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Let’s talk about death, baby From breaking the stigma to understanding the conversations we need to have before we die, beloved broadcaster and advocate Andrew Denton and clinical psychologist Dr Kerrie Noonan dissect everything we should and shouldn’t say about death. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors. Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. Andrew Denton is renowned as a producer, comedian and Gold Logie-nominated TV presenter, but for the past decade he has been devoted to a very personal cause. He is the founder of Go Gentle Australia, a charity advocating for better end of life choices that was instrumental in passing voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws across Australia. Senior clinical psychologist Dr Kerrie Noonan is director of the Death Literacy Institute; director of research, Western NSW Local Health District; and adjunct Associate Professor, Public Health Palliative Care Unit, La Trobe University. For the past 25 years she has been working to create a more death literate society, one where people and communities have the practical know-how needed to plan well and respond to dying, death and grief. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel -- Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: James: Hello, and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine, and this season, we're talking about death. Or, on this episode, why we don't talk about it enough. Death is really easy to talk about, but avoiding the subject just makes things even harder. From breaking the stigma to understanding the conversations we must have before we die, I'll be dissecting everything we should and shouldn't say about death with two fascinating minds. Andrew Denton is the founder of Go Gentle Australia. A charity advocating for better end of life choices, but you probably know him better from so many shows on our TV. And Dr Kerrie Noonan is a senior clinical psychologist and social researcher, determined to increase our death literacy. Kerrie, Andrew, thanks so much for joining us. Do you know one another? Andrew: Yes we do. Yeah. Kerrie: Yeah, along the way. Andrew: We've had a few conversations about death, dying, literacy, all those things. Yeah. James: How did you learn about death? Like when did you, and who did you go to talk to? When did you start thinking about it? Andrew: Well, I think you learn about death the way everybody does, which is you experience it. And the first time it happened to me, I made a documentary about teenagers with cancer, Canteen, the support group, and one of those young men died. And his parents very generously invited me to visit him as he was dying. And that was the first time I actually saw what death can be. And it was, it was very hard to see and then watching my own father die obviously was a profound moment for me because that was an unhappy death. But how I've learned about it since is, I imagine a bit like Kerrie. I've had thousands of hours of conversations with people who are dying and their families and their carers. And, I've learned so much about death I feel I've mastered it and can move on. James: Yeah, true. That's right. Is that, is this what you mean by death literacy, that, that in some ways we just need to be talking about it more? Kerrie: It's, it's talking about it. That, that's one aspect. But it's, it's kind of developing your know-how and being able to put that know-how into practice. So, you can maybe talk about, maybe have some competency in terms of talking or maybe doing one element, related to death and dying. But, when you put it into practice, that's when death literacy kind of really comes to life. It kind of sits, some of the research we've done recently, it's evident that death literacy sits in networks, in-between people, within people, in communities, so it's not just about individuals. James: I suppose I'm wondering about at what point we might have this, or there'd be a difference in death literacy with 20-year-olds than there would be with 80-year-olds, right? Kerrie: Yes, experience changes your death literacy. That's probably the strongest predictor. So we started this research looking at networks of care and how people kind of come together. And so where we're at now is we're looking at what are the predictors and what are the things that we understand so that we can understand more about how to make more death literacy, I guess. So an example, that's your question, well I can give a real example. When my mum was in hospital, we were, we needed someone to help us to move mum from the hospital to home because we wanted to take her home. And we couldn't get the health system or the medical system to do that. So I put an email out, a text message out to my friends who happened to work in the death space. And within an hour we had someone, within two hours, mum was home. And so. That took, you know, that set off a little chain of conversations, emails, texts. And while I was doing that, my brother was getting the medication sorted and other things sorted for my mum. So we really, we utilised, to bring my mum home, we utilised like every bit of knowledge and our networks to do that. James: But you were at the centre of, you know, you, you study this, you're a, you know, an advocate for it, and so you're at the centre of it. You would have a network. I mean, I don't know that I've got the same network. I'd, I could put it out to my friends and they'd go, we could bring wine. Oh, you know, like, I don't know that they'd, I don't know that they'd be that practical. Kerrie: But that's actually helpful too. You need your friends to turn up with wine and, and bread and whatever comforts. So we found that younger people, for example, so we've done two kind of national studies just to kind of demonstrate your point about younger people. Between, 2019, pre COVID, and 2023, we looked at the population and we looked at death literacy and how it changed. And we found that voluntary assisted dying and COVID had an impact on people's death literacy, particularly for the younger people, anyone who's experienced a death, anyone who's been through loss, has higher death literacy than people who haven't. And so, there's lots of things that contribute to that, but, COVID, I think, we're still kind of looking at the data, but certainly voluntary assisted dying because of the way that you need to kind of have conversations, you need to actually reach out to your networks, you need to talk to doctors, you know, there are actually lots of interactions in that that really stretch your skills and, your understanding. James: It's only a few generations back when death was very present in our life. The conversation about voluntary assisted dying has perhaps allowed us to have that conversation again. Have you seen that? Andrew: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, there's, there's a lovely, witty observation that in Victorian times they talked about death all the time and never about sex. And today it's the other way around. It's not that many generations ago where the body would lie in the house and there'd be a viewing in the house. And so it was, it was a more human thing, the way Kerrie's describing her friends helping her mother come home, that's a communal and human thing. And when I talk about voluntary assisted dying, I must and I want to bracket it with palliative care, because really, despite the fact politically they were oppositional during the legislative debate, they're very much on the same end of the spectrum, which is we're all going to die, and the concept of palliative care, which is also the same idea of voluntary assisted dying, is not, ‘Let's get you to the dying bit, but how do you live as well as you can while you are dying?’ And that dying process could be very short or it could be very long, it could be several years. You, usually you can't be really clear. So the whole point as Kerrie said about voluntary assisted dying and palliative care is you talk about these things. And interestingly, I think there's a paralysis around death, and you know, you said, well, my friends wouldn't know what to do, they'd bring wine, as Kerrie said, that's no bad thing. But if you put out a call to your friends to say, I need to move my fridge, somebody's going to say, I've got a ute. James: Yes. Andrew: …your need, perhaps, to leave hospital and go home, that's the same question… James: They might have a ute. Andrew: …It's just, it's just a human question, which is, I need help. And not only do we get paralysed in the face of death and assume that the experts have the answers, but the experts often get paralysed in the face of death. They don't know how to have those conversations either. So one of the things that voluntary assisted dying absolutely has done, and there was a, a geriatrician in Victoria who said to me. He was ashamed to admit that voluntary assisted dying had made him understand how limited his practice had been, in that he had subconsciously only been asking questions of patients that he had an answer to: How's your pain? James: Right. Andrew: I can treat your pain. What are your symptoms? I might be able to treat your symptoms. Whereas what he asks now is, how do you feel? What is life like for you? That's a much more holistic question. What is it that you need? If we can't help you with it, maybe someone else can help you with it. So I think it's about transcending that paralysis in the face of death. Which is natural, but the greater group that you can talk with it about, the better. I still remember a woman I met several years ago. And she said to me from the moment her husband was diagnosed with cancer to the moment he died, he refused to talk about it. And the, it was like a sliver of ice stuck in her heart because she was frozen in that too. James: Yeah, yeah. Kerrie: Yeah, and I think what we, what we found in a lot of our research too, Andrew, was that, carers were often, had massive networks that the person who was dying didn't know about… Andrew: Right… Kerrie: …as well. So I think that's, that's the other thing, about some of these conversations is that, once you know that you've got community who's up for the conversation or up for whatever around you that a lot of carers are, can have that access to other people. James: And you mean the person dying doesn't know because they don't ask, unless they're talking about it, then no-one thinks to bring it forward? Is that what you mean? Kerrie: Yeah. I think what happens in that situation is a carer can become quite isolated like the dying person. If they don't want to talk about it, there actually are still practical things to organise. There are still things, where are the passwords? How do you get into the bank account? What bills need paying? Andrew: I'm trying that with my wife all the time and she's not even dying! Kerrie: That's right. They continue but you don't get to have the conversation with the person. Andrew: Actually, Geraldine Brooks, a beautiful author, her husband Tony, who is a friend, he died very suddenly, dropped dead in the street, and he was young, in his early 60s. And she's just written a book about this called Memorial Days, about that whole experience. And that's the strongest piece of practical advice she gives, which is, prepare for your death by helping others. James: Yes. Andrew: Like, leave the passwords, explain how these things work. The best things I've learnt about the idea of preparing for death and thinking about death, actually I'm pretty sure came from some of your literature, Kerrie, which was the idea of an emotional will. And an emotional will is not about, to you James, I'll leave my ute. It's actually about, to you James, I'm going to leave, my favourite city in the world. Limerick in Ireland, and here's some money for you to go there, or to you James, I'm going to leave these five songs, which mean something to me. It's actually about, well this poem, it's about gifting something of spiritual life value as opposed to an object. James: Yeah. Following the, the, the legislation in New South Wales, now pretty much in every state, Andrew, where, what do you see now? What do you see in our society now? What do you see happening? Andrew: Look, there's still the same paralysis and fear about death. I think that's, that's kind of natural. You know, one of the people on our board of Go Gentle is the former federal president of the AMA, who's a neurosurgeon, and he said when his dad was dying in hospital, he was afraid to ask for, you know, more help because he didn't want to be annoying. So, you know, I mean, this is the head of the AMA. To me the big question is not so much, how individual families or individuals respond even though it's very important. To me the big conversation is within the medical professions. And I don't actually say that critically. Because we're all equally struggling with the concept of the abyss. And I think, it is an acknowledged problem in healthcare, of futile care at the end of life. It's giving a 90-year-old a hip replacement, for example, just over-treating. Because of the, I've heard it described as ‘doctor as hero’. You know, we give, we give doctors, quite reasonably, a special place in our society. Because we ask special things of them. But part of that training is, we must win. We must treat. When I was first told this by a doctor in Oregon, when I went there. When they said, oh, we see death as a defeat, I actually laughed. I thought they were joking. I said, it's… James: You know you can't win. He turns up with that scythe at some point. Andrew: So I think there's a much broader conversation about what is dying, and how do we have that conversation with people who are dying. And I think… James: I suppose I just thought, I have had a couple of conversations recently with people who have a relative or parent who has gone through voluntary assisted dying… Andrew: Yes… James: …And what I noticed was the way they talked about it, in a sense, wasn't much different to, oh, we went to Europe. You know, we had a nice trip. Like, it was very normal, the way they said it. They went, I was at my uncle's death yesterday. Andrew: It can be. It can be. You know, dying affects different people differently. There are people who have gone through the voluntary assisted dying process who totally support it and are very glad it's there, but still found the experience traumatic. It's not a silver bullet. James: Right. Andrew: It doesn't, it, it's merciful, and it's peaceful, but it doesn't, it certainly doesn't remove grief, and it doesn't remove, for many people, the unreality of dying. We hear many, many testimonies of families deeply grateful for the way in which they are able to say farewell. And I think that's a very important part of voluntary assisted dying. A genuine ability to say farewell. But people are different. There's one man that insisted, who used voluntary assisted dying, and insisted that he be only with his doctor. And the reason he gave, which I find both beautiful and heartbreaking, he said, ‘I don't want the love of my family holding me back’. So, you know, I always maintain when I talk about this. James: [sigh] I felt the same thing. I did the same thing. I know. You know, huge. Andrew: Whenever I've talked about this, I've always maintained, none of us know how our dying will be. All we know is that it will be hours and hours alone. And I think that's why I struggle with, that philosophy that somehow or other, that, our dying is about society at large or about some universal rule that we might be breaking if we don't do it the right way. James: Kerrie, you know, I sort of want to acknowledge that you've been through death quite recently, that your mother died only a few weeks ago as we're having this conversation. As someone who's then spent their life studying this area and thinking about this area, what have you learned from the death of your mother? Kerrie: It looks similar to what Andrew said before about his colleague, the doctor. Like, well, I went straight to the practical things, didn't I? Like, it's a kick, grief's a kick in the guts, let's face it. Knocks you on your butt. James: And we are very practical in those first weeks, aren't we? At the moment of death and afterwards. Kerrie: Just the other day, when we dropped my daughter off to uni, I went to text my mum, as I would usually do. And text her the photo of her in her dorm. And I think this is, you know, I was really glad of my experience because I just sat there and cried for about five minutes, actually. I just needed to blubber and cry. I could have sucked it up. We could have just, you know, driven on. But actually it was really helpful just to really deeply acknowledge that moment. That was the first time. That I'd experienced that real sense of wanting to, to, communicate with her. Andrew: I hope it won't be the last time you hear her cry about your mum. Kerrie: No, it won't be. It won't be. But when she died, because of the work that we had done, I didn't cry initially. Andrew: Yeah. Kerrie: And this is this individual kind of experience of going through this. I didn't, immediately cry. I felt intense relief for my mum. And so I was just reflecting on that. I was like, ‘Whoa, I'm not crying’. The other thing that is, is on my mind is that it took an ICU doctor on the day that mum… So mum had three MET calls. And if you don't know what a MET call is, and you're listening to this, this is where every registrar, every emergency person on call, runs to the bed of the person who is, who's crashing. James: Right. Kerrie: …and she had three of those. And by the end, I'm glad I wasn't there because I hear that mum was very distressed. James: Right. Kerrie: And it took an ICU doctor to sit down with her and go, what do you want Maureen? James: Yeah. Andrew: Yeah. Kerrie: And mum said, I'm done. And so it didn't matter that I'd done that with the doctors, multiple times, or that she had an advanced care directive, clearly stating, do not give me, treatment that will prolong my life. It didn't matter that all of those things were in place. What mattered, was that ICU doctor who absolutely, compassionately just stopped everything and talked to my mum. And it's a pretty brave thing when your heart is failing and other things are happening in your body to say, no more, I'm done. Because that does, that's a decision about you only have a certain amount of time left in your life then. So, that doctor changed the course of my mum's dying. And, yeah, I'll never forget that. And then the compassion at which she called me to talk with me about what mum had decided. And the checking. The difference – one of the other things that I found – the difference between a doctor with really, like, person-centered communication skills and someone who's focused on getting the job done. They ring and say, ‘Hey, I'm caring for your mum. I'm caring for your person. What do you understand about what's happening?’ James: Right. Right. Kerrie: And every time, they did that… James: …they want to listen to you first, yeah. Kerrie: …Yeah. Every time they did that, it just gave me an opportunity, even though I know this gig, I've talked a hundred times on the other side of that conversation with people, but it just made me realise the just incredible, that empathy, you feel it in your bones on a whole other level when someone is truly going, ‘Tell me, tell me your story, tell me your bit.’ And, that was, that was a big learning and a big reflection as a health professional, as someone who's been there. The other thing, sorry, you cracked that open, didn't you? The other, the other part was, no one asked, me or my brother, about, about our experience, our previous experiences, and who we were, and what we did, and who were these children taking their mum home. My brother's a nurse. I've worked in palliative care for a million years, and it was a really interesting thing having to, like, I just wanted someone to go, Hey, have you done this before? And maybe I'm being a bit biased there because that's something that, because I've got a death literacy lens over things. And I'm always interested in, Hey, what have you done before? Hey, what experiences do you want to bring to this one? What do you know about what you're facing? What do you want to know about next? They were all the questions that I would be asking if I was working with someone. I really wanted someone to ask me those questions. Andrew: In a palliative care setting, you would probably have been asked those questions, you would hope. Kerrie: I hope so. Andrew: In a general hospital, maybe not. I think that speaks to two things, what we're talking about, which is paralysis in the face of death and, a sense of we just treat, we treat, we treat. This is what we do. Everybody's terrified of being accused somehow of not having done enough. So I think there's that. And, the doctor, the ICU doctor you described, that strikes me as a perfect piece of medicine. And it, it absolutely accords with what a beautiful nurse said to me in South Australia some years ago. She was very emotional. She was, she was recording a piece for us about why there should be voluntary assisted dying. It was always instructive to me that the ones that really advocated for it were the nurses, because they're the ones that see the suffering. And she just said, ‘Why can't we do the right thing, human to human?’ And that's why I see this as a multi-generational discussion within the health profession. It's not that people in the health profession aren't humans or don't get that, but it's not how they're trained. And, but I also think it speaks to the pressures on the health system too. Kerrie: Yeah. Andrew: In the same way as we're talking about aged care, even though we have a much healthier health system than, say, America, it's still pressured. And we know, we hear stories from hospitals all the time of, resources that are built but not used or resources that are used but are stretched beyond reason, and so I think it's a reflection of all those things. But there was at times, and I think sometimes we don't talk about this enough, is paternalism in healthcare. Andrew: Can I explain that?! James: Yeah, that's right. Andrew: Sorry. James: Oh yeah, we covered that Kerrie, us blokes know all… Andrew: Please, do go on. Kerrie: Oh, there's a lived experience. [laughter]. Oh, yes, that. Andrew: No, I'm sorry, please do explain. James: …which you ably demonstrated… Kerrie: So, that, yeah, like paternalism, we just don't have a critical kind of conversation about paternalism in healthcare. And there's, you know, there's that difference between really great care. And then, but if you just kind of tip it a little further into ‘Hmm, do you really want to do that? Oh, don't you want to be the daughter, not the carer?’ You know, like there are, there are kind of, there are particular things that happen in healthcare that, that we don't, we aren't critical enough, is what I'm saying. I don't know what the answer is, but I would like the system to be more critical about, about some of those things that perhaps they take for granted a little. And, look, sometimes it would be maybe permission for a family to kind of, yeah, be the daughter. James: Well, even in my experience, my cancer experience in the last year or so, I've now done several talks at doctors conferences and things like that. And what, what sort of strikes me as funny about it is I go, ‘We’re thinking of taking an interest in the patient's perspective, perhaps you'd like to come talk about that?’ Patient's perspective. Is this new? Andrew: You know, I, I went on Q&A, about VAD quite early in my advocacy, which was a terrifying experience, by the way, and, and there was a, another fairly prominent doctor who was strongly in opposition, and I, I completed what I had to say by basically saying, you know, doctors, it's, it's time to listen to your patients. And this doctor, who's a very good writer, wrote this excoriating piece in a magazine afterwards, just accusing me of being patronising towards doctors. And I'm thinking, that's patronising? I mean, the worst example I know of this, there was a, a former AMA official and, they held a debate on this internally in 2016, that I had a link to and I, so I watched it. And he was a, a geriatrician, and a senior doctor. And somebody on the other side of the debate, because he was opposed, had put to him that there's a great public support for this. And he said, and I'm, I'm quoting pretty close to verbatim, he said, ‘That's why we're paid $200,000 a year. We make these decisions.’ And that's, so I think there is significant paternalism. There was another, a female oncologist who wrote a piece in The Australian against these laws, and even though it wasn't her headline, it was what she meant. The headline was, ‘Autonomy, it's not about you’. And you know, going back to what I was saying, there cannot be a more, you-focused experience than your dying. I don't care what your religion tells you, in the end, only you are going there when it happens. James: You've given, is it a decade now, to this? Andrew: More, I think. James: More, you know. Again, I suppose, what's your reflection on that? I sort of feel like I'm framing the question almost, are you glad you did that? You know, is that… Andrew: There are times, and I'm sure Kerrie would agree with this, there are times I think, you know, I've had enough death, thank you very much. Andrew: But I would have to say it's been the most brilliant second act for me after showbusiness, far more meaningful to me. The correspondence I've had and the conversations I've had, have been so privileged, and the gratitude that we as an organisation, Go Gentle, receive from people whose families had the option of voluntary assisted dying is immense. And, so yes, I am glad. And certainly I view this as the real work that I've done, not whatever I may have done in television. Perhaps if I'd won a Logie, I'd feel differently about that. James: I think you peaked at [1980s show] Blah, Blah, Blah, quite frankly! Andrew: Yeah, I think so, and it was all downhill after that first year, exactly! James: Yeah, well, I almost feel like I need to go and have a good cry. It's been, a beautiful discussion. Thank you so much for, uh, sharing it with us here on Life's Booming. Andrew: Can I ask you a question? Before you just wound up, you're getting teary. James: Yeah, yeah. Andrew: What are you feeling? James: I'm taking a deep breath to calm, so I can't talk, not necessarily to squash it. I'm always surprised when it comes up. I, I never quite know when I'm going to get teary. And sometimes it's, it can happen on air, like sometimes if someone starts talking about death or a relative, and I'll be listening to it and I'll suddenly go to speak and go, oh, the emotion's right there, you know. So, I'm not entirely clear. I think I'm moved by Kerrie, and sort of wanting to experience your grief in some ways, deal with that. Or I feel like, I think I'm feeling that you, you holding it in, sort of that, you know, we need to sort of let that, let that go a bit. So, it's interesting. I think I'm moved by your work as well. Look, we have a funny connection over many decades, and to observe you go through, deal with, deal with, you know, to see you transform into doing that work has been quite extraordinary. And I'm probably just contemplating my own death. [laughter] Andrew: And, exactly right, James. And during the height of COVID, quite unexpectedly, a very good, friend of mine, he rang me from Victoria and we knew his wife had pancreatic cancer, which is obviously a very tough diagnosis. And then he said she's chosen VAD and she's going to die in this state. And despite all the thousands of hours spent in that debate to get that law passed in Victoria, which was the first one in Australia, and it was an absolute brutal knife fight of a battle to get that law passed. For some reason, it had never occurred to me that somebody who I knew and loved was going to use this law. James: Yeah, right. Andrew: And I remember, despite everything I knew about it, on the day, Jennifer and I, we got our whisky glasses. We poured a whisky. We lit a candle. But I remember thinking as the clock ticked down to the moment, it felt very unreal to me. But the strong emotion that I felt at the moment, knowledge in the moment of her dying was not that she had died. It was actually about just the richness of life. Oh my god, life is so rich. And that's what I felt. I just felt, wow, life. Kerrie: I think that is what you say there is so deeply important because one of the reluctances around talking about death and dying is not being able to maybe lean into some of that feeling around that richness of life. When we were going through photo albums, there were photos there that, you know, that we'd never really taken notice of before. Damn, we wanted to know about them now. Who were they? Who are these people? Where are they now? It does connect you to life in a very profound way. And all of the messiness of that. And that's, I think, only a great thing. Watching my children, 22 and 17, be with their grandma. We did a very, a simple thing. Put a comb, a brush on the end of her bed. And mum used to love having her hair brushed. And we just said to the kids, just brush her hair, if you want. Andrew: That’s gorgeous… Kerrie: And so that just very simple action just then gave them something to be with her while she was dying. Andrew: Human to human. James: Yeah. Kerrie: Yeah. And my children did that many times, while she was dying. And, and that's when we would sit and talk about what we did with Nanny and things. And we, you know… So it's worth leaning into. I guess that's the other thing. It's worth getting the whisky out and having a think about, about, about these things and reflecting in on it, and how, and what it means to you and what you want to do. James: Thank you. Kerrie: Thanks. Andrew: Thanks, James. James: I'm gonna cry. Andrew: Come on. Let's hug it out. Come here. James: Exactly. It was very good. That was a beautiful moment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to our guests, Andrew Denton and Dr Kerrie Noonan. You've been listening to Season 6 of Life's Booming: Dying to Know, brought to you by Australian Seniors. Please leave a review or tell someone about it. Head to seniors.com.au/podcast for more episodes. May your life be booming. I'm James Valentine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. Government Small Enough to Fit in Your Bedroom feat. Steven Monacelli & Dr. Michael Phillips CZM Rewind: Police Drones and You CZM Rewind: You Already Know How to Organize Anarchism in Gran Columbia feat. Andrew Anarchism in Central America feat. Andrew You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone Sources: Government Small Enough to Fit in Your Bedroom feat. Steven Monacelli & Dr. Michael Phillips Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Roe-Rise-New-America-ebook/dp/B0CK72ZGL1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=LT8GCBOTWABV&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JQimtOEGy3PsNcHVXC_RzHb4-nla_0uFg_mcpTX1ogL7AlrpV8uIf5LJfxCuazgOHruVfjQvhOd-B27Yyr-vsv6Jz5Rw2iecYpzZ8X1fODwGfubBl94YbczW4lNK_68iuBj2ipBDR9JsmUFKduu54NOSAjT_zA0v4iBiASNqit03Aix2od9liGMi5jliDW7hqtT59N7-A-bQTtkL38pZeRP_lNIji1bosnq7UeWXmNM.NrfQX0Mt4qMsvR3L2hDj0RFB_7GXrOGbbHNFxP_dxm0&dib_tag=se&keywords=Fall+of+Roe&qid=1732370376&s=books&sprefix=fall+of+roe%2Cstripbooks%2C124&sr=1-1 James Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy https://www.amazon.com/Abortion-America-Origins-Evolution-National/dp/0195026160/ref=sr_1_1?crid=TR1W25IRTLDR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZBOxRJsGiXDvGWbf9K1MRx7h7sn4m4_IDKwbohsbDD0.w_NHhzr7kEEWE8yR4B1rh1cuOGR8of66ZlXAvTHzxgM&dib_tag=se&keywords=James+Mohr+Abortion&qid=1732370158&s=books&sprefix=james+mohr+abortion%2Cstripbooks%2C116&sr=1-1 Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867- 1973 https://www.amazon.com/When-Abortion-Was-Crime-1867-1973-ebook/dp/B0B8TNX2MW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2S9JMDTGAJQRN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GVgbRixhq1FpPKRp5yMnMOkGBck7LhL6KpbcZwznkVsd7LzGl_DPfKYBmem066YyaLnnRv1PlQP8Ysr75l695zDs8EZVD-oM42iCfuISV0g.1k8qK_S9Vp5KaliYGNYObwpmoQUvVOmVmxULkBK2JtM&dib_tag=se&keywords=When+Abortion+Was+Illegal&qid=1732370269&s=books&sprefix=when+abortion+was+illegal%2Cstripbooks%2C102&sr=1-1-catcorr James Risen, Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War https://www.amazon.com/Wrath-Angels-American-Abortion-War/dp/046509273X Anarchism in Gran Columbia feat. Andrew Cappelletti, Angel (2018). Anarchism in Latin America. AK Press. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anselme-bellegarrigue-the-world-s-first-anarchist-manifesto Anarchism in Central America feat. Andrew Cappelletti, Angel. (2018). Anarchism in Latin America. AK Press. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. Sources can be found in the descriptions of each individual episode. Hurricane Conspiracy Theories The 2028 General Strike and Climate Change Israel's History with UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon Anarchism In Argentina, Pt. 1 feat. Andrew Anarchism In Argentina, Pt. 2 feat. Andrew You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt talks about our reliance on technology and how sometimes it is nice to remember that to assess a patient it is actually really simple without using technologyAndrew: I am mostly paid to not get tricked into missing something big.Standards in medical education changing when there is emphasis on getting people through programsKeep holding high standards for your studentsAdvice for the newbies:Andrew: You won't fail if you are trying your best and making the best decisions you can and caring for the patientAaron: Take care of yourself before you take care of patientsMatt: Ask for help if you need it. Julie: Be content with where you are atSarah: Progress further in medicine if you can do itSchasny: Don't listen to the naysayers. Zero to hero is possible because everyone is differentYou can learn from all providers, even if they haven't been in the field long.  Sometimes experience can be greatly varied even with only a short amount of time in the careerSupport the showIf you want to support the show, follow the links below for some great health and fitness products.My favorite protein:https://1stphorm.com/products/phormula-1/?a_aid=PracticalEMS My favorite 1ST Phorm Energy Drinks: https://1stphorm.com/products/1st-phorm-energy/?a_aid=PracticalEMS My favorite creatine supplement https://1stphorm.com/products/micronized-creatine-monohydrate/?a_aid=PracticalEMS My favorite pre-workout supplementhttps://1stphorm.com/products/project-1/?a_aid=PracticalEMS If you want to work on your nutrition, increase your energy, improve your physical and mental health, I highly recommend 1st Phorm. Check them out here so they know I sent you. 1st Phorm | The Foundation of High Performance Nutrition Everything you hear today from myself and my guests is opinion only and doesn't represent any organizations or companies that any of us are affiliated with. The stories you hear have been modified to protect patient privacy and any resemblance to real individuals is coincidental. This is for ed...

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. Kamala Shuts Down the DNC Imane Khelif and the Co-option of the Mexican Terfs The Battle of Karbala Transnational Repression of Sikh Independence Activists Political Cults: The Democratic Workers Party feat. Andrew You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dive into the latest episode of the Class E Podcast with Andrew Predmore, the executive director of Furman University's Shi Institute, as he shares insights into their innovative initiatives. From on-campus climate action planning to a closed-loop food system, the episode delves into sustainability challenges and solutions. Join the conversation as they discuss composting, student engagement, and outward-facing programs, including the Sustainability Leadership Initiative. Andrew sheds light on working with businesses for sustainability and fostering leadership in South Carolina. Discover how Furman is making strides in sustainability, from reducing carbon emissions to unique partnerships. Don't miss the innovative steps they're taking in waste reduction at athletic events, creating a blueprint for sustainable practices. Gain valuable perspectives on sustainability and be inspired by Furman's commitment to a greener future! Guest: Andrew Predmore, Director of the Shi Institute at Furman University Host: Mary Sturgill Producer: Isabella Martinez '24   Transcript:  Mary: Today, our guest is Andrew Predmore, who is the Executive Director of the Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities here at Furman University. Andrew, welcome to the show. Andrew: Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be here and excited to talk about innovation and entrepreneurship. Mary: Absolutely. Because you guys have some innovative programs, which we're going to talk about but you've only been here a year right?  Andrew: Not even a year. Getting close. So I started October 5th or 6th of last year so getting close to a year, yeah. Mary: How are you finding it?  Andrew: Oh, I love it. Mary: Not to put you on the spot.  Andrew: Well yeah I can't exactly answer like, oh, no good at all. But no, I truly am enjoying the position. And you know, I tell people that I really have one of the most fun jobs there is out there because we do a lot of good. And really, you know, my biggest challenge is trying to figure out what in the world to say no to because all the sustainability work that comes our way is good work. And work that's needed in the world. So lots of opportunity and lots of good things to do. Mary: So let's talk about that because you have some innovative programs that you guys are working on. Can you kind of… I don't want to say just list them all but kind of talk about them, list them and then I want to jump in…there's some that I want to dive into  Andrew: Well it would depend on how you define innovative right? But we have a lot of programming. I couldn't possibly list them all for you. Yeah, I would say like just in a broad sense, like the Shi Institute is working on and off campus on sustainability issues and we're looking to make a difference in both places. Andrew: And along the way, we engage students and faculty in that work. So you know, I'll mention just a couple of things going on on-campus and a couple of things off campus and then we can see where that takes us. But on campus our biggest push right now is climate action planning for the university. So Furman University has a carbon neutrality commitment for 2026. It's going to be really difficult to meet that commitment. And so we're really intentionally working on how we are going to pursue that commitment or we need to reset sort of when we're going to be carbon neutral and what is a pragmatic pathway to reduce carbon emissions because we're in here right now and the lights are on and we're using energy right now. And so that's, that's a real challenge for any university in any large organization. So you got to be innovative, you got to think outside the box. And we want to do it also in a way that supports the broader Greenville community. So that's a big thing that we do on campus and anything that we do on campus, we're always engaging students in that so we have a really vibrant student fellowship program. We also have a farm as you know, and that's an important thing on campus for students to get their hands dirty, and see what a closed loop food system looks like. So we'll probably get to that as an innovation but like, you know, we pick up the food waste that comes out of the back of the dining hall, we take it to a compost facility, we compost it, the compost comes back to the garden. The garden grows produce that is then sold to Bon Appetit. So we really have been working on that this summer, and over the next year to scale that up and see how much we can produce and have students learn along the way. So those are two things on campus. Mary: So quick question about that - Is the goal then to produce so much that then we can sell it to local farmers and stuff?  Andrew: No, I mean, not yet. I mean, the goal right now is to produce as much as we can that will then be served in the dining hall. So I'm gonna go to the dining hall in a few minutes when we're done with this, and you're gonna and I'm gonna see like all those heirloom tomatoes that we grow, I mean, hundreds of pounds and tomatoes this summer. We're getting close to $15,000 over the produce that's gone to Bon Appetit over the summer. So that really is healthy local food going to our students, our faculty, our staff right now, in the future, we might do CSA or do some other things where we sell that in other places, but for now, it's just going to the dining hall. Mary: What about the compost? What's the goal for that?  Andrew: The compost as you might imagine it… we've produced quite a bit of organic material, right and like so students out there and everybody listening, you know, be conscious of what you know, sometimes our stomachs are bigger than… what's the saying?  Mary: Our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. Andrew: Yeah, that's right. But then that translates into food waste. So be aware of that, but there's a lot of that and then there's a lot of leaf litter and organic material that comes on campus. So we blend that right? You have to get the carbon to nitrogen correct and compost that so we have quite a bit of it. We're going to start to sell that as a way to raise funds for the Shi Institute.  Mary: Yeah, that's kind of what I meant when I said for the farmers like local farmers, who are we selling that to? Andrew: Right now… we're not, we haven't even until now this podcast. I'm not even marketing that we're selling. And we've sold you know, several $1,000, but we're looking to scale that up because we have a lot of organic material and a lot of finished compost. The one little bottleneck we have though is filtering the compost. So we can't have plastic and forks and things that sometimes end up… so we have students out there sometimes filtering that so… Mary: I've seen some of the pictures that students have posted about people accidentally throwing away their forks and stuff in the DH.  Andrew: Yeah, the DH has a tough job right? Like anybody that's been there knows things are moving quick. And sometimes, you know, a fork or things just end up in the wrong place. But we'll solve that, we're going to filter it. Mary: So I want to turn now and talk about some of the outward facing programs.  So you have the sustainability leadership initiative.Tell us about that. Andrew: Yeah, so um, you know, think about it this way, like, like, for the world for society for South Carolina to become a more sustainable place. We've got to work for large organizations, right? And so and large organizations have to change just like Furman has to adapt…other organizations, businesses across the state need to adapt and so Furman and the Shi Institute partners with a nonprofit called sustain SC and each year we do a training that lasts five different sessions throughout the year across the state of South Carolina with around 25 business, nonprofit and public sector professionals that sign up to be in that and we're teaching them about the core aspects of sustainability. We take them out into the field and show them some of the challenges. And what we want to do is create a network of sustainability leaders across the state that are going to move us forward. So that's that program. This will be its third year. We have a really great class of people involved with that, real leaders across the state, and it's been fun putting together that program like we're taking them out to Waitis Island, which is a big conservation win. It's an under conservation easement. It's a barrier island off the coast near Myrtle Beach. So we will take them out there and show them like this is an amazing thing. This is amazing that it's protected in perpetuity, but they will also have to grapple with the fact that, like you all might have heard on the news this week that Myrtle Beach is one of the fastest growing cities in the US. Right? So there's all that urban development and around that area. And so those students that are in this program, those professionals, we're going to grapple with that like and hopefully that's going to help create better leadership and sustainability. Yeah, Mary: Yeah, because those people are the people who will then go back to their companies and it has to come from the top down, right? So that's a great way to network. I like that. That's very innovative thinking there and I like that because a lot of people in the industrial side of things don't think like that, right? Unnecessarily.  Andrew: Yeah, I mean I think that is changing. You're right and I think that the innovative thing about that is getting leaders embedded in organizations that then construct and flip systems to more sustainable ones.  Mary: Exactly. Getting them to flip the systems. That's exactly what I was talking about. You have one with manufacturers, a program with manufacturers, talk about that one  Andrew: Yeah, so this really was you know…I don't always love the word pilot but how about demonstration project? This summer where we worked with the South Carolina manufacturers extension program, and they know that there's like 7000 or so small to medium sized manufacturers across the state of South Carolina. And a lot of what they do is supply the really big manufacturing businesses in South Carolina. So think of the you know, the big name industries or companies that you all know like BMW or Michelin or Volvo or, or Milliken across the upstate, right? So they have many, many small suppliers. And then those small suppliers are under some pressure now to understand their carbon footprint. You know, because they supply these bigger businesses that have commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. So I'm like okay, knowing this I'm like, alright, there's a there's a niche here for the Shi Institute right to step in and roll our sleeves up and see if we can help some of these small to medium sized businesses understand their carbon footprint, and it helps their business because then they can say to their customer, their large customer, hey, we're working on it. It helps us because we got students who need to learn carbon accounting as a skill. So there's a really nice win-win. And so we did a couple of those this summer. They were fantastic. We work with a French company, which is located mostly in Anderson County, and they make advanced textiles. And then we work with a company that's really right down the road here called Mosaic Color and Additives. So we had two students do their greenhouse gas inventories, which is the first step like you cannot reduce your impact on climate without first understanding where your emissions come from, that are driving that impact. And so that's what the students do is, you know, we worked it was very much like a client consulting type experience for our students, which is super valuable for them. Mary: That's the Furman advantage right there. Andrew: It is. We handed the company like a report. Here are your emissions, here's where they come from. And they can start thinking about okay, what can we do to lower emissions? How can we market ourselves as a more sustainable company as a result of taking this first step? So that was a great project and we're looking forward to potentially scaling that up next summer and I think yeah.  Mary: I love the fact that you because when we think of people who need to really work on sustainability, we do think of the large companies right because they probably have the most greenhouse gas emissions, etc. But I love the reaching down to the smaller companies or supplying the bigger companies because that really, I think, will make their partnership stronger.  Andrew: It should and it should create an advantage for those first movers in a small to medium sized manufacturing...because they can say to their larger customers, hey, we're serious about it. We're taking this first step. So we, we, you know, sometimes people think sustainability, shouldn't or can't work with the business sector and I think instead we need to be innovative and think about how we can support the change that needs to happen. And so that's what we've tried to do.  Mary: Because we're part of that community. So why not? Right?  Andrew: We're wearing clothes and we consume things and so we're all a part of this economic system and, and the challenge of sustainability is how are we going to meet human needs within the boundaries of what our ecosystems can provide?  Mary: What kind of obstacles are you facing with some of these things that some of these initiatives that you're started? Andrew: My own ability to keep up with all this. Like I mentioned, sometimes there's more opportunity than then I can capitalize on it. I mean, we're also involved with some really substantial grant work, research work on climate and climate resilience in South Carolina. Luckily, I have staff they're helping with that. We're also involved with athletics and athletics at Furman and starting to think about, you know, how can we make those events… move them towards zero waste or zero landfill events and so we have to really, I don't know if you want to get into that.  Mary: I actually do.  Andrew: I have some, I think some really exciting things that we're just starting this year. So I'm not going to say we're going to finish the thing, but my biggest challenge is keeping up keeping all these things going. And luckily, I have a great group of people that I work with.  Mary: Because if you think about all of the ways from the concession stands, and even when people are tailgating and all that kind of stuff. That is a huge area that could be fixed. Right? So how are you… what kinds of things are you talking about?  Andrew: Yeah, I'm, like I said, we're gonna take incremental steps just because of our own bandwidth. But I think students, we have an eco-rep program, and those are students that work in the residence halls here at Furman to encourage sustainable behavior among their peers. They're going to help us with this athletic thing, because we need some, we need some person power behind this because there's some education but you know, you think about like, just think of yourself at a football game or a basketball game and what's served there, you know, and you start to go through sort of the inventory of what you could consume there, and then you start to understand the challenge, right? So you get a hot dog. What is the hot dog served to you in? Maybe some sort of cardboard type of thing? Well, could that become a compostable? I guess cardboard is compostable. Making sure that everything that the food is served is compostable. And then you got to figure out how to compost and collect it and you got to train people to not put what's compostable into the landfill bin. So one of the cool things we're doing and it is with that company Mosaic Color and Additives…they have a compostable fork, that they're working on and it's sourced from US materials, so it's not made in China. And we're gonna pilot using that in men's basketball games this winter, and we'll collect it and compost at Furman compost.  Mary: So that's the innovation right there. With the company.  Andrew: You know, so we'll start with basketball. Our students are also going to be doing… our Greenbelt students that live in the cabins along the lake are going to do some waste audits. So they're going to help us this year understand the waste stream that I didn't describe perfectly there for each of the athletic events. So that next year, we really understand well, like what needs to happen to move towards nothing is going to landfills, either recyclable or compostable. That'll be… that's the ultimate goal with us. So cool, really cool stuff happening there and just thankful to have athletics just super supportive and excited about it and to have Mosaic Color and Additives also, like here use our product.  Mary: Yeah, I heard their CEO talking about that fork.  Andrew: Yeah, and test it in our compost like they're very open, transparent about working together on that. And that is probably, you know, I'm not in innovation and entrepreneurship, but that's a hallmark of good thinking. Right? Mary: Right. That is innovative thinking.  Andrew: Think about systems, think about being open and transparent and creating partnerships.  Mary: Exactly.  One of the things that I find troubling is that we do have people in this country who don't believe that we need to do these things, right, that, that we don't necessarily need to be sustainable. How do you change the minds of people who aren't taking those actions that all of us can take? Or who don't have that same philosophy? Andrew: Well, I would say a couple of things to that. And you're right, you're right. That's a challenge. If you watch the Republican primary debate the other night, you saw someone say that climate change is a hoax. Well, you know, 99.99% of scientists do not agree with that. Right? It's established fact as much as science can be fact at this point that climate change is real and it's driven by humans. Okay. But to your question, which is like, how do we start to convince people? I think one thing to do is kind of what I mentioned earlier, which is…all people are embedded in an economic system that currently is not terribly sustainable, right? It's based on a take from the earth, make something wasted model, and we have to change that. That is a big systems change. So I don't think the way to do it is to place a lot of guilt on other people, because a lot of times we're embedded in a system where it can be very challenging to live sustainably. That's not to say you shouldn't do what you can do. I really think you shouldn't but don't put all the blame on individuals. Instead, you know, let's look at systems change. Let's look like I talked about let's look at training leaders to work in organizations that can flip larger systems so that it's easier for you and I to go to a football game which I think is a you know, I like sports, but I don't want to create a bunch of waste when I'm there. So create a system when I get there, so I'm not generating so much waste. Right. So there's systems work to do. The other thing I would say is, you know, you got to start talking to people about these issues in ways that matter to them. Yes, absolutely. So like, you know, we talked about climate change, you know, if you're a sports fan, I don't want to go to a football game at 12 o'clock in South Carolina, in September. And I think that is going to be a more and more difficult, unpleasant experience if you look at the climate models. So that's something that a lot of people care about. It's part of our culture in the South is to go to college football games. We need to do something. Youth sports are a big thing. Like is it safe to practice in some of the heat and humidity that we're going to encounter? So talk to people about things that matter to them as a starting point, instead of hitting them over the head with you got to change your… and guilt and all that and I think people will start to see that. So… Mary: That's audience, right? You got to know your audience, right? I tell my students that all the time. Whatever story you're telling. Start with the audience. You got to know how to tell it based on who your audience is. Right? Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I'm no communications scholar, but I've been in sustainability long enough to know that trick.  Mary: Yeah. So I was looking at some of your history Andrew and I'm going way back a little bit. In undergrad, you were a politics major.  Andrew: Yeah. Mary: Trying to pull that out of my memory correctly. How has that helped you in what you do now? I mean, obviously, your PhD and your masters and everything is on sustainability. But… Andrew: That's an interesting question that you know, I think probably some of the answer that I just gave, you know, politics is about speaking to audiences and convincing audiences so I don't know that without you asking me that question I've attributed the ability to answer that question to that experience, but maybe I think my undergrad at UVA was really more about like, critical thinking and, you know, a liberal arts education. I was a person that did not know what I wanted to do.I knew I was interested in political science and things like that, but I was also interested in the environment at that time, but I hadn't figured out environment… Sustainability wasn't really a thing. I hadn't figured out what my avenue would be there. And I think I know at Furman, we're better at that now, helping young people see the array of professions out there, but for me, it had to be like a winding path.  Mary: Yeah, I was the same way. Was there something that you came across or some event or something that kind of spurred you into saying, okay, this is the direction I want to go in, and I want to get my higher education, get my Master's in that and and go on to be where you are today?  Andrew: Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't like I didn't read something, although there are certain things that I read that were impactful. I think if you haven't read Aldo Leopold, a Sand County Almanac, you should read that it's both beautiful and was really forward thinking and still applies today. But it didn't really come from reading or studying. It came from like when I was a kid growing up in Spartanburg, South Carolina. My dad would take my brother and I up into Pisgah National Forest, and we would go backpacking. He took us out west, we went out to Yosemite, we went to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. When I was 10 years old, I was backpacking in the Tetons. Mary: That's amazing. I love the Tetons.  Andrew: So you start with like that just and I found interviewing students over the years both at Indiana University where I was before and at Furman, you ask him like, where's your passion for sustainability come from? Usually there's some sort of connection with nature. And for me, that's what it was. And then ever since then, I've been trying to figure out how to make an impact. How do we create a safe space for humanity to thrive without messing up what we got.  Mary: So what has been the most rewarding thing in your career path that you've… because you were in sustainability at Indiana and now of course at Furman. Andrew: That's a good one. You know, I can talk about like, different sort of things that were accomplished either at Indiana University or even at Milliken. I was there for a year. They were one of the first 50 companies to have science based targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, prove targets… and that was really cool because not to say I did that but I was a part of that. That was awesome. We did some cool things at IU around waste and recycling like that system was really not functioning well. And we set that on a path to do much, much better. And that was a big, you know, that's a big campus. So we're proud of some of those accomplishments, but I mean, it may sound a little bit cheesy but truly like when a student that worked with me like as a kind of like here we have student fellows, at IU we had sustainability interns, when they come back and I can see on LinkedIn that they're working on these things or they asked for a recommendation and I'm blown away by like, what job they're about to get. Man that's awesome. And to know I have a little bit of piece of that, particularly ones that I worked really, really closely with, that's really super rewarding. So it's a mixed bag, you know, lots of things. Mary: I totally get that because I feel that way with my students. You know when I see them succeed. So I like to kind of leave our listeners with a blueprint that they can take into their lives no matter what the conversation is about. There's always some advice or just some nuggets of information that they can use. What would you give to our listeners as something that they could take and do right now today? If they so chose to help in sustainability. Andrew: Oh, gosh, I cannot give you just one. I think we kind of covered you know it a little bit but if you're passionate about… I have students, students more at IU and increasingly I think will happen at Furman will come ask me that kind of question like What should I do? I care… what should I do? And there's all those like, personal things that you can do, right? And for college students that can be hard because you're not in control of your living space necessarily. So like you and I, we might ought to look at the energy consumption in our household and there's the inflation Reduction Act, right? So there's a lot of incentives out there for solar or battery and I'm looking at that in my house right now. So those are things but college students, you don't really have a lot of control over where you live, so do what you can. But I think the other thing is think about this as a system. If you want to make a difference, some of the things that you need to do are learn to talk to people about these issues and be willing to do it. And we talked about some tips there like approach the audience with what they might care about. But also don't be afraid to be politically engaged. Because that's probably the highest level systems change that you, that students and any of us can get involved with. So if you have a voice on this, use it.  Mary: That's a good point. I didn't even think about that. Andrew: It's not all technical stuff. It's about driving social and collective collective action. Mary: I want to circle back around to Furman again. What are we doing well, and what do we need to do better? Andrew: What are you talking… on campus or… Mary: As you know, our goal and our sustainability plan is to reduce our carbon footprint. How are we doing basically?  Andrew: Well, so you know, I mentioned one thing that we do exceptionally well, which is that closed loop circular system with food and food waste, and that's fantastic. And we'll be looking to scale out those issues. So as I've talked about compost and athletics and catering and so those are things we do well and we're going to do even better. We have nice greenhouse gas reductions relative to our 2008, 2007, 2008 baseline. Our greenhouse gas emissions have dropped like 37, 38%... Mary: Which is great.  Andrew: … which is very good. We have geothermal on different parts of campus. We have a good size solar installation across Poinsett Highway, so Furman has done a lot of things and so the facilities folks, Jeff Redderson and his team deserve a ton of credit for that.  Mary: We have five buildings that are LEED certified… Am I right in that number?  Andrew: I don't know.  Mary: Okay, well I'll look it up and if you want to know, just email me.  Andrew: Well, I know we had the first LEED building in the state of South Carolina.  Mary: Yeah, Isabella did a story on it. Yeah our podcast producer did a story on it.  Andrew: But what can we do better? Right. I talked about the climate action planning like we need to get to a point where we're looking at our greenhouse gas emissions year over year. And we're transparent about that. And we have a strategy to reduce those emissions year over year. So that's where we're headed. It's as I mentioned to you, it's it's it's challenging. We're not going to make those changes without careful planning, which has already started. So if you think about every one of or maybe not every one, but most of our buildings, this one included, has a natural gas boiler that heats the building. Well, their emissions are associated with natural gas consumption, so we need to move away from that but you can't just snap your fingers because Furman has money in that infrastructure, or that wouldn't make financial sense. So instead, you got to look at well, what's the lifecycle of the natural gas boilers at each building and which ones are coming to the end of there? And then what are we going to do then? We're going to electrify that building, the heating, and what's that going to cost? And so that's the kind of really the hard work that's ahead. And I don't know, I'm just really excited that facilities and other parts of administration are up for that work and yeah, and we're gonna, we're gonna do it. Mary: Andrew, anything else you want to tell our listeners about what the Shi Institute's doing and has in the pipeline?  Andrew: Well, I would say like this, this podcast is about innovation. And I want to thank former President David Shi who just committed a million dollar gift to us and that kind of support you know, whether it's $5, or a million dollars helps us do the things that matter most. So looking at issues around biodiversity loss and climate change and climate resilience. Instead of having to chase grants or other ways to support our work, we're able to… with that kind of support, we're able to do the things that matter most and so that would be a thing that were like, first, thank you and for other folks out there that want to support a group doing great work in the upstate in South Carolina, come talk to us. Mary: Absolutely. Andrew, thank you so much.  Andrew: Thanks, Mary.   Mary: I appreciate it.   Mary: That does it for this episode of the Class E Podcast. Remember this podcast is brought to you through a partnership between the Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the Communication Studies Department here at Furman University. It is produced by student producer Isabella Martinez.  But until next time, I'm your host Mary Sturgill. Dream big everybody.  

