Hey Andrew, we're in San Francisco, you're home town. Do you want to come out?” I said, “I'm going to be with the family.” And you said, “Good. Being with the family is better than hanging out with us.” But I still said, “What are you guys doing in San Francisco at Sales Force?” Because sales people don't need landing pages, yet you guys will probably find a way for them to need it. Then I saw this, this is the last video that I've got. There's no audio on it. I want you guys to look at their faces as they're looking up at these buildings, walking through the Sales Force office. Look, they're getting on the motorcycles in the lobby. They're looking all around like, “Oh gee.” Counting the buildings that are Sales Force labeled. Look at that! What are they doing? Not believing that this is even possible. And then just stopping and going, this is dream force. This is your dream. What did you get out of going to sales Force's event and seeing their office? Russell: Honestly, prior to Sales Force, I was kind of going through a weird funk in my business, because it was like, again there was the goals. So it was like, okay, we're going to do a million bucks, and then we did that. And then it's like, let's make 10 million a year. And then 50, and then this year we'll hit a hundred. And like, what's the next goal?  A billion, because a hundred million, 2 hundred million is not that big of a difference. And it was just kind of like, what's the point, what's the purpose? We've grown as big as any company that I know. And then last year, Dave and Ryan had gone out there and they were telling me stories like, “There's 170,000 businesses here.” And they were telling me all these things, and it sounded cool, but I didn't, and they were going crazy. You have to see this so you can believe it. But there's something about the energy about seeing something that makes it real. So this year I was like, I want to go and I want to see Benioff speak. I want to see the thing, the towers, I want to just understand it, because if I understand it, cool. Now we can reverse engineer and figure out how we can do it. So for me it was just like seeing it. I think in anything, any, as entrepreneurs too, if you're people believe that you can do it, you'll do it. If you believe you can lose weight, you'll lose 3eight. If you believe you can grow a company, and I don't feel like I believed that the next level was possible for us until I saw it. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this is not ridiculous. Benioff's not, none of these guys are any smarter than any of us. It's just like, they figured out the path. It was like, okay let's look at the path. And then let's look at it and now we can figure out our path. Andrew: And seeing it in person did that for you? Russell: Oh yeah. It makes it tangible, it makes it like, it's like your physiology feels it, versus reading a book about it or hearing about it. It's like you see it and you experience it, and it's like it's tangible. Andrew: I told you, I asked people before they came in here, “What are you looking for?” and a few of them frustrated me because they said, “I just wanted to see Russell. I just want to see the event.” I go, “Give me something I could ask a question about.” But I think they were looking for the same thing that you got out of there. And I know they got it. I'm going to ask them to come up here and ask some questions, and I want to know about the future of Clickfunnels, but first I've got to just acknowledge that, that we are here to just kind of pick up on that energy. That energy that got you to pick yourself back up when anyone else would have said, “I'm a failure of a husband, I can't do this.” Go back. The tension that came from failing and almost going to jail as you said, from failing and succeeding, and failing again. And still, that is inspiring to see. I want to give the whole Clickfunnels family a big round of applause, please everybody.

Are short-term rental businesses coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and being resurrected? Do owners love the return on investment (ROI) and income, but tired of the turnover, logistics, and moving parts? If you're doing it all on your own, hand it over. Today's guest is Andrew LeBaron with BuyMoreTime, a flat-rate property management solution for short-term rentals. Andrew began his real estate journey by being the marketing director and a guest on Joe Fairless's Best Ever Real Estate Investing Advice Show. Then, Andrew started buying, selling, wholesaling, fixing, and flipping properties and got licensed to go even further. You'll Learn... [02:13] How Andrew went from greeting big-name podcast guests to becoming one. [05:15] Hoteling 101: Managing a hotel is not time and freedom. It's a lot of work. [05:54] Team Effort: If you don't have a team, you will not thrive (or sleep). [09:23] COVID: Great for short-term rentals, not for property managers or owners. [12:40] Questions: How much could my property rent for? What needs to be inside it? [16:23] Mistakes: Give gifts and leave notes for guests to make a big difference.  Tweetables “Shorter rental management is big bucks.” Hoteling 101: Owners of short-term rental properties just wanted more time and freedom, and managing a hotel is not time and freedom. It's a lot of work. “There's so many facets to this. There's legal, there's inventory, there is coordination with cleaning and maintenance. Then, there's guest responses. It's literally 24/7.” “When you have a short-term rental, you're not selling a place to stay. You're selling an experience.” Resources The Best Short-Term Rental Management Andrew LeBaron on Facebook Best Ever Real Estate Investing Advice Show with Joe Fairless BiggerPockets Grant Cardone Gary Keller Barbara Corcoran Airbnb VRBO The Giftology Stay Here on Netflix JF1896: How To Grow Your Property Management Company with Jason Hull DoorGrow on Instagram DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason: Welcome DoorGrow hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show. Today's guest, I'm hanging out here with Andrew LeBaron. Andrew, welcome to the show. Andrew: Thank you. Jason: Andrew, you're with an organization company called BuyMoreTime. Andrew: That's it. We are a short-term rental property management solution. Jason: Cool. Andrew, we don't have a lot of vendors and people on the show typically related to the short-term rental industry. This will be interesting because I have been getting a lot more calls related to that lately. Maybe a lot of people are starting to resurrect these short-term rental businesses coming out of the pandemic, where there's a black swan event that squashed the industry temporarily. Let's first get into a little bit of background about you and how you got into this industry. Andrew: Yeah, sure. It's funny. We're on a podcast right now. I actually started a long time ago as a marketing director for a podcast. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Best Ever Real Estate Investing Show with Joe Fairless. He buys multi-family apartments. That's his main gig. Jason: I think I was on that show. I've been on a lot of podcasts back in the day. Andrew: I wouldn't be surprised. Heck, maybe, I reached out to you some years ago, who knows? It's the world's longest daily real estate podcast. I mean his work ethic is insane. Years ago, I got into real estate. I jumped into (of course) Bigger Pockets. I jumped into Joe Fairless's podcast. On one of the podcast episodes he said, I am looking for a marketing director. Someone that can help connect me with more guests. If that's you, send me an email. I'm like, I want to try that. I sent him an email. I'm like, I don't care if he pays me. If he pays me, great. If he doesn't, so what? I was his marketing director and I got to meet some of the coolest people—Grant Cardone, Gary Keller, some really big names. I didn't get to speak to Barbara Corcoran, but I got to send an email. There were some pretty big names on that podcast and I was actually able to be a guest. I was starting my real estate journey and from there I started buying and selling properties, wholesaling, buying, fixing, and flipping. I started buying small apartments, 6 units, 10 units and so on and so forth. Then I got licensed because I wanted to take it a little bit further. I thought, okay, if I'm not going to buy these, I'm going to either manage them, and so on and so forth. Then I realized about 3½–4 years ago from an accident, actually, that shorter rental management is big bucks. In fact, we bought a house that we couldn't sell. We tried everything we could to move, the property just wouldn't move for some reason; it was just a weird property. I told my partner, whatever. Let's furnish it. We went to goodwill. We got these truckloads of just random furniture and we loaded up into this house—we're such rookies—and we put it up or lease or we set it up for Airbnb. I kid you not, this lady wanted to rent it for a week for $250 a night. I was like, it's got to be a joke. There's no way. She's like, no, I'd love to stay here, me and my family. From there, I thought, the short-term rental space is where it's at. We started buying more, furnishing more. Then all of our friends said, can you help us manage ours? We're like, okay, we can help you. It's hoteling 101, but that's how we became BuyMoreTime. We noticed that owners of short-term rental properties just wanted more time and freedom, and managing a hotel is not time and freedom. It's a lot of work. Jason: Right. I don't think there's any industry that takes more time and more customer interaction than the hospitality industry. I think that's rated at the top. Property management is second to that, they say, so it's right there. Andrew: It's pretty insane. There's so many facets to this. There's legal, there's inventory, there is coordination with cleaning and maintenance. Then there's guest responses. It's literally 24/7. There is no sleep. If you don't have a team, you will not thrive. Jason: Right. Tell us a little bit about BuyMoreTime. What is it exactly that you do? Andrew: BuyMoreTime is a flat rate management service for short-term rentals. We are a service-first company. If you have a property on a short-term rental platform, say, Airbnb, VRBO, if you have a motel, small apartment building, you want to do a couple of apartments and you want to maximize your ROI by leveraging the short-term rental platforms and its traffic, then you can hire us. We will manage that for you. We'll set it up. Most of the time we're looking for clients that already had it built, but we can set it up. We will set your teams—you're cleaning team, your maintenance team. We'll handle messaging 24/7. We will take over your hotel. That's what we do. Jason: Okay, the hotel. Awesome. Cool and I checked my inbox. I was on the Joe Fairless podcast back in May of 2019. It's been some years, but I was there at one point. Andrew: That's so cool. Jason: But I didn't even know it was that big of a deal. I guess that was pretty cool for me in hindsight. Andrew: That is really cool. Jason: Awesome. What would you say to people that might be tuning into this on the short-term rental side that are doing this themselves currently? Why would they want to get in partnership with you? Andrew: Well, just like our name prescribes, if you are tired of wasting or you're trading your time for money and you love the ROI, you love the income, 2–3 times than average rents across the nation is what you can expect from a short-term rental. If you're getting $700 rent in the south, you could get double that. You can get triple that. Depending on where you are. There are many variables. But if you're tired of handling that yourself, you can literally hand it over to our company. Our sales team will answer all your questions. We'll link you up into our software. We will hit the green button and you sit back and simply watch the interaction between your guest and our team and obviously your bank account. There is no touching it. I mean we literally set it up in the beginning so you don't have to manage it all. We have your team. We have your inventory. We would restock your toilet paper, paper towels. Sheets. There's just so much to say. It'll hurt your head if you think about it. Inventory management and supply chain, that's what we do. We handle all that. That's what your listeners can glean from our company. That's what we can do for them. Jason: Now, you had mentioned a little bit of info about how appealing it might be to get into the short-term rental game, 2–3 times the amount of income coming in. But what about those that have been burned by Covid? They said this was too painful. We weren't prepared for this. Money just stopped. Vacation rental market was just decimated. They're just afraid to get back into the game. Andrew: You know what's funny? Covid actually was great. I think that's the only thing I'll say about Covid as far as short-term rentals go. For a property manager or for an apartment owner, for property owners, Covid was not great because you have the moratorium. There's a lot of struggles there. For us, for the short-term rental gamers, it was wonderful. People couldn't leave. No one could go anywhere. We saw a decline in March of 2020. We saw a slight decline in occupancy. Our typical occupancy is hovering around 92%. Occupancy inside the short-term rental game is very different. You got 30 nights out of a month, depending how many nights you booked, that's your occupancy rate. It dipped I think just 70% flat, 70% or 73% flat. After March, we started exploding. It was quite the opposite. People couldn't go to Europe. People couldn't go to other countries, so they had staycations. In the beginning, this whole journey there's kind of like this Airbnb belief that when you have a guest that wants to go from one side of the city to stay in your place, that's a big red flag because it's probably going to be a party, probably going to be a kid. But at this moment, with Covid, it was like, look, I'm a tired mother. My husband and I would just want to get away. We got a babysitter. Covid shut us down, can we come stay? We haven't changed our [...], yeah sure. We don't discriminate, but at the same time, we would stop asking all the prying questions. Are you in college or not? College parties are the worst. But we would allow them to. We actually exploded really well during Covid. Jason: Interesting. I would have thought it would have been the opposite. Now, is BuyMoreTime location-specific? Is this all over the US? Is it beyond? Where do you guys do this at? Andrew: We're in five states right now and two countries. We're in Canada, in here, and five states. We can do this anywhere. We could pick up anywhere. Obviously, you need to qualify. We have a qualifying call. It's called a discovery call where we discuss what your property is like, its condition, your needs, and so on and so forth. See if we're a good fit. Not everybody's a good fit, obviously. Not every property is a good fit. Not every area is a good fit. We just want to make sure that it's going to be a win-win situation for everybody. Jason: Are you wanting listeners that are listening to the DoorGrowShow, to this episode, regardless of where they're at to just reach out, or are you looking for specific areas? Andrew: Regardless of where they're at to reach out, absolutely. Jason: Cool. What are some of the biggest questions that potential clients want to know when talking with you? Andrew: Number one question, how much could my property go for? How much could my property rent for if I was to work with BuyMoreTime? My answer is, when you come to BuyMoreTime, you should already be established. We're not a coaching company. We're not a let's boost your traffic. You should already be established, description, photos, 5-star reviews and you say, look, I got this in the bag. I just need to hand over the reins. That's all I want to do. For the costs, less than paying a VA every month, you're going to hire our team and we're going to run all of your operations. Jason: So this is for those that are just tired of the turnover, tired of the logistics, tired of making sure all the moving parts are happening. You'll handle all of that. Andrew: Correct. Jason: It sounds like you do it quite affordably. Andrew: Yup. $349 a month is our price and it doesn't fluctuate. The good news is we built this to service our property, to scratch our own itch. We're investors first. We have short-term rentals. We buy property. I'm sitting in one right now, up north. I've only been here for a couple months, brought my family into it. This will eventually be a short-term rental up in the pines. We wanted something where I didn't have to pay 20%, 25%, 15% of my profits. There's a lot of other companies out there like us where they have this really cool software and service—services, in my opinion, are subpar—but you pay out 20% of your profits on your highest month. It's like you're being penalized for using their service. To me, I would want some sort of program that I know what I'm paying for every single month. Every single month is the same rate, no matter what. In that way, I can easily predict my income for my highest months. Everybody's got the highest months. Austin's got a high season. Arizona, all over the place, they have a high season and low season. Florida, they have a high season. For us in AZ for example, it's going to be March and April. From other places, it is that same month or those months. These companies rob you 20% of your total proceeds. I thought that's not cool. Let's give the profits back to the owners and we'll just take a small fee for managing their property. Jason: All right, so the first the main question everyone wants to know is how much could they get and probably what is the cost. What else are they curious about, usually? Andrew: They usually want what I need in my property? What should be inside it? Especially, if you haven't done this before. Let's say you manage apartments, or you own a building, or whatever it may be, and you're talking to some partners or your client about setting up an Airbnb. That's probably one of the biggest questions is what goes inside of it? The one thing I need to tell people is when you have a short-term rental, you're not selling a place to stay. You're selling experience. I don't know, Jason, if you've ever stayed in a property on Airbnb before, but I just… Jason: I have. Andrew: You have? Just scrolling, you're looking for beautiful photos. You're looking for awesome amenities. You're looking for 5-star reviews. You're not looking 4-star, you're not looking for 3-stars, you want the best. You're looking for a very awesome experience. I think the biggest mistake that a lot of short-term rental managers go through is they're just trying to just fill it with stuff. That's not the case. If you have the ability to stock the fridge, stock the fridge. If you can leave a note for your guest, leave a note. If you could set up a system to leave nice things for your guests or send an extra message saying, we're so glad you're here, do it because that's what it's about. Jason: Yeah. There's a really great book called The Giftology, and in this book he talks about how just little gifts and little things actually make a big difference. And that makes a big difference giving something because that just makes it novel. It makes it stand out. It makes it different. I really enjoyed the show on Netflix called Stay Here. I don't know if you've seen that. Andrew: Yes. Jason: They're making these properties ready to be really amazing experiences, and that was a big part of the show is all about this experience. People are coming to Austin and have a certain type of experience. There needs to be a barbecue and some of these things. People are going to different areas in order to have the experience of that area and kind of tying that in. They made it really hyper relevant. Any other questions people tend to ask? Andrew: I think one other question they ask is how do I stand out? How do I be different? Everybody has got a condo on Airbnb. If you go to airbnb.com right now, looking at Austin, look in your zip code, you'll see thousands. How do I stand out? I think the biggest tip I have for those people that want to know how to stand out is, what is something that is going to make your place so memorable that people will be talking about it and they'll come back? There's a really easy way to do this by asking yourself what do people not offer that I can offer? What do they not have that I have? Some people have this huge TV, surround sound, just crazy entertainment, amazing sofa. That's good, but what is extra? I've seen some people add movie tickets or tickets to some amusement parks. I don't know how cost-effective that is, obviously, but depending on your budget versus how you can stand out, that's going to predict how you stand out. Jason: Interesting, cool. Well, how can people get a hold of you that might be interested? Andrew: This question always comes up in podcasts. I sometimes tell my cell phone number, but there's a link that actually you have, Jason, where you can get a hold of us. I'll just let you add that to the show notes. I'm going to just defer that back to you. Other than that, you could reach out to me on Facebook. Jason: Awesome. Yeah. He gave me an affiliate link, everybody, which is cool. I appreciate that. We'll put that link in the show notes. We'll link that on the podcast episode, online on our blog as well. It's been great getting familiar with you here a little bit. I really enjoyed the different perspective on Covid about the short-term rental industry. I know that I had lots of clients in the long-term game that were able to convert several into long-term during that time period in areas that they had challenges, but that was interesting. I didn't consider the staycation part, but I think a lot of people got really anxious, cooped up inside, and were looking for just a change of scenery, even if it was nearby. That makes a lot of sense. I appreciate you coming on the show, and until next time everybody, to our mutual growth. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes and tune into the DoorGrowShow on YouTube as well. And if you are interested in growing your property management business, we're having some really great success with our new DoorGrow and scale mastermind. We have one of our clients John [...] join in November, in the middle of the winter months, during the pandemic, in Boston. He added 125 doors in the last six months just using one of my strategies, and it cost him $0. He didn't spend any money on advertising. Anyway, reach out if you're interested. You can check us out at doorgrow.com. Bye everyone. Andrew: See you.

What is the right percent profit margin you should target for your products? How do you get the most out of your Facebook ad buys? How much should you really pay attention to conversion rate? These are just a few of the questions that every small business and Ecommerce shop wants the answers to. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, we picked the brain of Andrew Faris, the CEO of 4x400, a company that has helped grow numerous Ecommerce companies from less than 500,000 into the tens of millions. Today, Andrew spills some of his advertising secrets, including how to make Facebook your core driver for customer acquisition. Here’s a mini spoiler: human bias is leading you astray, but there is a simple way to correct course. Find out that, and more, on this episode! Main Takeaways: Conversion rate is so context-specific that it's not that helpful of a metric. Instead, analyze conversion rate relative to average order value and relative to the traffic sources the customer came from. Before you invest in anything else, you need to drive traffic to the top of the funnel. Currently, Facebook ads are the core driver of customer acquisition for online shopping. Andrew suggests that most Ecommerce brands should invest in the platform and then trust the algorithm to put you in front of the right audiences. You have to take big swings with your experiments. Don’t get hung up on micro-details like the color of your buttons or rewriting your copy. Instead, find big ways to make changes and then see how the outcomes stack up. Because we are all riddled with our own biases, we often cannot predict accurate models of the future on our own. Instead, use data as your guide as you peer into the future. For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Hey everyone. This is Stephanie Postles, co-founder of Mission.org and your host of Up Next in Commerce. Today on the show, we have the CEO of 4x400, Andrew Faris. Andrew, thanks for taking the time. Andrew: Stephanie, I am very glad to be able to do this. I have never been accused of not liking to talk about Ecommerce in particular, but just in general. So this is fun. Stephanie: Well, you're my perfect guest then. I was creeping as one does on your LinkedIn. I saw an interesting thing that you have a background in religion and theology. I was wondering how you transitioned into the world of business from that background. Andrew: Yeah. I can always tell when somebody has looked at my LinkedIn or not because that's maybe the only place where that's found anymore. Stephanie: You're welcome. Andrew: Yeah, yeah. No, I went to school for biblical studies, and then got a master's degree in New Testament. So that was my whole pathway, was to go into that and actually was a pastor for a while. Did that, and then about ... gosh, how long ago? Five and a half years ago stepped out of that not because anything in my faith changed per se, but just because I was just rethinking a bunch of stuff in my life and reworking a bunch of stuff in my life. So it's just total life change in all kinds of crazy ways. I didn't have a clue what I was going to do actually. Andrew: That educational pathway doesn't have a direct connection to almost anything that's not work in a church or academic setting or something like that in theology. So, I really loved that education a lot, but I was figuring it out. So I called a friend of mine named Taylor Holiday, who ... and I was talking to him about if there's any available work in his world of work. Just basically as an in between thing while I figured it out. I just thought I'll just go do something for a couple months to figure out what I want to do. He said, sure, and brought me to a company called QALO, Q-A-L-O. If you've seen the silicon wedding rings that are for- Stephanie: Oh, yeah. Andrew: .. on the internet a lot, QALO was the first big company of those. QALO went zero to 20 million in a year and a half and was not funded. So, I was bootstrapped. I went there and it was just growing super, super fast. Also, being not funded and being a bunch of people like that, it just meant that they just were, in those worlds probably some of your listeners probably know this story a little bit, which is like, you just find people who can do stuff in that setting. I literally started in the warehouse. At one point, I sat down with Taylor, who's now one of my partners. Taylor was running marketing for QALO at the time. His brother was one of the founders. Taylor said, "Hey, you've got a mind for numbers," which he knew because we were in a Fantasy Baseball League together and knew that I was a big baseball stat nerd. Andrew: May not be interesting to many of your listeners I'm sure, but I have a lot to say about the interplay of thinking about sports through statistical lens and thinking about Ecommerce. Anyway, so that was the origin. We had been in this fantasy baseball for a while, "I know you have a mind for numbers, why don't you learn Facebook ads and Google ads and learn digital marketing?" I said, sure, but still I was not really sure what I wanted to do in the longer term. But I was like, "All right, that sounds fun." So, did that and loved it. Andrew: I mean, I was so totally unaware of what was happening, but I still remember the first conversation I had with Taylor in a bank where he told me what I'd be doing. He's explaining to me how Facebook ads, Google ads worked and said, "Is it okay? Well, here's the deal. You get customers into the funnel with your ads and then you drive ..." and I stopped him in the middle of that sentence and said, "What's the funnel?" That was where my digital marketing knowledge was at. From there, that ended up being the pathway to the digital marketing and Ecommerce career growth. So I was at QALO for a while, went to CTC, the agency that owns our company, owns the majority of it and became the head of strategy there. And then now I run 4x400. Andrew: Yeah, it was a crazy set of circumstances with Taylor. We actually went to junior high together, but had not reconnected because of that. We reconnected outside of that. So, just weird circumstances. Stephanie: That's interesting. Andrew: This gets into my life philosophy a little bit. I'm a believer in divine providence and think there was some of that happening around. Stephanie: For sure. Yeah, that's awesome. Always good to be in business with someone who's willing to bet on you because you have that beginner's mindset and it's probably why you're doing so well. But I'd love for you to detail a little bit about the structure of CTC and 4x400 in the holding company structure because we haven't had anyone on the show quite like this. So, any details around what 4x400 is and how it's connected to CTC would be great. Andrew: Yeah, sure. Common Thread Collective, it grew out of ... Taylor was building the agency alongside the growth of QALO. Started really focusing on Facebook ads. CTC does a lot more in that now, but CTC is now a full service digital sales agency. We said digital sales sell digital marketing because what we're doing is selling things on the internet, it's consumer goods, really focusing on Ecommerce entrepreneurs. The mission of CTC is to help entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. So that's really what we're about. We're specifically really good taking people in somewhere in the journey from zero to 30 million. Andrew: I was a strategist there and then became the head of strategy there. CTC continues to grow and do well. Taylor Holiday, as I mentioned is the managing partner of CTC. Andrew: In the midst of that, we also were like ... I mean, we came from this background of starting QALO. Taylor also was early on with another one of our partners named Josh Rodarmel who founded Power Balance. If you don't know Power Balance, Power Balance was the really popular silicon bracelets that were worn by athletes for a long time, still are worn by some. Andrew: That company was another super crazy fast growth company. I think they were zero to 50 in a year and a half. Yeah, I think that was the number. But anyway, I did on the brand side selling consumer goods in those worlds. We're like, why don't we launch our own brands as well? So, that's how 4x400 started. Eventually I went over to that side of the business. We started with building our own brand from scratch. It totally saw giant failure called [inaudible] company, just a huge waste of money. It doesn't exist anymore. It was sports themed baby goods and it just ... there are a lot of reasons that didn't work Stephanie: Wait, sports themed baby goods, so- Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Stephanie: ... like onesies. Andrew: Yeah. Like onesies that look like football uniforms. They're adorable. I don't know why nobody bought them. Stephanie: Okay, that's super cute. I'll buy one from you. Andrew: Yeah. I think that you'd have to go find a flea market in Northern California somewhere. I had to go get it every day. Stephanie: I will find one, I actually need to for my twin. So, it'll be a long journey, but I'm going to do it. Andrew: Okay. You're in Northern California, right? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: Yeah, I think that's who we sold to, so [inaudible] don't worry. We did that, and then realized actually most of our skill at this point ... most last couple years that we have really been spent after we'd gotten out of the brand side so much growing brands, not so much building brands. So we thought, why don't we just do that? Now our model is, at 4x400, we work with entrepreneurs who are in early stages and feel a little stalled out. We provide them with a team around them that can help them grow it. 4x400 mission is also to help entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. We just do it in a different way than CTC. Andrew: CTC does that the traditional client relationship 4x400, takes the majority share of the brand. And then our goal is to make it so that by bringing us on as a partner and all of the expertise and resources we have around finance operations, marketing, growth customer service, even just really thinking through the whole system of what it means to be a great Ecommerce brand, we can help brands grow. We just closed actually our fifth brand that is currently in our portfolio. We're hoping to close another one soon. Who knows by the time it comes out, if that will happen? We're trying to work with brands who are doing less than half a million in revenue and saying like "We can try to grow you from there." CTC is the majority owner 4x400. 4x400 is the majority owner of these brands. So there's this giant web of relationships there. Stephanie: Yeah, okay. That helps me understand the landscape a bit more. How do you think about acquiring brands, how do you find brands that are willing to say, "Okay, we'll give you a majority share and come under your company"? Andrew: Yeah. Well, there's a few ways. CTC is a magnet for some of them. Sometimes brands will come to CTC and CTC will say, we're not the right partner for you. You're not a place where you can afford us. One piece of advice I have for a lot of it was like, if you are paying an agency not very much money you should really think about whether the agency is good because agency economics just require, for you to get great service, they typically require a pretty good investment. Just think about it. Agencies exist by marking up people's time. So, an agency works well if they are able to attract and train great talent by nature of access to large amounts of information. Andrew: The value of an agency is that they are spending millions and millions of dollars of other people's money on stuff. So, it's information arbitrage in that respect. You can come to an agency and get that information applied to your brand in a way that maybe an in house resource can't always do because they just are not going to have the visibility to as much of what's going on. For that to work, then you have to mark up that time of high quality, talented people who are probably not cheap. And then also for something like Facebook ads, Google ads, and then oftentimes there's a creative element of that and a writing element of that, and a strap gentleman have that, so that means you got to pay designers and other people like that too. And then there's web dev parts of it. You start to put that all together and if it's too cheap, then you have to be going like, wait a minute, what am I actually getting here? Andrew: Some brands in the early days, will come to ... they'll be stalled out or come to CTC for resources. CTC will say to them, actually you can't really afford this. What we actually think is a better solution for you is to talk about a deeper investment where we can really surround you with more stuff. What we find is a lot of entrepreneurs love product building and customer communication in certain ways. They love their customer, they love their product idea people, but they don't necessarily have all of the skills around everything else it takes to grow a brand. In fact, they don't want to do those things. Andrew: Most entrepreneurs don't start brands because they love finance, they don't. They don't even necessarily love tactical marketing. A lot of times what we can say to them is, "Let us take all that stuff that you hate doing anyway from you, you feel overwhelmed and stalled all the time anyway. You come with us, we'll pay you a consistent salary," which is also a big help to some people who are going like, I just don't even know if I can perform this anymore. We'll help you grow. Some entrepreneurs want to stay on, some don't, some just wants to take it. So it really depends on each entrepreneur, but that's basically a lot of how we think about it. Andrew: And then for us, we evaluate the brand by saying like, "Does it have basic product market fit and basic fundamentals to where we think as we bring in all of our tactical expertise and all of our specific expertise in various disciplines that we can then apply that to the brand and grow it?" A brand who comes to us who hasn't really invested much in paid media, but has done 100 to $300,000 in revenue, we look at that and say, "That's ..." Actually, we have a really high amount of respect for that. It's really hard to do that, it's hard to do $100,000 without being good at Facebook ads. It's not easy. So we look at that and say like, "Good job. We don't think you're a failure. If you come to us and want our help, we think we get it." We look at that and say, "That's very impressive. Let us surround you now with resources that we can scale this to 10, $20 million in revenue." Stephanie: Very cool. How are your brands performing now? Andrew: Yeah, good. They're doing good. Andrew: I think COVID really helped Ecommerce brands massively. Two things happen at the same time. One of them is that large corporations who have diversity of sales channels, but were spending lots of money on advertising, pulled their advertising budgets the way the heck back. Of course, lots of other companies couldn't produce products. So they couldn't sell products in retail settings, so they pulled a lot of the budget back. They couldn't produce products because of supply chain problems. And then at the same time ... So that meant that in large auction based advertising work universes like Facebook ads and Google ads, ads got suddenly way cheaper really fast. Andrew: The way that works is that because those are built on an auction, if a lot of people leave the auction everybody's prices get cheaper. We've looked at this data across CTC accounts. There was a giant plummeting of advertising CPMs in those worlds. And then at the same time in the last couple months, conversion rate on websites went up because the only place to capture demand was online. You couldn't go buy stuff in the store. So if you're selling things on the internet, that's where people are buying things from. And then of course, the stimulus checks it. As people have noted, that actually ended up being one of the largest increases in revenue to the average American family in history. So, all of a sudden, people have money to spend. Whether or not they should have spent it on consumer goods is a different question, I don't really know. But they had money to spend. Andrew: The less places for that demand to be captured mostly on Ecommerce stores. And then also, it got a lot cheaper to reach those people with ads. You put that all together and Ecommerce did really, really, really well for a couple months. So that really helped us. There's no question about it. We're still feeling some of the positive effects of that. It feels weird to be a winner in COVID, but there's no question that Ecommerce brands were .. To varying degrees depending on the category you're in, for sure. Andrew: We have three brands that are in the established stage and not in the start it up stage. Stephanie: What account is established, is it a revenue metric or- Andrew: Yeah, a good question. I'd say a million dollars during 12 months, or a million dollar run rate. We would look at and say, "Okay, we're growing at the pace that we want." I can just give you some numbers. We're projected this year to go to have one of our brains go to 8 million, that brand did 100,000 in 2017. Last year, we really took it over halfway through the year. I think we ended at 750 for the year. So, that's definitely our fastest growing brand right now. Stephanie: That's [crosstalk 00:16:47]. Andrew: Another one- Stephanie: ... some good growth right there. Andrew: Yeah. We feel good about that. That's profitable too, which is definitely in our model. We took on a little bit of funding early, but not a ton of funding. We function more like a bootstrapped company. And then another one went from ... just a little over two years ago, we acquired it. It was basically doing no revenue, it'll do 3 million this year. Yeah, that's a different story. And then another one went from 250 to a million to just under two, this year, we'll do four to four and a half probably. So those ones are all we feel established growing at the pace we want, we feel really good about. Stephanie: Yeah. That's some impressive number. How do you grow these brands? What are some of your tactics and strategies that you rely on those, what do you see success with? How can someone else learn from what y'all are doing to grow their Ecommerce companies? Andrew: Yeah. Facebook ads is the core driver of customer acquisition for us. I mean, selling consumer goods direct to consumer online, Facebook ads is still the most powerful tool in the world for reaching people. I'm hearing chatter about other things, YouTube, Snap, even Tik Tok, Google ads, product's changing. I just think still at this point, at scale, depending on what you mean by scale, people define that word differently. But for us, that's the core, top of the funnel way that we get traffic to our website. Andrew: I mean, you think about what Facebook ads is, it's not buying ads so much as buying traffic. I guess it's both really. But we look at that and say, "If we can make the traffic worth more than we're paying for it, worth enough more that we're paying for it to cover the cost of goods and things like that," I should say, "Then we can win." That's how we drive top of funnel traffic for us. And then after that, we try to do everything that we think great brands should do, which is like create a beautiful website that treats their customers great, has generous returns and shipping policies as much as we can afford to do it basically, which varies from brand to brand, depending on a number of factors. Do a great job with your retention email and other automated flow stuff. Constantly testing conversion rate optimization on our site in various ways. There's just a whole bunch of that kind of stuff that we're doing on the backend of that. Andrew: We are also certainly looking to invest in other top of the funnel type metrics, our traffic drivers as well. I would think of Google search as mid funnel and Google shopping as mid funnel. So, we're definitely investing there as well. I think we'll keep doing other stuff. That won't work forever. There's going to be a cap to how much Facebook ads does the driver work and we fully intend to add to our customer acquisition approach when we can. But our goal has been to grow profitably and we think that's one of the best ways to do it right now. Andrew: The other thing is it's not just one of the best ways to do it, it's just that we also have deep expertise in it. So, I'm just a believer that do the thing you do well as much as you can. I think it works for leadership and working with teams. Just as much as we can set up our team members to be doing the things that they love doing and they're good at. As long as the things that people love doing and are good at create value for the company, then you should pay them to do it. So that's the way we look at it too. Andrew: Just coming from the agency side, I personally have managed, I don't know, 25 ad accounts, that's probably more than that. Seen a lot more of that when I was the head of strategy and working with other strategists. I don't mean that to brag. It means that now I have some intellectual capital built up on what works. So, that's what we use from there. Stephanie: Cool. To drill in a little bit deeper then for the Facebook ads because I think a lot of companies probably have looked at Facebook ads, maybe they're using it. I haven't heard of anyone growing liked you guys are growing your brands consistently. So what tactics are you using specifically, or what do you see works well? Andrew: Yeah, there's a lot I can say about that. I think this is going to sound so fishy, but if you're getting serious about that, there's a couple of things ... The thing I would actually tell you to do, if you don't know where to start and you're getting serious about it, is to go visit your admission.co. I don't know, maybe I can give you a link to this, Stephanie, at some- Stephanie: Yeah, we can link it up. Andrew: Cool, yeah. So that is CTC's education program. It's not a course, it's different than every other education thing I know of in this world. It's actually a moderated community with access to ... Taylor, the CEO of CTC is in there doing webinars like our team members, our brand managers and people like that. Also, might jump in there and do webinars exclusively for that community. What we're doing is teaching all of the things that are ... what we believe are really the best practices for Facebook ads from the perspective of creative, from the perspective of targeting, bidding, all that kind of stuff. Bringing people through all of those things and then giving them continued support with access to the actual CTC teams who are doing that same thing that I was describing, which is spending millions of dollars of other people's money, so you can have access to that knowledge set. I think it's 500 bucks a month right now. Andrew: I even say sometimes there's even executive level people who will take their whole team through it. It's not like you're going to be in it for forever. The point is that you can do that and get access to what we believe works best. We're always evaluating that. There are certainly other things to do there, but that'll give you what we ... We try to be really honest and transparent where we can about what we're seeing. So that will give you mental ways to think about that problem. Andrew: I think one of the things that can go wrong is you could listen to me talk about this, and maybe you're an entrepreneur and you hear my numbers and you go like, I'm going to go do that. You just blow money because you make simple mistakes that somebody could help you not make, if you've just got some support. There is no way to learn besides doing it really. You're going to make mistakes, it's okay. In my view, creative needs to be really product focused in the sense that it's on Facebook ads and Instagram ads. You are driving high quality traffic by giving people a clear sense of what your product is right away. Clear wins over everything else first as a baseline. Andrew: Clear doesn't make you give you the best out in the world. They're clear plus some other things do that, but clear establishes a baseline of what you can expect and at least drives what I consider high quality traffic to your side. People who are interested in you because of your product. So that's probably the first basic principle I would say is focus on being clear in your creative before you focus on being clever or funny, or any of those kinds of things. You can drive a lot of very cheap traffic to your website with Clickbait tactics, but they won't buy anything. Ultimately, it won't matter how cheap the traffic is if they don't buy anything. So that's the kind of thing I would say. Andrew: And then the other big thing I'm a huge believer in is trust the algorithm. There was a world where people talk about Facebook ads as the value of micro-targeting that was one of the phrases people would talk about. This idea that you'd go find exactly your customer really specifically target them without everybody else. I think there was a time when that was part of how you did it. Those times are gone. What I would say is what you want to do is give Facebook as much information as possible and let Facebook's algorithm predict the future for you because humans are terrible at predicting the future. Algorithms are pretty good at it. So, algorithms do a really good job of looking at the data set of who's responding to your advertising. And then going and saying, here's some more people like that to put you out in front of. So, we believe in really broad targeting. Andrew: Let Facebook have as much freedom as you can to go and find the next person to put you out in front of. Over time, not even over that much time, Facebook's amazing in this regard much quicker than Google is at this. Facebook will find who those people are. So that's the broad principles I would say is trust the algorithm, be clear with your creative. There you go. There's just so much more I could say about the Stephanie, but I'm going to stop there. So I don't take up the entire rest of the podcast. Stephanie: Okay, cool. Yeah, we will definitely link that up. I think it's a really important point too to segment a piece of your ad budget for testing. I know we do that internally as I'll tell. Our team members are like, "Hey, you have this much money. If you spend it and you just learn from it, that's okay. Versus this amount let's actually protected and make sure we drive results with it." So I think it's good to go into a mindset being okay with using a portion of ads for an R&D type testing project. So, you feel like you can learn from it, but not blow your entire budget on it. Andrew: Okay, no question. Constantly testing is super crucial. What I'd say about that is, when I want to test on Facebook ads, the place I want to test most is take big swings with your tests. The common thing you hear people say with testing, you'll hear people like, I've seen so many articles trumpeting like, oh, we changed our CTC button color or we changed it from [inaudible] now and it was a 15% lift. Andrew: First of all, I just don't believe those studies anymore. Secondly, the reason you're writing about it is because it's exceptional. It doesn't happen all the time. I just think that's a waste of people's time. But most people need to do, if they're looking to go from not successful to successful, the larger the difference in outcome you want, the bigger the change you need to make. You can't just change the background color of your ad and expect that it give you wildly different results. That's once you have results you like and now you're just dialing in and trying to grab an extra 2% of value here and there. I just rarely see that thing work. Andrew: What I would say is much better to think to test is something like, what's the offer that you're giving people? What's the product you're starting with and leading with? That can create wildly different results. We just ran something for our jewelry company that we ... 31 Bits, which is our other most recent acquisition, our fourth brand. We started with a batch of ads focusing on one set of products were necklaces and bracelets and things like that. We were getting a dollar of 50 clicks, low click through rates, et cetera, and very poor conversion rate. Andrew: We changed the product set, same exact brand, similar styles of photography, but just different products to a whole different category of product and saw triple or more the performance suddenly CTC went way down. Click through rate, went way up, conversion went way up. The reason why is really obvious, it's jewelry, some people like some bracelets better than others. If you just use the same stuff all the time, people are going to respond to it the same way over time. There's no magic to that. That's how people shop for something that you wear. It's about what it looks like. So, by changing the products that we led with that made a huge difference. So that's what I'd say is for Ecommerce consumer good people, that's the kind of test you want to be running. Andrew: Give it a whole different products out, a whole different offer, a whole different way of framing the offer, don't just change little bits of the creative and copy if you want to change your outcome in a big way. Stephanie: Yeah. I love that. People I talk to sometimes are focused on those micro adjustments that you're talking about or just the minimal incremental pieces that they could change, whether it's button colors or all that. That's a good point too. Yeah. Focus on the higher level things. But how did you decide on what new products to show? Andrew: In that case, part of it was what new products ... there's a change in our product development, that's going to make it so, or in our manufacturing that was going to make it to that, we're phasing out some products anyway. We always start by looking at most products over various periods of time. This is a simple way to start. I mean, there's not a lot of science to it in that respect. I think we're just looking around- Stephanie: Just seeing what it's doing well in the market. Andrew: Yeah. And what's done well on our side. Honestly, part of it is for a place to start your testing just like make a hypothesis and test it. I mean, it's not- Stephanie: Yeah. What timeframe are you looking at? When you do the test, are you looking at 30 days? Let's see how it does and try something new, or is it like after a couple of days you'll know and try something different? Andrew: Yeah. I'd say budget is probably a bigger factor than time. So if you're spending thousands of dollars a day, it doesn't take very long good answers. If you're spending a couple $100 a day, it takes a little longer. It also changes relative to your average order value. What you need is a statistically significant number of responses and really a statistically significant number of conversions. You can think of conversions as micro conversions as well. For example, a click on an ad is a conversion in a sense. Clicks as a percentage of impressions is a conversion. Because it's pretty cheap to run Facebook ads, you can actually figure out a reliable statistically significant performance in a click through rate pretty fast without having to see how those clicks convert. Andrew: In that case, it took us, I mean, I think we're got 100 bucks, when we knew that this new round of ads was way, way better performing because the gap and click through rate was so significant between the two. That's another core principle here. The larger the gap and the outcome, or the larger the disparity in the outcome, the more likely it is that it's a reliable result, if that makes sense. In that case, I think we spent between the two products, that's a total of 1,500 bucks. The whole goal of that was to test those while we went and ordered new products to try and start scaling a little bit for a larger test in the future. I didn't really care what the actual result was. The goal is a bigger goal to win bigger over time. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. When talking about growing, I saw that you guys live by a central Ecommerce growth formula. I was hoping you could go into that a bit. Andrew: Yeah. This is changing a little bit in some ways. I'll give you the baseline version of it, which is visitors tasks conversion rate times average order value. This is actually really simple. Every business in the world only actually has three factors that make up the value that you get from a purchase, or that make up your revenue actually. The first factor is how many people come to your business. This could be people walk into your store, it doesn't have to be a website. But just never people who show up. And then you multiply that by the conversion rate. So, what percentage of those people buy something from you? And then you multiply that by how much they spend. Andrew: When you look at that, that will equal your revenue. If you just say, how many people get there, how many of those people buy and how much they spend when they do? That's the entirety that makes up the revenue. That's incredibly simple and intuitive in a lot of ways. But what I find is that in the fog of war, people lose sight of that very simple concept. So, they start making tests and changes without a really clear idea of which one or multiple of those variables they're actually trying to affect. Of course, those all relate to each other. For example, your average order value goes up, your conversion rate goes down, that's a general rule of thumb, it's true across everything. It's intuitive when you think about it. Andrew: A smaller percentage of people are going to buy a $1,000 item than a $10 item. As you drive more traffic, it's highly likely that you're driving lower and lower quality traffic. Everybody exists along in the world, exists along a continuum of people likely to buy your product and unlikely to buy your product from your mother, who's the most likely person in the world to buy your product to- Stephanie: That is number one. Andrew: Yes. To a subsistence farmer who doesn't have the internet is the least likely person. The farther you go from your mom to the subsistence farmer, the more expensive it is to acquire that customer. So as traffic grows, then your conversion rate is likely to go down. That's just another helpful concept, I think. These are rules of thumb to heuristics they're not always true, but that's a basic way of thinking about it. We think about those three levers in what we do and really try to understand when we test something at any point in our funnel, whether it's on the website or ad level or whatever, which one of those am I actually trying to affect? Where's the problem in my business? Andrew: I've talked with friends of mine who own CrossFit gyms, and I've said to them like ... I'm thinking of a friend in particular whose gym was struggling. I was trying to help him think this way, which of these is the problem for you? Are not enough people showing up to your gym? Or when they show up, do they not buy a membership? Or do they buy a cheap membership or you give them a month free and then they don't spend any money after that? Which one of these is the problem? That probably gets towards LTV as well, or CLV, Customer lifetime Value as something to think about in the midst of all this as well. This is where you can make it a little more complicated, but that basic principle is true. Across the gym, just like on my consumer goods websites, it's the same problem. You just have to figure out which one of those things has the highest upside at the lowest cost to fix next. That's where you should put your energy. Stephanie: Yeah, I love that. Have you ever pitched a brand to be taken over by a 4x400 that you believed in where everyone else on your team didn't believe in it? Andrew: Oh yeah. This is where it helps to be coldly rational. Gosh, I don't mean rational like smart, I'm always right. I just mean my approach is unemotional to a lot of this stuff. To the probably emotional dysfunction in other ways in my life or something like that, I'm not saying you should emulate this necessarily. But that's why there's therap, so it's fine. So, sorry? I know there's some noise there. A lot of times, if we're tweeting about a new brand acquisition. People will say privately like, "I do believe in this," or "I don't believe in this." I just started think that's like ... I think without having the view that I have in the acquisition process, I just don't even know what somebody is judging that on. People just go by their general sense of what they believe about if it's a good brand or not. Andrew: First of all, other people are not like you. Your subjective sense of that may not reflect at all what I brought population to potential customers is. Secondly, to me, you can validate this pretty clearly by looking at simple product market fit, things like margin is a huge question, which makes businesses work and it makes other businesses fail, is one of the problems of opening day. We made a huge mistake by just giving ourselves away too little margin on the products. Stephanie: What's the little margin, what do you consider small? Andrew: Yeah. Well, I think if you're going to try and grow a brand with ... I'll just tell you, we target 70 points plus of margin for brands that we are trying to grow with our method of growth. And then that's really important. If you have other growth mechanisms that might not matter as much. But for us, we want 70 points plus landed margin. We can deal with a little less than that, but if you're going to try and grow a brand with Facebook ads, you're going to need to be able to exist at a two to one return on your money on ads probably. It's hard to really beat that number, if not withstanding something like coronavirus throwing those small. So we target that. That becomes a big question for us, if we think we can do that. Andrew: Sometimes actually it's part of the first thing we have to fix for a brand is, we see supply chain processes that are in our view broken and we would say like, "We love everything about this brand. It's convergent on site, is great relative to its average order value, relative to its traffic sources." We dig into all that stuff, and say, "But your margin is not good enough, but we think we can solve that. W can help with getting your shipping cost down by repackaging it differently, or thinking about what products to focus on or not, or changing your manufacturer or something like that." We don't want to ever do that at the expense of giving people a good product. We haven't compromised on that at this point, which I'm happy about. But yeah, those are all the things that we can look at as potentially something to fix. But in our view, 70 points plus, makes the game a lot easier for sure. Stephanie: Got it. I like that point too about, what would someone know when they're doubting a brand? Because that is definitely a human flaw thinking about ... even when I'm thinking about those rubber bracelets from a while back, for me to say, "Oh, that's dumb," I don't need to be balanced or anything, or I need help with that. It's funny because it's like, well, apparently a lot of other people did because look how many people bought it. Yeah, I think that's also a good lesson for anyone starting something up. If they hear someone say like, "Oh, that's dumb, you shouldn't do that." Probably good to take a step back and be like, well, that's just one person's opinion and not let it deter you from trying at least. Andrew: Yes, especially relative to the set of metrics I have in front of me, which are going to tell me something a little bit different. This is one of the things that's so great about data is that I'm just wrong, Stephanie, about so many things in life, I just know I am. So having some source outside of my own brain that I can look at. When my own eyes are lying to me, humans are just biased machines. We're just machines of bad thinking about stuff. So, finding ways to be aware of my priors going into something and my bias going into something, check those against some sorts of truths that exist outside myself. Of course, people can lie with data and data can be poorly collected. There's all kinds of ways that can go wrong too. But in light of all those things, I just think that it becomes really helpful to do that, to go and have a source like that to go check in. So that's what we do in our process. Andrew: There's various levels of excitement about brands even internally. But there's no question that ... We sincerely believe it can work based on the data set in front of us and a few other old principals. So that's what we do. Stephanie: That's cool. We're mentioning data, stick with the data when it comes to it and don't just listen to unfounded opinions. What kind of metrics do you look at that you think a lot of other brands aren't utilizing enough? There's obvious ones like conversions and click-through rates and all that kind of stuff and revenue obviously, but is there anything that you look at that you think enough people aren't paying attention to? Andrew: There's no magic here. After we acquired 31 Bits, this jewelry company ... really super cool brand. This brand was started by women who were anthropology majors in college and wanted to provide good quality jobs to people who could not access them by nature of where they lived in the world. So they started in Uganda after a trip there and had these women making these really cool beads. This started in 2009. These women were out to change the world with this brand. It's just totally authentic, beautiful brand story around all of this stuff. When we acquired that, I on my podcast, it's called- Stephanie: What is your podcast? Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I feel so lame doing this right now, but- Stephanie: Oh, sorry, Andrew. Andrew: I know. There's a tangent there. But anyway, if somebody really wants to hear how I think about this question, I spent about 45 minutes with Taylor, the head of our agency, talking about exactly why we acquired 31 Bits. We did an episode about that. I'll find it and send it to you for the show notes as well. And then we interviewed the ladies from the brand for the next episode after that, so people could kinda hear why they chose us as well. We tried to be really honest about why we think it'll work and why we think it could fail. I would say the metrics related to that, that I care about, it's not just conversion rate it's conversion rate relative to average order value and relative to traffic sources. That's a huge one for us. Andrew: Conversion rate itself is actually so context specific that it's not that helpful of a metric. I mean, think about the conversion rate of a direct click. Somebody comes to the website, types in 31bits.com, presses enter. Let's take a 45 year old female on a desktop computer direct versus a 25 year old male on their cellphone through a display ad on the internet, saying conversion rates to describe what both of those people are doing and getting a baseline is not going to be helpful at all because the baseline for those two different customers of what you'd expect, they're so different. I mean, just the device issue you're twice as likely to convert on desktop than you are as mobile before you talk about any of the rest of the demographic's software or anything like that. Andrew: We try to really give some specificity of the context of something like conversion rate. Even one thing you'll see there is like, sometimes the brand's conversion rate will look low, but it's actually not low. The reason it looks low is because they're getting a ton of blog traffic via organic search SEO essentially. That blog traffic is technically on their URL, but it's not at all related to their product and it's not people looking for their product. Therefore, that blog traffic will have an incredibly low conversion rate and will therefore negatively influenced the total conversion rate. If you bucket that blog traffic out, it turns out the conversion and the brand is fine and their website works great and you just didn't realize that. I don't know if that example made sense. But there's- Stephanie: It does make sense. Andrew: ... there's just all of these kinds of contexts, things like that, that I think are really crucial to look at all the way around. We look at some other stuff like we've looked at entire funnel on our site, so we'll look at not just the conversion rate thing. If somebody doesn't buy something on your website, there's a question of why did they not buy? Because they made it to your website, so what happened next? Did they never add anything to cart or did they add to cart and then drop off once they got to checkout or did they never even make it to checkout or what? We look at each of those things and try to understand what's going on. Andrew: If somebody adds to cart and makes them check out and then drops off, why? The answer to that question is probably because you're shipping cost is too much a lot of times, or it's going to get shipped slowly, or they're not confident in return policy or whatever. So we'll look at some of that stuff too. We have a value of 4x400, which is understanding before you act and paired with that is hard problems require deep focus, or require deep work. The basic concept is like, before I go and throw out a million solutions, I want to really understand as clear of terms as possible exactly what's wrong. Andrew: When I hear somebody say my Facebook ads are broken, the thing I want to say is, "What do you mean? What's happening? What broken- Stephanie: What are you doing? Andrew: Right, yeah. "Is the conversion rate broken? Are the clicks too expensive? Where is the problem? Are you not getting a high enough AOV? When you say it's broken, what do you mean?" To try to help people answer that question because then it can guide where to think about the next problem. Stephanie: Cool. I love that. Yeah, that was a really good example. Stephanie: Are there any things, technology or otherwise tools that you're using right now that are maybe new that you're excited about? Andrew: Well, I'll tell you what I think that is, it's not the answer you're looking for, but I think it's the answer that I get. Stephanie: Go for it. Andrew: My answer is no I don't. We will get there to where we'll need to do that, but I just think this is a massive distraction for a lot of people. I think people love to go chase the next new thing. They'll even say things like, "well, my customer is on Tik Tok." I don't really know what that means. Yes- Stephanie: I don't really know who's on Tik Tok right now. Andrew: I'm 36. First all, I'm 36, I'm too old and I don't get Tik Tok. I've never had Facebook on my phone, so I'm just the worst social media marketer ever in that respect. I do not understand what's happening in the world. I just don't always know what that kind of thing means. I think your customers probably also want Instagram because there's a lot of people on Instagram. So I could be wrong about that, I guess. I'd be so happy for somebody to correct me if that's the case and reach out and tell me, "You're not looking at this right." Anyway, I just think it becomes a huge distraction for people to go and try and find another new thing to go do instead of to get really good in one or two areas. Andrew: We will expand channels over time. I think we're really trying to build out more search and shopping as a next step for us, that is not a new channel at all. It's actually the oldest digital marketing channel, search in particular,. I'm playing around with some ideas from SEO, but really I'm just trying to make my customer more valuable at this point. So, just trying to really get better via email, post-purchase, via my unboxing experience, trying to think about how unboxing and product experience creates retention in word of mouth. I'm trying to dig deeper and get better at the things I'm already doing rather than adding a whole lot, I think. Stephanie: With everything happening in the world right now, it does seem like there, like you mentioned early on the show, there're a lot of changes happening, especially around Ecommerce. I know you're talking about focusing on what's working and all that, but is there anything you're preparing for over the next three to five years that you're anticipating around Ecommerce trends? Andrew: Yeah, all right. This is my coronavirus beat right non. This is a really fun question and is a great podcast fodder. I do not fault you for asking it and I don't want you to hear my answer to this as condescending. But there's no possible way in the world that I could predict the future that far out. Here's what I believe about predicting the future. The more complex the system you're project predicting with the more inputs that there are there, over the longer the timeline, the harder it is to project. So, I might be able to give you some sense of what's happening next week, but then also last week, all these companies started saying they're going to pull their Facebook ad spend. Stephanie: Yeah. I didn't why I mention that, but I'm like well, that seems like it's a good opportunity then, like you're mentioning to get on Facebook. Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Stephanie: I think Zuckerberg even said they'll be back or something like that, which is just funny. Andrew: First of all, who could have predicted over that timeline, that kind of thing would happen? Before you even talk about Zuckerberg, who ... There's just so many elements. The system of macroeconomics in the U.S., before you even talk to the world, is so big with so many inputs and so complex that I just don't believe in anybody's ability to really predict that. So what I think is that it's not helpful generally to do that. I'll say three to five years, the one thing I feel broadly, fairly comfortable with though, I think even this has, there's some basic questions is that Ecommerce, as an industry, Ecommerce is a share of U.S. retail spending, will continue to grow. Andrew: I mean, I just have no possible way of predicting that. So I feel like it's a good place to be if you're in Ecom, I think you should be investing in Ecom broadly. I just don't think otherwise it's very possible to do that. I mean, just look at what we were all saying about coronavirus two months ago and the models that we were all looking at about what this thing could be. It's been devastating. I don't want to underplay that, but it has not been in the U.S. the millions of deaths at this point, at least. Who knows that people were predicting? I just look at that and go like, that's because predicting that many things for something with that much unknown is really, really hard. Andrew: My take on this is to go read Nate Silver's book, The Signal and the Noise and to hone your skills thinking about what kinds of things you can and can't project, and even how to think about projecting things. And then to go from there, which means the way you win is not by predicting the future, but by honing your fundamentals and carving really good thought processes. This is what I really believe in the most. To think about this all like poker, which is that good poker players don't win by winning a hand, they win by playing lots of hands really well and by making the right move over and over. Understanding the game that there are going to be times when they're going to be in a big spot with a lot of money in the pot and the card will come up and go the wrong way. But if they play enough big pots and enough money in it, the law of large numbers says that they'll win over time. I think that's the way to think about it. Andrew: Get really good at understanding something like visitors and conversion rate times average order value and asking the right questions about that. Get really good at following your profit margins everywhere you can . Get as much clarity about them as you possibly can that way you know where your money is going and where you're making money and where you're not. If you can do those things over a long period of time and just get good at finding good people to work with and get good at those sorts of things, you will win. So ultimately, I bought into the partnership at CTC with my own money, I'm not rich. Andrew: The reason I put my money into that is because I believe in the humans that are the partner group there, and I believe that those people overall given enough chances will win. That's the way I think you should think about your brand and your business is find partners and find brands and businesses that you believe will play the right hand the most times and are people of high character. That is part of the right hand of what you're play, you're going to have a relationship with these people. Every part of your business, if you can do those things, then I think over the aggregate, you're going to win. Stephanie: That's great. That actually took a very nice spin because at first I'm like, okay, no one's going to disagree with you that Ecommerce is going to grow. But I like the spin that you just took on it about what you should focus on instead. So, good answer. Andrew: Thanks. Yeah, I know. It's a compound answer in some ways, but it's really what I believe is true about the world. It's so sexy to say, okay, over the next month, this is going to happen and this is going to happen. Next time somebody on the show gives you that answer, bring them back on in six months and ask them what happened and- Stephanie: I was just going to say that. I think the world is still missing a little bit of the accountability piece because I see people still on Twitter, even the people who are talking about the end of the world, no one's following up with these people, how come this guy has had a billboard out around California for a long time saying the end of the world was going to happen, I guess, a few weeks ago, and it didn't? What now, are we going to follow up with him and be like, "Hey, what happened?" Andrew: Yeah, that's a very California story. I like that. Stephanie: All right. We're going to shift now into something called the lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a quick question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Andrew? Andrew: I am. But this is the ultimate challenge for me. Stephanie: This will be the hardest part of the interview. Andrew: Yeah, it probably are. All right, I'll do my best. Stephanie: I actually feel like you're going to have some great answers, that's why I've been excited to get to this. All right. If you were to have a podcast, who would your first guest be and what would the show be about? Other than the podcast that you're running now, you can't say that one. Andrew: Okay. I think it would be about exploring. Does it my guess have to be a live or can I pick anybody? Stephanie: No. Andrew: Okay. I think it would be about exploring big ideas about the world like theology, philosophy kind of stuff, but for the every man or woman. So, it would try not to be too much in the clouds, my guess would be C. S. Lewis, not because he's the most interesting thinker in the history of the world, although he's a really interesting thinker, but because he says things in really interesting ways. So, I think he would be a fascinating guy to just sit and talk with. When I think of a historical person I'd want to talk with most, would be that. Either that or a baseball ball guest. Stephanie: All right. Well, that's cool. That's a good answer. What's up next on your reading list? Andrew: Books I'm in the middle of or after? Stephanie: I'd say, you can do both, middle of and ones that you're looking back on like, that was a good book. Andrew: Okay. The Color of Law is the book I'm in the middle of right now. Richard Rothstein going through the history of government and forced racism in the U.S. incredibly helpful book for me so far. I'm three quarters away through. Highly recommended to try and get your head on straight about what's going on with race in the U.S. just pure history. It's really good. And then I am reading a Christian book called Money, Possessions and Eternity about how to use your money for compassion and care for people instead of for yourself. So, that's what I'm in the middle of right now. And a baseball book called Ball Four, which is a famous book. Stephanie: That's cool. If you were to pick a country to focus on to maybe buy a new brand from, what country would you look into? Andrew: A country? Stephanie: Yeah. If you were to bet big, I'm going to go for something in India, that's top of mind right now because I just read the whole thing between India and China and turning off Tik Tok in India. So, it's very interesting to me thinking about, if you were to bet on brands from a certain country or are you looking to go international, where would you go? Andrew: I think the answer is India. I think that's probably the right answer. The cost of reaching people in India is very cheap and India's economy seems to be growing very fast. But I'm just bullish on global economy in general. So, I think you could probably broadly pick out. In the last 50 years, massive amounts of extreme poverty have been alleviated in the world thanks to globalization and technology and all kinds of things like that. The world is a much better place than people make it sound. That's another book record recommendation, Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Go read that book- Stephanie: Factfulness. Andrew: ... it will help you look at the world totally different. Factfulness. Forget my other book my other book and finish reading that one. Stephanie: I'll link of that one. Yeah, no, I think that's where I would bet too because I think I just read that, it's a billion and a half people there only a third of them, I think have cell phones right now. They're coming online at a very quick rate. So, I think- Andrew: Yeah. I mean, it's incredible how much better life has gotten in the world for so many people. There's very hard life in the world for a lot of people, so to not to underplay that. But it's just crazy and it's going to keep happening. Stephanie: Yeah, I agree. What's up next in your travel destinations? Andrew: Anywhere- Stephanie: When you can travel. I think, just outside my neighborhood. Andrew: Yeah. I like Austin, Minnesota where my family is, hopefully in a couple of weeks, but we'll see. As far as other places, I love Boston. Would like to go with my wife there. I have a seven month old though, so the actual answer to this question is probably nowhere for a while. Stephanie: Yeah. That's my life too. I have four month old twin boys and a two year old. Someone asked me like, "Oh, where are you going to go on vacation?" I'm like, "Nowhere outside of 10 miles away." It's a mess to get into the car that would be- Andrew: Four-year-old twin boys? Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. Andrew: I think it's awesome. Congratulations. That's beautiful. Stephanie: Thanks. Yeah, it's a wild ride. All right, the last one ... Yeah, you know. What's up next on your Netflix queue? Andrew: I just watch the same shows over and over again with my wife. Stephanie: Does she get to choose? Andrew: She does most times, yeah. Stephanie: So you guys are watching Selling Sunset and things like that? Andrew: No. We watched Parks and Rec, 30 Rock and The Good Place- Stephanie: Okay, those are very ones. Andrew: ... over and over and over again. That's probably all we watch. I don't know. The decision fatigue I have on this particular issues, we just created a Slack channel that worked for media recommendations because I just don't know even what to do anymore about where to look next. So, I wish I had a better answer than that. It would- Stephanie: Let us know if you find something from your Slack channel. Andrew: Yeah. It's probably another episode of The Good place. My team is really hot on Yellowstone right now, so there you go. Stephanie: Okay. I don't know what that is, that just shows I am not with it either. So I'll have to check that out. Andrew: Kevin Costner intense ranching family season three. Stephanie: Okay. I'll have to dive into that one. All right, that was a good lightning round. Is there anything that you were hoping to cover, are there any last words of advice before we hop off? Andrew: I think just that in situations like this, I always just want to say that when somebody asks you for answers on a podcast, it's super easy to make it sound easy in some ways. But it's really hard actually to do these things and to grow business and to work in a team and all these things. So, I think the parting word for me is always just to say, it's not actually as easy as it maybe. I hope I didn't make it sound like that. It's just challenging at times. So, keep at it and surround herself with good people. Yeah, I think that's it. I think I just properly took all the wind out of the point that I was making by monitoring it at the end there. Maybe out of [inaudible 01:02:52]. That's the big piece for me, is just you can do it, it is harder than it sounds a lot of times. Stephanie: Yeah, I like it. Well, Andrew, thanks so much for coming on the show. It was a lot of fun and ... Yeah, thanks for taking the time. Andrew: Thanks, Stephanie, for having me. It's super fun.