How do you decide to differentiate yourself and your business from your competitors? There's only so much you can offer to owners and tenants before you completely burn yourself out. What if there was a way to benefit you, your client, and the tenants all at the same time while increasing your profit margin? Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they chat with Andrew Smallwood from Second Nature. Learn how a resident benefits package can create a win-win-win scenario for you and your clients. You'll Learn [04:56] Is it Possible to Double Profit Per Door? [07:13] What is a Resident Benefits Package? [21:37] Ways to Protect Your Investors/Owners [25:19] The Pitfalls of DIYing Resident Benefits Packages [32:07] Increasing Profitability with Resident Benefits Packages [39:31] At What Stage Should You Implement a RBP Tweetables “Property managers don't just have one problem. They have a thousand.” “If we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business.” “It doesn't matter how many doors you have if you're not taking anything home.” “It's important for property managers to keep the main thing, otherwise it's so easy to get distracted as an entrepreneur.”   Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] [00:00:00] Jason: If we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business.  [00:00:15] 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're interested in growing in business and in 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. [00:00:52] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. 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 along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:18] All right. So our guest today is Andrew Smallwood of Second Nature. Andrew, welcome to the show.  [00:01:25] Andrew: Hey, thanks for having me excited to be here.  [00:01:28] Jason: So we were talking beforehand and I was expressing how jealous I am of his amazing digital SLR camera. That's so zoomed in on his face. So you look really good today.  [00:01:37] Andrew: Well, we'll keep it on the face because I've still got some like summer workout to do the summer bods. We'll keep it the neck up here.  [00:01:44] Jason: Got it. All right. Yeah, I'm working out too. All right. Cool. So our topic today is doubling profit per door with a resident benefits package. You guys, your name has come up— Second Nature— over and over again related to this topic. So I'm excited to get into this before we get in though. Why don't you share a little bit about yourself? How did you get connected to property management? I doubt you woke up when you were a little kid and said, "property management" Second Nature... this is my dream future. This is what I want to be doing." So there's always a story of how people get into this industry, so.  [00:02:19] Andrew: You know, that's true, Jason, although if I think about every five to 10 year period of my life and where I may have predicted I would be five to 10 years from now, I don't think I've ever gotten that answer right, to date. So, I think I'll probably just stop trying, but really have enjoyed— you know, since 2017, actually is when I found the company at the time. It was called FilterEasy. A couple of years later, we rebranded to Second Nature as we saw our customers were looking at, you know, they had more than just one problem to solve. I think you guys know probably better than anybody property managers don't just have one problem. [00:02:52] They have a thousand. [00:02:53] You know, customer said, "Hey, we love the way you're working with us on this. Like, is there more that we could do there?" You know, rebranded to Second Nature, but I'll be quick with my personal story because I think probably other things would be more relevant to the audience wants to hear, but my background came up and coming up in sales was in sales and sales management for 10 plus years, also got into the nonprofit space involved with the Front Row Foundation, which is a cause I'm still passionate about. They put people battling life threatening illnesses in the front row of their dream live event. And so I'm the board chair for the Front Row Foundation today. I've been involved with them in various roles before finding my way to property management. And yeah the CEO and founder of Second Nature, Thad Tarkington, and I actually worked in the same company, although we didn't know each other super well. We were acquaintances in our previous company. And and I was looking to get into B2B from where I was. And that's what attracted me into the cool business. I saw it was a really great product. The customers really loved it. And that's what attracted me to the industry and I've loved it ever since. [00:03:57] Jason: So what do you think the major difference you see between B2C and B2B? What like really was driving that decision?  [00:04:06] Andrew: Yeah, I think, you know, in B2C, it was very transactional, like, have one meeting. And it was, you know, this was like a luxury house where items just to put that in perspective. And so it was like, you know, an order might be a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars, and it was like, if you didn't have an order form in 20 minutes, then you didn't have an order, right? Yeah, there wasn't a decision at that point. And, you know, I got a lot of like professional foundational skills that I really appreciate from those experiences. But, you know, what I appreciated was developing relationships and continually, you know, working to drive success right over a longer period of time with customers. But that was more interesting and more fulfilling and also would involve developing new skills and learning new things. And so that, that's what attracted me to B2B.  [00:04:56] Jason: Awesome. All right. Cool. So let's get into the topic at hand. So doubling profit per door with the residence benefits package. So is it possible to double their profit per door? [00:05:10] Andrew: Yeah, it better be, right? If that's the title of our episode. So, yeah, I mean, fortunately, Second Nature works with a little over 1500, just shy of 2000 management companies across the United States. And if you believe the, you know, studies that have been done out there and benchmarking a lot of property management companies can see their profit per door, you know, somewhere in the 10 to 15, you know, per unit range, obviously some less than that, right. And it's sort of some more than that, but a lot of companies we encounter, that's the range, you know, oftentimes when we encounter them, and the cool thing about a resident benefits package is in 30 days or less, they can be adding, you know, oftentimes $17 in profit per door, sometimes more, sometimes less. We can get into the details of why that can vary, but it can be a really dramatic move. And if it's a fully managed resident benefit package, it can actually be a very easy one to get going. So a powerful step to take.  [00:06:08] Jason: Yeah. I think a lot of property managers maybe don't see this. They don't realize this. We get so focused as business owners in the beginning of just trying to get revenue up, trying to get in revenue, and the challenge is: if we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business. And Sarah had ridiculous profit margin in her business because she's ridiculously efficient. What was your profit margin?  [00:06:41] Sarah: On a bad month, it'd be like 60%.  [00:06:43] Jason: Yeah, so. Wow. And the big secret was she just wouldn't talk to people on the phone. Like that's a big part of it. And still had to talk to people. Yeah. So she's been able to do some amazing things with our clients in increasing profit and profit really per door is the thing that property managers should be taking a look at because it doesn't matter how many doors you have if you're not taking anything home. So let's talk about how they can increase this using a resident benefits packages. Let's define a resident's benefit package for those that have never heard of this idea. Let's start there.  [00:07:17] Andrew: Yeah. So the way we think about the resident benefits package, and I'd say, this is a generally accepted definition in the industry— is this is a suite of products and services that elevate and professionalize the resident experience, right? And so that's the 1st thing that it does, and it's creating an experience that residents will pay for, and that they'll stay for a recurring monthly charge, right? Alongside rent, there's the costs, right, of all these ancillary service. We can get it into examples of what those different products and services are in a minute. But that's what the property manager is doing. They're saying, "we're going to bring a different level of service. There's value in that service." and if there's a cost associated with that service as well, that's how they drive that as a profit center, but 1. That is bringing value to the resident, also protecting the investor from risk, and then the property manager benefiting as well. We call that a triple win. And that's what we focus on.  [00:08:13] Jason: Nice. Yeah. Value to the resident, protecting the investor and what was the third one?  [00:08:19] Andrew: Yeah. And the property manager should be reducing costs and adding a profit center as well.  [00:08:25] Jason: Love it. Okay, cool. So those are three awesome benefits. Now maybe we'll get into some specific examples, but let's go to this first one, the value to the resident. And does this work only in— because I know some property managers right now are listening and "this won't work in my market. My residents are cheap or my residents don't want extra value  [00:08:48] Sarah: or they don't care." [00:08:49] Jason: Yeah, you just want the lowest price possible maybe. So let's tackle the value to the resident. [00:08:55] Andrew: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think first i'd like to acknowledge some of the truth in that, which is that if I look at different asset classes, right, and you look at like multifamily, which has really done a lot of investment, like you think about class A multifamily major MSAs and like there's golf simulators and bark parks and like, you know, three water fountains and like all kinds of investment. [00:09:19] Right. And then generally the way you see them monetized is both as a part of the rent— they've figured out how to, you know, classify their property to place where they can actually monetize that in the rent itself. It's amenitized and then also their services like valet, trash and other things like that, right, that are going to be charged as a separate ledger line item there. And so when we think about single family and smaller boutique, multifamily and scattered site properties and third party managers, you know, and I think about the resident profile of who's running the class A, you know, golf simulators place we were just talking about is probably that's probably different value for that person than, like, you know, your typical couple in their 40s with a couple of kids and a dog right in the suburbs, like they're not looking for the same things, right? And what would be valuable and important to them? [00:10:09] So, I think it's okay to acknowledge that different resident profiles may value different things, right? Where we started. Where we started with this was, okay, we see a future where there's actually a really and truly incredible resident experience. I mean, dozens of dozens and dozens of products and services and bucketing them into what's already required in the lease. Right and so we started with that before going to "hey, what's like standard, but could be opt out or what might be really cool for some residents?" like, you imagine lawn care as an example. That's probably not something that every resident would pay for. And some would choose to do it themselves and. You know, but there's probably a small percentage of residents that really would appreciate having that kind of service done and coordinated for them. And there could be a great revenue opportunity there. So we're working towards that, but starting with the mandatory stuff, that's things like renter's insurance is generally a requirement of the lease, right? That they have it. When you think about paying rent on time, like that's an essential responsibility. [00:11:10] So how can we make things easier by creating a reward system by every time someone pays their rent on time, it actually boosts their credit score, right? Automatically this is happening. It's almost crazy to think that somebody's largest monthly expense is the only one that they aren't getting rewards points for and that they aren't getting credit, you know, benefits of their credit score for. We obviously started with filter delivery service. [00:11:32] Like, they got to change the filters on time, but how do we make that so easy to do? It's going to happen the vast majority of times versus all the friction that gets in the way but otherwise, and on down the list. So, hey, we've kind of tackled these things that are core least responsibilities first, and what we've seen is: yeah, occasionally a resident might say 'Hey, I'm not sure about the value of this," and they need some additional explanation. But when it's properly priced, when it's properly positioned and you've got the right product mix, right, with those things all done together... extremely effective, right, for property managers that hasn't gotten in the way of being able to perform, you know, and drive their core leasing KPIs and things that would create a trade off or a compromise for investors or the managers. So that it keeps that triple win intact.  [00:12:19] Jason: Got it. So what are some of the things that might be included in a residence benefits package?  [00:12:28] Andrew: Yeah. So we just alluded to rent reporting. Every time someone pays their rent on time, what we do is we actually help take that information. Get it to the credit bureaus so that it's building the resident's score and to give an idea of the impact of that, you know, it's common to see 20 30 40 point bumps. There's some incredible you know individual kind of outlier cases where we've seen 70, 80 point increases, right, in individual profiles. People who did not have a credit score before actually establishing the credit score, right? Which is a big deal and when you think about You know, especially today where interest rates and everything has gone like— the cost of credit has just. Like, if you look at the interest rates on auto loans, they've doubled in just the last few years. Obviously, everyone knows what's happening, probably, you know, with mortgages, right? And what's happening the rate on the home loan and credit card, right? Credit cards. Those are really the big three. And you look at the savings. Over somebody's lifetime of having a 40 point higher credit score, they were at some point to purchase a home, purchase one or two cars, right? And, you know, carrying the average credit card debt that American family has. It's 6 figures, right? It's 6 figures in savings of their lifetime. So it's a really big deal. So that's exciting. The rewards points that we mentioned every time someone's paying on time, they're getting cash value, which they can go then redeem in a marketplace where there's hundreds of brands, right? That they can go redeem that everything from practical stuff of Starbucks, gift cards do like, I actually redeemed for some like bamboo pajamas. I don't know if you guys have seen this or any listeners have seen it, but this bamboo— I'm a sucker for like soft material, like tactile stuff. So anyway, I got the bamboo pajamas. That was my thing, but there's wine, there's dog food, like all kinds of stuff from really practical every day to kind of fun and luxury spend, right, that people can leverage that for, and they can use it right away or they can save it up and bank it. They don't lose it over time. You know, the other things we were talking about was on time filter delivery. So as opposed to "Hey," putting it in the lease and saying, "this is your responsibility." but then residents don't know what their size is. They don't know what quality to buy. They don't really know how often to do it, or they're not going back to page 18 at least to remember that. There's all these things that get in the way. And typically it's your residents who have been homeowners previously. That would be like probably the best at doing this. They felt the pain, you know, themselves, or they've replaced or paid for HVAC, you know, bills or oil cleanings or what might you you know, those are generally your best change, but that's, it's a small percentage. Most property managers report 5, 10, 15, maybe 20 percent of residents are changing exactly on time with the exact right filter, exactly the way the property manager would want them to. [00:15:06] So what we did, it's not perfect. You know, Jason and Sarah, it's not like, okay, a hundred percent of the time it works every time. But we actually did a study with the national rental home council across 8, 000 single family rentals, 18 months. And we looked at four operators. And it was A B test, right? So some it's hey, you're relying on the resident to do it in some cases, even leaving some in the closet for them to change. Right? Most of the time they're right at move out right where you left them versus a delivery program where they're being delivered every 2 to 3 months. Exactly when they need to change, and what we saw was a 38 percent reduction in HVAC work order volume, right? Between those getting delivered and those not. And the reason that happens is because you go from, you know, 10 or 15 percent changing them to all, but 10 or 15%, right, change them. That's what drives different resident benefits because they're saving on their energy bill and they're breathing clean air and it's as easy as opening their front door now to take care of that lease responsibility. [00:16:07] So, that's a great one. I'll pause here for a second, but we could talk about renters insurance, which is a big one, ID protection, on demand pest controls, actually the newest feature that we've rolled out most recently, so that's a newer one. A fresher one. Yeah. Happy to dive in more if you guys feel that's appropriate. [00:16:23] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, people understand the list of all the things their brain starts to go, Oh, I could see how this would be beneficial. This would add value to the resident for sure.  [00:16:33] Sarah: So if you if you had a property management company that does not have a resident benefit package currently, and they're looking to implement one, but they're like, "I just don't know, like what I should put in there. Should I put everything? Should I put like just one thing?" Like what is some advice that you have on like what to include and why?  [00:16:52] Andrew: Excellent question. So we can provide a link, I think to you guys the other show, but rbp.secondnature.com, right, is a place that people can go. And we've actually built a contact form there where people put in the state that they're in, sarah. It'll actually pull up the calendar of the person on our team who works with property managers in that area. And so what we generally do in a call is talk about what are their company goals, like what are they trying to optimize for, right? That's the first thing we'll consider. But then really define what you want your resident benefits package to do for you and your residents, investors. Map out that triple win. Once that's clear, the next thing we will do is kind of share, like, Hey, in your market, like your resident profile, your property type, right, your area, here's the product mix, right. And pricing and presentation, right, that we are saying that's a. Compliant, right. Compliant with your local laws and regulations. And then B. You know, is getting the best business results, you know, for that. And so we provide that kind of consultative approach and it can vary. [00:17:55] I mean, the fact of the matter is filter delivery in Orlando, Florida, right, is a different problem than in San Diego, California. Right. So we're not going to recommend the same thing in two different places. We take a kind of like value based approach. Once we help work with the operator to figure out, you know, what that's going to be and what the right fit for them is. [00:18:17] Sarah: That's awesome. Super helpful. And I like that it's like, very customizable because I think this is something that people just, they hesitate on a little bit because there's so many options. And especially when we take clients through pricing. Like, what do I include in my high plan? What do I not include? Like, what are the things that I should— and these are always where we see people get stuck is like, what are the benefits that we should include? And if there's something that really helps them figure out, like, am I compliant? What am I actually looking to do and like what in my area seems to be working well already? I think that would be huge for people. So I'm really glad you brought that up. Thank you.  [00:18:54] Andrew: You know, I'll jump in with 1 thing, and then I think Jason was going to go maybe towards the investor side. If that's where we're going next, but something we saw included in benefits packages early. That we've started to see phase out. Like maybe that could be interesting for people if they've heard about the past, you know, keeping up with this is originally before we had a lot of what Second Nature and other point solutions have been able to do and really productizing and scaling some of these services is. You know, problem is we're figuring out, well, what can I do on my own? And I think some of that is still relevant of communicating anything that differentiates you from a for rent by owner, right, versus a professional management company that you have multiple payment options, right? Maybe you have 24/7, you know, maintenance coordination that somebody can file a maintenance request at any time versus I remember one of my first early renting experiences, you know, I rented from a dentist who had four rental properties and it was like two weeks to get ahold of him to let him know that it was freezing cold in DC. Yeah, I was a college kid that like wore flip flops when it was 10 degrees outside. I didn't complain too much, but you know, thinking about those kind of experiences being a professional, like probably the people listening to this, I would never have that experience, right, working with their company. And so, hey, we do think it's important to communicate those things. Even if you don't monetize them or necessarily charge them in your RBP, it's a good place in the RBP to communicate those differences between a professional property manager and the FERBO. But the one that I've seen phased out were these kind of like early on before there were things like filters and insurance and credit and stuff that felt like really tangible to bring in. We often saw things like, hey, here's a get out of jail free card on late rent, right, or an NSF fee. And the reason we saw that early on is because it was so easy for a property manager to say, hey, this is worth $50, right? Or worth 40. It's like this tangible value of what you're giving, right? As a part of that and communicating it. Because they felt like they didn't have a lot of substance up front. But as more substances come in, we've seen that phase out because people started to realize, well, if I'm incentivizing, you know, on time rent, is that really a triple win for like my team that has to deal with that? Is that a win for the investor? That's not getting their rent on time. And so it's really about how do we incentivize the right behaviors, right? That's good outcomes for everybody. And so that's, that is something that we've seen change over the last couple of years, some of that stuff kind of phase. [00:21:26] Out and focusing on a more proactive and incentivizing what you want to have happen type of approach.  [00:21:32] Jason: Yeah. Incentives matter a lot, especially with tenants. Okay, cool. So let's get into then protecting the investor. So, I mean, I can see how some of these things, just if the tenants are behaving better, it's going to protect the property better, like getting filters changed, things like this. [00:21:51] But maybe you can provide some more detail on that.  [00:21:54] Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I think you know, a huge one is if you think about in single family rental and that investor profile, you know, in particular, I think about how important it is to keep the property occupied. Right? And you know, if you can keep a resident happy and renewing, right, renewing their lease, then yeah, that's a big win for the investor versus all that. It's not just the vacancy cost, right? It's also all the maintenance and repairs and everything that has to happen during that time. And so we, I mean, we have a client. They've got a scaled single family rental organization, over 7,000 units that they manage in a few markets, right? And their average their average tenancy is just under seven years. Wow, which is like really incredible, right? And that's not just because they have a resident benefits package. It's more than that. But it's really interesting to see a lot of the property managers really pushing for "how can I drive a great resident experience?" That people will pay for and that they'll stay for right and extending you know, attracting great residents and then keeping them longer. How that drives investor value. And then while they're there in the property, they're taking better care of it. The filters are getting changed on time. There's less HVAC expense, right? 38 percent less HVAC bills eliminates 38 percent of those bills that it makes an investor question, you know, "I got into this for predictable and like risk adjusted returns and then boom, I have this 7,000 expense." [00:23:23] Maybe I'm thinking about selling or do I really want to stick through this or I just ate up the rest of my year's returns, right? You can eliminate those kind of moments. That's really what we're after, right? How do we attack those kinds of moments that you know, create those emotional kind of negative experiences for investors that would make them say "you know, I want to, maybe I want to put my money somewhere else, or maybe I'm not up for continuing this." so we think about how do we create a resident experience so good. Residents don't want to leave. How do we create an investor experience so good, they don't want to sell? They want to buy more. How do we create a team experience so good, the talent wants to be in this industry and wants to grow in this industry forever. And that's that kind of flywheel of what a triple win experience creates.  [00:24:07] Jason: Yeah, I like it. They're increasing the lease renewals. They're lowering their operational costs by not having those happen as often and because they're taking better care of things, there's going to be less maintenance challenges, et cetera, better property care, lower HVAC expenses. [00:24:23] I mean, this sounds like an investor benefits package.  [00:24:26] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, if you look at, if you were to Google resident benefits package, You'll see Second Nature's content, but you'll also see a lot of property managers. And of course, property managers, their website and their content is often generally pointed at property owners, right? And you'll see a lot of the results are like, "Hey, our resident benefits package, how it benefits investors". And you'll just hear it from their mouths, right? It's the things I mentioned and more, like if all of your residents have renters insurance. Guess what? You can get a lower cost on your property insurance as a property owner and investor, right? If that's the case because you're protected from liabilities, especially if there's a master policy in place that has special coverages that protect the investors. Like our insurance products and others that offer great insurance products in the industry. So, whether you're working with Second Nature or not, you know, bringing these kinds of programs and designing things to be a triple win is something we'd, we really encourage people to pursue.  [00:25:19] Jason: Now, if somebody were trying to design this on their own, then they're probably going to have to source several different tools and services, which I'm guessing you guys like have aggregated and some of this stuff is in house, like the filters and some of this you've partnered, I'm guessing, but you've already brought all of this together. So, one of the challenges or one of the concerns is in those situations is the business owners thinking, "well, I'm going to be cheap. I can do this for less if I go and source all these components myself. Is that accurate?" [00:25:51] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Great question. You know, it's funny. I think I was telling you, we had our whole team in Nashville this past week. And we actually brought a couple of our customers in, three customers to have just like a customer panel. It was great for people not in sales and account management roles, like people in finance, people in technology, IT, to really hear directly what it's like to be a property manager and everything else. And Kevin Patterson was with us. He's a property manager, manages about a thousand units out of California. And Kevin was talking about it. He's like, yeah, "I saw what you guys were doing. I'm like, 'I can do this.'" And he is like, "so I bought pallets of filters, right? And had them shipped to my office. And then we realized, oh my God, like now we have to store all these filters and inventory. What a mess. Yeah. I still have some too, you know, two years later." [00:26:33] So, I mean, here's the thing. I would say there's probably a percentage or two, like my observation is there's a couple percentage, you know, of companies out there who are wired in such a way and just so passionately logistically detailed that if they wanted to do, you know, a couple of these things really on their own, they probably could do it. [00:26:53] But I think most property managers recognize. That, "Hey, if I can make $17 in profit per door, I don't have to add to my head count. I can have this whole thing up and running in 30 days and bring that impact to my business." Right. You know, fortunately Second Nature hasn't lost. I can probably count them on a hand or two, customers out of 2000, right? That we've signed over the years. And that's our job, right? It's to continually provide a competitive rate that's attractive, that would make people want to pick us, but I will say this: we've advised a couple of companies who just say, "I want to try it and go on my own." And sometimes with Kevin, like we give them some advice, they end up working with us later. A couple of them have been able to make it successful on their own. We're happy to help, you know, in either case you know, and provide some insight and help avoid some heartburn. I think some things are harder than others, like insurance. Like if you're going to build your own insurance products, you've got to get certain licenses. [00:27:47] And I want to set up a whole different entity and everything else, you know, for that, but you know, some things are easier than others. Some things are harder than others. So it kind of can just depend what we decided to put together.  [00:27:59] Jason: Yeah. I think it's important for property managers to keep the main thing, otherwise it's so easy to get distracted as an entrepreneur. We're like, "let's add this and let's do this," and then suddenly the main thing starts to slip. So you're like, "cool. I'm going to beat that $17 that Andrew Smallwood's going to get me per door. I'm going to get it to $20 or to $30," or whatever. And then they're losing out on hundreds of dollars because they're not getting more clients. They're not focused on the main things in the business and retaining clients. And they're like, "Oh, now we have to do this," because you know, in order to do all of this, it's building another business. Building another business in the business. And one of the biggest problems I see with entrepreneurs, especially in early stages of their development is this idea that they need to just keep doing more stuff themselves and they start like expanding, doing other businesses. They have 20- 30 things. The most efficient model for an entrepreneur is one business. That's the most efficient. Generally, all these billionaires scaled one business, right? They cause they have so much focus. And I think focus is the most important of all five currencies of time, energy, focus, cash, and effort in relation to scaling or growing a business it's focus. That laser focus. And so keeping the main thing I've made that mistake, you know, doing my first conference, what I call my $2 million mistake, because we were growing at a healthy pace and then 300 percent a year, and then it was like, let's do this crazy, big, expensive conference and then sales marketing, like everything had to go towards this conference and it distracted the business because we were on the hook. You're on the hook with hotel. You're on the hook with the vendors, like everything that's going on. And that was really difficult. And that was a big lesson to me that the main thing has to stay the main thing. [00:29:51] It's super important.  [00:29:52] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, you said it so well, like when I think of Second Nature's own outsourcing decisions, right? Like I look at it through three lenses: so one is scale, right? Do I have scale or does the partner of scale? Who's going to deliver value through scale? Right? Second is skill, right? You know, do I have a certain skill or competency? Do they have a skill or competency, right? Who's going to drive more value that way? And then the third is time, which we were just talking about of like your opportunity cost and your focus on what you do and you know, I suppose there's a probably a fourth dimension there of just control of like ultimately the customer experience that you're trying to create can't be created reliably by an outsourced partner. And they're not dedicated and committed to that, or you're not aligned on that. Yeah. That would be another reason to do it yourself. But but yeah, it's, man, I take your point, Jason, of just, it's so easy to be ambitious and want to take a lot on and not stay focused on here's my core competency that I can continually leverage, to drive a lot of value. And here's how I can bring in complimentary pieces around it to create something bigger than that.  [00:30:58] Jason: Yeah. I mean, a big part of what we do at DoorGrow is just getting entrepreneurs to focus and then they start to scale really rapidly. So, I mean, in this industry, it could be diluted focus on different types of properties they're managing because each different type is almost like a different business. They're like, "I'm going to do commercial, I'm going to do associations," and then they're like trying to run multiple businesses with team members that are trying to jump into multiple businesses. And then it's a mess. And they're just not going as fast. And so this I view as, this is like adding on another business, and if you can strap on these tools from vendors, other companies, and get these resources, you can go a lot faster and keep the main thing. So, yeah, love it. So the third thing we talked and we've touched on this in a few instances of how this can help, but the third thing was increasing profit. So, I mean, there's the obvious bump that you're charging a fee for this and you're get convincing the residents. And for the residents, I think a lot of this would sound like a no brainer. They're getting more value in their mind than what they're going to be charged, and then it becomes a no brainer for them to do this. [00:32:03] And it protects them and it helps them get better credit. But let's talk specifically about profitability, like increasing profit.  [00:32:11] Andrew: So, yeah. So I think, you know, at Second Nature, like we do care about the experience and providing convenience to people, but it's also really important to us that there's a strong economic case for all parties. And so the way we often design and the recommendations we make on pricing. I mean, listen, it's a property manager's business. So Sarah, we're going to let them choose, right? Here's it's their pricing that they're charging their customer. We're not going to get in the way of that. That's in their control. But when we make recommendations, which I'll say nine times out of 10, right? If not more. It's set up in such a way where a resident is saving over $100 per year compared to what they're already spending right on the same expenses if they were to go with the status quo, right? Versus being enrolled in the benefits package. And then we make that as easy as signing their lease. There's a clear economic benefit, right? For the resident for the investors with HVAC savings. Everything else we're talking about earlier. Well over a hundred dollars per year in annualized savings for the investor. And then for the property manager, as we were talking about, well over a hundred dollars per year. Right. And so that's when you create new value. The way we think about it is you have a bigger pie that can be shared right across all parties, as opposed to taking the same pie and saying, "how do I shave off a little more for me?" but then you're cutting into the very relationship that you kind of depend on to support the business. And so how can we find new ways to add on and expand the value and share in that value because that makes it really sustainable and that builds trust while also building your balance sheet and so that's the focus and approach. You know we recommend that property managers take when they approach pricing and the other thing I'd probably give advice on here is that some property managers will go about this and then recognize very quickly, "oh, this is the thinking. I can't—" it's so frustrating, right? When I see an owner do this, you know, like, cost based pricing or a cost based approach as opposed to a market based approach. And what I mean by that is, "hey, here's all my costs. I want to make $17 per door. So here's what I'm going to charge, right?" [00:34:21] It's kind of like a investor saying, "well, here's my mortgage and all of my expenses, and I'd love to cashflow $800 a month. So I'm just going to charge this for rent." At which point Sarah tells them, regardless of what the market dictates, "yeah, your property is going to sit vacant for six months or it's only going to be vacant for two days and you way underpriced." [00:34:39] Right? And so the point is, "Hey, here's actually a market based approach to pricing that drives fair value and a good value proposition to everybody." Is the main encouragement we take. And again, if somebody wants to talk to Second Nature, whether they work with us or not, we're happy to advise on what we observe and see is happening in that market as it relates to pricing. [00:35:00] Jason: Yeah, ultimately the market's King. However, there are different segments of the market. So if people are targeting people at the end of the sales cycle that are searching on Google for property management, for example, the market is going to pay less there, because now you're a commodity. Whereas if you capture people in the blue ocean that are not searching on the internet, which there's a lot more of those, then you can charge more, have more fees, et cetera. And they're easier to close, right? And so the other factor lever that we've noticed with our clients at DoorGrow, increasing their profitability is increasing their ability to sell. So their ability to sell services and to sell the value and to create the pain gap between where people are and where they want to be, what value they want. [00:35:46] That ability as well as another lever in which they're able to charge more than their competition and close deals more easily. And there's some other levers as well. And so there's the market's one of the factors, but there are some levers that can be leveraged as well. And depending on who you're targeting in your audience, then you also can charge more money. [00:36:08] So that's something to keep in mind. So, yeah, this is super interesting. So everybody wants to increase profit if they're smart, those of you listening, if you're smart, you want to increase profit, you want to protect your investors, that's like your business, what you do, and you want to provide value to the residents. [00:36:24] So why would people just not do this? Why? Like have they just not heard of a resident benefits package or why would they not be doing this?  [00:36:32] Andrew: Yeah, I mean, there are definitely people that fall into that camp, and I'm sure there's probably going to be at least a couple people listening to this who haven't heard of a residence package. I also think over the last few years, this has been a really hot topic that's been talked about a lot, and people are seeing it more and more. As more companies adopt it, they just see it. Like they see our flyers in the Zillow listings, you know, the second photo, you know, beyond the thumbnail, it's like, here's a list of all these benefits, right, that people are putting in the marketing language or listing language or on their competitor's websites. And so I do think awareness is rapidly growing here. I mean, 101% empathy is property managers are often so busy, right? like just to do the kind of like table stakes of property management. It can take a lot of investment into their systems, into their process. I know that's something that you guys offer to folks and help them with. It can really feel like it's hard to implement a change in my business, let alone, you know, I think this is where Second Nature saw a real problem to solve. Like, how am I going to go through seven different sales processes, right, which is really like 21 to 30, if I want to look at more than just one vendor for a service, right? Go through all those processes, line up all my agreements, get those executed, and get my onboarding and implementation set up at the same time. [00:37:53] And align everybody the same, like consistent experience on going throughout it. That feels like going to Mars, you know, it's like a real big thing to tackle. So that's where we really just wanted to be like the easy button for that and drive, you know, "Hey, we've got a million plus residents on our platform, you know, thousands of property managers that we're working with. And, you know, can we drive some efficiency and pass that benefit alone to the customer," you know, is core to our value proposition. And so that's, I think what has brought, you know, a lot of people to us while we're growing very fast, have earned the reputation that we have, and at the same time we don't take it lightly. There's a lot more work to do. There's still still more change that needs to happen here, but I think the big thing is just the anticipation of all the effort and just the hard work of making any change in your business, right? Is a lot of times what people come up against.  [00:38:43] Jason: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of property managers, people have heard me talk about the Cycle of Suck on the show before. There's a lot of overwhelm. There's a lot of stress, a lot of property managers struggling. They're in a race to the bottom in terms of pricing. They're focused on internet marketing, SEO, pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing, which is the bottom of the barrel owners that are the ones left over, the crappy scraps that fell off the word of mouth table. Like there's a lot of challenge there, by the way, we can help you with that. Reach out to us at DoorGrow. So that may be a big reason why they're just not doing these things that are in their mind, ancillary, auxiliary, and they're not adding this additional value and they're leaving money on the table because they're just too focused on trying to just get their business to eke out a little bit of dollars and, you know, they're stressed.  [00:39:31] Sarah: So I've got a question that Andrew if you have a recommendation on, at what stage would this be easiest for a property manager to implement? Is it easiest right off the bat when they're starting and they have no doors or a few doors? Is it easiest when they have maybe 100? Is it easiest when they get to the 500 plus mark? Or is there a stage at which it's like, maybe it's just in their mind, it feels too hard, and you're like, "Oh, actually, it's really easy, and here's why."  [00:39:59] Andrew: Yeah, great question, Sarah. I mean, here's the thing. Second Nature works with customers who have as little as their first one to two doors and are just getting started, right? A lot of our customers have hundreds or a couple thousand doors, and we work with a few clients that have 80,000 plus units in their portfolio. So we've worked with people at all sizes who have come and started all sizes. I will say this though. I think if somebody has under 20 to 30 doors, even as simple and easy as Second Nature makes it, you know, probably that person would be better served as they're getting their first couple of dozen doors on in focusing on their core operations, their core systems, their accounting platform getting set up. I would recommend probably holding on the— I'm sure my S and B reps are going to be listening to this and being like, "what are you saying, man?"— [00:40:47] And jokes aside, like I have talked to a few people where I've like pushed them on it a little bit. Like, "Hey, they've got eight doors," and I'm like, "okay, so here, this handful of hours, right, that you could spend doing this. Let's add $17 per door times your eight doors. Like, here's the business impact to this, and then what are you going to do with that amount," so to speak, right? And "how are you going to reinvest that in your business? Like, how do you see that as the best use of your time versus spending that going and doing, you know, business development or, you know, generating realtor referrals or whatever your strategy is for growing?" Okay. Your business to kind of that you know, initial point of profitability to support yourself. Like, how are you seeing that? And in one case, he said, "this is my differentiator. This is what I get to talk about in my market that I do that others don't. So it's actually going to help me attract more owners. I really want to do this now." Cool. Like I wouldn't stop that person from working with us, but I'd say generally, probably somebody in their first couple dozen doors is better focused on growing that and getting their core processes in a really stable place.  [00:41:47] Jason: Sure. They can add like one door and make what they would make if I had $17 times eight, right? So if they're focusing on that, but yeah, I get that. So I would imagine then maybe right around that 50 door stage is a really good place. This is where a lot of people start to stack and add vendors and get sort like. Then it starts to make sense to get some leverage because this is a lot of times I call the first sand trap where they start to get stuck between 50 to a hundred, because they're doing everything themselves. And this is probably where they can start to get some additional leverage and add some additional services. [00:42:18] Andrew: So if I can compliment you guys real quick, I saw like the DoorGrow code thing, and I think part of it may have been blurred out, but I think I got like the gist of it, I remember seeing, you know, how you guys had kind of stages. I'm like, wow, that is so cool. And if I was a new property manager, I would love having and seeing a resource like that of just, "man, here's like what I can focus on at this time that's right for me. It's going to get me to the next phase and then what to focus on here to get to the next one." Like what a helpful and useful tool. [00:42:47] So I just wanted to say kudos to you guys for putting that out there.  [00:42:50] Jason: Yeah, thanks. If anybody wants that for free, like they can go to DoorGrow.Com. Click the big pink button on the homepage. 'I want to grow.' And on that page, there's three steps. The third one is a YouTube video, 95 minute training called the DoorGrow Code. It's all about it. So it'll show you how to scale. And we're confident we're doing this with clients that we could take any business from zero doors to a thousand doors in five years or less. If they just listen to us and do what we say at each stage. Yeah. Very cool. So thanks for plugging us. Appreciate it. [00:43:25] Andrew: So I'm solicited. Yeah. Yeah. But it felt right in that moment.  [00:43:29] Jason: Yeah. There's very specific things that happen at different stages. And I think if you are at least at that 50 door stage or beyond, like you'll be crazy not to do this. And I love the idea of getting your resident benefits package as a unique differentiator just to stand out, which will give you more confidence in sales. And when people need confidence, the most is when they have the least doors. This is where confidence is a huge factor for them. Like when we take them through our process of cleaning up their brand, their website, all of this, we're really just helping them with their confidence level to go out and sell. [00:44:04] And they can go out and sell without all that stuff. They don't even need a website. They just need clients. Right. But doing these things helps them. And this is something else I think they can boost their confidence a little bit. And that's worth it. That's worth it for sure. So, well, cool, Andrew, anything else we're missing about this? And if not, then how can people get in touch with you or with Second Nature?  [00:44:25] Andrew: The only other thing I'd say is anybody who's made it right to this point, 45- 50 minutes in, like, I feel like you deserve a medal or something like that with attention spans, considerations fans. So thanks for sticking with us. I hope you got some value today. Sarah and Jason, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you guys. I really enjoyed our conversation. I love you guys' energy and vibe you know, excited to get to know you guys better. And and I'd say this if people are looking for you know, more resources and things like that, we've got at rbp.secondnature.Com, there's a bunch of things, we've got articles, we've got the triple win podcasts that we record a bunch of episodes there that people can check out. If that's of interest to them, we've occasionally got events, digital events and things like that, that we're putting on, if they're just looking to learn more, we've got some of those kinds of resources, or if they're looking to talk to someone specifically about what we talked about here today they can find a contact form to do that as well. [00:45:16] And just want to express appreciation to you guys. Again, really appreciate you inviting me on and having a chance to do this.  [00:45:21] Jason: Cool. Thanks for coming on the show.  [00:45:23] Sarah: Yeah. Thanks for being here. I think this is something that if you don't have it, just look into it. I feel like there's not a downside in this anywhere. So just look into it. If this was something that I had known about when I owned my business, man, would have done that in a heartbeat, but, I really think it's something that can like benefit all parties. It can like help set you apart from other people that maybe don't know about this or just aren't doing it yet. [00:45:50] And it sounds like they make it easy for you. I think that you're probably right, Andrew. Like you hit that right on the nose. Like they're busy and they're like, "Oh, this is hard." It sounds like they understand that and they'll work with you to make it easy.  [00:46:04] Jason: Yeah. Yeah I love that you guys are helping people through this process and making it easy. So We'll definitely be pushing our clients to take a look at this episode so that they can start getting the stuff implemented Thanks for coming on the show. Appreciate you. Awesome.  [00:46:17] Andrew: Thanks guys.  [00:46:18] Jason: Thanks. All right So if you are a property management entrepreneur that's wanting to add more doors grow your business reach out to us at DoorGrow We would love to help you out anything else we should say All right, then until next time to our mutual growth. [00:46:31] Bye everyone. [00:46:31] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:46:58] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Welcome to episode 400 of The Outdoor Biz Podcast. Dakota Lithium CEO Andrew Jay joins us to share how we each have the opportunity to change how our communities use energy. Brought to you by: Facebook Twitter Instagram   The Outdoor Biz Podcast   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!   Sign up for my Newsletter HERE.   I'd love to hear your feedback about the show!   You can contact me here: email: rick@theoutdoorbizpodcast.com   Or leave me a message on Speakpipe! Show Notes Things we talked about: [00:01:56] Outdoor upbringing on San Juan Island, seeking role models in nature. [00:04:38] Interesting life chapter: backpacking, Canada, climbing, Africa, stability. [00:07:17] 7 years working, kids, childhood education, Scandinavian forest schools. 00:7:23 created Tiny Trees Preschool [00:10:17] Innovative electric bike creator, Hill Topper bikes rapidly succeeds. [00:14:45] Developed kayak fan generating electricity with solar panel. [00:18:07] Dakota Lithium really stands out as the longest lasting batteries with 11-year warranty. [00:21:16] Sales grew during the pandemic, surprising expectations. [00:24:36] Motorcycle batteries last 10-15 years with warranty. [00:26:20] Family camping trips, rock climbing enthusiast. Steep, well-protected climbs. [27:15:08] Andrew's Advice for folks wanting to get into the outdoor biz or bootstrap something like he did? [00:28:54] Climbinghosen, similar to a German Lederhosen. [00:29:33] Favorite piece of outdoor gear under 100?  [00:31:21] We're offering a 10% discount code to podcast listeners. So you can use the code OUTDOORBIZ at DakotaLithium. com, and get 10% off your next order. Follow up with Andrew: "You can find me on dakotalithium.com. You can just search for "energy" or CEO. You can also find me on LinkedIn." Love the show? Subscribe, Rate, Review, and Share!