  This conversation is all about how to listen and live in a magical way to the world around you. Enrique and Andrew speak about birds and language. Enrique's ideal new idea about divination. A special message Andrew got from the birds recently and much more.  Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to, and consider if it is time to support the Patreon You can do so here. then you can check out the bonus episode where Andrew and Enrique talk about how to listen to the birds. Including a recording on one of Enrique's bird songs.  If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. You can book time with Andrew through his site here.  Follow Enrique on Facebook here Andrew is @thehermitslamp everywhere. Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew Transcript   Enrique: Okay. Andrew: Welcome to another episode of the Hermit's Lamp podcast. I am here today with Enrique Enriquez. How do you introduce Enrique? I think that we could say that they maybe are a poet, that they are maybe a magician. Perhaps it's easiest to say that they are an emissary for the nation of birds, but they're a person who does a lot of things. They've been on before a couple times, so if you enjoy this, definitely dig out the previous episodes, I think that they're well worth listening to. But how are you introducing yourself these days, Enrique? Enrique: I don't know, Andrew, it's very ... it's always very good to see you and I always find problematic to record these things with you because I am ... or I feel so at ease with you. But I always worry that nothing will come out of it. It's like just two friends hanging out. Andrew: I think that could actually be like the subtitle for The Hermit's Lamp podcast. Just a couple of friends hanging out and talking about stuff. I think that's every episode. Enrique: Yes, which is beautiful. Andrew: No, I don't know. I went to see a friend of mine the other day, she was visiting New York and I had to meet with her. The only chance I had to meet with her was the Beast Art Gallery, an opening that she was somehow related to, and I arrived there. She grabbed me by the arm and she walked me around the room introducing me to every single person as a magician. Andrew: And of course I flinched and then I flinched a little bit more and then I thought, "Well, she's philosopher, be smart. She probably knows what she's doing." Maybe she has reason to call me a magician, but I don't know. Enrique: Maybe we should ... we'll contact her and ask her what that reason was. We can share that somewhere afterwards or maybe it's best not to know, right? Andrew: Yeah. I think names should be given even ... We are given a name when we are born and then maybe we are given other names by other reality people, institution organizations, and it's the same thing. It's better for the name to be something that is given to you or maybe you get to live up to it. Enrique: I think that that resonates for me. I always felt like in this era of social media and online presence, that I should come up with some pithy, witty, catchy thing to refer to myself as, other than what do you do? Where are retail cards? It is so many people have these great slogans and catchphrases and so on. But I've never come up with one, I've given up. After 17 years, I think it's plenty of time to give up on that process. But I remember being in China a couple of years ago where I was doing some teaching and doing readings with my friend Carrie. And I was talking to this woman who ... she was talking to me about her guru and she was like, "How long have you been reading cards for?" Enrique: And I was like, "I've been reading cards for about 30 years and professionally for whatever it was at that time," and so on. And she's like, "Oh, so you're like a Grand Master then." And I was like ... and immediately, my response was, I'm like, "I don't know, maybe you should ask Carrie if that's true or not." Because I just didn't want it. Like you said, I flinched. But I've thought of it that moment a lot since then. And I think that acknowledgement from the community or from people of it or the bestowing of that name from people is actually where maybe the real power is. There are lots of people who posts, they sign off with Supreme Grand Master of Taro or whatever, so on and so on. Maybe it's true, but I think when it comes from the outside, it approximates truth more closely. Andrew: I completely agree and I would move by my friend Jasper because I felt okay, maybe I have done something to be called magician, and I'm okay with that as long as it's not me who is the one saying that's what I am. But I don't worry about ... I don't know names or labels. That's the problem with some words that really turn reality opaque in that way in which then nothing else can be seen through that name. People just give things a name to put a stop to having to think about them. Enrique: I'm an Aquarius. I'm a Reiki Master. I'm a ... whatever. Andrew: How are you? Enrique: I'm doing pretty good. I want to share with you a bird story. Andrew: Okay. Enrique: So seeing as seen as birds is something we definitely share a common in. And maybe I've told this on the podcast before, but I can't remember right now. But last October, I ended a long relationship and day two after I ended it, I found a bird nest on the ground with three robin eggs in it. They were all broken. And so I looked at it and I was like, "Yup, that's the end of something." And I saved it. I brought it in and I made sure it was dry. Around here somewhere, I kept it and I felt this very clear acknowledgement from that other side about this situation. Enrique: And then maybe two months later, I was walking through this lane way that I walked through to get to my studio most of the time. And I saw a pigeon with what looked like a branch stuck over its head. And I was like, "Huh, how am I going to convince this pigeon to let me free it from this thing that it's got. And when I got a bit closer, I realized that it was in fact not trapped, but it was ... sorry, I'm going to pause this, and episode afterwards. Enrique: Restarting now. I saw that it was in fact not trapped, but it was holding the branch in its mass and it was a pretty big branch. So it looked like part of it wrapped around its head and so on. And as I got closer, it flew up and it circled and instead of flying away, or instead of flying to one of the many patches on the building with the pigeons in that area, it circled above me a couple of times. And as it did, so it dropped the branch and it fell right into my hands. I didn't have to reach out for anything. Literally, it fell into my hands because I thought it was going to hit me in the face. And so I saved that and I was like, "Oh, now here's the beginning of that new nest. Here's the beginning of that new thing." So there is my bird story for you. Andrew: That's ... Thank you for telling me. I had never heard that before and it's just perfect. The weird condition of flying. You said they are at the same time. Part of the landscape and exception to the landscape. There all the time, but then there is a moment that particular image which would have been irrelevant otherwise gets active for you right there. And then there is something beautiful about the way that they give consistency to themselves. There's a second [inaudible 00:09:15] so to speak. The pigeon with a branch on its beak, it's even more relevant because you found the [inaudible 00:09:24]. Enrique: And this is symmetry to it, right? Andrew: Yes. And I think that the most important thing I learned from ... sorry. He said the space in between the cars, he's made out of time. On the table, we don't see that because it happens really fast and in fact all oracles are [inaudible 00:09:51] for all to accelerate time. But that space, that time, the more we look at card, the wider you become. So we can inhabit that space in between the images. And then we realized, "Oh, but that's space is light and the images are happening all the time." There is card that is eats with the three broken egg and then there is a card that eats the pigeon with the branch with its beak. And just in the space, in between, the key I think is to know how to wait. And I'm more and more convinced that wakened with ISA, of course, a very active dance of faint, of painting, it's the greatest oracle. That's the oracular state is the state of waiting. Enrique: I think that that capacity to be present and open, but not fixated is really important to magic, to divination, to listening to birds, to all of the things, right? Andrew: Yeah. I spent the weekend talking to some crows in Massachusetts and I think that one very important thing for me is that ... if they're having a conversation with a crow across the main street of this little town, and somebody wanted to know what the crow was saying. And then some other day, I told these crows and I start calling them day and night. They came and they drew a circle over my head. They were talking to me, but basically drawing the beautiful circle on top of me. Andrew: And what I find or what I encounter all the time is that people then want for me to provide some ornithological conclusion. I talk to the birds because somehow now I'm going to learn something about crows. And I have no ornithological basis. Both events like the nest you found or the bird with the branch on its beak, both are emblem for the language of the birth, which is precisely the stability to merit with time by paying a patient is the rhythm of the world. Of course, I'm just putting these images in the world and somehow, they add up because yes, you find somehow they're concrete reality. The facts go so on. Maybe in two months we will find ... I don't know what, with some sort of branch, we let it image that we'll [inaudible 00:12:58] in that moment. Enrique: Well, I think that people are often, and I at times have often been in a hurry to arrive at meaning or definition or so on, and I think that that's one of the ... if one of the powers of reading tarot cards is the space, one of the dangers is the definition. Yet to me, the definition of things is a thing that comes in time. And I think that especially at some point in my ceremonial magic career, I just started to treat meetings, messages, things that came, I'm like, "Well, we'll see what that means in time." Maybe in a few years I'll know what that means. Maybe in a few years, it'll feel true still. We'll see. And that sort of openness to it, it allows for change, which might actually be the most important part of the process as opposed to definition, which is comforting, or has the appearance of comfort but doesn't really necessarily always or maybe even often benefit us in a bigger picture sense. Andrew: Yeah. In fact, my suspicion as at the moment is that if we have a question and we need the answer right away, that means that's the wrong question. I think that there's a credential in our goals between motivation and acceptance. We want our spiritual materials, so to speak, the things we consume within the frame of the spiritual, to provide motivation. So we feel that we can tackle life or go up and do things, and accomplish something then which people call inspiration. Andrew: And I think that it's very important to focus on acceptance. Not only from the mentally, the acceptance of the dignity of that thing that is before, all good or bad, but also the acceptance of a bigger picture or a wider pattern that is taking place and one way of naming that will be changed as you're doing, is time and understanding that everything is simply happening. Of course for me personally, and I'm not suggesting people should do that, I will also say everything is happening and I don't matter, which gives me a lot of freedom. It's not about me. I understand that for people, a lot of them need to be the center of the circle. But in any case, yes, you become a witness of reality and somehow you realize that then you are reality too. And then we also become part of the landscape, an exception to the landscape now and then. Enrique: Well, certainly we can become an oracle to other people, right? Andrew: Yes. Enrique: As part of the landscape and an exception too. But I'm very curious about this idea as it relates to the more ... I completely relate to it from a spiritual perspective, from a practice perspective, even from my perspective as being a person who does readings for other people. To me, all of those things, I completely relate to it. I'm curious how you relate that back to the more mundane but also miraculous things like your appearance. How does that idea trickle back into parenthood for you? Or into your relationship or into those sort of day to day domestic parts of your life? Andrew: I always tell people that the fact that they can speak like a bird doesn't mean that they'll have to do laundry. No. And of course in New York, that basically means that you have to grab a big bag of 30 clothes and then go out. In most places in New York, you don't have this laundry machine in your apartment, so you have to actually want to go to those winters knowing who these places were. In the movies, there's always fantastic tech happening that's nice, but I go in the morning so it's really boring. So, a daily for steward of some ... let's call it [inaudible 00:18:27] it could be your head in the clouds thinking of a bird and words and signs and oracle. At some point, I think that that's the dignity. Saying like doing laundry. Andrew: And I remember I used to hate that particular thing. Going out to do laundry is just extraordinarily boring. And then I realized well this is somehow they cancel weight. I mean I need this thing. I need the key, I need the fact that they are hungry or bored because otherwise, I will just disappear. But you need that, you need that reality to keep doing pension. That versatility where all [inaudible 00:19:16] aspiring us. It's only rates if you have an [inaudible 00:19:20] and a view low. I appreciate those things now. I go to do my laundry in a suit because I feel that there is an extra-ordinary dignity in doing that too. And the same with everything, I think it's very hard to accept the dignity of the things we don't like. I suspect that at the end, we are all guided by our aesthetic preferences. Andrew: We have an idea of what's beautiful and then we pursue that and then everything else just gets along. But I do feel that the mundane half that wait, and that's what it is. It's a way that keeps you grounded. What I don't do is to focus any oracular pursue on the mundane. I think that there are questions that have no form and they manifest as intuition. They are not been named, you don't know what they are, so trying to be useful to somehow point you in some direction or ... but daily life takes care of itself. It works clockwork. So I don't agonize over children, family, school, I don't know, housing, work. I think those things will happen anyways. The ground is there. The problem is how high can you fly? So the ground is always there. Enrique: I think it's one of the things, it's always a good interesting question for me. And I am a person who points Oracle at mundane things but not regularly. Like sometimes and when necessary, but I tend to ... my daily practice, it drifted to this general question, how do I show up fully today? As my question to the cards and at some points in the last six months or so, the question just disappeared and it just becomes this open time, in a way that I imagine you with your pen in your notebook and letters and images and cards and ... where's it going? What is it? Who knows? It is what it is. And at the end, maybe there's something concrete that you could point out or show about it, but often it's just much more ephemeral than all of that, you know? Andrew: Yes. Very often, it's just about maintaining the day. And again to me, that has to do with the idea becoming one with time. It's not really about finding a solution or an answer because it's not even about asking a question. It's just about being present and of course I like this idea of a symbolic world, that it's [inaudible 00:22:49] not very clear and it's not real riding over your thoughts on the real world or daily life and it becomes more than or more federal depending on when and where we are. And I like to be a witness so that world, but many times it's the rare act of witnessing the life of form, what provides some benefits or a sense of being okay. Andrew: That can give you ... and I will maybe [inaudible 00:23:27] to put a very concrete example. I am completely convinced that what'd really help when we look at card, it's not they images just themselves, it's not the words we used to acquire the images, it's not the answers we get, it's the experience of looking of them. It's the consistency in the pattern of the images. It's a due painful experience of images that makes [inaudible 00:24:05] feel better. And somehow, feeling better it's not just ... I don't know, a sensation, it's that sense of truth, like when you feed a bird and you understand that you know something and you don't have to even to be able to [inaudible 00:24:24], but you know it, you'll know it. And it's the same ... Yes. Enrique: It reminds me ... I recently just reacquired a bicycle after having my bicycle stolen near the start of the year. The joys of living in a large city. I'm speaking of things that can be tremendously grounding but not in a desirable way. But this conversation and the idea of the influence of reading cards, it reminds me of ... I live in Toronto, which is a city of tall buildings and less open spaces and so on. And one of the ways in which I really have noticed that at other times is if I'm cycling across town, like maybe 20, 30 minutes to a friend's place and when I leave the house, if the moon catches my eye, for example, you go and it's like, "Oh look at the beautiful full moon tonight." Enrique: And then you cycle along and then you cross University Avenue and the buildings have this open pathway and suddenly, there's the moon again. And then a little bit later as you get out pass Bathurst, where the buildings start to get short, and you're like, "Oh there's the moon again." And having a reading is like that initial connection where you see the moon, you go, "Whoa." It makes you stop, right. Andrew: Yes. Enrique: Time stops for that moment. Look at it and you're like, "Look at it, beautiful, oh look at the color of the sky." For me, it always trickles out into a bunch of things usually. Once I notice a thing like that, at the very least admitted or to have me just gazing upwards and feeling the expansiveness of that experience and then having a meeting and then flows through into those other points through time where that process returns to us, whether through the images of the words or the idea of memory, and it echoes that trip across town of that, reconnecting with what I would call it with the moon and a sublime experience. Enrique: But certainly, the metaphysical or transformative experience of having a reading. Andrew: Well, because again, I think that the reading or the experience of the cards is just part of a continuum of science. There are some are being insisted upon us. So yes, maybe the reading is that based where we frame our attention and say, "Oh, this is meaningful." But basically, the moon that you are looking at in the cars is the ones that will reappear then behind a building. And the same thing will happens with the idea of the tower people breaking apart and then you will see two people walking in different directions. So you will see a chain that somehow snaps and you'll realize, "Oh, it's the same idea, the same idea is being insisted upon me." I don't think that there is any example that will talk your example with the nest and then the pigeon of the branch. Andrew: It's the same idea. You have a mindset and a series of concerns or a way of being in the world. And then reality is just giving you these things in a way to say, well this is how things are, this is where you are, this is who you are. And I think the cards are a great training tool for that. These days, I'm thinking that the Oracle of the future will be a person who has a hole puncher in one hand and the stack of blank cards on the other. So when the person comes with a question or big and scientists about something, the person just punch a hole in the card and give it to them. And that's the Oracle. Andrew: To me, there are two terms of Oracles. To me, two things are very important. One is that initial definition of the Oracle is an opaque statement, which by extension then names the person who gives or delivers those statements, and the other one is Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher when he wrote, the Oracle neither reveals nor conceals but gives signs. Which to me is the most useful model to understand what I do. Andrew: There is this idea of punching a hole in a blank card and giving it to the other person so they can see through. And of course the idea of through which in French means hold to and is the beginning of [inaudible 00:29:33] which is to find, and then the card which there is a French word name which you can use for. In Spanish, it's very easy, it's [Laminna 00:29:43]. In English, you don't have an exact word like that. But in any cases are worth four cards. You can have the card, which is this lamp and lamp sounds like lamp, which is the soul. The idea of punching a hole in the soul, so you can see through. It is all implicit in the act of handing somebody something that basically allows them to focus their attention in a very narrow point. Enrique: I love it. As you're speaking about it, I was picturing you in a fancy tent somewhere, in the fence. The people lined up, it's like be like, stack of cards and your whole puncher and still be like, don't tell me anything, there you go. Andrew: Exactly. Because at the end of course if we think about an Oracle, that's an opaque statement or the statement is the whole, and then the opaque is the actual card. Making a statement in the opaque is a way of playing with that idea of the opaque statement. But currently, I'm very happy applying the same thoughts to just making bird sounds. I think we talked about that last time. Enrique: Are you reading cards any more of these days? Andrew: No. Enrique: No? Andrew: Not at all. I have a daily engagement with the cards because I teach people how to look at them. And I have fine tune my practice, so we only look at the trumps of [inaudible 00:31:31] which is the card I'm interested in and it really becomes a way to understand a poetic structure that if or when it takes a hole in you, then you can find in the world to the point that you no longer need the cards. But the basis is that we look at cards and we talk about them Andrew: And then I have learned because of that work with people, we usually don't work with questions. We don't use questions in our practice, we just look at the cards and we describe what we see. And I realized that in time, that work has a benefit for those who engage with it, which is not only learning how to read the cards, it's that they feel better, which again confirms my idea that exposing ourselves to this rhythm of the images is in itself a beneficial thing. [crosstalk 00:32:36] please. Enrique: When I created the land of the sacred self Oracle, which is black and white surrealists Oracle deck that I made- Andrew: I remember it. Enrique: ... I created it with that intention. So it's like I created it not with the goal that people would look at them and be like, ah, this is what it means, oh, here's my affirmation for the day, or here's the concrete or the opaque thing that I can arrive at. But instead, as a hole through a card into another world for people where they could have experiences and engage with them and whenever I work with those with people, the experience is the same. The initial response is, I have no idea what's going on in this, and I'm like, "Great, that's perfect. Now let's look at it, now let's talk about it, now let's open up that space so we can go through it." Enrique: And at some point in that journey, they tend to feel better and have a sense of direction or what have you. And sometimes that is very communicable and sometimes it's not. And I think that the idea that we can have need an answer that we can express concretely to other people or we failed is not always true. I think there are times when it's true or where that's what's required. But I think it's a bigger picture practice opening up and engaging in that mystery is really what allows us to let the Oracle reveal itself to us, which is always something outside of being able to clearly articulate the scope of what it means. Andrew: Yes. A sign should either deliver or some knowledge, which I will optimally call poetic knowledge. That means that it's maybe not even again possible to express it in words, it's just this understanding that you get about the way certain aspects of reality coincide for work or the Oracle or the sign I'm sorry will be a call to action. Andrew: And I don't mean that in practical terms, I mean in an emotional way. Something torches you and you feel that you're ready to something or you're ready not to do it or you're somehow ready to take a stance, and it's a purely emotional response to a sign you have been given. Most of that exist outside of a rational analysis. And I feel even sometimes, people say, well, I saw you even a dream and you told me ... for example, you told me how to read the cards but I don't remember anything you said. Or, you told me something and it was very important but I don't remember the words. Andrew: And I feel very happy because I think that whatever that was, it's not meant to be put into language. It's just there. It's pure poetic knowledge. At the end, I always feel the same thing. We're trying to figure out how to leave and that pretty much means we are trying to protect our psyche from the daily grind, life throwing all these nonsense adults and we are just trying to remain somehow cool. And I think signs, oracles, they can do that. Enrique: I think the idea of definition of self is one that when it's rooted in language, like when I was trying to come up with that fantastic phrase to communicate the fullness of what I offered to people through divination, that doesn't go anywhere. Maybe it does for some people, but I've never understood it. It doesn't go anywhere for me. But this sense of the fullness of ourselves and the sense of the fullness of sharing that with someone else or experiencing it with the birds or the moon or whatever ways those, those things can be enduring in ways and solve problems in ways that definitions around language rarely seem to or don't seem to. And it reminds me how many years ago I started this podcast. I started the podcast because I had been thinking about my last year of working with clients and thinking about what I called my successes and not successes with those people. Enrique: And the question that I had was, why do some people change and why do other people stay the same? And so the first half dozen episodes of this are me asking various seasons card readers that question, and I think that hearing what you just said actually to me feels like it is actually probably the clearest answer that people need some emotional or internal shift to happen that isn't rooted in language or explanation and isn't necessarily accessible through language or rationality or explanation and until, or if ever that thing happens where Enrique and I appear in your dream and you can't remember anything but suddenly you wake up desiring to make a shift in your life. Enrique: Until that unpredictable peace emerges, we can seek that experience, we can foster it, but we can't guarantee that it happens neither as diviners nor as people. Right? Andrew: Absolutely. And I like to think ... going back to this idea of the magician, a friend wrote to me and asked me, "Are you a magician? I need the magic." And I told her, "But I do slow of hand." I believe or I'm interested in an idea of magic, which is not the imposition of a will, but the absence of a will. So you make yourself present, your presence has an effect in reality, even if you don't want to and then you wait. And there is a lot of magic that happened that way, but of course maybe this is the beginning of magic trick and we wouldn't know until tomorrow or the next year. And I'm okay with it. Of course again, going back to your initial comment, there is no way to create a slogan to market that in a powerful way, which I think is big to the honesty of the premise. Andrew: I think we are obviously rooted in language and actually we become subtle true language. Language is this thing that happens in our body and as the air goes out and we reshape it with our mouth and tongue and teeth, it goes off. And as soon as he's out there, you'd acquire some metaphysical consistency. So there is something remarkable happening there. But it doesn't mean that it's everything. And as you were saying, it's not until we have an emotional response that we are ready to change or to move or to basically experience all the things. Andrew: And perhaps, a paradox that I find in the current world is that when we talk about emotions, we confuse that with sentimentality. We have countless books and posters and memes and pictures that have these sugary tone because somehow they're going to appeal to your emotions and to appeal to our emotions when we don't need the pillow in the muffling the shot of the gun. Andrew: We just need the full blast. And there is that thing in the ... I don't know how to call it, the spiritual, the new age world that is all about muffling the sound. Making it comfortable, making it safe, which is the perfect recipe for nothing to change. Enrique: Well, we've been touching on the idea of sublime and the sublime, especially in landscape painting and that sort of historical stuff where people were working on that notion, that it was rooted in this idea that something was so grand and inconceivably large compared to our personal smallness, that it evoked a sense of overwhelmingness and openness up to a sense of our place in the universe. And there's a degree of at the least anxiety and that maybe if something much stronger too. Enrique: It doesn't need to be comfortable and it maybe [crosstalk 00:43:10] just can't even be comfortable.Right? Andrew: Yeah. Again, if you're comfortable in your chair, you won't stand up. Somehow, something has to happen. That chair has to get held or I don't know, a nail has to pull through and then you spring out of it and do something. But also, talking about the sublime, I guess that my main interest, which is this notion of the language of the birds, which has again, nothing to do with ornithology or science, but it has to do with precisely with some longing for the return to some ideal state, which is that we could use that word, just the state of the sublime. Andrew: This idea of the language of the birds is the original language or the secret language. So the idea of a return to the beginning and the idea that somehow that beginning is some paradise which is ... again, a place of longing. We look at a bird and it's almost consistently. The bird at least it's the longing for a promise that the bird is not making, but that we really feel it's there for us and we can achieve that return to that ideal state. State of freedom, state of weightless, state of beauty. And I think we are all somehow exiles from that place. And yes, we are all looking for a way back. Enrique: As always, I post on Facebook and ask if people have questions. And one of the questions that somebody asked was, how do you really listen to the birds? How does that happen? And I'm wondering if have a suggestion for people, especially if this is a newer concept for people. What could people might do to begin this journey, if they're inspired by this conversation? Andrew: Well, I am happy to report that I just finished teaching a class about the language of the birds that happened with me entirely talking like a bird. Every Monday, I will send a lesson, which was a recording of me talking like a bird, and then people had to listen and to transcribe that. And they were ... That too. Several different routes. And something very fortunate that happened is that mimicking birds implies understanding that we hear with our memory. The ear has some memory. That's how when you roll the wood against steel, you can hear a bird chirping. Andrew: [Gusto mashallah 00:46:35] the French writer has this beautiful idea, that the birds learn too by listening to a stream of water. And again, if you ... yeah, you can see it. If you hear the stream of water, the bubbling could be chirping. I'm talking about something that is so extraordinarily concrete and it's foreign. I hear to the birds in terms of the material. I hear to the birds and I'm all the time wondering, "Does that sounds like rubber, like wood, like metal?" How can I speak that language? Andrew: But also, one of the effects that this class had in some people was precisely that they were walking around and they will hear the brakes of a bus and hear a bird, recognize the same way again memory. I think what I'm trying to say maybe is that we need to listen to the concrete, to the actual form of the sound. And then to me, this has been even more important. We need to listen to the void inside the voice of the bird to the negative space, to the silence. And this is key when you're actually trying to mimic a bird because yes, you have the chirp and somehow you can make that, but then the rhythm only happens if you listen to how many times the bird stops. And that space could very well be the same space that you are walking on when you're between the nest and the pigeons. Andrew: It's always about situating yourself in that space. You think that sometimes ... Charles Bernstein, this American poet has a fantastic essay on homophonic translation and actually, he talks about bird song or he talks about this idea that poets have always wanted to talk like birds. So the idea of taking bird sounds and translating them into human words, something that for example another American poet, Robert Greene did in the past. He has all these sentences for the birds, which are human sentences, but they can be retraced back into the sounds of the birds around his home in Vermont. You can also do that. You can also try to find in the voice of the bird, that which is familiar, which is a way of saying you can try to find in the voice of the bird Dan, which is you. And then you're surprised by the things you find. Andrew: But then I had other people who work in this class with me. Did something brilliant and they use the bird songs as dream words. This is based on a 14th century, [inaudible 00:50:13] idea of name is widespread in the Sufi world or mostly where the idea that certain words, if you repeat them as you're falling asleep, they improve the chances that you will have beautiful dreams. A couple of people working with me did this, of playing the recordings of my bird voices as they were falling asleep and then they registered their dreams and the results were absolutely spectacular. Andrew: Going back to that sense of something that exists or is transmitted in a purely poetic way, there were all these beautiful immigrants and ... Perhaps with these, I'm trying to say there is a way of listening that is conscious. You could listen to see this sounds like this, this sounds like [crosstalk 00:51:11], I'm pretty sure that people will be able to or even [inaudible 00:51:14] French composer to write down the notation for the song of a bird. But there's another way of listening than maybe more unconscious. Listening when you're not listening. Enrique: It strikes me that there's ... you hear the song, you become aware of the song and at some point in the transition to noticing the space in the song or in art or whatever, there's almost like an inversion that starts to happen, where we get pulled inside of something else. That whole in the corridor all of a sudden. The card being the song that we're looking at, we're seeing the pattern and the things and then at some point, we noticed that there's an opening. And if we're in the receptive mindset to that, not sitting with expectation and anticipation, we can fall through that like Alice through the radicle and so on and end up in another world. Andrew: Yes, experience is ... Enrique: Are different are poetic but also inspire a sense of connection to ourselves and so on. Andrew: It's like walking by the sea. You walk by the sea and the sea now and then it brings something to the shore and you'll pick it up and you say, "Oh, this is fantastic. Or this is for the Detroit back." But you can't command the sea to drop on your lap what you want. You have to figure out how to use with the sea put in there. Enrique: Sure. [crosstalk 00:52:58] to drop a branch in his hands. Right? [crosstalk 00:53:03]. Andrew: Yes if you're there, you're paying attention, then you [inaudible 00:53:09]. It's a miracle, but also that's something else that happened this weekend, I was about to have lunch with my son and I heard this crow and I looked up and I realized what I saw was a bald eagle. Okay which was ... ex gigantic and then I get here in this crow, and it was so strange, so I move around three and I saw that this crow that now looked like a fly next to the eagle was trying to chase the eagle out of the tree, which is what they do is their job basically. Andrew: And then of course there was a moment when my wife ... wives always do the same things that ... something is happening to people are having an argument, an eagle on a crow and then your wife will say, "Go, do something. Talk to the guy." So I went and I talked to the crow and I managed to make him stop for a while, but the ... and then we went into have lunch, but this is the thing. This was the dining hall in this college my son goes to. And as soon as I entered and my son was inside and as soon as I told him there is a full eagle outside, every single kid in that dining hall dropped everything and ran out. Andrew: I never expected that reaction. There was no social media involved, there was just ... the absolute, the excitement was again ... by saying there is a bowl eagle outside, it was like I pressed an emotional bottom that was completely irrational. They didn't even hesitate or figure out, they just dropped it, the trades with the foot and ran out. And I felt again that they understand that it's a miracle. That thing out there, which is basically an object that fell off the symbolic world, and for a moment, it's there on the three. It's a miracle. And that's the choice, and I think that signs are always based on choice. We choose to activate or deactivate a sign. We choose to acknowledge this is a sign. You could have passed by that nest with the tree X and ignore that completely or kick it even. You decided, you choose to pay attention to it and just the way that, that prepare you to be aware of the pigeon with the branch. Enrique: And in the same way as choosing to go and walk by the ocean, if we persist in that practice, then the ocean will give us science because we're there. Andrew: Yes. Everything is ... absolutely and the present is there is the presence is meaning and that the word you use, it's a practice and of course again in time, you will feel that the sea is giving you things all the time. And it's not necessarily true, maybe we're a few weeks in between or months, but you are in your practice. So the hour, of that practice makes reality speak to you in really a constant way. Enrique: I'm reminded of ... Jason Miller wrote a piece about ... I'll try and include a link in the show notes. I think the title was something like your practice doesn't care if you feel like it. And the sort of gist of it was around devotional work that ... it doesn't matter if you're in the mood or not. If you've made a commitment, you should show up and do the thing anyway. Whether a thing comes from it or not, whether you feel better because of it or not, that in many ways, the power of devotion and offerings in the context of deity work is in your consistency, in your persistence over time. Enrique: And I think that in the same way, I had a lovely bike ride back from meeting my girlfriend for coffee today and I didn't have any miraculous occurrences. It was a nice bike ride, but the moon wasn't out, it was whatever. But that attention is always there so that when those things do wash up on the shore, I can pick them up. And I think that that endeavoring to be open to that at a basic level consistently is what also produces it, right? Andrew: Yes. And We have to be open and again, we have to accept the dignity of whatever that is. It may not be what we want or it may not be something. Actually I think the whole point is for it to be surprising, for it to be something we're not expecting. Otherwise, if it's only like a confirmation of bias, then what's the point? But I think a lot about gas career? This thing, the ... Enrique: [inaudible 00:58:42], Africa. Andrew: I love this idea of grounding egg shells to a powder that you can use to draw things with and somehow with those drawings, you call on something. Right. And I think that I ... I like to think that ... a friend of mine said that I draw a magic circle around this café I go everyday, that that's my magic circle. And I liked the idea that routine is discuss career. Routine is round in these actual to a powder. You do it over and over and over and over and basically yes, it comes to a point in which your routine drew a magic circle around you and then these things are happening there because basically, you are there. As you say, they happen because you show up. And of course, I'm sure that there are wonderful things that's happening while nobody is watching. Enrique: For sure. Andrew: And when we don't show up. Enrique: But when you went inside the bald eagle and the crow said, "Ooh, I'm glad they left. We can put this aside for a minute." Andrew: And that's also beautiful to think that ... to think of all the signs that are taking place in our absence. It's also something that fills me with joy. Enrique: No, I love it. Andrew: Older things are not for me. Enrique: Well, maybe that's a great place to wrap it up for this conversation. Go practice, go grind it down, go make it sacred, magical, or poetic or whatever you prefer, and listen and you'll see what shows up. Andrew: Yes, absolutely. I don't know why, I prefer poetic because perhaps it makes them more concrete. But at the end, it's all the same thing. Enrique: Definitely. Thanks for recording another one of these, my friend. Andrew: No, thank you. It's always so good to see you. Come to New York. Enrique: It's on my agenda for sure.