Key Takeaways: • You don't always have control over what happens to you in life, but you do have control over how you react. • Blaming others for your problems will not solve anything and will just make you feel worse. • Ultimately, you are in control of your own destiny.    If you are not familiar with the 2011 movie Bridesmaids which is currently available on Netflix, the premise is a lot more relatable than you may have thought. Essentially, the main character Annie is very down on her luck and blaming everyone but herself for anything that goes wrong in her life. Instead of taking accountability for her own actions, Annie mopes around and blames this other character, Helen, for issues that she basically caused. The problem with this is that blaming others will not change anything about your situation. In this episode, host Dr. Andrew Fix shares life lessons learned from Bridesmaids and the song Hold On by Wilson Phillips which is featured prominently in the movie.    It's easy to blame others when things do not go your way. It's harder to actually take accountability for your own actions and shift your mindset to realize that you are in control of your destiny. What happens to you has a lot less to do with the way others behave and a lot more to do with how you react. When you realize that you are in charge of your own attitude and how you respond to any situation, you empower yourself to take back control of your life. Sometimes experiencing those lows is actually the motivation that you need for pushing yourself and turning a bad situation into a positive one.    By blaming others for your problems, nothing about your situation will ever change. It is only when you accept accountability for your problems and do something about them yourself that you will be able to inspire change and move forward. Quotes • “I'm not saying that everything that you do in your life is your fault. But what is almost always, if not always within your control is how you respond to a situation and what your attitude is, what your reaction is. You ultimately have control over that. And although things happen to us, we can often make a really positive scenario out of what seems like a bad situation.” (6:56 | Dr. Andrew)  • “You are your problem, you are also your solution.” (7:39 | Dr. Andrew) • “Hitting the bottom is a good thing, because there's nowhere to go but up.” (8:37 | Dr. Andrew) • “The highs don't mean as much if you haven't experienced those lows.” (9:26 | Dr. Andrew) • “You can't just blame other people for your problems or for your situation and expect that to change.” (9:40 | Dr. Andrew)  • “You ultimately are in control of your destiny.” (10:52 | Dr. Andrew)   Links https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1478338/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbXvaE39wM&pp=ygUXaG9sZCBvbiB3aWxzb24gcGhpbGxpcHM%3D   Flux Footwear https://snwbl.io/flux-footwear/andrewfix 10% off   Xero Shoes: 10% off https://xeroshoes.com/go/drandrewfix   drinklmnt.com/physioroom - free variety pack with purchase.   RAD Roller - $5 off http://radroller.refr.cc/drandrewfix   Revogreen https://revogreen.co/drandrewfix Connect with Physio Room:  Website | ​​https://physioroomco.com/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/physioroomco/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/physioroomco Andrew's Personal Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/drandrewfix/ Andrew's Personal Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/andrew.fix.9/   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Key Takeaways: • There is no such thing as the “perfect time” so stop waiting for one. • You can't progress if you don't at least start in the first place. Take the first small step forward, because if you get off track you can still course correct.  • If you need help with taking action toward making that first step, reach out to Dr. Andrew Fix at Physio Room.   What have you been waiting for the perfect time to do? Whether it's something big like having children or moving, or something small like going for a bike ride, it never pays to wait for the perfect time. There is no such thing as the perfect time and if you keep waiting for one to happen, you could be waiting forever. In today's episode, Dr. Andrew Fix talks about the misconceptions that people have about timing.   A lot of people think they have to wait until exactly the right perfect time to do something, but in most cases that perfect time may never come. There will always be something holding you back from starting if you are waiting for perfection. The only way to make any progress is to start. Whether you are waiting to do something for your personal life or at work, start by taking the smallest actionable step possible. That first step forward will help you gain the motivation to keep going. Even if you end up off track, you can still course correct and be further ahead than you would have been had you never begun in the first place.   Timing is something that can hold people back from going after what they want. If you are always waiting for the perfect timing, you will end up doing nothing. Stop waiting for a perfect time to present itself and let yourself take that first step toward progress.    Quotes • “You should stop waiting for the perfect time because there isn't one.” (1:13-1:16 | Dr. Andrew) • “I decided to get my cycling gear on, make sure my tires are aired up. Get my water bottles filled in and I just go right… It ended up being an awesome ride.” (3:22-3:54 | Dr. Andrew)  • “At the end of the day, in most things that you're going to do, whether it's in your personal life or work life, a project or an activity that you need to do, the hardest point for all of us and the biggest obstacle that you need to hurdle is starting.” (4:27-4:44 | Dr. Andrew) • “You can't progress, you can't go anywhere, if you don't at least start in the first place.” (6:06-6:10 | Dr. Andrew)    Links   Flux Footwear https://snwbl.io/flux-footwear/andrewfix 10% off   Xero Shoes: 10% off https://xeroshoes.com/go/drandrewfix   drinklmnt.com/physioroom - free variety pack with purchase.   RAD Roller - $5 off http://radroller.refr.cc/drandrewfix   Revogreen https://revogreen.co/drandrewfix Connect with Physio Room:  Website | ​​https://physioroomco.com/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/physioroomco/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/physioroomco Andrew's Personal Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrewfix/  Andrew's Personal Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/andrew.fix.9/   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

INTRODUCTION: EPISODE #100!!! AMOR ES ARTE | ARTE ES AMORLOVE IS ART | ART IS LOVEA memoir written by Andrew Velázquez Through the lens of lotería—the Latinx game of chance, I explore my experience of being gay, young, and a creative loco in East Los Angeles. I reimagine ten lotería cards to represent the people and events that shaped my first 40 years of life. Each chapter testifies to a lotería card image such as El Diablito (Little Devil), La Rosa (Rose), and La Muerte (Death). Using these cards of destiny, I find my true self to navigate the world. My memoir defies the conventional thinking that a sensitive, lonely barrio kid, traumatized by relationship abuse and family crises, eventually falls victim to gang violence, addiction, or suicide. I bring my stories and images together to show how I overcome self-destructive behavior and how I channel my energies toward a successful career in Hollywood's beauty industry. I tell an against-the-odds life story that connects self-acceptance to art and love. Andrew is also a makeup artist:This born and bred Angeleno always knew he was meant for a career in beauty. Andrew has created signature looks for some of Hollywood's brightest stars including Lady Gaga, Michelle Williams, RuPaul, Demi Levato, Neil Patrick Harris & Carmen Electra. As a makeup artist on ”Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” Andrew regularly created the sisters red carpet ready looks and at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, he was the key makeup artist for Florence and the Machine, including applying avatar-like body makeup for her radiant dancers.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Lots of Fan Clacking!!!·      Mí Corazón – Andrew's Makeup Line·      Amor Es Arte, Arte Es Amor – Andrew's Memoir·      Being Raised In The LatinX Community·      MADONNA·      Los Angeles Nostalgia ·      Prevalent Insecurity In the LGBTQIA+ Community ·      Coming Out·      Angels In The Psych Ward·      Andrew On American Beauty Star (Top Three)CONNECT WITH ANDREW: Website - Book - Makeup: https://AndrewVelazquez.comYouTube: https://www.YouTube.com/AndrewVelazquezInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewvelazquez_Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrewvelazquezcom CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency Support Groups (Virtual) - https://www.meetup.com/pittsburgh-narcissism-survivor-meetup-group/·      COSA – 12 Step Recovery For Victims Of Compulsive Sexual Behavior - https://cosa-recovery.org·      A Recommended Reading To Help Heal From Narcissism - https://amzn.to/41sg6FO ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: ANDREW VELÁZQUEZ [00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Andrew Velázquez is here with me today to mark the 100th episode of The Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast, and that is a huge accomplishment. Y'all and I could not be more grateful. Thank you, God. Thank you everyone who listens to and supports this show now, Andrew has written the book, it's called.Love is art. Art is love or amor, esp.He also had the makeup line called me[00:01:00]and do the celebrity makeup artist and alsoan educator.Now in his memoir, Andrew defies the conventional thinking that a sensitive, lonely barrio kid who's been traumatized by relationship abuse and family crises must eventually fall victim of gang violence, addiction, or suicide. In his book, Andrew brings stories and images together to show how he was able to overcome self-destructive behavior.Establish a successful career and bring art and love together in a way that's never been done before.Now Andrew has created signature looks for some of Hollywood's brightest stars all including Lady Gaga, RuPaul Dimmi, Lovato, Neil, Patrick Harris, you name it. He's done. Please listen in as Andrew and I get real and vulnerable with you that are to help someone lonely, isolated, and hurting out there. We love you.Hello all of you beautiful people out there and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host Devon, and I have with me [00:02:00] today for our 100th episodes, a beautiful, talented, incredible, lovely. Queer creative with a beautiful wavy hair that you see right there. Andrew Velazquez. Darling, how are you?Hello. Andrew: Good. How are you coming? So I had that, and if you need that sound audio again, that, De'Vannon: God, Andrew: that thing is huge. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. I'm gotta, I gotta get you one. I'm gonna send you one. De'Vannon: Gosh, that thing is to be beautiful. So y'all, so before I get into Andrew here, the 100th episode is a really big fucking deal.And why it is is because most podcasts is, I understand they don't make it to this point. People get into just about anything in this world for all kinds of reasons. And podcasting is one of those things that looks glitzy. It looks glamorous. So everybody wants to go run off and start a podcast. And [00:03:00]then you see most of them, I got like 10 episodes, 15 episodes, you know, or they might do like, you know, maybe like 10 episodes a year.You know, I hit the ground running a year before last, and I didn't stop. I released a show every week, nonstop, every Thursday, you know, you know, unless some shit done went down. But generally speaking, it's every Thursday. And so it's a really big fucking deal to make it to episode 100. This means I'm serious, that I'm committed.This is meant to be and it is gonna be here to stay. Andrew: Oh, happy for you. Congratulations, congrat. Congratulations. So happy for you. It is definitely a milestone. Yeah. Well earned, well deserved all De'Vannon: that. Thank you. And so, when I was toiling over who the hell I could get to, to share this moment with me Andrew's, Andrew's people reached out to me, and his story is so enigmatic, it's so cataclysmic, it's so polarizing, and I felt like I had so much in common with him.He's from Los Angeles. Everybody who [00:04:00] knows me knows the City of Angels is all I talk about. I love la I was out there in the military and everything. I'm obsessed with that city. And when I'm rich enough, I will go back and you know, I'm queer and I love me some Latin men, that's all the dick I used to get when I was out there.I, I've sat on plenty of Latin dick Andrew: and that's right. We're dangerous too though. We're spicy and dangerous. De'Vannon: So am I. So we always, along y'all, he's an author. He has his own memoir out. He and our both 40 years old, he's a celebrity makeup artist. He's worked with Lady Gaga, Demi Vato fucking like everybody.He's an educator. He's a spirit light worker. He is a healer. Y'all. He's, he, he's like me. You know, like, you don't have to worry about what you're gonna talk to with somebody like this cause he is done so much, you know, it's just how we're gonna get through this hour and give you credit. So he is literally [00:05:00] the definition of everything, and that is why he is here today for episode one.Double O tell us about yourself, Andrew: baby. Wow. I mean, that just, I, I have chills. Your listeners can't see this, but yeah. I am so honored to be here for your hundred episode. Congratulations on all of your successes and what you're doing. The service you provide, the light, I feel it, the energy that you're exuding, it's beautiful.And I know that your followers and your audience appreciate that too, because you're healing. That's why good things are coming to you. I'm gonna call you divine cuz I see only a divine human being in front of me and that's exactly what you are getting the divinity of, of life. And yeah, that's, that's my philosophy too is, you know, I first generation Mexican-American parents are immigrants from Mexico.They met in their teens and I was their first born in East La Boyle [00:06:00] Heights. And yeah, being raised in such like a macho area was a little difficult for me for being just a such creative, feminine, flamboyant kid. And everything that I was trying to be a kept being told that it was wrong.Cause you know, where my parents got married, it was like the church. I was raised Catholic, so I got baptized there. I did my first communion, I did catechism. All, you know, knowing that I'm sinning and because I like boys and trying to hide, that was just, It was heavy. It was really heavy. And my mom just was the first to be like my mentor, my icon.She introduced me to Madonna in the eighties, who I'm obsessed with. I am the proud owner of four Madonna tattoos. She's right here. There's, there's other ones. Yeah, this is from erotica. And she just celebrated her 30th year anniversary for the sex book, which was released here in Miami. [00:07:00]And so she was really like my first, I don't know, my first like muse, you know, watching my mom do her hair and makeup in the eighties and just taking me to cosmetology school while she was going.She just was fierce. Just drag hair, makeup, done, jewelry, accessories, and she was my queen. So for her to support my my arts and my interests in wanting to like be creative meant a lot for me. But, You know, helping raise my brothers. Cause I, I have three younger brothers and my dad worked as a mechanic during the day.A tow truck driver at night was a lot of responsibility for the oldest sibling to, you know, be a provider also and be their mentor. So I just remember like, I don't know, watching 9 0 2 oh saved by the bell and seeing the drama there. And I'm like, why don't I have that drama in my life? Why do these teenagers have all these dramas and I'm this perfect cookie cutter kid helping raise my brothers Like, this is not.[00:08:00] Hmm. So I made the drama and that's chapter three in my book called elto, which means little devil, I call it My bad. And that's really where I started to rebel. And, you know, we all go through like self-discovery and just that cross of like youth child into adolescence. You're not an adult. Yeah, it was just like an awakening moment.I went 180, I just flipped. Went from this perfect kid to just rebel partying with drag queens. Met my first club kids, went to the Rays and the nineties in LA was just all rage. It was so fun. They used to call me Space Boy and I would you know, dress in all these crazy like avan garde colorful outfits.And I finally felt like free and liberated with other creative people and, and queer people. Finally, like my first drag queens, you know talking [00:09:00] like Stacy Hollywood, DJ Irene, like these are the people that I used to party with like in the early nineties. Like it was the hard house. That was just the rage, right?Yeah. So Arena Circus the Alexandria Hotel, like, oh, I remember going to a rave at Knottsberry Farm. The K Rave. Yeah. And it was just so lit that these kids were jumping. Because NASP Prairie Farm had never done that. So they were literally jumping the gates trying to get into, into the rave and just like party out all night.But they canceled it right away and they shut it down. So they never had a rave at ATSP Farm again. But yeah, it was, that was, that was very liberating and finally feeling like I was part of this community. But with, with that nightlife there, there's also a dark side, right? There's also like alcohol, drugs and all of that.And finally, like, experimenting with boys and having my first experiences and [00:10:00] just being exposed to addict addiction and then realizing, oh, my mother, my mother's also an alcoholic and has been suffering from chronic depression. And I was basically her like right hand man. So that was the hardest part to, for her to she kind of like rejected me when I finally came out and.I just went through like, like a huge depression cuz here was this like queen that I used to look up to and then she said, no, this is the route you're going. Like, I don't want anything to do with it. And I ran away and left. But, you know, I remember I'm gonna be extremely vulnerable because that's like, what's, that's what's I think the most important thing to be authentic and, and expose like the truth to, to grow and learn from.But yeah, after a couple suicide attempts that were failed, I was [00:11:00] taken to hospital at psych Ward 51 50 where I discovered therapy. And I just remember having this epiphany and this like my aha moment, right? My my reality check where this young Latino man that was in that only spoke Spanish, looked at me and was like, Andrew, you don't belong here.Like you have a light. What? And, and this was, he was only telling me this in Spanish, and he would write me poetry. And I finally felt like, heard, seen and like I existed in that matter. So I remembered that very distinct moment saying, I don't wanna live this life. Like, I don't wanna go down this dark path.I realized the addiction can, can be real. And it's in my, it's genetically in our family. So I chose to follow my passion and my craft and my career. And at the age of 16, I graduated and took my GD and I just started my [00:12:00] my journey in, in the arts and the fashion industry. So fashion school, cosmetology school, and then working in retail, corporate cosmetics truly saved my life and.Here I am now been in the industry for 22 years, gonna be 23 next month. I've been independent freelance artist for eight years now. I'm a memoir, author of owner of a cosmetic company also. And it's all based around the same thing, like my culture, my passion, my craft. It's called Love is art.Art is love because for me, the other one cannot exist with the other. And in Spanish it's called. So that's the story. It's, it's a lot. I mean, to get the detail, you gotta read the book. I can't give too much away, but that's like the synopsis, De'Vannon: right? And so, yo the book covers beautiful, like he said, like the different cards and everything are on the front.[00:13:00]You know, in Spanish they call it Yeah. Good job. Good job. Yes. I was down till, like, a couple of weeks ago and they were complimenting on my Spanish, and now that I'm back here, it's like I can't fucking put three goddamn syllables. When Andrew: when you're in it. Yeah, when you're in it, it just, it just kind of rolls out. You gotta be in, in the community and then, or vela, that's when it really comes out.Exactly. Would all that, yes. De'Vannon: So I wanna go back and touch on a few things that you said. It, it registered me Absolutely heard you said that, you know, you were raised in that macho community and, you know, the, the Latino community can be very machismo, very toxic, toxically, masculine. Mm-hmm. And, you know, and so, mm-hmm.I remember when I was a kid, I was like super femme and everything like that. And I wanted to play with Ken and Barbie dolls and twirl [00:14:00] around and I'd wear my, me too, right? I'd wear my mother's heels and take a belt and make a dress out of an oversized shirt. And and my dad would take me out into the yard and, you know, insult me and berate me for being feminine and try to make me learn how to box and stuff like that.And I'm all like if I, Andrew: yeah, you're, you were in the De'Vannon: military. I went in the military when I was 17, but this is when I was like, in elementary school. He was out there trying to make me a man, whatever the fuck that's supposed to be, you know? I'm like, no, I wanna see what's under Ken's pants. Damn it.I know you're, Andrew: you're. Surprise though. It was just like flat or a little De'Vannon: bulge. Yes, I am a, I was a baby, right, Lester, when I was in the third grade deal with it. Judge me if you wanna. Andrew: And so we all had that. We all had that. De'Vannon: So I wanna know you mentioned you went from being [00:15:00] good to bad because everything was so good.You, you were trying to find the complications. I felt this way too. When I was in the church. I felt like I was a little bit too good when I get kicked out of the church. Then that's when I got caught up with the drag queens and the alcohol and the drugs. I became a drug dealer. Like you had felt, I felt liberated.I felt like I was being myself. I don't know if I was numbing some of that pain from being kicked out of church. I think I was with the drugs and alcohol. Tell me, did you ever get bad into alcohol or drugs or anything like that? Or, Andrew: or were you able to Oh yeah, absolutely. Yes, for sure. I definitely had some partners that, and some boyfriends that I probably were not the best choices.And in my book, this is chapter five , which is the spider. Just to give you a quick history on it, is Mexican bingo game of chance. And I was [00:16:00] mesmerized by all the artwork cause they resembled tarot, which I didn't even know at the time what tarot was as a child. Cause my mom introduced me to this game and my brothers.But later I realizing that with tarot and with Loya, each card has a symbol. So the reason I chose these tens specific cards is because they resonated with the timeline of my life. And so laa for me is the triggers and traumas of all the bad relationships. I'm not even gonna call 'em bad relationships.I'm gonna call them challenging relationships that have taught me because now I'm I'm at the point where I've done a lot of like self work and I mean, I'm still, I'm, I call myself. A student of University of Mother Nature and I'm always gonna be learning. And so all those moments have helped me realize, you know, that we're all just kind of like these lost little souls, like these lost little angels that are trying to like, figure out and navigate where the right path is.So these partners that I had that did have addiction problems [00:17:00] you know, at the time it was fun because like, yes, everyone's partying and you're just like, you wanting your wasted the quickest thing. I remember just waiting in line at Arena with like Mad Dog 2020 boondog, like the grossest stuff, but we would drink the fastest, cheapest shit to just like get the most shit wasted before we entered the club.Cause it was just like, we gotta get wasted before we get inside the club. Cuz we didn't, we were young, it was ages club, but we were not even old enough to drink and we were just, you know, getting wasted to. Loosen up dance and just like party all night. But through that, like fast forward into like my twenties, you know another Latino individual, this is a, I'm Mexican, so this is a different type of Latino.This, he was Columbian, Ecuadorian, and I just was a different world that I had an experience with, like the salsa me mbia, and then just [00:18:00] the, the lifestyle and the party of that culture. It just kinda like infatuated with me. But as as like fast and heavy and dangerous as it was, is as quick as I realized, like, whoa, this is, like, this can go dark.And he would drink all the time, you know, he would do drugs. He started going to like sex clubs and. I don't know what, where I was mentality wise. Like my self-esteem was just shot and I felt like this is the best that I can do, so I'm just gonna settle with it. I don't know, I really dunno where that came from.But I did, I got a D U I because this one time we partied and he wanted to continue to party and was threatening me if I didn't take him to get more liquor, that he was just gonna go to sex club and do like his own thing. So I felt like obligated [00:19:00] to, all right, I'm gonna take you. And he was driving and it was swerving and then I was like, no, let me take over.So a, after getting that D U I, I just, it was like my rock bottom. It was like my lowest of low because of the partner that I had chose the time. And I'm realizing later in reflection, like. I chose these partners for a reason. And I think I was trying to fix them. I think I was trying to groom them up cause I was introducing them to fashion and art and all that as well.And then all of a sudden they would change. And later I'm realizing like you were trying to fix yourself. Like you were actually, you are projecting what your insecurities were onto this individual and it just counteracted and affected you where you took the dark that was being, and, and you know, dark attracts each other, right?Like light attracts light. And so yeah, [00:20:00] I mean I, I obviously I'm not with that person anymore. Very happily married. We're 13 years together now and gonna be nine years married this May. And that's a lot for a gay man. And, you know, our, because it's, it's, but it's like I realized like I had to go through all those.Relationships and those triggers and traumas to, to like really fix me and love me for all of me. And that's when I, I was able to attract and the person that I kind of deserved and earned and, and actually saw me for me and didn't make me feel judged and didn't make, forced me to be something that I wasn't meant to be.You know? So I honestly, I'm even grateful for all those, those challenging moments for sure. De'Vannon: Right. And so I hear maturity, you know, in your words there because you understand how much good things come from the fire, from heat and intensity. You know, you've really [00:21:00]grown in life when you can grasp that and you don't look at problems and things that make you uncomfortable and things that hurt you as necessarily inherently negative, you know, cuz so much So when I, when I hear you talk about like the alcohol and the drugs and the sex, you know, vice.You know, it's one of the things that really take any anybody down in life. They are a gargantuan problem in the lgbtqia a plus community. Y'all, our people can't get picture is, can't get enough. Crystal meth, can't get enough, all that. Can't get enough Dick, can't get enough calm, can't get, can't get enough blow jobs, can't have enough origin for me.Andrew: For me it's work now though. But yes, there's always something De'Vannon: because you've grown to that point and you know, but before you had to go through being abused by all of these vices. And look, I'm not saying that there's nothing, anything inherently wrong with crystal meth and crack and cocaine and orgies and sex clubs.[00:22:00] But you know, bitch, when you at the sex club every night when you, and you leaving your boyfriend at home and not telling him you're going and when, or if you just at sex club every night, you single or you are high, Andrew: like it's gonna take a toll De'Vannon: eventually. It's gonna take a toll. But my point is, I need people, bitch, I need you to ask yourself what you really doing it for.Because after a point is not for the entertainment lonely or are you insecure? Are you seeking validation in these, right. Keep going back. So our community is hella insecure, no matter how pretty, we are always at the damn gym. Six packs, bubble butts everywhere. And don't nobody like the damn self. I don't see what the fucking point is.Andrew: What's the why? What is that all about? Like what? I'm still trying to figure that out. You know? What does RuPaul call it? Inner saboteur. Some people call it little bitch voice. Like, I think it's just learning how to navigate with that. Like it's [00:23:00] never gonna go away. It's always there. However you can. I, I think through writing this book and through the, the experience that I've, experiences that I have gone through have taught me that through trauma you can transform and triumph into power.You just have to believe it. You just have to know it. And, and really at the end of the day, it's being of service to others like, like you're doing with, with your audience and sh and, and sharing the knowledge and the, the growth. And that's, I think that's like the legacy we all need to leave behind as humans is through our, you know, journeys and our experiences that we can share that and, and share the growth and the tools that have helped shape us to where we are in a stable place, that, that truly brings happiness.Then that can also be infectious, just. And addicting as like alcohol and drugs and sex, you know what I mean? Like the positivity can also be just as addicting. And I [00:24:00] know that we share mutual podcast friends with a survivor to thrive and give 'em a little shout out. And they're on that same mission, you know what I mean?And I feel like it's not a coincidence that we've all been introduced to each other for, you know what I mean? During this time when it is the considered the, the most depressing time of the year, which is also my, happens to be my birthday December 27th. And now we're in January, which is melancholy and can be hard for our community or anybody going through mental health issues.So why not lift each other up and why not celebrate your struggles and, and transform them into something good, you know? Mm-hmm. Whatever that means for you. De'Vannon: The, yeah. Yeah. And I am gonna dig deeper into the mental health aspects of your book in just a moment. And y'all, like he said, you know, he's written his book to help the people's transparency that y'all heard me say a thousand times, [00:25:00] you know, is the greatest form of help because we learn and grow by listening to what other people have gone through.It is a trap when we think we're isolated and alone, when really the person sitting right next to us is either going through the same thing or has gone through the same thing. When I got H I v I thought I was the only one. I thought I was gonna die. I didn't know half the damn queens in Houston at the shit too.No one talked about that. We were too busy doing all the cocaine. Exactly. Doing all the cocaine at F Barn at South Beach, you know, and everywhere else. And at Jrs to do rather than to actually have real conversation. And so he, right, Andrea's wrote, written his book in order to help help some of you save your lives, to prevent you from committing suicide, to stop you from hurting other people, to stop you from hurting yourself.Cuz when you read that book, you're gonna know. Okay, this fucker went through the same shit. Maybe it's not just me. It is incredibly empowering to know that it's not just you or as they say over on Survivor, the thriver know that you are not alone. Andrew: [00:26:00] Absolutely. You said that beautifully. So I wanna know, and that, that's really No, go ahead.Sorry. De'Vannon: Yeah. I wanna know, you mentioned Catholicism from in the past. Mm-hmm. Where are you at in terms of spirituality today? Andrew: Like I said, yeah, I mean, I was born into that. It was it was all I knew, like it was, we lived on that block, you know, where my parents got married, where I was baptized, where I did my first commune and confirmation where I became a godfather.It was it was just when you're, when you're Mexican in east LA that's just what it is. Like, it just gets part, it's like peanut butter jelly comes with the territory. But And I I De'Vannon: about today specifically because people are born mm-hmm. Into all kinds of religions. I was born Pentecostal, you know, that's what you're okay for.Your family gives you, I don't feel like, like the learn behavior. Right. I feel like it's more valid once you become an [00:27:00] adult and you consider all the options. Mm-hmm. If you still wanna stay with that, then I think it becomes authentic. But until then you Yeah. What people told you to do. So what, what spiritually have you discovered for yourself?Andrew: I mean, obviously at that point, I, I, as a kid, I didn't agree with marriage only being between a man and a woman. And then, you know, just the, the history of the priests and the abuse and the, all that. I, I didn't agree with any of that. But even, even, even even Madonna too with Journey and her being Catholic and like a prayer and being the first advocate for l g BT Q, putting in her cd in her tape a condom and to protect se use protection for sex and literature on aids.Like, she was the first one to kind of give me a voice. And I, I felt seen, like [00:28:00] just the fact that I knew that I was gay. I felt like I was gonna get AIDS just because of that simple reason in the eighties and the nineties. But I mean, even that's kind of like part of my spirituality. So for me my husband and I go to non-denominational church.We are part of Unitarian. It's more of a communal thing. And it's more of just because they're accepting of everything. And the, the philosophy is to celebrate love, life human experiences. And it's, it's really lovely. I mean, it's. I ki I, I liked it because it brought me a little ba back to the nostalgia of the good things of going to church when I was Catholic.But I'm, I'm a spiritual person by Mother Nature and the universe. I believe in the law of attraction. I meditate every day. I practice gratitude. I journal, I visualize I consider my dogs my spirituality as well. I have dog, I have three dogs, you know, I have dog therapy [00:29:00] with them daily. I practice kind acts with others.I I'm an earth sign, so I love anything that has to do with the outdoors and just going on hikes and doing yoga. We're gonna do yoga tonight. You know, it's being healthy. We're both vegan, we're both animal lovers. My, my cosmetics is vegan and animal cru tea free as well. So I'm just, I'm a spiritual person as far as just energy, you know what I mean?Like this's just. What I love about being a human being is that I'm so connected with Mother Nature and we're all the same at the end of the day. Like there, it has nothing to do about your color of skin, your orientation, your gender, hus in your bedroom, what you eat, nothing like, we're all literally the same breathing things, elements, you know what I mean?It's looking at like, my veins is just like looking at the roots at a on a tree. [00:30:00] When you're like in a plane and you're looking down as the earth shrinks and you see all the little cracks in the rivers of, of earth, those are the veins of earth. It's all the same thing, you know? And so whatever spirituality is for the individual, if it makes them feel special and, and seen and that's, that's all that matters, whatever gives them that like happiness, that joy, that light.And for me it's, its mother nature. So that's my form of spirituality. De'Vannon: Okay. Look, I love to keep me a good garden in the back. I love eating off the, I love riding horses. You know, when I'm not riding Dick, you know, and everything like that. Exactly. Appreciate I can appreciate the fuck out of that. So, I wanna go back to this rejection of your mother because you know, she's a, you know, she sounds like the embodiment of a drag queen's in a straight woman's body.She supported you until you made it official. There's no goddamn way. She couldn't have already [00:31:00] known mothers. No, the bitch wasn't blind. I mean, I don't mean that insultingly. I mean that You're Andrew: good. You're good. De'Vannon: You know, I'm like, girl, you could see, you could read the tea. Andrew: I mean, I was going to the makeup.Yeah. So I was going through all De'Vannon: that. So, So you felt accepted and she already knew what it was. So it almost like for her, it might have been better if you never would've made it a official by saying the words. Hmm. So for those, for people out there, for queer people, especially Latinx people who have been rejected and there is a lot of rejection of L G B LGBTQ people because of how the Catholic church is, your culture is hella Catholic, you know?Mm-hmm. And so take me, take me back to when that rejection first happened and really give me some words to those feelings. Cause I want you to embody what somebody else is going through right there. I want you to vocalize that. Andrew: Yeah. [00:32:00] And 10th grade, and I, I think I had ditched school that day. I lived in a studio that was on the same property.My parents a lot of Mexicans do this where they build homes inside their homes and other. And it's just like a lot of houses. And so I, I, I was grateful for that cause I had a little bit of privacy, but my mom always had a key of course. And so I remember having my friends over the night before and we're listening to like Morris depe.And it was just kind like that vibe wearing all black, my doc Martins, you know, my black bomber jacket and drinking red wine and thinking we're cool and smoking marble red cigarettes. We were disgusting and clothes, but it was just, that was the thing that we did. And I just remember like waking up like hungover and it was time for school and I'm like, ah, I'm [00:33:00] not feeling it.I'm not gonna go. So I stayed home painted my fingernails and was just kind of like being lazy and just bumming around the house. And then my mom came in and like, just like, and Mexican moms. Can rage and just open the door and slammed and was like yelling, what are you doing in Spanish? Of course,you know, like all that kind of stuff. It was very . And and then she was like, picking up my jacket, picking up the bottles. She's like, what is this stuff? Why are your nails painted? Why are you dressing like this? What are you doing? Like, what are you gay? And that was the first time she had ever ever asked me that.And I finally like, I was so tired of yelling back and forth to like, I remember we were both yelling so much that we had to take a break to just take a, a breather. And then I finally yelled back and I said, yes, I'm [00:34:00] yay. You know, and a part of it felt good to just finally say it and vocalize it and to put it out into the universe, but also like seeing the sadness in her eyes did not feel good.And I just, I saw her like just kind of shrink and just, that made me shrink too. And then she just said, well, I don't support that. You're gonna have to leave you. If you're not gonna go to school, then you need to get outta here. And she left. And so I just remember feeling rejection alone, abandoned. Why am I here causing so much stress to all these people around me?And, you know, the per, the one person that I, that I thought was always gonna be my hero, that I, that supported me is now like, just telling me to get out and that I'm done with you. You're not good enough. Like when she said, De'Vannon: does she mean you no longer can [00:35:00] live here? Or when she's saying, I can't see your face today, what did she mean as a.Andrew: A teenager, I thought I took it as like, you, you don't, you're not gonna live here anymore. Like, if you're gonna live like that, you're not gonna live here. Like, those are the words that I heard. Yeah. That's how it sounds to me. So I, so I said, okay, and I, I did run away. Obviously I had to come back to get my stuff.And again, just going through the lows of the lows, seeing the alcohol, drinking that some more, discovering Tylenol pm, taking some of those. And the combination of it, I was just like, I was just, I was so sad. I was so alone that I didn't think I was able to get over this, like, low. So I just, I decided I wanted to take my own life.You know, I was gonna try and it [00:36:00] didn't work, you know, it didn't work. I woke up the next day. With my wrists, still bloody, but kind of like crusting and trying to heal just disorientated and dizzy from all the wine and the, the pills. And I'm like, all right, well, I guess I'm gonna go to work.I'm sorry to school. I didn't, it didn't work, you know, just put on my bomber jacket, go to school. I'm like, second period, get a call from the school counselor and says, you need to report to your school counselor's office. Get to the office. And they're like, your mom just called and apparently she went into your room and saw all this stuff and is really concerned about you.We need to see your wrist. And so I was hesitant, but obviously ended up showing, and they were like, all right, well you're a minor at this age in Roseville High School, we're not allowed to let you out of our site. We need to report to the center quad area, and we're gonna let you know what [00:37:00] is gonna happen to you then.So I get escorted with the security to the center of quad area. The bell rings and as the bell rings, the gates open up and an ambulance drives in as the ambulance is driving in the doors open and the security is escorting me into the ambulance. All the schoolmates come out running and seeing me getting into this ambulance and girl, I was mortified.I was, I was the most embarrassing moment and just kind of like, that's it. I'm over. I can never get back from this. There's no, there's not gonna be a way to fix this. You know what I mean? It was, it was very heavy, it was very embarrassing and exposing and was rushed off to White Memorial Hospital in Royal Heights, and they pumped my stomach and they stitched up my wrist and.[00:38:00]And yeah, I was admitted to a psych ward as a one 50 minor. It was who continued? Are you okay? Say what? I mean, it was, honestly, it hon, at that point I just surrendered. I, and I just kind of, I gave it to God at that point, you know, and was like, I'm just gonna be reborn. I'm gonna be a child. I'm gonna be infant.I'm gonna just let you guide me. This is where I'm supposed to be now to, to learn and to grow. I, I guess I'm gonna listen to these therapists. So I discovered therapy, which I fell in love with immediately cuz I'm finally being heard. I'm finally having tools and resources to, to help navigate my emotions, my feelings.And then I met that angel That young man that wrote me poems and [00:39:00] talked to me and said, you don't belong here. And told me I was special. And, and I finally like, believed it, you know? And that's, that's when I told you earlier that I made that conscious decision to not go down that route anymore.And I'm, I'm still in therapy to this day. I mean, it's not every week I mean like it used to be, but it definitely saved my life. And I feel that person was an angel. Cause fast forward to later, as I'm going through self-discovery and I'm writing my book and I'm journaling, I'm like, what happened to him?So I tried to research, but obviously through the privacy of hospitals, like they're not allowed to expose any information. But they were like, yeah, you were the only, they said you were the only one there in your room. So what the heck does that mean? You know, like they're saying that I was the only one in my room, but I distinctly remember this.Young man named Miguel telling me, you're, you're, you know, [00:40:00] you don't belong here. You, you need to follow the light. How long was Miguel? De'Vannon: That's crazy. How long was Miguel Andrew: in there with you? I mean, I, I was only in there for two weeks. He had already been there for a month. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I don't remember.We never exchanged numbers. Like So you think, I mean, we had pagers I think at the point, De'Vannon: right? So you think maybe it was, I remember the pager days. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Do you remember Uhhuh, I'm sorry you went through all of this and mental health is a big fucking deal in the queer community because a lot of our issues come from our parents because our parents have their own unresolved issues.The church has told them what to think about their own children. Not, not all mothers and parents are able. Be like, this is my child. I don't even a damn what the church has to say because, you know, our parents have their own issues. And so this is a huge reason why there's a lot of insecurity in our community.It comes from our own households. Now do you think this was son [00:41:00] who was in there with you, perhaps And y'all son, Miguel is just like son, son, Miguel, St. Michael, the Arche angel. Andrew: Yes, yes, yes. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I, it was definitely an angel and I, when my mom I, I was born two days after Christmas.I was supposed to be born like on Christmas, but it happened to be two days after. And she said cuz she was really into Like astrology. And she used to watch Walter Melo, I dunno if you know Walter Melo, who it was like the famous like tarot card reader in in the Latino community. It was like the thing that we watch religiously every Sunday, like after the, the, no, it was Walter.And he would tell you like, capric, Corno, tourist, blah, blah, blah. So she, cause of him, she used to tell me, you, when you were born, the sun, the Earth and the Moon and Mercury were line and you were born at 6:05 AM I, they gave [00:42:00] me you, you, they gave you, oh, sorry, let me rephrase this. They gave me you in a red stalking and as you're going in my arms, I just saw a big star on your head and a light on your right side.And I'm just staring at this little gift in this red, like stalking this and I'm holding it. And so she kept telling me that as I was. Growing up, like you have a star, you have a light on your, so I don't know, I, I can't help but go back to that, you know what I mean? Like go back to these little angels, these little whether it's whoever, you know, maybe it's, maybe it's a drag queen that past life, but she's saving me.That's what I like to I feel like we all have some kind of angel to protect, you know, some kind of either light energy, whatever you want to call it, you know, it could be our [00:43:00] past ancestors or ancestors. It could be maybe your past self and your reincarnate. I don't know. But something was there.It was very prevalent. It was, and it was the moment that I changed my mind. Otherwise, I could have gone down that addiction route. I could have gone down, you know, The gang route and like been in the closet and continued to live this straight life because of course I acted like I was straight forever.Because that's what you do when you're in that kinda environment. Otherwise you're gonna get clocked, you know, and jumped and bullied and I was all those things. But yeah, I, I can only say like now being with my husband, his name is Johnny Debut for 13 years. Accepting me for all of me. My femininity, my masculine side.He, yeah, he's just, he's my homie for life and he's the one that's just [00:44:00] I don't know my mean, like reminded me to love myself too. And I'm just very grateful for that. Cause it's been, we've had a journey on our, on our own as well and the good and the bad and but yeah, we're best friends. He is, he is just been The rock for, for everything.And I'm gonna be that right back to him too. For sure. Hey, hey Johnny, De'Vannon: Daniel, whatever you ask me, introduce Savannah and I'm saying Andrew: hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. De'Vannon: Hey Johnny, how will I get to have cocktails with you one day? Yes. So let's lighten this up as we get, we're down like our last couple of minutes here.So we've talked about some darkness, bring some light, and so yeah, we, we get light through darkness and angels are real. You know, I've spoken about how they've appeared to me before, all kinds of places on the side of the street and restaurants, you know, and there's [00:45:00] been times where it's like nobody else even sees this person in here.And I'm not the only one talking to them and everything like that. I turn around sometimes my husband sees them. Now look, y'all, they don't, I've never had them, except for in dreams appear to me in any sort of glorious way. When they appear to me on the street, they're just plain clothes people. And then we talk mm-hmm.Stuff like that. And I turn around and then they're gone. One of my favorite appearances is one time I was out in my yard, this is the last time I ever touched a rake in my life when I was in high school, raking these leaves. I hate yard work. I'm like, can we get a fucking, can we get a fucking maid? Do you see my nails?I'm queer. I shouldn't be doing this. Ugh. So, so I'm raking this fucking leaves and I hate wet ground and, ugh. This, this, this black guy walks down the street and he's just like, Hey, be careful for those poisonous snakes. Now we are in the hood, you know, just in the middle of the city. Oh, we're not out in the country.Why the fuck would there be a snake? He's like, were you careful of those snakes? The next [00:46:00] pool, there was a goddamn damn poisoned snake flopping all around in. They're trying, oh, hell no. I threw that right down. I'm like, I don't, not a snake. I don't give a damn with my dad. I want me to do, ain't no more chores being done in this yard.I looked up that that guy had told me this, like not a split second, and I looked up and he was gone. And I had something like that happen when I was a kid. You know, they'll show up, say whatever. I looked down and I'm like, he, they can't take nobody. Run that damn fast. You know? Or as or as the Hebrew scripture tells us, you know, we've entertained angels at unawares and be careful how you treat strangers.Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Absolutely talk about makeup. So y'all, like he said, he has own makeup line. Oh,Andrew: it was a good segue. It was a good segue. Had to do it right. And De'Vannon: every time he cls that fan has a title of his book, AOR Art Arta Moore. Or love is art. Art is Love. Yes. So [00:47:00] his first color palette is, is called Me Corone, which stands for my heart, you know, in Spanish. Mm-hmm. Go ahead and hold it up. So, Ooh yes.It ain't no bunny ram harm in making that. That's what I'm here for. That shit is vibrant. Thank you. You know, every now and then, you know I might beat this face up. You know, I'm gonna have to get your shit. Oh, I would love Andrew: to do your makeup. Yes. Let's make that happen. Oh, don't. I'm gonna De'Vannon: be in LA soon. God.I pray to God the next time I go to Los Angeles, cuz I'm in Louisiana where I live now. I pray to God the next time I go to Los Angeles it's, I'm there to stay. God. Need to go Andrew: home. Wait, I'm actually gonna, I'm actually wait, I, I'm going to Nashville in February. De'Vannon: That's a bit away from Louisiana still. I mean it might be kinda like Yeah, you're right down here by New Orleans and stuff.So whenever you come to Mar are you ready to do you a Mardi Gras carnival? Andrew: We do [00:48:00] love New Orleans. Yes, I do. I got De'Vannon: you hooked up bruh. So, okay y'all, so he bought this show called American Beauty Star and that, that color palette, he just showed up. You know, go ahead and tell everybody like, you know where they can find that.Your website is gonna be in the show notes. I'm gonna put your link tree so people can find you in case you wanna go ahead and vocalize it. You can tell them where they can find that in your book. Andrew: Thank you so much. Yeah, you. Search for the show on Amazon Prime, just type American beauty star, and you can binge watch me on season one.I'm right there working all the magic. That's where I started writing a book as form of therapy. While we were quarantined, I had no access to devices, so I would resort back to my hotel room and just start drawing and went back to my roots. What brings me passion is that's my, my craft. And then I wrote the book.This has been a four year project. The first year was to [00:49:00] write and edit the book. The second year was to design the cover of the book as well as the cover of each chapter. So I took 10 models and painted them from head to toe and turned them into these characters that you see on, on the cover of the book that represent Theia cards.And through the process of making the body makeup is when I realized there was like a lack of pigment. So I went into product development and that's where I chose to create my first palette, which is called . And you can see like one of the actual models wearing the colors and all the artwork inside is in, is in, is the artwork that's infused into the book.So it's all part of the same brand. And then through that, seeing my models get emotional and hot and you know, sweaty, I decided to also make a fan, which is also part of the same collection. And all the artwork from the book is infused onto the fan. And I lastly have a calendar. Which is good [00:50:00]for 2023.So this is the only way you can get the actual print of each card is by having your Amos Art calendar. So you can find everything on amos art.com or love is art artist love.com and that's where you can shop for the palette, the fan, the calendar, and the book as well. You can also go to Amazon and search for the book and just type Andrew Velazquez.And then my website is andrew velazquez.com for my salon portfolio and all the thanks, beauty tutorials, et cetera, De'Vannon: all the things. I love the options. You know, are you a Sagittarius as well? Andrew: US gays like options too. De'Vannon: You right. That's damn true. So, you know, I'm born on December 16th. I need everything.And so, Andrew: oh, nice. We're close. Capric the 27th Capricorn. Yeah. Capricorn. Oh, you can? Yeah, you can come. I have a [00:51:00] Saurus Rising double Capricorn with the Sagittarius Rising and all my besties are Sagittarius as well. You can come De'Vannon: to the Sagittarius Ki Keani. I'm gonna get you in. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this is, so I looked up a couple of the videos and y'all, I love Andrew's his Instagram and his YouTube channel or Clutch.He has this beautiful avatar, avant garde look that he does on this girl, which is so like on tempo right now with the way of the water just coming out. You know, he has a Marvel inspiration stuff that he does. Th this, he does full body art, not just face, you know, this is head to toe fear shit, bitch.Here. Shout out to Mama Ru Paul right now. So on, on this American Beauty star. We're gonna talk about Lady Gaga, RuPaul, dim Lovato last. It's gonna out. So you're good before that. American Beauty star. So I look this up. So you got this panel of judges, these people on here doing this makeup, Andrew's in charge of the full scale production for this Oh.Show and everything. And then they will [00:52:00] be judged just like you've seen on Project Runway, you know, all the different things. So Andrew comes out, this stone cold bitch is sitting there with like white hair, you know, white outfit. And the, the person that left the review, I, I don't, I, I don't think that was Christie.I think that was the other girl. And and Andrew: so anyway, it was Huda from Huda Beauty, De'Vannon: right? And so I think somebody might have thought she was a little bit too hard, but, you know, I was just leaving everybody's opinions for that. But you know, Andrew's out there on stage and they're like, are like Andrew and then all the stuff, no, every judge's face just has no fucking emotions.You know how they fuck with the contestants and, and they leave them there in silence. For, for what? Felt like an eternity for me. And I wasn't even the one on stage. Yeah. Felt like Andrew. He's all like, oh shit. The look on the look on your face. We loved your look.[00:53:00]Andrew: That's exactly how it was. Oh my God, you did your research. Well, you gonna be so goddamn dramatic right De'Vannon: now. I'm, I'm sitting here in my house, gimme a cup of tea to deal with this stress. And you know, Andrew did well. He made it to the top three. That's a big deal to be there that long with all of that shit going on.And I love the way that you would talk with your co, I guess competition, friends, I don't know exact term on set. Mm-hmm. You know, in the back. But it's almost like you were there like guide, you know, you were giving them advice and everything like that and like keeping them together. It was very nurturing the words you would say to them on this show.Talk to me about your experience on this show before we talk about Gaga. Andrew: Oh, yes. No oh my God. That it feels, what was it like five years ago? Yeah, it was five years ago. I had just wrapped working with [00:54:00] Tyra Banks on America's Next Top model. So, and that was like the third cycle that I had worked with her doing hair and makeup.And, and what I did while I was on Top Model is I absorbed her like a sponge, cuz I knew that this show, American Beauty Star was coming right around the corner. And so the premise of American Beauty Star was to basically be Tyra Banks create a director. So not only did I have to do hair and makeup, but I had to conceptualize and create the runway for the fashion show design, the wardrobe accessorize, design the nail.I also had to choose the music for the, the platform. I had to tell Emily Rose, the International Vogue cover director to photograph and tell the model how to pose. So all these things that I knew were coming up, I knew like, this is, this is what I do like this. I'm, I feel very good about this. I feel very confident going into this.And I'm gonna come in, in, in a [00:55:00] humble approach. And so that was my intent, right? Going into this and always putting the energy exuding out for my mother's health is what I would kind of like meditate every day on my own. Because they said, you're gonna be quarantined for three weeks. Do you have no access to your devices?You have no access to your loved ones. You're, this is a frozen hard environment, which is basically you can't talk, you can't speak unless the cameras are on. And it's a production strategy to conserve your energy for camera type. But it's also. A psyching test to test your patients, your stress levels.And it's so funny because that's where I started developing this little twitch that happens on my arm. It's actually happening right now as we speak. I don't know if you can see it, like the little eye on the, it's switching a little bit, whatever, to that degree. Yeah. And so and I never had that before until [00:56:00] this show, but because we were only allowed to bring paper and my old school like iPod, you shuffle, I would listen to music like Madonna Ray of Light.Obviously, you know, other people that would like made me zen. I came up with Zen Drew, and this is where I started drawing for the book and creating the concept behind of what I wanted to do. I didn't know I had a concept during the time of the the show though. I just knew that I was like, Journaling.This is my form of therapy. And so I, I, I, I listened to the direction from the judges. A Adrian a Lima is the host who I loved, and she's stunningly gorgeous, even more in person, more so in person. Serjan is our mentor whose Beyonce's makeup artist. And, you know because I had been in production on a reality competition show [00:57:00] before, I knew a little bit more, I had a little more insight on kind of what goes behind the scenes.But now I'm the one in front of the camera place on hard ice. So I kind of knew that there were, there was three parts to the, the production In the morning you would come in, dress in the outfit that you were in the last night's outfit that day we had to recreate for continuity, whatever we did on the challenge last night again.Then we would find out, like you saw with the white snow queen, that we were gonna stay or leave. And yes, I was sweating. My back was drenched and my arm was twitching. But my goal was to always listen to the, the, the feedback and put that into the next challenge. Then the second part of the day was your, your kind of like, your interviews and what you see in between they, they call 'em the confessionals.And so that's where oftentimes they would set you up with the producer [00:58:00] and they would ask you questions and I could pick up when they were trying to alter my answer or get something else outta me. And I would say, no, that's, that's not something that I would say. I'm not gonna say that. Don't ask me to say that.And I, I remember asking for a different producer when I didn't, when I was in vibing that, you know, the, this, this isn't coming out through for my best interest. This is coming out for. Airtime or production, and I'm not here for it. Like I wanna be authentic, Andrew and what I came up with, what's called my Zend.So they listened to that and I went, I had another producer, and she really made me feel like safe, made me feel heard, and, and, and I feel it's because of her. She was another angel that I was able to, to be vulnerable and to, and to be just true. And then the last part of the day was the next challenge.And then you're introduced to a new a new ex whatever [00:59:00] project you're gonna come up with. And I, I felt everybody's anxieties, right? I felt everyone's trying to, like some people were trying to be shady. So the what you see is real, you know, some of it, yes, it's beefed up because they want to stir up some drama specifically on America's next time model.But for American Beauty Star I think they were, they would, they would find. People's strengths and weaknesses and then enhanced them by and, you know what's the tar the right word? By instigating stuff and by asking right questions and by like probing. I wasn't here for it. I think they picked up on that.I think that's also why I didn't win. But I think that's why I made it to the finales because they knew like, oh, this guy, he's well put together. He's corporate, he's professional, but I wasn't drama. You know what I mean? And because I sense everyone else's anxieties, I would try to give them positivity and, and give them zen as and just tell [01:00:00] 'em to, Hey, just trust your, in your intuition.Just go with what brings you joy and follow that regardless of what everybody's telling you. Like follow that. And I feel like that's kind of like what helped me stay at towards the end. Although I didn't win in the winning title, I won so many other ways and growth and exposure and experience, I was able to open up a salon after that.And I'm very grateful for it, you know what I mean? Would I do it again? Absolutely. I would bring it on all stars. I will come back on season four and go up against my students, go up against whoever. And I'll win that. I'll win that bitch. I'll take that bitch home. Hell season four all stars. De'Vannon: Take me with you.I can I can supply the underwear. I'm sure y'all need a pit crew for my down under apparel brand. Hey, I can do something. Andrew: Let's go. De'Vannon: Okay. So then, so as you thank you for that breakdown. I love you had this fabulous experience and I just speak more exposure over you and riches, both in this world and in the one to come and in the [01:01:00] unseen realm too.Yes, Andrew: yes, yes. Between De'Vannon: Lady Gaga, RuPaul and Demi Lovato, which one of these can you give us the most dramatic story from, from working? Andrew: I mean, I can, I can talk about all of them briefly. Who did I work with first? It was probably RuPaul. We, Mac Cosmetics was the sponsor brand for season one, and through that sponsorship, David not only provided the cosmetics, they provided artistry support, which was myself and I managed the pro store on North Robertson in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood.So we were like the flagship that all entertainment would approach for. Sponsorship product, artistry help, whatever it was. So I worked on season one and we were in charge of just doing the guest judges. So I did like Michelle Williams from, you know, Destiny's Child. And Ru [01:02:00] Ru is just great.She's just such a big flirt and just you can feel her energy when she comes into the, the room. And this is still season one, so it was very fresh. I was invited to come back for season four this time through an agency and still do the guest judges and the pick crew as well. So we had to oil them up and and then you can see me actually on season four in the background cause they would sometimes have us be in the audience.And this is the one with Sharon Needles. I think who else was. Fifi O'Hara and they're fighting like on the wwf, kinda like wrestling. So you can see me in the back, like yelling. So that's a little behind the scenes. And then Gaga was through Sharon Gold, who was Madonna's hairstylist during the Blonde Ambition tour.And Sharon we're shop with us at Mac frequently to get product, to get her discount. Cause we offer, they offered a pro membership [01:03:00] discount for anybody in the industry. And so she hit us up once and said, Hey, I'm coming in tomorrow. Can you make sure that we have. A little private area. Yeah, absolutely.Yeah. We're gonna need your face charts, your pigments, and some brushes. I have an artist a musician that I'd love to introduce you guys to. She's new. She's up and coming. Okay, great. This is like during MySpace, right? So she was, they kept calling her a MySpace artist. I'm like, all right, cool, whatever.MySpace come in. All good. So here I meet this little tiny brunettes you know, skinny young, like 20 year old. She was like, twinky, right? Her name is Stephanie. And she is like, how do you, what do you do with these space charts? Show me how to use these space charts. I'm doing this music video and I want you to work on the music video.I'm like, okay, cool. Yeah. So I was Sharon's assistant for the music video love game. But again, not knowing who this individual was, I didn't even know her artist's name until we got to the set. And now they're saying, oh, you're working with Lady Gaga? Who's Lady Gaga? What is that? What does that [01:04:00] mean?And literally, In like a matter of two weeks, she was on logo Next, next now award show and overnight she just became this huge sensation and her album just like skyrocketed. And that was it. Like that was the one time consulting with her in the store and then working in the music video. And I will forever take that to my grave cause she's Queen, you know, to all of our LGBTQ community as well.And then Demi was for another big queer moment during the la gay Pride. And I was in charge of the avant garde body makeups. And I was also able to do her like glam that morning for a really don't care music video. So it was a 13 hour day. She's such a hard worker. I remember she just came back from Paris.She, this is when she used to shave the [01:05:00] CI of her hair. She's like, You know, can you clean me up? I didn't bring clippers cause I wasn't aware that I was gonna do like grooming and I, I just was prepared for makeup artistry. So I had to, th this is another fun fact I'm gonna share with your audience. I had to taper and sh and shave, fade the side of her head with lash scissors and a mascara one and just like a cute little blend to make it look tight.And then the rest of the day was turning these dancers into like mannequin avant garde, like avatar makeup. So like blue, pink, gold and black. And it was hot during real life on afloat, during la gay pride in a little pickup truck behind her, touching her up every so often and touching them up. Just exhausting, but, you know, really, really great to work with.And she was very gracious. And this is when she was dating I forget his name. The my Latino, I should [01:06:00] know his name, HETE. But anyhow, it was a, it was a great experience. She was fun. Gaga was fun, RuPaul was fun, and I love them all as artists. I think what they represent as, you know, ex a self-expression and what they do for our community is just, is awesome.So I'm gonna forever take that to my grave. Hell yeah. And De'Vannon: look, I hopefully you get to work with them again. I speak it so. Mm-hmm. So I've

“You have to be the advocate for yourself or for your family member, and ask the challenging questions and not just take the answer that is given to you,” explains host Dr. Andrew Fix. Today, Dr. Andrew shares why it is so important to advocate for yourself and your family members in regards to healthcare.    You know your body better than anyone else, so you need to be taking control over your own care and advocating for yourself and your loved ones in healthcare settings. Many providers will choose whatever method of care is easiest for them or best for the insurance company, rather than taking into consideration what is actually the best path for the patient's quality of life. If a doctor tells you that surgery is the only option or that you can no longer do the activities you enjoy due to your health condition, push back and find additional solutions or even get a second opinion from another provider. Don't just take their word for it and assume that your doctor is always right or is telling you the whole truth.    Be willing to advocate for yourself and ask the hard questions, even if that means challenging your doctor's advice. You know best what is best for your own body and for your physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing.    Quotes • “What our lifestyle is can drastically impact how our body feels when we're talking about arthritis, because it's not just damage from use.” (7:00-7:09 | Dr. Andrew) • “Talk about the fact that how we eat, how we sleep, how we manage our stress, and how we manage our activity level have just as much, if not more, to do with our pain level than just having a meniscus tear.” (14:18-14:30 | Dr. Andrew) • “You have to be the advocate for yourself or for your family member, and ask the challenging questions and be willing to push back and not just take the answer that is given to you.” (16:37-16:50 | Dr. Andrew)  • “Nobody knows your body better than you do.” (18:03-18:06 | Dr. Andrew)    Links   Connect with Physio Room:  Website | ​​https://physioroomco.com/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/physioroomco/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/physioroomco Andrew's Personal Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrewfix/  Andrew's Personal Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/andrew.fix.9/   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is "Augmenting Workers With Wearables." And our guest is Andrew Chrostowski, Chairman and CEO of RealWear (https://www.realwear.com/). In this conversation, we talk about the brief history of industrial wearables, the state of play, the functionality, current approaches and deployments, use cases, the timelines, and the future. If you like this show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/). If you liked this episode, you might also like Episode 92: Emerging Interfaces for Human Augmentation (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/92). Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (https://trondundheim.com/) and presented by Tulip (https://tulip.co/). Follow the podcast on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/75424477/). Trond's Takeaway: Industrial wearables have come a long way. There is a big need for assisted reality in many workforce scenarios across industry. There are now companies taking good products to market that are rugged enough, simple enough, and advanced enough to make work simpler for industrial workers. On the other hand, we are far away from the kind of untethered multiverse that many imagine in the future, one step at a time. Transcript: TROND: Welcome to another episode of the Augmented Podcast. Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is Augmenting Workers With Wearables. And our guest is Andrew Chrostowski, Chairman and CEO of RealWear. In this conversation, we talk about the brief history of industrial wearables, the state of play, the functionality, current approaches and deployments, use cases, the timelines, and the future. Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, for process engineers, and for shop floor operators hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim and presented by Tulip. Andrew, welcome to the show. How are you? ANDREW: Hi, Trond. Great to be here. I'm doing great. TROND: You know, you are a poster child entrepreneur engineer, Oregon State, University of Southern California. You are actually an expert on the future of work. There are so many people that say they talk about the future of work. You are implementing and, selling, and evangelizing a true future of work product, not just a story. We're going to be talking about augmented, assisted all kinds of reality and collaboration, Andrew, because that's, I guess, what it's all about. And you lead the industrial wearable company RealWear. But first, I want to get to the fact that you're a certified firefighter. Now, how does that fit into this? ANDREW: That's really a great question. And one of the things that's been passionate for me from the beginning is being close to the customer. It was true when I was an Air Force officer designing for systems that would support our warfighters and putting myself in their situations in life and death. Certainly, I think about it in terms of customers, and we were dealing with other lines of business and trying to understand the customers' perspective, and especially the frontline workers that create those products. And when I took over the Scott Safety business when I was part of Tyco, their particular market was firefighters. They were the leading provider of air tanks, cylinders, respirators, what we call SCBAs, self-contained breathing apparatus for firefighters. Now, I know a lot of things about a lot of areas of technology. But I didn't know anything about firefighting. And so when I took over that business, the first thing I did was go to Texas A&M and actually get trained and certified as an interior firefighter. So I actually put on all the bunker gear, timed donning just like you do when you're in the fire station, fought real fires that were built, and to understand really the challenges they faced. And I came out of that training really having a greater appreciation for just how challenging that work is. And I know it's shocking to your listeners, but everything we ever see on TV and movies about firefighting is wrong. Basically, firefighting, besides being terrifying, and difficult, and dangerous, is basically blind. You're in the smoke. You're in the dark. And my background in the Air Force thermal imaging systems and multispectral systems came back to me. And I said, "You know what we need to do is give predator vision to firefighters and give them the chance to see the unseen in the dark." And so, coming out of that training, I initiated an in-mass thermal imaging system for firefighters that went to the market about 14 months later at Scott site. TROND: Wow, that's some real background there. I'd like to start with that story because it reminds me that what we're about to talk about here, you know, wearables, it's not a joke. These are, you know, in industrial environments, these are not optional technologies once they really, really start working. And you can sort of say that they're first-line technologies. They better work every time. So this is not a case where you could kind of, well, you know, let's install another version and restart and whatnot. These are eventually going to be hopefully systems that the modern industrial worker really starts to trust to perform their job efficiently. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of all of the different things that RealWear is trying to do, I wanted to just ask you a basic question, what is assisted reality? It's a curious phrase. It's like, why does reality need assistance? [laughs] You know, where does that even come from? ANDREW: You can deny reality, but you can't deny the effects of denying reality. When we talk about assisted reality, it's a point on the spectrum what we call XR, the extended reality. It starts with reality and ends when that virtual reality, the fully immersive digital environment that we experience and what we talk about a lot in the metaverse. Then coming from reality forward, you have assisted reality, which is a reality-first, digital-second environment, which is what we focus on. It is the idea that this is the technology available now that allows a worker to be productive and work safely in a real-world environment. When you get into augmented reality, which is something that we think of when we think of products like HoloLens and other similar types of products, that's where this digital environment begins to overlay the actual environment. It imposes a cognitive load on the brain so that you're now having to focus on things that aren't really there while there are things that are really around you that could hurt you. This is great when you're in a safe environment, in a classroom, in a design area, when you're collaborating in the office to be able to immerse yourselves in these three-dimensional digital objects. It's much different when you're walking on the deck of an oil rig or you're potentially working around a cobot that can hurt you when your attention is distracted. And then we have sort of that virtual reality game that we started with in the metaverse where people are now kind of transposing themselves into a fully digital atmosphere. We at RealWear have focused on making a difference for the future of work and focusing on those 2 billion frontline workers who could work more safely and more productively if they were connected. And it makes perfect sense to us. If we learned anything from the COVID lockdowns, we learned that this idea of working from anywhere, the idea of the office worker working from home, working from the coffee shop, all of this now has become just a given. We know that we need these digital tools to collaborate remotely. What we only have begun to just crack the code on is that there are, again, 2 billion people working with their hands on the front line who could work more productively and more safely if they were connected workers, if they had access to information, if they had access to collaborating in a hands-free way with their counterparts across the world. And so RealWear, our focus is this mission of engaging, empowering, and elevating the performance of those frontline workers by giving them an assisted reality solution that is extremely low friction and easy to use. TROND: I like the distinction there. Even though this podcast is called augmented, I like the distinction between AR and assisted reality. Because there's really, I guess, you can see it more clearly in the consumer space where it sounds so fascinating to enter these virtual worlds. But in industry, the virtual is really subservient and needs to be subservient to the very reality. So I guess assisting reality is the point here. It's not the endpoint that is necessarily the virtual. You're using the technologies, if I understand it, to strengthen the ability to survive and be very, very efficient in reality as opposed to entering some sort of virtual space where you are simulating more. You're talking about critical applications in the physical industrial reality, so that's now clear to me. Having said that, this is not easy to do, is it, Andrew? ANDREW: No. I mean, there's a lot that comes into this idea of making technology that's human-centric. And all the things you were just talking about really bring us back to this idea that this kind of assisted reality solution is about helping the human being at that nexus of control operate more safely and effectively in a variety of environmental conditions. It is really important that we think about the technology serving the person and not so much technology that is imposing itself on people, which is oftentimes what we see as we try to roll out different kinds of technical solutions. The folks who are doing work with their hands who are daily exposing themselves to risk have a very low tolerance for things that waste their time, are difficult to use, or distract them from reality. And so all of those things are factors we took into account as we developed this first head-mounted tablet computer that now is in the market as the Navigator 500. TROND: Andrew, can you tell me a little bit about the history and evolution of these kinds of technologies? Because there is so much hype out there. And you did a pristine job as to making these concepts fairly distinct. But how long has there even been an industrial product? I guess a lot of us remember the first Google Glass, but partly what we remember is the hype in the consumer market, which then kind of fell flat. And then they reemerged, I guess, as sort of a light competitor to you guys and then has since somewhat disappeared. But, anyway, there are a lot of attempts in the near history of technology to do this kind of thing. I mean, it corresponds pretty neatly to various sci-fi paradigms as well. But what are the real prototypes that go into the inspiration for the technology as you have it today? ANDREW: Well, I'm glad you mentioned science fiction because really the way I would start this, otherwise, is, say, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we had Star Wars. And if you think back to that show, science fiction has been part of how people work in modeling, how people work for decades and more, from Jules Verne all the way through to Star Trek and the like. And so when you think about these technologies, you go back to processes and technologies that support humans collaborating. And back in Star Wars, we had a character called Boba Fett who famously has, and now you see it in the Mandalorian, a little device that comes down from his helmet in front of his eyes and acts as a rangefinder and computer screen. Actually, one of the founding engineers that were part of the design of the first RealWear device came out of designing Boba Fett's helmet. And so there is really a connection there about how people have imagined people work and how people actually work. And the actual part really started with Dr. Chris Parkinson and spending over ten years working on what is the right ergonomics. What's the right way to shift the balance, the weight, the size, and manner of the display? How do you control the windows and amount of information displayed? And how do you suppress the outside noise so that you can have a voice control system that makes it truly hands-free? So it began with this idea of all great things start with a spark of imagination. And then bringing that to a very practical point of view of solving the problem of being able to give someone information and collaboration tools hands-free in an environment where they can work safely but connect to all the value and information that's out there that we enjoy every day working as office knowledge workers with the internet. TROND: Andrew, what are some of the technical challenges you had to overcome? I can imagine; first, you have to design something that is probably bulkier than you wanted, and then eventually reducing its size is one thing. But I can imagine the algorithms apply to, I mean, there's imaging here, and there's a bunch of design techniques to make this work. And then you said ruggedized, right? I mean, this stuff cannot break. ANDREW: That's right. TROND: What are the kinds of things that went into and is going into your next-generation products? ANDREW: Well, I think that's a great question. And, of course, as new products evolve and we build on the learnings we've had from having one of the largest install base of wearable computers in the world, we can sit there and say, look, it starts with ruggedization. Because, frankly, these frontline workers, when they're wearing these devices on their hard hat, at the end of the day, that hard hat gets tossed into the back of the truck. It gets tossed in the van. It gets dropped on the ground, or in the mud, or out in the rain. So we knew right away that we had to build a device that was able to hold up to that, things that a lot of similar kinds of products that are out there just can't hold up to. So we started with this idea that it had to be extremely rugged. It had to be lightweight enough to wear all day. And our first version did that very well. The Navigator 500 has come now just as rugged but now 30% lighter. So we've learned how to make that ruggedness, even in a lighter form factor. You have to trade-off on how you see that display in bright sunlight, in dim settings. You have to think about how you operate in a noisy environment. So you can imagine if you're trying to use a voice-driven assistant, whether it's on your phone or a little microphone device in your home, you use a wake-up word, and then you have to try to talk clearly. And if you don't talk clearly, you end up having it not do what you want. That's very frustrating for a frontline worker, and it's just downright distracting and dangerous at times. So we chose to have a system and voice control that does not require a wake-up word. It's always listening. And it listens in context to what's on the screen. Literally, what we say is you say what you see. And that's about all the training you need to learn how to use the Navigator 500 effectively. And because it's so easy and intuitive, people get used to it quickly. And they go gravitate towards how it's making their work easier to get to, how it's easy to launch a collaborative meeting in any number of key applications, whether it's Microsoft Teams, Cisco, Webex on demand, whether it's Zoom, whether it's TeamViewer, any number of other partners that we have in terms of the types of collaborations. TROND: Well, I want to get into some of the use cases in a second, but just briefly, so you were founded as a company in 2016. And you're now, I guess, 140-some employees. I mean, it's fairly recent. This is not something that you've been doing since the '70s here. But on the other hand, this is also very challenging. It's not like you produce something, and all of industry immediately buys into it. So I just wanted to address that, that this particular market, even though it's always been there as this potential, there doesn't seem to have been kind of a killer application like there is in some other hardware markets. And maybe you're thinking you will be one. But I just wanted you to address this issue. Recently, the IBC the analysts came out with this prediction that they're forecasting a decline actually year over year in units sold. And they're also saying a lot of new vendors are going to come into this market, but the market is not very mature right now. What do you say to that kind of an argument? ANDREW: There's a lot to unpack there, so forgive me if I miss some of the things you brought up there. But I'd start really with RealWear and how we develop this. The Navigator 500, the product we have on the market today, is highly modular, lightweight, does all these types of things, and that's really the eighth generation. Even though we only have been around since 2016, the thinking behind this form factor has gone on for eight generations. So we've got a lot more maturity than some of the other folks who might be thinking about entering this market. We've also focused entirely from the beginning on that industrial frontline worker. It's a niche of over 2 billion people but very different from the consumer aspect and what people have gotten used to in terms of dealing with a piece of glass that they might carry in their pocket all day long. We think that A, we've kind of created this assisted reality space. We've won in so many of these industrial cases because of the way we make work safer and more productive. We've now passed applications where we've had installations over 3,500 units with a single use. We've got, in multiple cases, over 1,000 deployments. We've got 75-80 deployments of over 100 units. So we really have broken through. And what we see is whenever we talk about the assisted reality market, or we can talk more broadly, we usually only see data on augmented reality. They put all these smart glasses in sort of a category. And we're really only a portion of what they count as smart glasses. So when they start saying there's downward pressure on that market or it's not growing as fast, it goes back to something I just read in a book about builders in terms of how innovation happens. And the author described augmented reality as a solution looking for a problem. We came at it with a particular problem we were solving, and that's I think the big difference between us and a lot of how people have come into this space. We knew exactly the problem we're trying to solve. We knew that we wanted to make the human the central part of that control Nexus. And we knew that we wanted to be in a space where others would find it difficult to succeed. And so, as we've been successful here and as we continue to grow and expand these deployments and getting into larger and larger deployments, we know that others will kind of begin to look into this space and try to compete. But most of them are bridging over from that consumer side where a lot of the fundamental design trade-offs they've made do not well-support all shift use in a ruggedized environment and with the ease of use that we've designed into our products. TROND: Andrew, that makes a lot of sense to me. MID-ROLL AD: In the new book from Wiley, Augmented Lean: A Human-Centric Framework for Managing Frontline Operations, serial startup founder Dr. Natan Linder and futurist podcaster Dr. Trond Arne Undheim deliver an urgent and incisive exploration of when, how, and why to augment your workforce with technology, and how to do it in a way that scales, maintains innovation, and allows the organization to thrive. The key thing is to prioritize humans over machines. Here's what Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, says about the book: "Augmented Lean is an important puzzle piece in the fourth industrial revolution." Find out more on www.augmentedlean.com, and pick up the book in a bookstore near you. TROND: Let's talk about some of these bigger deployments. So I don't know if you can mention names, but the biggest one, I'm assuming, is in the automotive industry because they are at the forefront of a lot of automation technology. So I'm just going to make that assumption. Tell me a little bit about that deployment. What is it all about? What are they using it for? What can you tell me about what they're using it for? ANDREW: Thank you, Trond. And I'm super excited about our success in the automotive sector, not only just because of what it represents but because, as an industry, it's so central to economies across the globe. And when we think about the transformation of that industry going to electrification, that change creates opportunity for us as well. So today, with our partner TeamViewer we're in over 3,500 dealerships. Virtually every dealership in America now has a RealWear product in it. For those technicians, when they're dealing with a particularly tough problem, they're able to put on our device as simple as what I'm doing here, just putting on their Navigator, their HMT-1. And they can call and connect with a technical assistance center in Detroit and have a first-person conversation with an expert who can help walk them through that repair, whether it's pushing diagrams to them to, illustrating over the video that they're getting but helping them solve that problem faster. And why is this so significant? Well, because from the customer point of view, you're happy that your problem is being solved quicker. You've got your car back. The dealer is happy because now they've been able to invoice the customer or invoice for it in this particular case to get their warranty repair dollars back. And Ford is happy because now they've got a happy customer, and they've got a better reputation and user experience. So it's a very positively reinforced system. And so when you think about that application alone of just being able to solve problems of existing cars, now think about the introduction of all of these electric vehicles to dealers, not only with Ford but anybody else you can think of is moving into electrification. There are a lot of technicians who know how to work on a gasoline engine, but very few who maybe know how to really solve those electricals. So this is a way that these dealers can bridge the skills gap that exists between what they have and what they need to be able to do in the near future. And that skills gap, by the way, is recognized not just in the automotive industry, but you and I experience it every day when we deal with restaurant industry, service industries, trucking. You think about any kind of skilled labor situation; we know demographically we've got a big gap. And that's going to be persistent for decades. And so a tool, a knowledge transfer platform that lets people move up that learning curve more rapidly to do more meaningful work, to be more self-actualized as they do that not only helps people but it helps industry serve their customers. And so we see ourselves really at the forefront of transforming work as we know it. TROND: I'm so glad you went to the skills, and it's so exciting that that's the main application right now because I think there's a lot of discussion, obviously, in the industry across sectors about the skills gap; they say, right? That the gap...we have to train people, or they have to go to school. They have to learn. It's an endless complexity. But, I mean, you're sort of saying the opposite. You're sort of saying cancel the training, put the headset on. Some of these things, very advanced training, very advanced advice, real-time support, can happen without going aside, looking at a computer, calling someone up, talking to you, you know, see you next week with your car. And then, meanwhile, what you're doing is scratching your head for a while, trying to figure out what's wrong. But you're saying this creates a much more dynamic scenario both for delivering the service and actually for the human worker who's trying to deliver some sort of service here and is plugged into an information ecosystem. I'm just wondering, is that a very, very typical use case? And do you foresee that that is the use case for assisted reality? Or are there wildly different use cases just depending on, I mean, pick another industry. I was just imagining the medical industry, famously remote surgery, or whatever it is. Some sort of assistance during surgery is obviously the big use case. I could imagine that there's something to be done here also with RealWear. ANDREW: Yeah, I mean, this is such an exciting area and topic to talk about, education, how people are educated, how that education plays to their employment and their employability, and how they add value and have careers. And we all have talked about whether university work is preparing people for the kinds of careers there are today or whether or not we need to be considering other kinds of applications, going direct to coding or whatever else. So when you talk about frontline workers, it's absolutely a matter of specific knowledge. It's not just general knowledge that matters. It's very specific things that can happen. And so by connecting people to experts, you do two things: you get the job done right away, but you also mature that worker because they learn from those experiences. And they can use our device to actually, while they're doing the work, film it. It can be curated and then used as training videos for the next generation of work that goes with it. So I think that alone is really exciting. There are so many use cases, though, beyond this, remote experts see what I see that we've been talking about. That's really...I'd say the predominant deployment today that people think about is how do I collaborate remotely on the front line? And that's super valuable. But what becomes even more interesting is when that device becomes a solution for how you do your daily work. As an example, if you're a heavy engine manufacturer and you have an end-of-line inspection, and that inspector is using a clipboard and a checklist to look at how the engine is functioning, imagine replacing that. For one of our particular customers, that takes about 30 minutes. When they implemented workflow using hands-free Navigator, they were able to reduce that time to about 12 minutes because now the person is not wasting time going back and forth to a clipboard, or to a table, or writing things down. They're absolutely hands-free, immersed in the work, being presented the next inspection point in their display, being able to photograph it, work through it, look at a comparison, document it. And the important thing is not just that they're doing it faster; they're finding three times as many defects because they're not distracted. We know there's no such thing as actually dual processing as human beings. If we think that we can listen to a Zoom call and do emails, we're doing neither very well. We know that we're just quickly switching. And that's the same thing that a lot of frontline workers experience. When you make it immersive and hands-free with workflow, now you begin to expand the value that this technology begins to support so much greater. As we move along, the implementations and the deployments are going to move from sort of this collaboration centric to workflow centric to then being able to be with our partner, IBM. IBM has actually created something they call Inspector Wearable, where they're giving a superpower inspection to an operator who might be standing at the end of an assembly line watching a car roll by. It stops in front of them. The camera knows, because of machine learning with Watson up in the cloud, that, hey, this is what a good wheel should look like and immediately highlights the operator with a telestration that's the wrong nut. There's a scratch on this rim or whatever defect we might be talking about. So then you start actually using these technologies that are inherent with the system to be able to augment the capabilities of these workers. And that starts to get really exciting. I'll add one of the points to that is in Q4, we're going to be introducing a thermal imaging camera that can easily be just snapped on on the part of our modular solution for Navigator to be able to then snap on a thermal imaging camera and give that person predator vision to be able to see if they're walking around their plant. They can see that an electrical panel is overheating or that a motor is hot, or they can use it in any of the hundreds of thermography industrial programs that people use today. So I think part of that transition goes from just being collaboration to how we work and do workflows to actually augmenting the capabilities of the folks who are wearing these wearable computers. TROND: Yeah, and that's so interesting. And, I guess, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's where it ties into not only IBM but a bunch of your other software partners too where Tulip being one of them, where now that you're providing a device, it actually is the end client that can put that device to use in their own scenarios. And they can build, I guess, apps around it and find their own use cases that may not be the ones that are super apparent to any of those who deliver it, whether it is you delivering the hardware, IBM, you know, delivering perhaps the machine learning capabilities or some other knowledge, or it is Tulip delivering kind of a frontline software platform that's adaptable. It is actually the end client that sits there and knows exactly how they want to explore it, and then in a second iteration, change that around. Or am I getting this ecosystem wrong here? ANDREW: No, I think you're onto something there very powerful, Trond. And there are three specific dots we have to connect when we think about a sustainable solution that can be deployed broad-spread across an industrial base, and the first one is the device. The device has to be right. It has to work for the user. It has to meet the requirements of the environmental conditions they're operating in. And so the device is critical. And that's really where RealWear started our journey with that focus on the user and the user experience with our device. But the next step is really the data that comes with it. That's that part where it's both accessing data and creating data through applications that they use to feed the data lakes above and to feed back into this IoT world where there's information coming up from our equipment and being fed back to us that we can take action on. And then, ultimately, we have to connect to systems of record. And this is where Tulip, for instance, one of our partners, plays such an important role. It's that connection between all of these things that talk together, the device, the data, and these decision-making systems of record, that now when they talk and connect, it's a very sticky situation. Now you've created more than just a point solution. You've created a system solution where you've changed the way people work, and you reduce friction in interacting with those systems. And I think that that's a real clear case. I'll give an example that RealWear did in a very simple way. We recently acquired a small company called Genba AI. Their whole purpose in life was to be able to take a CMMS system, which is done for maintenance purposes, and working with eMaint, which is a division of Fortive, and be able to then say, "We can take that currently operating device that requires a worker to print out a work order, go do something, and then put it back into a computer, we can now do that with voice only." So, again, you take friction out of that interaction and allow them to do things easier but with the systems of record. And so that's why I get so excited about partners like Tulip that are making and connecting the dots between all of these disparate systems that we find in fourth-generation industrial complexes and making them work together seamlessly to give information to make better decisions by the folks who manage that work. TROND: This makes me think of something that I promise we'll get back to in a second talking about the industrial metaverse, which I think is far more interesting than the consumer metaverse. And we'll get to that because you were starting with this whole ecosystem that starts to develop now. But before we get there, I just wanted you to comment a little bit on COVID, COVID-19. Massive experience; no one is untouched by this. And there clearly was a future of work dimension to it. And people have made a lot out of that and prognosticate that we will never show up in the office again, or hybrid is here forever. What did COVID do to RealWear? ANDREW: Well, you know, it's an interesting perspective. I've been with RealWear in one capacity or another since almost the beginning, starting off as a Strategic Advisor and Chairman of the Advisory Board to, stepping in as the COO during the series A, and ultimately becoming the CEO and Chairman of the board in 2020 just as COVID was happening. So a lot of that immediate experience of RealWear was at a time when the whole world was starting to shut down and realize that we had to work differently. So I literally had one meeting with my direct staff as the new CEO before Washington State was shut down. And all the rest of the year was done via remote work. So it's not a dissimilar story to what a lot of people went through in recognizing that, hey, what used to be done in the office and was deemed important to be done in the office had to now be done elsewhere. And we came quickly with this adoption of digital tools that supported this digital transformation. And what it really did was act as a catalyst because before, you could have a conversation about the value of remote collaboration software, laptop to laptop, and that sort of thing, but nobody was thinking about the front line as much. That was a really tall connection for RealWear to make. We'd go in and talk about the value of a hands-free remote connected worker. But when you suddenly had millions of displaced workers all contributing, in some cases with productivity increasing, it now said, hey, by the way, do you want to take this great hybrid environment you just created, and do you want to extend it to those important people who don't get to stay home, who don't get to dodge the risk of being exposed to COVID, who have to go out and serve the public or serve your customers? And now, if we talk about giving those people connectivity and extending that with technology that exists today using familiar platforms...RealWear runs on an Android 11 platform. That means imaginations are limitation, not technology. All those solutions we're talking about can be done in an Android environment, can be imported very quickly, and provide a solution for those users. And so it acted as a catalyst to say that remote experts at smart glasses, as it were, were here, and it was now, and this technology was ready. And the deployments took off. It probably shortened our deployment cycle. Our sales cycle probably contracted by 70% during COVID as people began to realize this is how we can get work done. This is how we can continue to serve our customers. And so it was a huge change, not only in terms of the demands that we were able to meet thanks to the great teamwork of our whole RealWear ecosystem and supply chain partners, but it also made a difference because it changed the thought processes of leaders who now realized that creating a connected worker not only was feasible, that it had a real, recognizable ROI to it. TROND: Andrew, you're really speaking to me here because eons ago, in my Ph.D., I was working on this very visionary idea back in 1999, the early internet heydays. Again, the future of work people and tech companies were saying, "We are soon unleashing the situation where no one has to come into the office. We will sit all separately on these islands and work together." So I would say I guess what has happened now is there's a greater awareness of the need for hybrid solutions meaning some people are physically there, others are not. But the powerful thing that you are enabling and demonstrating visually and physically is that remote is one thing and that it remains challenging, but it can now, in greater extent, be done. Physical presence is still really, really powerful. But what's truly powerful is the combination of which. It is the combination of physically being there and being amplified or assisted, or eventually perhaps in a fruitful way augmented but without losing touch with reality if it can be done safely. That's really the power. So there's something really interesting about that because you can talk about it all you want. You can say, well, with all the technology in the world, you know, maybe we don't want to meet each other anymore. Yeah, fine. But there's a powerful argument there that says, well if you combine the world's biggest computer, the human being, with some secondary computers, you know, AIs and RealWears and other things that have other comparative advantages, the combination of that in a factory floor setting or perhaps in other types of knowledge work is really, really hard to beat, especially if you can get it working in a team setting. I guess as you were thinking more about this as a futuristic solution, Andrew, what kind of changes does this type of technology do to teamwork? Because we've been speaking about the simple, remote expert assistance, which is sort of like one expert calling up another expert at headquarters. And then, you move into workflow, which is powerful product workflow in industry. But what about the group collaboration possible with this kind of thing? Have you seen any scenarios where multiple of these headsets are being used contemporaneously? ANDREW: Yeah, I mean, I think there's the application of not only people using them broadly in doing their work but also then being connected to a broad number of users. There's a great video that Microsoft put out when they built Microsoft Teams to run specifically on our RealWear platform. And in it, we talk about a plant where, you know, Honeywell was certifying a very large deployment technology in a plant that normally would take 40 workers to go to this facility and physically sign off all the things that need to be done for this large automation system. But using Microsoft Teams and RealWear devices, Honeywell was able to do that completely remotely. They were able to have the folks who were on site wearing the devices going through. And all of these people who would travel to it are now wherever they happen to be, in the office, at home, somewhere else, being able to see what was happening in the factory and sign off and validate the work remotely. So it's like this world where we've taken away the borders, these artificial borders between the office, not the office, and then the front line. And I think that the biggest thing that we can take away from this conversation today, Trond, is that we all probably accept that some form of hybrid work is here to stay with office workers. We've just proven over the last two years that you can work extremely productively as a remote team. And we've also validated there are times when we just got to come together from a human point of view to accomplish even more in terms of some of the cultural and emotional intelligence and teaming things that happen. But what we've also learned is that those frontline workers don't have the luxury of being somewhere other than where the value is being created on the manufacturing line, up on that cell phone tower, or in the street laying asphalt. They all have a job to do, and they have to do it in their presence. And so when we then connect those people and give them access to all of the information that we as connected workers in a hybrid environment accept and the collaboration, we find that that is a place that really brings the dignity of that frontline work up. It inherently makes them more engaged with their customer, with the job they're doing, with their peers that they can now connect to so seamlessly, and, frankly, with the company. So I think that there's a change here that's happening that's going to be about the right degree of connectivity for the job. And we'll do more of what matters based on the work that has to be accomplished. And we're just not at a place yet where robots are going to replace carbon-based computing systems that are self-replicating. That's the way NASA described people back, I think, in the '60s is a general-purpose computer that's carbon-based and self-replicating. And really, that's going to be with us for a long time. And the dignity of those people doing valuable work and helping focus on how do we make them safer and more productive in these very challenging environments? That's changing the future of work. And it's aligning more closely with this idea of, hey, being connected makes us more effective as a company, as a tribe, as a nation, whatever it is. Connectivity becomes extremely valuable. TROND: It's a big trend. And it's about time there's some justice to it. I mean, you speak with passion about this. It's almost unbelievable to me, and it should be [laughs] unbelievable to a lot of people, that we've invested billions of dollars in office software, in kind of automation for efficiency's sake. But we haven't, until this point almost, invested, certainly not the same amount of dollars and euros and yen, in human-centric technologies that are augmenting people at the same time. Because there's nothing wrong with these other technologies or if they're benefiting office workers, but as you point out, billions of workers could be enabled, knowledge workers. They just need somewhat different tools, and they're harder to make. This is not like making a desktop software program. These things have to work in a real rugged context. Andrew, thank you so much for enlightening me on the challenges and the exciting not future anymore. Andrew, it's the exciting presence of this technology in the industrial workplace, and what that bodes for the future when I guess, people see the picture and are willing to truly roll this out to every frontline worker who needs this kind of amplification. ANDREW: Well, Trond, thank you so much for having me. And I think when your listeners think and hear about AI, I know the first thing that crosses their mind is going to be this artificial intelligence, the compute power that's being built into the cloud to solve all these technical problems. But I'd like them to also begin to think about that as augmented intelligence, the way human-centric technology can make those workers better able to do the work that has to be done by people. And we're so excited to be able to talk about this. Thank you for the invitation to explore this topic. I really appreciate the chance to share some of the things that RealWear's done in this regard. And I'd love to come back next time and expand our conversation. TROND: You have just listened to another episode of the Augmented Podcast with host Trond Arne Undheim. The topic was Augmenting Workers With Wearables. Our guest was Andrew Chrostowski, Chairman and CEO of RealWear. In this conversation, we talked about industrial wearables now and in the future. My takeaway is that industrial wearables have come a long way. There is a big need for assisted reality in many workforce scenarios across industry. There are now companies taking good products to market that are rugged enough, simple enough, and advanced enough to make work simpler for industrial workers. On the other hand, we are far away from the kind of untethered multiverse that many imagine in the future, one step at a time. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like Episode 92: Emerging Interfaces for Human Augmentation. Hopefully, you'll find something awesome in these or in other episodes, and do let us know if you do so. The Augmented Podcast is created in association with Tulip, the frontline operation platform connecting people, machines, devices, and systems in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology but also, importantly, empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring, and you can find Tulip at tulip.co. Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industrial tech is heading. You can find us on social media; we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube. Augmented — industrial conversations that matter. See you next time.