The gang get back together in their secret underground bunker to talk about what is new in their journeys. Andrew, Aidan, and Fabeku talk about the future of witchcraft, magic, grimoires, and how to best powder a scorpion. In a rarer moment they talk about their businesses and how they find their way forward through changing desires and capacities around working.  They also recorded a bonus for the Patreon only about how to connect with plants and build a magical relationship with them.  You can get it here by becoming a supporter.  Aidan can be found here.  Fabeku hangs here.  As always Andrew is here.  If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew You can book time with Andrew through his site here.  Transcription Andrew: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I am hanging out today with Stacking Skulls, which would be my buddies, Fabeku and Aidan. We have taken submarine to our secret underground bunker. We have concocted all sorts of beverages to prop us up for this from weird poisons from some lizards and reptiles and obscure sea fish. And we have found the long lost grimmer of the monkey safe nests, which we have properly venerated before we're going to start here. Aidan: I [inaudible 00:00:42]. Andrew: Welcome to the podcast. This is a fairly regular thing that we've been doing for a while with different guests as well as one last founding member, John. And today we're getting together for the first time in quite a while, just the three of us to catch up and talk about stuff that's going on. So I'm going to skip the introductions. Andrew: If people don't know who we are, well, go back and listen to one of the other episodes. But what's going on? What's new? What's happening? What's changed? We recorded last, I would say it was just after the fire, so I think that was early, middle of summer, somewhere around there. It was the last time we talked, which is about six months ago. So this is recording. Aidan: Well, other than rating Monkey Island for the [inaudible 00:01:38], it's all been smoking scorpions, but it's just been … it's good. It's been crazy times. End of the year is always crazy. Fabeku: Awesome. Aidan: I'm married to an accountant who's also somewhat clairvoyant. So there's this combination of stuff that begins before the end of the year that is … we are kind of shifting a full year ahead or two years out. So we run on a two-year plan at this point. And so it's just working that stuff out and deciding what the focuses are going to be for that time period as best as we can, knowing that things change. Aidan: But what are the targets? What are the time frames? Can we plan that enough that we can plan in some downtime? And then for me, it's kind of backing away from the jewelry work for a while to focus on teaching and writing. So that's the big one for me. Andrew: How's the preparation for teaching going? I mean, I've seen some on social media, but what's that like for you? Aidan: It's been pretty crazy because I decided that I really wanted audio. Video was too cumbersome to try and share, I thought, and I wanted people to be able to listen to it in different places where they didn't necessarily have rock-solid internet. And so it was a weird process. Aidan: So I started recording before I was ready, which was good, so that broke me in a little bit, but it's a different way of transmitting. And so it's been very interesting figuring that out. But I like what's coming along and the allies like what's coming along. And they got, as usual with projects, way, way, way more involved than I somehow expect, so there's a lot of that shaping influence in there that is how do I work in. Aidan: “Okay. Since you're only going to give me a quarter of the curriculum, how do I make it? Either give it all to me or stay out,” is what I would like to say in some ways. But it is good, but it is okay, so if that's taken over these two sections of the class, what else are we going to run in a limited timeframe. But it's fun. It's been very fun. Andrew: It's awesome. Yeah. I really did teaching a lot. I think … I mean, I know Fabeku does too, right? Aidan: Yeah, for sure. Andrew: Yeah. How about you? What's going on with you, Fabeku? Fabeku: Let's see. Yes. End of year, I pretended that I was taking December off and then had the busiest December I've had in any year. So not so much of a break, but it was mostly busy with good stuff, which was good. Fabeku: Yeah. I mean, kind of similar to Aidan, looking at the next couple of years and figuring out what it looks like and what I want to do more of and what I want to do less of and definitely continuing to shift more and more to the teaching, the writing, the arts, a lot of art. That's my question at this point. Fabeku: How do I do more arts is the big $64,000 question. And this might be the year that I actually do a website for the arts, maybe. I've resisted that for years for all kinds of reasons, but yeah. So that might be a thing. But- Andrew: Given you haven't updated your website since 1842, I'm not sure- Fabeku: Right. Exactly. Andrew: … I'm not sure I believe you at that point. Fabeku: Yeah, that's the running joke. I've got the out-of-date website on the planet. Yeah, that's the truth. Yeah. So just tons of art stuff, which has been good. I carved out some more time in the schedule this year to finish the book projects that I stalled at the end of the year between busy-ness and health stuff and I needed to get a new laptop and some other shifts. Fabeku: But yeah, so I'm excited about that and just looking forward to, like said, more teaching, more art. Aidan: How are you doing Andrew? What do you got going on? I know that you've got the shop open in your space, so how's that going? Andrew: So much is going on right now. So much is going on. I actually took 10 days off over the holidays, which is the first holiday that I've had in forever where I didn't go anywhere or really do anything. I checked a few emails, but that was about it. And I took a bath every day, took a nap every day, really just tried to sink into that. Andrew: I read a bunch and stuff like that. And I went from feeling exhausted from having reopened the store and rubbed my life through the fall to just feeling tired. So I feel like that's a major way, right? Fabeku: For sure. Andrew: The store is going good. It's reopened in a different neighborhood and I'm still wrangling with that. A lot of the same clients of course, but lots of different people. One of the things that's been sort of challenging me about it lately is trying to account for theft as part of the process. Right? Andrew: And it's just like it's almost every retailer tells me and knows it's just a part of the deal. But in the old location, the combination of the size of the store and its location really minimized that stuff, whereas now, it's definitely a thing that I'm paying a lot of attention to. And I feel a bit like it's kind of a metaphor. Andrew: I mean, it's obviously a literal problem, but I'm viewing it a bit metaphorically for how I'm doing that longer-term planning that both of you guys are talking about. Right? I don't want to be tired. I don't want to get back to being exhausted. I don't want to feel like I'm endlessly running around from thing to thing and I can't get ahead of the Arkin and so on. Andrew: And so really, looking at what's making sense in terms of my energy and my attention, I absolutely love having the studio. I have this private studio space, which is beautiful. It's like 300-square feet. It's got a lovely set facing window and high ceilings and it's a five-minute walk from my house. Andrew: So basically, I have no excuse to not come and paints and draw and come see clients here and so on. It's just really welcoming and lovely. And just looking at where are those things that are stealing my energy, that are stealing my attention? Where are those things where I'm not enthused to show a [inaudible 00:08:46] them and where are those things or what's getting in the way of the things that I'm saying I'm going to be doing, like painting every day or whatever. Andrew: What's actually interfering with that and what can I do to adjust that? Where do I make that space emotionally more than any other way? Because practically, the time is there, but emotionally, it's not always there to continue to work on my next book, to wrap up this bacon wizard breakfast Oracle that I'm working on, all those things, right? They all have a drag on them from the tensions in the system. Andrew: And I was talking before we got on the line here about how I rolled back my coffee consumption from ridiculous levels of caffeine and sugar to a manageable level. And I don't want to go back into that space where it's overdrive and you're always pushing, pushing, pushing. It's not the kind of space I want to be living in, so I'm just being really mindful of what I'm doing with my time and where I'm putting my energy and what are the actual returns. Andrew: I mean, certainly financial but also emotionally and I don't know their levels because sometimes there's those things that seem like a great idea, but the returns are not what you thought you would get from them in the end. Right? And they ended up being, well, to be honest, a fucking hassle. It's like, “Man, why did I do this? How do I learn not to do stuff like this again?” Fabeku: I've thought so much about this in the last couple of years. I mean, in part, because the physical stuff has changed my bandwidth in a lot of ways. But I mean, I would say up until about a year, a year and a half ago with the business stuff, I was at a point where I was constantly booked nine to 12 months out. The calendar was not just full, it was kind of overcapacity in a lot of ways. Fabeku: And it's interesting because I think to a lot of people, that looked like success. I mean, every spot filled, booked forever and ever and ever, lots of money. And it was fine until it wasn't. And then when I started to deal with some of this body stuff and would have to shift stuff around in the schedule, I'm like, “This is fucking impossible.” I've got a 12-month calendar. Fabeku: How the fuck do I move these people around without causing some ridiculous cascade that goes for three months and then all of a sudden, this thing that I really worked hard to accomplish and make happen, it's like, “No, I hate this. I can't do this. I don't want to do this anymore.” Fabeku: And really taking a lot of steps in the last couple of years to just … I think for me, it was about redefining, like you said, what's important, what the returns are, what makes sense, what success looks like. And just deciding that, “Yeah, I don't want a calendar that's booked 12 months out. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to be scheduled every single slot of the day as sometimes I'd like to sleep in or I'd like to spend the morning painting or whatever it is.” Fabeku: And that's been a big thing and I think in some ways, like I said, I've had to do it because of some of the physical stuff, but … And in some ways, it's been one of the best things because it really required me to take a way more conscious look at, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? And does this actually make sense? Is this the shit you want to do?” Fabeku: And all of a sudden, I looked down and it's like, “Oh no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this and I want to do way less of this and way more of these three or four things.” And I think that's been so much of what the last, especially a year and a half, for me has been. It's just been remixing all of it and redistributing the weight to what I'm doing and why I'm doing this. It's been a big deal. Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. I made a change when I opened the studio, coming back from the fire that I only open a month ahead of time, like a week before the end of the month usually because I realized that otherwise, you end up with these commitments further afield than you can wrangle, right? Or that aren't easy to wrangle. Andrew: And I think that one of the values to me, and I think for you too, is this ostensible freedom with being an independent person. But it's very easy to lose any actual access to that freedom of schedule, right? Aidan: Yes. Yes. Andrew: To be like, “Oh, can I do whatever?” It's like, “Oh, well. No, I can't. I have a day full of clients and I can't easily move that.” And instead, just setting up those things so that there's a limit and … Yeah, it's great being booked ahead for sure, but I don't want to be booked six weeks ahead. Andrew: I want to be two weeks ahead and then be deciding what my next month looks like depending on opportunities and other things that are going on and all that kind of stuff. Fabeku: Yeah. For me, it drove the point home when a friend of mine who lives in Florida, she wanted to come in for a visit and she said, “Well, when are you free?” And I looked at the calendar and I'm like, “10 months from now.” What the fuck is this? It doesn't make any sense. And you're right. It's that kind of thing. Fabeku: And all of a sudden, I felt like … and it's not that, I'm not saying it's the same thing, but I felt like the person that's working for somebody else that had already used their vacation time and then wasn't going to be free until next year. It's like, “This doesn't make sense. This isn't the life that I want to live at this point.” Fabeku: And for years, it was fine. I loved it and enjoyed it and it was … I thrived in that environment. But I think that's for me, why I continue to look at this coherence as a process thing as opposed to some destination. It just stopped being coherent and I'm glad that all of us have the freedom to reshuffle the deck as we need to. Aidan: Yeah. I think, I mean, it sounds like we're all very much in the same place because that's what I got hit with the jewelry, is I went from the people who buy it at whatever rate they buy it and then I build according to what they bought and then custom work in there. And I dropped that and went to like, “I'll just offer collections and see how that goes.” Aidan: And what I found was those were fine ways to actually generate enough money for us to get by. The time that it takes for me to do what I like in that or what I want to do in that process is so immense that even when I wasn't booked forward, even when I was building the collections, it's still like, “No. I need all day, way too many days out of a month to dedicate to this,” which is on one level, fine, because I love the work. Aidan: But because there's so much … and this is probably true for all three of us … there's so much emotional and magical energy tied into what we're doing that the exhaustion level was just not reasonable. Fabeku: Yeah. Aidan: And again, realizing at some point, you go, “Okay, what am I actually interested in?” And for me, it's … both me and my allies are fully invested in this transmission to those people that maybe we can help. And it seemed like for a long time, that the talismanic work was the best way to do that. Aidan: And again, I love the whole process of it, but in the last, I guess like six months, that really shifted to like, “No, I really want to be producing books so that that is a wide range thing that can I go. Aidan: And then I want to teach classes where I can really engage with people because there's no time to do that with the jewelry work that I was doing in a way that I would like to kind of go, “Okay, this is what's … this is how some of the stuff that I want to share works. And then let's engage about it so that we can get somebody rolling,” in a way that I felt like I couldn't before. Yeah. Fabeku: And I think that exhaustion piece, that's always the sign. And I think … But I mean, how long does it take us or anybody to catch that? Most of the time, the solution is more coffee, more sugar, more shit food, more donuts, whatever it is for however long we can until … For me anyway, I reached the point that it's like, “Yeah, more caffeine isn't going to fix this.” Fabeku: The problem is not a caffeine deficiency. Whatever expenditure is happening, it's no longer coherent. And so it's taking more than it's giving. And yeah, I mean, I think that for me is always the sign, whether it's in a relationship or a business thing or whatever that, “Yeah, something has changed and so you need to change your response to it.” Andrew: For sure. Yeah. Well, I think that when you start showing up differently to places, it's like that's the problem, right? And that's the problem with me in the fall where I was just really run down from relationship stuff. A couple of long-term relationships ended for me in the fall. Andrew: And from reopening the store, which was no small amount of work and trying to wrangle that, but also in a completely new way that I would show up and things would just be making me crusty and I'd be like, “Oh man, what's up with that?” And I think that's another sign, right? When small things are … if they were singular, a small thing just irritates you so much. Andrew: You're just like, “Ah.” It's like, “Oh, that's also a good sign,” where it's like, “Man, I just got to step back from this somehow. I got to change this dynamic,” because showing up with that energy is not good magically for anything, right? Aidan: Yeah. For sure. Andrew: That is one of those situations where you can't start to influence what's going on with your vibes. Right? Aidan: Yeah. Andrew: And that's not ideal at all. Right? That's just not helpful, so. Fabeku: Well. And I think too when that exhaustion kicks in at such a deep level, how do you funnel the energy that you need into the magic? How do you fuel it? There's no fucking fuel there at some point. It's like you can sit in the car with no gas and jam the pedal down, but good luck. And there's just … and I think that's the thing. Fabeku: Yeah. And for me, that was another reason that I wanted to shift things because it's like if I can't fuel the art and the magic, which really to me, are the most important out of any of the things on the list, then what am I doing? If I don't have fuel for that shit, then something has gone really seriously sideways for me. Andrew: Yeah. Aidan: Yeah. And it's interesting too because we would like to believe that there's infinite capacity and there just isn't. And so at the point that I was working on the book, which is … it's mostly done. It needs a bunch of revision, but … and I realized I couldn't get the space to even do the revision, doing the jewelry the way that I was. And there's another three books waiting behind that one that are in process to some degree, though they're at their beginning stages. Aidan: Then it became really clear, like what's more important here? It's like, “Yes, I can make another thousand pieces of jewelry,” which I know is helpful to people and it's helpful again, financially to me. And I love the process, but this other thing is more important. So what's an appropriate feeder to that work? Aidan: And it's like, “Well, then I'd rather more directly involved with the people that are using the material to figure out what's translating and what's not translating so that I can get a clearer transmission.” So the jewelry and the books was no longer working, but the classes and the books seem like they will. So it's okay. I have to let go of that piece for the most part. Aidan: And it's not saying it won't come back someday, but there's enough on the table that it doesn't work with that, that I had to make that shift. Andrew: Yeah. There's time when we've been talking about teaching some here, but we'll jump in with one of the questions that somebody posted on somewhere, Facebook, maybe. When you're teaching, what do you learn from that process? What have you learned about yourself from that process? Andrew: How does teaching or does teaching change the way you think about things or talk about things? What's that role for you around that stuff? Aidan: I mean, for me, I haven't done direct teaching since the 90s except whatever goes on, on a small scale, but kind of focused work. So it's interesting. So the prep work for that really gets me clarifying how I think and how I feel about stuff because my problem is a lack of … I could do so much that it's like, “Okay, but what's a useful collection? Aidan: What's a useful tool of collection?” I don't want to just go and hit up the hardware store and throw every tool available into the box. Andrew: Step one, buy a hardware store. Aidan: So yeah, it's definitely … which is kind of unfortunately not a bad metaphor for how some folks approach all this stuff, right? Buy every tool in the hardware store and learn how to use it. It's like, “No, what we need is we need to get you the little lunchbox size, little kit that has a few things that you can do some stuff with.” But that also has to have depth. Aidan: And so I'm kind of the anti-complexity guy, so it's how do you get a coherent little package to use that term that somebody could either use as part of a larger thing or on its own. And so it really does. For me, it's been super clarifying is what I would say. Fabeku: Yeah. And I agree with that. So for me, I saw that a lot when I did last year. I think I did … it was like three weeks on hyper centrals, four weeks maybe. And it was interesting because I mean, that's the thing I've done forever and I could talk about it for six months and I didn't want to because I don't think it was necessary. It's like you said. Fabeku: It's like, “Here's the lunchbox size kit on hyper sigils that also talks about things that a lot of people don't talk about and gives you plenty of room to take those as far as you want for decades into the future without also simultaneously overwhelming you into thinking of, ‘Fuck, this is such a big thing. I'm never going to be able to use this or it's going to take me forever to get this.” Fabeku: And I mean, so I think that's one of my main considerations. It's like what's the minimum information you need to use this immediately and effectively? And that's what I'll teach. And some things, maybe we circle back some things, maybe we stretch out, like the divination thing I did last year and six months and that was a lot. Fabeku: We've dug into a ton, but I think that … and the other thing I'm always thinking about is like how do I teach things in a way that anybody with any magical ecology can make use of this? Right? I don't care if you're a Buddhist, if you're a Christian, if you're an atheist, if you're a Satanist, whatever, it doesn't matter. I want you to be able to take this and plug it into your magical ecology and use it. Fabeku: It's not … because if you have to adopt mine in order to use it, then for me, I think I failed as a teacher. Right? I mean, outside of teaching traditional practices or whatever. But you that's a big thing. So for me, it's always a question of, what's actually essential to the practice and what's my own shit that I built around either preferences or magical aesthetics or whatever, that doesn't really matter to anybody other than me? Fabeku: And have I stripped enough of that away so that anybody can take this thing and run with it? That's always a big consideration for me. Aidan: Yeah, totally. That makes sense. There's a practice that I'm teaching in the class that I have coming up that I actually went out to the Salvation Army and bought all new pieces to put together because I could see people getting fixated on the aesthetic that I personally use, which is really not relevant to the practice. Aidan: So it's like, “Okay, let's go see what I can pick up for five or 10 bucks that can assemble this structure so that it's not as linked to what's going on in my alter.” Because that's just my artistic sense and my aesthetic and what me and my spirits have come together on as a language that works. Right? And that's totally not necessary, but it's what people tend to get hooked on. Andrew: Well, that's the Instagram era, right? You know what I mean? So it circles back to the originating the thing about the name of this group. Right? Aidan: Absolutely. Andrew: How do ensure you stack the skull? Aidan: Stack the skulls. Andrew: The higher they are, the [inaudible 00:26:36] you are. tack. Right? There's nothing wrong with that at all, but the aesthetics over there are not super relevant. Aidan: Yeah. Not on a wider level. It's that thing that I talked about in six ways, right? That there's … I think that people, and I used to definitely have this, get super focused on this specific stuff, but the specific stuff is always super context and aesthetics fits in there. And what really is more relevant is what's the general thing that is not necessarily universally applicable but more universally applicable. Aidan: And in the age where we've got pictures of everything, it definitely can get really hung up. You got to have this thing that looks just like that. Andrew: Well, and just, because it looks good doesn't mean that it's alive. Right? Aidan: For sure. Andrew: Because there's the other piece. Fabeku: Yes. Andrew: Yes. I mean, I think that there are lots of things that I run across and not that I have to feel anything from everything, but I'm like, “Oh, it doesn't … I don't feel any feedback from this at all.” And maybe the other thing that's there just doesn't want anything to do with me. Andrew: It's possible, but maybe it's just … there's a failure to make that connection. Right? Just something [crosstalk 00:28:00] because the work itself that would support that connection is not strong, but the emphasis on all those other things is. Fabeku: Yeah. I think that's the thing. To me, the metric is, does this thing … can you feel it in your bones? Can you feel it in your animal body? If so, then who gives a fuck what it looks like? It doesn't matter if it would make a great Instagram photo. That to me, that's the wrong metric for shit like that. I mean, listen, I love the Instagram photos but in terms of magic, who cares? It's irrelevant. Aidan: Totally. Exactly. And it's also funny because people get hung up I think. And again, I know that I did this when I started out, but you get hung up on things that are, again, specific. So my current shop is filled with halved pieces of fruit with two lights burning on it. I could make up this whole story about why this is the way to do this. And it's like, “This is just what's going on this week. I don't really know why. Aidan: It's the thing that felt totally right.” I cut something in half and went, “Oh, man. That really needs candles on I,” and I could feel it and it works. And it's also the same thing. Yeah, I mean, there's so much weird shit in here right now because I think of who's hanging out for the class if it is really aesthetically wrong from that or even my normal thing. Aidan: I've got all of this beautiful stuff and the monster energies and the red bulls and shit. It's like, “What the fuck?” Old candy canes that I stole from the gym after Christmas. But there's people who like those. I'm not going to buy them if I can have them. Fabeku: I think people even do the same thing. When I was teaching the sigils course, it's one of the main reasons that I didn't take any pictures of the sigils that I drew because then suddenly people think, “Oh, well. That's what a sigil should look like you.” No, this is what they currently look like. Over the last 30 years, they looked a million different ways. Aidan: [crosstalk 00:30:03] shit. Fabeku: I mean, the first time, they looked exactly like the Pete Carroll sigils in his book. I think that's the thing and I get it and I think that people … I think it's so easy to fall into that subconscious even. It's not so much, “Let me copy Fabeku's sigil,” it's, “Let me copy Aidan's alter.” It's, “Oh, well. Fabeku: This is somebody who knows what they're doing, and so this is what it should look like so let me try to make it look like that.” And then, great. So then your brain says, “Okay, good job. You drew a sigil that looks like a sigil,” and then it doesn't do shit because like you said, Andrew, it's not alive. It's a thing that looks like a thing, but it's not the thing. Andrew: Or you end up in a cycle. One of the things that I've learned from teaching or been really clear about going into teaching, and I've learned how to make that happen is, I started in a school of thought that says, “Only the only the hammer from the top of Mt. Everest hardware store was acceptable.” Right? And by the way, only on the third full moon of the year and- Aidan: On Monkey Island. Andrew: Right, exactly. Not the usual Everest, the secret Everest. It's inside the hollow woods- Aidan: The secret Everest inside Monkey Island. Andrew: … which is inside the hollow woods. So you got to get in the hollow woods, you got to find the doppelganger, Himalaya Mountains and then you got to find the hardware store and you'd better bring their currency because they don't accept dollars. Whereas every town's got a hardware store. Right? Andrew: And what you find there is great. It's totally acceptable and if you want or need something else, there's a point at which that becomes aesthetic in personal taste, which is great. And if it helps you get in the mood, that's fantastic. And if it helps you feel aligned or if a spirit you have … there are times where somebody taps on my shoulder and says, “Hey, I want that.” Andrew: I bought … Marcus McCoy makes these copper harvesting knives. Right? And as soon as I saw one of those, one of my guides was just like, “That is exactly the knife that I want you to take when we go do stuff.” I'm like, “Perfect.” And then I'm like, “But not with that thing on it,” because there's like a triple spiral or whatever on it. So I was like, “All right, rushed markers right away.” I'm like, “Hey, can I get one of these?” Andrew: “Of course.” But that's specific, right? And that's specific to that relationship. That is not universal. Right? And you may find that you do want or need something like that, but you may never need it or it may not fit your aesthetic. And that's awesome too. It's completely acceptable. Right? Aidan: Totally. Fabeku: For me, I love … and maybe this is part of the art stuff or not, maybe it's just a personality thing, but I love shit like that and I love the collection like that. And I love the fancy silver pens for the sigils. And so there's … I don't make any apology for that, but one of the best things I did maybe 10 years ago was essentially put all of that stuff away and say, “Okay. Fabeku: I'm doing sigils on white paper with a blue ballpoint pen,” which I hate and never use. Or, “I'm doing candle magic with a bag of dollar candles from the dollar store,” or whatever. And part of that was to see, does this actually matter? I mean, it matters to me, but does this actually matter in any wider sense? And it doesn't. It really doesn't. That's the thing. What do you mean for sigil magic? Fabeku: You need something to write within a piece of paper. That's all you need. That's it. If you want to get the fancy black paper and the pen, cool. Do it. But I think it's a trap when we get stuck into thinking, “I have to have this. I have to have this.” Because that to me, it just doesn't seem true. Andrew: Yeah. I feel like that's where one of those pieces around, “You definitely don't have to have it.” And I also look to pursue my joy around it. Fabeku: Yeah, absolutely. Aidan: Absolutely on that. Fabeku: Yes. Andrew: I found these new pens at the art supply store. They're called preppy pens and they come in different sizes, but they're refillable with a cartridge and they're … I think I paid like $7 for it and I've bought a lot of other much more expensive fountain pens and whatever. And these ones, the feel of them, the flow of them, they come in different colors. Andrew: The outsides are color-coded and they're just such a delight. And so every time I stop by the art store now, I buy another one because there's somewhere in my life where one of those doesn't live regularly. And I was just like, “Why am I drawing with this crappy pen when I can be drawing with this other nice one that I like?” And there's a pleasure in that. Andrew: But again, that's so personal, right? That's not … it adds something to the magic if I'm doing magic, but it's also an active source of joy for me, which I think is also a super valid reason for things, especially if we don't say that that actually matters in the end on any real big scale. Fabeku: Well, it's like for me. So as an example, I just made this batch of lunar talismans a couple of months ago and I mean, I went all out. I had fossil dugong ribs. I had literally a lunar media writer, all kinds of shit in there. I spent forever finding the stuff. And it's not that I had to. I mean, again, like you said, it adds something. I mean, there's clearly something added to these pieces because of what's in them. Fabeku: But part of it is I look at it as a piece of art. It's like I'm putting the best stuff I can and there's enormous joy for me in grinding up a lunar media writer, fossil cave bear toe or whatever. But the reality is, could I have gotten a stone from the ocean and made a lunar talisman? Fabeku: Sure. Of course. But I think it is that weird thing. I don't think it's good to say it doesn't matter because it does matter, but it's not essential. And to me, there's the- Aidan: Right. Fabeku: And I think the problem is in that people look at it and say, “Well, I can't make a lunar talisman unless I have a lunar media writer.” And that's bullshit. That's complete bullshit. I love it. I love putting those pieces together in a way that's artful and beautiful and whatever, but you don't have to do that. Aidan: Right. Yeah. I think that's a big thing. Part of it comes out of I think … There's a whole kind of literature that says that this has to be done this way. Right? And we see this and not just magic, but it's extremely prevalent in magic. And that's very weird to me as somebody who came from these chaos, magic background. Even though I feel like I've, in many ways, moved away from that into something else, that's my own thing. Aidan: That's not consciously unrelated to it, but I was born there. Was that process of, “Well, what does this do? What does this piece of work do? What are the elements that actually matter here?” And then realizing that, “Yeah, there's stuff that really triggers something in me that is optimization and stuff.” Like, “Yeah. There's particular … if I got the hit that I needed to ride the bike up into South Mountain to collect dirt from there for something, I'm going to go do that,” because that's legit. Aidan: But it may not need to be dirt from there to do that work. That doesn't mean you got to come out here and go up to South Mountain, which is how a lot of stuff's written. And I think that it really has messed up a lot of folks because they do believe that if I can't have a beeswax candle to do this piece of work, then I can't do this piece of work. Fabeku: I think that for me, I think that's probably the best saying that I got out of the chaos magic stuff. You know what I mean? When you're doing magic with silly putty and bones from chicken wings, you can't really get too precious about, “Yeah, this is essential for magic.” It's like, “Listen, really?” I mean, it's just … For me, that really was the best thing. Fabeku: Because I think before that, I think I was fairly precious about it or I thought it had to be this or had to be that. And there was some things I just didn't have the money together. I didn't have the resources for whatever it was. And I thought, “Well, I just can't do that.” And then suddenly, chaos magic was like, “Well, actually, there's other ways you can do shit.” And for me, that was a huge thing. A huge thing. Aidan: Absolutely. And I remember, I've had a lot from the talismanic stuff. I would get people … and it's lovely that somebody recognizes that the work that you do is potent. I would get folks from places in the world that what I charged for a piece of jewelry is like a year's worth, going like, “I really want to do this. How do I …” and I would be like, “Don't.” Aidan: You're targeting a specific tree that is not necessary. It's just not necessary. And again, it's like, “Sure, if you've got the ability. I do this thing too. There's things that I have in here that I paid crazy money for because they really speak to me and I was in a position to do it.” Andrew: Yeah. Aidan: And sometimes, it was a stretch and sometimes that stretch was part of it, right? It's not like that's not a thing either. But again, it doesn't … One of the things that we know, again, like teaching the protection stuff for the class is it's all kitchen herbs. There's no … it's partially for that. It's like, “I don't know where you are. Aidan: I've got people from different parts of the world. I'm not going to … I might suggest that you get some Aubrey Camino if you can because it works, but it's really cool.” Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I think it's always fascinating, right, that kind of stuff. And I think that also becomes this matter of like, “What do you have? What can you connect with?” Right? And it's different depending on which practices, right? Like in the Aricia stuff, the specific plants are super specific, right? Andrew: There's no negotiating that beyond a certain point. There's a little wiggle room, but there's not a ton of wiggle room. Right. It's just like- Aidan: Totally. Andrew: … “Okay, we're going to do this. Therefore, we need these things. And if you don't have them, I'm not exactly sure what we do,” right? But outside of specific traditions, there's always those things. And it also becomes this question of, what do you have a dynamic of living connection with? Right? I just got back in after struggling to find a source for them for a while, Rose of Jericho, which is one of my all-time favorites, right? Andrew: And I had a Rose of Jericho at the store that I'd had almost the entire time that the store had been open, I think. And then it was very dynamic and a living connection and it had all sorts of things that I had given it over time and worked with it in a lot of ways and it just wasn't available and because getting stuff in Canada is complicated sometimes. And so when I finally found them, I'm like, “Great.” Andrew: So now, not only is that are they available in the store, which is lovely, but even more so for me, I can now reconnect with that plant and start to have that process again through the direct connection.” But it's like that also comes out of years of interaction and perhaps some natural affinity in some way or another. Right? But does everybody else need to not do financial magic if they don't find a Rose of Jericho? Of course not. Right? Aidan: Right. Andrew: Like you said there, there's a billion other bits and pieces. Are they really cool? Well, they are really cool. But also- Aidan: Totally. Fabeku: Well, it's like … I've worked with Alice Wood for … I don't know, 15, 16 years. It's one of the plants I work with a ton and I've worked with it in all kinds of ways to the point that I've got this like grimoire of aloes wood magic. And my question is, “Well, if I give that grimoire to you, is it going to work?” Probably not. At least probably not in the same way because either you don't have a relationship with the plant or you don't have the same kind of relationship with the plant. Fabeku: And to me, not better or worse, but it's just different. And to me, I assume that what the plant … and I think this is my baseline assumption for a lot of this shit is that what the plant has given me is about the dynamic that I have with that plant. Not that I'm channeling some universal grimoire of aloeswood magic that anybody. That doesn't make sense to me. Fabeku: I don't think that's a real thing. And I again, I think … and that's why I haven't talked to … Some people have asked about it because I mentioned it in passing and I haven't talked a lot about it because I have no idea if it's going to work the same for anybody. And I use what is expensive and not always easy to get and whatever. Fabeku: And I think it gives people the wrong impression that in order to do this, I need this plant or I need this. And I don't think that's true. My thing is find the relationship that you have that lets you do a similar thing that probably doesn't have shit to do with aloes would. Maybe it's Abra Camino, maybe it's Rose of Jericho, whatever it is. Fabeku: And I wish more people would talk about their practices that way instead of, “Here's the universal gospel of aloes world.” It's like fuck off with that. That's not real. Andrew: It's like how people talk about their issues, right? They come into the store sometimes and they're like, “I need Oshun candle because I need to attract some love of my life.” And I'm like, “Maybe.” But when we're … for initiated practitioners, and I think that for people who practice in a traditional way, the reality is although Orishas have a certain affinity to certain kinds of things, the reality is that if you're in good with shon go, you can fix your money, fix your home, you can fix your whatever. Andrew: Right? The reality is this, at a certain point, it's like having a good friend whose skill is not helping you hang drywall, but they're going to come and help you heck drywall because they love you. And they're like, “Sure, dude. I'll do that. That's fine. We can do that.” Andrew: These energies can work with us in a broad sense of a way, especially and probably only if we've taken that time to build a deep and lasting connection with them and probably that rest on some affinity that is hard to trace and makes it not necessarily universal. Right? For me, one of the local plants is Murdoch, right. And it's like, what do I need? Anything? Andrew: I'm just like, “All right. Hey, Berta, you got a thing for this?” Like, “Yeah, just trim this little bit off the edge of the leaf and do blah, blah, blah with it and it's going to fix this [inaudible 00:45:40] great.” I'm like, “Oh, you know what? I could dig up the whole root,” whatever. And it's like, “But on the outside of the room, not the inside of the room.” Andrew: It becomes a myriad of applications, which again, aren't necessarily universal or maybe they are, it's hard to say, but they don't seem universal. But they come out of that direct relational experience of it. Fabeku: I wish that was a point that was talked about more in the occult circles, right? Because every day, you see posts, “What's the best term for love? What's the best term for magic? What's the best spirit for money?”It's like, “Fuck.” I mean, I get it, but to me, that's the wrong question. Anytime people ask that, my question back is, “Who do you have a relationship with?” Fabeku: That's the answer to that. Not some random spirit or plant or stone or whatever that knows fuck all about you and what you're doing. Go to the spirits of the people you have relationships with. And I think … I don't know how this happened, but this falling into this trap of treating spirits, any kind of spirit as this one-hit wonder, right? This is a lover, this is a … it's just like, “Really? It doesn't make sense to me.” Fabeku: And I just wonder how different people's magic would look both in terms of the practice and the results if this relationship piece were more front and center. If it wasn't this weird, utilitarian, one-note, “This spirit does this,” like, “[inaudible 00:47:10] is for love.” It's like, “Come on. That doesn't seem real.” But it seems like such a pervasive perspective on things. Fabeku: And listen, I mean, I fell into the same shit for once. I'm not being critical of anything that I haven't been guilty of myself, but it just seems to be such a big point. It just isn't discussed enough. Aidan: Yeah. I've been thinking about this in a particular context. I made a joke to Charlene Coop saying that there's a way that people treat the name spirits like Tinder. We're just going to look up and find somebody local that's interested in getting down. Right? But usually, they're not doing that to just get down. Aidan: They're doing that because they want something deeper. Right? On the spirit side. I don't know what goes on the Tinder side, but I understand that's a misapplication of Tinder. And I think it's interesting- Andrew: Every app. I think Tinder is a misapplication. Aidan: Again, I'm out of those games largely. And one of the things that came up is then I had this … one of my trans things that happened a few days after that. I was thinking about that comment and I got this great vision and I was like, okay, so imagine that there's like … in North America, let's just say. In North America where the three of us are, but there's 100,000 potential partners for us, right, that would suit us, each of us. Aidan: But what ends up happening is that we've got the names and the photo of like 150 of them and so everybody wants to figure out which of those 150 would be a good partner. And to me, the thing is so much more than this wide-open of going, “No, I want to connect to the currents around me and the allies around me and then I want to work with them. Aidan: I want to develop those relationships through the things that I've learned work for me to do that.” And then why would I go outside of that to try and get something done? Maybe if I had to, if that was what I was guided to, but I'm certainly not going to go hunt for that. I'm much more likely to come in here and go, “Hey, Rutan candles.” Fabeku: Oh, that was the one that- Aidan: I'll buy you more energy drinks for this. Andrew: Those are a lot of magical place course I taught. Right? Which is … and I'm going to be reteaching in the spring. It's that energy of like, “All right, either where do those entities that you're connected to show up in your environment or what your environment shows up for you. And how do you start to build that?” Right? And it's just such a different approach. Right? Andrew: One of the things that I had to remind people taking that class, “Look, identify the plant. Great. Please make sure it's not secretly poisoned. Don't pick Poison Ivy by mistake and fall in love with it and take a bath in it, and then write angry emails. But also don't research it,” right? It's not about researching it. At some point … and just enough to make sure that you're safe and that you're not like, “Oh, yeah. Andrew: These berries look delicious.” And then all of a sudden … but allow that to expand. Working to allow that expansion to happen, that's the actual work of becoming a better magician, right? Aidan: Yes. Andrew: It's not necessarily just about knowledge and knowledge is lovely. And corroboration feels great when you're like, “Oh, I really felt that this plant was good for this.” And then you Google it and 10 people say it's good for that. You're like, “Oh, it's great. I'm making a genuine connection.” It feels great. Right? Andrew: And we may need some of that some of the time, but also just being open and being connected in that mysterious way. I think that's also really crucial to this process. Fabeku: I totally agree. It's like when people ask me, “How do I get to know this plant? Or how do I get to know the stone?” That's the first thing I say, “Don't Google it. Don't look up what you know witchipedia says this.” It's unnecessary. Right? To me, if you want to get to know a stone, if you want to research something, research it's geology, research its mineralogy, but then sit with it. Fabeku: Hang out with it just like you would a human being. Right? If I want to get to know Andrew, I'm not going to Google Andrew and read a bunch of ShowMe. I'm just going to … we're going to hang out. I'm going to ask you what you like. I'm going to pay attention to the music you listen to. I'm going to see what you eat. I'm going to ask you questions. I'm going to see how I feel when I'm around you. That's how you get to know shit. Aidan: Yes. Andrew: And I that is the key to Tinder's app. [crosstalk 00:52:08]? People are like, “How do you have success on this thing?” I'm like, “That,” right? If you meet somebody and you're actually interested in them other than just for something super transitory, actually do those things too. Right? Because people are like, “Oh, I don't know what to do.” I'm like, “Find it with that person. Be curious.” Right? I don't care if [inaudible 00:52:28]. Fabeku: No. I mean, at the end of the day, I agree. I think one of the best muscles to build as a magician is relationship building skills. That's it. You don't have to buy a million books. You don't have to take a million courses. You don't have to Google a bunch of shit. Just build a relationship with stones or plants or spirits the same way you would have people. It's the same shit. It's the same shit. Aidan: And it's crazy because it's so common. All of this stuff is really common everywhere. And I saw this recently and I didn't respond to it, though I probably should have. Somebody asked like, “So how do you get in? Where can I learn about connecting to desert spirits?” Aidan: It's like, “The only way that I really know is you get into that environment, whether this is … if you live near one, you can do that, but you can do this as kind of trancey stuff or daydreamy stuff of somehow connect to that space and to see what develops. See who you find. See who rises up and see what happens.” It's funny though, because I think … everybody knows I'm a total gym rat, but I see this all the time in the conversations about that. Aidan: Somebody will see somebody dead-lifting a world record and go, “Their form is wrong.” And you go, “That guy is the strongest in that move in the world ever. How is his form wrong? It worked.” That was the goal. It's the goal. It has nothing to do with the thing you're talking about. His goal was to pick up 1,008 pounds and stand up with it. So by definition, he did it right. And I think that's good learning magic too all the time. Fabeku: I think to me, the same idea … at least for me, the same idea applies in figuring out what to work with magically as it does hanging out with people. When I'm around people, I pay attention to how my animal body feels. Is there a pull? Is there … am I drawn to that person in whatever way? As a friend, it doesn't matter whatever it is. It's the same when I'm sitting with plants. I feel a ping toward this plant. Fabeku: I don't know this plant, but there's a pull. So I want to know this plant more, this stone or this place or this river. And that to me is guided so much of my practice, and again, it's the same with people. If I spot somebody and there's a pull, then I'm curious about them. And I want to know more about them, whether it's a friend or a partner, whatever, it doesn't matter. Fabeku: And me, that's a decidedly different thing than Googling which plants work money magic. Too me, it feels like we're coming at opposite angles. I mean, clearly, both can work, but for me, that pull is everything. And if I don't feel it, I don't give a fuck who told me this plant is great for money magic. If there was not that pull there, I'm not into it. I'll keep looking until I feel it. Andrew: It brings me to something that I've been thinking about a lot lately and this might be the perfect place to bring it up. We've all been in magic for a long time. Right? So I sound like an old person because I'm an old person. Stuff comes and goes and people are like, “All of it, this, all of it, that.” Andrew: And I've been watching a big surge of witchcraft in which the energy going on around the store, in culture, in my social medias and stuff like that. And whenever I see a big sort of movement into something, I'm always like, “That's really interesting. What is going on? What's motivating that? How is that serving people?” Andrew: I'm genuinely curious about that, right? And supportive of it. But I also wonder, because I understand how these things work, what's going to happen next, right? Aidan: Right. Andrew: Because this idea that … and maybe I'm wrong, right? Maybe I'm just old and curmudgeonly, in which case, delete this episode, please. Let's never speak of it again. But often, what happens is there's this big sway into a thing and then a bunch of people find a deep and lasting affinity with it. Andrew: And I'm really curious where those people are going to be in 10 or 15 years and what I'm going to get to learn from their journey through this stuff as they have a depth of practice under their belts in the same way that I learn now from those people who've already been doing these things for a stretch of time and have that. Andrew: But I'm also curious about where those people who were looking for something and either they found it and moved on or they were looking for something else and it wasn't here and then they moved on. We were talking about some … Aidan said something earlier about, they're actually looking for something deeper. Right? Andrew: And one of the things that I've been really noticing, which I find fascinating, is that I see a lot of people who've been all in on the witchy fronts over the last year or a couple of years starting to … their posts and maybe their magic … I don't know what they're doing privately, but certainly, their public stuff. It's starting to take on a much more explicitly therapeutic approach. Andrew: There's a lot more people talking about trauma, dealing with trauma. There's a lot more people leaning … not abandoning the magic side of it, but leaning into stuff where the relationship that they're trying to sort it the most is ultimately that relationship with themselves. Right? And I mean, I think that's always smart. I think that it's a great thing to get into around doing magic in general. Andrew: Certainly, it was a good chunk of my practice at one point to do therapy as a way of freeing myself in order to heal myself or to … I mean, not just be a better magician, but certainly, be better at magic and better in my relationships and all those things. But I'm curious if you've seen that or if you've seen other things, what do you think around that stuff? I know I just said a million things, but responses, please. Aidan: I mean, I see that. I think that we are … For whatever reason, I mean, we've got this crazy thanks to social media and the news cycle and everything else. We have this much clearer view if you're able to step back from it. There's really multiple ways of being in this world that are not really congruent. Right? When I was growing up, there was a lot of messaging that in the end, everybody wants the same thing. Aidan: Right? And that's not what I see now. No. We want very different things and we are not supportive of the other. And I think that this is that. I think it is the evolution of that trauma. And so I think that there's a lot of that out there and there's maybe just more … maybe it's gotten to the point where it's so overt that poor people are willing to do that work because I definitely get fed tons and tons of that work for my allies, both for me and then to share with people. Aidan: It's an interesting thing as to the … Again, I think that the media cycling is really interesting around magic. I just think it's fascinating because there are those who totally freak out every time. And I always remember there's a line from Quadrophenia by the who, a very old record of the slide where he says, “It's sadly ecstatic that your heroes are news.” Aidan: And I see that constantly around the witchcraft stuff in the last couple of years. People are like, “Yay, we got it on TV.” And, “Oh, my God. It's so bad.” It's like, yeah, but don't trip. It's just this is what goes on. Andrew: Well, it was like … what was it? Last week or the week before that bullshit article, I think it was in the independence that some journalists wrote like, “Oh, I tried magic for a week and it doesn't work.” And everybody was so upset about it. And I get it. I mean, it was a bullshit article, but I mean, to me, it was just kind of like, “Who cares?” I mean, I get it. It was a shitty thing to publish, but does this do anything to magic? Andrew: Does this do anything to people who actually give a fuck about it that are seriously interested in it? I mean, it was … I mean, she was wearing some witch's Halloween costume in the photo. What did you think the piece was going to be? It was bullshit from the beginning. And magic has been around way before this and it's going to exist way after this. Andrew: And I don't know if it's just a function of, like you said, getting older or just having limited bandwidth, but I didn't really get the upset about it. I mean, which doesn't just say people shouldn't be upset, but for me, it was just like, “Okay, next.” I mean, it was nonsense. Who cares? Andrew: Like Rumi says, right? The real work is done by somebody outside digging in the dirt, right? There's all these other bits and pieces and trappings and maybe they're important. Maybe they're a part of your journey. Maybe media representation for who you are is important for any number of reasons, but also, it's like that piece, a piece I shared this week from … I think we all shared it … from Jason Miller. Right? Andrew: Where it's like, “Just do the work. It doesn't matter if you feel like it or don't feel like it. If you're committed to a relationship with the spirit or doing magic or …” I remember this when I used to do a LIBOR rash, right? The four times a day solar adoration that Crowley and his various descendants propose. Right? Speaking of finding the hammer at the top of the Himalayan Mountains. Andrew: It's like trying to do something four times a day at the four quarters of the day, every day. Definitely, it's overly complicated. I'm not sure that it's actually necessary per day. It can be, but it's … yeah. But so many times, it just never felt like it. Right? And not to say that I did it 100% because I didn't. I really literally, over two years, maybe I did two months, 100% of that at the peak of it because it's really difficult. Andrew: But the successes that I had, and that's sort of 75% or 80%, which is more like the average of what I was accomplishing came because I was like, “I don't feel like it but I going to do it, so let's do it.” And even at one point, I remember talking to a friend of mine about it and he was like, “Well, some traditions, you yell at your gods to try and call them down.” Andrew: So maybe just … whatever. I just remember reciting it one day and just every second word was, “Fuck this, fuck that, fuck you. Fucking sick of being here and this whole thing,” and I broke through something and it got better. But, yeah. It's complicated the relationship to these things. Fabeku: Yeah. And I think that to me is what's interesting about … and going back to … we were talking about with representation and news cycles and all of that. The conversation in the last handful of years about the whole witches of Instagram stuff and I have very mixed feelings about it and at the end of the day, who gives a fuck what my feelings are about it? But all of the conversations about how this has turned magic into some joke. It's like, “No, it hasn't. This hasn't done shit to magic.” Andrew: Magic is always a good joke. Aidan: Magic is the joke that gets you killed. Andrew: That's the actual history of it, right? Aidan: Yeah. So the fact that it's on TV and they aren't burning those people. Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I think- Aidan: That's positive references for sure. Fabeku: My thing is it's like this has been around forever. And if the witches of Instagram thing, if 5% of the people that fall into that end up being solid practitioners, I think that's fucking rad. And I don't really give a shit about the other 95%. It doesn't feel like my problem to care about. I think magic will filter those people out over time. And I guess … I don't know. I mean, again, I get it. Fabeku: Because I do think … I mean, like we talked about in the beginning, I think it's problematic. It gives people the sense that magic has to be this photogenic, heavily filtered, photograph of whatever. And that's nonsense. But I don't know. I guess I just feel like magic is bigger than that and I don't really sweat shit like that. And even if I find it personally annoying, which I do, but- Andrew: I feel like it's … sometimes I think it's helpful to have the same conversation in different context. Right? So when I was 16, I tried to be in Goth for a week, seven days. That was as long as I lasted. And I realized … I tried to do it because I hung out with all these Goths, right? I was like, “Oh, well. This is fun and I could dye a hair black and put it up like Robert Smith and whatever.” Andrew: It's pretty amusing. Maybe I'll show some pictures sometime. But what I realized was, “No, no, no, no. I should actually have a Mohawk and I'm way more punk rock than I'm Goth.” And it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with that week of trying a day or two, right? I tried it for a week and I learned something very important, “Hey, this isn't for me. I'm just going to keep rolling.” Andrew: And I think that, like all of us, right? I started … people today might call it grimoire focus, but certainly like traditional ceremonial magic and Crowley and all that stuff. And I moved into other things and moved into other things and that's fantastic, right? Because that's the way it goes. That is if you happen to find a thing that you're in lifelong practice, lovely. Andrew: If you don't find what you're looking for or hopefully, maybe more to the point, it grows and evolves as you've grown and evolved as a person, well, then just keep evolving. It doesn't matter. There's no shame in any of that. Fabeku: Yeah. Aidan: Yeah. I think too, it's interesting because I have to remember how differently wired people are, right? Because this is one of the things that has always blown my mind around the magical world and this is primarily around the wick end of things is where I've seen it. And this is not to bash on that at all. It's just not my thing. Aidan: I have always been incredibly confused at the, “Let's get whatever our angle is represented accurately according to some specific definition so that it's acceptable to people.” And you go, “This doesn't work anywhere.” Yeah. Right? This hasn't worked for … Yes. You could end up at the big table of religions. It doesn't even work in there.” Look at America now and how acceptable Muslim religion is right now. Aidan: Right? So why is this a target? I've never got it. Because to me, it's so individual. It's like what is your … and it goes back to that thing. What is your relationship to this process, to these powers, to these entities or to these deities? If you do deity work, that's what's irrelevant. Everything else is out of your control anyway. You might … yeah. Go ahead. Andrew: Says the man who lives in a small house with a bunch of animals at the edge of America. Right? Fabeku: That's true. Andrew: I mean, I think I wonder where you're more community and socially minded and less … I don't know if hermetic, Kermit-like is the right word, but a range of practice if that would change how you felt about it. Aidan: It's interesting because I spent a lot of time living in cities and probably the most overt I've ever been in was living in San Francisco. But this was also a different time and it is one of the downsides of the social media thing that I definitely see is in the 80s and the earliest 90s really before pictures happened on the internet, freaky concept for some people that are not as old as we are, it was not a thing. Aidan: I hung out with people who were hermetic magicians who were Elamites, who were various Orisha angle's Santeria practitioners, Wiccans, what we would now consider traditional witchcraft, which basically meant

Published Sep 29, 2017 Chris: Hey world, Chris Hogan coming to you live from MeMedia Studio here in Burleigh Heads for 'Get Fact Up'. The new and improved version, delivering more content to you regularly, is in our vodcasting studio or podcasting studio. You can hire it out at Burleigh Heads as well, just enquire on our website. So here we are. Hanging on, Andrew? Andrew: Yeah, I'm good. Just had a double strength decaf. Chris: That did nothing. Andrew: Sorry, I was sitting on that one for a bit, sorry. Keep going. Chris: As you can see, we're keeping it light and humorous. So today we want to talk about the transition that's happening from broadcast, or traditional media, to online media. Basically, the millennials are moving away from traditional media and moving to social channels and whatnot for entertainment. Andrew: Well, the interesting thing about that is how we're delivering this today which, in my opinion, is shifting more towards live and daily content, and those sorts of things are happening on social. So what better way to deliver 'Get Fact Up' than through live video? Chris: Cool. Andrew: And that's what we're trying. Chris: So what are the channels that are actually performing best when it comes to live video? Andrew: Well, it's Facebook, YouTube, and then you've got other things like Instagram, which is obviously Facebook as well. It's like Facebook in your pocket, I guess you could say. And then, what else have you got? You've got Periscope. No one really uses Periscope. Chris: And also LinkedIn is coming out with their new update to allow you to shoot live video through their mobile app, and upload videos through the desktop. Andrew: Yep, LinkedIn always liked to party. But they're doing their thing. And then you've got things like Snapchat and all that, but from what I've heard, Snapchat's not gonna be around much longer. So let's not worry about that too much. Chris: Yeah, but those stories that are up there for 24 hours, they just aren't that interesting to anybody anymore. Especially the brands, I think, because ... Andrew: Yeah, it was a toy. People are getting past it. I don't know anyone that's really using Snapchat in that way anymore. And now there's also Instagram which has the same feature. Facebook has the same feature. It's really devalued that whole disposable story thing quite a bit. Chris: So with Facebook owning Instagram, we've seen a lot of changes in Instagram as well. They've actually brought in a lot of the features, their filters and all those overlays that Snapchat ... someone invented. And Facebook have kind of integrated those into both Facebook and Instagram. And Instagram have also updated their app, or their algorithm, to decrease the organic reach that people are getting to grow their channels. What problems does that present to newcomers to Instagram, do you think? Andrew: Well, I think when it went at a really saturated ... I don't want to call it a marketplace, because Instagram's not a marketplace. Chris: Channel. Andrew: It's a really saturated channel now. When I first started using Instagram and things like that, you could really grow a channel. You could easily get to two thousand followers, is that what we call them on Instagram? Yeah? Two thousand followers, just through organic means. Just through interacting with other people, and stuff like that. You just can't do it now. You don't get that sort of traction with posts and things like that anymore. You used to be able to put a post up and get two hundred likes, just by getting the right hashtag. That just doesn't happen now. You don't get that increase of followers, or that sort of thing. It's really just a feed now, and it's so saturated that if you're coming in with a unique idea, everyone is sort of doing that same thing. Everyone's coming in with a razor-sharp unique idea. You know, like the yoga paddle boarders and stuff like that. Everyone's coming in with something like that, it's just hypersaturation in there now. That's just how I feel about Instagram. Chris: We've talked about this many times, but I'm challenged by using Instagram due to the fact that when you're actually posting something, you can't actually put a link in the post, therefore not being able to redirect people off the channel onto your own. And here at MeMedia, we do a lot of content creation. We do a lot of marketing for clients. We call it integrated digital marketing. So essentially what we're doing is we're creating that content, we're using the social channels to distribute that content, and get traffic back to the website. That's an awesome indicator to Google to boost your SEO, boost your Google rankings. If you can't do that post on Instagram and actually put a link in the post and get the traffic to your website, the only way you can do that now is through using their advertising. Andrew: Using it in the profile, which is not helpful. Yeah. Chris: Or tell people to click on the link in the profile. Exactly. Not helpful. So to me, Instagram's not a great thing to use for SEO, for promoting people to come to your website, which is the media that you own. Obviously, when you're on these channels, you're only renting space. You know? And with Facebook updating algorithms, it's ... Andrew: You can't really turn that into leads, per se. You can use Instagram to get direct messages and stuff like that, but who wants to be walking around with their phone all the time replying to messages and things like that as a form of inquiry? You can't get calls and things off Instagram the way you can, unless you're doing ads and things. It's not getting it back to your website. Not in a meaningful way, anyway. Chris: They're actually using ads. Andrew: But it is a brand tool. And the people that do it well, the industries that do it well, things like cafes and clothing and things like that. But you know, they're getting their brand out there, and people see this, and they're like "I want that," and then they can go and find it. That doesn't work for everyone, that sort of effect on brand awareness doesn't work for everyone. You can't see a picture on Instagram of, for example, laser eye surgery, and think "that looks good. I'll just go and get that today." It doesn't work for everyone. Chris: So let's talk about what's happening with the aspirational youth and the Gen X, Y, Z. Basically, how they're becoming disengaged with traditional advertising. 99% of millennials are actually disengaged with traditional advertising. So trying to replicate traditional advertising methods on social channels isn't really that effective. Given that 55% of people watch videos online every day, there is this huge, I guess, shift from everyone to produce videos. Once again, they're trying to take that traditional ad that they've done previously ... Andrew: Ah, we're talking about traditional media, yeah. Chris: Yeah. They've done in traditional media ... Andrew: They're failing so hard. It's like they're jumping on these social channels and they're like "Great. So we use the TV formula on social media." And everyone goes, "I don't want to watch TV on Facebook. Goodbye." Or "I don't want to watch TV ads on Facebook, see you later." Chris: I don't even want to watch ads! Andrew: Well, yeah. And that's the thing. You have to be very creative with these new formats now. You have to really think around, okay, the people that are watching these formats, they're escaping TV. So if we come at them with ads, they're not gonna react well to it. Because they're ignoring TV and they're going to Facebook or Instagram or YouTube or something like that. Last thing they want is TV ads coming at them, because that's what they've come from. Chris: So yeah, cutting to that "Proudly brought to you by your sponsor, let's listen to a message from our sponsors," all of that type of messaging just isn't gonna work. And the reason why we're focused on millennials and these aspirational youth is because the global workforce by 2025 is gonna have 8% baby boomers, 28% Gen X, 33% Gen Y, and 31% Gen Z. So that's our audience. Andrew: It's all social media generations now, from here on in. Chris: Absolutely. Andrew: They're not going to react to a straight up sponsorship message, or a straight up advert. But the thing that's happening now is like these online sponsorship messages that happen in podcasts and things, where they just say "hey look, our podcast is funded by Rode Microphones or something like that." And people expect that. They know that you have to be able to make money out of these things. Chris: That's right. Then it comes down to authenticity. And one thing that you'll notice when you, or that we definitely notice, is that with advertising that's used in podcasts, the host of the show is actually delivering the message from their point of view. So like Andrew just said, we are proudly brought to you by one of our sponsors, Rode Microphones. And this kit is Rode Microphones kit. And it's bloody awesome! So we can actually say that, because we've used the product. Andrew: And we're literally using it right now. Chris: That's right. And just out of nowhere, we actually have extra kit if you want to do more podcast from this studio and have more people sitting at this table. So where to now? We're seeing these massive shifts to video, massive shift to live video, and what do we want to see when we're doing that? What are some of the ... we want to see reach, we want to see video views, and we want to see engagement. Andrew: The funny thing there is where it comes back to promotion. So we already know that people like live video. But you don't get an awful lot of rich engagement when the live video's happening. So with everything, eventually, it inevitably comes down to the paid promotion. Facebook used to be great. You put something on your Facebook page, or your Facebook page, followers saw it. Now, what percentage is it now? Chris: One? Andrew: It's like 1%? Chris: Organic, yeah. 1% organic. Andrew: That's so weak. So all of these new formats, they're great while they're happening and people think they're exciting, but then it becomes commonplace, and we need to look at the promotion side of things. And that's where it's a real problem. The two big contenders right now are YouTube and Facebook for the live video, and both of them had terrible paid promotion. It doesn't even exist, really. They both kind of, in their help, I'll just bring it up now. YouTube, for example, says during your event, yeah, you can create a highlight clip after your event. Or before your event get your followers excited, etc. But there's nothing for promotion of a live stream. I think you said Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg mentioned something at their F8 conference? Chris: Don't quote me on this, but it is a rumour that promotion of live video during the live stream is going to be available sometime in the not too distant future. There's a whole realm of issues that could present. Andrew: Yeah! Like, obviously it needs to happen because it's what people are getting excited about. It's where they're moving, so we have to be able to promote it. But what happens then? Because Facebook are kind of liable. They review ads, so we put like 200 ads up and they'll go through them and sixty might get through because of various reasons. How do they monitor the live video? So if someone says "I'm gonna do a video about this," but then it's about something else and it offends everyone, it looks bad for, say, Facebook or YouTube, so. Chris: Well that's where I think their feature that they've got now for videos that are uploaded is that they do have the ability for Facebook to process your captions. So for those that don't know, captions mean subtitles that appear at the bottom. That's pretty amazing technology. Obviously, that's done by a machine. And it's not 100% accurate, in fact it needs a lot of work. But if they have the ability to do that live, then potentially they can kick out those profanities and ... Andrew: Flagging things, and then someone comes in and manually watches it. Because Facebook already do that. What I've had explained to me by someone that does the forums on Facebook, there's an automatic review process, and that's what determines if your ads go live or not. And then if things get flagged, someone manually reviews it, so it's like a two step process. I think it'll be something like that. They're looking for profanity or things like that, and then someone will come in and check out that stream, maybe they check what the reactions are because people can react as they go, they can say "Like this, hate this." Maybe if it's too many people disliking it or having negative reactions, then someone jumps in. They'll have to find a solution around that if they want to monetise it, but they will monetise it because they love, especially Facebook, love monetising things. Chris: Of course, of course they do. Andrew: YouTube I'm not sure exactly how they're gonna do it. Chris: One of the most amazing things is, when we're actually creating content for our clients, is the reach and engagement that we get, and the video views that we're getting for our clients here at MeMedia. But one thing that's been amazing, and that's in a new venture that we've co-founded with two other directors, Leigh Kelson and Scott Burke, for Beach City, is amazing reach. Which is 1.8 million reach, 434,000 video views, and 109,000 post engagements on those videos. Andrew: And that's mostly with live video? Chris: Yes. All live video. Truly spectacular engagement, and that's the key metric that we're looking at there. Supposedly, 10% is excellent engagement, and we're actually getting over 20%. Given the multitude of places where we can post video, which we spoke about before, Facebook's an awesome place to get reach and engagement. People are spending less time actually viewing the videos on Facebook than they are on YouTube. Andrew: Definitely, significantly less. But YouTube's a video platform, so people are expecting it. There's still this sort of interrupted feeling for the live video on Facebook, because you get that notification saying "so-and-so's live." Some people just don't react so well to it. Some people are into it. Facebook's a feed of the content you're interested in there. So sometimes, "so-and-so's live" could be disruptive to someone just wanting to look at memes or something like that. But YouTube? Definitely, people are ready for live video on YouTube. Chris: There's a huge reason to post on YouTube, as we've discussed many times, and the reason why we post on YouTube is that obviously, Google doesn't crawl through Facebook's content to list it in the search engine results pages, which is the Google listings when you do a search. Whereas when you do post on YouTube, then there's an opportunity for those videos to appear in the search. Andrew: And that's something we often say to clients, it's like if you can't get a page rank for something because your competitors have great content for something, do they have videos? Probably not. Google's gonna favour videos, because they own YouTube. So that's a good way to sneak past. It's always a good reason to be putting videos on YouTube. Chris: And there's so many different ways you can create videos, whether it's slideshows or chats or podcasts. Andrew: Exactly. The other thing that's good about YouTube is it's always been a video platform, so it's more like a library than Facebook. Facebook's a feed, so things get lost if you post a lot. Things'll just disappear back. And people don't really go backwards through your feed too much. They might see something they like, and then they'll think "okay, let's look at old videos." It's not as easy to do with Facebook, but if someone sees something they like on YouTube, they can subscribe to you. They can get all your new videos. They can look at all your archived videos. It's a lot more organised for that sort of thing. But, the connectivity of people's not there on YouTube. Chris: No, that's right. Because I mean, there's just not as many people there. With Facebook having two billion plus monthly users ... Andrew: Yes. Let's bring that up. Chris: Over two billion monthly active Facebook users, with ages 25 to 34 making up 29% of those users worldwide. Andrew: Yeah, so this is all the people we're talking about. They're Gen Y, X, and millennials. They're all there, and they're online all the time. Something like 28 times a day someone checks their Facebook, on average. Chris: Of course. Andrew: In these generations. Chris: We're highly addicted beings and we really had no chance when the smartphone came around, to not be addicted according to Simon Sinek, the famous author. Some other stats. Like we said, the decline of broadcast TV. 24% decline in live TV for 18 to 24 year olds since 2016. There's a clear shift to social. There's a clear shift to YouTube. There's a clear shift to online. There's a clear shift in your very home, watching multi devices being used in the same room while the TV is still on, but just playing some average stuff in the background, to put it nicely. Andrew: That's, yeah. That's on a timeline that you can't really control. Chris: Yeah, so everything's on demand. 65% of global media consumers choose video on demand. Far out. Andrew: We're not even considering things like Netflix, the actual streaming TV services. Half the time when someone's saying TV, they actually mean Netflix. "I watched TV last night." They watched Netflix last night. That's another thing. But I suppose what we're getting at here about all this shift is what can you do about it? How can you leverage this from a marketing perspective? And that's where it gets interesting, because everyone's still trying to figure it out. How does this work? We're still trying to figure it out. And we're finding things that work, but how far can you push that before people start to get annoyed because you're in their personal downtime? If you're annoying someone on Facebook, you're in their downtime and people don't like being annoyed in their downtime. That's where it's leading edge right now, we're trying to figure out how to make this work. But the thing is, the big difference between traditional media and this new type of media like Facebook and YouTube and all this live video stuff is, you've got analytics, you've got metrics, so you can actually see the data behind this. You can see publicly accessible data about what people are reacting to, the results you're getting, and all that sort of thing. You're never gonna get that with TV. If you approach a TV channel and say "I want to put ads up," they'll tell you "You're gonna get so-and-so people, this many people watching it today." Chris: This is what our reach is per month and how many people we're reaching, this demographic. But you don't actually know what your specific ad or mention in the show, how many eyeballs it hit and how many people actually liked it. Andrew: And even if a TV's on, if there's a TV on and there's a family of five watching the TV, four of those people are on Facebook at any given time. So they can't really prove that. You see those, cinema advertising, which is probably even a step down from TV. You're watching a movie and it says "Cinema advertising works!" And you'll be the only person in the cinema. There's something wrong there. How can they prove any of this anymore? Chris: So clearly we've got a shift to social media, online media, and on-demand media. And we can actually give valuable ROI in terms of statistics and metrics of who viewed your particular piece of content, brand, you know, ad. So there's no time like the present, obviously, to make these shifts. And there's plenty other ways that are happening right here right now that ... you know, like, influencing marketing is another way to ... Andrew: Ah yeah, that's a mince higher with your podcast. Chris: Yep. I think we're gonna have to talk about that another time. So thanks very much for listening. Like we said, we hope you like Get Fact Up. The new way we're delivering, it somewhat helps our production time, helps us produce more content, and you can hire this studio too. Simply inquire on memedia.com.au. Thanks, and thanks to Rode Microphones for helping deliver this vodcast.

Be The Revolution of Excellence in Customer Experience with Positively Outrageous Service! You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed A few years ago, I met some extraordinary Virgins! I was due to fly to a Healthcare Technology conference in Las Vegas from Dallas Love Field by the erstwhile Virgin America airline. There were two clients at this conference and had a program for one of them which included a video. The video was late in getting to me. But I had everything lined up. My Uber was waiting, I didn’t have bags to check and I was TSA pre-checked. I had this! As we turn off the main road into the airport approach road my mobile phone rings. It’s not a number I recognize. Like most of us I depress the red button to hang up. The Uber pulls up to the curbside, the same number rings. Hit the red button again. Running through the terminal into TSA pre-check, put my bag on the conveyor belt, phone rings again, same number, somebody is really trying to get a hold of me specifically! I answer the phone. “This is Brian with Virgin, we are about to close the gate!” “I’m here!” I emphatically respond. TSA man sternly motions me to hang up and get through the metal detector! I’m compliant. Yes, that day, I was THAT passenger. You know the one! “Mr. Szabo please come to Gate 11. This is the final call for boarding!” I run through the terminal. I glance at the departure board. It’s 11:05 am and … the 10:20 am Virgin flight to Las Vegas is not listed. “What!” There’s a Southwest 10:15 am flight listed to New Orleans. How could this be? Out of breath, heart racing, I get to Gate 11. It’s empty. No passengers. No Virgin employees. No one behind the counter! The door to the jetway is closed. Foolishly, I look down at the plane, how can this be? It’s only 10:07 am. I am startled by the gate door opening. A tall man in a Virgin uniform comes through. I plead with him to let me on the plane. “I have a client on the plane, I really need to get on … is there any way? Please!” “Is your name Andrew?” “Yes.” “Oh, I’m Brian … I was the one you hang up on earlier!” Ouch! I cringe. Any possibility of me boarding vanishes in my mind. It’s the end of the road! Brian turns around and returns down the jetway closing the door. Defeated, I slump into a chair at the empty gate and turn on my mobile to figure out when is the next flight to Las Vegas and how to make the change. A few minutes later the jetway gate door opens. I glance up to see it’s Brian. Not expecting anything I am startled as he opens the door wide and motions me to come and go down the jetway. “Please board the plane Mr. Szabo!” I am flabbergasted. My jaw must have dropped to the carpet! “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!” I almost wanted to hug him. But thought better not push my luck! This is Positively Outrageous! I’m sure he and / or the flight captain broke a rule to let me on. Have you ever heard of anyone letting you on a plane after the gate has been closed? Never! This is Positively Outrageous Service! Positively Outrageous Service is that WOW experience you can't wait to tell another about!   My heart racing, briskly I make my way down the empty jetway to the plane fully expecting a shaming, perhaps some scowls or grimaces from the flight crew. I enter the plane and there are three Virgin flight attendants finalizing details. They turn to me with huge smiles, and greet me with total enthusiasm. “Mr. Szabo we are so glad you made the flight today!” “We are delighted to have you on board!” A feather would have knocked me over! More Positively Outrageous Service! And by the way the flight still left on time! Strong choices by great Virgins. Brian went over the top. He made a choice to see if it was possible to get me on the plane. The flight attendants made an intentional choice to welcome me and make me feel good.

On today’s episode you will hear part 4 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: Hear Russell get put on the spot when he has to answer various questions from the audience. Find out why Russell loves Voxer so much and uses constantly. And find out how Russell plans to take Clickfunnels to the level of Sales Force in the future. So listen here to the final part of this 4 part set of the Clickfunnels Start up story as Russell is interviewed by Andrew Warner. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to the 4th and final installment here of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club, where he’s going deep into the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far. You know, throughout this entire interview, it was really fun. He brought my wife onstage and some of my partners onstage, and brought other people who didn’t like me at first onstage and kind of shared all these things. I hope all you guys are enjoying it and really enjoying this interview. I hope that this starts making you think about your startup story. Some of you guys are living your startup story right now, and maybe you’re depressed or nervous, or scared, or afraid or whatever. And hopefully this gives you motivation to know that I was there too. In fact, I’m still there many times, but it’s okay and it’s part of the game and part of the process. And someday you’ll look back and you’ll have someone like Andrew interviewing you about your startup story and you’ll be so grateful for the trials and things you’re going through now. So with that said, we’re going to queue up the theme song, when we come back we’ll listen to part 4 of 4 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club. Andrew: And I know a lot of you have asked me what’s coming up next and Russell’s going to talk about that, how you’re going to get to Sales Force level, but why don’t I take a couple of questions from someone. Is there anyone who’s been sitting here going, “I can’t believe Andrew didn’t ask that.”? Is there anyone who has something standing out for them? Should we just have them onstage. Unknown person: We got mic’s. Andrew: We got mic’s from over there, okay. Audience member: Alright, a little bit deeper of a question. What is something, I know you’re strong in your faith, family, God, I mean kind of all around, what’s something that’s really made you who you are? You’ve mentioned before that made you as a marketer with your dad, you’re up late watching an infomercial. But what’s something that inherently that could have been experienced, maybe a quote in the back of your mind that’s just driven you, it could have been something that your parents taught you when you were young. What is, is there, it’s kind of a little bit difficult of a question to look back, there’s probably a million things. But what are one or two that really stick out, that make you the person that you are? Russell: I have a million thoughts just racing through my head. The one that just popped in the front, so I’ll share that one, hopefully it’s good. I remember when I was a kid my dad gave me a job to go clean the car. I went out there and I cleaned the car, I did my best job, I thought. And I came back in and I was like, “Hey dad, it’s clean. Can I go play?” I was like, “Come look at it.” So he could let me go out and play. And he was like, “Well, is it good? Are you proud of it?” and I’m like, “I don’t know.” And he’s like, “Well, are you proud of it.” I was like, “I don’t know.” And he’s like, “Go work on it until you’re proud of it, then come back and let me know.” And I was like, oh man. So I go back out, and I was like, “Am I proud of this?” and I was thinking about it, I guess technically I’m really not that proud of it. So I was like trying to do more things, trying to clean it better, and to the point where I was actually proud of it. And then I came back and I’m like, “Dad, okay the car’s clean now.” And he’s like, “Are you proud of it.” I’m like, “I am.” And he’s like, “Okay, you can go out and play then.” I think for me that was such a big thing because it was just like, that internal “Am I proud of this thing that I’m giving, that I’m putting out there?” and if not, keep doing it until you are. And I don’t know, that was one of those little weird dad moments that he probably didn’t mean as a teaching opportunity, but definitely has been big for me ever since then. Andrew: Good question. Is there one on this side? While you’re finding a person who has a question, Whitney, did you have more to say? You were going to ask more, right? Yeah, can you get the mic over to Whitney, please? She’s right over here. I know I didn’t ask your full question. Whitney: Hi Russell, how are you? Russell: Awesome, how are you doing? Whitney: Good. So with your business, what is, back to like when you were first starting, I kind of want to know, what’s the one thing when your business was really hard, when you were really struggling, what’s the one thing that kept you going? Just in the back of your mind. And then I have a second part of that. What would you say was your biggest failure and what was the greatest lesson you learned from it? Russell: That’s not an easy question. Andrew: The biggest failure. Russell: Oh man. So the first question was, what was the first one again? Thinking about the biggest failure, I’m trying to…Oh, what kept it going? Andrew: Give me a sec. Are you going through that now? You are, what are you going through right now? Can you stand up and get close to the mic? I can see that this is a meaningful question for a reason. What’s going on? Be open. Whitney: I’m just trying with my business, I’m trying to get my message out there. I’m really, I’m just baby parts of Clickfunnels, so I’m just figuring out how to do a funnel still. But my company is called Creating Powerful Women, so I am just trying to teach women how to grow a business while they grow their family at the same time. And I’m doing that right now, because I have 3 little tiny girls. So I’m just like, okay, I’m still trying to figure out this myself and then teach women how to do it at the same time. So it’s just, I’m still in that struggle phase. Andrew: Is it partially because you feel like an imposter, how can I tell them what to do? That’s what I was saying to you earlier. Whitney: When I don’t even know. Yeah. {Crosstalk} Whitney: I feel like I need to have that success level before I can teach women to go out and do it. But the reason when I found you in the hall, and I said, “I want Russell to be vulnerable and tell like the nitty gritty parts of the story.” And those stories are what make people relatable to you, that’s kind of where I’m at, as I realize that I grow a bigger following and a bigger audience when I’m more relatable to them, which I realize I don’t need to be up at that level to do that. Andrew: I get that. Russell: So my question for you is, have you been working with women? Helping them so far? Tell me a story of someone you’ve helped. I’m curious. Whitney: So I went through post partum depression a couple of years ago, after I had a baby and a lot of the women I’ve been reaching out to when I shared those stories, those women have been coming to me saying, “Hey, how do you get through this struggle? I know you’ve gotten past that, so I want to hear the hard stories that you went through.” So a lot of the people who I’ve been coaching one on one have been people who have gone through those exact same things  that I have. Russell: Okay when you do that, and you share the stuff with them, and that clicks for them, how does that feel? Whitney: Like I’m fulfilling what I was put on this planet to do. Russell: That’s the thing. That’s the thing that keeps me going. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens often enough that I crave that. I’m super introverted, so it’s always awkward for people to come to me, but I still love when they come to me and they’re like, “Hey, just so you know real quick…..” Like last night, we were in San Francisco, or San Diego, excuse me. Someone came up to me in the hall and I was kind of like, I’m nervous to talk to you but you’re going to talk to me. And he said, “Hey, just real quick, you legitimately changed my life, you changed my family.” And started tearing up. And I was just like, I let myself feel that just for a second and then I go back to the awkwardness, but for a second I feel that. And It’s just like ahh. That’s what it’s about you know. I use Voxer for my coaching clients. So every time they Vox me and say something like that, there’s a little star button and I star it and it stores them in this huge thing of all the starred ones. So now days I’ll go back and I’ll listen to that and I’ll listen to people like 2 years ago that said something about how something I did effected them, and it’s just like, that feeling. Because everything we do in this life is for feeling’s right. Everything is just a feeling we’re looking for. We eat because we want a feeling. We did this because we, I wanted a feeling. We’re doing everything for a feeling. So it’s like if I can remember the feelings of the thing I’m trying to get, and I can experience it again, then it, that’s what gets me and keeps me going.  And I think that any of us that are lucky enough to have those feelings, a lot of times we forget about them. No, remember that because that’s the thing, when it’s hard and it’s painful and it’s dark, it’s that feeling that’s just like, that’s the, you remember that and you let yourself experience it again for a minute. And then for me, that’s like, okay, I can get back up and I can go again. Andrew: Great question, I’m glad you asked it. How about one more over there? You know what, yeah, let’s give her a big round of applause, please. Audience member: I was actually going to ask a little bit about that vulnerability. I was surprised, I’m big in the SAAS space, I’ve been to Dream Force, follow a lot of Clickfunnels. It’s pretty rare to see a CEO want to put themselves kind of on the roasting side of things. You’re from here, from Sandy. I was just kind of surprised, what was it that really compelled you to kind of want to come back and do this in Utah? When I saw your email I thought it was a clickbait scam. Russell: Oh it is, we’re selling you something next. Audience member: I really thought I was going to come and it was going to be a video of your face spinning and it was going to be like, “Hi, we’re here.” Because I follow Clickfunnels, but it’s just really rare, especially being down in Utah county, that was kind of unique that way. Andrew: Wait, one sec. Does Clickfunnels allow me to actually place someone’s city in the headline, like I want someone from San Francisco, you could. Oh, alright, I get it. Audience Member: It said like Idaho, we’re in the surrounding areas, it’s going out to 8000 people, limited seating. So as a marketer I was just like, is this a real thing? You know. So I showed up and I was excited to see you. But why come back to Utah, what does this event mean to you and why want to be vulnerable and kind of open up? I learned a lot about you personally that was great to hear from a business side. Russell: So my beliefs are, and I believe we have the best software company in the world, so I’m going to start with that. But if it’s just about the software, then it comes down to who’s got what feature. People are moving and shifting and changing because of the features. That’s the thing. So Clickfunnels was like, no it has to be more and it has to be a thing. And it’s interesting, people who sign up for Clickfunnels, who click on an ad, they come and sign up. That’s why John can’t do, it doesn’t work that way. They sign up for a web, clickfunnels is a website builder for crying out loud. You boil it down, we are a website builder. That is boring. So people don’t come for that. They stay for that. That’s why they stay, that’s why they stay. But they come because of a feeling, and they come because of a connection. I want to be able to take the videos from here because if I can more people who come through my funnels to hear this story, they’re going to stick with Clickfunnels because they realize we have a soul. There’s a reason behind this, it’s not just the software company who’s trying to make a bunch of money. We’re actually, we have belief behind it. So that’s why we do all these things. That’s why I still write books. That’s why we do videos. That’s why we do vlogs. That’s why we do this fun stuff, because it builds connection with people, and connection really keeps people staying, even if some other company’s got a different feature than we do, or it’s cheaper and we’re more expensive, or whatever. So that’s the big reason why we still do it. And then I thought it would be fun to come down here because I grew up not far from here and it’s just kind of a fun thing. We’ve been working with the Harmon Brothers and we started another project with them and their family owns the Dry Bar Comedy Club, if you guys have ever watched Vid Angel, that’s one of their families companies. When Vid Angel had their little hiccups, they shifted all the programming to this, the Dry Bar Comedy Club, so we used to watch all the comedians here. And I was like, this is like the coolest location to do something like this. And one of the other side jokes, I don’t know if I shared this with you or if it was just in my head, but Andrew is famous for doing these big scotch nights, and as a Mormon I can’t drink scotch. And I was like, what if we did this, but at a Dry Bar, just this funny play off of that? And it all worked out. Andrew: You know, usually at events I do scotch night afterwards and say, ‘Everyone come back to my room.’ That’s not going to go over very well. But Dave’s been to mine. He drinks water and feels comfortable. We have good water for Dave. How about one more, then I want to get into the future. Audience Member: So you always talk about how, like for Clickfunnels you guys took like 6 tries to finally make it work, right. And how most of the time when you guys start something it doesn’t work the first time, that’s why you have audibles and all those things. So I was wondering as someone that, you know I’m starting and getting that, kind of like that lifts, what is the biggest thing that you see, versus like a flop funnel versus something that kind of takes off and explodes? What’s the audible or the change that you normally do that shift or the message change or whatever it is, that makes it finally take off? Russell: Traditionally the difference between a funnel that works and doesn’t work, I’d say it’s probably 50% offer. Like if the offer’s wrong it’s not gonna, that’s usually the first thing. But then if it’s actually a good offer, that people actually want, second then is usually copy. So like what’s the hook, those kind of things. And then design is probably 3rd. All that stuff that Theron and those guys didn’t like at first. The things that, because it’s not like we just made up this stuff, you saw 8000 funnels we tested and tried in the journey of 15 years of this, that now we know what things people convert on. So it’s just like looking at stuff that you know is working and modeling it because you this structure works, this kind of thing. But usually when something is broken it’s coming back and figuring out, this offer’s not right. People didn’t want it. And that was the problem with Clickfunnels. The offer, we took 4 or 5 times to get the offer right, and then as soon as the offer is right, you can tell when it’s right because people will buy, even if everything else is bad, if your offer is amazing people will give you money for it, you know. So that’s definitely the biggest part, and from there it’s copy, then design, then all the little things that stress some people out, like me. Andrew: So I’ve got, we’ll come back. I see there are a few people that have more questions; we’ll come back to them in a moment, including you. I promise I’ll do more. But you did tell me about all the different things you guys are working on now. Of all of them, what one is going to get you the closest to Sales Force level? Russell: That’s a good question, there’s so many things. So I would say, I’m going to ask you a question is that alright? Have you ever played bigger yet? Played bigger? Playing bigger?  Andrew: No, what do you mean by that? Russell: That’s the name of the book right? Play Bigger? Andrew: Oh Playing Bigger, the book. No. Russell: Yes. So that’s book’s been interesting, if you guys haven’t read it, it’s one of the biggest ones as a team that we’ve been reading. But it’s all about designing the category and becoming the king of that category. So I feel like we are the king of sales funnels, and that’s our category, the thing that’s going to be there. And then if you read through the book, the next phases are like, building out the ecosystem that supports you as the category. And the fascinating thing about sales force, if you look at it when, I probably shouldn’t say this on video because someday Mark Benioff’s going to watch this and be like, “I’ll never give you money.” But sales force isn’t great software, right. It’s this hub that things are tied into, but the reason why they did 13 billion this year, they’re trying to get to 20 billion is because they built this ecosystem. The ecosystem is what supports this thing and grows it up, and builds it. And that’s like the next phase. So I think for us, it’s like we have this, we have funnels which are the key. It’s like the CRM for them, it’s the central point. But it’s then bringing all the ecosystem, it’s building up all the things around it, right. Andrew: Letting other people create things on your platform, becoming a platform. Russell: Yes, becoming a true platform. Andrew: can you create a platform when what you want is the all in one solution when you’re saying, “you don’t have to plug in your chat bot to our software. We’re going to be chat bot software.” “You don’t have to plug in infusion soft, we’ve got email marketing in here or mail chimp.” Russell: It depends, because you look at Sales Force is similar too. They have their own things that they either acquire and bring them in, or they build their own, things like that. And I think it’s a hybrid of that. I think it’s, we allow people to integrate because some people have tools. We will, our goal is to always be the best sales funnel builder on planet earth. We may not be the best email auto responder in the world, we have one and that increases our revenue. And people who love us will use our email auto responder, but there may be some other one that’s better. But it’s not our big focal point. There may be a chat bot that’s got more features and more things, that’s not gonna be our focus to make it the best, but we’ve got one built in to make it. So theer will be, that’s kind of our thought, that we will have the things included, so if people want to go all in they can use it. But if they love yours because of these things, they can still bring that and still bring it in. You know, and then as we grow, who knows what the next phase is. Is it acquisitions, finding the best partners? People that most of our members are using, start acquiring companies and bringing them in, internally similar to what Sales Force does, growing the platform. Andrew: Just keep letting people build on your platform and then does that make the platform more valuable, or do you guys get a share of the money that people spend on these external tools? Russell: Both, I think. Stripe for example, Stripe, I think we process 1.7 billion dollars through Stripe. We make over a million bucks a year from Stripe referral fees, for just letting them connect with us. So there’s value on both sides because it makes the platform more valuable because people can use it easier, but we also make money that direction as well, and those type of things. Andrew: Okay, what is Actionlytics, Action… Russell: Actionetics. Andrew: Excuse me. Russell: So that was Todd’s name. He loved that name. So Actionetics is, it’s what we call internally, follow-up funnels. So we have sales funnels, which are page one, page two, page three, page four. Then a follow-up funnel is send this email, send this text message. “Here’s the retargeting pixels, here’s the thing.” So it’s the follow-up funnels. It’s all of the communication that’s happened after somebody leaves the page with your audience. Andrew: And that’s a new product that you guys are creating? Russell: Yeah, it’s been, actually we make more revenue from Actionetics than we do from Clickfunnels right now. We’ve never marketed it outside though. Andrew: I can’t get access to it, it asked me for my username and password. I said, I don’t have that, so how do I sign up for it? Russell: it’s only been in beta. So we opened up at Funnel Hacking Live, people signed up there. And then we kept it down for a year, then we opened it, so two Funnel Hacking Lives we opened it, and then my birthday we opened it. So that’s it. But we have, it’s over, 12-13 thousand members who have upgraded to that. And then we’re probably a couple weeks away from the actual public launch where people will be to get, everyone will be able to get access. Andrew: And already people are spending more money on that than Clickfunnels? Russell: Yeah, because it starts at $300 a month versus $100. So it’s the ascension up. So they go from $100 a month to $300 a month and then the new one, it scales with you. Because we’re sending emails and Facebook message, it gives us an ability to grow with the platform as well, and not just have a $200 a month limit. Someone might pay $1000 or $5000 depending on how big their lists are. Andrew: You’re really good at these upsells, you’re really good at these extra features. How do you think about what to add? How do the rest of us think about it, based on what’s worked for you? Russell: Okay, that’s a great question, and everyone thinks it’s a product, the question most people ask is, what price point should my upsells be? It has nothing to do with that. It has 100% to with the logical progression of events for your customer. So when someone comes to you and they buy something, let’s just say it’s weight loss. So they come to you and they buy a weight loss book right, and let’s say it’s about how to get abs. So they buy that, the second they put their credit card in and click the button, in their mind that problem has now been solved. I now have six pack abs, the second it’s done. And people don’t think that. So what people do wrong is the next page is like, “Cool, you bought my abs book. Do you want my abs video series?” it’s like, “No, I just solved that problem. I gave you money. It’s been solved.” So what we have to think through, for logical upsells is like, “okay, I just got abs, what’s the next logical thing I need?” So it’s like, “Cool you got abs now, but how would you like biceps? We can work it out. This is my training program to grow here.” For funnels it’s like, here’s this funnels software, or here’s this book teaching you how to build funnels, but after you have a funnel you need traffic. So traffic’s the next logical progression. So as soon as someone’s bought something, the customer’s mind, I believe, that problems been solved. And it’s like, what’s the new problem that’s been opened up, because that problem’s been solved. That’s the logical… Andrew: I got my email addresses because of Clickfunnels, the next problem I’m probably going to have is what do I send to people? And that’s what you’re solving. What about this, fill your funnel, it’s a new software. Russell: Yeah. Andrew: What is it? Russell: How do you know these things? That is good, you have been digging. So I’m writing my third book right now, it’s called Traffic Secrets, and then on the back of it we have software that’s called Fill Your Funnel, that matches how we do traffic with the book. So when someone reads the book, you login and the way we do traffic, we focus very heavily on influencers. We call it the Dream 100. So you come in and you login and you’re like, “Here’s the people in my market. There’s Tony Robbins, there’s Andrew..” you list all these people and it starts pulling all our data, scraping all their ads, their funnels, everything  and shows you everything that’s happening in their companies, so you can reverse engineer it for what you’re doing. Andrew: So if I admire what John is doing for you guys, I could put you in the software, you’ll show me what you guys are doing, and then I’ll be able to scrape it and do it myself. You’re nodding. And you’re okay with that? John: It’s awesome. I’m excited. Russell: Excited. Andrew: Have you been doing that? Is that part of what’s worked for you guys at Clickfunnels? John: Yeah, we like to, we call it funnel hacking. We like to look and see what other people are doing. Andrew: So you’re actively looking to see what other, man as an interviewer that would be so good for me to understand what people are doing to get traffic to their sites. Alright, so… Russell: We buy everyone’s product, everyone’s. I bought Drew’s like 6 times. Yeah, you’re welcome. Just because the process is fascinating to see. Andrew: And then the book. What’s the name of the book? Russell: Traffic Secrets. Andrew: Why is everything a secret? What is that? Russell: I don’t know. Andrew: No, I feel like you do. I remember I think it was… Russell: It all converts, 100% because it out converts. Andrew: Because the word, “secret” out converts? In everything? Russell: Everything. I used to onstage be like, “The top three myths, the top three strategies, the top three lies, the top three everything” and like “secrets” always out converted everything else, and then it just kind of stuck. Andrew: And then that’s the name of this book. I’m looking here to see…yeah, Melanie, she told me when you organized this event you said, “Secret project”. That’s it. Russell: If I just tell people what’s happening then they like, “Oh cool.” I need to have to build up the anticipation. Andrew: Even within your team? Russell: Especially within the team. Yes. Andrew: Especially. So secret is one big thing. What else do you do? Russell: Secrets, hacks… Andrew: No, within the team. So now you get them interested by saying it’s a secret. Russell: So I’ll tell them a story, I’ll tell them the beginning of a story. I’ll be like, “Oh my gosh you guys, I was listening, I was cleaning the wrestling room and I was going through this thing, and I was listening to Andrew and he was doing this campfire chat and it was amazing. And he’s telling this whole story, and I have this idea, it’s going to be amazing. But I’ll tell you guys about it tomorrow.” So what happens now, is they’ve got a whole night to like marinate on this and be like, “What in the world?” and get all excited. And then when they show up, they’re anticipating me telling them, and then when I tell them, then I get the response I want. If I tell them they’re like, “Oh cool.” I’m like, no, you missed it. I need that, in fact, I’ll share ideas all the time, I’ll pitch it out there just to see. I know it’s a good idea because Brent will be like, “I got chills.” Dave will start freaking out, and that’s when I know, “Okay, that was a good idea.” If they’re like, “Oh that’s cool.” I’m like, crap. Not doing that one. It’s the same thing. Andrew: I’ve heard one of the reasons that you guys hang out together is one, he’s an extrovert and you’re an introvert, but the other one is Dave will one up you. Russell: It starts the process. This is the bubble soccer event we did. Initially it was like we’re going to have influences, or we were launching the viral video and like we need, let’s bring some people into it. And then we were asking how someone could bring big influencers, like “you have to do something crazy. Like get a Ferrari and let them drive over it in a monster truck.” I was like, “That seems extreme.” I was like, “What if we played football on the Boise State Stadium?” And Dave’s like, “What if we did bubble soccer? What if we tried to set a Guinness book of world records…” and then next thing we know, we’re all Guinness book of world record champion bubble soccer players. It was amazing. Andrew: And that’s the thing that I’ve heard about your office environment. That it’s this kind of atmosphere where, see for me, look at me, I’ve got that New York tension. When I talk to my people and I talk to everyone it’s like, “You’ve gotta do something already.” And you guys like fun, there’s a ball pit or whatever in the office. Am I right? You go “we need a, we’re gonna create a new office. Let’s have a bowling alley in it and a place to shoot.” That’s the truth. Russell: It is the truth. It’s going to be amazing. Andrew: Does he also tell you, “We need to do something this weekend. Date night, it’s a secret.”? Russell: Maybe I need to do more than that, huh. Andrew: Yes, does he use persuasion techniques on you? Russell: It doesn’t work on her. Andrew: No. Russell: She’s the only person I can’t persuade. It’s amazing. My powers are useless against my wife. It’s unfortunate. Andrew: Do you actually use them, or when it comes to the house you go, “come on, I’m tired already, just…”? Russell: I tried to do something today and she was like, “That was the worst sales pitch ever.” I’m like, “Dang it. Alright, I’ll try again.” Andrew: Hey Siri, text my wife “I’ve got plans for tomorrow night. So good, Russell just told me about it. I’ll tell you later. Secret.” Period, send. Russell: That’s amazing. Andrew: Wowee. Does anybody know how I can get a babysitter here. {Audience speaking indistinctly} Andrew: They’re a little too eager to spend time with my kids. Thank you. Alright, I said I would take a few more questions. I know we’re almost out of time here. Who was it, it was someone on the right here that was especially, you looked, uh yeah you, who just pointed behind you. Audience Member: Hi, okay, Russell I’ve been in your world since about 2016.. Andrew: Hang on a second, who the, I’m sorry to curse, but who the f**k comes to a software event and goes, “I’ve been in your world.”? This is amazing about you. I’m in San Francisco, there’s nobody that goes, “I’m so glad I’ve been in the hubspot world.” It doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry, I had to interrupt. Okay. I’ve been in your world. He’s selling you software, you’re in his world. Sorry. Audience member: You have to listen to his podcast, it’s a.. Andrew: I’ve listened to his podcast. It’s just him talking. Audience Member: He talks about it, it’s a universe. He creates a universe. Andrew: You know what, here’s the thing that blew my mind. I thought it was him in a professional studio, I saw him in San Francisco, he’s talking into the voice recorder on his phone. Okay, yeah. I gotta feeling that Russell’s going to go, at some point, “Religion is just an info product. I think I could do a better job here.” Alright, yeah. Audience Member: okay, I entered the Clickfunnels universe in 2016 and since that time, I came in with a lot of hopes and a lot of, it was just a really exciting experience to have you break down the marketing, you really simplified it right. So I see that, I’m an ambassador for the one comma club challenge right now, and people are coming in with such high hopes and such tremendous faith and trust in you. And I have a friends that I brought into it and everything and they’re coming in, just like, they’re really staking a lot on how they’ve persuaded to join your universe. Sorry, universe is the wrong word. But from that, I guess the question is, there’s a few things. I think a lot of people are afraid of that type of responsibility in the products that they’re delivering, and of course there is a tremendous failure rate of people who don’t get what they’re persuaded in. So there’s a lot of magnification on the two comma club, and the people there that are the successes, but the question that I have is, the responsibility that you feel for that, I feel that you feel the responsibility because you’re constantly looking for new ways to simplify, bring in new coaches, bring in the new team, make products and offers that are completely irresistible. Truthfully, I went to Funnel Hacking Live, I’m not spending any money, 20 thousand dollars later. I mean it was truthfully so irresistible, but you’ve crafted such unique things in an effort to truly serve that client and really get them to the place that they’re looking to go. So I’m not sure if the question is coming out, but there’s a lot of responsibility that all these bright eyed, bushy tailed you know, wannabe marketers are coming in really truthfully feeling the genuine just truth that you’re telling them, but then there’s a big crash and burn rate too, which is normal in that space. I’m not sure what the question is. Andrew: Congratulations  to the people in the two comma club, what about the people in the no comma club. What do you feel is a sense of obligation to the people who aren’t yet there? What do you feel about that? Russell: Is that the question? Andrew: Is that right? Audience member: I guess the question is, there’s two parts, one is the responsibility that other people are feeling, the fear that they’re feeling to put something out there because they’re afraid of a failure rate. So just like, Whitney over there was talking about, she’s got those fears. So there’s normal fears that come along with that, so how you deal with that, in that it’s not because of lack of delivery on your end, but there’s still people who are spending tremendous amounts of money, or small amounts of money that just aren’t getting what it is. So it’s really about your internal feelings about that topic. Russell: It’s a good question. There’s a lot of different ways I could answer it. I’m trying to think, for me it’s a big reason I do have a con stripe, because I do feel like I have a huge obligation to people who sign up for our stuff. So I’m always thinking, how do we simplify this, how do we simplify it? What’s the best way to do it? What’s the thing? But that’s also what creates innovation right. It creates the ideas, it’s that, how do we serve these people better? How do we serve them better? Probably the best analogy, in fact, Brandon over here was working on a video that he sent me last night, that I had a chance to watch, it was really cool. We had Sean Stephenson speak at the second Funnel Hacking Live. Was anyone there for that one? A couple of you guys. Sean Stephenson, if you know him, is the 3 foot giant. He’s this little dude in a wheel chair, one of the coolest humans on earth. And he told this story, it was funny because man, I had another emotional connection watching it last night actually, watching it. And he talked about stories like, “How many of you guys here are upset because you got 17 followers on Facebook and you’ve got 13 likes on your YouTube video, and you’re pissed because of all this stuff.” And I think of a lot things that way. “I’m trying this thing, I’m not a millionaire yet, I’m not making any money, blah, blah, blah.” And they’re upset about that right. And what Sean said, he’s like, “Do you know how they choose who they’re going to save when a helicopter is flying into an ocean and there’s a boat that’s wrecked with all these people. Guess how they choose who they’re going to save?” and he said, “What happens is the helicopter drivers, they fly over there and go down to the people, going to save them, and guess who they save, they save the people who are swimming towards you.” He says, “That’s how you do it. If you try to save everyone, it will drown you, it’ll drown the boat, and everybody dies. But you save the people who are swimming toward you.” And then he came back and said, “Those 17 likes on your video, those are the 17 people who are swimming towards you. You have to understand that.” So for me it’s like, we talk about the money because that gets people inspired, but when it all comes down, the really internal belief, no one really cares about the money. They want the feeling of the connection and the help and they want to change the world. They have their thing, and so it’s like, we talk about the money because it gets people excited, but I don’t know anybody who that’s the real reason why they’re in business. They’re in because they want, they want to help those people that are coming towards them. So you notice when you get deeper into the culture, it’s not just money, money, money, money. It’s how do you serve, how do you impact, how do you change the world, how can you get your message clearer, how can you do those things? And when you shift from the money to that, then the money starts magically coming. So for me, it’s just like how do we get more people thinking that way more often. I don’t know if that’s the right answer or if that helps at all, but it is definitely something I feel a big obligation for but I also feel like I’m super grateful for the people who are willing, I’m grateful to Don Lepre, spent all that money doing the infomercial on that thing. And I didn’t implement it back then, when I was 14, right. I’m grateful to the next guy who re-inspired me and I bought the thing and didn’t do anything and then next person and all those things, because eventually it stuck. So for me, it’s like I’m going to keep creating offers and keep doing cool things, and trying to inspire people because it might not be the first or the second or the fifth, but eventually if I keep being consistent on my side, it’s going to keep getting it and eventually the right people, those who actually have something they want to share, something they actually care about what they’re doing will figure out the way. And we’re just going to keep trailblazing and trying to do our best to make a path that they can all follow. So that’s kind of how I look at it. Andrew: Great question. Let’s close it out with one more. Yes. Dave did you find someone, because I just found someone right here. Why don’t we do two more then? Since you found one and I found one. What’s your name? Sorry, Parker? Parker. Go next. There we go, let’s go to Parker next and we’ll close it out with him. Parker: Alright, so the biggest question I have for you Russell is, I’ve seen you guys’ amazing group you guys have at Clickfunnels, and every time I go in your guys’ office it’s nothing but excitement, energy, and not only you don’t have to inspire your workers to work for you. They come there excited and hearing your amazing stories that John and Brent had of, they stayed with you for all this time and you pushed them and they pushed you and there’s this amazing cycle. I’m curious as far as, because I want to have an amazing group like that one too so I can affect the world the same way that you have, and even do better than you did. And that’s a completely admiration thing, that’s I don’t know. Dave: Cut from the same cloth here. Russell: That’s his dad. Dave’s son. Andrew: Oh got it. That makes sense. Parker: The question I have for you is, how do you find those people? Is it nothing but like a whittling out process or do you see these characteristics already in the people that you have? Andrew: One sec, how old are you? Parker: I’m 20 years old. Andrew: 20 years old and you admire your dad and the guy that he works with so much that you want to not just be like him, but be more like him? Can you take of my kid tonight? Sorry, that’s amazing. Does your dad come home with this energy like this energy like, “We’re going to capture the world. This is what we’re going to do.” Parker: it is the funniest thing. Oh my gosh. Every way you see him online, social media, whatever the heck it is, it’s exactly the same way he is at home. When you see him on the tv talking about like, “Oh this is…” or when you interviewed him. Andrew: I’ve watched his podcast, I see that thing. {Crosstalk} Parker: you know as much as I do then. Andrew: What did he motivate you to, like to sell as a kid, or to upsell as a kid. Parker: So he would like talk to us like he was a sales person basically, in the aspect of he talks about things as far as, this person did a terrible job at selling. They could have done this, this, this and this.” And we’re like 10 years old, I think at the time, I think. I don’t know. It’s more of a recent change since he joined clickfunnels and he’s got this amazing excitement and energy. It’s an amazing thing and I wish to have to people like my dad when I become a, when I start to do my own thing. Andrew: It is contagious isn’t it? Parker: yeah, it totally is. Andrew: And I’ve been watching, what’s this new Vlog that you’ve got. It’s on Russell, it’s on Russell Brunson’s YouTube channel right? I’m at the end of it going, “Hell yeah, why am I taking a shower now. I gotta go, I got stuff to do.” Right. These guys are out there taking over San Francisco, that’s my city. So I guess you’re feeling the same way at home. Now, he’s there twice, he suddenly owns a place. So your question was…? Parker: My question was basically, how do you find these amazing people to work, not only for you, but with you and to help you accomplish your dream? Is it whittling out process or it you have innate ability to find people? Russell: So as you were saying that I started thinking, I’m thinking about the partners on our team, who none of them came through like a help wanted site. None of them came through like, Brent went to church with me and he showed up every single week, every single month, he was my home teacher and showed up every single month consistently and we became friends and we did stuff together. John married my cousin. We were on the boat in the middle of the lake and he pitched me on a network marketer opportunity and I was like, I love this guy. And then I pitched him back and we just, and it was amazing. And then Dave, we were at an event like this and we had a signup sheet if you wanted to take the speakers out to dinner and Dave ran back and signed up every single line under mine. So I went to every single meal with him for 3 days. I think it’s just, I think a big part of it, I think most entrepreneurs can’t build a team because they’re waiting to build the team. And I think for me, I didn’t know what I was doing so I just started running, and what happens when you’re moving forward and motion is happening, people get attracted to that. And some people will come for bad reasons and they’ll leave, and I’ve been taken advantage of multiple times, things like that will happen, but the right people will stick around. But it’s all about, it’s the motion right. That’s what people are attracted to. If something’s happening. I don’t know what’s happening, but I want to be on that train and they start coming. So I think it’s taking the initiative of “Okay, I’m going to start running and I have no idea if anyone’s going to follow me ever. But If I do this and I keep doing it consistently then people will.” And you know, it’s been a consistency thing. I’m 15 years into this business now, 8000 funnels deep. But it’s a consistency, and when you do that and you’re consistent, then the right people will just start coming into your life. But not waiting for them initially. If I would have waited to build my team initially, we wouldn’t have a team. Everyone we met was like in the, as we were having motion, the right people started showing up. Andrew: Alright. Thanks. Speaking of, thank you. How many people here are actually at Clickfunnels, if you work at Clickfunnels. Can you guys stand up if you work at Clickfunnels. There you go. I feel like at the end of this everyone’s going to want to go and meet Russell. Everyone’s going to want to go and mob him. And he’s not that social, number one. Number two, I feel like you’re going to pass up these fan-freaking-tastic conversations, I’ve gotten to know the people who work here a lot really well in preparation for this, I really urge you to see the guys, the people who are wearing these t-shirts. Get to know them. Push them into a corner, understand what’s working for them. And really, you’re fantastic people, thanks so much for helping me do this. And thank you for having me on here. I really appreciate you being open, being willing to let me take this anywhere. You said, “I understand what Andrew is trying to do. He’s trying to figure this out. I’m going to let him run with it and let him make the magic happen.” And I think we made a lot of magic happen. Thanks so much for having me here. Russell: Yeah man, it was amazing. Andrew: Thank you all for coming, I’m looking forward to meeting every one of you. Thanks.

On today’s episode you will hear part 3 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: Hear how selling Clickfunnels at a Mike Filsaime event got Russell his first ever big table rush at the end of his presentation. Hear from both Dave and John about how they feel about Russell and what they do for the company. And find out how going to Dream Force this year, renewed Russell’s passion for growing his business. So listen here to find out more about the Clickfunnels start up story. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed episodes 1 and 2 of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club where he was telling the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you are enjoying this interview series so far, and I hope also this motivates you guys to go over to the mixergy podcast and subscribe to everything that Andrew does. Like I said, he is my favorite interviewer and I think that what he does is second to none. So I hope that you guys enjoy him as well, and go subscribe to the mixergy podcast. But with that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song, and when we come back we will start into part 3 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview. Andrew: I actually got, I did see, I don’t know, I didn’t see the video you mentioned, but I did see what it looked like. Here’s one of the first versions. He compared it to Clickfunnels, he said, I mean to Lead Pages. He said, “Look at how Lead Pages has their stuff all the way on the left, all the controls.” Oh you can’t see it. Oh, let me try it again, let me see if I can bring up the screen because this is just, it’s just too good. Hang on a second. I’m just constantly amazed how you’re able to draw people to you. So this is the article from Lead Pages, this is the first landing page from Clickfunnels, this is what he created before, this is what you guys did together. This is your editor and h e said, “Look, if you’re on Lead Pages, their controls, their editor is all the way on the left and it’s just moving the main content to the right, which is not looking right. And I prefer something that looks like this, with a hundred pixels on the left, a hundred pixels…” I go, who knows a hundred pixels, it’s like you, what is this? Russell: Dylan is obsessed with that type of stuff, it’s amazing. Andrew: Obsessed. And you draw people like that. You draw people like Dave, who is just phenomenal. Dave, the traffic and conversion event that he was just talking about, is that the one that you went to? Dave: The one after that. Andrew: The one after that. Okay, we’ll come back to that in a second then. So this became your next version, you brought on a new partner, and then you did a webinar with this guy. Who is this guy? Russell: It’s Mike Filsaime, one of my first friends online. It actually wasn’t a webinar, it was a live event. He was doing a live event in San Diego and he was like, “You have to come and sell Clickfunnels.” And I was like, “Nobody’s buying Clickfunnels.” We had a free trial and like, we couldn’t give it away. It was crazy. And he’s like, “Well, you’re on this website, you’re picture is there, you have to come and sell Clickfunnels, and I need you to sell it for at least $1000.” Because the way it works, if you speak at someone’s event, you sell something, you split the money 50/50. So he’s like, “It needs to be at least $1000.” And I was all bummed out. I didn’t want to do it. And the event actually started, but they were streaming it live online, so I was actually sitting at our office in Boise, watching it as I’m putting together my slides to create Clickfunnels, and then flew out to the event. And then we had a booth, and I don’t know if I told you this, we had a booth and Lead Pages had a booth right across the little hallway, skinny hallway. And Todd’s wife was manning our booth and then Lead Pages was right there, and it was so funny because she was not shy at all about talking about Lead Pages. She’s like, “Yeah, we’re like Lead Pages except for way better. We can do this and this.” And the other guy is sitting there like, right in front of her as she’s telling them everything. And it was..anyway, I digress. It was pretty funny. Andrew: By the way, she’s still at it. I saw a video that you guys created, you were talking to her and she goes, “I will be Clickfunnels.” I go wait a minute, you still had that fire, okay. So you were at that event. Russell: So we’re at the event and there’s probably, I can’t remember, 150-200 people maybe in the room. So I got the slides up and Dylan was there and he was like, when we got to the funnels he was going to demo the editor, so I did the whole thing, showed the presentation and we demo’d Clickfunnels and at the end of the thing I sold. And I’ve been good onstage, but by far, that was the first time in probably 8 years that I’d seen a table rush, where people are stepping over the things, jumping around, trying to get to the back to buy as fast as they could. Andrew: What did you say to get them to want to do that? Russell: We made a really, I mean we gave the presentation, and gave a really good offer at the end. They get a year of Clickfunnels for free, plus they get training, plus they were going to get all these other things for $1000. Andrew: It was $1000 training and a year of Clickfunnels for free, and then they become long term members. And it was also called, Funnel Hackers? Russell: Funnel Hacks, yeah. Andrew: Funnel Hacks. And that’s the thing that became like… Russell: The culture. Andrew: This culture, this tribe. It wasn’t just they were signing to learn from you, they were becoming funnel hackers. That’s it. Russell: I mean, that wasn’t planned though. It was like, I was trying to think about a sexy name for the presentation, so I’m like ah, Funnel Hacks. And somebody owned FunnelHacks.com, and I’m like, I’m still doing the presentation that way. And then later we made t-shirts that said, “Funnel Hackers” and then now we got 4 or 5 people have tattooed that to their bodies, it’s really weird. But anyway, that’s what happened. We did that and we sold it and I remember going to dinner that night with the guys who were there, and Todd and his wife and everything. And we were all excited because we made some money finally. But I was just like, “You guys don’t understand, like I’ve spoken on a lot of stages, and I haven’t seen a table rush like that.” And I remember back, there was a guy, he passed away a couple of years ago, his name was Fred Catona. And he was a radio guy. He was the guy who did the radio commercials for, do you guys remember, it’s got the guy from Star Trek, what’s his name? Audience member: Priceline. Russell: Priceline. He did the Priceline radio commercials and made that guy a billionaire. And he told me when we were doing the radio ads, “This is what’s going to happen. We’re going to test your ad and if it works, I’m going to call you on the phone and let you know you’re rich. Because if it works, it means you’re going to be rich.” So I remember going to dinner that night and I told the guys, “Just so you guys know, we’re rich.” And they’re like, “What do you mean? We made $150,000.” I’m like, “No, no, no. The way people responded to that, I’ve never seen that in my life. We’re rich.” The response rate from that, I’ve never seen. Andrew: And then you went to webinar after webinar after webinar. Russell: On the flight home that day I’m texting everybody I’ve ever met. “I got a hot offer, this webinar crushed it. We just closed whatever percent of the room at Filsaime’s event. Who wants to do it?” And we started filling up the calendar. Andrew: And the idea was, and you told me you did 2 to 3 some days. And the idea was, they would sell somebody on a course, and then their members would then hear how your software and your funnel hacking technique would help up what they just bought and then they would sign up. You’re still excited, I can see it in your face. And then this thing took off. And then you started doing an event for your culture, your community, and this guy spoke, Tony Robbins. Russell: Oh yeah, there’s Tony. Andrew: One of the first ones. Was he at the very first one? Russell: No, he came to the third one, was the first one we had him come to. Andrew: Yeah? Why do an event? Why do your own live event? Russell: So we’ve done events in the past. I know events are good, but I’d sworn off them because the last event we did, I think we sold 3 or 400 tickets and less than 100 people showed up and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “We’ll never do events again.” And as soon as this, as soon as Clickfunnels launched and it was growing, everyone’s like, “We want to do a meet up. We should do an event.” All the customers kept asking. And against my, I didn’t really want to do it, but at the same time I was launching my book, and I had won a Ferrari in this affiliate contest so I was like, “What if we did an event and we had the Ferrari there and we gave it away and then we’re…” we had other ideas for giving away other cars and it became this big, exciting thing that eventually turned into an event. And that was the first Funnel Hacking Live event in Vegas, and we had about 600 people at that one that showed up. And that’s where it all kind of, it all started. Andrew: And it built how much, how many people are you up to now? Russell: Last year we had 3500 people and we’re on track to have about 5000 at this year’s event. Andrew: 5000? Yeah. Russell: Those aren’t free tickets. Each ticket’s $1000, so it’s…. Andrew: So how much is that in total revenue? Russell: From the event? Andrew: Yeah. Russell: So ticket sales, last year was $3 ½ million, this year will be over $5. But at the event we sell coaching so last year we made $13 million in coaching sales at the event as well. Andrew: Wow, would you come up here for a second, Dave? Do you guys know Dave? Yeah, everyone knows Dave. You know what’s amazing… {Audience catcalls} Andrew: That’s amazing. Dave: I don’t know who that is. Andrew: A catcall. I saw a video, you guys have this vlog now, a beautifully show vlog. You guys went to sales force’s conference, you’re looking at the booths and in the video, do you remember what you did as you saw the different booths? Dave: I think that one I went and asked what the prices for each of the booths were. Andrew: Yes, and then you multiplied. And he’s like, you’re not enjoying the event, you’re calculating ahead, how much. “10,000 that’s 100,000….” It’s like wow, right. You do this all the time? Dave: Yeah. It’s a lot of money in an event like that. Andrew: And you think, and if this was not your event, you would be doing the same calculation trying to figure out how much they brought in today. Wowee. Alright when you went to sales force did you calculate how much money they probably did from their event? Dave: We were doing that the whole time, absolutely. Andrew: You saw the building, you had to know… Dave: Oh my gosh. 61 stories. Andrew: Why? Why do you guys want to know that? Why does, how does that… I want to understand your drive as a company and I feel like this is a part of it. Figuring out how much money other people are making, using that for fuel somehow. Tell me. Dave: I think it actually goes back to Russell and his wrestling days. We had the experience of going to Chicago right after that, and super just exhausted. And it was one of those things where he literally landed, we walked down and we’re underneath the tarmac and all the sudden Russell goes from just being totally exhausted to a massive state change. Where he’s literally right back where he was with his dad and he and his dad are walking that same path to go to, I think it was Nationals. And I saw Dan Usher, who was doing the filming, capturing that moment and it’s that type of a thing for Russell. Where all the sudden it’s the dream, where as soon as you see it, it can then happen. And Russell’s just been amazing at modeling, and again the whole idea as far as just going at a rapid, rapid speed. I mean it’s “Ready, fire, aim.” Andrew: It’s not you gawking at the sales force, what’s the sales force event called? Dave: Dream Force. Andrew: Dream force. It’s not you gawking at how well Sales Force’s event, Dream Force is doing, it’s not you having envy or just curiosity, it’s you saying, it’s possible. This is us. That’s it. Dave: It’s totally possible. Andrew: It’s totally possible. We could get there. And when you’re sizing up the building, you even found out how much the building cost. Who does that? Most people go, “Where’s the bathroom?” How much does the building cost? Dave: There’s a number. Andrew: It’s you saying, “We could maybe have that.” Dave: We can have that, yeah. Andrew: Got it. And so let’s go back a little bit. I asked you about Traffic and Conversion because the very first Traffic and Conversion conference you went to, you guys were nobodies. Nobody came and saw you. Dave: We were put out in North 40 pasture, way, way far away. Andrew: And some people would say, “One day I’ll get there.” you told Russell, “Today we’re going to get there.” Dave: Well Russell wanted, he was speaking and so whenever you’re speaking at an event, it’s important that you fill a room, like this. And there’s nothing worse than having an event and having no one show up. It’s just the worst feeling in the world. And so he’s like, “All we need, I gotta find some way of getting people into the event. I wish we had like some girls who could just hand out t-shirts or do something.” And I was like, we’re in San Diego, that’s like my home town. Russell: Dave’s like, “How many do you need?” That’s all he said. Dave: It’s just a number. It comes down to a number. How many do you want? So we ended up having, within an hour or so we had 5 girls there who were more than happy to dance around and give out t-shirts and fill the room. Andrew: and the room was full? Dave: Packed. Andrew: Packed. And why wouldn’t you say, “One day, the next time we come to Traffic and Conversion, the tenth time we’re going to do it.” Why did it have to be right there? Dave: It’s always now.   Andrew: It’s always now. Dave: It’s always now. Andrew: It’s always now. It’s never going to be the next funnel, it’s never going to be the next product launch. I’m going to do whatever we can right now, and the next one, and the next one. That’s it. That’s who you are. Dave: That’s how it works. Andrew: And now you’re a partner in the business. $83 million so far this year, you got a piece of that. Dave: Yes. Do i? Russell: Yeah. Dave: Just checking. Andrew: Do you get to take profits home now? Dave: We do. Andrew: You do, you personally do? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Are you a millionaire? Dave: Things are really good. Andrew: Millionaire good from Clickfunnels? Dave: yes. Andrew: Really? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Wow. And you’re another one. I was driving and I said, “What was it about Russell that made you work for him? What was it?” and you said, “I’ve never seen anyone implement like him.” Give me an example of early days, something that he implemented…you know what, forget that, let’s not go back to Russell. As a team, you guys have gotten really good at implementing. Give me an example of one thing that you’re just stunned by, we did it, it came out of nowhere, we could have been distracted by funnel software, we could have distracted by the next book, we did this thing, what is it? Dave: You’re here on this stage with JP, and this was what 6 weeks ago? Andrew: and this whole thing just came from an idea I heard. You use Voxer. Why do you use Voxer? Russell: I don’t know. Andrew: Because you like to talk into it. Russell: Yeah, and you can fast forward, you can listen at 4x speed, you can forward the messages to people really easily, it’s awesome. Andrew: and it’s just train of thought, boom, here’s what I think we’re going to…No, it’s not that. I heard it’s, “I have a secret project…” Russell: “I’ll tell you guys about it later.” And they all start freaking out. “Tell us now.” Andrew: “Secret project. I don’t know what it, it’s going to be exciting.” They don’t know what it is, going to be excited. Russell: Do you know how it started, this one? I was cleaning my wrestling room listening to you, and you were, I don’t know whose event it was, but you were at the campfire, it sounded like. And you were doing something like this and I was like, I want my own campfire chat to tell our story. And then I was like, “Dave, we should do it.” And now we’re here. So thanks for coming to our campfire…. Dave: That’s how it happens. Andrew: And that’s exciting to this day. Alright, thank you. Give him a big round, thank you so much. You know what, I didn’t mean for this to come onstage, but I’m glad that it is. This made you laugh when you accidentally saw it earlier too. Why is this making you laugh? What is it? Russell: So we’re not shy about our competitors, even when they’re our friends. So one of the companies we’re crossing out is his. That’s why it’s funny. Andrew: It’s one of my companies. That’s Bot Academy there. It’s also a company I invest in, that octopus is ManyChat, I’ve been a very big angel investor and supporter of theirs. I’m not at all insulted by that, I’m curious about it. You guys come across as such nice, happy-go-lucky guys. Dave asked me if I want water, I said “Dave I can’t have you give me any more things. I feel uncomfortable, I’m a New Yorker. Punch me, please.” So he goes, “Okay, one more thing. I’m going to give you socks.” So he gave me socks. Really, but still, you have murder in your eyes sometimes. You’re crossing out everybody. This is part of your culture, why? Russell: It comes back, for me its wrestling. When I was wrestling it was not, I don’t know, there’s different mentalities right. And I did a podcast on this one time and I think I offended some people, so I apologize in advance, but if you’re in a band and everyone gets together and you play together and you harmonize, it’s beautiful. When you’re a wrestler you don’t do that. You know, you walk in everyday and you’re like, those are the two guys I have to beat to be varsity. And then after you do that, you walk in and you’re like, “Okay who are the people I have to beat to be in the region champ, and then the state champ, and then the national champ?” So for me, my entire 15 years of my life, all my focus was like, who’s the next person on the rung that I have to beat? And it’s studying and learning about them and figuring their moves and figuring out what they’re good at, what they’re bad at so we can beat them. Then we beat them and go to the next thing, and next thing, and next thing. So it was never negative for me, it was competition. Half the guys were my friends and they were doing the same thing to me, we were doing the same thing to them. I come from a hyper competitive world where that’s everything we do. And I feel bad now, because in business, a lot of people we compete against aren’t competitive and I forget that sometimes, and some people don’t appreciate it. But that’s the drive. It’s just like, who do we, if I don’t have someone to, if there’s not someone we’re driving towards, there’s not a point for me. Andrew: And even if they’re, even if I was hurt, “I accept it, I’m sorry you’re hurt, Andrew. I still care and love you. We’re going to crush you.” That’s still there. Russell: And I had someone, so obviously InfusionSoft was one of our people we were targeting for a long, long time and I had a call with Clayton and someone on his team asked me, “Why do you hate Infusion Soft so much?” I was like, “I don’t, you don’t understand. I don’t hate, I love Infusion Soft. I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for Lead Pages, I’m grateful for….” I told them, have you guys seen the Dark Knight, my favorite movie of all time? And it’s the part where Batman and the Joker are there and Batman is like, asks the Joker, “Why are you trying to kill me?” And the Joker starts laughing and he’s like, “I’m not trying to kill you. The reason I do this is because of you. If I didn’t have you, there’s no purpose behind it.” So for me it’s like, if I don’t have someone to compete against, why are we playing the game? So for me, that’s why we’re always looking… Andrew: It’s not enough to say, it’s not enough to just say “we’re playing the game because we want to help the next entrepreneur, or the next person who’s sick and needs to create…” no, it’s not. Russell: That’s a big part of it, but like, there’s something… Andrew: Yeah, but it’s not enough, it’s gotta be both. Russell: My whole life there’s, the competition is what drives me for sure. Andrew: And just like you’re wrestling with someone, trying to beat them, but you don’t hate them. You’re not going to their house and break it down… Russell: Everyone we wrestled, we were friends afterwards. We were on the same Freestyle and Greco teams later in the season, but during, when we’re competing, we’re competing and everyone’s going all at it. Andrew: Everyone’s going all at it. That’s an interesting way to end it. How much more time do we have? How much more time do we have? I’m going to keep going. Can I get you to come up here John, because I gotta get you to explain something to me? So I told you, I was online the other day, yeah give him a big round. I was online the other day, I don’t even know what I clicked, I clicked something and then I saw that Russell’s a great webinar person, everyone keeps telling me. Well, alright, I gotta find out how he does it. So I click over, “Alright, just give your email address and you can find out how..” Alright, I’ll give my email address to find out how he became such a great webinar presenter. “Just give a credit card. It’s only $4.95, so it comes in the mail.” It comes in the mail, that’s pretty cool. Nothing comes in the mail anymore. Here’s my credit card. It goes, “Alright, it’s going to mail it out. Would you also like to learn how to use these slides? $400.” I go, no! I’m done. Russell: Welcome to the funnel. Andrew: Welcome to the funnel. I’m done. But I’m going to put in Evernote a link to this page so I don’t lose it so I can come back. I swear. I did it. And this is my receipt for $4.95. Don’t you ever feel like, we’re beyond this? We’re in the software space now, we’re competing with Dropbox, we’re not competing with Joe Schmoe and his ebook. And you’re the guy who sold the, who bought the ad that got me. John: I know. Andrew: I asked you that. Do you ever feel a little embarrassed, “We’re still in the info market space.”? John: No, I think it’s the essence of what we do, of what Russell does. We love education. We love teaching people. I mean, the software is like the backend, but we’re not software people. I mean, we sell software, but we teach people. All these people here and all the people at all of our events, they just want to learn how to do it better. Andrew: I don’t believe it. John: Okay. Andrew: I believe in him. I don’t believe in you. I believe that for you it’s the numbers. Here’s why I don’t believe it. I’m looking in your eyes and you’re like, “I’m giving the script. I’m good, I’m doing the script.” I see it in your eyes, but when I was talking to you earlier, no offense. This is why he does what he does. When I was talking to you earlier, you told me about the numbers, the conversion, how we get you in the sales funnel, how we actually can then modify…That’s the exciting part. Don’t be insulted by the fact that I said it. Know that we have marketers here, they’re going to love you for being open about it. What’s going on here? What’s going on, keeping you in this space? John: Okay, from my perspective. Okay so, initially it was self liquidation on the front, which is what I was telling you. It was the fact that we were bootstrapped, we didn’t have money to just like throw out there. We had to make sure we were earning enough money to cover our ads. And Russell had all the trust in the world in me, I don’t know why he did, but he did. And he’s just like, “Spend money, and try to make it self-liquidate.” I’m like, “Okay.” So we just had to spend money and hope that we got enough back to keep spending money. Andrew: And self-liquidate means buy an ad today and make sure that we make money from that ad right away and then software. John: Yeah. Andrew: And then you told, and then software’s going to pay overtime, that’s our legacy, that’s our thing. And you told me software sucks for selling. Why? John: Software sucks, yeah. Andrew: Why? Everyone who’s in info, everyone’s who in education says, “I wish I was a software guy. Software is eating the world, they’re getting all the risk back.” I walked through San Francisco; they think anyone who doesn’t have software in their veins is a sucker. John: I asked the same thing to myself, you know. I was running ads, I’m like why can’t I just run ads straight to the offer? Why do I have go to these info products? I want to get on the soft…. And then I was like, I feel like it’s kind of like marriage. Like it’s a big thing to say like, “You probably already built websites, but come over, drop everything you’re doing and come over here and build websites over here on our thing.” And it’s like, that’s a hard pull. But “Hey, you want to build webinars? Here’s a little thing for $5 to build webinars.” Now you’re in our world, now we can talk to you, now you can trust us, now we can get you over there. Andrew: Got it. Okay, and if that’s what it takes to get people in your world, you’re going to accept it, you’re not going to feel too good for that, you’re just going to do it and grow it and grow it. John: Yeah. Andrew: What’s your ad budget now? See now you’re eyes are lighting up. Now I tapped into it. John: We spend about half a million a month. Andrew: half a million a month! John: Yeah. Don’t tell the accountant. Andrew: Do you guys pay with a credit card? Do you have a lot of miles? John: Yeah, we do. In fact…. Andrew: You do! How many miles? John: In fact, the accountant came into my office the other day and said, “Next time you buy a ticket, use the miles.” Andrew: Are they with Delta, because I think you guys flew me out with Delta. John: Yeah, American Express is where we’re spending all our money. Andrew: Wow. And you’re a partner too? John: Yeah. Andrew: Wow, congratulations. John: Thank you. Andrew: I don’t know you well enough to ask you if you’re a millionaire, I’m just going to say congratulations. Give him a big round. John: Thank you. Andrew: Wow, you know what, I actually was going to ask the videographers to come up here. I wrote their names down, I got the whole thing and I realized I shouldn’t interrupt them, because they’re shooting video. But I asked them, why are you, they had this career where they were flying all over the world shooting videos for their YouTube channel. I’m sorry, I forgot their name, and I don’t want to leave them out. Russell: Dan and Blake. Andrew: They were shooting YouTube videos, they were doing videos for other people. I said, “Why are you now giving it up and just working for Clickfunnels all the time? More importantly, why are you so excited about it?” And they said, “You know, it’s the way that we work with Russell.” And I said, do you remember the first time that you invited them out to shoot something? What was it? Russell: It was the very first Funnel Hacking Live we ever had, and probably 2 weeks prior to that, one of our friends had an event and Dan had captured the footage, and he showed me the videos. “Did you check out my Ven Video?” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that was amazing.” And I said “Who did it?” and he told me. So I emailed Dan and I was like, “Hey, can you come do that for Funnel Hacking Live?” And he’s like, “What’s Funnel Hacking Live?” So I kind of told him, and he’s like, “Sure.” And it was like 2 weeks later and he’s like, “What’s the direction?” and I was like, “I don’t know, just bring the magic man. Whatever you did there, do that here.” And that’s kind of been his calling card since. He just comes and does stuff. Andrew: Bring the magic. He wants to have those words painted on the Toronto office you guys are starting. Literally, because he says you say that all the time. And the idea is, I want to understand how you hire. The idea is, “I’m going to find people who do good work, and I’m going to let them do it.” What happens if they wouldn’t have done it your way? What happens if it would have gone a different direction? Russell: I see your question, and I’m not perfect. So I’m going to caveat that by, some of the guys on my team know that I’m kind of, especially on the design and funnel stuff, I’m more picky on that, because I’m so into that and I love it. But what I’ve found is when you hire amazing people like Todd for example, doing Clickfunnels. The times I tried to do Clickfunnels prior, build it was like, me and I’m telling developers, “here’s what to do and how to do it.” And like there’s always some loss in communication. With Todd, he’s like, “I know exactly what I would build because I want this product too.” And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I’m like, “That’s a good idea.” And he’s like, “I did this too.” And I’m like, “That’s a good idea.” And it’s so much easier that way. So when you find the right people, it’s not you giving them ideas, it’s them coming to you with the ideas. And you’re like, “that is a good idea. Go do it.” And it just makes, takes all the pressure off your back. So for us, and it’s been fun because I look at, man, the last 15 years of all those different websites and the ups and the downs, the best people have always stuck. So we’ve got 15 years of getting the cream of the crop. It’s kind of like, I’m a super hero nerd, but it’s like the Avengers, at the end of, when Clickfunnels came about we had this Avenger team of people. And we’re like, now we’ve put in our dues, now it’s time to use all of our super powers to do this thing, and it all kind of came together. Andrew: Build it and build it up. And then as you were building it up, you then went to Sales Force. You guys invited me, you said, “Hey Andrew, we’re in San Francisco, you’re home town. Do you want to come out?” I said, “I’m going to be with the family.” And you said, “Good. Being with the family is better than hanging out with us.” But I still said, “What are you guys doing in San Francisco at Sales Force?” Because sales people don’t need landing pages, yet you guys will probably find a way for them to need it. Then I saw this, this is the last video that I’ve got. There’s no audio on it. I want you guys to look at their faces as they’re looking up at these buildings, walking through the Sales Force office. Look, they’re getting on the motorcycles in the lobby. They’re looking all around like, “Oh gee.” Counting the buildings that are Sales Force labeled. Look at that! What are they doing? Not believing that this is even possible. And then just stopping and going, this is dream force. This is your dream. What did you get out of going to sales Force’s event and seeing their office? Russell: Honestly, prior to Sales Force, I was kind of going through a weird funk in my business, because it was like, again there was the goals. So it was like, okay, we’re going to do a million bucks, and then we did that. And then it’s like, let’s make 10 million a year. And then 50, and then this year we’ll hit a hundred. And like, what’s the next goal?  A billion, because a hundred million, 2 hundred million is not that big of a difference. And it was just kind of like, what’s the point, what’s the purpose? We’ve grown as big as any company that I know. And then last year, Dave and Ryan had gone out there and they were telling me stories like, “There’s 170,000 businesses here.” And they were telling me all these things, and it sounded cool, but I didn’t, and they were going crazy. You have to see this so you can believe it. But there’s something about the energy about seeing something that makes it real. So this year I was like, I want to go and I want to see Benioff speak. I want to see the thing, the towers, I want to just understand it, because if I understand it, cool. Now we can reverse engineer and figure out how we can do it. So for me it was just like seeing it. I think in anything, any, as entrepreneurs too, if you’re people believe that you can do it, you’ll do it. If you believe you can lose weight, you’ll lose 3eight. If you believe you can grow a company, and I don’t feel like I believed that the next level was possible for us until I saw it. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this is not ridiculous. Benioff’s not, none of these guys are any smarter than any of us. It’s just like, they figured out the path. It was like, okay let’s look at the path. And then let’s look at it and now we can figure out our path. Andrew: And seeing it in person did that for you? Russell: Oh yeah. It makes it tangible, it makes it like, it’s like your physiology feels it, versus reading a book about it or hearing about it. It’s like you see it and you experience it, and it’s like it’s tangible. Andrew: I told you, I asked people before they came in here, “What are you looking for?” and a few of them frustrated me because they said, “I just wanted to see Russell. I just want to see the event.” I go, “Give me something I could ask a question about.” But I think they were looking for the same thing that you got out of there. And I know they got it. I’m going to ask them to come up here and ask some questions, and I want to know about the future of Clickfunnels, but first I’ve got to just acknowledge that, that we are here to just kind of pick up on that energy. That energy that got you to pick yourself back up when anyone else would have said, “I’m a failure of a husband, I can’t do this.” Go back. The tension that came from failing and almost going to jail as you said, from failing and succeeding, and failing again. And still, that is inspiring to see. I want to give the whole Clickfunnels family a big round of applause, please everybody.