“Focus on what you can control. Focus on continuing to show up and be consistent,” shares host Dr. Andrew Fix. Today, Andrew shares the story of Jalen Hurts, quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. His resilience and perseverance through every challenge thrown at him paid off in a big way, with him getting to the Super Bowl in just his third year in the NFL.    Jalen initially wanted to go to UT Austin, but was offered a Football scholarship for Alabama and ended up there. In one of his college games, he was benched and replaced by another quarterback. Instead of sulking on the bench when the other quarterback threw his big touchdown, Jalen was the first on the field to celebrate. His college coaches saw that while Jalen was an extremely skilled athlete, he needed to work on his passing skills. Instead of giving up, he worked hard in his practices on passing and now it is paying off in the NFL. Even though Jalen spent much of the year on the bench, in the end his perseverance led him to success when he was able to step in for the other quarterback in a reverse of what had happened earlier in the season.    Sometimes resistance can actually lead to more resilience and push you further than you would have gotten on an easier path. Jalen Hurts' story shows the power of perseverance and just how far you can go when you're willing to keep trying.    Quotes • “Focus on what you can control. Focus on continuing to show up and be consistent.” (3:15-3:19 | Dr. Andrew) • “He didn't want to just run when things got hard.” (12:48-12:50 | Dr. Andrew) • “He focused in practice on his passing skills, going through his progressions, not just scrambling and running, even though he has the athletic ability to do that. And now we're seeing it pay off in the NFL.” (18:21-18:33 | Dr. Andrew) • “You do not have to take the path of least resistance in order to get where you want. Sometimes that resistance is a good thing and sometimes that resistance is going to temper you and make you more resilient.” (20:12-20:29 | Dr. Andrew)    Links   https://247sports.com/Article/Super-Bowl-2023-Jalen-Hurts-career-timeline-recruiting-rank-Alabama-Crimson-Tide-Oklahoma-Sooners-Eagles-204428716/   Connect with Physio Room:  Website | ​​https://physioroomco.com/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/physioroomco/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/physioroomco Andrew's Personal Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrewfix/  Andrew's Personal Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/andrew.fix.9/   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

What you'll learn in this episode: Why a growth mindset is the key to making effective change Andrew's tips for beating resistance and making changes stick Why lawyers need to adapt their professional approach to become effective coaches and mentors  How to choose the right executive coach What lawyers of all levels can expect to gain from coaching About Andrew Elowitt: Andrew Elowitt JD MBA PCC worked for over twenty years both in law firms and as the head of a corporate legal department before becoming a practice management consultant and professional certified coach. He is the Managing Director of New Actions LLC, a firm that specializes in talent, strategy and leadership development for law firms, businesses, and government agencies. His work focuses on the people side of legal practice: how lawyers manage, lead, thrive, change, and find satisfaction. He is regarded as an expert on the use of coaching and emotional, social and conversational intelligences in leading and managing legal organizations of all sizes. Andrew is a Fellow in the College of Law Practice Management, an International Coach Federation Professional Certified Coach, Vice Chair of the ABA Law Practice Division Publications Board, and founding member of its Lawyer Leadership and Management Board. He is the author of numerous articles and is regularly invited to conduct workshops and retreats for his clients and to present programs to bar associations. Additional Resources:  New Actions: www.newactions.com  Elowitt's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/andrewelowitt  Transcript: Coaching is a powerful tool that can help lawyers in all stages of their careers become more effective leaders, mentors, and professionals. The legal industry has embraced coaching over the last 10 years, thanks in no small part to the work of Andrew Elowitt, founder of coaching firm New Actions and author of books “The Lawyer's Guide to Professional Coaching: Leadership, Mentoring, and Effectiveness” and “Lawyers as Managers: How to Be a Champion for Your Firm and Employees.” He joined the Law Firm Marketing Catalyst Podcast to talk about how lawyers can face and overcome their resistance to change; why a growth mindset is necessary for lasting transformation; and how lawyers should choose the right coach. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Welcome to the Law Firm Marketing Catalyst Podcast. Today, my guest is Andrew Elowitt. Andrew is the managing director and founder of New Actions LLC. His firm provides high-level coaching, practice management consulting and retreat facilitation services to law firms and other professional service firms. He is a former lawyer and corporate executive. He's also an in-demand speaker. He is a very accomplished author who has been on the podcast before with one of this coauthors, Marcia Wasserman. We'll hear all about his journey today. Andrew, welcome to the program. Andrew: It's great to be back, Sharon. Sharon: It's great to have you. Thank you so much. Tell us about your journey. How did you get to where you are now? Andrew: I had been practicing law for 15 years, first in firms and then I went in-house. It wasn't something that hit me suddenly at 15 years. I realized I was a good lawyer and I was well-compensated, but my passion for the law, for legal practice, was ebbing. I wanted to do something more. I wasn't sure what it would be, but I definitely wanted to have a second act.  So, I got to that point 15 years in, like I said, and it was a matter of some awfully good luck. My best friend's weekend hiking buddy was a senior organizational development consultant who was putting on learning opportunities for an eclectic mix of people. I had known him socially, and I was introduced to him. I talked about what he was doing with the learning groups. He had a clinical psychologist, a college professor, an educational consultant, and a woman who did film editing and writing, so a lawyer in the mix made it all the more eclectic. Once I started that learning group, I was fascinated. It was like all the lights going on on the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. I went, “This is so interesting. I want to do this.” Then I started to train, and I probably read more in those first two or three years that I was training with my mentor than I had practicing law in the prior 10 years.  Then I made the transition into doing organizational development consulting. We were working with a lot of tech companies in Silicon Valley. Over time, slowly, I started to pick up more professional services firm clients, lawyers, accountants. A lot of my friends from the legal world were now in managerial positions. We'd get together and they'd say, “Andrew, we're having this problem,” and I'd give them advice. After about six months, they said, “You know what? We'll pay to have you go into the firms and help us with these things.” I went, “Oh my gosh, there's a niche here.” So, I started working with lawyers then.  At that time, which was the early 2000s, coaching in the legal world was not well understood. People thought I was a life coach. They had all kinds of misgivings, and I had to overcome that initially in making the transition. At this point, coaching is very well known and respected and utilized, not fully utilized, but utilized in the legal profession. Sharon: Do you think that's more in California? When I talk to people in other areas of the country, they don't really know what coaching is. They're going, “Coaching, what's that?”  Andrew: Yeah, occasionally I get that. I don't think there's a big geographic difference anymore. Maybe on the coasts there's more understanding of coaching. The legal community has followed the business community. The business community was a much earlier adapter and user of coaching. You certainly saw that in the tech companies. One of the reasons why was because you had a lot of younger, relatively inexperienced managers coming in, and they needed help. Brilliant people, great subject matter experts, but they didn't know how to manage, especially managing people. That's one of the reasons why there was a lot of traction for coaching in tech centers, both on the west coast and the east coast.  Law has followed that, and I think it's a matter of what the business models are for businesses versus professional services firms. As you know, partners or senior attorneys have their producer/manager dilemma. They're the ones that are on the factory floor grinding out the equipment or the product. At the same time, they need to manage, but do they have the time? There's a built-in tension there. Do I step away from billable hours to do the work? Do I step away from client development to do the managerial piece? It's a built-in dilemma. You don't see that on the business side. On the business side, with the executives I work with, which is anywhere from 40% to 60% of my practice, they are managers. Their job is to manage the people that report to them and to collaborate with the people in their organizations. It's different than in law firms. Sharon: Law firms are their own animal. One of the ways is exactly what you're talking about. You have tension. What do you tell people who come and say, “I love the business side and I like client development, but I don't like the law. I don't like to write briefs. I don't like to read them. What can I do?” Andrew: First of all, that resonates with me because that was my feeling about the law. I know I was a good technician, but I much rather would have been negotiating. I think that's one of the reasons why I was happy going in-house. I got to be the client, and I was more involved in the business affairs of my organization.  For those people, I think it's great that they have wider interests. The people who like client development, they're the future rainmakers in a firm. The people who like doing the managerial piece are really important. Now, there's a problem because they may be very good at it, but firms are still slow in rewarding and incentivizing people to take on those managerial roles.  One thing we've seen in big law, the largest law firms in North America and around the world, is the emergence of professional managers. People that may or may not be lawyers are now doing the administration and the leading of firms. There can be challenges to that. In a lot of jurisdictions, you can't have nonlawyers, people that are not certified as lawyers, being equity holders in a law firm. That makes the compensation and incentivizing issue a lot more complicated, but I think we'll see more of a continuation in that direction. It's great to have people in firms that are interested, passionate, experienced and competent in management. It makes a big difference in the bottom line. Sharon: I had forgotten how it's become so professionalized on the business side in many ways. I can't remember; it'll come to me later. I was trying to remember when I was at Arthur Andersen. There was such a big dichotomy between fee earners, non-revenue generators and revenue generators. I always felt like, “What are you talking about? We bring in this much.”  Anyway, you said you were doing training in organizational development or coaching. Andrew: It started out with organizational development. That was the focus of our learning group. It was great for me. I was with people more senior than I in terms of work experience, not necessarily in terms of age. We started with a couple of learning groups in Los Angeles. Then my mentor, Don Rossmoore, got invited to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, PARC, to lead learning groups there, so we had other professionals and executive coaches that were in-house for Xerox. We had people from Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Sun. It was the whole list of tech companies. This is back in the 1990s. It fast-tracked me to have all those people available to learn from.  Our last learning groups morphed into a consulting group that was a bit informal. Very different from law firms, where everything is very structured. This was, “Do you have the availability? O.K., we'll work together on this engagement.” I learned a tremendous amount there. We were usually dealing with larger issues throughout an organization.  What I found in doing that was I loved the strategic part, the systems part of that, but it really comes down to implementation. When it comes down to implementing the changes we're recommending, that goes back to the individual. Often the individual executives and managers were having difficulty implementing the changes they knew they needed to make, including changes in the organization, changes in the team they were leading, or changes in themselves. It's the individual. That's where I really began the transition into coaching. I didn't think I was very good at it initially. I still feel that way. I had to unlearn a lot of qualities and approaches that made me a good lawyer, but not necessarily a good coach. For example, as a lawyer, you need to be prescriptive and directed. You're there to provide a solution. A client comes to you with a problem, then, “O.K., well, this is what you should do.” That doesn't necessarily work well when you're coaching. It's better to work more collaboratively with your coach-ee to help them come to their ideas and figure out what they need to do. I had to stop myself. I had to restrain myself from jumping to solutions and saying “Here's the roadmap. Here are steps one through five. Do them.” That was me at the beginning. I had to sit on my hands and zip my mouth and go, “I have some ideas about this, but I'd like to hear from you first. What do you think would be a good approach?” It's bringing them more into the picture.  That was one of the biggest and hardest changes for me, but I found I really liked working with executives. There's something about working with people one-on-one I found very satisfying, far more satisfying than working with people one-on-one in the legal capacity. I went in that direction with executives and lawyers and a few other service professionals from time to time, but I wouldn't identify myself in those positions. That's pretty much the journey that I took. Sharon: Do you find that you have to put on a different hat when you're working with a lawyer, and then another hat when you're working with an executive? Andrew: That's a great question. It depends on the lawyer and the executive. Sometimes I have to put on a different hat with the same person from one session to the next depending on where they're at. With lawyers, Sharon, it's usually a matter of the issues we're dealing with. On the executive side, it's pretty much pure management and leadership skills. Lately with the pandemic, resilience and finding a healthy work/life integration are huge, huge issues. For the last two or three years, that has been a theme in almost all of the coaching I've done.  On the legal side, it's different. It's not pure management and leadership. At the younger levels of an attorney's career, we're more often focused on issues of productivity, time management, work-flow management. They are on the receiving end of delegation and feedback, so a lot of it is helping them learn how to receive delegation and feedback and how to help them make the people giving them the feedback and delegation even better.  It's a sweeping generalization, but I think it's true that lawyers don't have a lot of formal training in managerial skills. Some who came to the law after working in another area may have that. Some who took management classes in college or grad school, they may have some familiarity. But basically, when it comes to people management, lawyers don't know a lot. They are replicating the ways they were managed, which means they may be using managerial and leadership approaches that are two generations old, which are not great with millennials and Gen Z.  So, a lot of is helping people learn how to manage.  Now, I said I started with people at the lower level. As you get higher, then it is learning those managerial skills, delegating, giving feedback. How do you hold the people that work with you accountable? How do you collaborate with other people? As you go further up, it becomes more client-facing, so it's about developing those client relationships. Then we get into business development. I'm not a business development specialist, but I'm very good at helping attorneys that have support for client development within their firm and may even have dedicated client development people.  They know what they should be doing, but they're not doing it. It's the classical example of the knowing-doing gap. This is something that's not unique to lawyers. There's something we know we should do, but do we get around to doing it? No. That can be the case with a lot of lawyers when it comes to business development. I'm very good at helping them understand what's holding them back. Typically, it's nothing external; it's nothing in the firm or the environment. It's something in them. We acknowledge what the inner obstacle is and we work past it and through it. I have a good record of getting them into gear and getting them developing clients.  Finally, when we get to partner-level, practice area heads and executive committee members, then it's a lot about leadership and management. That's where there's the most similarity to the business side or the executive side of my practice. Sharon: Do you work with people at all different levels, depending on where they are when they contact you or the firm brings you in? How does it work? Andrew: For firms, it's virtually all levels. Large firms will bring me in. I'll work with their professional development or talent development people. Most often, they have a high-potential associate and there may be a couple of things that they're struggling with. As I think most of your listeners will know, it's expensive to find new people and onboard and train them. You don't want to lose that human capital. So, coaching can be very helpful and cost-effective in helping those people overcome the problems they may be having.  It may be something like time management. You have an associate who's starting to trend late on their deliverables. It's the work they need to get to partners. It's overly simple to say, “Oh, they need to work harder and faster,” or something like that. It may be an issue—it often is—where they're not doing a good job of pushing back against the people giving them work. There are lot of people all over the world and there are a lot of associates. They're hesitant to say no to a partner when a partner hands them a piece of work. What they end up doing is overloading themselves because they are overly optimistic about what they can achieve in a given amount of time. So, helping them learn how to push back is a way of dealing the time management issue. Sharon: I can see how it would be very hard to say, “I don't have time,” or “No,” to a partner. That must be very, very hard. Andrew: There's a skill and art to it, a lot of finesse. With some partners even more finesse. Sharon: Is there resistance? It seems like there would be. Maybe I have an old image of it, but it seems like there would be people who say, “I don't need coaching,” or “I've failed if I have coaching. Andrew: Happily, there's less and less of that. That sense of failure, I don't run into that much anymore. Usually with younger associates, they may feel like, “I should know this. This is a flaw in me. I'm not doing a good job of this.” Often, they're their most severe critics, so I make it very clear to people I coach that I'm not there to fix them. Seldom am I dealing with somebody who really has a risk of being fired from a firm. It's usually developmental. Usually, they're worth investing in, and the firm is spending money to help them become more productive and a tighter part of the firm.  The one thing you did mention is that some people think, “I don't need coaching.” I'll initially talk to a prospective coach-ee—and this works on the executive side or the legal side. I qualify them, which sounds like turning them into objects, but it's coach-speak for talking to them to see if they're coachable. Not all people are. Most are very earnestly interested. They want the help. They're stuck. They don't know what to do, but they know they need to do something. Occasionally, you'll find somebody who points the finger at everybody else. They say, “I'm not the problem. It's their problem, if you could just help them.” That's not going to be a good coach-ee.  The other thing you look for is a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. People with a fixed mindset think, “This is all the intelligence I have, all the social skills I have. What you see is what you get. I'm not going to change. There's not a lot of room, if any room, for improvement.” Why spend time, energy, money on dealing with a person or trying to help a person who is saying, “This is where I am and I'm O.K. to be there”? There's no upside potential. You want people with a growth mindset who are curious, who are saying, “I want to learn how to do this.” It's a challenge. You want people who can say, “I've really messed up doing this. I can tell you about the last three failures I've had.” That level of self-awareness and candor makes for a great coach-ee. Sharon: I'm thinking there are some similarities. Sometimes a partner will say, “I know how to do it. I did it this way. They can learn how to do it this way.” Can that change? They may be resistant, or maybe they're not coachable. What do you think about that? Andrew: There's often a degree of resistance in making changes. There's a reason why we are the way are at a given moment. Often, it's because something has worked well for us in the past, and that's fine. It makes sense to me. It got you to where you are. Why change it? You don't want to take that risk. But that mindset ignores the fact that our world is changing really quickly.  Let's use the example of working virtually. There were people that said, “No, I only want to have face-to-face meetings.” This goes for coaches and their coaching sessions as well as clients and people in their firm. But the world changed, and all of a sudden, we got a lot better working virtually.  Sometimes you do run into people who are resistant. If you're coaching them, you can start to work with them on resistance. You can say, “I can see why this would work for you. I can see the track record. I'm curious. What do you imagine might happen if you tried doing this differently?” I will lay out a scenario of what different would look like. When you start to engage them in that conversation, that's where you listen and hear what their fears are, what their expectations are, why their fears may be justified. Often, they're not. They're thinking something horrible will happen, and you can say, “There is that risk, but here's the opportunity. What do you think?” So, you can subtly, gently shift them.  Sharon: It sounds like you have opened up people who were closed when you walked in. Andrew: Yes, all the time. Sharon: I know you went to the Institute of Management Coaching. Andrew: No, my training didn't include IMC. In terms of management training, I did get my MBA from Marshall School of Business at USC. The learning group supplemented a lot of that. A lot of it was self-study, but I also took workshops and got certified in Essential Facilitation. That was something I found extraordinarily helpful and is a big part of the work I do. There was also action science, which is, again, organizational development oriented. It helped me to understand the dynamics of organizations.  The other thing in terms of training was my coaching training. One thing about coaching that is very different from lawyering is how you become a lawyer. Typically, you're doing your undergraduate work; you're going to law school; you have to take the bar exam. There are a lot of steps, a lot of certifications, that help with quality control. On the complete other side of the picture, we have coaching. You want to be a coach? Go to your stationery store or big office supply place, get cards printed up that say “coach,” and you're a coach. There's very little in the way of, at least, governmental oversight. The last I checked, which was a few years ago, I think the only state that said anything about coaching in their laws was Colorado. It said that coaching is not considered a mental health profession, so it was excluding coaching. Nothing about what you have to do to be a coach.  So, it's incumbent upon coaches to get training. There are a few organizations that sanction training and offer certification. I'm an International Coach Federation Professional Certified Coach. Boy, is that a mouthful! ICF is probably the leading and most well-known organization for certifying coaches. It's not the only one anymore, but it is an effort to raise the standards of the profession and to make sure that people who are using coaches get somebody who knows what they're doing. Sharon: Did you have to take some training and go through at least one class? Or could you just send in your money? Andrew: That's a great question. There are some organizations where basically you're paying to be on an online list of certified coaches in the area. That exists. I shake my head in dismay about that. As far as I see it, you have to go through an approved training program. Mine was Newfield Network. It was a nine-month program. I think we met three times for three or four days in person. There was a lot of virtual work, albeit this was so long ago that it was by telephone in between. It was rigorous.  There are several good coaching programs. ICF approves them. They have lists of them. What we're seeing more of, both on the executive side and in law firms, is that they want people that are certified coaches. Certification of a coach doesn't necessarily mean they're the right coach for you or they're a great coach, but it does mean they've taken it seriously enough that they put time and effort into it. They know what they should be doing. Hopefully, they're also doing it.  Sharon: You've been a lawyer and an executive, but being a lawyer, I can see how that gives you so much of an advantage. I'm thinking about how many times we've had to write a press release and weren't exactly sure—we did know, but we're not lawyers. It gives you an advantage. Andrew: Yeah, it does help. Especially in the past, it helped a great deal. If you look at studies of lawyer personalities versus the general population, lawyers typically are slower to trust other people. It makes sense. It's not a bad quality to have considering how we need to protect our clients' interests. But I found that lawyers and administrators in law firms are very happy that I have a legal background.  There was this one moment relatively early in my career where I was sitting across a managing partner's desk. He was starting to explain to me realization rates, and I held up my hand and said, “It's O.K.” He stopped and went, “Oh, that's right. You've practiced.” His shoulders sank down a couple of inches, and he sat back in his chair and said, “That's so nice that I don't have to go through all that explanation.” Understanding the context of what goes on in a law firm helps a tremendous amount. So, that is good. With that said, not everybody has to have a legal background. But I think some of the most effective coaches I know do have that background. Sharon: I can see how that would make you very effective, especially being on the other side of the desk in any capacity. If you were a lawyer at one point, you know about doing the work and getting the work. There's a difference there. I love the name of your firm, New Actions. That's what all of this is about, right? Andrew: You nailed it, Sharon. Especially when I started the firm, there was, like I said, a limited understanding of what coaching was about. Coaching can be these wonderful dialogues and interesting conversations you have with a coach-ee. What you want to do is get results—at least, that's my philosophy—and the results are helping people make changes. Where they are doing is not satisfactory for some reason. They may be unclear about a direction. They may need new skills. They may have difficultly working with people in the system of their organization or getting past that knowing-doing gap we talked about. It could be all those things, but people have to start taking new actions to get new results, better results. That's where the name came from.  Sharon: Do you think results last? Maybe they try the new actions once or twice and say, “Oh, that's different,” but then they forget. Maybe I'm personalizing it. I'm thinking you forget.  Andrew: Yeah, as I said earlier, there's a reason why people do the things the way they do. It's easy for people to revert back. That's one of the problems we find with training in a business or a professional firm environment. I'm sure you experienced that in doing trainings with lawyers and seeing they've learned all this new stuff. They'll do it for a couple of months, but without reinforcement, people do start to revert back to old behaviors. The six-month mark is my ballpark estimate. I liken it to having taken a foreign language in high school. You don't take it in college. You don't go to that foreign country. You don't use the language. You lose it. It certainly happened with me. That is a problem.  The difference with coaching is there is a reinforcement. Sometimes we do spot coaching or laser coaching. It may be three sessions. When it's really short, we're probably dealing with a specific issue or problem, but most executive coaching goes for six months. That's our target area. Often, it may extend a little bit longer than that. In the first part of the coaching, you're understanding the person, why they're doing what they're doing. Then you move into what they could be doing differently. In the middle third—and this is very rough as to the time—they're practicing the new skills, the new behaviors. They're understanding what works for them and what doesn't. The last third is really more practice. It's integrating those skills so they become second nature, almost automatic. That's where what you learn in coaching can become sticky, if I can use that term. After you finish coaching, it's going to stick with you.  I was just thinking of this while on LinkedIn. A former coach-ee of mine posted that he got a promotion, and I sent him a congratulations. I got back a comment saying, “Thank you so much for your coaching. I'm still quoting you.” I coached him about four years ago. That was the kind of gratification I was talking about earlier, the difference between being a lawyer and being a coach. I don't remember what I said or what he's quoting, but it stuck with him. He's using it, and he's in a global world now. That made me very happy. I had a big smile for the rest of that day. Sharon: As a lawyer, when should I consider getting a coach? What would I be dealing with? What should I look for? Andrew: O.K., two different questions. Often, the lawyers I'm working with, their firms have contacted me or they've been instrumental. With that said, one positive trend I've seen is that younger lawyers are saying, “I would like a coach. I need a coach.” Lately a lot of them are saying, “I'm overwhelmed. I'm stressed. I have too much work for my ability to handle it. I need to get better organized.” They're initiating that. The first step for a lawyer at any stage of their career is that you're dissatisfied with the way things are. You may have a good idea of where that's coming from. You may sense, “I want to stop doing whatever I'm doing now,” but knowing what you want to stop doing is different from knowing what you need to be doing differently. The analogy or metaphor I use is think back to being on the playground. We had monkey bars, I think they were called. Those were the horizontal bars that went across. You grab one and then you swing to the next one. What you learned early on as a kid was that if you don't have some forward momentum, you get stuck. Then you would end up letting go and dropping to the ground. In making changes, you have to be able to release the hand that's on the back bar. Sometimes in coaching, it's unlearning what you were doing. If an attorney finds themselves in that position, that's where coaching might help. It's not a panacea. It's not perfect for everybody.  I'm a good coach, but I'm not the right coach for absolutely everybody. Rapport is very important. Fit is a very important thing. Typically, when I work with somebody, I qualify them and they're qualifying me. Do they want to work with me? It's important that you feel a degree of comfort with your coach. As I've gone on, I think you can be too comfortable with a coach. You want a coach who can challenge you and be honest with you and be able to say, “No, I'm not saying this,” or “No, I don't think is working for you,” or “Hey, it sounds like there's an internal contradiction in what you're saying to me.” A lot of coaching is helping people get past their blind spots. We all have blind spots. That's not a failure. I think it's wired into us. Having another person there, especially an experienced person who can help us see what those blind spots are once you recognize you have them, that opens up a lot of possibilities for taking new actions. Sharon: You mentioned in some writings that you've helped people with difficult conversations. There are a lot of difficult conversations. Can you give us some examples in law? Andrew: There are two conversations that come to mind. One I alluded to earlier, which is pushing back on partners. Just recently I co-presented at a professional development consortium summer conference. It was a program on helping passive and timid associates learn to push back and manage up. For all the talk about law firms being flat organizations—and it's true; they do have fewer layers than a lot of business organizations—they're still pretty hierarchical. Younger attorneys can be overly deferential and very uncomfortable in saying no or pushing back. It can be a lot of different things. I don't have the bandwidth to handle work, like I mentioned earlier. How do you say that?  This can especially be a problem if you have one associate who's getting work from multiple partners. Then it's like, “Well, I'd like to do your work, but I'm slammed.” That can be a difficult conversation for an associate. In helping them, one learns that they need to do that and it's O.K. for them to do that. Actually, if they're just a passive person who's not providing that information to the people who are giving them work, they're harming the firm, harming clients potentially, and definitely harming themselves. That is something that's come up a lot lately, at least enough that the presentation we did this summer was very well received and attended. It's something that professional development managers and directors in big law are hearing from their associates. That's one area.  The second difficult conversation is around feedback. This is difficult in a way because it's not done enough. Often, in the rush of doing tasks and taking care of client matters, lawyers don't hit the pause button and spend time with the people who report to them and give them feedback on how they did. I remember this when I was a lawyer. You would finish a transaction. Rarely did we have the time to do a debrief. What worked well? What didn't? “This was great what you did. It really moved us forward. This is what you could have done differently that would have helped. Next time, maybe you can do it.” Feedback conversations are often missing.  The other thing in feedback conversations is that they can be very top-down and done with a lack of curiosity about what was going on with the associate. Those conversations can take a more collaborative tone, become more of a dialogue, be less about the problem. “Here's the problem that came up on this case. We were slow in responding to every filing the opposition brought to us. Let's get curious about why that happened. What can we, not just associates, but all of us as a team do differently?” Those sorts of conversations.  The hardest ones, Sharon, are obviously the conversations between partners in terms of strategy, direction, and compensation. Those are given to be difficult, and I do get pulled in to help. I'm a facilitator in those. I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm just trying to help people understand one another's perspective. What facts they're looking at, what their rationale is based on, trying to change it from a legal argument with pros, cons and who's going to win to more, “Let's look at the whole business of the law firm. Let's see what's good short-term and long-term for all of us, not just part of us.” Sharon: Each of these are very interesting scenarios. I give you credit for even being able to endure them, especially the first one. Covid probably changed this, but I do remember a partner saying, “What do they think evenings and weekends are for?” I always think of how partners would say, “This guy didn't make it in terms of client development. It was clear they weren't going to become a partner. I coached them out.” I always think about, “What did you say? How did you do that? Andrew: I'm not sure what coaching somebody out necessarily means. Let's stop here and think about lawyers as coaches. This is one of the things in my first book that I went into in some detail in one of the chapters. The skills for being a good lawyer, when you line them up against being a good coach, there's not a lot of overlap. Lawyers, to be good managers and leaders, they need to take off their lawyer hat at times. If they're coaching, which is a very potent, effective way of managing your people, you have to not approach it as lawyers.  For an example, as lawyers, we often ask closed-ended questions. We're getting to the facts. In coaching, open-ended questions are much better. You want to see where the conversation is going to go. You want to learn more about what's going on with the other person. In coaching, you also have to be listening very attentively, not thinking about, “What am I going to say in response to this?” Again, I'm going back to one of the shifts I had to make when I made the transition. As a lawyer, I'm thinking, “This is what I'm hearing from opposition. Now, how am I going to counter that argument? What am I going to say next? How do I want to navigate this conversation?” It's more oppositional in that way. You really do have to take off the lawyer hat at times to be effective. Sharon: Your first book, “Lawyers as Managers,” talks about that. Am I remembering that correctly? Andrew: That's the second book with Marcia Wasserman. The first one was “The Lawyer's Guide to Professional Coaching: Leadership, Mentoring, and Effectiveness.” That was, I think, back in 2012. It's available now. I think you can find used copies on Amazon. The ABA still has it as an e-book. Coaching in the last 10 years has certainly changed within law firms. At the time it was written, it was to help lawyers and firm administrators understand the potential of coaching. I'm happy to say I think that potential is increasingly realized. I wouldn't say my book is responsible for that solely. Absolutely not, but it was one piece that helped. In “Lawyers as Managers,” Marcia and I look at the role that lawyers need to take as people managers. Lawyers are generally good managers when it comes to technical aspects. You give a lawyer a spreadsheet, they're probably pretty good at dealing with it. Things like budgets. When you come to the more interpersonal stuff, like client development, lawyers aren't as good. When it comes to people management, there really was a lack of understanding.  Marcia originated the idea. We were at a meeting, and she said, “I'm looking for some materials on leadership and management for lawyers. Do you have any?” I said, “I have a few articles I've written for bar associations, but most of the stuff out there is general management and leadership. It's tailored for the executive committee, the business community.” A couple of months later, we had the same conversation. I said, “Marcia, we're going to have to write the book,” and she agreed. Little did she know what she was getting herself into. That, I will say, is the definitive book on people management for lawyers. Sharon: To end, can you tell us about one of the difficult conversations you've had? I don't know how many times I've stopped myself and just said, “I can't do it,” or “I'll go around it.” Andrew: I'll speak in general terms. Again, I'm going back to when I was first making the transition to coaching. I found a great deal of difficulty in having uncomfortable conversations where I had to deliver bad news. I had to tell somebody what they were doing was not working at all. It wasn't even neutral. It was really harming them and other people. In short, they were really messing up.  I was very gentle. I was bypassing. I was softening, diluting, sugar-coating messages that needed to be heard. I realized that I was playing nice. I didn't want to upset the other person. I didn't want to feel my own upset in doing this, so I wasn't providing value and the proof that they were making the changes they needed to make. This was maybe in my first two or three years of coaching, and I started to realize this isn't good. I was stuck and working with my coach at that time. I realized I had to let go of my personal discomfort if I was going to be more helpful to my clients, and I started to make the change. Now, I am honest. Sometimes people will say, “Can you predict or guarantee any results?” and I go, “No, absolutely not. Coaching at heart is a partnership. We're working together. I can't fix you. I can't wave a magic wand. It's on both of us. I'm here to help you, but just like I can't wear your clothes, I can't do everything for you. We're going to work together.” I do make three promises. One, I listen. I listen very attentively to what my coach-ees say and what they're not saying. The second thing is I am honest. I am very honest. I will not hold back in terms of what I'm hearing or the impact it's having on me. If a coach-ee is saying something and I'm not believing them, I'll say that. I need to. If I think something is B.S., it's the same thing. If I think they're fooling themselves, same thing. There are times where I have to deliver tough feedback.  The third promise is I'm compassionate. I don't beat people up in the process. I won't sugar-coat, dilute, or bypass. I deliver the message, but I understand they have feelings. In giving them this feedback, it may affect their emotions and their own identity as a person and a professional. I'm aware of it and sensitive to that, but I still get the message across. I figure that in the first two or three years of my coaching, I was sugar-coating. For the last 22 years, I think I have a good record of being straight with people and getting results. Sharon: Andrew, I'm sure you do get results. Thank you so much for being with us today. Andrew: It's been a pleasure. I've enjoyed it immensely. Thank you, Sharon.

Today, Justin sits down with author and researcher, Dr. Andrew Jeffrey. Alongside his historical books, Andrew has made on-air contributions for British, Dutch and French documentaries and is a former Royal Navy Reservist, and a volunteer Lifeboatman with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Andrew's latest book tells the tale of a Scottish civilian Mary Curran, who spotted the suspicious activity of Nazi spy Jessie Jordan. Mary's quick wit, alertness, and instincts broke down a long established espionage network spanning both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.Connect with Andrew:You can read the the preface to Andrew's book, A Taste For Treason, completely free here.https://spycraft101-dbb75.gr8.com/You can purchase the book here.https://www.amazon.com/Taste-Treason-Letter-That-Smashed/dp/1780277881Connect with Spycraft 101:Check out Justin's latest release, Covert Arms, here.spycraft101.comIG: @spycraft101Shop: spycraft-101.myshopify.comPatreon: Spycraft 101Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.Clandestine Laboratories Your new favorite fragrance is here. I'm partial to Novochoc.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