Professor Kokila Lakhoo joins us from Oxford to discuss issues around paediatric patients with Chylothorax. Read Full Transcript DPS Chylothorax [00:00:00] Andrew: Welcome to Discover Paediatric Surgery. My name is Andrew Grieve and I look forward to being your host today on this exciting episode. All right, so I'd just like to welcome Professor Kokila Lakhoo who's with us today from Oxford in the UK. Kokila is a clinical head of pediatric surgery in Oxford. Although Kokila works in the UK she's got very strong ties with Africa including South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi and she's got quite a passion for promoting care for children worldwide. So Kokila welcome and thank you for taking the time to join us. Kokila Lakhoo: You're most welcome. Andrew: Kokila today, we're going to chat about [00:01:00] Chylothorax or Chylothracies. Maybe you can just kick off by just defining for us what a chylothorax is? Kokila Lakhoo: Okay. So from a starting point it's a lymphatic fluid or a lymphatic effusion in the chest. And that's why chylo meaning lymphatic, thorax meaning the chest and when you really studying such a subject or when you have a patient of chylothorax the question you want to ask yourself is that is this congenital or is this aquired? Congenital chylothoracies have associated with a lot of syndromes and and if it's an acquired one, it's usually traumatic. Traumatic meaning iatrogenti injury during thoracic or cardiac surgery or during trauma and the recovery phase of the management of the two are very similar. But the [00:02:00] one has a very good and quick, better outcome, which is acquired one. Whereas the congenital ones can be quite trying due to the fact that they have other Associated abnormalities and sometimes you actually prognosticating whether this child's management should continue or not due to quality of life for these babies. Andrew: Yes. I suppose is one of the many problems. I suppose you have to tie it all together and decide what's the best way for the for the child and for the family? Kokila any sort of specific, you know, obviously the congenital ones as you say the symptoms are associated with but the aquired ones I mean, do we find any predisposing factors? I mean apart from sort of cardiac surgery in those things. Are there any patients that are more prone to that others? Kokila Lakhoo: No, I think it's mainly you know for during cardiac surgery more [00:03:00] so than when we doing our tracheoesophageal fistula repairs. And I haven't found inclination for a group of patients except that they need in cardiac surgery. Andrew: Okay. Now see some papers say that males are more predisposed and females, but you guys haven't really seen that in your experience. Kokila Lakhoo: Again, you are absolutely right, you know in the in the literature they said there's a gender preference towards male. But if you look at it generally in our figures, you know, we haven't found that difference. Andrew: Yeah, and then and in terms of the side that they develop the chylothorax, I mean it's a generally depend upon the side of the surgery or is it really depending on where the injury occurs. Kokila Lakhoo: So most of the time you have like a right-sided surgery, so we've been seeing them a lot on the right side and [00:04:00] it's surgery dependence so cardiac surgery could be you know, it's mainly median sternotomy is yeah, so it could be on the side. So, you know for cardiac surgery, there's no preferences when we look at pediatric surgical thoracic lesions many tend to be on the right side. And that's where we found. But if I have to give you an answer I would say chylothorax does not prefer a side. It has no site preferences....

Panel: Mark Ericksen Eric Berry Josh Adams Nathan Hopkins Special Guest: Andrew Dryga In this episode of Elixir Mix, the panel talks with Andrew Dryga who is a software engineer (full-stack), entrepreneur, blockchain architect, and consultant. He currently works for Hammer and previous employers include Contractbook, Nebo #15, BEST Money Transfers among others. He studied at the National Technical University of Ukraine. Check out today’s episode where the panel and guest talk about Sagas and Sage. Show Topics: 1:52 – Our guest today is Andrew Dryga. Why are you into Elixir? 2:04 – Andrew: I have worked in Elixir for a few years. I worked on one of the biggest opensource projects for a while now. 2:42 – Let’s talk about Sage! 2:49 – Andrew: I felt like I was doing the same thing over, and over again. Andrew talks about how he was on a mission to solve a problem that he was having. 3:48 – Panelist: I have run into this problem before, and I am looking forward We have distribution systems and anything that is external for us (Stripe), and one of the solutions was to create a multi. Let’s create a user, register theses different pieces, and then... Then we realized that this request was taking too long. Our transaction is timing out. The other connection went to the other server. We had database records removed from the other side. People aren’t aware that they have these distribution problems. I think Stripe is a good example of that. I started with my multi... 5:24 – Andrew: I am trying to be very programmatic. I don’t want to do that, so write now the project is multi. It’s doable if you know what you are doing. If you are dealing with just one it’s simple. But if you can monitor them (Sage Read Me)... 56:16 – Let’s talk about Sagas! 6:19 – Andrew talks about what Sagas are. 8:20 – You are right it is a new mental model. That’s why I love the Sage library because it is simple. It gives structure to that mental model. The idea that I will take step one and create a user, step two another entry, step three now an external entry. It can fail for any reason. Then these compensating functions are saying: what is the undo for this? It could be just delete this specific entry. But do I have that right? 9:53 – Andrew gives his comments on those comments. 10:26 – Andrew continues his ideas. 11:09 – When you start with a new team, you don’t bring Sage right off the back? What is your strategy to figure out that pain? 11:32 – Andrew: I don’t have a plan – how do I feel about THAT coder. After about 2 services and 1 call it’s time to use Sage or it will be too complex. Integration is the case. So if you try to integrate substitution then... 12:29 – Question to Andrew. 12:35 – Andrew: Figure it out by judgment and it varies by situation. I enjoy working with them but I’m not like them. I use my best judgment. 12:59 – You talked at Code Beam and talked about Sagas and Sage. I think that’s a good resource to defend you case. To talk about the sequence of events, something goes wrong, and then rollback the changes. What feedback have you received? 13:46 – Andrew: Yes, good feedback. There some people will say that there are problems, but I know there are companies that are actively using it. People say that it simplifies their projects. I think the presentation slides can definitely help. 14:39 – Yes, check out the show notes links. 14:45 – Are you a consultant or are you fulltime? 14:53 – Andrew: I used to be fulltime and do large projects for companies. Andrew talks about those projects in detail. Andrew: Those projects we used Elixir (see above). I do a lot of opensource, too. Last time I check it was... 16:04 – That’s a good number. 16:08 – Andrew: I am trying to participate in conversations, but if I had more times I would work more in Sage and opensource; to have a persistent nature behind Sage. I think it can be done a much better way. 16:55 – How do you envision doing that? Configuring it to a repo or something else? 17:07 – Andrew: I want to solve the problem of... 17:56 – That’s cool. 18:03 – Andrew: Yeah, everything I find a new application built in. 18:17 – Andrew and panelist go back-and-forth. 18:32 – Andrew continues talking about Sage and models. 18:43 – Proxy channel – I think I want to do a Mud. Anyway... 18:59 – Question. 19:11 – There is a WX library that is built into Erlang which was talked about at the conference. That one looked interesting. How they built the debugger and the widgets. It looked that there was more there than I thought. 19:47 – Great to have out of the box. 19:56 – Andrew comments. Andrew: I saw the talk from Canada and... 20:08 – It’s early to work with. Someone tweeted about it and now I’m rambling.    20:08 – Andrew: Someone made the keyboard while on the plane. 21:04 – I hope we are going that route eventually. 21:12 – Panel and Andrew go back-and-forth. 21:39 – What other applications have you found that Saga would work for? 21:50 – Stripe. 21:56 – Panelist: When I make an authorization request, capture the funds. Even when I am dealing with one of their services there are multi-interactions. 22:03 – Andrew comments. 23:32 – I have an app that I would prefer using Saga because of the... 23:44 – Loot Crate! Check out their deal! 24:37 – Andrew talks about the core team, Elixir and Sage. 26:03 – Panelist: To solve a problem with SAGA let’s talk about the pros and cons. I had an umbrella application and one of the applications was supposed to be the interface to that service. It could be like a payment service and other payment gateways. I am going to make my request to this app, and it’s going to track the app. The main thing continues and talks to the bank and/or Stripe. Depending on the problems but you still have THAT problem because maybe the account wasn’t set up properly. Now we’ve talked to the bank, medium intervention, and let’s run this. I like SAGE and SAGAS because I don’t’ have to go to that level to break out the proxies. I just need to talk with the sales force or something. I need a reliable system when it can recover when something goes wrong. It might be over engineered but I don’t know. 28:17 – Andrew comments about that particular example (see above). 29:03 – With Sagas you can loose them... 29:09 – I haven’t played with Rabbit, yet. The one that is built into AWS? There’s Simple Q and there is something else. Rabbit is built with Erlang. What’s that like for you? 29:40 – Andrew: It’s pretty painful. Andrew mentions MPP. 30:37 – Interesting; I haven’t gotten that far, yet. 30:45 – My first Elixir application had...behind it. That was the worst part. I feel those pains. 31:00 – Andrew: That’s the case. 31:51 – The other service I was thinking of was... 31:56 – Question for Andrew. 31:59 – Andrew answers. 32:39 – That is the problem we are having at work because of older code. How can we resend them out? That probably will be a good fit for us. 33:18 – Andrew.  34:31 – Andrew: Once you’ve found the bug... 35:16 – When you are coming to a new language, it could be React or...the first few things will be pretty awful. What has this path been like for you, Nathan? 35:40 – Nathan: Yeah I am very early days. Yesterday, I had a set of code that I was creating to try just to function and it was really ugly. But I was okay with that because I was just trying to solve the issue. 36:05 – You have to be okay with that. The idea that: You are trying to just make it work. When you come to Elixir and being fresh and thinking I don’t even know what to do. 36:32 – I have a buddy with that now saying: How do I even start with this?! 36:40 – Andrew: It takes time to break your head and a different way to rethink the code. Once I have the basic concepts then it makes me feel super efficient. 37:24 – I am curious what languages have you had experience with? 37:38 – Andrew: I started commercial projects in my teenage years. I built websites for them. I have some JavaScript knowledge and that was good going to Elixir. 39:04 – I favor that side, too. It’s not hard to build solutions with the things that are in the box (Erlang). I don’t like to bring in all of these libraries that people are creating. It’s great but, at the same time, I have been burned by Rails and JavaScript where you bring in all of these different libraries, and it becomes really nasty. I could have solved it more natively. 39:55 – Andrew: In Elixir you can... 40:28 – Oh, that’s all I needed – those 2 lines. 40:40 – Andrew. 40:46 – That’s an interesting dynamic. 41:09 – Andrew comments talks about Elixir and Hex. 41:23 – Andrew: I think it’s a good thing. I think there needs to be work in Hex because it’s underdeveloped. To name a few... 43:08 – Part of the keynote this year that it won’t be merged, or they aren’t promising to merge it. 43:29 – Andrew. 44:08 – I haven’t used 3, yet. 44:10 – Andrew. 44:55 – They are talking about the Read Me. I didn’t know there was an Ecto Mnesia? 45:20 – Andrew: Yeah I helped build it and the plan was... 45:50 – Yeah I can see the issue there, do I maintain it or...? 46:02 – Andrew comments and talks about the community and different codes. 46:36 – Andrew, anything else that you want to talk about? 46:48 – There are tons of notes in our chat, which the listeners can’t see. 46:58 – Advertisement – Fresh Books’ Advertisement! 30-Day Trial! Links: Ruby Elixir JavaScript React Erlang – Disk Log Erlang WX Railway Oriented Programming Nebo 15 GitHub – Scenic Kafka Rabbit MQ AWS AWS – Kinesis GitHub – Firenest XHTTP GitHub – Ecto GitHub – Ecto Mnesia Saga and Medium Introducing Sage Andrew Dryga’s Website Andrew Dryga’s Medium Andrew Dryga’s GitHub Andrew Dryga’s LinkedIn Andrew Dryga’s Twitter Andrew Dryga’s FB Andrew’s YouTube Channel Andrew’s Sagas of Elixir Video Sponsors: Loot Crate Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Mark Mark of the Ninja Josh A Sneak Peek at Ecto 3.0: Breaking Changes Nate Pragmatic Studio Eric Looking of Elixir Developers Metabase.com Polymail Andrew Tide of History

Panel: Mark Ericksen Eric Berry Josh Adams Nathan Hopkins Special Guest: Andrew Dryga In this episode of Elixir Mix, the panel talks with Andrew Dryga who is a software engineer (full-stack), entrepreneur, blockchain architect, and consultant. He currently works for Hammer and previous employers include Contractbook, Nebo #15, BEST Money Transfers among others. He studied at the National Technical University of Ukraine. Check out today’s episode where the panel and guest talk about Sagas and Sage. Show Topics: 1:52 – Our guest today is Andrew Dryga. Why are you into Elixir? 2:04 – Andrew: I have worked in Elixir for a few years. I worked on one of the biggest opensource projects for a while now. 2:42 – Let’s talk about Sage! 2:49 – Andrew: I felt like I was doing the same thing over, and over again. Andrew talks about how he was on a mission to solve a problem that he was having. 3:48 – Panelist: I have run into this problem before, and I am looking forward We have distribution systems and anything that is external for us (Stripe), and one of the solutions was to create a multi. Let’s create a user, register theses different pieces, and then... Then we realized that this request was taking too long. Our transaction is timing out. The other connection went to the other server. We had database records removed from the other side. People aren’t aware that they have these distribution problems. I think Stripe is a good example of that. I started with my multi... 5:24 – Andrew: I am trying to be very programmatic. I don’t want to do that, so write now the project is multi. It’s doable if you know what you are doing. If you are dealing with just one it’s simple. But if you can monitor them (Sage Read Me)... 56:16 – Let’s talk about Sagas! 6:19 – Andrew talks about what Sagas are. 8:20 – You are right it is a new mental model. That’s why I love the Sage library because it is simple. It gives structure to that mental model. The idea that I will take step one and create a user, step two another entry, step three now an external entry. It can fail for any reason. Then these compensating functions are saying: what is the undo for this? It could be just delete this specific entry. But do I have that right? 9:53 – Andrew gives his comments on those comments. 10:26 – Andrew continues his ideas. 11:09 – When you start with a new team, you don’t bring Sage right off the back? What is your strategy to figure out that pain? 11:32 – Andrew: I don’t have a plan – how do I feel about THAT coder. After about 2 services and 1 call it’s time to use Sage or it will be too complex. Integration is the case. So if you try to integrate substitution then... 12:29 – Question to Andrew. 12:35 – Andrew: Figure it out by judgment and it varies by situation. I enjoy working with them but I’m not like them. I use my best judgment. 12:59 – You talked at Code Beam and talked about Sagas and Sage. I think that’s a good resource to defend you case. To talk about the sequence of events, something goes wrong, and then rollback the changes. What feedback have you received? 13:46 – Andrew: Yes, good feedback. There some people will say that there are problems, but I know there are companies that are actively using it. People say that it simplifies their projects. I think the presentation slides can definitely help. 14:39 – Yes, check out the show notes links. 14:45 – Are you a consultant or are you fulltime? 14:53 – Andrew: I used to be fulltime and do large projects for companies. Andrew talks about those projects in detail. Andrew: Those projects we used Elixir (see above). I do a lot of opensource, too. Last time I check it was... 16:04 – That’s a good number. 16:08 – Andrew: I am trying to participate in conversations, but if I had more times I would work more in Sage and opensource; to have a persistent nature behind Sage. I think it can be done a much better way. 16:55 – How do you envision doing that? Configuring it to a repo or something else? 17:07 – Andrew: I want to solve the problem of... 17:56 – That’s cool. 18:03 – Andrew: Yeah, everything I find a new application built in. 18:17 – Andrew and panelist go back-and-forth. 18:32 – Andrew continues talking about Sage and models. 18:43 – Proxy channel – I think I want to do a Mud. Anyway... 18:59 – Question. 19:11 – There is a WX library that is built into Erlang which was talked about at the conference. That one looked interesting. How they built the debugger and the widgets. It looked that there was more there than I thought. 19:47 – Great to have out of the box. 19:56 – Andrew comments. Andrew: I saw the talk from Canada and... 20:08 – It’s early to work with. Someone tweeted about it and now I’m rambling.    20:08 – Andrew: Someone made the keyboard while on the plane. 21:04 – I hope we are going that route eventually. 21:12 – Panel and Andrew go back-and-forth. 21:39 – What other applications have you found that Saga would work for? 21:50 – Stripe. 21:56 – Panelist: When I make an authorization request, capture the funds. Even when I am dealing with one of their services there are multi-interactions. 22:03 – Andrew comments. 23:32 – I have an app that I would prefer using Saga because of the... 23:44 – Loot Crate! Check out their deal! 24:37 – Andrew talks about the core team, Elixir and Sage. 26:03 – Panelist: To solve a problem with SAGA let’s talk about the pros and cons. I had an umbrella application and one of the applications was supposed to be the interface to that service. It could be like a payment service and other payment gateways. I am going to make my request to this app, and it’s going to track the app. The main thing continues and talks to the bank and/or Stripe. Depending on the problems but you still have THAT problem because maybe the account wasn’t set up properly. Now we’ve talked to the bank, medium intervention, and let’s run this. I like SAGE and SAGAS because I don’t’ have to go to that level to break out the proxies. I just need to talk with the sales force or something. I need a reliable system when it can recover when something goes wrong. It might be over engineered but I don’t know. 28:17 – Andrew comments about that particular example (see above). 29:03 – With Sagas you can loose them... 29:09 – I haven’t played with Rabbit, yet. The one that is built into AWS? There’s Simple Q and there is something else. Rabbit is built with Erlang. What’s that like for you? 29:40 – Andrew: It’s pretty painful. Andrew mentions MPP. 30:37 – Interesting; I haven’t gotten that far, yet. 30:45 – My first Elixir application had...behind it. That was the worst part. I feel those pains. 31:00 – Andrew: That’s the case. 31:51 – The other service I was thinking of was... 31:56 – Question for Andrew. 31:59 – Andrew answers. 32:39 – That is the problem we are having at work because of older code. How can we resend them out? That probably will be a good fit for us. 33:18 – Andrew.  34:31 – Andrew: Once you’ve found the bug... 35:16 – When you are coming to a new language, it could be React or...the first few things will be pretty awful. What has this path been like for you, Nathan? 35:40 – Nathan: Yeah I am very early days. Yesterday, I had a set of code that I was creating to try just to function and it was really ugly. But I was okay with that because I was just trying to solve the issue. 36:05 – You have to be okay with that. The idea that: You are trying to just make it work. When you come to Elixir and being fresh and thinking I don’t even know what to do. 36:32 – I have a buddy with that now saying: How do I even start with this?! 36:40 – Andrew: It takes time to break your head and a different way to rethink the code. Once I have the basic concepts then it makes me feel super efficient. 37:24 – I am curious what languages have you had experience with? 37:38 – Andrew: I started commercial projects in my teenage years. I built websites for them. I have some JavaScript knowledge and that was good going to Elixir. 39:04 – I favor that side, too. It’s not hard to build solutions with the things that are in the box (Erlang). I don’t like to bring in all of these libraries that people are creating. It’s great but, at the same time, I have been burned by Rails and JavaScript where you bring in all of these different libraries, and it becomes really nasty. I could have solved it more natively. 39:55 – Andrew: In Elixir you can... 40:28 – Oh, that’s all I needed – those 2 lines. 40:40 – Andrew. 40:46 – That’s an interesting dynamic. 41:09 – Andrew comments talks about Elixir and Hex. 41:23 – Andrew: I think it’s a good thing. I think there needs to be work in Hex because it’s underdeveloped. To name a few... 43:08 – Part of the keynote this year that it won’t be merged, or they aren’t promising to merge it. 43:29 – Andrew. 44:08 – I haven’t used 3, yet. 44:10 – Andrew. 44:55 – They are talking about the Read Me. I didn’t know there was an Ecto Mnesia? 45:20 – Andrew: Yeah I helped build it and the plan was... 45:50 – Yeah I can see the issue there, do I maintain it or...? 46:02 – Andrew comments and talks about the community and different codes. 46:36 – Andrew, anything else that you want to talk about? 46:48 – There are tons of notes in our chat, which the listeners can’t see. 46:58 – Advertisement – Fresh Books’ Advertisement! 30-Day Trial! Links: Ruby Elixir JavaScript React Erlang – Disk Log Erlang WX Railway Oriented Programming Nebo 15 GitHub – Scenic Kafka Rabbit MQ AWS AWS – Kinesis GitHub – Firenest XHTTP GitHub – Ecto GitHub – Ecto Mnesia Saga and Medium Introducing Sage Andrew Dryga’s Website Andrew Dryga’s Medium Andrew Dryga’s GitHub Andrew Dryga’s LinkedIn Andrew Dryga’s Twitter Andrew Dryga’s FB Andrew’s YouTube Channel Andrew’s Sagas of Elixir Video Sponsors: Loot Crate Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Mark Mark of the Ninja Josh A Sneak Peek at Ecto 3.0: Breaking Changes Nate Pragmatic Studio Eric Looking of Elixir Developers Metabase.com Polymail Andrew Tide of History

Daniel and Andrew talk about different ways of relating to the ancestors. Especially getting into how to help the ancestors evolve and make our lives better in the process. They also get into their relatinoships to the orisha and ways of thinking about practicing a tradition that you were not born into.  Daniel can be found through his site here. His events are there too.  Daniel's talk on practicing other peopels traditions is here.  Andrew's upcoming Ancestral Magick Course can be found here.  Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to, and consider if it is time to support the 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 joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew You can book time with Andrew through his site here.  Transcription ANDREW: Welcome to the Hermit's Lamp podcast. I'm hanging out today with Daniel Foor, and Daniel is a Ifá priest and has done all sorts of wonderful work along the lines of ancestral healing. And Ancestral Medicine is the name of the book that he has out. And he and I have a lot of similarities in practices and the kinds of things we're interested in, so, you know, lots of people have been suggesting I have him on for a while, and, and well, today's the day! So, welcome, Daniel! Thanks for being here!  DANIEL: Thanks so much. It's good to be here.  ANDREW: There are people who might not know who you are. Who are you? What are you about?  DANIEL: Yeah, well, I ... to locate myself a bit, I'm a 40-year-old, white, cis-gendered American living in western North Carolina. From Ohio, originally, but traveled a good amount, but live in the States, and have a PhD in psychology. I'm a licensed therapist, so I have a background in mental health.  But mostly I'm a ritualist, and I've been training with different kinds of teachers and traditions for over 20 years now, and started out with more shamanic pagan background with magical things, and migrated into involvement with Islam, and Sufism, Buddhist practice, and then circled back to involvement with indigenous systems and earth-honoring traditions. And in the last decade have been immersed in west African Ifá practice, lineages in the Americas and also in west Africa, and so I'm an initiate of Ifa, Obatala, and Oshun, and Egungun priesthood, [inaudible], and in the lineage of Oluwo Falolu Adesanya Awoyade, Ode Remo, in Ogun State. So I've been four times to Nigeria, and that's one influence on my practice.  But mostly I teach and guide non-dogmatic, inclusive, animist ancestor-focused ritual practice. The last two years or so I have shifted to training others, which has been really satisfying after years of doing more public-facing ritual, I'm now ... I do some of that but mostly I'm training other people in how to guide the work. And I have developed a specialization in repair work with blood lineage ancestors. But I also operate from a broader animist or earth-honoring framework that isn't limited to just that. So. And I'm a dad, I'm a, you know, married, and love the earth here, and live in the American South, which is kind of strange, but also okay. Yeah.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. That's awesome.  DANIEL: Yeah. ANDREW: So, I mean, I guess, my first question for you is, when did you start feeling the ancestral stuff calling you?  DANIEL: Well, my own lineages are German, English, Irish, early settler colonialist to North America, and so I didn't inherit any religious or spiritual framework or culture that was of value to me in any conscious way as a young person. And so, my first teachers in shamanic practice, Bekki and Crow with the Church of Earth Healing, in the late 90s, nudged me to get to know my ancestors ritually. And it was really impactful, actually. I was surprised by it. I'd never thought about them really before that. And I ended up assisting with an older ancestral guide or teacher, my father's father who had taken his own life, and just showing up for that work, which was powerful.  And it was a catalyst for me to research, do a lot of depth genealogy research about my own family history, and that dovetailed in with my training as a therapist, so I was in a period of connecting a lot of dots and valuing my own heritage, and, in a grounding way ... Not in like some awkward, go white people way, but in a way that helped me to reclaim what is beautiful about European, you know, northern western European cultures, and ... including earlier pre-Roman, pre-Christian magics and lineages. And so, I ran with that ritually. And have guided 120 maybe, multi-day, ancestor healing intensives since 2005 in that work, so I spent about six or seven years getting grounded with all of it myself. Then started to help other people with it. And it just organically developed as a specialization. And I tend to be a little obsessive about a thing, when I'm into it. I'll do that like crazy, until it's ... yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah, I think ... I mean, I think it's interesting how ... Cause I do a lot of ancestral work as well, you know ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: I do ancestral divination work and, you know, ancestral sort of healing and lineage healing and so on.  DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, I've been teaching it with my friend Carrie, we have this, we developed this system of people working with charm casting as a tool ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: To get into that work. And, you know, we've been traveling around and teaching it everywhere. We were in China last year teaching it, and stuff like that, with people ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: You know, I think that the thing that sort of stands out in your story, that I think stands out everywhere, is so often, like the last little bit, you know, the last few generations, it's kind of wonky, or like there's not a lot, there's not a lot of connection or living connection. Even, you know, it wasn't until last year that I found out that my grandmother read tea leaves when she was alive ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And she's been gone for like 12 years, and it just never came up before. She never talked about it, and my mom just never brought it up. Not for any particular reason but it just, it just was never a thing. Even though that's the same grandmother who bought me a tarot deck when I was like 13, long ago.  DANIEL: Right. Of course she did.  ANDREW: But I would have talked about it, right? But how ... Often when you kind of go back, you know, a few generations or somewhere a bit deeper, you know, there are these sort of more ... evolved isn't the word that I super like, but you know, like, more grounded, more helpful, you know, ancestors with a, with a sort of more capacity to be really guides and assist you in this process, right?  DANIEL: Yeah, often. It ... Where those cut-offs happen varies so widely from one demographic or even one individual to another, and I know in a lot of my own lineages, it's been over 1,000 years since anyone during life had a culturally reinforced and supported framework for honoring the ancestors. And so the older ones, the ones even before that, are quite available. So it's not ... I mean I could ... reinforce some kind of orphan victim culturally-damaged white person narrative, but it's not that sexy or useful, and so at a certain point, you're just like, well, you pick up the pieces where they're at, and get the fire going again.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: And the older ancestors are happy to do that. And so even if someone comes from a really recently and before that culturally fragmented set of lineages, the ancestors are still available, the older ones, and the main repair orientation or practice that I encourage people to try on at first is to partner with those older ancestors and with them, assist any of the dead who are not yet well, any of the ones between those older ones and the present, who are not yet really well-seated, really vibrant. Help them to become well-seated ancestors. So the dead change. It's very important for us living folks to not fix them in some static condition.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: Just cause people were a pain in the ass or really, you know, culturally in the weeds during life doesn't mean they're doomed to that condition forever. They can really change and become, not only, like, not ghosty, but they can become dynamic, engaged, useful allies for cultural healing work in the present.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: So. ANDREW: Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's a misconception that a lot of people have that they automatically change on crossing over. DANIEL: Oh, sure, yeah, that's different. (laughing) ANDREW: And then the other side of that is, you know, they can change, but it might take a bunch of work, even if they did change, right?  DANIEL: Yeah, totally. Yeah, both, both are true. Yeah. The idea that just dying makes you wise and loving and kind is really hazardous actually, as a world view. So. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: Cause it'll lead to a view of ... I've seen it at times in pagan circles as well, where it's “Oh, the ancestors, ancestors are good, let's invoke them all. Okay, here are all the names of my ancestors, and the pictures, and let me light a candle and strongly invoke all of them.” ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: Well, I hope your invocation doesn't work. ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: Because if it does, you're going to get a mixed bag! Cause your people are, you know, if they're well, awesome, but if they're not yet well, and your invocation works, then what you have is some not yet well ghosty energy in your space.  ANDREW: For sure, right? And some of those spirits can be pretty tumultuous, you know, if they're ... DANIEL: Oh, no doubt. Yeah. ANDREW: [crosstalking 09:53] here. I have one grandfather that I continue to work with who, sort of, work on, let's put it [laughing].  DANIEL: Right.  ANDREW: It's been a long time and they're still not ready to be, you know, front and center in anything, cause they just, so caught up in so much deep, deep trauma in their own life and in their generations before them, and, you know. DANIEL: One of, one of the things that I don't, I won't say it's unique to how I approach it, but it's emphasized in how I approach ancestor work, which isn't across the board, is I take a very lineage-based approach. Like I don't even really encourage, necessarily, relating with individual ancestors that much. ANDREW: Hmm. DANIEL: So in the case of someone, not to speak to your specific case necessarily, but let's say someone's grandmother is really quite entrenched in the unwell ghosty range of wellness. My strategy is to make sure that her mother and her mother and her mother and her mother and the lineage of women before them on back through time to the ancient weird witchy deity-like grandmothers, that that whole lineage is deeply well, and the repair happens from the older ones toward the present. And so, once you have the parent of the one who is quite troubled in a deeply well condition, and the whole lineage before them deeply well, as a group energy, asking them to intervene to address the rowdy ghosty grandparent tends to be ... It can ... Well, it can be more effective, simply because there's a re-anchoring of the rogue individuality in a bigger system, in a collective energy.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: And there's a respect for seniority or hierarchy, by having that person's elders be the ones to round them up. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: So, so that's. I shared that because in the West, generally, I find that people tend to conceive of ancestor reverence primarily as a relating of one individual to another individual, and, and some of the lineage or group level aspects of it can get lost, or they're not as emphasized. And so I find that's an important nuance to include, and then another is, and we've spoken to it, is just the way in which one's ancestors are not at all just the remembered dead, the ones, the recent ones, but they include ... The vast majority of them are living before remembered names. And that's helpful for people who are like, my family are abusive trolls. I'm like, okay, I believe you, but I think what you mean to say is all the generations you know about, which is probably not more than two or three. ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: And so, it's like, you're at the ocean, at a windy, cloudy day, and you're saying, “Oh, the ocean is tumultuous,” well, I believe it is, right there at the beach. But the ocean's a big place, yeah. So expanding our frame for who we mean when we say ancestor is gonna be helpful too. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. For sure. Yeah, and there's lots of times when, you know, we'll make offerings or do work with all of those ancestors, right? With the Egun, right, with everybody? Right? DANIEL: Yeah.  ANDREW: You know? And in those ways and so on, right? Yeah, yeah, I mean it's interesting how ... It'd really be interesting to make sure that you're looking at those things. And some of my, some of my best ancestral allies have been gone, you know, three, four hundred years, right?  DANIEL: For sure. ANDREW: Or longer.  DANIEL: Yeah, totally, yeah. ANDREW: They arrive, and they're just like, “Yes! You're the beacon of light amongst all of these things, and let's radiate that out to everybody afterwards and anchor further and deeper,” right?  DANIEL: Yeah. For sure. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. So, when you're doing work with people, are you mostly focused on ... you know, because a lot of people come to ancestor work because they want to get messages and receive stuff and do ... DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: ...[inaudible at 13:59] kind of stuff, right? I mean, I think that that can be fruitful, too, I enjoy that kind of work as well, but that's not really what we're talking about here either, right? I mean not explicitly, right?  DANIEL: Yeah. If we say like, what's the point? It can ... There are a lot of different motivations that can drive someone to want to engage their ancestors. The most common one is, “I'm suffering, will this help?”  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: That's legit. Sometimes it will help indirectly. Sometimes it will help directly because the source of the suffering is unmetabolized intergenerational trouble that's directly connected to ancestral interference, and so sometimes it, you know, it can help in different ways.  Another motivator for the work is seeking life guidance, cause the ancestors have insight into our unique destiny, and can help us to move into closer alignment with that, you know, our unique instructions or soul level work in the world.  As you know, in Yoruba culture, we sometimes talk about the world as the marketplace and Orun or the spirit world as home, and, and so if you forget your shopping list, working with the ancestors can be like, “Let us show you, you said this, this, this, and this,” and be like, “Oh, yeah, okay, thanks,” and so that's helpful to not waste our lives.  And ancestors can be great for being a resource to parents or supporters in family, like they're especially good with all the family sphere, the domestic sphere, like being a responsible family human. And they're also good allies for cultural healing. A lot of the racism and colonialism and sexism and other kinds of cultural toxicity and garbage and bad capitalism that we're stewed in and trying to get out from underneath and help transform ... Those are ancestor, those are troubles created by the ancestors. Like, they're implicated in the trouble. And so they have, appropriately, a hand in resolving the trouble as well.  And so they're great allies, by whatever form, activism, cultural change, all that. And so I really think that working closely with one's ancestors helps cultural change-makers to up their game, so to speak. So that's another motivation.  And this is, I guess it's related to the one about destiny, but, inspired a bit from the Yoruba frameworks. The collective energy or wisdom of the ancestors is associated strongly with the Earth. Like the onile, the earth is like the calabash that holds the souls of the dead. And because the Earth is associated with accountability and, you know, moral authority, and is the witness through of all interactions, in that way also the ancestors carry that same quality of accountability. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: And I think whether or not people can consciously own it, some part of us craves accountability. Like we want to be seen and checked when needed. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: There's something really like ... our daughter almost made it to the top of the steps. Like, the door was open the other day. She's nine months old. But we caught her. It was good. It was way better than had we not held her in that moment.  ANDREW: Right. DANIEL: And there's a way in which that kind of love and connectivity is like, “Oh, I'm not alone in the universe.”  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: If I crawl to the top of the steps, someone will pick me up. So we want that, and the ancestors bring that, as well, when we live with them.  ANDREW: I think it's a, I think it's a thing that, especially, you know, in my experience, people, in Western culture, struggle with too, right? This sort of willingness to acknowledge an authority or an awareness or a position that's sort of above them in a way that they can allow in to say, “You know what, actually, we do know what's better for you in this moment.”  DANIEL: [laughing] Oh, yeah, it's- ANDREW: You what, my friends, you know, going down that road has nothing to do with your destiny, or what have you, right?  DANIEL: Oh, yeah! [laughing] ANDREW: Here's your fault in this mess that you're trying to put on this other person, right?  DANIEL: Oh, yeah, no, people, look, I'm a teacher, also, and so often it's great and fine, and sometimes people are idealizing in awkward ways, and like, oh, don't do that, don't do that. But, but just whatever, fine, it's fine, it tends to burn out and even out. And also sometimes people are really just not okay with anything resembling a power differential or a student teacher relationship.  ANDREW: Right. DANIEL: And it's ... It's tiring a little, as a teacher. Because there is a difference between telling someone just what to do in an authoritative way, and also saying, like, “Well, do you want to learn a thing? Because I know this skill. Like, what do you ... do you want to tell me how it goes, cause ... ?” So, so yeah, it is ... I think it's a function of power so often being abused, that people understandably have mistrust.  ANDREW: Yup!  DANIEL: Yeah. So I have compassion for it, and also the piece around hierarchy and authority is really, is challenging. In the coming months, some dear friends are going to Nigeria to do initiations and I was talking to them last night, and I was like, in the nicest possible way, “Really, your main job as the initiate is to obey.” ANDREW: Yes. DANIEL: Just to, like, the ritual is done to you, nobody really cares what you think about it. And it's totally fine.  ANDREW: Stand here, stand there, [crosstalking 19:59]. DANIEL: Right! Yeah, totally, sit down, drink it, sit, eat it, say thank you. Like ... ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: Yeah. Like you're the thing being consecrated. Your input is not needed.  ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: Nothing personal. Next time you go back, then you can have an opinion.  ANDREW: Yeah. And even then-- DANIEL: And even then, so you get one small vote. [laughing] Yeah.  ANDREW: No, for sure. Yeah, let's see what people who ... I mean come for readings of all kinds, but you know, people who approach, you know, getting dillogun readings and stuff like that, and you know, the Orishas come through, and they're like, “Oh, you know what? Don't drink this year, don't, you know, whatever. Don't get tattooed. Don't, you know, no, no red beans for you.” They're like, “Well, what do you mean? I don't understand.” It's like, “Well...” [crosstalking 20:52] DANIEL: Obey! [laughing] ANDREW: What is the understanding? I mean, in a lot of that situation ... in some of those situations, the understanding is more obvious, right?  DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: I had a conversation with a person who'd say, “Well, it seems like you kind of have this kind of challenge, and this is kind of the thing that might counter that,” and they're like, “Okay, yeah, maybe.” But other times it's just energetic or on other levels that it's just like, you know, it's kind of the ... It's an equivalent of saying “Hey, carry this citrine with you for the next year, it's going to help your energy,” but it's in a different structure that people don't relate to in the same way, right?  DANIEL: For sure, yeah.  ANDREW: And then they're like, “But, but, I don't want to be told what to do!” I'm like, “What else are you gonna do?” DANIEL: You just paid me to do that.  ANDREW: Yeah, you asked, right?  DANIEL: [laughing] ANDREW: You didn't have to, I wouldn't worry about it ... DANIEL: But some part of us does, some part of us really, I think wants to be told what to do. And that could go awry, and I'm not saying it's an entirely healthy impulse, but there's something about accountability and structure and community and limits, that's actually really intimate. ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: And if you can't hear and accept “no,” your “yes” is meaningless.  ANDREW: Mm. DANIEL: And so there's something that's precious and sweet about protocol and tradition and about structure.  ANDREW: I also think that a lot of people don't really ... Faith is a really complicated and difficult thing for a lot of people too, you know?  DANIEL: Mm.  ANDREW: And especially when entering a new tradition, you know? And, and I think that part of what we're talking about here is also a matter of faith, right? What is your faith in the ancestors or the Orisha or whatever, and how, how do you sustain that faith through being deeply challenged by all that stuff?  DANIEL: Yeah, and for me, look, I was involved with different Orisha teachers in the States, American, for the most part, and ... it didn't work out that well, for the most part. I mean, complicated. But I ... I felt like there was a lot of restrictive and unhealthy and kind of confused energy around it. And I had an opportunity to go to Nigeria to reset some of the initiation-like things that had happened here, so I took a risk on it, and I'm like, “Well, this is either gonna be like the final straw, or some breakthrough,” like, “let's pray for the latter.” And I saw kind of a non-dogmatic group community like, in my Ifá initiation, there were men aged like 80 to five, holding space. Like, and 20, 30 people there. And people were teasing each other, playing, and having a good time. Like the people were well human beings, they seemed happy. And so that relaxed, teasing heart aware energy. I'm like, “Oh, good, this is what I was looking for.” And it helped ... For me, it helped me to trust, and just not fight the system. I'm like, “Just tell me what to do.” Just okay, “eat the pig dung,” okay, “Leave me a bite,” or whatever. Whatever it is. Just tell me what to do. So.  ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: Yeah, it's great.  ANDREW: I used to, you know, get some people who would bring their, you know, like, elderly, Cuban elders to the store. You know? And pick up stuff. DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, they're here in Toronto to do a thing, and they'd bring this person to the store, right? And you know my Spanish is not great [laughing] and their English was not great, and we'd like, know some like, Yoruban words in common or whatever. And you would see how sweet and genuine and nice they were. And then they'd notice that like, you know, I've got plants growing at the front of the store for working with religion, and they'd be like, “oh, alamo,” I'd be like, “yeah, yeah,” and we'd have this like sort of pidgin conversation and a bunch of other things, and mostly what it would be is our hearts being opened, all this sharing of our love of this religion and these spirits ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And the continuity of that. And it was such a beautiful and uplifting experience, even though there wasn't a lot of words that were associated with it. There was just so much communication happening at other levels, and you could, you know, I could feel my Shango just being happy about it, you know, be like whoever there, too, just being happy about it, and so on. You know? It's so uplifting in that way, right? But ... DANIEL: That's good. It's one of the things in, you know, we had mentioned in our previous chat about my talk on practicing the traditions of other people's ancestors. And-- ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: I respect it a lot about the necessary and important dialogues around cultural appropriation, and especially, not only, but especially around respecting different Native North American or First Nations, as you say, traditions, and being mindful of what the conditions of involvement, if that's open, to non-Native people are, etc., and what's important to understand is those same parameters are not universal, and how cultures are shared and understood from one part of the world to another really vary.  And Yoruba culture, for example, is generally an open system. Yoruba people in my experience, in Yorubaland, have never had anyone feel off about me being there and training in Orisha, except for the Christians, who were like, “Why don't you want Jesu?” I'm like, “We have Jesu where I'm at,” it's like, “It's fine, like, go Jesu!” but it's not why I'm here. And one of the things that is important though, is, it's family, like you're stepping into a family, a spiritual family. It's not like a “Hey bro, thanks for the culture, now I'm gonna go back and set up shop, I got what I need.” There's a ... And so when your teachers hit you up for money, it's family. That's what like, you can't be part of a family and have a bunch of stuff, and then other people don't have something, and you don't share it.  ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: And so it's ... It's not like you're getting exploited. I mean, that also happens. But just the ethic of sharing and supporting one another. If people don't want that, then they might not want to get involved. because most indigenous systems that I know of that are open to people not of that blood ancestry hold things in a family-oriented way. There's intimacy with that, but there's also connectivity, reciprocity, accountability. Yeah.  ANDREW: And, you know, so, you know, my immediate family where I was initiated lives in the Detroit area, and my, you know, my elders are in Miami, you know, and like, but like, especially when the Detroit folks are doing work, you know, especially bigger things like making priests, you know, I always show up, like, you know, it's like you, when they're doing the work, and you're like, “Oh, it's so inconvenient for me to take four or five days off and go down there and help out, right?” And it's like, yeah, it's inconvenient, and you know, it's time off work, and it's whatever, but it's what those people did for me, right? And it's what allows all of that to continue, and it's a chance to, you know, to also sustain those connections, and you know, sing together, and sit and joke together, and, you know, complain about handling the ... cleaning up after the animals together, and whatever, it's just part of it, right? Like ... DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: And in the absence of being willing to engage that community element of it, right? It's pretty ... If you don't have the community element in one way or another, especially in the Orisha tradition, you don't really have much of anything, you know?  DANIEL: It's true, with the tradition, it in my experience is very communal, and there are a lot of ritual domains of activity you just can't pull off solo.  ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: And it's just that, you know, it's a lot of hard work, it's heavy lifting. And for people who have worked with psychoactives, there's a certain kind of feeling among the group after a long, successful, like all night acid trip, when the sun's coming up, you're sort of like, “Oh, we've just gone through something together.”  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: And, and, minus the LSD, there can be a sense after a multi-day ritual of a strong sense of magic and beauty and intimacy that's shared through all the effort and all the devotion ...  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: That it takes to keep old lineages of practice alive.  ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: Yeah.  ANDREW: For sure. And I think it's, I mean, one of the other points that I think was super important ... It's been a while since I listened to that talk and we'll link to it in the show notes, cause it was a good talk. Folks should go back and listen to it. You know, is also the fact that these are living traditions, right? They have continuity. DANIEL: Yeah. ANDREW: And, you know, but there's a big difference between, hey, we're gonna call up some Greek deities and see what happens, you know, and, like, or you know, see what happens sounds dismissive, I don't mean it in that way. And you know, there's nobody, there's no continuity to ancient Greece, in that particular way, versus there are people who've been practicing these traditions from person to person to person, all the way through until now, and you can actually go and ask those people and they can answer you as to what's done and how it's done and why it's done. DANIEL: Yeah. No, it's true. People don't ... If they don't know something, would be in the habit of divining on it, but I wouldn't want someone to, like, not go to flight school and then divine on how to fly the plane. [crosstalking] Yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah. There's that great proverb, which I'm sure you know, which is “Don't ask what you already know,” right?  DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: And I think that there's a sort of choleric glory to that which is, you know, there are things you just shouldn't ask, cause you should already know them, right?  DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: You don't need to ask if we do this thing because we know we don't. You know? DANIEL: Yeah.  ANDREW: We know that Oshun won't take this as an offering. We know that we don't do this kind of thing. We know that, like, you know, you don't ask if you could rob a bank cause the answer's already no. You know? DANIEL: Right. And there's a beautiful essay [inaudible 31:07] by Ologo Magiev [31:09], a child being asked to divine, and their parents died young and so they didn't get the information. And so they invoke their ancestors, and bring a lot of humility, and wing it, and it turns out fine. And, and I think there's also this kind of an implicit message, “And don't do that again. Don't pull that card too many times.”  ANDREW: Right?  DANIEL: [laughing] Then go train! ANDREW: For sure, right?  DANIEL: So, it's both. The deities have kindness, and benevolence, and also, careful! ANDREW: Yeah. And, you know, I was traveling, and I got a call that a friend of mine was like at death's door in the hospital, basically, right? And, you know, and I was just literally at a rest stop getting, gassing up the car when I checked my phone in the middle of New York State, right?  DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And I was just like, all right. And so I went and, you know, kind of looked around for some stuff, and it's like, there's nothing, like I can't, there's nothing I could really sort of put together here, so I just collected a bunch of white flowers and, you know, it's really hilly, right, so I just took them to a spot that I thought was appropriate for Obatala ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: And I was like, Obatala, this is all I have today. I'm here, it's this situation, and I need you to accept these and intercede in the situation. And you can get away with that. But that's not practicing the tradition. And that's not gonna, as you say, it's not gonna fly all the time, right?  DANIEL: Yeah. ANDREW: When you're at home, you can do all sorts of other things, you have your shrines or your ancestors or wherever you're working with, right? They will accept these things, cause they do understand circumstance and they're not tyrannical about it, right? They just say, you don't want that to be your way of practicing forever.  DANIEL: I spent years like, I don't know, not quite 20 years, not involved in a really dedicated way in one set tradition. I was training with different traditions for a period of time, and would definitely learn stuff, and would develop my own ashe [33:20] or whatever, but I wasn't like embracing one fully, as an operating system. ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: But I learned that it's possible to do it that way. That was actually really helpful to me. That it's possible to go deep with one's own ancestors, to go deep with the spirits of the land, where you're at. ANDREW: Sure. DANIEL: And to get to know them, and to get clarity about your own destiny and to just constellate in the different powers and forces and spirits that are gonna help you to do that. And I also ... that there's loneliness in going it solo, as well. There's like a freedom and a loneliness, both. And it drove me eventually to ... You know, I spent almost ten years involved in Orisha practice and Yoruba ways before I decided to initiate. And it's like a long slow dating process. It wasn't a lot of charisma. It was like, oh, you're the last one left standing, and ... ANDREW: [laughing] DANIEL: We have a ton of compatibility, why are we not doing this? And I go, okay, I guess we're gonna do this. So we just had the high match on the dating, you know, religious dating profile website. So I'm like, oh, maybe we should try this. And, and I haven't regretted it at all. It's very ... It's been a relief. The sense for me is of being held in a bigger frame. And it's not really ... It's not what I teach publicly, I'm not publicly offering services in that way, even though there are certain ones I could, in integrity.  I'm still in training, I'm still trying to learn Yoruba language, and especially with a west African orientation of practice it's such an aural language-based tradition, especially Ifá practice in particular, so I'm trying to hold a ... I think if you're not ancestrally of a tradition, the standards are even a bit higher for you to get it right, which I think is fair and understandable. Especially with the cultural climate of racism in the west and all that, for European ancestor people to be doing west African Ifa, you need to not look like a fool doing it, and so part of that looks like studying the language and really, you know, taking to heart the training.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: But, it's possible to go really deep without stepping into a tradition. And there are a lot of ritual advantages to having a system to work from, as well. So I appreciate both sides of that. Yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. I think you can get there ... I think you can accomplish the same ends either way, right?  DANIEL: Yeah, yeah. ANDREW: I think that where it gets, where it gets touchy is where you're solely working independently, but within the set of spirits that has a living tradition. If you're only working independently and devoid of traditional teaching, you know, that's where it starts to become a question for me of what ... DANIEL: Well, yeah, no, if the main powers you're working with are the Orisha, it's like, well, you've got to, here's the front door. You can try crawling in the window, but it's going to go badly, so.  ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: Yeah. But if you're just working with the weird old land gods and your own ancestors, you can get away with it. yeah.  ANDREW: For sure.  DANIEL: Yeah, for sure.  ANDREW: Yeah. I also like the weird old land gods. You know? There's this beautiful ravine, you know, about a two-minute walk from the shop, [crosstalking 36:45] in Toronto. It runs through and you know, under there, there's sort of part of a buried river, that was once upon a time up on the surface, and all sorts of stuff, and there's wonderful and magical energies that are there, and really fascinating things have happened in that space over time. You know? Like I was ... I was there making a ... dealing with something and helping somebody, and making an offering essentially to the spirit of that place in the snow, right? And then when I came out of sort of the wood part back onto the path, all of these moths emerged, these white moths. And I'm like, there's snow on the ground, and it's snowing right now, what is going on with these things? And I'm like, all right, I'll take it. Big old yes from the spirits of this place on that thing, you know?  DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: So I mean yeah, there's some amazing stuff that can happen in those ways, for sure.  DANIEL: Nice. Yeah.  ANDREW: So, I mean, first thing is, I'm going to ask you now if people should, if they're listening to this, and they want to think about starting a, you know, where they should start? And I know that one of the answers is definitely, they should go read your book, cause your book is great. DANIEL: Sure. ANDREW: But like, for the context of our conversation today, where would you kind of point people? Where, where do you point people [inaudible 38:02]? DANIEL: I'm not a very trusting person, really. So, if I were to listen to this conversation, and I didn't know that I'm a good person, I would go to my website, which is ancestralmedicine.org. Root around there, see what the vibe is, and there are other talks, or whatever, and see if you, you know, get an instinctual, this guy's not crazy vibe from where I'm coming from, and if you're drawn to the ancestral work, there are three main ways to engage.  One is to connect with one of the practitioners in the directory there. And there are 30 some people at this point who are trained in the work. Men, women, all different genders of people [38:43--not sure I've got his exact words here], ancestrally diverse people, lots of different opportunities for low income sessions, sessions in seven languages, so, opportunities to connect with people directly for session work. That's the most efficient way. Another is that I offer an online course that starts in December, that's thorough, and it maps along the heart of the book, chapters 5 through 9, which is lineage repair work, and there's a lot of support throughout that course, so that's an option, and I'll also be offering a course through the Shift network in the fall.  And then, a third way is the in-person trainings. And the last one I'm going to guide probably in North America will be in just over a week in Ottawa, the 24th to the 26th, and there's a talk on August 22, next Wednesday, in Ottawa as well, and all the info on that is on my site, and additionally, to that, there are trainings in maybe ten cities and also coming up in Australia and Mexico and maybe Russia and Canada and Victoria, so. And those are done by students who I trust to guide the work. So in person work, online course, or sessions, are, in addition to the book, the three main ways to plug in. Yeah.  ANDREW: Perfect.  DANIEL: And, and, you know, like just to say it, if you're wary of people, which is warranted, this approach to the work doesn't involve the practitioners or me or anybody saying, “Hey, this is what your grandmother says to you.” It's about stepping the individual through a process of reclaiming and re-energizing their ability to connect directly with their own people. So, it's an empowering approach in that way. It's not somebody getting all up in the mix and channeling messages to your people. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not this approach, so. And especially if your family's a mess, it's useful to do ancestor work. Cause you get some space from all that, and connect with what's beautiful and trustworthy in your own blood and bone lineages. So that's grounding, it's helpful, also for the cultural healing that's needed.  ANDREW: Yes. Well and I think it can be quite liberating, you know, because we're carrying those patterns, right?  DANIEL: Oh, yeah. So you can relate consciously or unconsciously with your people, but you don't get to opt out of relatedness. Yeah. ANDREW: Exactly, right? And if we can tidy those up and take some of that burden off of us or free ourselves from that, right? Then we get to show up much differently in that way, right?  DANIEL: Yeah. I think the masquerades in Yoruba culture, Egungun, and it's a blessing when they come around, but it's also a lot of people try not to be touched by them. And so there's ... It conveys something about the ancestors, like, they're dangerous to avoid and they're dangerous to have around. ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: But, whatever, it's just like living humans. [laughing] ANDREW: For sure. People are challenged on both sides of the veil, right?  DANIEL: [laughing] Yeah, exactly.  ANDREW: For sure.  DANIEL: So, good.  ANDREW: Well, thank you so much for making time today, Daniel. It's been great to hang out and chat with you.  DANIEL: For sure, thanks, Andrew, thanks for your service, here. Blessings on everything you're up to. ANDREW: Thank you. DANIEL: Yeah. Good.   

Andrew Youderian is the founder of eCommerceFuel, a private community forum for six to eight figure eCommerce sites. After getting out of finance and buying and selling two eCommerce businesses, Andrew saw the need for a platform for the 7-figure eCommerce community. Looking for a space where this group of exceptional entrepreneurs could bounce ideas and information off one another, he started the website and has never looked back. In addition to the forum, eCommerceFuel holds a live annual event, publishes a yearly “state of the merchant” report, and now hosts a job board exclusively for the eCommerce domain. We spend this episode discussing the results of their 2018 state of the merchant eCommerce report. Episode Highlights: This year there were about 450 survey participants with an average store income of $2.3 million. Andrew shares the three big takeaways from the survey. Which niches are growing versus which are stagnant or shrinking, according to the survey. The fastest growing stores have a high component of Amazon revenue to them. A strategy that some bigger merchants are taking is to use Amazon as a way to help launch a brand, then taking the cash and momentum generated from Amazon to help build offline presence. We discuss top trends in shopping carts, email marketing, help-desks, and product reviews. We learn that eCommerce revenue values seem to be generally going up across the board. Which business models are experiencing the most growth and why dropshipping may have made a bit of a comeback last year. What the fastest growing eCommerce categories are among the survey takers. Who the favorite entrepreneur was from last year from among the top in the world. Transcription: Mark: Hey Joe, how are you? Joe: I'm good Mark! How are you doing today? Mark: I'm doing good, I've been busy these past week doing a few interviews. Joe: You have? You have been slacking and then picking up that slack and doing it more yourself. Thank you! Mark: I think anybody who's been listening to our show knows that you're not a slacking on this, but I'm just trying to play catch-up here to your three(3) episodes to everyone that I have done. But, I've been catching up this week and I'm really excited about the someone guest that we have coming up weeks. And one of the first ones is Andrew Youderian, whom we both know well from E-commerce field. Joe: I do! You know I tell the story often. The first time I went to an E-Commerce field event was in Nashville, I think it's 3 or 4 years. but I remember saying specifically that when I got back, you know, I talked about it. I heard more intelligent E-Commerce conversation in 24 hours than I heard in previous 24 months. It's an exceptional group of entrepreneurs and they help each other on a regular basis which is incredible. Mark: Yeah, I think, there are couple of groups out there which I have zero hesitation endorsing and have told people that they need to be a part of it. If anyone listening is in E-Commerce, E-Commerce Fuels is a private form that requires that you apply in order to get access to it, you have to have a business of a certain size to be able to get in. Some of the most intelligent that we know in the space and the most successful people that we know on the space are members of that form. It's a really, really good community. They have an event that they put on every year which is one of our favorite events to go to, all the E-Commerce feel alive. So, one of the things Andrew does every year though, because he's got all his members, you know, several hundred members who have successfully E-Commerce stores, is he surveys them and he puts together a full on report called ‘State of E-Commerce' or ‘State of the Merchant'. Can't remember the exact name of it. But this entire interview, he and I are talking about this report because the data in here is awesome! It's really, really cool! You get to see how fast are businesses is growing. What percentage of businesses are Amazon. We get to sift through (2.55) revenue side. What is the typical breakdown by channel. And one of the cool businesses data in the report this year was what niches are growing versus what's shrinking. For example, one of the cool things that got pointed out when we talked about a little bit is, men's clothing and accessories was among one of the fastest growing sectors. Conversely, women's clothing and accessories was one of the ones that was stagnant or declining. So, we go into, what's going on there! Lots of really cool data in that report. Joe: Interesting! Interesting! Andrew is a super nice guy! Full of integrity and character in the whole E-Commerce Fuel Group is a reflection of him. I believe so, let's just jump to it, see what he's got to say! Mark: Absolutely! Hey Andrew! Thanks for joining me! Andrew: Yeah! Thanks for having me here in Mark appreciated. Mark: Alright, you are joining me from a van obviously. Andrew: Yeah, look like a total sketch fall hair. It's kind of a old Mobil office I have. I'm on the road with the family and when I need to do podcast or interviews or phone calls, I usually come out here coz it's little quieter. As you know, we got kids, it can be tough to do inside with kids and ah.. Yeah, so here we are! Mark: I love it! Yeah, you're not the first guest to actually show up in the vehicle. We had Chad Annis on a while ago and he was on his RV. He's been doing it for nine months, just living the RV life for nine months. But I know you're out there, just kind of traveling around and on a vacation, so to speak, with your family, right? Andrew: Yeah! We're just kind of doing, doing a little trip. We love to get out of Montana. You're from—you'll appreciate this. I mean you're from Minneapolis, you know the winters can be a little brutal up north. We're in Montana and trying to get out of town and get us some more climate, you know, 2-3 months, the winter and work along the way but trying to get a little more vitamin D in the body, so that's what we do. Mark: Yeah! Our winters been super long here, my wife has told me that if it's goes on for a few more weeks, were leaving, she doesn't know where, were just going to go. Not move, were just going to go somewhere. I'm going to come home and she's just going to say, “get in the car.” So, see this, you and I know each other from E-commerce feel but I'm going to let you introduce yourself to our listeners and kind of your background and what you do. Andrew: Sure! So my background is- I'm trying to get from the beginning as brief of a story as possible at my points. Got on a school, working finance for couple of years and kind of invest in making world and learned a lot, got a lot of great experience but decided that didn't want to sell my soul to the corporate world, so quit and was looking for an opportunity to start a business and only enough, got into E-commerce, started selling CV Radios. I ran that business for a number of years, kind of two years into that. Start a second business, selling trolling motors, knowing E-commerce space, drop shipping business and couple years after that I just found that I was meeting a lot of people doing similar things that I was and it's kind of interesting very isolated, entrepreneurs in the E-commerce space. You know it'd be really cool if there was a community for these group of people so, started, it was called E-Commerce fuel which ended up evolving into a community for a high six (6) and seven (7) and eight (8) figure E-Commerce store orders. So I've since sold both of those moving E-commerce businesses. Now, my primary fulltime gig is running that community which in the ways, I try to add value in our team choice. To add value is through light events which Mark you and Quiet light has been generous enough to sponsor and support so thank you. Through live events, through a private forum that we have, kind of curated [inaudible 0:06:11.1] forum of people with experience in space and then through some proprietary software's that we've built. So that's my story and what I do. Mark: Yeah, and for anyone that is not familiar with the E-commerce fuel and the forum they're associated with, really, really valuable. I don't anybody who's a member of that forum who doesn't consider to be one of their top resources. And the conference put up every year, it is phenomenal. We go to a lot of conferences, absolutely love E-commerce fuel. Here in the E-commerce space we have a store that's six (6), seven (7), eight (8) figures. I don't know where you are with your registrations or what you're doing for accepting your memberships but tough work in the resource. Andrew: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Mark: Yeah. So every year, you do a survey of the members, performance survey of the members of your forum and it's the State of the Merchant Report. Tell me a little bit about that and how you put those report together and what it talks about. Andrew: Yeah, so, I wanted to try to get a sense of what was happening with Merchants and that sudden figure range, 'cause you–Forbes will put up reports about, you know, the fortune five hundred (500) and you hear these stats about your target in Amazon and that's interesting but it's a very different world when you're in that kind of size business that I was in, that our members are in. And so every year, I put it together like you mentioned and just– it's a survey of about 50 questions. This last year we had about four hundred and fifty (450) people respond. The average size of the store owners responding was about two point three (2.3) million and we put together a lot of stats. Everything from— We put together everything together from: where the people are from, and what type of businesses they have , conversion rates, revenue growth, how Amazon is impacting their business, all those kind of things. So, yeah, that's the kind of the survey in a nutshell and there's kind of three big take aways that I can go into or if there's something else you wanted to talk about first , we can do that too Mark. Mark: Yeah, so let's go onto the three big takeaways and for anyone looking at this, there's –this is freely available online, the ecommercefuel.com and we'll link to it in the show notes. And probably, I hope for a member, I'll link to them an e-mail that I'll send out people as well about this podcast, but lot's are really good data in here. So you do this every year, you pour over the data and you take a look at the– you know, what's important, what were the big takeaways for you these year? Andrew: Yes! So the big takeaways, let's say for the last 2018, really 2017 but published 2018 was this incredibly strong year for growth for kind of that seven (7) figure store owner demographic. Revenue, year over year, revenue was up, thirty eight (38) % and only about eleven (11) % of stores didn't see any growth at all, so like last year- you know it was in it's high twenty's (20's) or twenty five (25), twenty six (26), you look at E-commerce in general it tends to grow in a twenty (20), twenty two-ish percent range. But this year was just an incredible year, really strong growth. That was one. The second thing was, was that Amazon was a driver for a lot [inaudible 0:08:57]. This isn't surprising but it's you see, how much Amazon is contributing to merchant's revenue. So, last year, the year before this, Amazon was supposed to be responsible for about twenty (20) percent of overall revenue so let's say, you know- of a someone who's near a million dollars in sales for an average store. Two hundred thousand of that would've been generated from Amazon. This year was up to twenty-eight (28) percent so this year, two hundred and eighty (280) thousands of their million dollars in revenue was coming from Amazon. So Amazon's definitely making up a bigger portion of merchant's pie. Counterpart of that though is, Amazon also is generating more headaches and complaints for people so we looked at the number of people every year who say that- you know, we ask them what their biggest challenge and struggle in their business is, and this last year, the number of people who said Amazon is the biggest struggle or one of them was to almost 3X. And this wasn't just people complaining that Amazon was killing their business, saying that they were drop-shipper and “Oh no, all my sales are dying because Amazon was stealing them” that was only a small fraction. Probably, you know, twenty (20) percent of people complaining, thus majority of them were complaining about things like Amazon's being more competitive, I'm too reliant to, I'm tired of dealing with some of their terms of service and policies or things like that. So Amazon's more up to a greyer revenue but also there's also additional overhead burden with that. And finally, the last big takeaway was that conversion rates increase dramatically across the board for all sellers. The rates were up about twenty five (25) percent- you know, year over year. So, last year conversion rate on average was at 2.10 percent this last year it jumped up to 2.664 percent, right on that range. And, you know that was, probably the most surprising step for me for the whole survey because, it's difficult enough to bump up your conversion rate by twenty (25) percent across a single site but to see that across a group of twenty (20), four hundred and fifty (450) stores on average and I thought maybe, you know maybe what we were saying was that you can be seeing more people shift to manufacturing or product labeling which tends to have a much higher conversion rate than let's say drop-shipping. But I saw that conversion rate boost across all different store types from drop-shipping to just reselling, to manufacturing and so, hard for me to explain, I kind of hypothesize that perhaps our community is getting a little bigger and merchants are maybe getting a little more advanced; the economy and the US particularly has done well this last year. Whatever the reason something back there, those were probably the three biggest takeaways that I have to work for. Mark: Alright, so one thing that I've always found interesting about your report is the percentage of sales that Amazon takes from some of your largest stores. What are the data show–if you remember of hand, I don't know if you have the report in front of you, but what are the data show from your largest stores and how much they are actually getting from Amazon? Andrew: Let me see here if we actually calculated that this year, so I don't think we actually– Let's see, we have– we measured a couple things, we didn't get the actual revenue from, you know, what percentage of the revenue Amazon was generated by stores that had a lot on Amazon but we did measure was kind of revenue growth for different stores if they weren't selling on Amazon, if they were selling on Amazon, or were Amazon was sixty (60) percent of their revenue. So when you break it down that way, Amazon, you know, stores aren't selling on all on Amazon, they're growing in about thirty (30) percent. Stores they're selling a little bit on Amazon, you know some of them are growing in about forty one (41) percent and stores where Amazon is, you know, makes up to sixty (60) percent plus of their revenue, they're growing at fifty one (51) percent. So, you're definitely seeing the fastest growing source, definitely have a very high component of Amazon revenue to and the same thing too for income growth, it follows kind of lock step with the income that people are seeing as well. Mark: Right, now I'm just going to go through this here, one chart that I see is the Amazon dominance trance. Amazon as a source number channel, looks like you have twenty six (26) percent there? Andrew: Yep, so that's twenty six (26) percent of merchants listed Amazon as their number one channel up from twenty (20) percent last year. Mark: See, that number right there, actually is almost staring 'cause it seems like with the restore I see, it may have started flying with the website and then they move over to Amazon and Amazon took up all of the revenue. This is showing what seventy four (74) percent are still have other channel as their dominant channels or maybe they're just so diversified, What's the story behind that? Andrew: That's good question! I think it's a lot of our members are, I would say probably three quarters of them for whatever reason don't– are not a primarily–they have a very good presence off of Amazon as well and maybe, I don't know if that's just culture or part of it's to the [inaudible 0:13:20.7] silver screening and who we kind of bring in to the community but I think that might be more of–a bias of our community as to maybe just a general market thing 'cause you see, as you said, a lot of–it's probably under what you've expect to see. So I'm not exactly sure, I think part of that might just be a demographic work community report. Mark: I think it's fast– I think it's useful data, especially for people that have an E-commerce businesses who're think that they want to make Amazon their pear play. I've talked to a few business owners they've said wildly, “I'm going to focus my attention to-on Amazon because, it's for the money, yes, and why would I take away my other efforts from Amazon and make as much money.” But it appears as if you do have a number of stores that are doing that seven (7) and eight (8) figure revenue almost, without Amazon being that dominant channel. Andrew: yeah definitely and I think what a lot of the savvy merchants that I see in our community doing in any kind of floss and secret to Amazon is, it's hard to pass up free money and easy money and granted that Amazon's getting harder but still it's a pre-power form and conquering opportunity even in 2018. But their mindset much of the time is use Amazon as a way to help launch a brand, to help generate some cash flow and then use the momentum you can generate from Amazon, Use the cash you can generate from Amazon to help build your off Amazon, your own dot com, your own web store presence, because all fully that's the asset that you own and i's much less rescue than being be-haunt by Amazon going forward so I think that's a strategy a lot of us, as bigger merchants are taking. Mark: That's absolutely see as well with Amazon is that launch process tends to be. You want to be testing your products and been able to launch a brand so much faster because of the size of the market place. Let's talk real quick about software. You guys have a very cool part of your community where your community rates software that they're using and it's feedbacks. So you have like a star rating. If somebody wants to find like a good shopping card or what shopping card they should use, or maybe help desk software. You guys have a whole record of software within the community that rates that, right? Andrew: We do, yeah, and so part of it is the ratings like you mentioned another part of it, and maybe more telling is– is the usage stats. We have about a thousand members in our community and our software goes out and crawls all of our member's stores on a weekly basis and uses an integration we've built with to be able to tell what all of the members are using. So we can tell in a real time that “Oh, you know, forty four (44) percent of our members are on Shopify this year versus, you know thirty seven (37) percent last year.” Whatever it is. So we can get stats on what people are using but also people– our members who rate the software as well as, with essence, what's– you know, what people like. Mark: That's– that's pretty cool. So what software would you say is really– sum of the people should be paying attention to in 2018? What's really been growing quite a bit over the past year? Andrew: I'd say, you know, search shopping biggest one's and that's probably become as a surprise to people but Shopify just dominates in this area, you look at that thousand-ish area in our community and I think probably about forty (40)– Four hundred and twenty (420), four hundred and thirty (430) of them succumb, you know, over forty (40) percent close to forty five (45) percent use Shopify and the number of people we've seen switch to Shopify from Magento over the last two (2)- three (3) years is just unbelievable, they've done a really good job capturing that market shares. So, on a shopping card side, that's when I'd say, the other four well kind of three that we have within the– still the merchant E-mail marketing, Mailchimp is the number one. They've got two hundred and eighty two (282) out of our top one thousand and Clivio's to seventeen of our top one thousand. So both those are kind of the leaders there. Fairly close. Help desks, we've got Zendesk- is the top to use, sixty one (61) out of a thousand use them, but help scouts pretty close behind there and they get slightly better ratings. And I would be surprised if we didn't see a flip-flop of that seen help scout come on the top over the next year. And for product reviews, Shopify parse based on the facts that people use, Shopify is reviewed, built on reviews the system has most popularly used. YAGPO used to be that number one spot but they dropped to number three (3) this last year. Partially, they got great functionality but I think a lot of the kind of experience that I've heard from stores is just their pricing is getting quite a bit more expensive. And so you see, companies like Stem Dot ayo who offers similar functionality at a much lower price might come in, they'd jump up significantly this year up to the number two (2) spot. So, those were kind of the trends I'm seeing. For disclosure we've had the Claygo sponsor of our podcast. YAGPO use to sponsor us and Shoprite sponsored us in the past. Mark: Right so that might be infusive but I'd want to share something, cause I think you'll actually appreciate this. I'm working on a client right now and hopefully, let's say business here soon, tell me last time you heard this: He's on Yahoo! shopping card. Andrew: Well occasionally we get somebody on the forum saying “Hey, I'm on Yahoo! stores, should I migrate or how do I migrate.” It's always an entertaining thread to read. Yeah, that's– curious people laugh. Mark: When they told me that, It's like “Woah, I haven't heard that for at least like five or six years. It used to be the gold standard that everybody used. Andrew: Well, I think- I mean, if you look in the cell that's probably a decent positioning stand point for someone who's careful of migrations and reason. I'd still say “Hey!” but you know, I'm sure there's some incredibly converting Yahoo! store sites out there but you can probably modernize and probably get thick enough conversion, it's a rebrand, it's a nice value out of your– if you're going to buy this thing. Mark: Yeah, that's an interesting listing, which I'm sure a lot of people will be looking at once it comes out but yeah. So , let's talk a little bit about Magento and fact that there's– I seem I heard a little bit, my only foreign in E-commerce that I wrote a blog post on this years ago but it was kind of disaster for myself. My foreign in E-commerce side, what with Magento and– My goodness, I had so much trouble with it. What do you think the problem is with Magento. Are they just losing out at Shopify or are there problems that are kind of inherent at Shopify. Andrew. It's– I think it really depends year-use case. It's–Magento's incredibly powerful. They've got a decent eco-system for a lot of their extensions but it's just so complex. Like I've been on multiple shopping cards; Zencard, Shopify, Magento. And by far, the hardest one to customize was Magento. Even just changing layouts around on the homepage was a nightmare and I– so I think, I think the problem is, is that it's-it's very powerful but it's much more complex than your average store owners specially in the seven (7) figures is going to need. When you look at the benefit of having full customization verse's the benefit of ease of administration and up key maintenance Shopify or another Host solution just makes, just makes more sense. And I think that there, when you think about it, if you do actually need to have access to the code base to be able to fully customize your site which is definitely–there are definitely stores out there that would be able to create custom functionality, be able to put together custom integrations that you can, with maybe some hosting solutions if the IPI's would allow it. If you need a hundred percent customization there are other cards out there that maybe– a little lighter way or quite as heavy and resource intensive and hard to customize as Magento that are probably a better option for people on that seven (7) figure range. Mark: Yeah, alright, cool. I want to go to the first point that you brought up, and that is, that revenues are up across the board from a review that you've seen, which this is something that is seen across the board as well with the business that were selling right? The business that you're selling, the values just seem going up, up, and up. And I don't know if this is a maturation or the industry just businesses that have been around longer and now are a richer skill or– really what's behind it? You make a point in your report here about– where is it? That would be the margins, the cross margins seem to hold up as well. Can you come on a little bit on the margins that you're seeing on E-commerce. I think the margins here– seen: growth margin, average of 39.2 percent and that margins of 17.4 percent. What is the trend to start with bend with that and over the past few of these revenues growing that's all same level? Andrew: Yeah, So this is something that surprise me, with how much Amazon is growing and how, you know much it's supposed to talk about. Our margin bends this opportunity. You would expect that margins to come on with more pressure this year. What I found was that they didn't slide as much as I thought they would've. Tiny bit but not very much, like you mentioned, the growth margin was 39.2 percent I think last year was a little bit higher, like 39.7 or 8 percent so it sled like a tiny bit but not much and same on the net merchant this year it was 70.4. I think last year it was 70.8 or 9. So it came down a little bit but nearly as much as I was expecting to see and if you look at the margins of stores for selling primarily on their own platform versus that are primarily selling on Amazon. This might be interesting for people, the growth margin for people primarily signed on Amazon is thirty six (36) percent versus 40.4 percent selling by their own store. And neither I expect that because Amazon takes a fee and new work fees that pays on top for Veer store. But even when you count for all the fees and the advertising you get bend your own store versus Amazon. You're still going to set a better margin selling on your own stores 17.7 percent after all said and done versus Amazon which is 16.6 so that's kind of hell of margins broke down this year. Mark: That's fascinating! Something that I feel being of interest with a lot of buyers is this average growth by business model and the format. So obviously with E-commerce you have a lot of different ways that you can do E-commerce and I'll get buyers sometimes say “Men, I want to buy a business.” “What are you thinking of?” “E-commerce.” “What type of the E-commerce?” I don't know. Okay– You have to understand like, in E-commerce there's some significant differences. Drop shipping had growth of 32.7 percent recently 27.6. I'm actually a little surprised to see more growth in the drop shipping category than in reselling category. Andrew: I was too. I was very surprised to see that. And one of my guesses about why that was, just a guess but this last year, Shopify bought Oberlo, I believe it's that pronounced, the integrator with Ali Express. You kind of have seen a significant up taken in people using that drop shipping from China via AliExpress model this year or last eighteen (18) months and I wonder if that– part of that is a responsible fact 'cause looking back at last year's report, if I remember correctly, drop shipping was– had the lowest growth. I think our selling beat it out. So, I wonder if that is what potentially changed the tides on things. Mark: Yeah, possible. And in all fairness you list here the percentage of stores that are also have flatten beckoning revenues and drop shipping seems to be just kind of split right down the middle here. You have thirty three (33) percent, basically growing thirty three (33) percent that are flat or declining so they're also– although they're doing okay there is a number that are also in a hurting category. Andrew: Exactly! yeah, Exactly, about a third of drop shipping business is at either flat or in declines. So last year, again surprisingly it's–I was– seeing the numbers, having a drop shipping business myself, whether reasons I sold that business was because I saw they had wins with drop shipping, it's pretty much more difficult with Amazon and with some other forces and last year you stated, the merchant fifty (50) percent of drop shipping stores were either flat or declining. And that's come down significantly where you're only thirty three (33) percent or in that category now. So I think part of that is potentially or below, I think part of that is just an improved year. But when you look at the stores in the other categories in rough shape, either stalled out or shrinking, you'll see much smaller numbers. Any more from fifteen (15) to twenty (20) percent for all the other categories, reselling private label, manufacturing. So yeah, so definitely some stronger areas, I think still drop shipping– there is still drop shipping business I think that work well. It's just a much harder nut to crack and you really have to be able to have a good way to add value outside of the product because you're resetting commodities and come on in and sell this as well. So it's just trickier to get right at it. Mark: Right! And I think there are some industries back with the shoverey I had into E-commerce with doing gun safes. It's going to be not very realistic to the warehouse. Gun safe in most cases once you're doing very large volumes just because the shipping cost or so, so high regardless what you're doing. Andrew: Right. Mark: So there are some businesses that land themselves to that. I think it should be no surprise to anybody that private label and manufacturing seem to be the biggest winners with forty three (43) and forty two (42) percent on every forty three (43) percent both the categories were growing and only twenty one (21) of fifteen (15) percent of those categories respectively were shrinking. Andrew: just to clarify mark, that's– so for private label and manufacturing that's the actual revenue growth rate per year. So private label will be growing like forty three (43) percent and manufacturing growing in about forty two (42) percent per year. Mark: Okay! Good! Good clarification. Fastest growing category. Is this something that we could ask all the time or what businesses are hot now? Which should I be looking for a buyer or looking to buy something? At the top of your list pet supplies which isn't a huge surprise whenever we get a business that deals with pets. Oh men, I think just flies out the shelf when I get someone with inquiries on that. But I'm well surprised about food. Andrew: And I'll put on a disclaimer on here. We have forum of fifty people respond, you break down, let's say twenty (20) or thirty (30) categories. We do not have growth bust to this as I would love and I imagine that if we got– if we have five (5) thousand, I'm sure that this numbers might be a little bit different. Take this with a little bit of a aggression that if we didn't have–we had almost no data points, these are coming off to history businesses to come off you know. It's nine (9) or ten (10) or more businesses so-. But yeah food is on there and I've seen, and I told you, a handful of businesses doing well in the food space over the last year so, That was little surprising but yeah, definitely nonetheless. It was coming in about fifty six (56) percent year over year. And again another carry up for this is again our stores are in a small in a high six (6), seven (7) figure range a lot of them so, you probably want to see high gross rates here than you would, just across the board for any businesses but still strong show food. Mark: Yeah! and probably one of the most eyed- piece of data that I've seen in to support in again. I'm focusing a lot on this one category because I think it's going to be interesting for a lot of our buyers. Men's clothing, thumbs up! Women's clothing, not growing as fast. Such an interesting this really. Andrew: Yeah! I mean it's not even-it's a huge gap. Fifty three (53) percent, men's clothing and accessories versus twenty eight (28) percent in woman's clothing and accessories and I think it's– I think part of that is just you have– I mean woman's fashion, I think is more saturated, more– just traditionally. And I think you're starting to see more interesting kind of men's apparel come out. Specially direct to consumer, men's apparel and– yeah it's almost current twice as fast 'cause I just think there's more room than there is much competition. There's still, I mean your apparel, not an easy place to be in but men's versus women, I think men's probably much easier place to make money right now. Mark: Yeah, absolutely! So, last, put them in a do with the steadily commerce– clocking pretty quickly, I think this is probably the funniest question I've seen, anybody ask on survery about your favorite entrepreneur. How did you select these four entrepreneurs. And the four that you choose likely just set anyone, let's see: Ian Moss, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, and Jeff Basels. Some of those makes sense, how did you slot those four? Andrew: Oh, I got to have Basels on the right 'cause he's the you know, king of E-commerce. The other, I was just trying to come up with, with four well-known billionaires, the idea of being cool, do you know what billionaire who you want to have lunch with and just top up of my head once that came to mind that were worth the billion dollars at least is Ian and kind of just came to me quickly was those four, kind of those than that. Mark: I'm actually surprised Ian Moss by large margins. Andrew: (laughs) You want to be the– Almost thirty (30) percent it was Richard Branson, second was twenty five (25), Cuban twenty three (23), and Basels. Surprisingly or maybe not so surprisingly given this is an E-commerce survey and– some people in here, a little help with the others as well, was Basels with 22.2 so– Mark: I'm not surprised at all. I was really hoping back think we are can you get to it this time, so maybe we can do it at future episode, I was really hoping to talk a little bit about you're experiences on your own businesses, your own E-commerce businesses and what that was like because you self-sold, you didn't use appropriate off those and I think the first one you did– Didn't you do a public auction with that? Andrew: First one? I did and it was kind of strange and I think you were kind enough to retouch me after that and give me some tips and talk to me about it in a real gracious way. I did it was reverse auction, so the way it worked was like I listed the site– well first it was– everything was publicly transparent as you know most of the sales that you do, fairly quiet about the financials, the instance, the data. And I– the options, I published all the financials, all the key things, there was a few things I held back that might have been easy to rip-off the business with but ninety (90) percent, for PINO balance sheet, all I can have set, I made public and– so that was one part. Second part was I do the answer, reverse auction and so the price started at a hundred and ninety to eighty five thousand dollars, and then every week would drop by ten thousand dollars until somebody decide they wanted to buy it and I had someone, I think at the first week of before evening drop, and take it up. So it was kind of a very unorthodox way to sell a business and only the first one to say I think I lacked out on getting a great buyer from the out set that we work well together and close the deal. I very much could've blown it in my face, but -yeah. A little bit different. Mark: If somebody wants to look at that, you can do a search on Google for E-commerce fuel and sign E-commerce business. I believe it actually come up in the third results, if I'm not mistaken or we can make it easier and link up our show notes, and some one will like the post . Andrew: Also, new link for the show notes and also if you could Google E-commerce fuel reverse auction or reverse auction “trollingmotors.net” That's the name of the business that might pop-up as well. Mark: That's right, remember that new E-mail do you have? I mean it was completely selfish forums on my part, I just wanted to be in front of the audience so– Andrew: (laughs) Mark: But see you got a lot of really cool resources available in E-commerce field obviously there is a form which is you have to apply for in order to get in to say no that you're going to get high quality members there. You guys also have a job board that you release in week. I think it's so , discretion it's so often to people who buys site and who want to have fines with good confidence and help. I don't really recommend anything to people but you guys just recently started up a job org. Andrew: We did, yeah! That something we saw was a both kind of a gap in the market and also just like you said, something our members are having a hard time with was finding a really good quality E-commerce talent. and our job award is focused on E-commerce directors or managers kind of high level. You know people they can run an entire operations for an owner as well as exceptional marketers PPC, E-mail Mark any things like that and exceptional customer service reps so people that are really good on customer service over the phone or email or chats. So that's our job board list in the positions we really focus on, and try to– try to build a community, a job board that's healthier so that when you run a store, you know where you can go to get in front of an audience of people looking for dispositions and if you're lucky to get the E-commerce world it's a great place to going to be able to find an opportunity, hopefully to get plugged in and you can actually find that at ecommercefuel.com/jobs. Mark: you're going to owe me a lot of thanks, I'm going to send them, all on the show notes. Andrew: , So Mark, I will happily send you as many links– [inaudible 0:32:58.6] I bet that won't be a problem. Mark: Of course, it's been an awesome state of Merchant report, this is your second doing it, is that right? Andrew: Second year doing it, hope to do it every year. And yeah– this is the second year. Mark: It's also lot of work to put together but there's few things I look forward to. As one of those things I look forward to, I think there's actually really good data insights in this report. Anyway that's been invite, or anyone who's in E-commerce space in general. This is something that you want to check out for sure. If you are not familiar with the E-commerce fuel I would definitely recommend checking them out and I know I'm completely endorsing you, this is not something I normally do but I really do believe we should do in over there at E-commerce fuel. I know so many members there that they become friends of our company and personal friends as well. I like to brag about things that I think will actually help people and honestly your group is out there helping a lot of people in space. Andrew: well thank you, I appreciate the kind words, Mark. And one thing I wanted to mention just on a say the merchant if you're a daily geek and you want the add the numbers or your smarter than me which is almost certainly the case and one plots some more insights from these, we make all of the data just openly available so you can go to the webpage for this post and download the full data set so by all means a stats measure or try to do the best I can but if you want to -if you have insights you can plot of it we do make whole data set available for people so, Mark: Yeah! and if you pull on any insights send an email over to Andrew, just let him know. I'm sure he would love to see it. Andrew: I'd love to hear about it, yeah , please do. Mark: Cool, Andrew thanks, so much for coming on, I hope to have you on some time in the future. Really, really appreciate it. Andrew: Mark, thanks for letting me, you know, the invitation and for the support that you've given the- to our fans, to our community over the years. Appreciate that as well Mark: Cool, alright, well hey, enjoy that vacation! Andrew: Thanks appreciate that! Links and Resources: eCommerceFuel State of the Merchant 2018 Story of Andrew's first eCommerce site sale eCommerce fuel job board

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.

Another episode of tales at sea. Following on from the mysterious tales of the Dark Gentleman, we find another curious passenger on board…although will they turn out to be any less disturbing to the crew? Music: Creepy — Bensound.com.   Andrew: Here are some Totally Made Up Tales, brought to you by the magic of the internet. This week: The Stowaway. James: Martin, the First Mate, thought he knew everything about this ship, as First Mates really ought to. Andrew: It was not the largest ship the world had ever seen, but nevertheless it contained many nooks and crannies and corners that men who had served on it across journeys of several months had still not managed to explore. James: Martin, however, knew them all. But something was not quite right. Andrew: There was a strange energy on board the ship, that was quite different to the masculine peace that settled aboard the boat once the shore was safely left behind. James: It reminded him of the one or two times when they'd transported families from Southampton across to the New World looking for a new life. Andrew: It was not as strange as the time when the famous occultist traveled with them and disappeared halfway across the ocean, but it was still something not quite right. James: Martin didn't like it when things weren't quite right, it upset the smooth running of the ship and it made the men grumble, and that was one of the worst things to contend with. Andrew: He decided that he would determine for himself whether there was anything untoward going on, on the ship, but he would do it in a subtle and determined manner. James: He drew up a schedule where he could regularly walk every turn and every corner of every deck, both above and below. Andrew: He began his exploration and very soon began to have an even more acute sense that there was something either just ahead of him or just behind him, but it was as if, whenever he turned his head, the thing it was that was following him or that he was following — and he could not be sure which it was — had disappeared, and he was left once more alone. James: He had first had the sense a day or two out of port, and it continued for a full week, gradually making him more and more frustrated, until one day, Timothy, the old cook, came to him. Andrew: Timothy was a grumpy man, perpetually red in the face with irritation, and missing his right leg. He had adapted his kitchen galley successfully so that he could navigate his way around, but in all other areas of the deck he moved on traditional sailor's wooden crutches. James: He came to Martin with a complaint about theft. Andrew: An entire barrel of biscuits, which he had been intending to use later that week, had disappeared from the kitchen, lock, stock, and barrel. James: Martin knew that none of the men would have tried to secrete an entire barrel anywhere else about the ship, it was a ridiculous and foolhardy notion that you could even get away with it, and so he continued his pacing about the decks until he discovered the barrel, now empty, in one of the smaller holds. Andrew: Scattered on the floor around the barrel here and there were biscuity crumbs. James: Martin spent some time checking the rest of the hold, looking behind the crates and boxes, and underneath the tarpaulins, but he could not find any indication, other than the barrel and the crumbs, that anything was amiss. Andrew: Later that day, in the evening, he sat down with the Captain for dinner, and the Captain turned to him with his customary question and said, "Well then, First Mate, what are the news?" James: He recounted how Timothy had come to him and his investigation and what he'd discovered, and the Captain looked at him with suspicion crossing his face, "Have you felt a presence onboard ship?" he asked. Andrew: "Well sir, as it happens," Martin replied, "I have felt a rather different atmosphere on the ship than usual… it has seemed that there has been something here." "What do you make of… this?" said the Captain. He opened the draw of his work desk and took out a piece of paper covered in a strange childish scrawl, and laid it out in front of the First Mate. James: "Was that? It looks like it was drawn by a child, sir." Andrew: "Yes, it could be a child or possibly a madman, or I'm not entirely sure. I dismissed it entirely of course, read it through for me." James: "I can't make it out at all, sir. It doesn't seem to be written in English, or indeed any other language as I recognise." Andrew: "Yes, I thought that," said the Captain. "But here, look, when you hold it up to a mirror, now try." James: "Oh my word," said Martin. "You're right. It's a diary." Andrew: "Yes, that's right. A page from a diary. A diary that's been kept while on this ship. I found it fluttering along the passage outside the door to the hold." James: "Do you really think so sir? We have a stowaway?" Andrew: "I think we should consider the possibility. Nothing has been quite right on this ship since the time that mysterious man disappeared after saving us from pirates, and I wonder if the forces of the occult have returned to haunt us." James: "I shall organise the men to do a thorough inspection, sir. I'm sure we will catch them." And indeed Martin was sure that he would catch the stowaway. Andrew: Duly assembled, the men set out in groups of two around the various passages of the ship in search of the mysterious diary writer. James: Creeping down the passageways, hunting through the holds, peering into the dark corners, the men gradually covered every inch of the ship. Andrew: Each pair in their turn, returned from their searching to the main deck to report to the First Mate, and came back empty handed. Not a sign, not a scrap, not the slightest clue as to the writer of the diary had been found. James: Two by two, Martin ticked them off in his head until there were five pairs still out, then four, then three, then two. The last pair that had gone down into the holds below reported that they could see nothing out of the ordinary, and he was just wondering how the other pair was getting along when the sound of a struggle came from the cabins that they had been searching. Andrew: The cries and thuds muffled by the several layers of decking nevertheless could be heard and stirred an immediate call to action in the First Mate. He grabbed two of the pairs nearest him, his trustiest men, and set off down the hatches to go and investigate for himself. James: He burst in, the men hard behind him, on an amazing scene. Andrew: Inside the passengers' cabin, standing quietly and unassumingly in the centre of the passenger cabin was a small elfin faced girl with close cropped hair, beaming at them with her hands on her hips. Lying on the ground of the cabin in front of her were the two burly sailors, out for the count. James: A thought flashed through Martin's mind, wondering how on each how such a small child had managed to overcome such large men, but he was too well trained to voice this concern. "Seize her!" he cried. Andrew: The men who had come down with him and to whom his order was addressed looked at the girl, looked at their fallen comrades, looked nervously at each other, and hesitated upon the threshold. "Didn't you hear me, men?" said the First Mate, "in and seize her!" James: Greg looked at Harry, and Harry looked at Greg, and neither of them wanted to be the one to make the first move. So Martin reached forward and grabbed the girl by the scruff of the neck. Andrew: At once, she burst into tears, and paying no heed to her bawling, Martin dragged her through the passageway, dragged her up onto the deck, into the Captain's cabin, where he threw her roughly to her knees in front of the ship's commander. James: "Good work, Martin," said the Captain. "And what are you, eh?" Andrew: The little girl looked at him, sobbing, wide eyed, and said, "oh please sir, please, have mercy on me." James: Martin nudged her with his foot. "Captain asked you a question," he said. Andrew: "Oh, oh, I am ..." The girl took a deep breath in and looked directly at the Captain imploringly and said, "I am but a poor child, sir. My father was a sailor of many years standing and spent his life at sea and one day in a tragic accident was killed when his ship caught fire. My mother was unable to support herself, me and my brother, and my brother signed up to sail to the New World in the Navy and I decided that the only way forward for me was to follow him and so I ended up here on the first ship I was told was sailing to the New World and I hid in the hold." James: The Captain looked at her sternly. "I cannot just let stowaways use my ship as free transport between the continents." He said. "We cannot throw you overboard, we're in the middle of the sea, but if you are to remain here, you must work to earn your keep." Andrew: "We have no use for you on deck, this is man's work requiring a man's strength, but the kitchen is short of a boy, you shall serve there for the remainder of the voyage. Go, at once. You will be directed by Timothy the cook." James: And so Martin took her down to the galley, and introduced her to Timothy, and Timothy immediately put her to work scrubbing the Brodie stove to keep it clean or at least as clean as Timothy deemed necessary for basic sanitary food production purposes. Andrew: With a dedication and an application and a thoroughness that seemed uncharacteristic for someone that looked outwardly so delicate, the little girl scrubbed at the stove, scrubbed and polished and shined. Bucket after bucket of dirty water was emptied over the rail into the sea, until the Brodie stove was as good as new. She turned to the cook and said, "sir, I have scrubbed the stove. What would you have me do next?" Tim looked at her and said, "sir? I'll have no sir in my kitchen! I'm Tim the cook, and what's your name?" James: In a small voice, Elsie introduced herself and told her story of how she had come to be on the boat. In return, Timothy gave her a history of the vessel, including some of the rare goods that they had transported and the confusing and perplexing tale of the Master of the Dark Arts, who had recently bought passage with them to the New World. Andrew: Over the days that followed, Tim and Elsie built up an extraordinary rapport. The cook, who was usually one of the grumpiest and least sociable fellows aboard the ship, had taken a shine to this little girl, and she to him. The atmosphere in the kitchen changed from one of shouting and swearing to one of laughter and camaraderie, and the quality of the food rose remarkably as a result, raising the morale of the rest of the crew. James: Over dinner one night at the Captain's table, the Second Mate, Will, turned to the First Mate, Martin, and mentioned sotte voce that perhaps they should have a stowaway on every voyage. Andrew: They laughed, looking at their empty plates wiped clean by freshly baked bread, when suddenly they were interrupted by a cry from the lookout tower. "Ship ahoy!" James: Coming onto the deck, the Captain looked at the lookout, who was pointing hard astern. Behind, somewhere in the darkness, there was a light. Andrew: A half a mile off or so it seemed, there was a ship shaped object bobbing backwards and forwards with the motion of the waves with an eerie glow that seemed almost otherworldly. James: Slowly, the shadowy shape was gaining on them. Andrew: The Captain summoned the crew to their action stations, called for the sails to be hoisted full up, and observed the mysterious shape still gaining on them. James: The faster they went, the faster it pursued. As the spectre came closer, the lanterns from their own ship, and the light inside it, gradually made the shape clearer. Andrew: The First Mate turned to the Second Mate and, furrowing his brow, said, "this is going to sound like a very strange thing to say, but does that look to you like a ship made out of smoke?" James: "Not any ship," said the Captain. "That is the ship that we saw burn to the waterline." And it was true, the superstructure looked identical, the rigging, the position of the masts and sails. It was the pirate ship that had chased them so recently. Andrew: And as it came closer, the mysterious glow that had revealed it when it was at a distance to the lookout resolved into the flickering embers of the final burning pieces of wood floating on the water underneath the smoky shape. James: "Can we even fight that, sir?" asked the Second Mate. Andrew: "Do we need to fight it, sir?" said the First Mate. "What's its intention? It's just smoke." James: "It's evil," said the Captain. "Prepare the cannon." Andrew: "How do you know it's evil, sir?" said Will. James: "I just have a feeling," said the Captain. "The feeling that evil has been dogging us ever since that ship burned." Andrew: The cannon trundled forward on its heavy wheels to the ship's rail and was being loaded by the men responsible for it. They turned to the Captain and said, "Ready to fire, sir", and the Captain said, "Very well, fire at —" But before he could finish the command, a small tug on his elbow revealed that Elsie had come up to the deck and was looking at him with a serious face. "Please sir," she said, "don't fire on the vessel, it's me that it's come for. Please let me go and speak to it." James: Agog, the Captain let her pass. Elsie walked right up to the rail and held her hand out towards the ship that was now only a few dozen feet away. Andrew: Out of the swirling mass of smoke that made up the shape of the ship, with its amorphous and shifting edge, there seemed to solidify an additional shape of a man standing opposite Elsie, face to face, where the rail of that ship would be if it had a rail, and it seemed to that an arm came out from his smoky body and extended across the water and gently, gently, gently made its dark tendrily way to her hand until it touched it. James: As soon as it did, the smoky ship started to dissolve and waft away on the fresh breeze coming in from the ocean behind it. "Daddy," she called out gently. And in response, a deep thrumming sound seemed to make the word "Elsie" from across the water. Andrew: With the contact between the two having been made, the form of the smoke ship dissolved and it became once more the mists that roll over the seas at night and ceased to have any shape or solidity. James: And as it dissolved, so too did Elsie's form gradually fade away until the Captain, the First and Second Mate and the crew members could see plain through her. Andrew: As she was on the verge of disappearing before their very eyes, she turned looking at the crew in turn and taking them all in with her penetrating gaze, finally her eyes rested on the Captain and she said, "thank you" — and vanished. There came from the hatch leading down to the galley a sobbing which caused the First Mate to turn and there to his surprise he saw Tim with his face buried in his cook's apron, uncharacteristically emotional. James: The crew were quiet for the rest of the journey, less banter and less grumbling than usual. In the Captain's cabin, a number of hushed conversations over dinner attempted to discern just what Elsie had been and where she had gone — but without coming to any conclusions. Andrew: The only thing that everybody could agree on was that the quality of the food had improved, and from that day forward it remained the best on the high seas.