In This Episode: Andrew GottWorth shares his story of having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and how ERP allowed him to function again.  addresses the benefits of ERP and how ERP is for Everyone  How Exposure & response prevention can help people with OCD and for those with everyday stress and anxiety  Links To Things I Talk About: Andrew's Instagram @justrught ERP School: https://www.cbtschool.com/erp-school-lp Episode Sponsor: This episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit is brought to you by CBTschool.com.  CBTschool.com is a psychoeducation platform that provides courses and other online resources for people with anxiety, OCD, and Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors.  Go to cbtschool.com to learn more.  Spread the love! Everyone needs tools for anxiety... If you like Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast, visit YOUR ANXIETY TOOLKIT PODCAST to subscribe free and you'll never miss an episode. And if you really like Your Anxiety Toolkit, I'd appreciate you telling a friend (maybe even two). EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION  This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 308.  Welcome, everybody. I am really pumped for this episode. We have the amazing Andrew Gottworth on for an interview where he just shared so many nuggets of wisdom and hope and motivation. I think you're going to love it. But the main point we're making today is that ERP is for everyone. Everyone can benefit from facing their fears. Everyone can benefit by reducing their compulsive behaviors. Even if you don't technically call them compulsions, you too can benefit by this practice. Andrew reached out to me and he was really passionate about this. And of course, I was so on board that we jumped on a call right away and we got it in, and I'm so excited to share it with you. Thank you, Andrew, for sharing all your amazing wisdom.  Before we head into the show, let's quickly do the “I did a hard thing” for the week. This one is from Christina, and they went on to say: “Thought of you today, and you're saying, ‘It's a beautiful day to do hard things,' as I went down a water slide, terrified, as I'm well out of my comfort zone.” This is such great. They're saying that's on their holiday, the first time they've taken a holiday in quite a while. “It's difficult, but I'm doing it. I'm trying to lean into the discomfort.” This is so good. I love when people share their “I did a hard thing,” mainly, as I say before, because it doesn't have to be what's hard for everybody. It can be what's hard for you. Isn't it interesting, Christina is sharing a water slide is so terrifying? Christina, PS, I'm totally with you on that. But some of the people find it thrill-seeking. And then I'm sure the things that Christina does, she might not have anxiety, but other people who love to thrill seek find incredibly terrifying. So, please don't miss that point, guys. It is such an important thing that we don't compare. If it's terrifying, it's terrifying, and you deserve a massive yay. You did a hard thing for it. So, thank you, Christina.  Again, quickly, let me just quickly do the review of the week, and then we can set back and relax and listen to Andrew's amazing wisdom. This one is from Anonymous. Actually, this one is from Sydneytenney, and they said: “Incredible resource! What an incredible resource this podcast is! Thank you for sharing all of this information so freely… you're truly making a difference in so many lives, including mine! (I am also reading through your book and I LOVE it. You nailed it in marrying OCD with self-compassion - what a gift!!!)” So, for those of you who don't know, I wrote a book called The Self-Compassion Workbook for OCD. If you have OCD and you want a compassionate approach to ERP by all means, head over to Amazon or wherever you buy books and you can have the resource right there.  All right, let's get over to the show. Kimberley: Okay. Welcome, Andrew Gottworth. Thank you so much for being here. Andrew: Yeah. So, happy to be here. Really excited to chat with you for a bit. Kimberley: Yeah. How fun. I'm so happy you reached out and you had a message that I felt was so important to talk about. Actually, you had lots of ideas that I was so excited to talk about. Andrew: I might bring some of them up because I think, anyway, it's related to our big topic.  Erp Is For Everyone Kimberley: Yeah. But the thing that I love so much was this idea that ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) is for everyone. And so, tell me, before we get into that, a little bit about your story and where you are right up until today and why that story is important to you. Andrew: Yeah. So, there's a lot, as you work in the OCD field that it takes so long between first experiencing to getting a diagnosis. And so, with the knowledge I have now, I probably started in early childhood, elementary school. I remember racing intrusive thoughts in elementary school and being stuck on things and all that. But definitely, middle school, high school got worse and worse. So, fast forward to freshman year of college, it was really building up. I was really having a lot of issues. I didn't know what it was and really didn't know what it was for nine, 10 years later. But I was having a really hard time in college. I was depressed. I thought I was suicidal. Learning later, it's probably suicidal ideation, OCD just putting thoughts of death and jumping up a building and jumping in a lake and getting run over and all that. But I didn't want to talk about it then, I think. Andrew's Story About Having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder A bit about me, I come from Kentucky. I count Louisville, Kentucky as the Midwest. We have a bit of an identity crisis, whether we're South Midwest, East Coast, whatever. But still there, there's a culture that mental health is for “crazy people.” Of course, we don't believe that. So, my tiptoe around it was saying, “I'm having trouble focusing in class. Maybe I have ADHD.” And that's what I went in for. For some reason, that was more palatable for me to talk about that rather than talk about these thoughts of death and all that. And so, I did an intake assessment and thankfully I was somewhat honest and scored high enough on the depression scale that they were like, “Hey, you have a problem.” And so, ended up talking more. So, back in 2009, freshman year of college, I got diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, but completely missed the OCD. I think they didn't know about it. I didn't know about it. I didn't have the language to talk about it at the time because I didn't have hand washing or tapping and counting and these other things that I would maybe see on TV and stuff, which – yeah, I see you nodding – yes, I know that's a common story.  So, I entered therapy in 2009, and I've been in therapy and non-medication ever since. But I had problems. I still had problems. I would make progress for a bit. And then I just feel like I was stuck. So, I ended up being in three mental hospitals. One, when I was doing AmeriCorps up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and had a great experience there. Two, three days up there at Rogers, which I'm very grateful for. And then stabilized moving forward. So, I ended up-- I dropped outta college. I dropped out of AmeriCorps. I then went back to college and again went to a mental hospital in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I was at Western Kentucky University, stabilize, keep going. Learning lessons along the way, learning cognitive distortions and learning talk therapy, and all these.  So, let's keep fast-forwarding. Another mental hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. There's a long-term outpatient stay, Skyline Trail. I'm thankful for all of these places along the way. And I wish somewhere along the way, I knew about OCD and knew about ERP, our big topic for the day.  So, finally, gosh, I can't quite remember. I think 2018, a few years ago, still having problems. I had gone from full-time at work to part-time at work. I was just miserable. I would get into my cubicle and just constantly think, I'm not going to make it. I got to go home. I got to find an excuse to get out of here early. I just need to stay sick or I got to go home, or something came up. And so, every day I'd have an excuse until I finally was like, “I'm going to get found out that I'm not working full-time. I'm going to jump the gun, I'll voluntarily go down in part-time.”  So, that worked for a bit until OCD kept going. And then I quit. I quit again. And at that point, I was like, “I've failed. I've quit so many things – college, AmeriCorps.” I was a summer camp counselor and I left early. “Now this job. I need something.” So, I went again to find more help. And finally, thankfully, someone did an intake assessment, came back, and said, “Well, one problem is you have OCD.” I was like, “What? No, I don't have that. I don't wash my hands. I'm not a messy person. I'm not organized.” Gosh, I'm so thankful for her.  Kimberley: Yeah, I want to kiss this person.  Andrew: Yeah. But here's the duality of it. She diagnosed me with it. I am forever grateful. And she didn't do ERP. She didn't know it. So unbelievably thankful that I got that diagnosis. It changed my life. And then I spent several weeks, maybe a few months just doing talk therapy again. And I just knew something didn't feel right. But I had this new magical thing, a diagnosis. And so, my OCD latched onto OCD and researched the heck out of it. And so, I was researching, researching, researching, and really starting to find some things like, “Oh, this isn't working for me. I've been doing the same type of therapy for a decade and I'm not making progress.” Unbelievably thankful for the Louisville OCD Clinic. So, at this point in this story-- thanks for listening to the whole saga.  Kimberley: No, I've got goosebumps. Andrew: I'm unemployed, I have my diagnosis, but I'm not making any progress. So, I go, “Throw this in as well. Not really that important.” But I go to an intensive outpatient program in Louisville before the OCD clinic. And I remember this conversation of the group therapy leader saying, “I need you to commit to this.” And I said, “But I don't think this is helping me either,” because the conversation was about relationships, my relationship was great. It was about work, I wasn't working. It was about parents, my parents were great. They were supporting me financially. They're super helpful and loving and kind. It's like, “None of this is external.” I kept saying, “This is internal. I have something going on inside of me.” And she said, “Well, I want you to commit to it.” I said, “I'm sorry, I found a local OCD clinic. I'm going to try them out.”  So, I did IOP, I did 10 straight days, and it is a magical, marvelous memory of mine. I mean, as you know, the weirdest stuff, oh gosh. Some of the highlights that are quite humorous, I had a thing around blood and veins. And so, we built our hierarchy, and maybe we'll talk about this in a bit, what ERP is. So, built the hierarchy, I'm afraid of cutting my veins and bleeding out. So, let's start with a knife on the table. And then the next day, the knife in the hand. And then the next day, the knife near my veins. And then we talked about a blood draw. And then the next day, we watched a video of a nurse talking about it. Not even the actual blood draw, but her talking about it. So, of course, my SUDs are up really high. And the nurse says in the video, “Okay, you need to find the juiciest, bumpiest vein, and that's where you put it in.” And my therapist, pause the video. She said, “Perfect. Andrew, I want you to go around to every person in the office and ask to feel the juiciest, bumpiest veins.” Oh my gosh. Can you imagine?  Kimberley: The imagery and the wording together is so triggering, isn't it? Andrew: Right. She's amazing. So, she was hitting on two things for me. One, the blood and veins, and two, inconveniencing people. I hated the inconveniencing people or have awkward moments. Well, hey, it's doing all three of these things. So, I went around. And of course, it's an OCD clinic, so nobody's against it. They're like, “Sure, here you go. This one looks big. Here, let me pump it up for you.” And I'm like, “No, I don't like this.” Kimberley: Well, it's such a shift from what you had been doing.  Andrew: It's totally different. I'll speak to the rest because that's really the big part. But ERP over the next few years gave me my life back. I started working again. I worked full-time. Went part-time, then full-time. Got into a leadership position. And then for a few other reasons, my wife and I decided to make a big jump abroad. And so, moved to Berlin. And I have a full-time job here and a part-time disc golf coach trainer. And now I'm an OCD advocate and excited to work with you on that level and just looking at where my life was four or five years ago versus now. And thanks to our big-ticket item today, ERP. Kimberley: Right. Oh, my heart is so exploding for you. Andrew: Oh, thank you.  Kimberley: My goodness. I mean, it's not a wonderful story. It's actually an incredibly painful story. Andrew: You can laugh at it. I told it humorously. How Andrew Applied Erp For His Ocd Kimberley: No. But that's what I'm saying. That's what's so interesting about this, is that it's such a painful story, but how you tell it-- would I be right in saying like a degree of celebration to it? Tell me a little bit about-- you're obviously an ERP fan. Tell me a little bit about what that was like. Were you in immediately, or were you skeptical? Had you read enough articles to feel like you were trusting it? What was that like for you? Because you'd been put through the wringer. Andrew: Yeah. There's a lot to talk about, but there are a couple of key moments when you mention it. So, one, we're going through the Y-BOCS scale, the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, something like that. So, she asks me one of the questions like, how often do you feel like a compulsion to do something and you don't do the compulsion? “Oh, never. I've never stopped. But you can do that?” It was just this moment of, “What do you mean?” If it's hot, I'm going to make it colder. If it's cold, I'm going to make it warmer. If I'm uncomfortable, I'm going to fidget. I'm a problem solver. Both my parents were math teachers. I was an all-A student and talk about perfectionism and “just right” OCD maybe in this context as well. But also, I love puzzles. I love solving things. And that was me. I was a problem solver. It never occurred to me to not solve the problem. And so, that was a huge aha moment for me. And I see it now and I talk about it now to other people.  Am I Doing Erp “Just Right”? But another part of ERP with the just right is, am I doing ERP right? Am I doing it right? Am I doing ERP right? And of course, my therapist goes, “I don't know. Who knows? Maybe, maybe not.” So, depending on where you want to go with this, we can talk about that more. So, I think in general, I hated that at the time. I was like, “I know there is a right way to do it. There is. I know there is.” But now, I even told someone yesterday in our Instagram OCD circles, someone was posting about it, and I said exactly that, that I hated this suggestion at first that maybe you're doing it wrong, maybe you're not.  I will say, as we talk about ERP for everyone, someone who maybe is going to listen to this or hears us talking on Instagram and wants to do it on their own, this idea of exposing yourself to something uncomfortable and preventing the response – I don't know if this is wrong, but I will say for me, it was not helpful. In my first few weeks, I would do something like-- I was a little claustrophobic, so I maybe sit in the middle seat of a car. It's good I'm doing the exposure. I'm preventing the response by staying there. I didn't get out. But in my head, I'm doing, “Just get through this. Just get through this. I hate this. It's going to be over soon. You'll get through it and then you'll be better. Come on, just get through it. Oh, I hate this. Ugh. Ugh.” And then you get to the end and you go, “Okay, I made it through.” And of course, that didn't really prevent the response. That reinforced my dread of it. And so, I would say that's definitely a lesson as we get into that.  Kimberley: And I think that brings me to-- you bring up a couple of amazing points and I think amazing roadblocks that we have to know about ERP. So, often I have clients who'll say early in treatment, “You'd be so proud I did the exposure.” And I'd be like, “And the RP, did that get included?” So, let's talk about that. So, for you, you wanted to talk about like ERP is for everyone. So, where did that start for you? Where did that idea come from? Andrew: I would say it's been slow going over the years where-- I don't know how to say this exactly, but thinking like, there must be higher than 2% of people that have OCD because I think you have it and I think you have it and I think you have it, and noticing a lot of these things. And so, maybe they're not clinical level OCD and maybe it's just anxiety or I think, as I emailed you, just stress. But it's this-- I just wonder how many friends and family and Instagram connections have never had that aha moment that I did in my first week of IOP of, “Oh, I cannot try to solve this.” And so, I see people that I really care about and I joked with my wife, I said, “Why is it that all of our best friends are anxious people?” And I think that comes with this care and attention and that I've suffered and I don't want anyone else to suffer. And so, I see that anxiety in others. But getting back to what I see in them, maybe someone is socially anxious so they're avoiding a party or they're leaving early, or-- I mean, I did these two, avoided, left early, made sure I was in either a very large group where nobody really noticed me or I was in a one-on-one where I had more control. I don't know. So, seeing that in some other friends, leaving early, I just want to say to them, you can stay. It's worked for me. It really has. This staying, exposing yourself to the awkwardness of staying or maybe it's a little too loud or it's too warm. And then let that stress peak fall and see, well, how do you feel after 30 minutes? How do you feel after an hour? I want to scream that to my friends because it's helped me so much. I mean, you heard how awful and miserable it was for so long and how much better. I'm not cured, I think. I'm still listening to your six-part rumination series because I think that's really what I'm working on now.  So, I think those physical things, I've made tremendous improvement on blood and veins and all that. But that's also not why I quit work. I didn't quit working. I didn't quit AmeriCorps because there's so much blood everywhere. No, it's nonprofits, it's cubicles. But it was this dread that built this dread of the day, this dread of responding to an email. Am I going to respond right? Oh no, I'm going to get a phone call. Am I going to do that? Am I going to mess this up? And because I didn't have that response prevention piece, all I had was the exposure piece, then it's-- I can't remember who said it, but like, ERP without the RP is just torture. You're just exposing yourself to all these miserable things.  Kimberley: You're white-knuckling.  Andrew: Yeah. And it's-- I love research. I am a scientist by heart. I'm a Physics major and Environmental Studies master's. I love research and all this. And so, I've looked into neuroplasticity, but I also am not an expert. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I hear, you're just reinforcing that neural pathway. So, I'm going into work and I dread it. I'm saying, “I hate this. I can't wait to go home. I hate this.” So, that's reinforcing that for the next day. And tomorrow I go in and that dreads bigger, and the next day the dreads bigger.  And so, seeing that in other colleagues who are having a miserable time at work is just getting worse and worse and worse. But I also can see that there are parts they enjoy. They enjoy problem-solving, they enjoy helping students, they enjoy the camaraderie. And so, I want to help them with, well, let's see how we can do ERP with the things you don't like and so you're not building this dread day after day and you can do the things you value. Seems like you value us coworkers, seems like you value helping the students, seems like you value solving this problem, and that's meaningful. But I'm watching you get more and more deteriorated at work. And that's hard to do that in others.  ERP Is For Everyone Kimberley: Yeah. I resonate so much from a personal level and I'll share why, is I have these two young children who-- thankfully, I have a Mental Health degree and I have license, and I'm watching how anxiety is forming them. They're being formed by society and me and my husband and so forth, but I can see how anxiety is forming them. And there's so many times-- I've used the example before of both my kids separately were absolutely petrified of dogs. And they don't have OCD, but we used a hierarchy of exposure and now they can play with the neighbor's dogs. We can have dogs sitting. And it was such an important thing of like, I could have missed that and just said, “You're fine. Let's never be around dogs.” And so, it's so interesting to watch these teeny tiny little humans being formed by like, “Oh, I'm not a dog person.” You are a dog person. You're just afraid of dogs. It's two different things. Andrew: Yeah. So, it's funny that my next-door neighbor, when I was young, had a big dog. And when we're moving into the house for the very first time, very young, I don't know, four or something, it ran into the house, knocked me over, afraid of dogs for years. So, same thing. Worked my way up, had a friend with a cute little pup, and then got to a scarier one. And also, funnily to me, my next-door neighbor, two in a row, were German, and they scared me, the scary dog, German. And then the next one was the “Stay off my lawn, don't let your soccer ball come over.” So, for years, I had this like, “I'm not going to root for Germany in sports. I don't like Germany.” And then here I am living in Germany now. Kimberley: Like an association. Andrew: Yeah. So, I think fear association, anxiety association. And then I'm also playing around with this idea, maybe do a series on Instagram or maybe another talk with someone about, is it anxiety or is it society? And so, talking about things that were made to feel shame about. So, I don't know if you can see on our webcam that I have my nails painted. I would never have done this in Kentucky. So, growing up in this, I remember vividly in elementary school, I sat with my legs crossed and someone said, “That's how a girl sits. You have to sit with your foot up on your leg.” So, I did for the rest of my life. And then I wore a shirt with colorful fish on it, and they said, “Oh, you can't wear that, guys don't wear that.” So, I didn't. I stopped wearing that and all these things, whether it's about our body shape or femininity or things we enjoy that are maybe dorky or geeky. I just started playing Dungeons and Dragons. We have a campaign next week. And I remember kids getting bullied for that.  I don't know if you agree, but I see this under the umbrella of ERP. So, you're exposing yourself to this potential situation where there's shame or embarrassment, or you might get picked on. Someone might still see these on the train and go, “What are you doing with painted nails?” And I'm going to choose to do that anyway. I still get a little squirmy sometimes, but I want to. I want to do that and I want that for my friends and family too. And I see it in, like you said, in little kids. A lot of my cousins have young kids and just overhearing boys can't wear pink, or you can't be that when you grow up, or just these associations where I think you can, I think you can do that. Kimberley: I love this so much because I think you're so right in why ERP is for everyone. It's funny, I'll tell you a story and then I don't want to talk about me anymore, but-- Andrew: No, I want to hear it. That's fine. Kimberley: I had this really interesting thing happen the other day. Now I am an ERP therapist. My motto is, “It's a beautiful day to do hard things.” I talk and breathe this all day, and I have recovered from an eating disorder. But this is how I think it's so interesting how ERP can be layered too, is I consider myself fully recovered. I am in such good shape and I get triggered and I can recover pretty quick. But the other day, I didn't realize this was a compulsion that I am still maybe doing. I went to a spa, it was a gift that was given to me, and it says you don't have to wear your bathing suit right into the thing. So, I'm like, “Cool, that's fine. I'm comfortable with my body.” But I caught myself running from the bathroom down into the pool, like pretty quickly running until I was like, that still learned behavior, it's still learned avoidance from something I don't even suffer from anymore. And I think that, to speak to what you're saying, if we're really aware we can-- and I don't have OCD, I'm open about that. If all humans were really aware, they could catch avoidant behaviors we're doing all the time that reinforces fear, which is why exposure and response prevention is for everybody. Some people be like, “Oh, no, no. I don't even have anxiety.” But it's funny what you can catch in yourself that how you're running actually literally running.  Andrew: Literally running. Yeah. Kimberley: Away. So, that's why I think you've mentioned how social anxiety shows up and how exposure and response prevention is important for that. And daily fears, societal expectations, that's why I think that's so cool. It's such a cool concept. Andrew: Yeah. And so, help me since I do consider you the expert here, but I've heard clinically that ERP can be used for OCD but also eating disorder, at least our clinic in Louisville serves OCD, eating disorder, and PTSD. And so, I see the similarities there of the anxiety cycle, the OCD cycle for each of those. So, then let's say that's what ERP is proposed for. But then we also have generalized anxiety and I think we're seeing that. I've heard Jenna Overbaugh talk about that as well. It's this scale between anxiety to high anxiety to subclinical OCD, to clinical OCD, and that ERP is good for all of that. So, we have those, and then we get into stress and avoidant behavior. So, I have this stressful meeting coming up, I'll find a way to skip it. Or I have this stressful family event, I'll find a way to avoid it. And then you get into the societal stuff, you get into these. And so, I see it more and more that yes, it is for everyone. Kimberley: Yeah. No, I mean, clinically, I will say we understand it's helpful for phobias, health anxiety, social anxiety, generalized anxiety. Under the umbrella of OCD are all these other disorders and, as you said, spectrums of those disorders that it can be beneficial for. And I do think-- I hear actually a lot of other clinicians who aren't OCD specialists and so forth talking about imposter syndrome or even like how cancel culture has impacted us and how everybody's self-censoring and avoiding and procrastinating. And I keep thinking like ERP for everybody. And that's why I think like, again, even if you're not struggling with a mental illness, imposter syndrome is an avoidant. Often people go, procrastination is an avoidant behavior, a safety behavior or self-censoring is a safety behavior, or not standing up for you to a boss is an opportunity for exposure as long as of course they're in an environment that's safe for them. So, I agree with you. I think that it is so widespread an opportunity, and I think it's also-- this is my opinion, but I'm actually more interested in your opinion, is I think ERP is also a mindset. Andrew: Yeah. Kimberley: Like how you live your life. Are you a face-your-fear kind of person? Can you become that person? That's what I think, even in you, and actually, this is a question, did your identity shift? Did you think you were a person who couldn't handle stresses and now you think you are? Or what was the identity shift that you experienced once you started ERP? Andrew: Yeah. That's a good question. I've had a few identity shifts over the years. So, I mentioned-- and not to be conceited, although here I am self-censoring because I don't want to come across as conceited anyway. So, I was an all-A student in high school, and then OCD and depression hit hard. And so, throughout college, freshman year I got my first B, sophomore year I got my first C, junior year I got my first D. And so, I felt like I was crawling towards graduation. And this identity of myself as Club President, all-A student, I had to come to terms with giving up who I thought I could be. I thought I could be-- people would joke, “You'll be the mayor of this town someday, Andrew.” And I watched this slip away and I had to change that identity. And not to say that you can't ever get that back with recovery, but what I will say is through recovery, I don't have that desire to anymore. I don't have that desire to be a hundred percent. I'm a big fan of giving 80%. And mayor is too much responsibility. I don't know, maybe someday. So, that changed.  And then definitely, through that down downturn, I thought, I can't handle this. I can't handle anxiety, I can't handle stress. People are going to find out that this image I've built of myself is someone who can't handle that. So, then comes the dip coming back up, ERP, starting to learn I can maybe but also-- I love to bounce all over the place, but I think I want to return a bit to that idea that you don't have to fix it. You don't have to solve the problem. I think that was me. And that's not realizing that I was making it harder on myself, that every moment of the day I was trying to optimize, fix, problem-solve.  If you allow me another detour, I got on early to make sure the video chat was working, sound was okay. And I noticed in my walk over to my computer, all the things my brain wanted me to do. I call my brain “Dolores” after Dolores Umbridge, which is very mean to me. My wife and I, Dolores can F off. But I checked my email to make sure I had the date right. Oops, no, the checking behavior. Check the time, making sure, because we're nine hours apart right now. “Oh, did I get the time difference right?” I thought about bringing over an extra set of lights so you could see me better. I wanted to make sure I didn't eat right before we talked, so I didn't burp on camera, made sure I had my water, and it was just all these-- and if I wasn't about to meet with an OCD expert, I wouldn't have even noticed these. I wouldn't have even noticed all of these checking, fidgeting, optimizing, best practicing. But it's exhausting.  And so, I'm going to maybe flip the script and ask you, how do you think other people that are not diagnosed with OCD, that are just dealing with anxiety and stress can notice these situations in their life? How do they notice when, “Oh, I'm doing an avoidant behavior,” or “I'm fixing something to fix my anxiety that gives me temporary relief”? Because I didn't notice them for 10 years. Kimberley: Yeah. Well, I think the question speaks to me as a therapist, but also me as a human. I catch every day how generalized anxiety wants to take me and grab me away. And so, I think a huge piece of it is knowledge, of course. It's knowledge that that-- but it's a lot to do with awareness. It's so much to do with awareness. I'll give you an example, and I've spoken about this before. As soon as I'm anxious, everything I do speeds up. I start walking faster, I start typing faster, I start talking faster. And there's no amount of exposure that will, I think, prevent me from going into that immediate behavior. So, my focus is staying-- every day, I have my mindfulness book right next to me. It's like this thick, and I look at it and I go, “Okay, be aware as you go into the day.” And then I can work at catching as I start to speed up and speed type.  So, I think for the person who doesn't have OCD, it is, first, like you said, education. They need to be aware, how is this impacting my life. I think it's being aware of and catching it. And then the cool part, and this is the part I love the most about being a therapist, is I get to ask them, what do you want to do? Because you don't have to change it. I'm not doing any harm by typing fast. In fact, some might say I'm getting more done, but I don't like the way it makes me feel. And so, I get to ask myself a question, do I want to change this behavior? Is it serving me anymore? And everyone gets to ask them that solves that question. Andrew: So, I think you bring up a good point though that I'm curious if you've heard this as well. So, you said you're typing fast and you're feeling anxious and you don't like how that feels. I would say for me, and I can think of certain people in my life and also generally, they don't realize those are connected. I didn't realize that was connected. In college, I'm wanting to drop out, I drop out of AmeriCorps, I drop out of summer camp. I'm very, very anxious and miserable and I don't know why. And looking back, I see it was this constant trying to fix things and being on alert. And I got to anticipate what this is going to be or else is going to go bad. I need to prevent this or else I'm going to have an anxious conversation. I need to only wear shorts in the winter because I might get hot. Oh no, what if I get hot? And it was constantly being in this scanning fear mindset of trying to avoid, trying to prevent, trying to-- thinking I was doing all these good things. And I saw myself as a best-practice problem solver. It's still something I'm trying to now separate between Dolores and Andrew. Andrew still loves best practices. But if I spend two hours looking for a best practice when I could have done it in five minutes, then maybe that was a waste. And I didn't realize that was giving me that anxiety.  So, yeah, I guess going back to I think of family, I think of coworkers, I think of friends that I have a suspicion, I'm not a therapist, I can't diagnose and I'm not going to go up, I think you have this. But seeing that they're coming to me and saying, “I'm exhausted. I just have so much going on,” I think in their head, it's “I have a lot of work.” Kimberley: External problems. Andrew: Yeah. I may be seeing-- yeah, but there's all this tension. You're holding it in your shoulders, you're holding it here, you're typing fast and not realizing that, oh, these are connected.  Kimberley: And that's that awareness piece. It's an awareness piece so much. And it is true. I mean, I think that's the benefit of therapy. Therapists are trained to ask questions so that you can become aware of things that you weren't previously aware of. I go to therapy and sometimes even my therapist will be like, “I got a question for you.” And I'm like, “Ah, I missed that.” So, I think that that's the beauty of this.  Andrew: I had a fun conversation. I gave a mental health talk at my school and talked about anxiety in the classroom, and thanks to IOCDF for some resources there, there's a student that wanted to do a follow-up. And I thought this was very interesting and I loved the conversation, but three or four times he was like, “Well, can I read some self-help books, and then if those don't work, go to therapy?” “No, I think go to therapy right away. Big fan of therapists. I'm not a therapist. You need to talk to a therapist.” “Okay. But what if I did some podcasts and then if that didn't work, then I go to therapy?” “Nope. Therapy is great. Go to therapy now.” “Should I wait till my life gets more stressful?” “Nope. Go now.” Kimberley: Yeah, because it's that reflection and questioning. Everyone who knows me knows I love questions. They're my favorite. So, I think you're on it. So, this is so good. I also want to be respectful of your time. So, quick rounded out, why is ERP for everybody, in your opinion? Andrew: How do we put this with a nice bow on it?  Kimberley: It doesn't have to be perfect. Let's make it purposely imperfect. Andrew: Let's make it perfectly imperfect. So, we talked before about the clinical levels – OCD, eating disorder, PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder. If you have any of those, take it from me personally, take it from you, take it from the thousands of people that said, “Hey, actually, ERP is an evidence-based gold standard. We know it works, we've seen it work. It's helped us. Let it help you because we care about you and we want you to do it.” And then moving down stress from work, from life. You have a big trip coming up. There's a fun scale, home's rocky, something stress inventory. I find it very interesting that some of them are positive, outstanding personal achievement like, “Oh, that's a stressful thing?” “Yeah, It can be.” And so, noticing the stressful things in your life and saying, “Well, because of these stressful things are the things I'm avoiding, things I'm getting anxious about, can I learn to sit with that?” And I think that mindfulness piece is so important.  So, whether you're clinical, whether you're subclinical, whether you have stress in your life, whether you're just avoiding something uncomfortable, slightly uncomfortable, is that keeping you from something you want to do? Is that keeping you-- of course, we-- I don't know if people roll their eyes at people like us, “Follow your values, talk about your values.” Do you value spending time with your friends, but you're avoiding the social gathering? Sounds like ERP could help you out with that. Or you're avoiding this, you want to get a certification, but you don't think you'll get it and you don't want to spend the time? Sounds like ERP could help with that. We're in the sports field. My wife and I rock climbing, bouldering, disc golf. You value the sport, but you're embarrassed to do poorly around your friends? Sounds ERP can help with that. You value this thing. I think we have a solution. I've become almost evangelical about it. Look at this thing, it works so well. It's done so much for me. Kimberley: Love it. Okay, tell me where-- I'm going to leave it at that. Tell me where people can hear about you and get in touch with you and hear more about your work. Andrew: Mainly through Instagram at the moment. I have a perfectly imperfect Instagram name that you might have to put down. It's JustRught but with right spelled wrong. So, it's R-U-G-H-T. Kimberley: That is perfect. Andrew: Yeah. Which also perfectly was a complete accident. It was just fat thumbs typing out my new account and I said, “You know what, Andrew, leave it. This works. This works just fine.” Kimberley: Oh, it is so good. It is so good. Andrew: Yeah. So, I'm also happy I mentioned to you earlier that my wife and I have started this cool collab where I take some of her art and some of the lessons I've learned in my 12-plus years of therapy and we mix them together and try to put some lessons out there. But I'm currently an OCD advocate as well. You can find me on IOCDF's website or just reach out. But really excited to be doing this work with you. I really respect and admire your work and to get a little gushing embarrassed. When I found out that I got accepted from grassroots advocate to regular advocate, I said, “Guys, Kimberley Quinlan is at the same level as me.” I was so excited. Kimberley: You're so many levels above me. Just look at your story. That's the work. Andrew: The imposter syndrome, we talked about that earlier. Kimberley: Yeah, for sure. No, I am just overwhelmed with joy to hear your story, and thank you. How cool. Again, the reason I love the interviews is I pretty much have goosebumps the entire time. It just is so wonderful to hear the ups and the downs and the reality and the lessons. It's so beautiful. So, thank you so much. Andrew: I will add in, if you allow me a little more time, that it's not magic. We're not saying, “Oh, go do ERP for two days and you'll be great.” It's hard work. It's a good day to do hard things. I think if it was easy, we wouldn't be talking about it so much. We wouldn't talk about the nuance. So, I think go into it knowing it is work, but it is absolutely worth it. It's given me my life back, it's saved my relationships, it's helped me move overseas, given me this opportunity, and I'm just so thankful for it. Kimberley: Yeah. Oh, mic drop. Andrew: Yeah. Kimberley: Thank you again.

Episode Description:Today, Andrew is joined by Joe Garner, co-founder of property development company New Place Associates. In the episode, Joe opens up about his struggles with addiction and mental health - and how he overcome them. Andrew and Joe also also discuss what they do as entrepreneurs to counteract the challenges presented by ADHD, and why the loss of community centres has been a devastating blow for so many.Top Quotes:“Who you surround yourself with is so important. No matter what your shortcomings are your network can improve you because they improve your standards. That can make you successful.” - Andrew“You need to fail often, fail hard but fail forward.” - AndrewAbout the host:The Invisible Gift is hosted by entrepreneur and dyslexic, Andrew Kitley. With twenty years experience, Andrew Kitley has worked his way up the metaphorical and literal ladder to become Managing Director of Kitall: an engineering firm.Under Andrew's guidance, Kitall is now one of the most sought after names to complete complex engineering projects in the UK. In each episode of The Invisible Gift, Andrew seeks the advice and inspiration of a fellow trailblazer who has defied the odds to achieve the extraordinary - turning the challenge of dyslexia into a gift.About the guest:Joe Garner is an entrepreneur and founder of New Place Associates. After studying law at university and completing the Legal Practice Course - Joe was offered a graduate role combining his two passions, construction and contract law. Joe joined Knight Harwood where he spearheaded a commercial team that delivered projects in the One Hyde Park development and the Chiltern St Firehouse whilst also passing his APC to become a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. In 2018, Joe co-founded New Place Associates: a property development company that has built over 50 affordable houses since 2018. Joe has Pure-O OCD and ADHD.Resources:https://www.thisisnewplace.com/http://theinvisiblegift.com/https://www.kitall.co.uk/https://www.onefineplay.com/

“There is not a one-size-fits-all return to running program or protocol,” explains host Dr. Andrew. Post-injury, it may be challenging to figure out returning to running safely. Since there is no one way to heal, Dr. Andrew lays out different ways to become a runner once again.   If you injure yourself from running, you may believe that all you need to do is rest. Although taking a break is worthwhile, it may not prevent the problem from happening again. The most important action to take if you have an injury is to get to the root of the problem and determine what you can do to be an efficient runner for the rest of your life.    No matter what your circumstance is, you can return to running post-injury. Learn more about developing an individualized training plan, rest and recovery, and how to prevent running-related injuries in the first place.    Quotes • “There is not a one-size-fits-all return to running program or protocol. Everybody's situation is unique and different.” (3:36-3:42 | Andrew) • “Make sure you give yourself adequate time for recovery between your runs as you build your volume back up.” (7:35-7:41 | Andrew) • “You don't just run and then when something hurts you rest it. And then when it feels better, you go back to running, because then that same cycle is going to continue to happen.” (11:28-11:37 | Andrew) • “Don't wait to address something that's bothering you until it gets to the point where you're forced to address it.” (14:11-14:16 | Andrew) • “I'm in the business of trying to help people get back to the activities that they love to do and not deal with the nagging injuries that continue to plague us.” (24:04-24:12 | Andrew)     Links   Connect with Physio Room:  Website | ​​https://physioroomco.com/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/physioroomco/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/physioroomco Andrew's Personal Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrewfix/  Andrew's Personal Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/andrew.fix.9/   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

After Dark with Hosts Rob & Andrew – You either want law and order, which brings stability, or you choose chaos. Over the past 18 months, the country has witnessed massive chaos in just about every major city. From coast to coast, LA to Chicago and New York, we are witnessing a wave of crime that we have never seen before...

After Dark with Hosts Rob & Andrew – You either want law and order, which brings stability, or you choose chaos. Over the past 18 months, the country has witnessed massive chaos in just about every major city. From coast to coast, LA to Chicago and New York, we are witnessing a wave of crime that we have never seen before...

“I like to assess the person first so that I don't let the findings in an MRI cloud my judgment on what I think I'm seeing,” explains host Dr. Andrew. When people are not feeling great in their bodies, they often wonder if they should see a physical therapist or get an MRI first. With this in mind, Dr. Andrew explains how images aren't always the primary factor in physical therapists' treatment plans.    When Dr. Andrew meets with a patient, he assesses the source of their discomfort straight on, regardless of what the MRI says. Although imaging can be helpful, getting an X-ray before seeing a physical therapist is often not beneficial to patients as many doctors fail to explain the MRI. Before getting an MRI, it's important to see a physical therapist first, because healthcare should treat human beings, not images.   Tune into this week's episode of The Code for an engaging conversation on treating humans, not the diagnoses. Learn more about imaging vs. physical therapy, why Dr. Andrew doesn't always need an X-ray to assess a patient, and how unnecessary MRIs can lead to irresponsible healthcare.   Quotes • “In healthcare, we treat human beings. We shouldn't be treating images, diagnoses listed on a computer, or somebody's chart.” (1:57-2:09 | Andrew) • “I like to assess the person first so that I don't let the findings in an MRI cloud my judgment on what I think I'm seeing.” (4:07-4:14 | Andrew) • “Providers, like myself and the rest of our team here at Physio Room, are trained to assess what's going on clinically, and then pick out what we call yellow and red flags.” (6:52-7:04 | Andrew) • “You're a human being. You're not a diagnosis. You're not what an image shows. And that's how we should be treating you in the healthcare industry.” (12:59-13:08 | Andrew)   Links   Connect with Physio Room:  Website | ​​https://physioroomco.com/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/physioroomco/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/physioroomco Andrew's Personal Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrewfix/  Andrew's Personal Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/andrew.fix.9/   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“You'll never get to the outcome if you don't at least start the process,” explains host Dr. Andrew. Often we wait for conditions to be perfect before starting our goals. Today, Dr. Andrew discusses the importance of working toward whatever you desire, understanding that “the right time” may never come.   Dr. Andrew understands that obstacles are inevitable. Although it may seem like everything has to be in order to achieve your goals, whether personal or physical, you may paralyze yourself by constantly waiting. Instead, Dr. Andrew encourages you to take steps now because you can always adjust things later. By reminding yourself that it's ok to make mistakes, you can make tangible changes to gain your ideal life.   Tune into this week's episode of The Code for a direct conversation on choosing progress over perfection. Learn more about Dr. Andrew's slow start in starting The Code, building resilience, and how there is always the opportunity to grow.   Quotes • “As long as you start taking steps to move you toward where you want to go, you can course-correct and improve your process along the way.” (3:12 - 3:20 | Andrew) • “You'll never get to the outcome if you don't at least start the process.” (3:23 - 3:27 | Andrew) • “The timing, environment, or the situation may never be perfect.” (6:17 - 6:23 | Andrew) • “At the end of the day, it's okay to make mistakes. People will forgive you.” (11:15 - 11:22 | Andrew) • “Human beings, we're not perfect. And no one should expect us to be.” (11:51 - 11:56 | Andrew)   Links   Connect with Physio Room:  Website | ​​https://physioroomco.com/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/physioroomco/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/physioroomco Andrew's Personal Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrewfix/  Andrew's Personal Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/andrew.fix.9/   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

About AndrewI create free cloud certification courses and somehow still make money.Links: ExamPro Training, Inc.: https://www.exampro.co/ PolyWork: https://www.polywork.com/andrewbrown LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-wc-brown Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewbrown TranscriptAndrew: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief cloud economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Redis, the company behind the incredibly popular open source database that is not the bind DNS server. If you're tired of managing open source Redis on your own, or you're using one of the vanilla cloud caching services, these folks have you covered with the go to manage Redis service for global caching and primary database capabilities; Redis Enterprise. To learn more and deploy not only a cache but a single operational data platform for one Redis experience, visit redis.com/hero. Thats r-e-d-i-s.com/hero. And my thanks to my friends at Redis for sponsoring my ridiculous non-sense.  Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Rising Cloud, which I hadn't heard of before, but they're doing something vaguely interesting here. They are using AI, which is usually where my eyes glaze over and I lose attention, but they're using it to help developers be more efficient by reducing repetitive tasks. So, the idea being that you can run stateless things without having to worry about scaling, placement, et cetera, and the rest. They claim significant cost savings, and they're able to wind up taking what you're running as it is in AWS with no changes, and run it inside of their data centers that span multiple regions. I'm somewhat skeptical, but their customers seem to really like them, so that's one of those areas where I really have a hard time being too snarky about it because when you solve a customer's problem and they get out there in public and say, “We're solving a problem,” it's very hard to snark about that. Multus Medical, Construx.ai and Stax have seen significant results by using them. And it's worth exploring. So, if you're looking for a smarter, faster, cheaper alternative to EC2, Lambda, or batch, consider checking them out. Visit risingcloud.com/benefits. That's risingcloud.com/benefits, and be sure to tell them that I said you because watching people wince when you mention my name is one of the guilty pleasures of listening to this podcast.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. My guest today is… well, he's challenging to describe. He's the co-founder and cloud instructor at ExamPro Training, Inc. but everyone knows him better as Andrew Brown because he does so many different things in the AWS ecosystem that it's sometimes challenging—at least for me—to wind up keeping track of them all. Andrew, thanks for joining.Andrew: Hey, thanks for having me on the show, Corey.Corey: How do I even begin describing you? You're an AWS Community Hero and have been for almost two years, I believe; you've done a whole bunch of work as far as training videos; you're, I think, responsible for #100daysofcloud; you recently started showing up on my TikTok feed because I'm pretending that I am 20 years younger than I am and hanging out on TikTok with the kids, and now I feel extremely old. And obviously, you're popping up an awful lot of places.Andrew: Oh, yeah. A few other places like PolyWork, which is an alternative to LinkedIn, so that's a space that I'm starting to build up on there as well. Active in Discord, Slack channels. I'm just kind of everywhere. There's some kind of internet obsession here. My wife gets really mad and says, “Hey, maybe tone down the social media.” But I really enjoy it. So.Corey: You're one of those folks where I have this challenge of I wind up having a bunch of different AWS community Slacks and cloud community, Slacks and Discords and the past, and we DM on Twitter sometimes. And I'm constantly trying to figure out where was that conversational thread that I had with you? And tracking it down is an increasingly large search problem. I really wish that—forget the unified messaging platform. I want a unified search platform for all the different messaging channels that I'm using to talk to people.Andrew: Yeah, it's very hard to keep up with all the channels for myself there. But somehow I do seem to manage it, but just with a bit less sleep than most others.Corey: Oh, yeah. It's like trying to figure out, like, “All right, he said something really useful. What was that? Was that a Twitter DM? Was it on that Slack channel? Was it that Discord? No, it was on that brick that he threw through my window with a note tied to it. There we go.”That's always the baseline stuff of figuring out where things are. So, as I mentioned in the beginning, you are the co-founder and cloud instructor at ExamPro, which is interesting because unlike most of the community stuff that you do and are known for, you don't generally talk about that an awful lot. What's the deal there?Andrew: Yeah, I think a lot of people give me a hard time because they say, Andrew, you should really be promoting yourself more and trying to make more sales, but that's not why I'm out here doing what I'm doing. Of course, I do have a for-profit business called ExamPro, where we create cloud certification study courses for things like AWS, Azure, GCP, Terraform, Kubernetes, but you know, that money just goes to fuel what I really want to do, is just to do community activities to help people change their lives. And I just decided to do that via cloud because that's my domain expertise. At least that's what I say because I've learned up on in the last four or five years. I'm hoping that there's some kind of impact I can make doing that.Corey: I take a somewhat similar approach. I mean, at The Duckbill Group, we fixed the horrifying AWS bill, but I've always found that's not generally a problem that people tend to advertise having. On Twitter, like, “Oh, man, my AWS bill is killing me this month. I've got to do something about it,” and you check where they work, and it's like a Fortune 50. It's, yeah, that moves markets and no one talks about that.So, my approach was always, be out there, be present in the community, talk about this stuff, and the people who genuinely have billing problems will eventually find their way to me. That was always my approach because turning everything I do into a sales pitch doesn't work. It just erodes confidence, it reminds people of the used mattress salesman, and I just don't want to be that person in that community. My approach has always been if I can help someone with a 15-minute call or whatnot, yeah, let's jump on a phone call. I'm not interested in nickel-and-diming folks.Andrew: Yeah. I think that if you're out there doing a lot of hard work, and a lot of it, it becomes undeniable the value you're putting out there, and then people just will want to give you money, right? And for me, I just feel really bad about taking anybody's money, and so even when there's some kind of benefit—like my courses, I could charge for access for them, but I always feel I have to give something in terms of taking somebody's money, but I would never ask anyone to give me their money. So, it's bizarre. [laugh] so.Corey: I had a whole bunch of people a year or so after I started asking, like, “I really find your content helpful. Can I buy you a cup of coffee or something?” And it's, I don't know how to charge people a dollar figure that doesn't have a comma in it because it's easy for me to ask a company for money; that is the currency of effort, work, et cetera, that companies are accustomed to. People view money very differently, and if I ask you personally for money versus your company for money, it's a very different flow. So, my solution to it was to build the annual charity t-shirt drive, where it's, great, spend 35 bucks or whatever on a snarky t-shirt once a year for ten days and all proceeds go to benefit a nonprofit that is, sort of, assuaged that.But one of my business philosophies has always been, “Work for free before you work for cheap.” And dealing with individuals and whatnot, I do not charge them for things. It's, “Oh, can you—I need some advice in my career. Can I pay you to give me some advice?” “No, but you can jump on a Zoom call with me.” Please, the reason I exist at all is because people who didn't have any reason to did me favors, once upon a time, and I feel obligated to pay that forward.Andrew: And I appreciate, you know, there are people out there that you know, do need to charge for their time. Like—Corey: Oh. Oh, yes.Andrew: —I won't judge anybody that wants to. But you know, for me, it's just I can't do it because of the way I was raised. Like, my grandfather was very involved in the community. Like, he was recognized by the city for all of his volunteer work, and doing volunteer work was, like, mandatory for me as a kid. Like, every weekend, and so for me, it's just like, I can't imagine trying to take people's money.Which is not a great thing, but it turns out that the community is very supportive, and they will come beat you down with a stick, to give you money to make sure you keep doing what you're doing. But you know, I could be making lots of money, but it's just not my priority, so I've avoided any kind of funding so like, you know, I don't become a money-driven company, and I will see how long that lasts, but hopefully, a lot longer.Corey: I wish you well. And again, you're right; no shade to anyone who winds up charging for their time to individuals. I get it. I just always had challenges with it, so I decided not to do it. The only time I find myself begrudging people who do that are someone who picked something up six months ago and decided, oh, I'm going to build some video course on how to do this thing. The end. And charge a bunch of money for it and put myself out as an expert in that space.And you look at what the content they're putting out is, and one, it's inaccurate, which just drives me up a wall, and two, there's a lack of awareness that teaching is its own skill. In some areas, I know how to teach certain things, and in other areas, I'm a complete disaster at it. Public speaking is a great example. A lot of what I do on the public speaking stage is something that comes to me somewhat naturally. So, can you teach me to be a good public speaker? Not really, it's like, well, you gave that talk and it was bad. Could you try giving it only make it good? Like, that is not a helpful coaching statement, so I stay out of that mess.Andrew: Yeah, I mean, it's really challenging to know, if you feel like you're authority enough to put something out there. And there's been a few courses where I didn't feel like I was the most knowledgeable, but I produced those courses, and they had done extremely well. But as I was going through the course, I was just like, “Yeah, I don't know how any this stuff works, but this is my best guess translating from here.” And so you know, at least for my content, people have seen me as, like, the lens of AWS on top of other platforms, right? So, I might not know—I'm not an expert in Azure, but I've made a lot of Azure content, and I just translate that over and I talk about the frustrations around, like, using scale sets compared to AWS auto-scaling groups, and that seems to really help people get through the motions of it.I know if I pass, at least they'll pass, but by no means do I ever feel like an expert. Like, right now I'm doing, like, Kubernetes. Like, I have no idea how I'm doing it, but I have, like, help with three other people. And so I'll just be honest about it and say, “Hey, yeah, I'm learning this as well, but at least I know I passed, so you know, you can pass, too.” Whatever that's worth.Corey: Oh, yeah. Back when I was starting out, I felt like a bit of a fraud because I didn't know everything about the AWS billing system and how it worked and all the different things people can do with it, and things they can ask. And now, five years later, when the industry basically acknowledges I'm an expert, I feel like a fraud because I couldn't possibly understand everything about the AWS billing system and how it works. It's one of those things where the more you learn, the more you realize that there is yet to learn. I'm better equipped these days to find the answers to the things I need to know, but I'm still learning things every day. If I ever get to a point of complete and total understanding of a given topic, I'm wrong. You can always go deeper.Andrew: Yeah, I mean, by no means am I even an expert in AWS, though people seem to think that I am just because I have a lot of confidence in there and I produce a lot of content. But that's a lot different from making a course than implementing stuff. And I do implement stuff, but you know, it's just at the scale that I'm doing that. So, just food for thought for people there.Corey: Oh, yeah. Whatever, I implement something. It's great. In my previous engineering life, I would work on large-scale systems, so I know how a thing that works in your test environment is going to blow up in a production scale environment. And I bring those lessons, written on my bones the painful way, through outages, to the way that I build things now.But the stuff that I'm building is mostly to keep my head in the game, as opposed to solving an explicit business need. Could I theoretically build a podcast transcription system on top of Transcribe or something like that for these episodes? Yeah. But I've been paying a person to do this for many years to do it themselves; they know the terms of art, they know how this stuff works, and they're building a glossary as they go, and understanding the nuances of what I say and how I say it. And that is the better business outcome; that's the answer. And if it's production facing, I probably shouldn't be tinkering with it too much, just based upon where the—I don't want to be the bottleneck for the business functioning.Andrew: I've been spending so much time doing the same thing over and over again, but for different cloud providers, and the more I do, the less I want to go deep on these things because I just feel like I'm dumping all this information I'm going to forget, and that I have those broad strokes, and when I need to go deep dive, I have that confidence. So, I'd really prefer people were to build up confidence in saying, “Yes, I think I can do this.” As opposed to being like, “Oh, I have proof that I know every single feature in AWS Systems Manager.” Just because, like, our platform, ExamPro, like, I built it with my co-founder, and it's a quite a system. And so I'm going well, that's all I need to know.And I talk to other CTOs, and there's only so much you need to know. And so I don't know if there's, like, a shift between—or difference between, like, application development where, let's say you're doing React and using Vercel and stuff like that, where you have to have super deep knowledge for that technical stack, whereas cloud is so broad or diverse that maybe just having confidence and hypothesizing the work that you can do and seeing what the outcome is a bit different, right? Not having to prove one hundred percent that you know it inside and out on day one, but have the confidence.Corey: And there's a lot of validity to that and a lot of value to it. It's the magic word I always found in interviewing, on both sides of the interview table, has always been someone who's unsure about something start with, “I'm not sure, but if I had to guess,” and then say whatever it is you were going to say. Because if you get it right, wow, you're really good at figuring this out, and your understanding is pretty decent. If you're wrong, well, you've shown them how you think but you've also called them out because you're allowed to be wrong; you're not allowed to be authoritatively wrong. Because once that happens, I can't trust anything you say.Andrew: Yeah. In terms of, like, how do cloud certifications help you for your career path? I mean, I find that they're really well structured, and they give you a goal to work towards. So, like, passing that exam is your motivation to make sure that you complete it. Do employers care? It depends. I would say mostly no. I mean, for me, like, when I'm hiring, I actually do care about certifications because we make certification courses but—Corey: In your case, you're a very specific expression of this that is not typical.Andrew: Yeah. And there are some, like, cases where, like, if you work for a larger cloud consultancy, you're expected to have a professional certification so that customers feel secure in your ability to execute. But it's not like they were trying to hire you with that requirement, right? And so I hope that people realize that and that they look at showing that practical skills, by building up cloud projects. And so that's usually a strong pairing I'll have, which is like, “Great. Get the certifications to help you just have a structured journey, and then do a Cloud project to prove that you can do what you say you can do.”Corey: One area where I've seen certifications act as an interesting proxy for knowledge is when you have a company that has 5000 folks who work in IT in varying ways, and, “All right. We're doing a big old cloud migration.” The certification program, in many respects, seems to act as a bit of a proxy for gauging where people are on upskilling, how much they have to learn, where they are in that journey. And at that scale, it begins to make some sense to me. Where do you stand on that?Andrew: Yeah. I mean, it's hard because it really depends on how those paths are built. So, when you look at the AWS certification roadmap, they have the Certified Cloud Practitioner, they have three associates, two professionals, and a bunch of specialties. And I think that you might think, “Well, oh, solutions architect must be very popular.” But I think that's because AWS decided to make the most popular, the most generic one called that, and so you might think that's what's most popular.But what they probably should have done is renamed that Solution Architect to be a Cloud Engineer because very few people become Solutions Architect. Like that's more… if there's Junior Solutions Architect, I don't know where they are, but Solutions Architect is more of, like, a senior role where you have strong communications, pre-sales, obviously, the role is going to vary based on what companies decide a Solution Architect is—Corey: Oh, absolutely take a solutions architect, give him a crash course in finance, and we call them a cloud economist.Andrew: Sure. You just add modifiers there, and they're something else. And so I really think that they should have named that one as the cloud engineer, and they should have extracted it out as its own tier. So, you'd have the Fundamental, the Certified Cloud Practitioner, then the Cloud Engineer, and then you could say, “Look, now you could do developer or the sysops.” And so you're creating this path where you have a better trajectory to see where people really want to go.But the problem is, a lot of people come in and they just do the solutions architect, and then they don't even touch the other two because they say, well, I got an associate, so I'll move on the next one. So, I think there's some structuring there that comes into play. You look at Azure, they've really, really caught up to AWS, and may I might even say surpass them in terms of the quality and the way they market them and how they construct their certifications. There's things I don't like about them, but they have, like, all these fundamental certifications. Like, you have Azure Fundamentals, Data Fundamentals, AI Fundamentals, there's a Security Fundamentals.And to me, that's a lot more valuable than going over to an associate. And so I did all those, and you know, I still think, like, should I go translate those over for AWS because you have to wait for a specialty before you pick up security. And they say, like, it's intertwined with all the certifications, but, really isn't. Like—and I feel like that would be a lot better for AWS. But that's just my personal opinion. So.Corey: My experience with AWS certifications has been somewhat minimal. I got the Cloud Practitioner a few years ago, under the working theory of I wanted to get into the certified lounge at some of the events because sometimes I needed to charge things and grab a cup of coffee. I viewed it as a lounge pass with a really strange entrance questionnaire. And in my case, yeah, I passed it relatively easily; if not, I would have some questions about how much I actually know about these things. As I recall, I got one question wrong because I was honest, instead of going by the book answer for, “How long does it take to restore an RDS database from a snapshot?”I've had some edge cases there that give the wrong answer, except that's what happened. And then I wound up having that expire and lapse. And okay, now I'll do it—it was in beta at the time, but I got the sysops associate cert to go with it. And that had a whole bunch of trivia thrown into it, like, “Which of these is the proper syntax for this thing?” And that's the kind of question that's always bothered me because when I'm trying to figure things like that out, I have entire internet at my fingertips. Understanding the exact syntax, or command-line option, or flag that needs to do a thing is a five-second Google search away in most cases. But measuring for people's ability to memorize and retain that has always struck me as a relatively poor proxy for knowledge.Andrew: It's hard across the board. Like Azure, AWS, GCP, they all have different approaches—like, Terraform, all of them, they're all different. And you know, when you go to interview process, you have to kind of extract where the value is. And I would think that the majority of the industry, you know, don't have best practices when hiring, there's, like, a superficial—AWS is like, “Oh, if you do well, in STAR program format, you must speak a communicator.” Like, well, I'm dyslexic, so that stuff is not easy for me, and I will never do well in that.So like, a lot of companies hinge on those kinds of components. And I mean, I'm sure it doesn't matter; if you have a certain scale, you're going to have attrition. There's no perfect system. But when you look at these certifications, and you say, “Well, how much do they match up with the job?” Well, they don't, right? It's just Jeopardy.But you know, I still think there's value for yourself in terms of being able to internalize it. I still think that does prove that you have done something. But taking the AWS certification is not the same as taking Andrew Brown's course. So, like, my certified cloud practitioner was built after I did GCP, Oracle Cloud, Azure Fundamentals, a bunch of other Azure fundamental certifications, cloud-native stuff, and then I brought it over because was missing, right? So like, if you went through my course, and that I had a qualifier, then I could attest to say, like, you are of this skill level, right?But it really depends on what that testament is and whether somebody even cares about what my opinion of, like, your skillset is. But I can't imagine like, when you have a security incident, there's going to be a pop-up that shows you multiple-choice answer to remediate the security incident. Now, we might get there at some point, right, with all the cloud automation, but we're not there yet.Corey: It's been sort of thing we've been chasing and never quite get there. I wish. I hope I live to see it truly I do. My belief is also that the value of a certification changes depending upon what career stage someone is at. Regardless of what level you are at, a hiring manager or a company is looking for more or less a piece of paper that attests that they're to solve the problem that they are hiring to solve.And entry-level, that is often a degree or a certification or something like that in the space that shows you have at least the baseline fundamentals slash know how to learn things. After a few years, I feel like that starts to shift into okay, you've worked in various places solving similar problems on your resume that the type that we have—because the most valuable thing you can hear when you ask someone, “How would we solve this problem?” Is, “Well, the last time I solved it, here's what we learned.” Great. That's experience. There's no compression algorithm for experience? Yes, there is: Hiring people with experience.Then, at some level, you wind up at the very far side of people who are late-career in many cases where the piece of paper that shows that they know what they're doing is have you tried googling their name and looking at the Wikipedia article that spits out, how they built fundamental parts of a system like that. I think that certifications are one of those things that bias for early-career folks. And of course, partners when there are other business reasons to get it. But as people grow in seniority, I feel like the need for those begins to fall off. Do you agree? Disagree? You're much closer to this industry in that aspect of it than I am.Andrew: The more senior you are, and if you have big names under your resume there, no one's going to care if you have certification, right? When I was looking to switch careers—I used to have a consultancy, and I was just tired of building another failed startup for somebody that was willing to pay me. And I'm like—I was not very nice about it. I was like, “Your startup's not going to work out. You really shouldn't be building this.” And they still give me the money and it would fail, and I'd move on to the next one. It was very frustrating.So, closed up shop on that. And I said, “Okay, I got to reenter the market.” I don't have a computer science degree, I don't have big names on my resume, and Toronto is a very competitive market. And so I was feeling friction because people were not valuing my projects. I had, like, full-stack projects, I would show them.And they said, “No, no. Just do these, like, CompSci algorithms and stuff like that.” And so I went, “Okay, well, I really don't want to be doing that. I don't want to spend all my time learning algorithms just so I can get a job to prove that I already have the knowledge I have.” And so I saw a big opportunity in cloud, and I thought certifications would be the proof to say, “I can do these things.”And when I actually ended up going for the interviews, I didn't even have certifications and I was getting those opportunities because the certifications helped me prove it, but nobody cared about the certifications, even then, and that was, like, 2017. But not to say, like, they didn't help me, but it wasn't the fact that people went, “Oh, you have a certification. We'll get you this job.”Corey: Yeah. When I'm talking to consulting clients, I've never once been asked, “Well, do you have the certifications?” Or, “Are you an AWS partner?” In my case, no, neither of those things. The reason that we know what we're doing is because we've done this before. It's the expertise approach.I question whether that would still be true if we were saying, “Oh, yeah, and we're going to drop a dozen engineers on who are going to build things out of your environment.” “Well, are they certified?” is a logical question to ask when you're bringing in an external service provider? Or is this just a bunch of people you found somewhere on Upwork or whatnot, and you're throwing them at it with no quality control? Like, what is the baseline level experience? That's a fair question. People are putting big levels of trust when they bring people in.Andrew: I mean, I could see that as a factor of some clients caring, just because like, when I used to work in startups, I knew customers where it's like their second startup, and they're flush with a lot of money, and they're deciding who they want to partner with, and they're literally looking at what level of SSL certificate they purchased, right? Like now, obviously, they're all free and they're very easy to get to get; there was one point where you had different tiers—as if you would know—and they would look and they would say—Corey: Extended validation certs attend your browser bar green. Remember those?Andrew: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just like that, and they're like, “We should partner with them because they were able to afford that and we know, like…” whatever, whatever, right? So, you know, there is that kind of thought process for people at an executive level. I'm not saying it's widespread, but I've seen it.When you talk to people that are in cloud consultancy, like solutions architects, they always tell me they're driven to go get those professional certifications [unintelligible 00:22:19] their customers matter. I don't know if the customers care or not, but they seem to think so. So, I don't know if it's just more driven by those people because it's an expectation because everyone else has it, or it's like a package of things, like, you know, like the green bar in the certifications, SOC 2 compliance, things like that, that kind of wrap it up and say, “Okay, as a package, this looks really good.” So, more of an expectation, but not necessarily matters, it's just superficial; I'm not sure.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle HeatWave is a new high-performance accelerator for the Oracle MySQL Database Service. Although I insist on calling it “my squirrel.” While MySQL has long been the worlds most popular open source database, shifting from transacting to analytics required way too much overhead and, ya know, work. With HeatWave you can run your OLTP and OLAP, don't ask me to ever say those acronyms again, workloads directly from your MySQL database and eliminate the time consuming data movement and integration work, while also performing 1100X faster than Amazon Aurora, and 2.5X faster than Amazon Redshift, at a third of the cost. My thanks again to Oracle Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: You've been building out certifications for multiple cloud providers, so I'm curious to get your take on something that Forrest Brazeal, who's now head of content over at Google Cloud, has been talking about lately, the idea that as an engineer is advised to learn more than one cloud provider; even if you have one as a primary, learning how another one works makes you a better engineer. Now, setting aside entirely the idea that well, yeah, if I worked at Google, I probably be saying something fairly similar.Andrew: Yeah.Corey: Do you think there's validity to the idea that most people should be broad across multiple providers, or do you think specialization on one is the right path?Andrew: Sure. Just to contextualize for our listeners, Google Cloud is highly, highly promoting multi-cloud workloads, and one of their flagship products is—well, they say it's a flagship product—is Anthos. And they put a lot of money—I don't know that was subsidized, but they put a lot of money in it because they really want to push multi-cloud, right? And so when we say Forrest works in Google Cloud, it should be no surprise that he's promoting it.But I don't work for Google, and I can tell you, like, learning multi-cloud is, like, way more valuable than just staying in one vertical. It just opened my eyes. When I went from AWS to Azure, it was just like, “Oh, I'm missing out on so much in the industry.” And it really just made me such a more well-rounded person. And I went over to Google Cloud, and it was just like… because you're learning the same thing in different variations, and then you're also poly-filling for things that you will never touch.Or like, I shouldn't say you never touch, but you would never touch if you just stayed in that vertical when you're learning. So, in the industry, Azure Active Directory is, like, widespread, but if you just stayed in your little AWS box, you're not going to notice it on that learning path, right? And so a lot of times, I tell people, “Go get your CLF-C01 and then go get your AZ-900 or AZ-104.” Again, I don't care if people go and sit the exams. I want them to go learn the content because it is a large eye-opener.A lot of people are against multi-cloud from a learning perspective because say, it's too much to learn all at the same time. But a lot of people I don't think have actually gone across the cloud, right? So, they're sitting from their chair, only staying in one vertical saying, “Well, you can't learn them all at the same time.” And I'm going, “I see a way that you could teach them all at the same time.” And I might be the first person that will do it.Corey: And the principles do convey as well. It's, “Oh, well I know how SNS works on AWS, so I would never be able to understand how Google Pub/Sub works.” Those are functionally identical; I don't know that is actually true. It's just different to interface points and different guarantees, but fine. You at least understand the part that it plays.I've built things out on Google Cloud somewhat recently, and for me, every time I do, it's a refreshing eye-opener to oh, this is what developer experience in the cloud could be. And for a lot of customers, it is. But staying too far within the bounds of one ecosystem does lend itself to a loss of perspective, if you're not careful. I agree with that.Andrew: Yeah. Well, I mean, just the paint more of a picture of differences, like, Google Cloud has a lot about digital transformation. They just updated their—I'm not happy that they changed it, but I'm fine that they did that, but they updated their Google Digital Cloud Leader Exam Guide this month, and it like is one hundred percent all about digital transformation. So, they love talking about digital transformation, and those kind of concepts there. They are really good at defining migration strategies, like, at a high level.Over to Azure, they have their own cloud adoption framework, and it's so detailed, in terms of, like, execution, where you go over to AWS and they have, like, the worst cloud adoption framework. It's just the laziest thing I've ever seen produced in my life compared to out of all the providers in that space. I didn't know about zero-trust model until I start using Azure because Azure has Active Directory, and you can do risk-based policy procedures over there. So, you know, like, if you don't go over to these places, you're not going to get covered other places, so you're just going to be missing information till you get the job and, you know, that job has that information requiring you to know it.Corey: I would say that for someone early career—and I don't know where this falls on the list of career advice ranging from, “That is genius,” to, “Okay, Boomer,” but I would argue that figuring out what companies in your geographic area, or the companies that you have connections with what they're using for a cloud provider, I would bias for learning one enough to get hired there and from there, letting what you learn next be dictated by the environment you find yourself in. Because especially larger companies, there's always something that lives in a different provider. My default worst practice is multi-cloud. And I don't say that because multi-cloud doesn't exist, and I'm not saying it because it's a bad idea, but this idea of one workload—to me—that runs across multiple providers is generally a challenge. What I see a lot more, done intelligently, is, “Okay, we're going to use this provider for some things, this other provider for other things, and this third provider for yet more things.” And every company does that.If not, there's something very strange going on. Even Amazon uses—if not Office 365, at least exchange to run their email systems instead of Amazon WorkMail because—Andrew: Yeah.Corey: Let's be serious. That tells me a lot. But I don't generally find myself in a scenario where I want to build this application that is anything more than Hello World, where I want it to run seamlessly and flawlessly across two different cloud providers. That's an awful lot of work that I struggle to identify significant value for most workloads.Andrew: I don't want to think about securing, like, multiple workloads, and that's I think a lot of friction for a lot of companies are ingress-egress costs, which I'm sure you might have some knowledge on there about the ingress-egress costs across providers.Corey: Oh, a little bit, yeah.Andrew: A little bit, probably.Corey: Oh, throwing data between clouds is always expensive.Andrew: Sure. So, I mean, like, I call multi-cloud using multiple providers, but not in tandem. Cross-cloud is when you want to use something like Anthos or Azure Arc or something like that where you extend your data plane or control pla—whatever the plane is, whatever plane across all the providers. But you know, in practice, I don't think many people are doing cross-cloud; they're doing multi-cloud, like, “I use AWS to run my primary workloads, and then I use Microsoft Office Suite, and so we happen to use Azure Active Directory, or, you know, run particular VM machines, like Windows machines for our accounting.” You know?So, it's a mixed bag, but I do think that using more than one thing is becoming more popular just because you want to use the best in breed no matter where you are. So like, I love BigQuery. BigQuery is amazing. So, like, I ingest a lot of our data from, you know, third-party services right into that. I could be doing that in Redshift, which is expensive; I could be doing that in Azure Synapse, which is also expensive. I mean, there's a serverless thing. I don't really get serverless. So, I think that, you know, people are doing multi-cloud.Corey: Yeah. I would agree. I tend to do things like that myself, and whenever I see it generally makes sense. This is my general guidance. When I talk to individuals who say, “Well, we're running multi-cloud like this.” And my response is, “Great. You're probably right.”Because I'm talking in the general sense, someone building something out on day one where they don't know, like, “Everyone's saying multi-cloud. Should I do that?” No, I don't believe you should. Now, if your company has done that intentionally, rather than by accident, there's almost certainly a reason and context that I do not have. “Well, we have to run our SaaS application in multiple cloud providers because that's where our customers are.” “Yeah, you should probably do that.” But your marketing, your billing systems, your back-end reconciliation stuff generally does not live across all of those providers. It lives in one. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. I think we're in violent agreement here.Andrew: Oh, sure, yeah. I mean, Kubernetes obviously is becoming very popular because people believe that they'll have a lot more mobility, Whereas when you use all the different managed—and I'm still learning Kubernetes myself from the next certification I have coming out, like, study course—but, you know, like, those managed services have all different kind of kinks that are completely different. And so, you know, it's not going to be a smooth process. And you're still leveraging, like, for key things like your database, you're not going to be running that in Kubernetes Cluster. You're going to be using a managed service.And so, those have their own kind of expectations in terms of configuration. So, I don't know, it's tricky to say what to do, but I think that, you know, if you have a need for it, and you don't have a security concern—like, usually it's security or cost, right, for multi-cloud.Corey: For me, at least, the lock-in has always been twofold that people don't talk about. More—less lock-in than buy-in. One is the security model where IAM is super fraught and challenging and tricky, and trying to map a security model to multiple providers is super hard. Then on top of that, you also have the buy-in story of a bunch of engineers who are very good at one cloud provider, and that skill set is not in less demand now than it was a year ago. So okay, you're going to start over and learn a new cloud provider is often something that a lot of engineers won't want to countenance.If your team is dead set against it, there's going to be some friction there and there's going to be a challenge. I mean, for me at least, to say that someone knows a cloud provider is not the naive approach of, “Oh yeah, they know how it works across the board.” They know how it breaks. For me, one of the most valuable reasons to run something on AWS is I know what a failure mode looks like, I know how it degrades, I know how to find out what's going on when I see that degradation. That to me is a very hard barrier to overcome. Alternately, it's entirely possible that I'm just old.Andrew: Oh, I think we're starting to see some wins all over the place in terms of being able to learn one thing and bring it other places, like OpenTelemetry, which I believe is a cloud-native Kubernetes… CNCF. I can't remember what it stands for. It's like Linux Foundation, but for cloud-native. And so OpenTelemetry is just a standardized way of handling your logs, metrics, and traces, right? And so maybe CloudWatch will be the 1.0 of observability in AWS, and then maybe OpenTelemetry will become more of the standard, right, and so maybe we might see more managed services like Prometheus and Grafa—well, obviously, AWS has a managed Prometheus, but other things like that. So, maybe some of those things will melt away. But yeah, it's hard to say what approach to take.Corey: Yeah, I'm wondering, on some level, whether what the things we're talking about today, how well that's going to map forward. Because the industry is constantly changing. The guidance I would give about should you be in cloud five years ago would have been a nuanced, “Mmm, depends. Maybe for yes, maybe for no. Here's the story.” It's a lot less hedge-y and a lot less edge case-y these days when I answer that question. So, I wonder in five years from now when we look back at this podcast episode, how well this discussion about what the future looks like, and certifications, and multi-cloud, how well that's going to reflect?Andrew: Well, when we look at, like, Kubernetes or Web3, we're just seeing kind of like the standardized boilerplate way of doing a bunch of things, right, all over the place. This distributed way of, like, having this generic API across the board. And how well that will take, I have no idea, but we do see a large split between, like, serverless and cloud-natives. So, it's like, what direction? Or we'll just have both? Probably just have both, right?Corey: [Like that 00:33:08]. I hope so. It's been a wild industry ride, and I'm really curious to see what changes as we wind up continuing to grow. But we'll see. That's the nice thing about this is, worst case, if oh, turns out that we were wrong on this whole cloud thing, and everyone starts exodusing back to data centers, well, okay. That's the nice thing about being a small company. It doesn't take either of us that long to address the reality we see in the industry.Andrew: Well, that or these cloud service providers are just going to get better at offering those services within carrier hotels, or data centers, or on your on-premise under your desk, right? So… I don't know, we'll see. It's hard to say what the future will be, but I do believe that cloud is sticking around in one form or another. And it basically is, like, an essential skill or table stakes for anybody that's in the industry. I mean, of course, not everywhere, but like, mostly, I would say. So.Corey: Andrew, I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more about your opinions, how you view these things, et cetera. Where can they find you?Andrew: You know, I think the best place to find me right now is Twitter. So, if you go to twitter.com/andrewbrown—all lowercase, no spaces, no underscores, no hyphens—you'll find me there. I'm so surprised I was able to get that handle. It's like the only place where I have my handle.Corey: And we will of course put links to that in the [show notes 00:34:25]. Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.Andrew: Well, thanks for having me on the show.Corey: Andrew Brown, co-founder and cloud instructor at ExamPro Training and so much more. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment telling me that I do not understand certifications at all because you're an accountant, and certifications matter more in that industry.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