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 LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Andrew explains what microbrew beers are, and why we enjoy them so much. Jesse and Andrew also talk about nanobrews and homebrews, which are beers that we can make at home on our own, and our favorite microbeer store/bar called Chucks! Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world. Website: dialog.fm/lple iTunes: bit.ly/LPLEiTunes Facebook: bit.ly/LPLEFacebook Twitter: bit.ly/LPLETwitter Patreon: bit.ly/LPLEPatreon   TRANSCRIPT  Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hey, Andrew. Andrew: Hey, Jesse. Jesse: You just came back from Vancouver BC in Canada. Andrew: I did, yes. Jesse: And during that time, it sounded like you had your fair share of microbrews. Andrew: I did, actually, which is good news for me because I'm a huge fan of beers that are made in a style that is not the common Budweiser, light lager style of the type that you can buy in almost every country. Jesse: One of the things I want to talk about in this episode is microbrews because microbrews is something that you and I really enjoy. Andrew: Yes, and I think people in our city, in Seattle, are actually very fond of this style of beer in general. Jesse: So, let's start with what is a microbrew. How would you define a microbrew? Andrew: Sure. I will start by defining a macrobrew, which is to say large companies like InBev, Anheuser-Busch, SABMiller, etc., who make very popular beers that are made in very large batches and distributed very widely. You might have heard of Budweiser, or Heineken, or Miller, or Corona; these are beers that are made by very large companies, they are made to taste the same wherever you go, wherever you get them, and they're very popular. But, they are also very plain to taste because they have to appeal to a lot of different people. Think about, like, for example, Coca-Cola, which is made everywhere, and always stays the same, and everyone likes it. If you like unique flavors or different flavors of soda, you might have to look for a smaller company that makes a more interesting soda, but doesn't sell it everywhere; and, microbrews are the same idea with beer. They are small companies--or even people doing this is as a hobby--that are making beers that have interesting and new flavors, that don't follow the same recipe rules that a Budweiser or a Corona might, and it gives you many different and interesting options to try when you go to a restaurant or to a bar in a place that carries them. And, the Pacific Northwest, which includes Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada, and also Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon in the United States, are all cities that have been very supportive of microbrews coming up and being sold right alongside the big names like Budweiser. Jesse: "Macro" means "big," "micro" means "small," and the word "brew" is another word for "beer." Andrew: Ah, "brewing" is the process that is used to make beer, much like "baking" is the process used to make bread. Jesse: So, microbrews are pretty popular in Vancouver BC, Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon in the Pacific Northwest, and also parts of California, as well. Andrew: Oh, yes. Definitely. The entire west coast of North America tends to make very flavorful, very hoppy beers that are not the normal style that is made in the big companies. Other towns have taken this up; Austin, Texas is known for it, Denver and Boulder Colorado make a lot of beers, and also many cities on the East Coast, although I have not been to them to try their own local flavors. Jesse: What are the main ingredients in a beer? When you think about making your own beer, and you, Andrew, have actually made your own beer before... Andrew: Yes. Jesse: ...What are the main ingredients that you can control in a beer? Andrew: Beer is actually very simple in terms of the number of ingredients. All you need is grain, and water, and hops. And, hops are a flowering vine whose bud, the flower part of the plant, contains a lot of very strongly flavored oils that almost make a kind of tea with the water and the grain. Most beers are made with barley, but you can also find them made with corn and rice; so if you buy a Budweiser, it is made mostly with rice as the grain. All you're doing is extracting the sugars from the grain and then using yeast to process the sugar into alcohol. And, what makes the flavor of a beer unique is the combination of the type of yeast, the type of grain, and the number and types of hop that you put into the mash, which is the yeast and grain mixture. Jesse: Now, the word "extraction" means "to take out," right? Andrew: Yes. Jesse: So, you're trying to take out the sugar from the rice, or the corn, or the... Andrew: Barley. Jesse: ...or the barley. Andrew: Or wheat, sometimes. Jesse: Now, isn't the water also really important? The quality of the water? Andrew: It is definitely true that some places have more flavorful water than others. So, depending on where your water is from, it might have more sulfur in it, it might be more clear, or in some places like big cities such as Los Angeles, California the water is very processed and cleaned and doesn't have a very crisp or clear flavor, and that definitely impacts the flavor of the beer, unless you treat the water or clean it; and, so it depends on what the brewery does to prepare the water before the beer is made. Jesse: When I went to Vietnam a couple of months ago, one of the things I was really excited about was that in Ho Chi Minh City they have a microbrewery. Andrew: One... Jesse: One, which is a big step for many reasons. One, it means that there are more people in Vietnam who are exploring different tastes. The popular beers in Vietnam are Heineken, Tiger, Saigon Beer, Hanoi Beer, and these are macrobrews, right? Andrew: Yes. Jesse: They're made in large quantities and sold throughout the country, if not the entire region of Southeast Asia. Andrew: Right, and they also have the same characteristics of most of those more popular, more broadly distributed beers, and that is that they are very mild in flavor and in taste, and so there is a lot of room to make things more interesting with a microbrew where you can use more specific ingredients to get something interesting. Jesse: There was a small microbrew bar in District 2 that I went to. Now, their selection was very small--that's fine. They had about 10 or 12 different kinds of microbrew, and I had the chance to try about three. I was really excited because, again, you and I really appreciate microbrews. I think the biggest challenge that microbrews have in Vietnam, especially at a bar, is being able to serve them cold. Now it's of course very hot in Vietnam, and you want your beers to remain as cold as possible. Andrew: Yes. Jesse: However, when you order a pint of a microbrew in Vietnam, it gets warm really quickly... Andrew: Right. Jesse: ...and the common practice in Vietnam is to put ice in your beer... Andrew: Oh no... Jesse: But, you don't do that with microbrews; that ruins everything about how the beer was made and the flavor, right? Andrew: It definitely changes the balance and makes the flavor weaker. And, much like watering down tea or watering down coffee makes it taste less rich and less full, the same thing happens with beer. And, especially beer because beer is carbonated--they're the fizzy bubbles in it--and when you put the ice in it removes most of that carbonation, and the bubbles actually have a flavor to them. The carbon dioxide tastes a bit bitter, and it adds to the overall taste, and when you put the ice in, it gets more watery, less flavorful, and less bitter, all at the same time, which never works out well. Jesse: One of the things I really love about our city is that we can legally make our own beer. Andrew: Yes. Jesse: We can't sell it, right? But, we can make it and share it with friends. Andrew: Right, it's called "home brewing" or "homebrew." Jesse: Right, so we have macrobrew, microbrew, we also have nanobrew, and then we have homebrew. Andrew: Right. Jesse: Again, the homebrew cannot be sold to anybody. Macro, micro, and nano can. Andrew: And, nanobrew..."nano" just means "very small," whereas "micro" means "small," so it's an even smaller brewery. And, really the only difference between a nano brewery and a home brewery is that they have gotten the permission to sell the beer that they make, as well as be making it in a small establishment, or even a kitchen. Jesse: How many times have you make beer at your house? Andrew: Oh gosh. Probably 10-20 times. Jesse: And, what is your favorite style of beer that you make at your house? Andrew: I almost always make IPAs, which stands for India Pale Ale. It is a type of recipe for beer that uses a lot of very strong hops in it. And the reason for that is that originally the hops were added to the beer because it keeps the beer safe to drink even if the water has gone bad. So, on long ship voyages, the British would bring beer along for the trip, but it would go bad unless they added extra hops. And, so this style of beer was sent on the ships that were going all the way across the world to India, the very long trips where the normal beer would go bad. That style has been taken over by the western United States and western Canada, and they have made it even more strong and even more flavorful, and the hops they use are even richer and have even more interesting tastes to them. And, that has become the main style that is made here and then my very favorite style, as well. Jesse: In Seattle, we have a lot of microbreweries, and we even have a few nanobreweries, as well. Andrew: Oh, many. Yes. Jesse: Our favorite store to go to is a place called Chucks. Andrew: Yes. Jesse: And at Chucks they have fifty different kinds of microbrews on tap. Andrew: Right, and they're different every time because they bring one batch in, and as soon as it's empty they bring another one to replace it. So, there's always something new to try. Jesse: Right. If you ever visit Seattle, and for the listening audience I hope you do, when you come to Seattle, if you like beer, or even if you're curious about different kinds of beer, talk to us. We will happily take you to Chucks. Andrew: I can't wait to see you. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

In this episode, Craig speaks with Andrew More, Owner and Managing Director of More CA, a chartered accountancy firm.  Andrew has set out to add value to his services by not just helping his clients with compliance but also offering them real world advice, assistance, and guidance.    When asked about the kinds of problems Andrew helps his clients with, he explains that his practice puts an emphasis on the ethos of collaboration.  This involves brainstorming with his clients to solve issues and problems they are faced with.  They work with technology to facilitate processes and ensure accuracy in the figures, along with other specialists to help improve their clients’ businesses.   Unlike the run-of-the-mill accounting firms most business people see once or twice a year, Andrew is more hands on.  He engages with his clients on a more regular basis and encourages them to ask questions no matter how simple they may seem.   Andrew has had to differentiate More CA from the rest of the traditional accounting firms by adding more value to his clients.  One way More CA has done that was by educating the practice’s clients on what they must expect from their accountants.  As he starts to work with his clients, he asks four basic questions such as What is your structure? What are your issues? How do we contact you? What are your goals?”   More CA’s purpose in asking the clients what their goals are is to determine whether their personal goals and business goals are in alignment.  Once they understand what their client’s goals are, they can advise them on the manner of which will be relevant to helping them achieve their goals.   When asked about what he enjoys about being in business, Andrew mentioned that he enjoyed working with his clients.  In his previous job, he knew he could offer them more than what the same old accountancy model offered.   Andrew feels that he has succeeded in what he has achieved.  However, he says his goals are constantly changing.  These goals push you to be better and not content with who you are.  He reviews his goals about once a year.   His assistant, Claire, holds him accountable for his goals.   Sometimes, his friends and family do the same.  Most of the time, he engages in introspection and what he calls “self-review.”  Bouncing ideas around with a trusted friend or colleague. From these discussions, he is able to get clarity and allows him to identify what to prioritize and what not to prioritize.  It comes back to the Paretos Principle, also known by other monikers such as the Law of the Vital Few, the 80-20 Rule, and the Principle of Factor Sparsity.  Basically, it states that approximately 80% of the effect comes from 20% of the causes.   The one thing Andrew has been able to uphold in his professional demeanour and personality has been developing his empathy.  It’s about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and trying to understand where they are coming from in terms of their matters, issues, accidents, and failures.  This hit home for Andrew because it made him realize that nobody comes into work to do a bad job.  In the same manner, none of the clients are out there to harm you as well.  You cannot be judgmental.  Things need to be taken from their intentions that were made.   Turning his clients into aspirational go getters takes a lot of work as well.  The clients need to understand what their preferences, their approach to risk, whether conservative or moderate, and what they want to achieve.   Andrew’s advice for small business owners in New Zealand is that if your accountant hasn’t asked you what they’re trying to achieve or what your goals are, then you’re not getting your money’s worth and you probably have to look around.  He advises small business owners to work closely with their accountants and allow them to help the business owners achieve their goals.   When asked what the difference was between bookkeepers and accountants, Andrew says it really comes down to the price.  Accountants are now sharing a lot of their business with bookkeepers.  Chartered accountants, however, have more to offer in terms of knowledge, educational background, and experience.  Offering value added services to the clients sets More CA apart from the rest.  When the client needs advice, wants to do anything important, wants to grow, has plans to grow and succeed the business, and the like, he or she would need a chartered accountant.   Mistakes that are regularly made by business owners include budgeting for tax.  Many people don’t do that.  Some businesses have gone under because of their failure to budget for taxes.  Second, business owners need to have goals or connect to something.  These goals need to be written and shared.  This starts that collaborative movement in your business and in life.  It also allows you to achieve or realize something that was totally unreachable.   One way to do this is to collaborate.  Andrew considers that as the key.  With the help of specialists, business owners will be able to focus on what matters to them .     THE PROJECT GUYS PODCAST ANDREW MORE INTERVIEW   WHAT WE NEED TO BE ASKING OUR ACCOUNTANTS   Craig Oliver: Welcome everybody!  Craig here from the Project Guys once again. Today, I’m talking to Andrew More, who’s the owner and managing director of More CA. More CA is an accountancy firm. Andrew set out the business and the frustration with the traditional accountancy firm model. He really wanted to be able to partner with his clients and offer a bit of value for their money. So, rather than just doing compliance for his clients, he wanted to be able to offer real world advices, assistance and guidance their financial health to help achieve their goals. So, I’m really excited to have Andrew here as a philosophy on what we should be asking for our accountants and what have them move forward with us with things. So, welcome, Andrew! Andrew More: Thanks, Craig. Thanks for having me along. Craig: So, let’s start off. Tell us a little bit of your background, how you got to where you are now… obviously, you’ve got a funny accent, how did that all come from? (laughter) I mean, why did you decide to go into business? Elaborate on that a little bit more. Andrew: So, I’m not from around here. I’m from Edinburgh, Scotland but I grew up in the family business and my best friend, they were in a family business as well. So, yes..I was influenced by that in an early stage. My education, I attended towards  math and physics and ultimately accountancy.  I tended to have a natural flair for those sorts of things and hey, I love autonomy. I love doing this my own way. So, I think a natural progression to business was where  I was gonna go and when we’re expecting our first child, I decided it was time to risk everything and go out  on my own.  Maybe not best for the partner but it gave me enough time with the family and it let me do things the way I wanted to. So, it was a pretty good move. Craig: Cool. So, tell us more about your business. What is it you do? What problems are you solving for your clients? Andrew: Okay, so my firm, More CA,  is substantially a chartered accountancy practice and a small one at that but we have an emphasis on an ethos of collaboration. Now, by collaboration, I simply mean people getting their heads together and solving the issues and problems which are facing the business people. So, we do this and we collaborate with technology to make things easier, make things more accurate, re-collaborate with specialists such as accountants, lawyers, business advisors and all of these sorts of things and we involve ourselves, as specialists in our own wee way and also obviously the business owners because they do a lot of the work and they make their business the best. We do all the basic compliances.  You’ve mentioned earlier, the kind of financial reporting, the tax returns but our main emphasis, as I said is, collaboration.  So, the problems that we tend to find are quite varied. So for instance, yesterday, I was dealing with a restaurateur, guy owns a quite successful wee restaurant and what he’s come to know is that he’s made such a success of himself. He doesn’t have any time. Craig: Roger. Andrew: So, he’s asked us to take all his admin work off him. So, we freed up a lot of his time to progress other projects by helping him out by putting out flexi-time payroll.  He’s doing all this rostering and we’re helping him do that. We’re putting in a lot of add-on apps for zero in order to take care of the necessary paperwork and then we’re doing the book keeping and we packaged it all up into a nice monthly bill that he’s happy with. So, he’s now focusing on what he wants to do. Other areas, other problems, we routinely get around growth.  We help people kind of, work out their plans towards growth, set targets, those sorts of things and work towards them. Some people have succession issues and we try to help them out. Succession is always best dealt with early on. Craig: Yeah. Andrew:  You set out what the goals are and work towards that plan. Craig: So, you’re really getting involved with these businesses. So like, collaboration, partnership…you’re not just an accountant you might see once or twice a year.  It takes time. It’s sort of, understanding your business and working with them to help them achieve what they’re trying to achieve and their little personal goals.  Isn’t it? Like you said. Andrew: That’s correct. Craig: It’s a real hand on type philosophy. Andrew: It’s very much hands on. It’s very much based around engaging with our clients regularly, giving them the confidence to be able to ask those question which they might feel that are silly. So, we’re making them comfortable within themselves and yeah, we appeal to people who have that sort of idea. Craig: Cool. So obviously, that a different way of thinking about accountancy services, no doubt when you were started off, you  came out of wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and gung-ho about it all. Tell us a bit about of some of the challenges and learnings you’ve had on from the early years right through now, the different challenges, different things that you have learned. Andrew: Okay, so I think that the major challenge or the major hurdle which I had to overcome as being an outsider in provincial New Zealand and this might sound a bit strange but professional service operators such as  accountants, lawyers tend to be passed on down the family chain like heirlooms. Craig: Yeah. Andrew: So, really just getting my foothold in this province and actually appealing to people that I’ve actually got the skills and services that they require has been a challenge. Nowadays, it’s getting people to understand that as a charted accountant, I offer more than the traditional accountants you store from. Craig: Yes. Andrew: So when I say traditional accountants, I mean, maybe the big, big firms when they’re dealing with small business have tended to just give their clients a set of accounts, a tax return, a letter and a bill once a year. Craig: Yup, yup and we’ve been guilty of that. Andrew: Yeah and that’s not very enjoyable for anyone and there’s very little added value and so we’re trying to step away from that and teach our clients that, that’s not all we do.  That’s very much the first stepping stone of the first foundation stone in regards to actually being involved in helping them get ahead, achieve goals. Craig: Yeah. Andrew: We’ve never had that conversation because charted accountants are never offered. They’ve dictated terms and nobody came to step ahead and show that we would have a lot to offer. Craig: So, I dare say some of the challenges would have been around perhaps,  educating the market place, educating the clients to almost expect  more  and teaching them “This is what you can expect and these are the sort of things you should be asking for or demanding” type of thing, rather than going to an accountant or your lawyer towards a scary time, going down to the dentist at a scary time. It’s actually someone who can help you progress your business Andrew:   Yeah, so we’ll probably ask her routinely and we have our contact chief that we fill in with our clients and it goes through a whole various kind of,  “What’s your structure?”, “What’s your issues?”, “How do we contact you?” All of these things. Craig: Cool. Andrew:  And the major point of it is our goals section. We ask our clients what they’re goals are. If we don’t know their goals, we can’t advise them appropriately. So, if we understand our goals or if they don’t have goals, we’ll help find their goals. Craig: Yup. Andrew:   They might not be goals based on business, they might be personal. Craig: Yup. I’ve always had to look out for that. You got your business and your personal, yeah. Andrew:   Yeah, at some point they’ve gotta converge. You can’t have personal goals which are tangential from your business goals because then you’re gonna be at a constant state of hating yourself for being in business. Craig: So, often the business funds the personals Andrew:   Correct. Craig: Yeah. Andrew:   So, everyone’s got goals.  It’s just the case of documenting them and if we can understand their goals then we can advise them on the manner of which will be relevant towards to actually achieving these goals. Craig: Yeah, cool.  Awesome. So, what do you actually enjoy about being in business? What is it like to expand your wills? What do you enjoy about your business or your industry? What do you base your success at? Andrew:   Okay, so, what do I enjoy about my business? Craig: Yeah. Andrew:   I like doing business my own way. (laughter) Andrew:   One of the main things with getting at and going out to business by myself is that I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing for our clients and the firm that I was working for.  We were just giving that same old accountancy model of no added value and I knew we could do so much more. So that’s why I went to business by myself and that’s why I like to plow my own lawn thoroughly as they have warned me against and I’m not trying to be a disruptor. I think I’m naturally disruptive and the fact that I am offering a bit more .Key to my success, I could say that my success is moderate so far. Craig: C’mon! Andrew:   And I guess if you, if I still look at where I am now compared to when I’ve first started out, I’d say yes, I’ve succeeded in what I have achieved.  But the thing about goals are, we are constantly changing them. Craig:  Yup. Andrew:   So, you look back in it now and you look at yourself now and you probably think, “Oh, I’m only a moderate success because I’ve reassessed my goals.” And I think that’s probably one of the keys, you’ve gotta have goals. If you don’t have goals, you’re probably just gonna plod along, doing things that you may just be content with who you are. Nothing wrong with that. Craig: No. Andrew:   But I’m fairly aspirational. So, I set goals and I review them. Craig: So, how far would you review your goals?   Andrew:   I would review them at least once a year and well, I’d reassess myself on it once a year. I think it really comes down to what your goals are and how quickly you need to respond to maybe adverse events. That’s how quickly and how often you review them.  If you got projects and you’ve got a short time scale. You’ve obviously need to review your actual milestones regularly but my goals have been pretty much annually based on two-year, three-year, or  five-year goals. I’ve got milestones placed along the way to six months annually. Craig: Do you review them yourself or do you bring advisor parties to help you play devil’s advocate or a third party influence or external…do you know what I’m saying? Like, with your clients, do you bring in your professional… Andrew:   It’s always nice to be held accountable. (laughter) Sometime though, I don’t personally do that. I have done with my assistant, Claire, she knows what my goals are and certainly used some people to bounced ideas off. So, I do use that devil’s advocacy and that could be friends, family and those sorts of things. Craig: Yup. Yup. Andrew:   But a lot of the time, I’ve done self-review. I’m searching for doing this for others like I can do it for myself. I write loads of business plans. Craig: Okay. Andrew:   I write loads of them with these great ideas I conjure up over Christmas time. (laughter) Craig: Over Hanukkah Andrew:   And I review them on the second day and I go “Oh, that’s rubbish.” Craig: [incomprehensible] One day, there’s going to be a great idea in there and you could be the next great Mark Zuckerberg. (laughter) Andrew:   Yeah, you understand it right? You need tough collaborators and for small business people, it’s pretty hard to find collaborators. Craig: Yes. Andrew:   So even if it’s your partner, your colleagues, your friends, share your ideas. And hey, if one of them is happy to be a devil’s advocate and maybe just to help you ask those questions that justify your own ideas, hypotheses, your philosophies, just have them justify it. Craig: And sometimes, it’s just like and all in fairness as well, you have so many ideas in your head, so many businesses plans the clarity as to which you should follow and which ones you should bin. Andrew:   Yeah, just like your goals. Craig: Yeah. Yeah.  And I just went through the process myself, last week, I had lots of little projects on the go, not quite sure if  they were gonna amount to anything. So, I had a meeting with someone I trust on Friday,  bounce my ideas around. This was a big mess of brains from this section down, got massive clarity out of it, know which ones to prioritize and which ones are not.  Yeah. Andrew:   It comes back to that whole paretos principle of that 80-20. Craig: Yeah. Andrew:   So, what are you trying to achieve? Figure out your goals? If this project doesn’t actually fit in with your goals, what you’re actually trying to achieve? There’s probably no point of taking it on. Craig: No. Andrew:   If you’re wanting to have a lifestyle balance and you take on a project which is gonna consume a hundred hours a week and you’re not gonna do it. Craig: No. Andrew:   You’re not gonna achieve it. So, you need someone to go, “Hey, Craig. That’s a massive project, you’re not gonna do this as well as you actually want to.” Craig: So, work out your genius. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So later you might not think yourself as a leader but as a leader in at sort of industry or community, what have you learned personally and professionally, perhaps of yourself in the last few years, being in business for yourself rather than working in the cooperate? Andrew:   Okay, well.  I guess even working in the corporate world or doing any sort of thing, you know in a business leader, you gotta  have certain things. You gotta have a sort of, systematic process driven. You gotta have some sort of discipline, those sort of things that are pretty much standard. Probably the main thing, I’ve learned, which I’ve tried to uphold in my professional demeanor and personality is empathy. Craig: Yes. Andrew:   And really by that I mean, putting yourself in that predicament of the other person and trying to look at matters and issues, accidents and failures from their perspective.  This kind of hit home to me was dealing with the staff in my previous and realizing that nobody comes into work to do a  bad job. Craig: Yup. Andrew:   Likewise, none of your clients are out to harm you, none Craig: None. (laughter) Andrew:   Would you say that your clients are the few you deal with that set out] to harm you? Craig: Yes. Andrew:   And so, when things do go awry and things do fail and accidents happen, just step into their shoes and understand what their intentions were and more often than not, you’ll find that they’re well-intended and they’re good people. It just wasn’t the right call.  So, I hold hese beliefs and I hold myself to them in a professional manner. Personally, unfortunately, as I take to the football field, my fight club fever comes around and I become a horrible, mouthy center forward. But I… (laughter) Craig:  There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s where you take your aggression out. So long as you don’t do it with a client. Andrew:   Yeah, so empathy would be the main thing there. Craig: Yeah, now that’s a good thing to have there, empathy. Like you said, it’s  often…people having a bad day but it’s been a build-up of all sorts of things. It’s like the straw that breaks the camel’s back in the morning.  It’s totally irrelevant with what you’re doing with them.  But you just, felt it rough for the day. Andrew:   Yeah. So, when have people have issues as well. Craig: Yeah. Andrew:   A lot of people have far greater issues  or hang ups than you will ever have. Craig: Yes. Andrew:   So, you’ve gotta  just take time. Don’t be judgmental. Craig: Yeah. Cool. Andrew:   Take everything from their intentions that was made. Craig: Cool. Cool.  So, the majority of the  listeners, listening to this will be small to medium business owners in New Zealand and Australia. In your opinion, what sort of things us, as business owners been asking in and or demand you from our accountant? Andrew:   Well, I’m guessing that all accountants will be offering the same thing. So… Craig: Yes, let’s assume that. Andrew:   …pretty much the traditional model that I was talking about.  Craig: But that’s the bare minimum though, there’s the expense and the expectation. Andrew:   That would be the bare minimum but really , it comes down to what you’re trying to achieve. So, if you’re happy and content with what you’re doing and that’s probably all you’ll ever need. And so, maybe you’ll differentiate between providers and price. If you’re looking for something or if you’re aspirational or goal-driven or you have ideas of who you want to be then what you’re really wanting is somebody to be interested ,to show interest, to maybe document with what your interests are, to know what your goals are and ask these questions. If they haven’t asked you that, then how can they possibly try and give you professional advice which is gonna ba appropriate for you if you don’t know what you want to achieve. So, I’d say if for a small business owner in New Zealand , if your accountant hasn’t asked you what you’re trying to achieve or what your goals are then you’re probably lacking and you probably need to look around. Craig: Good. Good. That’s good. I haven’t thought of it that way. I thought it was the other way around with the push-demand stuff but like you say, often you don’t know what you don’t know.  At least, they’re asking you their questions and you’re willing to share them as well and then you know you’re on the right track, don’t ya? Yeah. Andrew: Well, the thing with accountants is that if one character came and had this great amount of knowledge and experience and education. But we’ve tended to use our dispense the advice purely for the bigger corporates, the really big clients who pay huge fees. Craig: Yes. Andrew:   And it’s never actually filtered down to small businesses. So, the small business person comes in and they dictated what they’re getting. Craig: Yes. Andrew:   The thing that I can’t say is that tax returns, they don’t really get the opportunity to sit down and say, “Hey, Mr. Jack the accountant. You got all this knowledge. Can you get me the benefit of it?” and when the client is sitting right across the table from this old school chartered accountants, dictating terms. They don’t feel comfortable enough to ask those questions. They don’t feel comfortable enough to ask what the previsions is, “What’s provisional tax?”,  “Why are you sending me these bills?” Craig: It’s an intimidation factor, isn’t it? Andrew:   It’s an intimidation factor. So, if they could have broken that down over the years and actually given some real value to their clients, we wouldn’t be having this issue that we’re currently having. Craig: Yeah. Cool. Awesome. So, how often should we be reviewing our accountant’s offerings? Let’s face it, men today, we just walk around, new financial year, is it too late to ask my accountant these question or do I have to wait next year? What should I be doing? Does it matter?  Andrew: It really doesn’t matter. I would say that with anything, you should review the value in it.  The problem being that a lot the cases we take on or a lot of the clients we take on do have goals or issues. They’re not issues and goals that can be fixed in a silver bullet.  There are some things that might take a year or two to gain the understanding, embed the knowledge, empower the individual to make decisions, understand their goals and to progress.  Let’s say if you’re reviewing once every one or two years then that would be fine.  However, it comes back to the fact that, “Has your accountant ever asked you these questions?” , “What are your goals?”, “What are you trying to  achieve?”, “How can we help you?” Craig: “Why are they in that business?” Andrew: If they haven’t asked you that then they aren’t putting the right amount of  effort in. They’re not interested and why would you have a business adviser that wasn’t specifically interested in  what you’re trying to achieve? Crag: I guess also, it’s very well that they could ask where in your goals you’re at because it’s sort of a new way of thinking. But this is actually following through with taking interest in those goals. It’s easier to say, “Oh, what are your goals in your business?” and then they go “ Oh! I’ve never been asked by that. I don’t really know what I wanna share with you today, Mr. Accountant.” But they need to follow through that. They need to say, “Oh, well. Tell me more about that. How can I help you achieve those?” or “What do you need from me?”   Andrew: You ask what their goals are, you ask them how they could be most of help so you can follow up and ask people right there who are stuck in that mindset of traditional accounting.   Crag: Yup. Andrew: They still come to us, on price or efficiency or convenience and we  get from that basic compliance but are happy with that  and we wouldn’t change that if that’s what… we’d want to make them some aspirational goal-getter when they don’t want to be so understanding that, understanding what their preferences are, understanding their approach to risk, whether they are really private  or whether they are gambling-oriented, whether they want to take risks or whether they really came to shine retiring. If you know all this, then you can  better meet  their demands, meet their requests and fulfill or satisfy the clients Crag: Yeah. Cool. Lovin’ that, lovin’ that.  So, maybe we can identify say, maybe  our current accountant is not doing as much as they could be possibly doing but like changing banks, changing lawyers, changing dentists, it’s a pain in the bum. How to change your accountant? I don’t know. That’s perception would be, wouldn’t it? It’s almost as if breaking up with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, ain’t that though? Andrew: Yeah, man. Crag: It’s a big move. Andrew: Unfortunately, text messaging doesn’t work. (laughter) Crag: No. No Andrew: Or not calling her back Crag: Facebook messenger Andrew: And you still get the bill for their blah Crag: Yeah. Yeah. Andrew: So, it’s always been an issue that we’ve come against as well. We had previously told our clients, “Hey, just give your accountant a call and tell them that you’re moving on” and that courtesy that was shown was never, very rarely, reciprocated by the accountants. Crag: Yes. Andrew: Our position nowadays is to leave it to us and provisions within our ethical guide which require new engagements to ratified or disputed and for information to pass within seven days. Crag: Okay. Andrew: Most accountants will adhere to that and that’s all that’s required. We do find people, especially in provincial New Zealand have deep seated relationships with their accountant and has  been passed on to them. They’ve had a long standing agreement and they may find that changing and having that conversation’s really kind of awkward, really uncomfortable. Crag: Yes. Andrew: So, if they don’t want to do it then that’s where we step in, doing it in a professional manner. If they do still want to do it then they’re perfectly allowed to do so. But they are under not required to justify their decision and it really comes down to “But the accountant was such a good friend.” Then friendships are reciprocal. So, you’re paying them a fee to do a certain service for you and you’ve asked for extra help and they’ve taken their fee on their in their arm, giving you that extra help. What kind of friendship’s that? Crag: Yes. Andrew: It’s not your issue, it’s the accountant’s issue and they probably deserved to lose you. Crag: Yes. Andrew: We see the same way with our services. We don’t tie people up because we want them to be comfortable enough to say, “Andrew, you’re not doing a good enough job. Stand up and give us our service or we’re gonna cut of our monthly installment of our fee.”  Crag: Yes. Andrew: And that will give me moving. Unfortunately, we don’t have that. Craig: And the consumerist of the client saying, “Oh, I don’t see… I’m struggling to understand the value of what I’m receiving from you.”  And then as the supplier, they  need to justify that or lift the game or or whatever Andrew: Absolutely, just life their game. As we talked about earlier, transitioning to an accountant, dictating terms…the power is now moving to the consumer. Crag: Yeah. Andrew: The subscription-based packaging, the ability to shift between different packaging, different accountants. That’s how it should be. Crag: Yeah. Andrew: That should be the flexibility that a small-business owner should demand. So, we are offering it, there’s other people in the market that are offering it and moving between accountants should not be difficult and it doesn’t need to be. Crag: Yes. Andrew: We can do that all for you. Crag: Awesome. So, on the more personal note, now that you’re a big advocate of good work and life balance which is why I guess is one of the reasons why you went into business for yourself. Andrew: Uh-humm. Crag: Since you’ve been in the business, you’ve become a father to two. Andrew: Yes. Crag: You’re also a husband and now a business man, obviously. Andrew: Yeah. Crag: So, how do you manage? How’s your work-life balance going? What’s the tip? What’s the golden nugget about that? Andrew: Well, I had so many diminished. (laughter) Having no business in the first year was great Crag: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Andrew: I couldn’t pay the bills then.       Craig: But great for the golf swing. Andrew: Got two holes in one. Craig: There you go.! (laughter) Andrew: Yeah. Sometimes you gotta fill up some holes in. It is becoming more difficult, my business is growing. I’m very happy with it. Craig: Yep. Andrew: What’s demanded is our systematic and process-driven approach and if you invest upfront in these sorts of things then you can actually still achieve it. Technology, we’ve put out on stuff like receipt bank. We’ve got zero-running. We’re doing all these sorts of stuff. We’ve got different portals in our website where our clients can engage with us routinely. They can set up their own meetings and they do everything. We use Skype so our clients don’t have to suffer traffic or parking things. We’re able to get across the country. So, we are working on work-life balance for both us and our clients. Although our own work-life balance may have diminished since the early days, I still play sports and I still drop my kids of at daycare, I pack them up most days. I’m normally home to make dinner. So, I’ve still achieved it. It’s really just about having a plan, understanding what you’re requirements are ,understanding what your resources are required and working towards your goal.  You can achieve it. Craig: And I guess, it comes back to reminding yourself as to why you did it in the first place, isn’t it? Andrew: That’s true. Craig: I’ve seen too many people start off with having this idea of a good work-life balance but then the work is 60-70 hours a week, forget why you’ve ever done it. Then once again, work in a job. Back to the first job. Andrew: Correct. Craig: Obviously, you’ve embraced technology. How has technology changed the industry since you walked out of the University so many years ago. Andrew: I walked out of University at ’99. Craig: Oh, there you go. Andrew: So, it’s been a while… Craig: 18 years ago. Andrew: I was looking at this recently, it took me back to my first job. I was working as an auditor at Edinburgh, Scotland and in 2001 and 2002, I was senior auditor on a job in Edinburgh, it was one of our bigger clients. They were manufacturing in home sale, you know one of those paper products, lever arch files, different kinds. Craig: Yup. Yup. Andrew: It’s a huge turn over though, but they’re full accounting system was purely manual and I mean hand written. Like, volumes upon volumes, libraries of books, day records and ledgers, trial balances, the works. So, they employed our financial director who’s a chartered accountant on a ridiculous salary and he was doing what we regarded these days as, menial tasks…  Craig: Right. Andrew: And taking days over them because that was what was required. Craig: Yes. Andrew: So, what you were spending days over can now be done automatically through inventions such as zero… Craig: Yes. Andrew: Fantastic new invention and to produce a trail balance report is a click of a button. To balance, to reconcile your bank is probably 20 minutes work in a week. Craig: Yep. Andrew: So, we’ve moved from days of work done by a skilled individual to minutes of work done by a layman or somebody in business who has probably never done accountancy papers. Craig: And has got no interest in it whatsoever. Andrew: So, we’ve seen a massive shift in technological movement of huge disruption and that has men that are  time-involved has reduced massively and the accuracy of the work that has been prepared or the reported that have been prepared are far more accurate than what was done previously. So that has given, I think this has probably been the basis whereby governments kind of deregulated those. Craig: Right. Andrew: Allowing people to do it a lot more  themselves, allowing more bookkeepers in the market at the expense of chartered accountants. So, that’s a real problem for our industry and as chartered accountants but we’re our own worst enemies. We never gave out enough information away, we never engaged enough with small business when they needed it. The traditional accountants just profit those for years. Craig: So, obviously, technology we know has taken over the world, so to speak. It’s not going away. So what do you think the industry is going the next five to ten years? Andrew: I personally think it’s probably a bleak future. It will probably take a backwards step for a point, for a certain time. Craig: Yeah. Andrew: But in the short term, it would be very beneficial for the consumer because there’s currently  a price war. When you look at the services of a traditional accountant gave compared to what bookkeepers today giving, they are substitutable. Craig: Yes. Andrew: So, for their easily substitutable services, because financial statements by one is roughly the same as financial statements of another. You’re just pressing button to create them and it comes down to price. So, people are going towards the cheaper one and the bookkeepers are charging a third or a fifth of the price of a chartered accountant. Craig: Yes. Andrew: And they’re just small business people. After all, you have to be very savy when it comes to cost. So that’s what’s happening in the big firms, sharing a lot of business with the bookkeepers. Craig: Right. Andrew: The problem with that is, the chartered accountants do have enormous educational backgrounds, huge experience. They have wealth of knowledge which bookkeepers just do not have. Craig: No. Andrew: Bookkeepers are very good bookkeepers which I think is a very good business advisers. The problem when it comes to  small businesses is that they’ve never given advice and are probably blah with small business. So, now they’re losing out because they’re substitutable products and book keepers are getting in. So, come to tipping point where people are realizing, “Hey, I could do a lot more for my clients.” like we are. Craig: Yes. Andrew: And we’re telling people, “Hey, we’ll give you this advice and we’ll patch it up with the same sort of price as a bookkeeper.” Craig: Yeah, Andrew: “And we’ll give it routinely for you.” We’ll engage or we’re going to avenge the end up by the dumbing down of our profession and I think, more likely, we’ll get the dumbing down of the profession first of all be fore anyone can take a stand to exchange things. Craig: Yes. Andrew: It tends to be a compromise of convenience, price and quality. Probably, the most evident one of recent time is journalism. Craig: Right. Andrew: When was the last time you bought a newspaper? For me, probably a couple of years, maybe more and that’s because I can log into my iPad and I can read the news in the morning and get a gist of what’s going on in the world and never have to go to news and I’m quite happy with what it is.? The photographs are awful, they’re better from an iPhone. There’s no artistic merit. The grammatical and spelling errors are deplorable. These people struggled to get through school and they’ve chosen a profession where they’re writing English. So, we’re seeing them dumbing down as people go for convenience, quality and price.  Craig: Yup. Andrew: Over here, we got technology that’s running these reports and could be creating what the accountants used to do and they are accurate and they are, 90% is good, maybe? Maybe just as good in some cases then are easily substitutable. So, it’s easy to see why the consumers are going down that way. Craig: I guess it comes back down to educating the market place. There’s a bookkeeper who can do your work, your account in just a push of a button. But now we’re gonna educate, you actually need more than that and here are some service providers who offered the value and this is sort of something the account has shifted from being a compliance to adding value to your business. As a key partner to your business, isn’t it? Andrew: Okay. Craig: Like you said, transition and re-educating to market place. Andrew: Bookkeepers are great bookkeepers. If you’re wanting advice, you’re wanting to do anything important, you’re wanting to grow. You want to have plans on how you want to grow and succeed your business and how you sell it and how you value it whether the business you’re buying is actually making sense. You’re going to need a chartered accountant. Craig: Yes. Andrew: If you can get that information and you can get that sort of engagement, and that interest from someone then you should take every time because otherwise you’ll be with a bookkeeper and hey, if you’re content just kind of pottering along and doing the things that you want to do, you’ve got a lifestyle that you’re very happy with then a bookkeeper is the way to go. Craig: Yup.   [33:40] Andrew:  . If you want something more important or you want someone to advise you and collaborate with you and you really need someone who is going to give you that. But not off track the Craig: There’s gonna be no Andrew: There’s gonna be a few of those. Try not to get some bad ones. We see ourselves as more of collaborative. Craig: I guess also, in a way, it’s good that a small business like yourselves and there are other people with the same size as you that can change in a whim. But the corporates can’t have that flexibility. They can’t change overnight, they can’t adapt overnight, can they? Andrew: We’ve invested the last 6-7 months getting our review of our business up and running. Getting it done, understanding what we’re trying to achieve and reconfiguring our mindset around, “What does our client base want?” and we’ve invested our time and quite significant resource in getting our website up. So, we engaged a portal where people can ask questions, drop information, set up appointments. Engage over us with media and over Skype and all of these sorts of things. So, it’s not so much of a web…but I do agree that bigger firms have, if they wanted to undertake this, they would have a huge made up of systems and process to set up, maybe some staff to lose, maybe staff to be brought on, huge up scaling coming a lot longer. Craig: Yeah, you got the flexibility to make change and we can see what you’ve just been through yourself in the last 6-7 months. It’s that sort of thing that could potentially help your clients to do the same thing. Nothing happens overnight but you can help walk through that procedure, that exercise because you’ve done it yourself. Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. Craig: And if I had a big pocket full of money there to implement these sort of things,  you’d realize that it takes time to implement things, it takes time to redesign our website because that costs money. It doesn’t happen overnight. Andrew: We’re very happy sharing our thoughts and these things because really, that’s what we do. We give advice and when people are saying , “What portal should we use?” We’ll say, “Well have a look at   blah. It’s been great for us. ” Craig: “Better stay away from this one because this was a nightmare for us.” Andrew: Yeah. You’re going to have to pass on this knowledge because that was what we really suppose, we are collaborators. Similarly too, I started my business myself, I started it worth nothing, like 3 climbs(?). I’ve had to build my own business myself. So, if you’re starting a business, why would you go to someone who is fourth generation inheriting a chartered accountancy firm, who’s never started a business?  Craig: Never been but yeah Andrew: How can they advise you? {36:00} Craig: How could they know the pain of not being able to or pay the groceries that week?   Andrew: How could they not know what the hurdles are? Craig: Yes. Andrew: They might know from a theoretical standpoint but are never gonna know from a practical standpoint because they’ve never done it. Craig: No. Exactly. Exactly. So, from your experience, what are some of the mistakes that you see business owners are making? And what advice would you give both established and start up small businesses? Andrew: I guess when we look at the mistakes which are regularly made which was really made to put into effort to emphasize when taking on clients. First one is, budgeting for tax. You’d be surprise how many people don’t. We had businesses go under simply because they don’t budget for tax. But it’s very easy to actually get your mindset the right way that you could actually put money aside and never have that problem.  The other one is you’ve gotta write down goals or connect to something.  Write it down, it’s far more powerful than just keeping it in your head.     Craig: Do you think that you could share those goals? Andrew: Absolutely. Sharing your goals, sharing your knowledge, sharing your dreams. Craig: So, writing them down and sharing them. Andrew: It’s very important because as I said earlier, it starts that collaborative movement. You feel that you are being held to account by even if you tell your partner. She’ll go, “Oh, how are your goals going?” Craig: Yes. Andrew: “How are you actually achieve these?” “When are  you going to achieve this?” Or your friends, share them.  We see it with startup businesses and startup land with who is next door. Craig: Yup. Andrew: And they had a lot of people putting up different ideas and sharing all their knowledge and by doing so, they’re actually moved their businesses forward to their business ideas. If you keep your dreams to yourself then you’ll probably never realize it. If you share them then you might find that  there’s a movement. You might find somebody and they go, “Hey, that was a great idea. Let’s push this forward. I can help you here. I can get someone else to fill the void here and then we’ll move forward. ” Andrew: So, very true there. Craig: What’s a good advice would give them about these sorts of things? Andrew: I would say, write them down. Have a plan. Be mindful that your plan might change. Be mindful that if you set a goal now, in three years’ time you might have achieved it or you might have realized that it was totally unreachable. So that would change your path too. Craig: ..to a moving target sometimes. Yeah. Andrew: And let’s say, “Yeah, we’re very essential to this and we emphasize this.” Collaboration is key. Craig: Cool. Andrew: Use specialists. We do. There’s no point in trying to reinvent the wheel and trying to create your own resource where are resources out there which are free.  Even look at the tools of business on the IRD website. Very useful, it’s like, given in layman’s terms and answers all of the question that you have about your accountant. IRD gives you free GST classics. So, sign up for them. Craig: Yeah. Andrew: Otherwise, you’ll pay for your accountant, $600-700 to teach you the same thing that you’ll get for free. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use the people who are meant to give you these stuff. Craig: Awesome. Awesome. Hey, that’s been awesome, Andrew. Thanks very much for your time. I got some really cool tips from that and especially around the need to collaborate either friends, family, other business advisers, other business people, networking…just find some people. That’s great stuff. Seek advice. Expect more from our accountants. Ask what value are they providing you apart from just compliance. Big one, obviously is set your goals. Write them down and show them to some key people that you can keep in touch. Like what Andrew said, “ You share your goals with them and they’ll share your goals with you”  and you can review them for each other with a beer or something and keep in touch with your accountant. So, if someone wants to talk about the products and services that you provide, how do we get a hold of you, where could we find you? Andrew: So, we’re at www.moreca.co.nz  so that will give you direction as to how to engage with us. Craig: So, that’s more with one o or with two? Andrew: One. m-o-r-e-c-a.com That’s our platform. That’s our new website. There’s a lot of free resource on there. Craig: Awesome. Andrew: It’s pretty basic. It’s meant to start a conversation or to help you understand where you’re at. If you need more specific or particular advice…contact us through the portals. There’s plenty of them there. We offer a free consultation. Go by skype meeting if you’re outside the province or you can pop into the office but you can book that online as well. Craig: Awesome. Andrew: So, really, really became a helpful tool there to start the process and we’ll try to expand our blog in time. If you have any particular questions that are coming up, send them in. We might add them to the blog and add some feedback. Craig: Throw in an email if you need help. Andrew: Absolutely. Craig: Awesome. Now, we really appreciate it, Andrew. Thanks very much for your time. Andrew: Thank you, Craig.    

Welcome to the first 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. Transcript:   Andrew: These are some stories which we made up brought to you by the magic of the internet.     Once upon a time Jesus H. Christ set out from his home to the marketplace. He stood among the market traders on an old box preaching to the crowds. "Blessed are the cheese makers," he'd acclaimed and a passing cheese maker so delighted in hearing his words that he gave him a shiny silver coin.     "Uh huh," thought Jesus to himself. "I bet I can take this coin, multiply it into many more using one simple trick." "Blessed are the rich," said Jesus.     The end.     This is the story of the witch and the turning sickness.     Once upon a time, in a relatively far away place, there was a deep dark forest.   James: Almost no one ever went into the forest. For the first mile or so round the edge, you can sometimes snare rabbits or maybe go logging, but further in if men ventured they did not return.   Andrew: There were no ponds in the heart of this forest. Only huge, nulled tree trunks growing up the bushy leaves of the canopy obscuring the sky in all but the very depths of winter. But still in this heart, there dwelled one person.   James: An old and wise woman. She had lived there, some say for centuries.   Andrew: There were many things ... it was said ... that she understood. How to control the seasons and the weather ...   James: How to talk to animals and smaller creatures.   Andrew: How to raise the dead from their graves.   James: How to blend and choose the herbs and spices of the forest to counteract illness and drive away evil spirits.   Andrew: But whatever favor she did for you, if you made your way into the heart of the forest and found her cottage and begged for her help, she would ask for a price.   James: The price would always be high. Perhaps the highest you could possibly pay but it would also always be appropriate to you, to the illness she was curing or the misdeeds she was covering over.   Andrew: Those who failed to pay would suffer a terrible punishment as all of the power that she had used to help was unleashed on creating suffering.   James: In another part of the country, far far away from the black forest there sat a village of great renown.   Andrew: The people of this village were famed for miles around ... all of the other towns and villages of the plain knew that these people were good and chaste and virtuous and pure of heart.   James: It was winter. The end of Christmas tide and the villagers were bringing in their livestock to the great communal barn to shelter them there through the bitterous nights of darkness ...   Andrew: ... and after their mid-winter festival which they always held when the great herding of animals had been completed, they all returned to their homes. The next day they woke and to their horror, they found that the barn had been raided over night and six chickens had been taken away.   James: The village elders questioned everyone but nobody had heard or seen anything and nobody confessed to the crime. No remnants of the chickens were found and the village was forced to go to sleep once more aware now that there might be a thief amongst them.   Andrew: In deed the very next day dawn bright and early and they found that this time two pigs had been taken and again nobody had seen anything, nobody had heard anything, the village elders questioned everybody. There was no evidence.   James: One more night, the villagers slept worried now about what would be stolen overnight and sure enough, as the weak raise of the winter sun touched the steeple of the village church, they woke to discover the great cow had been stolen.   Andrew: The village elders met in councils to discuss the situation. "How can it be that we, people known to be pure of heart, people known to be good and true should have to suffer this terrible plague of theft upon our houses."   James: "It cannot be one of us," they agreed. "We are too good. We are too pure. It must be the work of the devil."   Andrew: "Yes. The devil who brings with him the turning sickness," said one of the elders from the back of the room. They turned to look at him. "Yes. I recall a tale from my childhood of an entire village wiped out. A village who had been pure of heart but were corrupted by the taint of sin in the cool clear air."   James: On hearing this, the other elders were much afraid and they turned to their leader. "What should we do? What can we do to protect ourselves from the devil himself?"   Andrew: "We must barricade ourselves within our homes and barricade our livestock into the barn. We must pray that it is not too late and that we are still able to escape the sickness."   James: That night the villagers barricaded themselves into their homes, having previously boarded up the barn with the livestock inside it. No more theft that night but the following morning they discovered that they were already too late.     Every house had at least one person fall to the turning sickness.   Andrew: "What shall we do now?" said the council of elders. "We have waited too long. We have let the situation go too far and the devil already has hold of us." There is only one thing we can do. You must send for the witch.   James: So their fastest messenger was sent on their fastest horse speeding through the winter nights towards the dark forest and the witch's house within.   Andrew: He tethered his horse at the edge of the forest and set out through the dense network of trees. It seemed like he had trekked for days when at last he came across a tiny crooked cottage in a tiny clearing.   James: "I know why you are here," said the witch. "You have succumbed to the devil and the turning sickness."     "Yes," said the messenger. "Will you help us?"     "I will help you," said the witch "but there shall be a price."   Andrew: "Name your price," said the messenger. "We will pay anything. Our people are sick and  must be saved."     "Yes," said the witch. "I will save them. I will save them all but then I shall return in ten summers time and I shall take from the village to be my slaves and minions all of your virgins."   James: So saying, she cracked up her herbs and spices into her bag, leapt upon her broomstick and vanished. Appearing moments later at the village where the elders were waiting anxiously for word.   Andrew: "Almighty and powerful witch," they said as she appeared before them, "We thank you for being merciful and coming to our aid in our hour of need."   James: "Of course," said the witch. "But heed my price and pay it in full," and so saying she unpacked her herbs and spices and made a bitter brew which every villager drank down and in the morning the turning sickness was gone. "Remember the price," said the witch before leaving the village alone.   Andrew: There was great celebration in the village that people had been cured and spared and that they were able to go on living their lives. What joy there was in their hearts until they remembered the price that they were going to have to pay. How would it be that in ten years time, all of the young and the purest of the pure of heart to be snatched away.   James: ... and so the council of elders met and decided a terrible fate for the village. For the next ten years, no children were to be born. No children were to be allowed. If any were conceived and carried to term, they would be without mercy killed that they might not become the slaves of the witch.   Andrew: ... and so it was that this cruel policy was enacted and for ten years the villagers kept their word and though they may have sorrow in their hearts, they brought no children into the world. So it was that ten summers had passed and the witch returned on her broomstick and called to the village that they come and meet her and pay her price.   James: When the witch found out that they had no virgins to give, she burned the village down with all the villagers inside it.     The end.     A long time ago, before mankind came on the scene, the northern hemisphere was ruled by dinosaurs using a democratic system of government. One day at the meeting of the senate, their chief scientific advisor made a great announcement. "We have discovered," he said " a large expanse of water on the moon. Should we go there?"     "Yes." They said and did.     The end.     Now the tale of the talking horse of Baghdad.   Andrew: Once upon a time in a far away land, there lived a horse. This horse was no ordinary horse. He had a magical power.   James: Every morning he would get up, stretch and in front of the villagers and anyone who had gathered he would declaim a story.   Andrew: This was a talking horse. A horse with a gift of speech, an eloquent horse, a great orator some say that people would travel miles to hear.   James: One day after giving his oration, he noticed a small man at the edge of the paddock.   Andrew: He went up to the man and said, "You seem like a stranger. You're not from these parts. I haven't seen your face before."     "That's right," said the man, "I have traveled from far off Baghdad.   James: ... and I noticed as I watched you  after your oration, you seem troubled, you seem alone. "   Andrew: "Yes," said the horse, "It is true. For although I have many admirers and people come from far and wide to hear me speak, in my heart I have a great loneliness ...   James: ... for I am the only talking horse that I have ever encountered and without others of my kind, how could I possibly be other than alone."   Andrew: "Well," said the man, "In that case, you must travel for in Baghdad there is a talking horse of great repute that people come from even further to see."   James: "If this is so," said the horse, "then I shall journey there at once" and so saying, he packed up his few belongings.   Andrew: He had some strips of wood, some coal ore and a woolen fleece from a mighty sheep.   James: Packing them away, he trotted south. South through the hills and valleys. South towards the unknown.   Andrew: At the top of the highest hill, he stopped and turned and looked back at the way he had come, at the land that he had called home for so many years and thought to himself ...   James: "Will I ever come this way again? Perhaps this is the last few I will have of this home." So saying, he turned and proceeded south.   Andrew: Beyond the hills laid the great dusty desert plain filed with dunes and sand.   James: He traveled through it for many days, gradually feeling weaker and weaker until he reached an oasis in the desert where he was able to quench his thirst.   Andrew: At the desert oasis, he met with a nomadic tribe and asked them, "Which is the best route from here to Baghdad?"   James: ... and they turned and pointed east. East towards the jewel of the Caliphate. He thanked them with a story and continued on.   Andrew: He trekked for many days and many nights and finally was clear of the desert and standing before the towering great gate of the city wall of Baghdad.   James: Minarets twisted high above him and mighty stone randalls beneath.   Andrew: The gate of the wall was closed and by it, a sleeping century stood in his box. "Hello," cried the horse, "Hello."   James: The soldier woke with a stat. "Who is it? Who is it who seeks passage into Baghdad?" he asked.     "It's just me," said the horse, "Just me."   Andrew: "I have come for I hear there is a great talking horse in the city and I wish to speak with him."     "Very well, " said the soldier, "but there is a price."   James: "You must pay the tax of the Caliph."     "Well, what is this tax," said the horse, "I don't have many possessions. I have wood, ore and the ewe skin."     "Ah," said the soldier, "Well it just so happens that as the winter nights draw in, I have a longing for warmth. I will take your wood and let you pass into the city of Baghdad," and so as the soldier built himself a fire, the horse trotted in.   Andrew: All roads in Baghdad lead to one mighty central square. It is said to be the largest square in the whole of the world.   James: The horse looked around seeking from corner to corner, anyone who could help him in his quest for the talking horse of Baghdad. A small voice appeared at his side.   Andrew: It was a little girl.  "Excuse me," she said to him, "Are you lost? You look lost. Can I help you?"   James: "I am looking," said the horse, "for the talking horse of Baghdad."     "I can help you," said the girl, "but there is a price."   Andrew: "Well," said the horse, " I have in my saddle bag my coal ore or a mighty sheep skin."     "Oh," said the girl, "Yes. A sheep skin...   James: That will keep me warm during the bitter winter nights as the cold winds blow across the plains," and so she took him to the stables.   Andrew: ... and there he encountered a small man with a large key standing outside a locked door. "Excuse me,"   James: ... said the horse, "Can you let me in to see the talking horse of Baghdad?"     "I can," said the man, "but there will be a price."   Andrew: "The only thing I have for you," said the horse, "is this coal ore."     "Aha," said the man, "This is perfect for firing my brassier." "Yes," he said and took his mighty key ...   James: ... and unlocked the stable door and the horse trotted inside but within was not a talking horse of Baghdad ...   Andrew: ... but a whole crowd of horses. Hundred upon hundreds of them chattering in the many languages of the world.     "What?" thought the horse to himself, "Can there be?"   James: "What is this?" and he nudged the closest horse to him and said, "What is going on?"     "This," said the horse...   Andrew: "... is the parliament of all horses. Delegations from around the world have been sent so that we may decide who we crown as our new king."   James: This is the talking horse of Baghdad.   Andrew: "Stranger, you are welcome. Tell us your tale."     Peter ...   James: ... went ...   Andrew: ... to ...   James: ... the ...   Andrew: ... shops ...   James: ... to ...   Andrew: ... buy ...   James: ... some ...   Andrew: ... bread.   James: He ...   Andrew: ... forgot ...   James: ... to ...   Andrew: ... bring ...   James: ... his ...   Andrew: ... plastic ...   James: ... bag ...   Andrew: ... so ...   James: ... was ...   Andrew: ... wasteful ...   James: ... and ...   Andrew: ... lost ...   James: ... five ...   Andrew: ... pea ...   James: ... the ...   Andrew: ... end.   James: Jeremy ...   Andrew: ... played ...   James: ... cards ...   Andrew: ... against ...   James: ... his ...   Andrew: ... mother ...   James: ... and ...   Andrew: ... won.   James: She ...   Andrew: ... never ...   James: ... spoke ...   Andrew: ... to ...   James: ... him ...   Andrew: ... again.   James: The ...   Andrew: ... end.     Harold ...   James: ... went ...   Andrew: ... upstairs ...   James: ... and ...   Andrew: ... fell ...   James: ... downstairs ...   Andrew: ... the ...   James: end.   Andrew: I've been Andrew and I'm here with James. Join us next time for more made up tales.   James: Clive ...   Andrew: ... met ...   James: ... a ...   Andrew: ... sticky ...   James: ... end ...   Andrew: ... when ...   James: ... he ...   Andrew: ... reversed ...   James: ... into ...   Andrew: ... a ...   James: ... beehive.   Andrew: The ...   James: ... end.   Andrew: That will do nicely, I think.  

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Jesse and Andrew reflect on their travels to Japan, and Jesse talks about his favorite thing to do when he's in Japan.  Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world. Website: dialog.fm/lple iTunes: bit.ly/LPLEiTunes Facebook: bit.ly/LPLEFacebook Twitter: bit.ly/LPLETwitter Patreon: bit.ly/LPLEPatreon   TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hey, Andrew. Andrew: Hey, Jesse. Jesse: Before we begin, I'd like to say a special hello to students from two different schools now who are listening to LPLE to improve their English listening skills. Students from EKO English Pronunciation in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, and I also found out that we have some students from our local City University who are also using LPLE for their school assignments and, just in general, to improve their English listening comprehension. So, hello! Andrew: That's great news! Welcome, folks! Jesse: Andrew, one thing you and I have in common is we have both been to Japan. Andrew: Yes. Jesse: When did you go? Andrew: It's been a while; I went back in 2008. Jesse: So, that's about... Andrew: Eight years ago? Jesse: Yeah, that's right. A lot has changed since. Andrew: I'm not surprised. Jesse: The last time I was in Japan was last fall, and before that it had also been about eight years. Let me tell you, I love Japan. I think you feel the same way.  Andrew: I really enjoyed my trip. Jesse: There's a few things I really enjoy about Japan. Every time I go, I always have a wonderful time, and it's primarily because, one, I have friends there, and they always take really good care of me. In general, not just because I have friends, but Japanese people, in general, are very welcoming. Did you experience that yourself? Andrew: That's very much what I experienced when I went there. Even just from people on the street, or the people you met in stores or on the train, they were all very kind and very accommodating, and I was going without any Japanese language experience--I was speaking only English--and they were very accommodating of my need to work in my own language and learn my way around the city and find out what I needed to do. Jesse: So, very similar to my experience in Vietnam, because I can speak Japanese, I found that social barriers and any level of potential discomfort in interacting with a foreigner is immediately removed. Andrew: Right. Jesse: It also makes it much easier for me to establish--to create--my own social network in Japan. That's why every time I go back to Japan, I always let my friends know in advance and then I start to schedule time with them to go have dinner, to go have drinks, and, more importantly--I would say probably most importantly--I make sure to schedule time to go to karaoke. Andrew: Hahaha! That's the only reason you're going to Japan, isn't it, Jesse?... Jesse: Let me tell you, if I ever lived in Japan, I sincerely believe that I would be going to karaoke probably every day, if not every other day. I love it that much when I'm in Japan. You know what's funny? I live here in Seattle, and we have plenty of karaoke places. There's actual places that are just for karaoke and then there are bars, and in bars, there are karaoke machines, and you stand up on a stage in front of people, and you sing. When I'm in Seattle, my desire to go to karaoke is pretty small; I don't think about it that much. When I'm in Japan, that's almost all I can think about--is "when am I going to be going to my next karaoke party?" Andrew: Okay, so what is different about going to do karaoke in Japan that makes you so excited about it? Jesse: Well, in Japan the entire system is different when it comes to karaoke. Again, in America, it's very common to stand up on a stage in front of strangers and sing. Andrew: So you have to put on a performance for people you don't know. Jesse: That's right. So, it feels very intimidating, especially for people who are new. However, in Japan, it's very different. All karaoke places have separate rooms that you rent, and the rooms vary on size: Some rooms are very small for only four people--actually maybe even smaller I hear, sometimes for only two people; very small--and they can be as large as enough to fit 10 people or 15 people; an actual big party. So, you're in a room with just your friends, so the level of intimidation and fear to sing in front of people is a lot lower, and even in those rooms, because you feel more comfortable then you can let yourself have a lot of fun, specifically in this particular room I went to last time they had a mini stage with a microphone stand, and you felt like you were giving a performance, but you were giving a performance to all of your friends who are cheering you on. Now, not only do I speak Japanese but I also can sing in Japanese I will not touch you with my singing in Japanese right now you will have to come because I sing in Japanese and his friends and I'm a foreigner who can speak Japanese in Japanese and that much more amusing to watch them no. And it's a positive feedback loop because I'm having fun and my friends are having fun and then cheering me on which makes me have that much more fun when I'm singing for them overall look I love Japan I love going to Japan I love speaking Japanese I love Japanese food I love Japanese culture music everything but if there's one thing I love the most about going to Japan it's going to karaoke. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Jesse and Andrew talk about and analyze what President Obama's visit to Vietnam could mean for the United States and Vietnam's economic growth, including US allowing Vietnam to purchase weapons from the US, and VietJet Air's purchase of 100 Boeing airplanes. Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world. Website: dialog.fm/lple iTunes: bit.ly/LPLEiTunes Facebook: bit.ly/LPLEFacebook Twitter: bit.ly/LPLETwitter Patreon: bit.ly/LPLEPatreon   TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hey, Andrew. Andrew: Hey, Jesse. Jesse: This has been an interesting week for our president, right? He is currently in Asia, East and Southeast Asia. Most recently, he's visited Vietnam. Now, this makes me very excited for many, many reasons. Number one, I studied Vietnamese for three years and can speak it pretty well. Two, I actually lived in Vietnam for a total of one year: three months in Hanoi and about nine to ten months in Ho Chi Minh City. And, furthermore, this makes me excited because the nature of his trip went a bit beyond standard meet-and-greet diplomacy. Andrew: Definitely. Jesse: If I'm not mistaken there were some economic opportunities that he was trying to stimulate by going to Vietnam. Now, Vietnam recently had an election, so they have undergone some new political changes themselves. So, a new government is coming in, while in America our president is leaving. But, nevertheless, this created a really unique opportunity for the two countries to really think about the economic partnership that they can create. Andrew: Definitely. They took this opportunity in a big way. The United States ended its embargo of selling arms to Vietnam, while the president was there. And, what that means is... Well, first, as background, for a long time since the end of the conflict in Vietnam where America was fighting a war there, the United States has made it forbidden for any American companies to sell weapons like guns or military aircraft to Vietnam; and, that embargo was lifted, meaning that companies like Boeing and Airbus and others can now sell their products in Vietnam for the first time. Jesse: That is a huge deal. That's probably the first of many large economic opportunities that came from this trip. We could spend this entire episode just focused on that economic opportunity alone, about America lifting its arms embargo off of Vietnam, that America can now sell weapons to the Vietnamese government. It's worth remembering that America sells billions of dollars worth of arms to other countries. We are good at this; we as a country are good at manufacturing weapons and selling them to other countries. So, it sounds like Vietnam is going to be our newest customer. Now, the second thing that immediately came from this opportunity, from this visit was that VietJet Air placed an order for 100 Boeing airplanes. Now, of course VietJet Air and Boeing we're probably working on this contract well before the president came to Vietnam. Andrew: Definitely. Jesse: But, it sounds like they knew the president was coming, and so they decided to hold off on signing the contract until he got there so that the president could include that in his remarks about the economic opportunity between the two countries. Andrew: It is a good symbol of the kind of commerce and economic cooperation between the countries that can happen in the years to come. Jesse: Before now VietJet Air only purchased airplanes from Airbus. Airbus is a European company. Now, with this purchase of 100 airplanes from Boeing, that introduces economic opportunity for us. Here in the Northwest, in our city, Boeing is here. Boeing has offices here, but they also have manufacturing plants here. So their purchase a 100 planes is going to mean good things for our local economy. Andrew: That's right. The factories that build the 737 they are going to sell are right here in town, which means that your company in Seattle is going to be selling airplanes to the cities you love in Vietnam. Jesse: So as I think about Vietnam economic future, I foresee a lot more companies paying more attention to Vietnam, especially now after President Obama went to Vietnam. And that's great, because it sounds like Vietnam is a growing market. When I lived there, it was extremely obvious that the education system is progressing very fast and there are a lot of educated, English-speaking, local Vietnamese there. I see in the future a lot of jobs being created in Vietnam, which also means that local companies here might be outsourcing some other work to Vietnam where the skill of labor might be equal but the wages are a lot lower in Vietnam. Andrew: Right. It means a lot of opportunities for good paying jobs for Vietnamese working for American companies in the future as part of this economic cooperation. Jesse: This kind of diplomatic exchange is very common. We know this. One of the big things that was happening that I think we in America did not hear much about was similar diplomatic relationships being created between a few countries in Africa and China. Andrew: Yes. China is investing very heavily in Africa in the same way that America is investing in parts of Asia to build those connections and create those opportunities both for Chinese products being sold and used in Africa, but also for resources and jobs being developed in Africa for China. Jesse: There are mutually beneficial reasons why countries engage in these kinds of diplomatic relationships. Sometimes country A has resources that country B wants, and sometimes country B creates many products that country A wants. And, so what they're doing is they're negotiating to make it easier for those two countries to get those goods and services and natural resources to each other in a way that is equitable, mutually beneficial, and looks good politically. Because, at the end of the day, politicians want to do things that are going to keep them in power, that are going to keep them in their offices, so of course it makes sense that they're going to do things that are going to help their people, so long as they remind their people that, "hey it was our party that helped increase your economic opportunity." Andrew: I can't wait to see how much Vietnam has changed as a result of this new economic opportunity the next time we go back. Jesse: That's right. We should plan another trip! Andrew: And soon! Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Jesse talks about taking his wife to Vancouver BC, Canada for the Night Market. Andrew gives Jesse recommendations on two good restaurants: Japadog and Banana Leaf.  Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world.  Website: dialog.fm/lple iTunes: bit.ly/LPLEiTunes Facebook: bit.ly/LPLEFacebook Twitter: bit.ly/LPLETwitter Patreon: bit.ly/LPLEPatreon TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hey, Andrew. Andrew: Hey, Jesse. Jesse: My wife and I are going to be taking a weekend vacation to Canada... Andrew: Excellent. Jesse: We call it a "weekend getaway." Now, this is because it was her birthday this week, and we were thinking about how we can celebrate. We also recognize that we haven't been to Canada in a while. We live in Seattle, so if we get in our car and drive, it really only takes us--assuming no traffic... Andrew: ...About two to two-and-a-half hours. Jesse: That's right. So, one of the things that my wife and I like to do when we travel is eat good food, and, as I understand it, in Canada--in Vancouver and in Richmond--there are all sorts of places for good food. Andrew: That is totally right. Vancouver is actually very well known for its food in large part because there are a lot of different cultures and communities living within different parts of Vancouver; and, that means that you can get different styles of food from all different parts of the world in a very small space and try all kinds of things that you might not have access to if you are in a different city that doesn't have as many options. As you said, Vancouver is very close to Seattle and the United States, so it shares a lot of cultures and customs and it is easy to travel to, but that also means that it has a lot of the same common foods that you would find here. You can get good hamburgers, you can get good steak, you can get a lot of traditional American dishes, but you also can get a lot of the ethnic dishes that you might not be able to find elsewhere. There is a very, very large Asian population in Vancouver and specifically in the suburb of Richmond, which is just to the south of the city, and that means that you can find all kinds of Vietnamese neighborhoods, and Chinese neighborhoods, and Japanese neighborhoods, and Thai neighborhoods, and almost every single kind of food you might find in Asia and Southeast Asia, in large parts of Africa, most of Europe, all of it is available in one place, and that makes for a really great food tourism trip. Jesse: During this 3-day, 2-night weekend getaway, we've rented a house in Richmond. Now, luckily Richmond and Vancouver are right next to each other, right? Andrew: Very close. Jesse: We're going up to Richmond primarily for this thing called a "Night Market." This happens every year during the late-spring to mid-summer, I believe... Andrew: Usually during the fair-weather months--the part of the year where it's not going to be too rainy, it's going to stay light longer, and it's easier to have a nightly event. Jesse: Right. This is outdoors. Andrew: Right. Jesse: So, it stands to reason that they want to have this night market during the times when the weather is going to be very nice. At this night market, there are lots of great Taiwanese, Mainland Chinese, and Hong Kong foods. So, we've rented a place nearby the night market, but we're also going to spend a lot of time in Vancouver. Now, before we get into what we're going to eat or where we should go, as I understand it, the exchange rate is pretty favorable for us. Andrew: For Americans. Jesse: For Americans. Andrew: The Canadian dollar is not worth the same amount as the American dollar, even though we are living right next to each other. And, it actually moves, so relative to the American dollar, the Canadian Dollar might be worth more or less. And, a few years ago we were actually at parity, which means that the Canadian dollar is equal to the American dollar, so you could use one or the other and they were worth the same. In each country, the prices don't change very much year over year. So, if you are making money in Canada and spending money in Canada, you don't notice this exchange rate. But, many people living in Vancouver might come to the United States to shop and vice-versa--Americans going to Canada to shop--depending on what that exchange rate is like. And, right now, fortunately for American tourists going to Canada, the Canadian dollar is cheap, which means they can use the same number of American dollars and buy more things in Canada. Jesse: Now, you go up to Vancouver a lot--multiple times in one year. Andrew: Yes. I have friends up there, so I have a place to go to stay, and I get to visit with my friends, and get to enjoy the good food, besides. Jesse: So, not just for me, but also for the listening audience, if they go up to Vancouver, what are the, let's say, one or two, maybe at most three places that you would absolutely recommend that we go. Andrew: So, one of the popular food cart style places that got its start in Vancouver--and Canada in general--that is worth going to see is called Japadog. And, this is a hot dog food cart that serves Japanese-style hot dogs, which means that instead of the more traditional toppings like onions, and mustard, and ketchup, there are a lot of different varieties of Japanese-inspired flavors that they put on these hot dogs. So, you can get different varieties of sauces like fish sauce, plum sauce, some tempura vegetables, and a lot of the same types of ingredients that might go into a teriyaki or sushi dish, mixed up with the hot dog, and it makes for a very interesting flavor. And, you can try different varieties between you and your wife, or you and your friends when you go. My favorite place, though, is a more formal restaurant--not fancy just a place to go in, and sit down, and have a meal--and it serves Malaysian and Singaporean style food. That place is called Banana Leaf, and there are multiple locations around Vancouver, so it's easy to find one that is nearby. They make very, very good family style meals that you can put together. And, the set meal that I try to get when I go up is a combination of Rendang, which is Malaysian or Indonesian beef stew, and that comes as a side, I get Roti, which is the fried bread, up front with butter and peanut sauce to snack on. They bring coconut rice wrapped up in a steamed banana leaf to go with the Rendang, and they also have a white fish in black oyster sauce, I believe, that is cooked up beautifully. Oh, and, finally, as a vegetable side, they make Sambal Green Beans, which are crunchy, fried green beans in shrimp paste. And, for some reason, those combinations of flavors together in one meal are just about the best meal that I can find up there. And, I can't get it in Seattle, so I look forward to it every time I go up. Jesse: That sounds fantastic. Andrew, if I could, I would buy that and bring it down for you when I come back to Seattle. But, I don't think I can. Andrew: Sadly, I don't think there's going to be any left when you're done. Jesse: One of the things I really enjoy eating when I'm in Vancouver is Chinese food, specifically soup dumplings. Soup dumplings are very popular here in Seattle. We have Din Tai Fung--now has two or three restaurants in the-... in the area. In Vancouver, there are many other places to get soup dumplings, and every time we go up, we always go to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant. We usually have to wait in line for an hour because, again, it's a small restaurant... Andrew: And it's so popular. Jesse: ...And it is so popular, and we always order soup dumplings, and we always leave very satisfied. This is going to be a vacation; this is going to be three days of us gaining weight. Andrew: Hahaha. I wouldn't have it any other way. I hope you have a good trip. Jesse: Thank you. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Jesse and Andrew talk about female heroes in action movies and television, and compare what they liked and disliked with the Black Widow character in the recent Avengers movie with the female heroes in Game of Thrones. Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world.  Website: dialog.fm/lple iTunes: bit.ly/LPLEiTunes Facebook: bit.ly/LPLEFacebook Twitter: bit.ly/LPLETwitter Patreon: bit.ly/LPLEPatreon TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hi, Andrew. Andrew: Hey, Jesse. Jesse: Over the past couple of weeks, you and I have been watching a lot of TV and a few movies. Andrew: Yes. Jesse: One of the conversations we had about TV and movies is the role of the women characters. Andrew: Ahhh, yes. Jesse: Now, you and I have had some pretty impassioned discussions about this; very passionate conversations. We have our opinions about what makes an ideal heroine character. Andrew: Right. You mean-... I think you and I have been trying to find a way to agree on what makes for a powerful female lead character in a story and in a TV show, the heroin, the woman who is the main character and the one we are rooting for to succeed. Jesse: The female hero. Andrew: Right. Jesse: A lot of the shows and movies we have been watching have been from the Marvel Universe. So, for listeners who may be unfamiliar with this, Marvel is a comic book company they are the company who has created The Avengers, The X-Men...what else? Andrew: Characters like Captain America, and Ironman, and Hulk, and Thor, and Spiderman. Jesse: Right. And then, we've also been watching a few other individual shows outside of that particular company. So, one show that comes to mind is Game of Thrones, a very popular show. And, you've also been watching Orphan Black. Andrew: That's right. Jesse: And, if I'm not mistaken, the main character in that show is a female. Andrews: Main characters, in fact. Jesse: Main characters. One of the things I mentioned to you was my disappointment in how the female characters were portrayed in the recent Avengers movies. Andrew: Okay, yes. Jesse: Now, you also shared some similar disappointments with a couple of the characters, mainly the Black Widow, if I'm not mistaken. Andrew: Correct. This is Scarlet Johansen playing the one female hero in The Avengers movies next to many other male characters. And, to be clear, you and I agree on a basic point, that is: We think there should be more strong female characters in many of these stories, and the conversation we're having is about what that looks like and what types of representations, what types of characters are best suited for these roles. Jesse: Now, before we continue this conversation, let me just acknowledge the fact that you and I are two males in our early to mid-thirties... Andrew: [chuckling] Right. Jesse: ...Talking about what we think a strong female character looks like in a show. Andrew: [laughing] Right. So you can just shut off the podcast now and stop listening, because we have no right to be having this conversation at all, but we're going to do it anyway... Jesse: [laughing] For those who are still interested in practicing their English listening comprehension skill, please continue to listen on. Andrew: [chuckling] Maybe the rage and insult that you feel from hearing us talk about this will motivate you to practice your English so you can tell us how we're wrong. Jesse: Exactly! Yes. Good point! For the listening audience, if you have an opinion about this matter after listening to this, please share your opinion with us on the LPLE Facebook page. Know that we would love to hear your opinion about this. If there's one thing that you and I agree on, as you just said, we would love to see more strong female characters represented on TV, in general. Andrew: Yes. Jesse: For the Black Widow character in the Avengers, if I remember correctly you weren't a fan of how she was portrayed. Andrew: I like the character in the movies, but I don't like the way that she is underused in the main story lines of the movies. So, she is always present when the Avengers go and do something, but she is usually on the sidelines while someone like Captain America or Iron Man is doing all of the talking, and making a lot of the decisions, and fighting in most of the most complicated battles against enemies, and I wish that she had a more central role to play in the storylines. Jesse: So, my opinion on the matter is I feel like she does have a central role to play in those movies; I'm not a fan of her delivery, of her acting. So, when you mentioned that she should have her own movie, I agree with you that the Black Widow should have her own movie, I'm just not a fan of that particular actress playing that character. So, let's take a look at Game of Thrones; I mentioned Game of Thrones. At our recent group dinner on Monday I came to you excited because I felt like I found a good comparison. Andrew: Right. Jesse: The women on the show Game of Thrones, they don't have too much screen time; although, in this season I think they're having much more. For the limited amount of screen time that they have, I'm a big fan of both their plot position in the show because it's very prominent--I appreciate just how strong they are as a particular-... as that figure in that show, but more importantly I'm a big fan of their acting. Andrew: Right. And, I don't disagree. I think that the Game of Thrones characters are growing and developing very well, and they are being shown very well in the show; and, I agree, also, that the acting being done in most of those cases is very, very good. So, we agree on all of those points. I think that if there is a disagreement, it is about whether or not that is the only way to present a strong female character or not. And, I think where you and I disagree on Black Widow--part of it may be a preference for the actress, which is just personal between you and me, and the other part might have a little bit to do with the character that she is playing and whether that character is bold, and loud, and in-your-face, or more of a subdued personality as a character that might be making her performance less interesting to watch. Jesse: The Black Widow's character, by nature, is supposed to be somewhat subdued, right? Andrew: Yes. She usually tries to stay out of conflicts until absolutely necessary. And, while she has her own opinions, she is not as invested necessarily in the outcomes of some of the disputes that happened in the movies that she's in. And, I think that, to my mind, contributes to why she is less forceful, and less forward, and less commanding like many of the Game of Thrones characters are. Jesse: Do you think that if she had her own movie that that would change? I think by nature, because she is a spy, she can't really engage too much. I mean, it would sound like she would be the female version of Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity, to some extent, right? Andrew: Right. I agree, and what I think would be different about a Black Widow movie that is standing alone is that instead of being a character in other people's stories--like she is in Captain America movies or Avengers movies--she would have a chance to be the main character in her own story, and she might have a much stronger opinion and an opportunity to be much more forceful in those stores. Jesse: Well, to that extent, I really do hope that Marvel gives some consideration, like you suggested, to creating a Black Widow movie. I like Scarlett Johansson, I think, in general, she's a fantastic actress. I feel as though her role in this movie is challenged given the nature of her character. But, nevertheless, it does warrant some consideration for an individual spinoff Black Widow movie. Andrew: I have heard rumors that they are planning to make one, and I can't wait to see it. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Jesse and Andrew talk about online dating, older methods of meeting people, and the loss of the ability to introduce one's self to a stranger. Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world.   Website: dialog.fm/LPLE iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/lple/id1098735563 Facebook: facebook.com/LPLEDialogFM Twitter: twitter.com/LPLEDialogFM Patreon: patreon.com/LPLE TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hey, Andrew. Andrew: Hey, Jesse. Jesse: Let me just say that dating in our society--modern-day dating--confuses the hell out of me. Andrew: I am right there with you. Jesse: We are both in our early thirties... Andrew: Yes. Jesse: ...and when we look back on our twenties--common dating age--dating was a lot different than what dating looks like now. Andrew: Yes. I think the dating culture that you and I grew up with was a much more traditional form of dating--that's the type that is probably closer to the kind of dating that maybe even our parents did when they were younger--and technology and social networking and the internet have kind of broken all of the rules that you and I used to follow... Jesse: ...and have created their own rules. Andrew: Yes. New standards and also ways of interacting and ways of meeting people that you and I didn't even have when we started going out to meet romantic partners. Jesse: Now, of course, there are pros and cons, there are the benefits and drawbacks, to this new form of dating, and you can say there's benefits and drawbacks, pros and cons, to the old way of dating back in our twenties. Andrew: Right! Jesse: I feel confident enough to say that if I were a single man now, I just could not handle the modern-day dating scene, which is-... I'm mean, what are the common apps that people use nowadays? Andrew: I think that nowadays rather than going to the bar and trying to meet someone you've never seen before, or being introduced through a friend, or asking someone out who you knew in a different context, either at work or to school, is not the most common way anymore because we have matchmaking websites like OkCupid or Match.com in the United States, or I think the most popular in our city is Tinder, which is the mobile app on our phone that lets us meet people without a whole lot of introduction and without a whole lot of detail about who the person is. It is like Facebook reduced to a picture and two sentences, and people make decisions on the spot about whether or not they are interested in meeting the other person. And, my understanding--I've never used this; I feel like a very old man just because I'm no longer in the market for this service--but, my understanding is you look at a bunch of pictures, see the person's first name, and read two sentences about them, and you say "yes, I'd like to meet this person," or "no, I wouldn't," and that is enough to carry on the conversation to the next level, because once both people say "yes" then they're allowed to contact each other and make plans for a date, which is about like walking into a coffee shop, and making an order, finding out the person behind you made the same order, and then going on a date next, which seems kind of crazy fast to me and without a whole lot of planning or preparation. Jesse: The screen on your phone, even with a [iPhone] 6 Plus, is not that large to contain a lot of information about someone, and then make a determination of whether or not you want to spend the next hour, or two hours, or five hours of your life with them. Andrew: Hahaha... Jesse: That's really what you're doing. You're trying to create-... Have the best looking photo of yourself and combine the best mix of words such that you will attract somebody. Andrew: Right. I think we are coming off sounding a bit old and out of fashion with this... Jesse: Yeah, out of touch. Andrew: ...out of touch, really, because we are used to meeting people earlier in the process and kind of evaluating from afar or being introduced, and things move a bit more slowly, and you are considering a person rather than an idea, and I think that's just us not being ready for this technology more than anything else, because I think you and I, because we have partners, don't need to be out finding new people all the time. And, what this technology lets you do is skip the part where you have to bravely introduce yourself to someone you don't know in the bar, or beg all your friends for introductions, or hope you are lucky enough to meet someone at a sports team, or a job, or a school that meets your interests. There's a lot of research that we had to do--I guess, in general--that people can skip and go to meeting people right away, and that seems to be what everyone wants in the first place. So, I think it's actually probably a good thing. Jesse: In the end, it's definitely made the process a lot easier for people. The barrier to talking to new people is dramatically reduced. Andrew: Right. Jesse: But, therein also lies a problem: We've lost the ability to talk to other people, right? If you think about, we've somewhat lost the ability to effectively introduce ourselves to a complete stranger and strike up a normal conversation. Andrew: Do you think that people had to practice being social and charming in person because they were forced to because of all of the dating that needed to happen before you got to know someone in the past, and that now people don't need to practice, and so they aren't as good at it? Jesse: I think there's an element of training that goes on--trial by fire, learning through experience. When I look back, before I met my current wife, when I was in the dating scene, when I was engaged in dating and introducing myself to women, yeah, there was an element of learning how to introduce myself appropriately, there were some successes and there were plenty of failures. Overall, I felt like it was a good skill to learn, primarily because you eventually learn how to get over that fear of introducing yourself to a stranger, and I think that skill carries over into a lot of other things. You can carry that skill over into your professional life, which is just learning how to go into a new room and introduce yourself to new people. I think that there's-... As nice as it is to streamline, to make it easier to meet people for the purpose of a potentially romantic relationship, I do believe that there's an element of social interaction that is lost, a particular skill that is lost. Andrew: And, I think I agree with you in terms of the software not being able to add that social interaction. What I think is happening is that people get to know more about the person before they have to expend the energy, so people who are naturally social, naturally friendly can go out there and meet people the old fashion way. But, they also have this tool to meet more people sooner, which lets them practice sooner with more people, if that is their stumbling block. So, I think, on balance, it is probably better, it is-... We have the old ways and we have the new ways, and people have more options, in general, when they're going out to find their next date. Jesse: Much like I would assume everybody in the dating scene agrees: The more options, the better. Andrew: Agreed. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Jesse and Andrew talk about the Tesla Model 3, and Andrew explains how automatic self-driving cars work and why the will become a thing of the future. Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world.  Twitter: @LPLEDialogFM Facebook: facebook.com/LPLEDialogFM   TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hi, Andrew. Andrew: Hey, Jesse. Jesse: About a month ago, Tesla had made available for pre-order the Model 3. Andrew: That's right. Their new, smaller car; their smaller electric car that is more affordable so that more people will be able to buy it. Jesse: That's exciting. It's-... It's big news all around. It's an electric car, and it's also a... Andrew: ...Autonomous car. It's a car that can at least partially drive itself when you are going from one place to another. So, you don't need to be using the gas and the steering all of the time. Jesse: Now, we like the idea of having an electric car, but I'm really fascinated with this self-driving aspect. This is brand new technology! Andrew: It's a big deal. It's never been done before very well, and it's being tested right now on tens of thousands of Teslas that are already out there on the roads, so it is getting better very, very fast. Jesse: Right now, in Seattle and let's just say the Puget Sound, in general--Redmond, Bellevue, places where there's lots of technology companies... Andrew: Right. Jesse: And, when I say that there's places where there's technology companies, I also mean that there is plenty of people with large salaries who can afford self-driving cars right now. Andrew: Right. We're talking about places in the west coast of America like Seattle and San Francisco where people who are interested in technology--also, have enough money to try products when they're still newer and a little bit more expensive--they are buying Tesla's Model S cars more often than other parts of the country and more often than most of the world. And, so, we are lucky enough to live in a city where there are a lot of Teslas out on the road, and one of the unique things about this car is that after most of the people had bought theirs, the company that made the car sent out an update to the software that runs it, and suddenly these cars that were normal cars powered by electricity suddenly were electric cars that were also able to drive themselves for parts of trips, so highway trips and other long stretches of road that were well-marked. Jesse: Overnight, people who owned that car received a self-driving car. Andrew: That's right. It's like getting an update to the software on your phone, only this is happening to the car that's parked in your garage. On Tuesday, you drive to work like a normal person having to control the steering wheel and the gas and the turn signals, and you come home, you park it, you get up the next day, and suddenly your car can drive itself to work while you keep an eye on it to make sure that everything's going well. Jesse: Is it safe to say that currently on our roads right now there are self-driving cars? Andrew: Yes, almost every day on freeways and highways across America and probably parts of Europe and Asia, as well. The cars don't need a map to follow, they can just use the GPS that's built in, and they look at the actual road that they're on to determine where lanes are, and they use radar and sonar to figure out where other cars are. So, they're actually driving in reaction to the vehicles around them. That means that when cars in front of you slow down and go lower than the speed limit, your car sees them slowing down and slows down, as well. If you want to change lanes, you put on the turn signal and then the car looks to make sure that there is space, and then accelerates and turns the wheel automatically to move into the new lane. You're not touching the gas-... the gas pedal, you're not touching the steering wheel; the car does all of this by itself. Jesse: Now that there are self-driving cars on the road right now, are people actually using that feature, or have people become comfortable with the idea of letting their car do the driving for them? Andrew: That's a good question. I think-... I think some people are ready to trust the vehicles and other people are going to take some time to get used to the idea, because this is the first time that this has been possible on a normal roadway. And, I think that most people feel like driving on the road, especially at high speed like on a highway, is a dangerous task or one that is unpredictable, because people could move in front of you and cut you off, they could slow down really fast if there's a traffic jam, you might need to change lanes and try to find a gap that is big enough for your car to fit in, and all of these things are actually quite hard for humans to do driving behind the wheel. And, so, the idea that they would trust a computer in their car to do it for them is really uncertain and unsettling for them. But, actually, what their finding with all of this testing is that the computer is actually paying closer attention than you could to what's going on on the road around you. So, when someone stops suddenly in front of you it might take you half of a second to find out that it's happening, and then another quarter of a second to react and put your foot on the brake; the computer can see that and hit the brakes immediately. And, so, it's actually much safer to allow the computers to make these decisions for you. Jesse: So, the Model 3 is going to now have the feature of automated driving. Andrew: That's right. So, right now the vehicles on the road that can do this are mainly from the Tesla car company, and they're mainly in the Model S, which is their luxury vehicle. It costs a lot of money, it's about $70- or $80,000 US to buy new. And, so, only the more wealthy people in our city have them, and we just see them on the road when people are commuting. The new vehicle, the Model 3, is going to be about one-third of that price, it's going to be about $35,000 to buy one of these cars, which is coming out in a couple of years; but, the automatic driving part of the car--those features which they call "autopilot"--are going to be available no matter what on all of those vehicles. So, suddenly, in 2019 or so, they're going to be a lot more of these cars out on the road than there are now, all driving themselves and reacting to traffic and other vehicles on their own. Jesse: That makes me really excited considering after work, for example, I'm mentally exhausted, so the idea of getting in my car, and then letting the car drive for me to take me home, or to take me to my friend's house or, to come hang out at a bar is really nice because I can just get in the car, turn off my brain, relax, take a nap-... Would you say that's recommended, or should I, as the driver sitting in the driver's seat, still be alert and still need to take control over the car. Andrew: Right now, it's important that drivers in these automatic vehicles be paying attention, and sitting in the driver's seat, and be ready to take over in case something goes wrong. Right now, the cars that are driving automatically can keep track of the road when the road is predictable, when the lines are clear between the lanes, and when the routes are well marked. But, when things get complicated in neighborhood streets, at slower speeds, when there are lots of pedestrians around, and when there might be something unexpected like construction or pedestrians walking across the street, the cars are worse at noticing and reacting to those situations. Usually, they are playing it safe, and, so, they will stop and refuse to move so that they don't hit something, so it's not like they're going to run over a small child crossing the street. But, that means that the cars are most automatic when they are on the freeway taking long drives. So, it's not a good idea to fall asleep at the wheel just yet; that might be more of an option in the future. Right now, think of it as a fancy form of cruise control: You set your speed, you set your destination, you let the car take you there, and it will react to traffic and move into lanes when you want it to, and you don't need to pay attention to traffic slowing ahead, but you still need to be awake, and you need to be ready to take over the wheel in case something happens that the car doesn't know what to do with. This is just a preview of what's to come, though, because these autopilot cars have only been around for less than two years, and they're already out there driving on the freeways in large numbers. They're getting better all the time, and in the very near future we're going to have a lot of cars on the road that don't need us to help him get around; and that's going to be a very exciting time. Jesse: We are truly living in the future. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Jesse recounts how many of his Vietnamese female friends dislike being asked by friends and family about when they're going to get married. Andrew explains how American women also experience the same trouble with being asked about their plans for marriage. Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world. Twitter: @LPLEDialogFM Facebook: facebook.com/LPLEDialogFM TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hey Andrew. Andrew: Hey Jesse. Jesse: So, as you know, I was in Vietnam for the past two-and-a-half weeks. Andrew: That's right! Jesse: And, I had the chance to catch up with many friends during my time in Ho Chi Minh City. Now, turns out that many of my friends happened to be female, and they're also around my age, and they're also single. Now, you might be asking, "where are you going with this, Jesse?" Andrew: I was about to ask. Jesse: Well, mind you, these women--these friends of mine--they already know I'm married, they already know who my wife is, they've already met my wife. The reason why I start this story out like this is because I can say for certain that 100% of all of my female friends I talked to said the exact same thing, which is: They are so tired of getting asked by their relatives and friends when they are going to get married. Andrew: That is excellent, I share their sentiment. I know exactly how they feel. Jesse: You can just see how frustrated they are. They-... Every time they say, "Ah, yeah, my parents keep asking me 'when are you going to get married?' 'We want you to have kids.'" I can see the expression on my friend's face, and that expression is very sad, very annoyed, very frustrated. Andrew: Right. Jesse: In Vietnam, I assume that if you're not on some sort of path to a marriage, which is to say if by 25 you're not in a serious relationship with somebody, that starts to create some sort of concern, panic... Andrew: ...on the part of your family. Jesse: ...On the part of the family, correct. Because, by the time that you start to hit 28, if you're still not in some sort of committed relationship, then there's this term, and this is the derogatory term and actually really don't like this term, the concern is you're going to be called, "ế," which is a term that-... It's like saying "an old maid." Andrew: Right, okay. I was going to say, in the US there is a similar set of terms: "You're a spinster," "you're an old maid." Jesse: Right. But you what the funny thing is, here in the States I don't hear those terms. I know they exist, I know these terms exist. But, for our current culture and our current society--now, perhaps this might be just my understanding based on the fact that I live here in Seattle--my understanding is we don't refer to women like that anymore. Andrew: Not directly, and you and I being young men probably wouldn't hear it, but I'm sure that the feeling that that term, or those terms, are associated with are still alive and well. By which I mean families usually have an interest in seeing their daughters, especially, go on to have happy family lives, and there is an expectation for most of them that they will find a boyfriend, get married, and have children. And, so, I know many female friends of mine on my own who are in a similar situation where they are in their late twenties or thirties and have still not settled down, as it's called, they haven't found a permanent relationship and they have not gotten married and they have not had kids, and they are receiving all kinds of pressure from their families and even sometimes their friends to go down that path and achieve those goals, even if they don't want them themselves. Jesse: You know what's interesting, as a guy--now, I've been married for going on four years, I've been in a relationship for eight prior to that--so, you're right, I'm not-... clearly I've never had to experience that kind of pressure. Whenever my dad asks me, "So, son, when are you going to have children? I want more grandchildren," my answer is always, "We're still thinking about it. Stop asking me." Andrew: Yes. Imagine tha-... that question being asked and that amount of frustration you feel magnified ten or a hundred times, or alternately, imagine that he's asking you it every hour of every day and I think you begin to understand what a lot of these especially women are going through. My girlfriend and I have been together for a little bit over a year, but because we are both around 30 years old the expectation is that we will be taking those next traditional steps very soon. So, I occasionally get a question from my family, "when are you getting married?" or "when you get married..." assuming that I will soon, she gets it every time she talks to her family. Jesse: She's still very young, too. She's in her mid-twenties if I'm not mistaken. Andrew: She is 29, turning 30 this year. But, she is old enough that she has been getting those questions for quite a while. And, everyone seems to be very, very interested in knowing when they-... When people our age are going to take their place in traditional family society, and that's becoming less and less common and popular for people our age, at least in the United States, so it creates this conflict. Jesse: Out of my friends in Vietnam, they-... Again they express this frustration about hearing this question. It's really interesting to hear that women here in the States still experience that same line of questioning. I honestly had no idea. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Jesse talks about moving into a new house. Andrew explains states, cities, and neighborhoods in America. Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world. Twitter: @LPLEDialogFM Facebook: facebook.com/LPLEDialogFM TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Hi, Andrew! Andrew: Hey, Jesse. Jesse: Cool story. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I moved into a new house. Andrew: I know! We're actually sitting in it right now. Jesse: We're actually recording this podcast on our new dining table in our new living room. It's quite nice! Andrew: It's a very nice, brand new place. Jesse: Now, we live in the Rainier Valley neighborhood. Now, for those who are unfamiliar with how geography and...what, what's a good word? Municipalities? Andrew: I would just say how cities are laid out... Jesse: How cities are laid out. Andrew: Or, how Seattle is laid out. Jesse: Right, because some cities do it differently. Andrew: Right. Jesse: One big example is New York, where they have something that I don't think any other city has in the nation, which is burrows. Andrew: Well, yes. And, I would call those neighborhoods, but the burrows are mainly-... The burrows are defined by geography, right? By the islands that make up part of New York City and also where you are in relation to the freeway and downtown, is that right? Jesse: I have no idea how burrows work, honestly... Andrew: [hahaha] Jesse: Well, skipping that for just a moment here. How Seattle works is you have the Washington State, you have counties within the state, you have cities within the counties, and then you have neighborhoods, within the cities. Andrew: That's right. Jesse: So, we live in the Rainier Valley neighborhood. The old neighborhood we lived in before was called Judkins Park. We moved from Judkins Park to the Rainier Valley. Andrew: That's interesting, actually, because when you spoke about neighborhoods I was actually thinking about, I guess, a larger version of the "neighborhood" definition. So, Seattle is broken down by different areas, which I would consider to be places like Capitol Hill, First Hill, the Central District, North Beacon Hill, and so on. What you're describing are actually smaller parts of those areas, which are the actual, I guess, communities inside those neighborhoods like Judkins or Rainier Valley, and they refer more closely to the roads and the intersections that are around the area where you live, is that right? Jesse: Yeah, that's correct. Now, originally where we lived before in Judkins Park, we were about seven minutes to 10 minutes away from Chinatown and downtown. Andrew: That's right. Jesse: Now we live five to seven minutes away from Chinatown and downtown. So, we're moving ever closer to Chinatown and downtown, without actually living inside either one of those two areas. Andrew: Yes, which is interesting because you are actually moving south, away from most of Seattle, a little ways away. Jesse: Now, we live in a house-... a style of house that's called a "townhouse." How do we describe a townhouse for people who are unfamiliar with this kind of architecture? Andrew: That's a good question. I think when people think of normal family homes in the United States, in general, they are usually a traditional structure with a sloping roof, they are usually one or two stories tall, and usually take up a lot of space on one floor with a large yard around side it--around it outside. I think I would describe a townhome as taking up much less space with much less yard, and having more floors instead so that they are about the same size inside the home, but on maybe three or four floors instead of one or two. Jesse: That's right, that's right. On our ground floor, immediately when you enter the front door there are stairs going up to the, kind of the main area the living room, the kitchen. But, also on the ground floor when you enter you have the option of going to the side of the stairs to two different bedrooms and a bathroom. Andrew: Right. Jesse: So, they're basically compressing, they're making--for maybe lack of a better word--shrinking the size of a normal house; instead of building wider they're building taller. Andrew: That's correct, yes. And, I would say that it is not--... again it is not smaller, it is just stacked differently. So, like you say, there are only two bedrooms on the ground floor, which means that the floor is smaller, but then the next floor up you have a living room and a kitchen, which in a more traditional American home might all be on the same floor. Jesse: Right, right. Are there townhouses in other states? I think that maybe townhouses are more commonly found in denser cities where land is sma-... where land is fewer. Andrew: I think land is more expensive near big cities, and that is why people choose to build taller rather than wider. Jesse: Yes. Andrew: I think traditional American cities had more space, and many of them are still like that. So, for example, in the middle of the country, in the midwest cities like St. Louis or Chicago, tend to have more space and so they have more single family homes with yards. In cities that are denser like New York or like Seattle or San Francisco, there's not as much space to have a yard and to build out, and so they build up instead, and that's why town homes have become more popular. But, they're also very nice because they are built with the newest technology. Jesse: Yes. Andrew: So, they have bigger windows, they have better insulation so they don't get as cold or as hot in the weather, and they're cheaper to run, so it costs less money to keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And, they stand up to weather well, as well. Jesse: That's right. You talk about yards. Now, how do you feel about yards? Andrew: I personally don't care much for them. I don't-... Let me say that differently, I don't value them very highly because I don't spend my time out in them. I am usually out in the city, and when I want to go out into nature, I drive to the mountains and the forests nearby. So, to me the yard is pretty to look at, but it also means a lot of work. I need to mow the grass, I need to pull weeds, I need to plant flowers or a garden, and these are things that I would not want to do normally for myself. So, they are kind of a responsibility that I don't want. I like living in the city because I am close to everything that I like to do, so bars, restaurants, theater, bands, and other performances, and also to be close to my friends. And, so, I don't feel like it is as important to have an estate, a big piece of land to live on, as well. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Andrew talks about hiking and enjoying the natural beauty of Washington State. Jesse talks about his hobby of salsa dancing, and how it helps him exercise. Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world. Twitter: @LPLEDialogFM Facebook: facebook.com/LPLEDialogFM TRANSCIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Jesse: Andrew! Andrew: Jesse! Jesse: Tell me, what do you like to do on the weekend? Andrew: On the weekend, most of the time I am trying to catch up on exercise because I work at an office and sit or stand at a desk most of the day. So, on the weekend, usually I'm trying to find a way to go outside and hike in the mountains or go for a run depending on who is available to join me in these activities. Jesse: Nice! Living in Seattle, there's many places to go hiking nearby. Andrew: Yes! We're very close to a lot of mountains, and for running there are beaches and a lot of pretty scenery to look at when you're outside. Jesse: Tell me, why do you like hiking? Andrew: I like hiking because it is close and also because it is good exercise with new things to look at each time you go out. So, for example, if I were to go on a run near my house, I would have to run by the same things everyday and it gets boring. When I go out hiking I can go in a different direction each day. I will drive to a different mountain, and I can climb to the top and see different views, and also there are different trails with different conditions. So, some are rocky, some are dusty, sometimes there is snow, and that makes each hike new and fresh. Jesse: When you go hiking, do you like to take a lot of pictures? Andrew: Yes, usually-... Well, on the pretty days I like to take pictures. At the top, if it is sunny and bright and you can see clearly for a long way, the pictures look amazing and you can see not just the mountains nearby but sometimes very far away. Even if the hike is a long way away from the city, like 30 or 60 minutes drive away, sometimes you can still see from the top of the mountain the skyscrapers in the city of Seattle, or our famous mountain, Mount Rainier, nearby all the way away down to the south and east. Jesse: When you go hiking, how long do you usually hike and what do you usually bring with you? Andrew: That's a good question. The hikes are sometimes nearby and they take only 30 to 45 minutes to drive to. But, sometimes when I go with more enthusiastic friends we might go somewhere further away that might take two or three hours to get to by car. Once we're there, usually we are hiking for about four or five miles up and then four or five miles back, and that takes about two or three hours to go up, and then it is usually a little bit faster to go downhill back to the car. So, these are long trips; they take most of a day to complete, between the driving and the hiking. That means that you need to bring food and prepare to be out all day. So, we dress in layers to stay warm while we're cool and to take some of them off when we are working hard and get hot and sweaty. And, we also take water and snacks like granola bars or chips. We will also bring a meal sometimes for the top, a sandwich or something like that, for lunch, and we usually bring extra just in case something might happen, or if we meet someone else who does not have enough food along the way. Jesse: Who do you usually go hiking with? How many friends and how often? Andrew: It depends on the season. In the summer, it is warmer so we can get to more places that are not covered with snow and ice and are dangerous to drive to. And, in the winter, sometimes with extra preparation--bringing things like snow shoes or spikes to put on your shoes so we don't slip--we can go out into snow hikes. During the summer, we usually try to hike once every one or two weeks, usually on the weekend. And, in the winter, it is probably closer to once each month. Jesse: Nice. When are you going to go hiking again this year? Andrew: Right now, I am training for some runs, so I am running more than I am hiking. But, once the weather warms up again, it is January now, so maybe April or May I will probably start hiking again more regularly. Jesse: Excellent. During the weekend, my favorite hobby is salsa dancing. I've been salsa dancing for about 10 years now. And, it's a very invigorating activity. Invigorating means I use lots of energy, I use a lot of body energy, I'm moving around a lot. Andre: And, how does it make you feel? Jesse: It feels like--... Probably it feels the same way you feel when you're jogging. You're breathing heavily, you're sweating, your heart is beating very fast--your heart is racing. But, it's also very fun for me. So, it's a similar activity in that I can move my body around a lot, but it's also very fun because I get to listen to very, very fun and exciting music, and I can be creative, matching my body movement and dance steps to the music, and also I get to make new friends and meet old friends. In Seattle, we have a salsa dancing community. That means that whenever there's a salsa event during the week, there is a good chance that I will meet the same people again and again and again. And, because I get to meet them multiple times, I learn their name, I learn more about them, and then we become friends. So, now it feels like I'm not dancing with strangers all the time, but I'm dancing with people who I feel very comfortable with. It's a very fun activity. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

Will they survive without Andrew? Yes, yes they will. Sorry for the drop in audio quality this week. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe. Facebook www.facebook.com/houseofmanchild Twitter twitter.com/houseofmanchild iTunes itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/house…hild/id955990350 Stitcher app.stitcher.com/browse/feed/59477/details YouTube www.youtube.com/channel/UC9iiRVLspZ4a95MCd1lmp9Q