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

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.

This is the sweeps week episode, the epic crossover episode, the mega episode! We have a very special episode as Chris, and Steph teamed up with the hosts of three other podcasts to bring you one giant, mega Ruby episode! In this episode, you'll hear from the hosts of Remote Ruby, Rails with Jason, and Brittany Martin, the host of the Ruby on Rails podcast. They cover the origins of their shows, their experiences as hosts, and why podcasting is so important in keeping the Ruby community thriving. Remote Ruby (https://remoteruby.transistor.fm/) Rails with Jason (https://www.codewithjason.com/rails-with-jason-podcast/) Ruby on Rails podcast (https://5by5.tv/rubyonrails) *Transcript: * STEPH: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. This week we have a very special episode as Chris, and I teamed up with the hosts of three other podcasts to bring you one giant, mega Ruby episode! In this episode, you'll hear from the hosts of Remote Ruby, Rails with Jason, and Brittany Martin, the host of the Ruby on Rails podcast. This episode was so much fun to record, and we have Brittany Martin to thank as she organized and moderated this special event. So without further ado, here is the mega Ruby episode. BRITTANY: Welcome, everyone. We have a whopping seven podcast hosts recording today. So, listeners, you are in for a treat. This is the sweeps week episode, the epic crossover episode, the mega episode. We're going to need our editor to insert some epic sound effects right here. Announcer: The mega episode. BRITTANY: So let's go ahead and introduce the crew today. I am Brittany Martin from the Ruby on Rails Podcast. CHRIS OLIVER: I'm Chris Oliver from Remote Ruby. JASON CHARNES: I am Jason Charnes, also from Remote Ruby. ANDREW: I am Andrew Mason, also from Remote Ruby. STEPH: And I'm Stephanie Viccari from The Bike Shed. CHRIS TOOMEY: I'm Chris Toomey from The Bike Shed. JASON SWETT: And I'm Jason Swett from Rails with Jason BRITTANY: Today, we're going to cover the origins of our shows, our experiences as hosts, and why podcasting is so important in keeping the Ruby community thriving. Now I know personally, I really enjoy the origin story behind Remote Ruby. So, Chris Oliver, could you kick us off with that? CHRIS OLIVER: Yeah, we can go back maybe to the first time that Jason and I met, which was Jason emailed me out of the blue and was like, "Hey, are you going to be at RailsConf?" And I wasn't planning on it, but it was over in Kansas City, like four hours away from me. I was like, "No, I'm not going, but I'll meet you." So we went and drove over there and met and have been friends ever since. And Jason had the idea of doing an online meetup. And I'll let him explain where that started and turned into the Remote Ruby Podcast. JASON CHARNES: I thought it would be a good idea. There weren't any online meetups. This was pre even the idea of shutting down the world for a pandemic. And maybe I was just too soon because I got Chris to speak at the first one, and we had 40, 50 people. I spoke at the next one, and there were 20. And by the third one, there were five of us. So it wasn't really a super sustainable thing for me to do. So Chris and I got together and said, "What if we tried podcasting?" Chris, you hadn't really done your own podcast at that point, had you? CHRIS OLIVER: No, I don't think so. And you and I were just having calls every week or whatever just to hang out and chat. And we were like, why don't we just record that and publish that as a podcast? And here we are. JASON CHARNES: Yeah. So we've been doing that. I think we started in 2018, so yeah, three years in June, and somehow people still keep listening to us talk but probably because we brought along our friend, Andrew. ANDREW: Wow. Okay. No, that's not true. But yes, I was a guest on Remote Ruby before I joined as a host. And not to get into the details, but I was on another podcast, and something went down, and I no longer was on that podcast anymore. And Chris and Jason were like, "Do you want to come hang out with us?" And I was like, [chuckles] "Absolutely." So I started doing that, and at the same time, I also started The Ruby Blend with Nate Hopkins and Ron Cooke. And so we were doing that for a while until that had to tragically shut down. But I'm still here with Jason and Chris. I guess I should also mention that Jason Swett gave me my start in podcasting a month or two after I started full-time as a Rails developer on a now archived show called The Ruby Testing Podcast. BRITTANY: Which is the perfect segue because Jason Swett was also my first opportunity to guest on a podcast. So I was already hosting, but I hadn't guested, which is kind of the opposite order. So, Jason, do you want to tell the origin of where Rails with Jason came from? JASON SWETT: Sure. I'd been involved with podcasting since around 2016. I somehow ended up on the Ruby Rogues Podcast and was on there for maybe a year or so. And then, somehow, I got the idea that I could start my own podcast. And as an experiment, I started a podcast that I called The Ruby Testing Podcast, which I figured was sufficiently narrow that I could get some traction. And to my surprise, guests actually said yes to coming on the show. And also, to my surprise, people actually listened to the podcast. That gave me some confidence. So maybe a year later, I broadened, and I changed from The Ruby Testing Podcast to just Rails with Jason. And I have been doing that for something like two years. BRITTANY: That's fantastic. I want to move to probably our most experienced podcast veteran, and that would be Chris Toomey. When I was learning how to code, I was listening to Giant Robots and then was excited for the transition that The Bike Shed took. Chris, I would love to hear the story of what it was like taking over a really popular podcast and really maintaining the drive behind it. CHRIS TOOMEY: So, as you mentioned, I had done a little bit of podcasting. It was about a six-month run where I was a co-host on Giant Robots, which was the original podcast of thoughtbot. And that was more in the business and sort of how do we build a software company? So at that point, I was running Upcase, which was the subscription learning platform that thoughtbot had. So I was talking about the inner details of the business, and the marketing tests, and A/B tests and things like that that I was doing. And every week, I was sharing my MRR rather transparently in that thoughtbot way that we do. I did that for, like I said, about six months and then took a while off. And in the background, thoughtbot had started up a new podcast called The Bike Shed, and that started October 31st of 2014. So The Bike Shed has been going for a long time now, and that was hosted by Derek Pryor and Sage Griffin. And they ran that for a number of years. I think it was about four years that the two of them worked collectively on that. But at some point, they both moved on from thoughtbot, and there was an opportunity for new hosts to step in. So I took over in August of 2018. So I've been doing this now for about three years. And so, for that first year, I took the opportunity to do a tour around thoughtbot and talk with many different individuals from the company and a handful of people external to thoughtbot. But I knew that there were so many great voices and ideas and points of view within thoughtbot that I really wanted to spend some time getting to know more of them personally and then sharing that as much as I could with the existing audience that The Bike Shed had. But secretly, all along, I was looking for a person to hang out with all the more so, and Steph was the person that was a perfect choice for that. And so, for the past two years, Steph and I have been chatting. And I will send it over to Steph to share a little bit of her point of view on that transition. But from my point of view, it's been fantastic. STEPH: I still remember exactly when we had the conversation. You were running The Bike Shed and doing an incredible job of just having weekly guests. And then you'd reached out to me and said, "Hey, would you be interested in doing an episode?" And I thought, "No, absolutely not. I can't podcast. I can't begin to do this." So you continued to convince me. And finally, you said something that resonated where you were like, "Well, we can just show up and record, and we don't have to publish. We can just see how it goes." I was like, that's a perfect safety net. I'm into that. So I showed up, and I think the first episode that you and I recorded ended up being titled What I Believe About Software. And it was a lot of fun. I realized I have a lot of things to say. And after that, I think it was another month or so. You continued interviewing more guests, but then you reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to be a co-host. And at that point, I was super jazzed about it, and it's been wonderful. It's been a roller coaster. I have learned a ton. BRITTANY: I'm kind of seeing a pattern here where over the last three years, it seems like Remote Ruby came into place, Bike Shed transitioned. That's when I took over as host of the 5by5 Ruby on Rails Podcast. We're going to call it the golden era of the Ruby Podcasts. But for me, I probably have the longest-running podcast. It was started back in 2009 on the 5by5 Network, but it's gone through many different hosts. And so, I took over roughly about three and a half years ago as the main host from Kyle Daigle. And then, just a couple of weeks ago, as I announced on my podcast, we took the podcast independent. We are now just The Ruby on Rails Podcast. And I'm starting to change the model where I'm bringing in more co-hosts. So that way, I can get those regular updates that I really appreciate on all these podcasts we have featured on the show today. I am curious. I want to talk about how we put together the episodes and plan out how everything's going to go down. I know for me, I'm currently a mix of interviews and co-host episodes. So I'd love to hear from Andrew. How do you plan out what Remote Ruby is going to be week to week? ANDREW: This is an easy question because we don't at all. We don't plan. We do have some guests that come on, and sometimes, they may get their Zoom link the day of; who's to say? But we really don't have a plan. We don't talk about what we're going to talk about beforehand. We all just kind of show up, and I think we have that kind of relationship and flow where it always just works. JASON CHARNES: And I think part of that came from actually how Chris and I started the show because we were trying to make it as low stress as possible because we knew if we put a lot of pressure on it, we would stop doing it. Our first episodes were YouTube live links that we just shared out. And then in our next episodes, we were like, oh, we should start using some software to do this. And then eventually, we got an editor, but that same core of let's just keep it fun for better or for worse, I think, also affects our planning. BRITTANY: I've been lucky in the sense that I have guests sit on all three of the episodes. And I do want to give a compliment to The Bike Shed because it is very well run and very well planned. So I want to kick it over to Steph as to how putting together a Bike Shed episode looks. STEPH: Oh, thank you. That's wonderful to hear, by the way. That's wonderful feedback. So we predominantly use Trello to organize our thoughts. So we will have...and as we're capturing community questions that are coming in, so we will capture those on the board. And then, we will have a ticket that represents a particular episode. Usually, on the day of, we'll share some thoughts about, hey, these are the broad topics I'm interested in. And there's usually some hot takes in there, which is fun because the other person doesn't know exactly what's coming, and we can have real honest conversations on the mic. And then, every so often, we'll grab a beer, and we'll go through that list. And we'll chat through what sparks joy. What do we want to talk about? What would we like to respond to? And that's pretty much how we organize everything that we discuss. Chris, is there anything I've left out that you want to add? CHRIS TOOMEY: I think that mostly covers it. We do occasionally have interviews just as a way to keep some variety and different things going on, but primarily it's the sort of what's new in your world? And I find that those episodes are the ones that I think are the most fun to record for Steph and I when it really feels like a sincere conversation. I've recently taken to a segment I call good idea, terrible idea where I'm like, "I'm actually considering this, Steph. What do you think?" And live on-air, I'm getting Steph's feedback, and generally, we're very aligned. But every once in a while, she's like, "That's a terrible idea. Don't do that." And I love those, and I love being able to share that because I think it's really easy to talk about, you know, here's a list of things that are true about software, but really, everything depends. And it's all the nuance. And so, being able to share some of our more pointed experiences and then share the conversation that we have over those is hopefully very valuable to the audience but definitely the thing that I enjoy the most. BRITTANY: So kicking it over to Jason Swett, I really enjoy the interviews that you do. I'm curious, how do you select guests? JASON SWETT: Well, thanks. Selecting guests is tough. I had Peter Cooper on the other day, and I was telling him that I feel like every guest that I get on the show is the last guest I'm ever going to be able to get on the show. But somehow, I keep finding more and more guests. Early on, it was relatively easy because I would just find book authors, or if somebody else does podcasting, then it's fairly obvious okay, you're the kind of person who does podcasts, so I'll invite you. But it's a little bit tough because I don't want to invite people who aren't into podcasting and would be really thrown, although sometimes that happens. But let's see, sometimes I send an email out to my email list, and I'm like, "Hey, I'm looking for guests for my show." Sometimes I just tweet that I'm looking for guests. And sometimes I get some really interesting guests from surprising places. But at least in the start, it was looking for those authors and podcasters and the people who are known in the Ruby community. BRITTANY: I know for me, I strive to have at least 50% of my interviews be with people who've never been on a podcast before. And so that usually involves the top of the episode they're dry heaving into a paper bag. And I'm explaining to them, don't worry, about halfway through the episode, you're not going to remember that you're recording anymore. It'll be fine. And you know what? It's always fine. And so, I do love hearing from a wide variety from the Ruby community just because it really proves just how big it is. So I'm curious, could you host the podcast that you are currently hosting now if you weren't actively working in Ruby? ANDREW: I could because Chris is the one that has all the clout. I could sit back and make dumb jokes and memes during it. And as long as Chris is there, I think we'll be good. JASON SWETT: Yeah, I think I could because a good majority of what we talk about on Rails with Jason actually has nothing to do with Rails, so that would probably actually work out. STEPH: I think yes is the answer. While a lot of our conversations do focus around Ruby and Rails, we often use a lot of other languages and tools, and those are a lot of fun to talk about. So I think I would just talk about whatever new tool or language that I'm using. So I think yes, it would just take a slightly different form but would still be at its core the same where we're still talking about our daily experiments and adventures in web development. BRITTANY: I agree with you, Steph. I will say that it seems like Chris Oliver and Chris Toomey have an endless well of things to talk about just based on what they do day-to-day. CHRIS TOOMEY: I try and go on adventures and then share as much as I can. But to resonate with what Steph was saying there, we try to make the show more generally about software, and it happens to be that it's grounded in Ruby on Rails because the vast majority of the work that we do is in that. And I just recently started a new project. I was given the choice of I could pick any technology I want, and it remains the technology that makes sense to me to be the foundation of an application that I want to maintain for years and years and years. So, on the one hand, I think I could definitely talk about software more generally. I think I'm doing that most of the time. But at the other end of the spectrum, but it's always going to be based on Ruby because I haven't found a thing elsewhere in the world that is better than that. CHRIS OLIVER: I completely agree with that. I probably have a little bit of a unique thing doing a screencast every week. A lot of those are based on I'm building some project, and I need to build some random feature like Stripe Checkout. And that's a good one to do a screencast on and implement in the project. And then, we can also talk about the decisions along the way on the podcast, which is kind of nice. BRITTANY: Yeah, it feels like every week, Chris Oliver is like, yeah, I've created a new open-source library, and I'm fabulous. [laughs] Let me listen to this. CHRIS OLIVER: Too many of them. I'm currently rewriting a lot of the Pay gem. And it's just one of those things where you make a bunch of decisions. And then, if you make an open-source project, people use it in all these different ways that you didn't intend yourself, and so you want to support that. But then you need to rearchitect things in it. It is a lot of learning as you go, which is always a lot of fun. So those I think are really good topics to talk about when you're building something like that. I'm always amazed by how does the Rails core team make these decisions on what should be in the framework and what shouldn't? And what do they want to maintain, and how do they keep it flexible but yet have some sort of rule with how they allow things to be implemented and whatever? It is a very hard job to have. So I get my little taste of that with some open source but not on their level. BRITTANY: I always thought that you had a good contrast to Jason Charnes because Jason works at Podia. And while you do get to work on a lot of really cool technologies, I feel like the stakes are much higher. So you can't just rip out StimulusReflex and put in something else just because it sounds cool that week. And I love how you talk through the pluses and minuses to making a big change within the Podia codebase. JASON CHARNES: Yeah. I haven't really thought about that contrast before, but it's helpful for me even just to talk it out with two other people once a week, and luckily, pretty cool about me just coming on and talking about hey, these are the steps we took to get here. Yeah, it's a cool dynamic. BRITTANY: Steph, have you ever had a client from thoughtbot say, "Hey, were you talking about me?" whenever you're talking about your current client? STEPH: That is one of my fears at times that it will happen [chuckles] although we stay very positive on the show. That's something that's very important to us. There's enough negativity in the world. So we really want to focus on our positive experiences through the week. But there have been times where I'm speaking about some of the challenges or things that we are running into that yes, the engineering team is listening to the podcast, and they're like, "Oh, I heard you talk about this feature that we're working on or this particular challenge." And that's really cool because they get that behind-the-scenes peek to see how Chris and I are chatting about that. But yet they know enough, and they know which project that I'm on that they recognize exactly the technology and the feature that I'm trying to describe. So that has certainly happened, and it can be a lot of fun when it does. BRITTANY: Andrew, how have things changed for you now that you're not working at CodeFund, which was very much like an open-source thing? People could see what you were actively working on. And now you're working for a company where it's closed source. And so, you might not be able to reveal as much as what you're working on at any given point. ANDREW: It's different, but I don't think it's been an issue per se. I'm not like, oh crap, I let that slip, and I didn't mean to. That's not really an issue. I really cherish the time I had at CodeFund. When I think back on my experiences, that was my favorite time just because I was able to do that thing that a lot of people really want to do. I was working as an open-source developer. We were spiking StimulusReflex; that's when we were building up StimulusReflex and trying to build up the community. I joined Ruby. We started the Ruby Blend, and things were going good before a dramatic turn. But in terms of the closed and open source, it hasn't been that big of a shift just because instead of talking about what I'm doing at work, like, I still talk about it, but I speak about it in more general terms. But I also then kind of freed up to talk a lot more about the dumb crap I do on the nights and weekends. BRITTANY: So the majority of our podcasts either have the word Ruby or Rails in it, but I think we've all agreed that a lot of the topics that we're talking about are not specific to that community. But in a lot of ways, I feel that having podcasts in our community is how we're going to keep our community thriving. So I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts around...is there a way to market our podcasts so that other developers will listen to it? I get really excited when I get listener feedback saying, "Hey, I used to do Rails maybe ten years ago, but I've been listening to your podcast, and I really enjoy such and such episode." How can we make our podcasts accessible to the general software community as opposed to just Ruby? CHRIS TOOMEY: One thing that stands out to me about Ruby and Rails is because it's full-stack, because of its foundations, it tends to be holistically about web development. And so, whereas I look at React projects or other JavaScript or different things that are going on, I see a more narrow focus in those frameworks. And with Ruby and Rails, what I love about it is that it's really about building software. It's about building products that are valuable, that deliver value to end-users. And so that being the core of it, that's the story that constantly brings me back to Ruby and Rails. And it's the story that I want to keep telling as much as possible. And it's the thing that keeps me engaged with this community. And so, I think podcasts are a great way to continue to literally tell those sorts of stories and really celebrate that aspect of Ruby and Rails and why it remains such a productive way to build software. CHRIS OLIVER: I think related to that, one of the things that we should talk about more is the draw of Rails was look at what you can do with one person or two people. And I feel like we went down the JavaScript route, and now you need two teams of people, and you end up building bigger stuff. And Hotwire has kind of been like, hey, here's a reminder of what you can do with a very small team. And I think that resonates a lot with a lot of people building startups and trying to build side projects and everything. And that's one that is Rails-related. But there's a ton of people building Hotwire stuff in Laravel too. And they're all very similar. So I think at a certain point, yeah, we're talking about maybe Rails specifically, but you can apply all those things to different frameworks and just different tools. STEPH: I'd like to add on and extend that because I wholeheartedly agree with what both Chris Toomey and Chris Oliver just said. And in addition, a lot of the conversations that we have on The Bike Shed are focused on Ruby and Rails, but then we will extract that particular concept to the point that it really doesn't matter which language that you're using or which framework that you're using. We're talking more about the high level. What's your process? What are you thinking as you're going through and implementing this? And based on more of our recent conversations, you'd think we're more of a Postgres podcast, how much we hype up Postgres, and the things that we can do at the database layer. So I think there are a lot of ways that we can start with a foundation of this is how we're doing it with Ruby and Rails, but then talk about it at a higher level where then it's really applicable for everybody. JASON CHARNES: If talking about one technology defined your podcast, we might as well be a Laravel podcast because we talk about that framework more than we do Rails sometimes. [chuckles] BRITTANY: So that begs the question: is there room for more Ruby and Rails podcasts outside of who's currently on this call? JASON SWETT: I think so. And I mentioned that Peter Cooper was on our podcast a little bit ago. That's something he and I actually talked about in that episode. And I shared the anecdote about how in the new America's founding, Ben Franklin's brother or something like that wanted to start a newspaper. And somebody told him what a dumb idea that was because America already had a newspaper. And people might say, oh, there are already however many Rails podcasts. There are a small handful. But I think there could be ten more Rails podcasts or even more than that potentially because I think people have an appetite for help, and camaraderie, and stuff like that. And I don't think we've nearly bottomed out in terms of satisfying people's appetite for that stuff. JASON CHARNES: Yeah, I agree with that because a lot of times, when I listen to podcasts, the more you get to know someone, that connection becomes what it's about for me. So, yeah, there's plenty of room. I mean, brand it as Ruby and tell me about your life as a developer I'll listen. CHRIS TOOMEY: I'll also throw it out there that the way you framed the question is like, is there room for it? But one of the wonderful things about podcasting as a medium is it is distributed. It's not centralized. You can start up a podcast any day. And I will say, as someone who inherited a popular podcast or a sufficiently popular podcast and just got to run with that, it has been such a wonderful way to get my voice out there and provide opportunities that I want that for everyone. I want everyone to have this ability to speak about the way they think about software and then find like-minded people and be able to build even many communities within the larger community of Ruby on Rails. So beyond the question of, Is there room?” which I definitely think there is, I so wholeheartedly support anyone pursuing this for their own reason. ANDREW: Yeah, I think to bring it all the way back, one thing that Chris, Jason, and I care a lot about is Ruby as a community. The community aspects of Ruby are very important to us. And we're actively trying to build that up and bring in new people and bringing people onto their first podcast. We say it all the time, like, hey, if you want to come on the show, let us know. We've had a few people even, you know, recognition in jobs from that. So to us, that is the payoff of doing the show. Maybe our show is the first time someone learns about Rails. And that to me is the possibility in the future. It's like, how can we market our shows that markets Ruby as well so that this meme of Ruby being dead finally goes away because it's not. I think it's growing. And I think the more and more we push as people who are public figures in this space that we want to bring more people on, that this is a space for everyone, I think that's just kind of the ethos that all of us have, and I think that's great. BRITTANY: So I'm curious, on a lighter note, has anyone had the funny experience of realizing that you're not just podcasting into the ether and that what you're saying and what you're doing matters? For me, I have definitely been at conferences where people will run up and hug me just because they heard my voice, and they are like, "I didn't know what you looked like, but I have your voice memorized," and it just blew my mind. And I was like, "Thank you so much for being such a loyal listener." And it just proves that people are out there listening. ANDREW: I tend to talk very openly about mental health. And I very often fail in public and talk about it. And I've had a lot of people message me and email me over the past three or four years and be like, "Hey, thank you for talking about this thing that's not actually about Ruby. It's not actually about coding, but it's just about being a developer." And those are the emails that make me feel the best. Like, someone who's out there like, "Yeah, I also feel like this. Thank you for speaking about it." JASON SWETT: I had a surreal experience. I went to India in 2019 through RubyConf India. And this guy wanted to take a selfie with me because apparently, he considered me famous. So that was cool and pretty surprising because I definitely didn't consider myself famous. STEPH: My favorite has been when we receive listener questions because it lets us know that people are listening and engaged in the conversation, and I essentially feel like they're part of the conversation. They will write in to us and share anecdotes, or they'll share answers to some of the questions that Chris and I will pose on the show. But every now and then, we will also get an email from someone that says, "Hey, just thanks for doing the show. I listen, and it's great," and that's all they share. And that, to me, is just the most wonderful thing that I could receive. BRITTANY: Some of my favorite episodes from all of your shows is when we get an inside peek into what people are doing, like Andrew moving. Jason Charnes, you putting together a conference was actually some of my favorite episodes of yours, which was really early on, which proves that I'm a Remote Ruby OG. But I loved hearing the inside track as to what organizing a conference is because I think we need to get more content out there about how difficult but how rewarding it is. JASON CHARNES: Yeah, I hadn't really thought about...that was around those times we hadn't done... It feels like it's been ages since we did Southeast Ruby, but Chris and I actually podcasted from the last Southeast Ruby we did. We just met in a room and recorded. But when I started that conference, I didn't have a lot to go on. So I'm more than glad to share because the reason I started is there were no Ruby conferences around me, plus I'm an open book. So for better or for worse, maybe that's good podcast material. JASON SWETT: Side note, it's one of the most enjoyable conferences I've ever been to. JASON CHARNES: Thank you. BRITTANY: I completely agree. I miss the regional conferences. JASON CHARNES: We lucked out because we were already planning on skipping 2020 because we were tired, and then COVID hit. I just sat on the couch one night and looked at Shannon (she helps me put on the conference), and I was like, "Wow, that would have been terrible. That would have come out of our own bank account, all that loss if we would have already booked somewhere." So phew, when it chills out, we'll try it again. BRITTANY: So let's talk about legacies. I know that some of us have taken over from popular podcasts. Some of us have grown podcasts from the very beginning. So I'm curious, do you ever put any thought into the legacy of your podcast, whether or not you're going to stay with it to the end? Would you eventually pass it off? Do you think about whether or not it's your responsibility to the community to make sure that it keeps going? JASON SWETT: I, for one, plan to have my consciousness uploaded to a supercomputer upon my death so that the Rails with Jason Podcast can continue on indefinitely. JASON CHARNES: Did you recently watch Upload the TV show? JASON SWETT: No, I've never heard of it. JASON CHARNES: Oh, man. That's a whole nother conversation. BRITTANY: Consider that homework, Jason. JASON CHARNES: It's an interesting question because we started ours out of nothing. I wonder, is one of us going to get tired and just quit? I'd like to think that if one of us did, it would keep going because there are plenty of cool people who could hang out and talk Ruby on it. But it's interesting, something that's casually crossed my mind, but I think we're good. I think we're still doing it unless Chris and Andrew have a surprise for me today. ANDREW: Surprise! [chuckles] I've thought about it a few times, specifically because I'm the youngest member of Remote Ruby. What if Jason and Chris just left, and they were like, "Oh, it's all yours now." Could I keep running it by myself? I think honestly, the answer is I would probably still do it just to have an excuse to talk to someone. I enjoy it. It's almost like a hobby at this point. I don't feel any obligation to create it. To me, it's really like an excuse to hang out with two friends, and other good stuff comes from that. But at the end of the day, I cherish that time just us hanging out a lot. CHRIS OLIVER: Yeah. I think that's why we sometimes joke about it being a weekly therapy session where we are just hanging out and chatting about stuff. It's nice to be able to talk about programming things at a high level with people you don't work with that have totally different perspectives and stuff. So yeah, if Jason and Andrew dropped off, I would still try to have conversations with random people I know and keep it going just because it's enjoyable. I would hope that we would be able to keep it going and have other people on there. BRITTANY: I'd love to hear from someone from The Bike Shed. STEPH: I have thought about it. I've thought about it partially from the perspective that Chris Toomey brought up earlier in regards to being on a podcast is an incredible platform. You get to share your opinions, and people listen to you. And they know you, and it's really wonderful marketing. So I have thought about it from the perspective of I want other people to have access to this really wonderful podcast that we put on each week. So part of me is very aware of that and thinking about how more people can have similar exposures. So a sort of a similar event occurred when Chris was moving on from thoughtbot and pursuing other interests. And at that moment, I just thought, oh my goodness, Chris brought me on as co-host, and now I'm here alone, and I don't know what I'm going to do. And I just panicked. I truly don't think I even considered other options. I was like, well, okay, it's over now. This was fun. And then it turned out where Chris was going to stay with the show. So things have just gone on swimmingly, and it's been wonderful. But similar to what someone was saying earlier around when you start listening to a podcast, and you really develop that relationship and you go back to that podcast because you really enjoy hearing from those people and their adventures, it's very similar for me where The Bike Shed is very much the conversations and chats with Chris. So I think if we were to move on, it would be whenever Chris and I decided to move on and give the reins over to somebody else. I don't know if Chris fully agrees, so this will be interesting to find out. [chuckles] CHRIS TOOMEY: I agree with that. Honestly, I'm honored to have continued on in the podcast after having moved on from thoughtbot because, in a very real way, the show is thoughtbot's channel to talk about things. I was at thoughtbot for seven years. I think I live and breathe that truth. And to me, that's what maybe has made sense for me to continue on. But I really do feel a responsibility to keep the show in good shape so that someday someone else gets to inherit this thing because I was so happy to get handed it. It was such a wonderful thing. And it has been such a joy to do for these past three years. But at some point, I do presume that we will move on. And at that point, I do hope that other people pick up the mantle. And thankfully, thoughtbot as an organization, there is a group of individuals that I'm sure there will be someone wonderful that gets to step in, but I'm in no hurry to do that. And, Steph, I hope you're not either. So we'll continue the conversations for now, but I definitely do want to keep this thing alive if for no other reason than I got handed it. I don't feel like I could let it drop on the floor. That doesn't feel right. BRITTANY: Well, I think on that warm, fuzzy feeling, we should wrap up. So let's go through everybody and just tell the listeners where they can listen to your podcasts and follow you. I am Brittany Martin, @BrittJMartin on Twitter. And you can listen to the Ruby on Rails Podcast at therubyonrailspodcast.com. JASON CHARNES: So I'm Jason. We are Remote Ruby. I am @jmcharnes on Twitter. And I'll let the others tell you where you can find them. ANDREW: You can find me everywhere @andrewmcodes. And if you email me, there's a really good chance you're never going to see a response because my email is a disaster. Please don't email me, but you can contact me anywhere else. CHRIS OLIVER: I'm Chris Oliver, and you can find me on Twitter @excid3 or at Go Rails, and of course, gorails.com. And you can find the Remote Ruby podcast at remoteruby.com. CHRIS TOOMEY: I am @christoomey on Twitter. The Bike Shed is @bikeshed on Twitter. We are at bikeshed.fm for a URL. I'm pretty sure www works, but I'm going to go check that real quick after because I want to make sure that's true. And yeah, that's me. And I'll send it over to Steph for her part. STEPH: I am on Twitter @SViccari, and I post programming stuff, usually pictures of cute goats, cute dogs, that kind of content if you're into that. JASON SWETT: For me, if you want to find my podcast, it's Rails with Jason. And if you search for Rails with Jason anywhere, you should be able to find it. And then my website, if you're interested in my blog and all that stuff, is codewithjason.com. BRITTANY: Fantastic. Thank you, everyone, for being on this mega episode today. It was a lot of fun. We are going to be having a podcast panel at RubyConf; we're excited to announce and some of us will be present. So stay tuned for details around that. And if you enjoyed this mega episode and want to see more mega episodes, please let us know on Twitter. All: Bye. CHRIS: The show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. STEPH: This show is produced and edited by Mandy Moore. CHRIS: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review on iTunes, as it really helps other folks find the show. STEPH: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us @bikeshed or reach me on Twitter @SViccari. CHRIS: And I'm @christoomey. STEPH: Or you can reach us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. CHRIS: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. All: Bye. Announcer: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.

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

Enjoy part one 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--- Good morning everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. And you guys are in for a very special treat over the next four episodes. So let me give you some context on what's going to happen, and why you should be so excited. Alright so, my favorite podcast, other than mine of course, that all of you guys should be subscribed to is called Mixergy. Andrew Warner is the guy who runs Mixergy podcast and I love that podcast because of Andrew. He is my favorite interviewer. If you look at how a lot of people do interview podcasts, they ask questions and I don't know, I've suffered from this in the past as well. I'm not a good interviewer, at least not now. I'd like to learn how to do that skill, but I'm not a great interviewer. And most people who do podcasts with interviews aren't like great interviewers, but Andrew is like the best interviewer I've ever seen. The way he asks questions, how deep he goes and the research he does before the interviews, and all sorts of stuff. Anyway, I love his style, love how he does it so what's cool, I've actually been on the show twice in the past. And the first time, I don't even, sorry, the second time, he totally caught me off guard. I remember he asked me some questions and I didn't really know and I responded and he told me after, he told me live on the interview that he doesn't edit his interviews. He was like, “Well, that was the worst answer you've ever given.” I was like, “Oh, thanks.” Anyway, it just totally caught me off guard, but it was cool the way that he just like kind of holds your feet to the fire. So a little while ago I thought, I want to tell the Clickfunnels startup story. But I didn't want me to just to tell it, I wanted someone who would tell it from a different angle, who would ask the questions that I think people would want to know and do it in a really cool way. So I called Andrew and I'm like, “Hey, I've been wanting to do this thing, and I want to do an event around it. Would you be interested.” And he was like, luckily he said yes. So it's funny, Andrew's famous, I think I might have talked about this in the interview too, but he's famous for these scotch nights he does, and as a Mormon I don't drink so I can't go to his scotch nights. So when we planned this interview, we planned it in Provo, Utah at this place called the Dry Bar Comedy Club. So a dry bar is a bar with no alcohol. So it was kind of a funny thing. We brought those two things, my world and his world together in this one spot to a dry bar, and told the Clickfunnels startup story. And it was cool, ahead of time he did so much research. He interviewed people who love me, people who hated me, he interviewed our old business partners who are no longer part of the business. He did everything and then he came and I told him, “Everything's, you can ask me any question you want. Nothing, no holds barred, feel free to do whatever you want.” So we did the interview and it was about two hours long, and I loved it. I think it turned out amazing. And I hope you guys like it too. So I'll tell you some of the details about the Clickfunnels startup story. How we built what we did, what happened, the ups, the downs, the negatives, the positives. He brings a couple of people up onstage to tell their parts of the story. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy it. So what we're going to do, I'm going to have each episode over the next four episodes be about thirty minutes long so you can listen to them in pieces. I hope iyou enjoy them, I hope you love them. And if you do, please, please, please take a screen shot of your phone when you're listening to it, and go post it on Instagram or Facebook and tag me. And then do hashtag marketing secrets and hopefully that will get more people to listen to the podcast. And then please, if you haven't yet, go rate and review, which would be amazing. So with that said, I'm going to queue up the theme song and when we come back we will start immediately into part one of four of the Dry Bar Comedy Club Interview. Keith Yacky: Clickfunnels has changed a lot of our lives. We all have an origin story. Mine was something similar to, I set up my website on GoDaddy and things were going great. And then Dave Woodward was like, “Dude, you need Clickfunnels.” I'm like, “I don't need a Clickfunnel. I don't even know what a Clickfunnel is.” And he's like, “No, seriously man. This is going to totally change your business.” I'm like, “Bro, I have GoDaddy. They have a commercial on the Super Bowl, Clickfunnels doesn't. But when they do, I'll do it.” Well, boy was I wrong. I changed over and it absolutely changed our business and changed our lives. So thank you for that, Dave. But here's the thing, in every industry there's somebody that comes along that really disrupts the industry, that really changes it, and that really does something amazing for that industry. And as we all, why we're here, we know that person is Russell Brunson. And he has changed a lot of our lives. So before I bring him up here, they have asked me to ask you to make sure you don't do any live recording of this next interview, because the gloves are coming off and they want to be able to present it to the world. You can do little Instagram clips if you'd like, like 15 second ones and tag them. My understanding is the best hashtag and the best clip, gets a date with Drew. I don't know, that's just what they told me. So blame them. But with that, again, no videoing, and let us just absolutely take the roof off this place as we bring up our beloved Russell Brunson. Give it up guys. Russell: Alright, well thanks for coming you guys. This is so cool. I'm excited to be here. So a couple of real quick things before we get started. For all of you guys who know, who came to be part of this, we had you all donate a little bit of money towards Operation Underground Railroad, and I'm really excited because Melanie told me right before I got here the total of how much money we raised from this little event for them. So I think the final number was a little over $13,000 was raised for Operation Underground Railroad. So thank you guys for your continued support with them. Just to put that in perspective, that's enough money to save about 5 children from sex slavery. So it's a big deal and a life changing thing, so it's pretty special. So I'm grateful for you guys donating money to come here. And hopefully you've had a good time so far. Has it been fun? I really want to tuck my shirt in now, I'm feeling kind of awkward. No it's been awesome. Okay so what we're going to do now, I want to introduce the person who's going to be doing the interview tonight. And it's somebody I'm really excited to have here. In fact, I met him for the first time like an hour ago, in person. But I want to tell kind of the reason why I wanted him to do this, and why we're all here. And I'm grateful he said yes, and was willing to come out here and kind of do this. So Andrew runs a podcast called Mixergy. How many of you guys in here are Mixergy listeners? Mixergy is my favorite podcast, I love it. He's interviewed thousands of people about their startup stories and about how they started their businesses. And it's really cool because he brings in entrepreneurs and he tells, gets them to tell their stories. But what's unique about what Andrew does that's fascinating, the way he interviews people is completely different, it's unique. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I don't like a lot of interview shows because a lot of them are just kind of high level. Everyone you listen to with Andrew, he gets really, really deep. The other fun thing is he doesn't edit his interviews. So there was one interview, I'll tease him about this right now. But I was listening to it on my headphones, and him and the guest got in kind of an argument and a fight and then it just ended and they aired it. I was like, “I can't believe you aired that, it was amazing.” And then I was on his podcast a little while later, and he asked me some questions that I couldn't quite understand perfectly, so I was trying to respond the best I could and kind of fumbled through it. And instead of letting me off the hook, his response was, “Man Russell, that was probably the worst answer I've ever heard you give in any interview ever.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” So I'm excited for tonight because I told it was like no holds barred and he could ask me anything he wants about the ups of Clickfunnels, the downs of Clickfunnels and anything else, and it's going to be a lot of fun. So I'm excited to have him here. So with that said, let's put our hands together for Mr. Andrew Warner. Andrew Warner: I think my mic is right over here. Thank you everyone, thanks Russell for having me here. Most people will contact me after I interview them and say, “Could you please not air the interview?” And you actually had me back here to do it in person. And you were so nice, you even got us this room here. Check this out, they set us up, they're so nice at Clickfunnels. They said, “Andrew, you're staying here, we're going to put you and your family up the night before in a room.” My wife was so good, look that's her journaling. My kids were playing around, sleeping in the same, sleeping together, enjoying themselves. And then I went to call somebody who was basically let go from Clickfunnels. And my wife goes, “Andrew, why do you have to do that? That's not why they invited you here.” And I said, “I do know Russell. I know the team. They actually did invite me to really help get to the story of how Clickfunnels started, how it built up.” And the reason I was up calling people, understanding the story is because I want to make it meaningful for you. I've talked to a lot of you as you were coming in here, you want to know how they got here, what worked for Clickfunnels, what would work for us. So that's my goal here, to spend the time understanding by interviewing you about how you did it. So I want to go way back to a guy a few of you might recognize, and I know you would, and ask you what drew you to this guy when you were younger? Russell: Don Lepre Clip: “One tiny classified ad in the newspaper that makes just 30-40 dollars profit in a week, it could make you a fortune, because the secret is learning how to take that one tiny classified that just made 30-40 dollars profit in a week, and to realize that you could now take that same exact ad and place it in up to 3,000 other newspapers around the country….” Russell: I'm having nostalgia right now. So this is the story of that, I was 12, 13 years old, something like that, and I was watching the news with my dad. And usually he's like, “Go to bed Russell.” And he didn't that night and then the news got over and I think he thought I was asleep and Mash came on. So Mash started playing and then it got over, and then this infomercial showed up. And I'm laying there on the couch watching Don Lepre talk about tiny classified ads, I was totally freaking out and I jumped up and begged my dad to buy it and he said no. And I was like, “Are you kidding? Did you not listen to what he said?” Did you guys just hear that? That was a good pitch huh? It's really good. I love a good pitch. It is so good. So I went and asked my dad if I could earn the money. So I went and mowed lawns and earned the money and ordered the kit and I still have the original books to this day. Andrew: Were you disappointed? I bought it too. It was the dream of being able to do it. Russell: That's why I like you so much, that's amazing. Andrew: And it's just, all he sent you was a bunch of paper guides with how to buy ads, right. Were you disappointed when you got that? Russell: No, I was excited. I think for me because the vision was cast, it was like, he said right there word for word, you make 40 dollars a newspaper, and if you're disappointed, but he put that same ad in 3,000 newspapers, imagine that. So I had the vision of that, I think the only thing I was disappointed in, I didn't have any money to actually buy an ad. And that was more like, I can't actually do it now. Andrew: You are a champion wrestler and then you got here. Is your wife here? Russell: My beautiful wife right here, Collette. Andrew: Hey Collette. And your dad had a conversation with you about money, what did he say? Russell: So up to that point my dad had supported me, and I figured he would the rest of my life, I think. I don't know. So I was 21 almost 22 at this time, I was wrestling so I couldn't get a job because I was wrestling all the time. Then I met Collette, fell in love with her and then I called my parents and I was like, “Hey, I'm going to marry her. I'm going propose to her and everything.” Expecting them to be like, “Sweet, that'll be awesome.” And my mom was all excited, I'm not going to lie. But then my dad was like, “Just so you know if you get married, you have to be a man now. You have to support yourself.” And I was like, “I don't know how to do that, I'm wrestling.” And he's like, “Well, I'm not going to keep paying for you to do it.” I'm like, “But I literally got the ring. I have, I can't not propose now.” So that was kind of the thing. So it was interesting because about that time there was another infomercial, there's the pattern, about I can't remember exactly the name of the company, but they were doing an event at the local Holiday inn that was like, “Hey, you're going to build websites and make money.” And it was like the night or two days after I told my dad this and he was like, “you're in trouble.” And all the sudden I saw that, so I was like, there's the answer. So I'm at the holiday in two days later, sitting in the room, hearing the pitch, signing up for stuff I shouldn't have bought. There's the pattern. Andrew: Did you feel like a loser getting married at 22 and still counting on your dad for money? Did you feel like you were marrying a loser? Russell: Actually, this is a sad story because she actually, my roommate at the time, she actually asked him, “Do you think he's going to be able to support me in the future?” and he was like, “Yeah, I think so.” I'm like, I didn't know this until later. I don't think I felt like a loser, but I definitely was nervous, like oh my gosh. Because my whole identity at that point in my life was I was a wrestler and if that was to disappear…I couldn't have that disappear. So I was like, I have to figure out something. There's gotta be some way to do both. Andrew: To both what? To be a wrestler and make money from some infomercial? Russell: I didn't know that was going to be the path, but yeah. Andrew: But you knew you were going to do something. What did you think that was going to be? Russell: I wasn't sure. When I went to the event, they were selling these time share books and you could buy resale rights to them, so I was like, oh. And I remember back, because I remembered the Don Lepre stuff, so I was like, maybe I could buy classified ads and sell these things. And then I was at the event and they were talking about websites, and that was the first thing I'd heard about websites. And they're talking about Google and the beginnings of this whole internet thing. So I was like, I can do that. It made all logical sense to me, I just didn't know how to do it. I just knew that that was going to be the only path because if I had to get a job I wouldn't be able to wrestle. So I was like, I have to figure out something that's not going to be a 40 hour thing because I'm spending that time wrestling and going to school. So I had to figure out the best of how to do both. Andrew: And you obviously found it. My goal today is to go through this process of finding it. But let me skip ahead a little bit. What is this website? Russell: Oh man, alright. This is actually, the back story behind this is there was a guy named Vince James who wrote a book called the Twelve Month Millionaire. And if anybody's got that book, it's fat like a phone book. It's a huge book. I read and I was like, this book's amazing. And at the time I was an affiliate marketer, so I had a little bit, maybe a thousand people on my list. So I called up Vince and I was like, “Hey, can I interview you about the book and then I'll use that as a tool to sell more copies of your book?” and he was like, “Sure.” So he jumped on the phone with me on a Saturday and he spent 3 hours letting me interview with any questions I had. And I got to the end of it and I still had a ton of questions and he's like, “Well come back next week and do it again.” So I interviewed him for 6 hours about it. And then we used that to sell some copies of his book and then it just sat there, probably for 2 or 3 years as I was trying different ideas, different businesses and things like that. But every time I would talk to people I would tell them about this interview. I'm like, “I interviewed this guy who made a hundred million dollars through direct mail.” And everyone wanted to hear the interview, everybody asked me for it. So one day I was like, “Let's just make that the product.” And we put it up here and this was the very first funnel we had that did over a million dollars, my first Two Comma Club funnel. Andrew: A million dollars. Do you remember what that felt like? Russell: It was amazing because it was funny back then. There were people, a few people who were making a lot of money online that I was watching and just idolizing everything they'd do. I was trying to model what they were doing. And I'd had little wins, you know $10,000 here, $15,000 here, but this was by far the first one that just hit. Everyone was so excited. Andrew: How'd you celebrate? Russell: I don't even remember how we celebrated. Andrew: You married a winner after all. I mean really. Do you remember what you guys did to celebrate? No. Russell: I don't even remember. (audience responding, inaudible) It was in my list. That's a good question. Andrew: It'll come up, that list is going to come up in a second too. You ended up creating Clickfunnels. How much revenue are you guys doing now, 2018? Russell: 2018 we'll pass over a hundred million dollars, this year. Andrew:  A hundred million dollars, wowee. How far have you come? Russell: Like when did we start? Andrew: Today revenue, as of today, October 2018? Russell: Oh this year? Oh from the beginning of time until now? Andrew: No, no I mean I want to know, you're going to do a hundred million dollars, are you at 10 and you're hoping to get…. Russell: These guys know better than me, do you know exactly where we're at right now? 83 million for the year. Andrew: 83! I love that Dave knows that right, so I want to know how you got to that. I went through your site, pages and pages that look like this. It's like long form sales letters. I asked my assistant to take pictures, she said, “This is, I can't do it, it's too many.” Look at this guys. I asked him to help me figure out what he did. He created this list, this is not the full list, look at this. Every blue line is him finding an old archive of a page he created. It goes on and on like this. How long did it take you to put that together? Russell: It was probably 5 or 6 hours just to find all the pages. Andrew: 5 or 6 hours you spent to find these images to help me tell the story. Years and years of doing this, a lot of failure, what amazes me is you didn't feel jaded and let down after Don Lepre sold you that stuff. You didn't feel jaded and let down and say, ‘This whole make money thing is a failure.' After, and we're going to talk about some of your failures, you just kept going with that same smile, the same eagerness. Alright, let's start with the very first business. What's this one? This is called… Russell: Sublime Net. How many of you guys remember Sublime Net out there? Andrew: You guys remember this? Anyone remember it. You do? Russell: John does. So actually this is the first business for the first website I bought. I was so proud of it, and I spent, I don't know, I wanted to sell software so I was like, ‘what could I name my company?” So I figured out Exciting Software. So I went to buy Exciteware.com, but it wasn't for sale. So I bought Exciteware.net and Collette was working at the time and she came home and I was so excited, I'm like, “We got our first website. We're going to be rich.”  And I told her the name, I was like, “It's Exciteware.net.” and she looked at me with this look like, she's like, “Are you selling underwear, what is the…lingerie?” I'm like, “No, it's software.” And she's like, “You can't, I'm not going to tell my mom that you bought that. You gotta think of another name.” I'm like, “Crap.” So that was the next best name I came up with was Sublime Net. Like the band Sublime. That was it. Andrew: And I was going to ask you what it was, but it was lots of different things. Every screenshot on there is a whole other business under the same name. What are the businesses? Do you remember? Russell: There was website hosting, there was affiliates sites, there were, I can't even remember now, trying to remember. Everything I could think of, resell rights…. Andrew: Lots of different things. How did you do, how well did you do? Russell: Never anything, very little. I remember the first thing I ever sold was an affiliate product, I made $20 on it through my Paypal account, because I remember that night, I do remember I celebrated. We went out to dinner and I had a Paypal credit card, and we bought dinner with $20 and then the guy refunded the next day. It was so sad. But I was proud that I had made money. Andrew: How did you support yourself while this was not working? Russell: I didn't. My beautiful wife did, she had 2 jobs at the time to support me while I was wrestling and doing these things. She was the one who made it possible to gamble and risk and try crazy things. Andrew: Can I put you on the spot and ask you to just come over here and just tell me about this period and what you felt at the time? Is that, I know you don't love being onstage, Russell is good with it, but I know you don't love it. If you don't mind, I'm just going to go with one more story and then I'll come back to you. You cool with it? Good, she seems a little nervous. Actually, wait. Let's see if we can get her right now. Oh you are, okay. Russell: Everyone, this is Collette, my beautiful wife. Andrew: Do you want to use his mic? Collette: Sure. Russell: She's so mad at me right now. Collette: I wanted to come to this, who knew? Andrew: You are like his, he's so proud that he had no venture funding. But you are like his first investor. Russell: That is true. Collette: Yes, I'll be his first investor. Andrew: Can you hold the mic a little closer. How did you know he wasn't a loser? No job, he's wrestling, he's buying infomercial stuff that doesn't go anywhere. We know he did well, so we're not insulting him now, but what did you see in him back then that let you say, ‘I'm going to work extra hard and pay for what he's not doing?' Collette: What did I see in him? It was actually his energy, his spirit, because I'm not going to lie, it was kind of not love at first site, we had, we were geeko's, do you know what I mean? Shopped at the Goodwill, in baggy pants and tshirts, I don't know. But it was the person who just was always positive and we had the same goals. Andrew: That's the thing I noticed too, the positivity. When these businesses fail, we're showing the few on the screen, it's easy to look back and go, ‘ha ha, I did this and it was interesting.' But at the time, what was the bounce back like when things didn't work out? When the world basically said, you know what as sales people, when they don't buy your stuff it's like they don't buy you. When the world basically said, ‘we don't like you. We don't like what you've created.' What was the bounce back like? Hard? Collette: No, because I come from a hard working family. So I work hard. So you just work hard to make it work. Andrew: And he's just an eternal optimistic, and you're an eternal optimist too, like genuinely, really? Collette: Yeah, I guess. It works. Andrew: His dad said, ‘No more money. You had to cut up your credit cards too.' Collette: Yeah. Andrew: What was, how did you cut up your credit cards. What was that day like? Collette: Hard. Yeah hard. Those that don't know, I'm a little bit older than Russell. So I've always had this little bit of independency to go do and buy and do these things, and then all the sudden I'm like, step back sista! You gotta take care of this young man, so we can get to where we're at. Anyway, but now… Andrew: Now things are good? Collette: Now things are amazing. Andrew: Alright, give her a big round of applause. Thanks for coming up here. These businesses did okay, and then you started something that I never heard about, but look at this. I'm going to zoom in on a section of the Google doc you sent me. This is the call center. The call center got to how many employees? 100? Russell: We had about 60 full time sales people, 20 full time coaches, and about 20 people doing the marketing and sales, so about 100 people in the whole company, yeah. Andrew: 100 people doing what kind of call center, what kind of work? Russell: So what we would do, we would sell free CDs and things like that online, free CDs, free books, free whatever, and then when someone would buy it we'd call them on the phone, and then we'd offer them high end coaching. Andrew: And this was you getting customers, how? Russell: Man, back then it was pre-facebook. So a lot of it was Google, it was email lists, it was anything we could figure out to drive traffic, all sorts of weird stuff. Andrew: And then people come in, get a free CD, sign up for coaching, and then you had to hire people and teach them how to coach? How did you do that. Russell: Yeah, that was the hard thing. When we first started doing it, I was just doing the coaching. People would come in and we had a little, Brent and some of you guys remember the little offices we had, and we'd bring people in and we were so proud of our little office. And they'd come in and we'd teach them for 2 or 3 days, teach an event for them, and then as it got bigger it was harder and harder for me to do that. So eventually, and a lot of people didn't want to come to Boise. I love Boise, but it's really hard to get to. So people would sign up for coaching, and then they'd never show up to Boise and then a year later they'd want their money back. So we're like, we have to get something where they're getting fulfilled whether they showed up to Boise or now. So we started doing phone coaching, and at first it was me, and then it was me and a couple other people, and then we started training more coaches, and that's kind of how it started. It was one of those things though, at  first it was just like 5 or 6 of us in a room doing it, and it worked and so then the next logical thing is, we should go from 5 people to 10 to 20 and next thing you know, we wake up with 100 people. I'm like, what are we doing? We're little kids, it scares me that I'm in charge of all these people's livelihood, but that's kind of where it was at and it got kind of scary for me. Andrew: Sometimes I wonder if I'm hiding behind interviewing because I'm afraid to stand up and say, ‘here's what I want. Here's what I think we need to do. Here's how the world should be.' So I'm amazed that even back then, after having a few businesses that didn't really work out, you were comfortable enough to say, ‘Come to my office, I'm going to teach you. I've got it figured out.' When you hadn't.  How did you get yourself comfortable, and what made you feel comfortable about being able to say, ‘I could teach these people. Come to my office.' Who call up, who then become my coaches, who then have to teach other people? Russell: I think for me it was like, when I first started learning the online stuff and entrepreneurship, I think most people feel this, it's so exciting you want to tell everybody about it. So I'm telling my friends and my family and nobody cares at first. And you're like, I have to share this gift I've figured out, it's amazing. And nobody cares. And then the first time somebody cares, and you just dump on them, you want to show it to them. So I hadn't made tons of money, but I had a lot of these little websites that had done, $30 grand, $50 grand, $100 grand. So for me it was like, if I can show these people, I know what that did for me, it gave me the spark to want to do the next one and the next one. So for me it was like I want to share this because I feel like I figured it out. So that was the thing coming in. We weren't teaching people how to build a hundred million dollar company, but we're like, “Hey, you can quit your job. You can make 2 or 3 thousand dollars a month, you can quit your job, and this is how I did it. This is the process.” So that's what we were showing people. Just the foundation of how we did it, and we showed other people, because they cared and it was exciting to share it with other people. Andrew: Is Whitney here? There she is. I met her as she was coming in. I wanted to get to know why people were coming to watch this, what they wanted to hear from you. And Whitney was asking about the difficult period, the why. I'm wondering the same thing that she and I were talking about, which is why put yourself through this? You could have gotten a job, you could have done okay, why put yourself through the risk of hiring people, the eventual as we'll see, closing of the company, what was your motivation? What was the goal? Why did you want to do it? Russell: I think it shifts throughout time. I think most entrepreneurs when they first get started, it's because of money. They're like, ‘I want to make money.' And then you get that and then really quick, that doesn't last very long. And then it's like, then for me it was like, I want to share that with other people. And then when other people get it, there's something about that aha moment where you're like, oh my gosh they got it. They got what I was saying. And that for me was like the next level, the next high. It was just like, ah, I love that. And back then we had some success stories coming through, but now days, it's like the bigger success stories come through and that's what drives it on. That is the fascinating part. That's why we keep, because most software company owners don't keep creating books, and courses and inter….but when people have the aha, oh my gosh, that's the best for me. Andrew: That's the thing, you get the high of the thing that you wanted when you were growing up, that you wanted someone to show it to you, and if you could then genuinely give it them, not like Don Lepre. But Don Lepre plus actual results, that's what fires you up. Russell: That does fire me up. That's amazing. Andrew: What happened? Why did that close down? Russell: Oh man, a lot of things. A lot of bad mistakes, a lot of first time growing a company stuff that I didn't, again, we just woke up one day it felt like, and we were in this huge office, huge overhead, and about that time, it was 99, 2000 something like that, and there was the merchant account that me and most of the people doing internet marketing at the time, we all used the same merchant account, and they got hit by Visa and Mastercard, so they freaked out and shut down. I think it ended up being 4 or 5 merchant accounts overnight, and we had 9 different merchant accounts with that company, and all of them got shut down instantly. I remember because everything was fine, we were going through the day and it was like 1:00 in the afternoon on a Friday. They came in like, “None of the, the cards won't process.” And I'm like, couldn't figure out why they weren't processing. We tried to call the company and no one's answering at the company. Finally we get someone on the phone and they're like, “Yep, you got shut down along with all the other scammers.” And then she hung up on me. And I was like, I don't know what to do right now. I've got 100+ people and payroll is not small, and we didn't have a ton of cash in the bank, it was more of a cash flow business. And Collette actually just left town that night, and she was gone. I remember Avatar just came out, and everyone was going to the movie Avatar that night, and I remember sitting there during the longest movie of all time, and I don't remember anything other than the sick feeling in my stomach. I was texting everyone I know, trying to see if anyone knew what to do. And everyone was like, “We got shut down too.” “We got shut down.” Everyone got shut down. And we couldn't figure out anything. So we came back the next day and I called everyone up, and actually kind of a funny side story, I had just met Tony Robbins a little prior, earlier to this. So that night I was laying in bed, it was like 4 in the morning, and my phone rings and I look at it and it was Tony Robbins' assistant. And I pick it up and he's like, “Hey, is there any way you can be in Vegas in three hours? There's a plane from Boise to Vegas and Tony wants you to speak at this event. It's starting in three hours. You need to be on stage in three hours.” I'm sitting here like, my whole world just collapsed, I'm laying in bed sick to my stomach and I'm like, “I don't think I can. I have to figure this thing out.” And then he tells Tony, and they call me back. “Tony says if your business is…if you can't make it, don't show up. You're fine.” So I didn't go and then the next morning I woke up and there was a message on my phone that I'd missed. I passed out and I woke up and it was a message from Tony. And he was like, “Hey man, I know that you care about your customers, you care about things. I don't know the whole situation, but worst case scenario, if you need help let me know, and we can absorb you into Robbins research or whatever and you can be one of my companies, and that way if you want, we can protect you.” And I heard that and I was like, “Okay, that's the worst case scenario, I get to work with Tony Robbins? That's the worst case scenario.” So then I called up everyone on my team and I was like, “Okay guys, we gotta try to figure out how to save this.” And Brent and John and everyone, we came back to my house and I was like, “Okay, what ideas do we got?” And we just sat there for the next 5 or 6 hours trying to figure stuff out. And then we went to work, and I wish I could say that everything turned around, but it was the next probably 2 or 3 years of us firing 30 people, firing 20 people, closing things down, moving down offices. Just shrinking for a long, long time, until the peak of it, it was about a year after that moment, and we were in an event in Vegas trying to figure out how to save stuff, and I got an email from my dad who was helping with the books at the time, and he said, “Hey, I got really bad news for you. I looked through the books and it turns out your assistant who is supposed to be doing payroll taxes, hadn't paid payroll in over a year. You owe the IRS $170,000 and if you don't pay this, you're probably going to go to jail.” And I was like, every penny I'd earned to that point was gone. Everything was done and we'd lost everything and I was just like, I don't know how to fight this battle, but if I don't fight it I go to jail apparently. And I remember that's a really crappy feeling. Brent, some of you guys are reliving this with me right now, I know. I remember going back that night, laying in bed and I was just like, “I wish I had a boss that could fire me, because I don't know what to do, how to do it.” And that was kind of, that was definitely the lowest spot for me. Andrew: And you stuck with him? Wow, yeah.

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.

Episode 73 covers three time zones with Paul Anderson (NZski.com) in New Zealand and Claire Burnet (Chamonix) in France joining Iain in the UK. We discuss the coming season and the expected boom for NZ resorts from the Trans-Tasman bubble; the lifts turning again in Chamonix and the prospects for a ‘normal' summer season in France. We have a special feature on skiing in the UK in May – it's very rare, but we have reports from Wales, Scotland and the Lake District in England. Thanks as always to Switzerland Tourism for supporting The Ski Podcast. We are delighted to announce that this partnership has been extended to cover this summer and next winter. SHOW NOTES Mike Richards reported from Wales and previously appeared on the show discussing skiing in Wales in more depth in Episode 65 Follow Mike at mikethesnow on Instagram Greg Hilton was ski touring in Cairngorm with British Backcountry David Johnson visited Glencoe and the Nevis Range earlier in May You can check the Nevis Range webcam here We previously covered skiing options in Scotland in Episode 62 Simon Burgess visited Raise, organised by the Lake District Ski Club Check the live feed on Twitter here You can follow Simon's adventures on his website Katie Crowe is from Battleface Travel Insurance You can check current travel restrictions on the 'Sherpa' app on their website NZ.com includes Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Mt Hutt and welcome 700,000 guests each winter, of which 30-40% are from Australia The resorts near Queenstown offer ‘remarkable' views with a season lasting from June to October A recent survey suggests pent-up demand for NZ skiing in Australia The lifts starting turning again in Chamonix on May 19 at 50% capacity as 'deconfinement' gets underway Last winter's 'saison blanche' saw peak season occupancy reduced to 30-50% of normal levels Mark Seaton talked to us about the ski touring options in Chamonix in Episode 62 Betony Garner reported on the rise of cross country skiing in France in Episode 65 The ‘Village Vacances Grandeur Nature' deal in Chamonix this summer means visitors can enjoy free activities on week days in July and August Iain is taking part in the UTMB trail running race Buy Me A Coffee Matt Hayes, Andrew Brannan, John M and Nick D have all very kindly bought me a cuppa since our last episode. Andrew: “You're doing such a professional job: it's a very enjoyable listen.” Nick: "Many thanks for the great work you do, putting out the best ski podcast going" John: “Thank you. You've kept my ski passion going thru this tough year” If you enjoy The Ski Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/theskipodcast Reviews Please do give us a review on iTunes/Apple Podcasts - we've had over 80 reviews now - and as you know how all those algorithms work, it genuinely does help people find us. Many thanks to 'SkiSkiSki' who reviewed us on iTunes: Don't forget if you'd like some TSP stickers for your helmet, skis or phone, then just email theskipodcast@gmail.com with your address and we'll post some out to you for free. Remember that you can still secure yourself a free ticket for the National Snow Show at the Birmingham NEC in October, using the code 'SnowSkiPodcast' Coming Up Don't forget if you haven't listened to it yet, our Pat Sharples Ski Podcast Special is now live. Do listen to this one - it's one of our best! You can follow Iain @skipedia and the show @theskipodcast on TwitterThanks as always to Switzerland Tourism

In this week's episode Untangling welcome a special guest! Everyone say hello to Andrew :) You may recognise his dulcet tones from when he greets you at the door on Tuesday nights. Together with Charlotte they gently start to poke the bear of default gender roles in partnered swing dancing. Neither of them are experts on the matter but they have opinions and aren't afraid to share them (but also, this is a subject that matters to them).THAT GUY'S NAME WAS CALEB TEICHER (if you haven't listened to the podcast, that won't make sense)Spoonful: Live Editionhttps://www.facebook.com/events/786778518825767/PIJF: Cotton Club Dance Partyhttps://www.facebook.com/events/786778518825767/American Lindy Hop Championshipshttps://www.facebook.com/ALHCinfo/Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/user?u=31754096

Stephen Olyniuk Interviewer: So in today's podcast, we'd like to welcome Andrew Ferris. He's the development officer and program director for the children's miracle network. So, welcome! Andrew: Thank you. Good to be here. Interviewer: And one of my first questions is gonna be- tell us a little bit about yourself, Andrew, and how you became involved with the Children's Miracle Network. Andrew: Sure, yeah. Kind of an interesting path how I got to where I am today. So just going all the way back to university, it's kind of when I got first introduced to the child health sector. So, throughout university, I worked as a one-on-one specialist with kids across Manitoba. So I would essentially go on camps across Manitoba and work alongside a child with autism to kind of make sure that they're integrated into the programming stuff. So that's kind of how I got introduced to child health, kind of starting my passion there. But I did a BA in Psychology, and I graduated a University. Got a job in the corporate world. And learned some valuable things, but kind of didn't really feel the passion was there. So I did some research on what options I had for post graduate education. And I actually found this non-profit management, in the business development program for non-profit charity program out in Toronto. And essentially, I applied to it. And within a month, I was pretty much packing my bags and moving out to Toronto. So when I got to Toronto, I completed my program in non-profit management and business development for non-profits and charities. And then I end up getting a job at SickKids, which is a children's hospital in Toronto. And I did some work in the corporate partnerships department. And then I was kind of faced with the difficult decision of: “Do I wanna stay in Toronto or do I wanna come home, bringing what I learned in Toronto back to my home community?” And ultimately, I decided to come back to Winnipeg, just because… I mean, I love it here. It's my home. My friends and family are here. And one of the main reasons why I went to do that non-profit management program was really to improve my home community. So essentially, made the decision to leave all the excitement in Toronto and come back to Winnipeg. And from there, I got a job at Global Philanthropic, which is one of Canada's largest non-profit consulting firms. So we worked alongside charities in Winnipeg, (?), Marymount. And the children's hospital is also one of our clients. And it was through there, I kind of linked with up with the CEO there. And he brought forth this job for me. And I obviously accepted it because I just kind of had that passion for children health at the beginning. And I always did wanna work at a children's hospital. So it was pretty much a no brainer for me. So that's what brought me here today. And I've been directing the Children's Miracle Network program since July of last year. So I'm just over a year now. Interviewer: And throughout the time we've spent together, I find you're very passionate about it. I think you're a great fit. Andrew: I would like to think so! Let's hope. Interviewer: Exactly. So, for people that maybe don't know that Remax has a partnership with the Children's Miracle Network (CMN). And some agents choose to take part, and some don't. So we choose to take part. And we make a donation with every donation that's sold or someone purchased with us. So can you tell us maybe a little bit about the partnership between the CMN and Remax? Andrew: Sure. Let me just kind of explain what CMN is, so people who don't know- know. So essentially, the CMN is a large non-profit organization that operates in Canada and the United States. And their main mandate is to raise critical funds to support specialized equipment for their local children's hospitals. So each state, each province has a children's miracle network hospital. S ours would be the children's hospital in (?). And the CMN has a large portfolio of corporate partners, such as Remax, who each have specialized programs, funding campaigns, that are designed to raise money in support of their local children's hospital. And, I mean, the main mandate is that if we change the health of children, we change the health of the world. We change the health of children in Canada, we change the health future of Canada. So that's really the core of CMN. And in terms of our partnership with Remax, it's actually one of the longest standing partnerships in the CMN. So, it's been operating since 1992. And like you said, the Remax agents have the option to donate certain proceeds from each sale towards the CMN, which goes directly to our local children's hospital and all the local children of Manitoba. So, it's an exclusive program to Remax. And the impact is huge. And it's just a great way that Remax agents are able to engage with our children' hospital. Interviewer: Wonderful, wonderful. And then, you know, what kind of success has the partnership seen in Canada? Andrew: It has seen immense success. So, just in terms of numbers, we have over 7k real estate agents in Canada that are taking part in this program. And in 2019 alone, I believe over 7.5 million had been raised. Just in 2019 in Canada. Interviewer: Wow. Andrew: And that goes, again, directly to the local children's hospital. So, I mean, that's immense impact right there. It's huge. Interviewer: Ok. So that kind of answered my next question to you. What does it mean to the children's hospital to have a community partner and support, such as Remax? Andrew: It means everything. I mean, just in current times with Covid, community partners such as Remax are really the ones that our children's hospitals have relied on. I mean, with Covid, a lot of events, a lot of fundraising things have had to be cancelled. That brings in quite a lot of revenue for the children's hospital. So it's having, our community partners like Remax, that continue these campaigns through Covid, that really do pull us through these tough times. And, you know, our hospital over 130k kids that come through our door every year. And Covid or not, that's happening. You know, that doesn't change. So having the community support, our ups and downs of the economy, whatever, it's just incredibly crucial for us. Interviewer: So then, in 2020, what will money be raised… Like the money that's raised by the Miracle Home Program, what will it be supporting? Andrew: Sure. Every year, through the Remax program, there's kind of 3 pillars that we look to raise money for. So first is revolutionizing treatment and care. Second is for frontline pediatric education and training. And the third is creating healing environments. And for this year, we really focused on that third pillar of creating healing environments. So money raised is really going towards the child life department. Which, at its core, essentially exists to make sure that children and their families have the best possible experience within the children's hospital. Especially when they have to have a long stay. So, the child health department has specialized child health. Our child life specialist who are trained specifically to make sure that these kids get the best care, best… They're in their mental state best as they can be, given the tough times. So some programs of the child life include musical therapy, clown therapy. They have specialized play places. They have a children's hospital TV station that gets aired all throughout the children's hospitals. So again, it's just really meant to make sure that these kids have a positive experience with the hospital. It's very tough for them to be in the hospital. I mean, it's not fun. And it's equally stressful for the parents as well to have a kid in the hospital. And with Covid, too, it's really made things difficult in terms of visitations. So, we've had lots of kids that haven't been able to visit all their family members. And that's very tough for them. And the child department really gets into gear and distracts them and makes them as happy as possible. So that's really the main focus of funds from the Miracle Home Program this year, which again, is incredibly incredibly crucial and very timely with Covid and everything. Interviewer: Wonderful, wonderful organization from the events that we've been out to. And you see the kids light up when they see Doctor Goodbear. Andrew: Yeah. Doctor Goodbear's a staple. He's been around for years, and he's not going anywhere. Interviewer: And I imagine that with Covid that it's more difficult for visits like that to happen, and that they probably don't happen is my guess. So I'm just wondering do they, has that been happening with the television station that they have? Or anything like that that happens? Andrew: So yeah. Like you said, it's been difficult. So we've had to kind of be creative with how the kids are engaged. And the children's hospital TV station is one way that we can kind of get Goodbear in there and use it as a way to kind of make things happy and distract them from the outside world. And how they're not usually able to visit everybody they would be able to. Interviewer: Right. So, how do Remax agents get involved in the Miracle Home Program if they wanted to? Andrew: So it's pretty easy. I mean, every Remax agent is a broker manager. And they would have all the information on how to sign up. So it's very easy. Essentially, they would have that information. You just fill out a quick form and submit it, and you're pretty much good to go. I also encourage any Remax agent in Manitoba to reach out to me as well, just with any questions. You know, maybe I'll get you to share my content information later as well. Interviewer: Absolutely. Andrew: It's a very quick process, really easy. And I'm always happy to answer questions on how to sign up. Interviewer: Ok, great. So, I'd like to lighten things up a little bit towards the end of the podcast and just find out a little bit more about you. What are some of your favorite things? What is your favorite food? Andrew: Favorite food? That's a tough one because I like food a lot. And I'm gonna base it most off of what I order most on Scubidicious, and I think that would be sushi. Interviewer: Sushi? Andrew: Yeah, that would be my number one. Close second would be any type of pasta. Interviewer: Alright. Is there a plug for any sushi restaurants? Andrew: Ok. I'm gonna give you Yujuro on (?) plug. I'll give them a plug for sure for my sushi. That's if I'm eating in. If I'm not eating in, if I'm eating the order, if I'm ordering it, I usually go to walk-on court. Those are my go-to's. Interviewer: Awesome! I'll have to check them out. Andrew: You should. Yeah, you should. Especially Yujuro. I'll say they're good. They know what they're doing! Interviewer: Ok, great. How about favorite movie? Do you have… Andrew: Favorite movie… I would have to say Wolf of Wallstreet. It's a ride. It is a ride. A little bit of long (?), but it's one of my favorite movies. And I've watched it at least 5 times, it's so entertaining. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. He's one of my favorite actors. Interviewer: Yeah. I'd have to agree, he's a magnificent actor. Andrew: Yeah, I almost like every single movie of his. He kills it. Interviewer: And hobbies. Do you have a favorite hobby? Andrew: Favorite hobby? Well, it's kind of seasonal. So in the like nice months, I love hiking. So hiking and walking around in the outdoors. The big thing, like fishing, hiking. I spend time outdoor swimming. That's my main thing. In the winter months, kind of hunker down a little bit. But I like to go skating. I play drums. So I play drums here and there as well. And listen to a lot of music. And obviously watch Netflix and all of that fun stuff. I like to be very social too. So lots of craft breweries. And for food, I told you that. Interviewer: Awesome. You, one of the things you just mentioned, hiking there. Is there any trail that you've been on recently that… Andrew: Oh, man. So I did my Rise of Manitoba today. So I pretty much did, I think I did around 10 or 11 hiking trails in (?) this year. And my favorite would have to be Hudlake trail. Interviewer: Why favorite? Andrew: It's beautiful! I love that one. Second maybe McGillbert Falls is nice. But I don't know, I think (?) trails are my favorite. It's a nice long hike. Whole portions along the lake and it's just insane. And it's pretty challenging too. There's some nice challenging parts which I love. Interviewer: For the past two years, Alicia and I have been doing kind of a “explore Manitoba” every Wednesday. We take the afternoon off and we head out somewhere and we'll do a little post about it. And on social media, that's the thing that gets the most attention. Any time we're out, someone says, “”Hey, we're going to this weekend?” And Hudlake is one of our favorite trails. McGillbert Falls is on our list. We haven't made it through yet, but we'll do that one pretty shortly. And one that's really unique is the devil's punchboal. Andrew: Oh wow! Interviewer: A little bit of desert in the middle of Manitoba. Andrew: It does not feel like Manitoba. I love that. Interviewer: Nope! Andrew: Not at all. And you know, I think there's one… I mean, there's minimal positives of covid. But one, I think for me, and for a lot of other people, is that they've explored Manitoba a little bit more. I mean, not necessarily by choice. But it's kind of forced people to explore their own backyard a little bit more. And I know I have, more than usual, because some days you'll be travelling to other places. But I think people are kind of like learning to appreciate Manitoba a little bit more. And there's so many beautiful spots to go. So, that's awesome! Interviewer: Yeah, you've just got to dress for the winters and you can find beautiful things to do in the wintertime too. Andrew: I know. I'm not really ready, but it is what it is. Interviewer: And one of the things you mentioned- music and drumming. So do you have a favorite type of music or musician? Andrew: Favorite musician? I would have to say Sitting Color would have to be my favorite artist. Music? I won't say I like everything. I respect pretty much every genre. I mean, for me, for drumming I really like some beats and rhythm. So, I mean, you can find that in any music. So I really can't say I would favor genres, just because I respect lots of music. But yes, let's say Sitting Color. In terms of the 90s, I'd say Oasis would be my favorite band. The 90s and… Yeah, I like everything! I don't know. Interviewer: How long have you been drumming? Andrew: Since I was in grade 2. So a long time! It was one of my favorite… Actually, my first word was actually “gums.” And I meant to say “drums.” Interviewer: There you go! Andrew: I was talking about drums. Interviewer: You were the kid that the parents “loved.” You made lots of noise. Andrew: Oh yes! I certainly did. I still remember getting my first drum set. I don't even know how they dealt with that. I really don't. Interviewer: Great. Do you have a favorite day of the week? Andrew: Thursday. I like Thursdays. I think it's because you have the anticipation of Friday being tomorrow, and I don't know… I just feel like I get the most productive on Thursdays. Getting ahead, getting everything done for the weekend. And getting excited for the weekend before. So I'm gonna go for Thursdays. Interviewer: Alright. That's the way it is. Sometimes when you have a deadline or something that gives you that extra push. Andrew: Exactly! I feel like Thursdays- that's my day. That's my day. Interviewer: My final question. What would you say you're most excited about right now? Andrew: Right now? Sounds a little bit weird, but I ordered a new table from (?). Table and chairs. Dining room table. So I'm supposed to be getting that tomorrow, so I'm a bit excited about that. I know it sounds weird, but I like getting stuff in the mail. So I'm excited for that. I'm also really excited for… I live on the river. So I'm really excited for that to freeze over. Because I'm really really excited to… Hopefully, this year, the trail will be open. The skiing trail. Skiing down the (?) for some beers. Interviewer: Awesome! Great. You have to send me a picture of your table when it's all set it. I'd love to see it. Andrew: I'll send you a selfie with my new table. Interviewer: Sure, great. Alright Andrew, I really wanna thank you for coming on and doing this with us. And we wish you all the best. And I hope that the CMN just continues to rise and be successful. Andrew: Awesome! Yeah, thanks Stephen. And again, thank you for all of your work. You're also personally involved with the Children Miracle Home program and working with us as well. So, thank you. And I thank everybody at Remax for continuing all the awesome support for the hospital. Interviewer: Will do! You have yourself a wonderful day, sir! Andrew: You too! Have a good one! Interviewer: Bye!   Andrew Ferris Development Officer & Program Director, CMN Children's Hospital Foundation of MB 204-470-8928   Stephen Olyniuk Alicia Olyniuk stephen@teamolyniuk.com alicia@teamolyniuk.com (204)981-2009 (204)3924262 www.teamolyniuk.com Turning Realty into Reality #realestatewinnipeg #realestatemanitoba

【句子】Come on. You're the host. Revel in it. 【Desperate Housewives S1E15】【发音】[kʌm] [ɒn]/[ɑ:n] [jɔ:(r)] [ðə] [həʊst] ['revl] [ɪn] [ɪt] 【发音技巧】come on连读；revel in it两处连读；【翻译】赶紧的呀，你可是派对主人，你得玩high一点才行。【适用场合】先来看一下今天关键句当中的Revel in it.revel 本身可以做名词或者动词就是狂欢，作乐这样的意思to spend time enjoying yourself in a noisy, enthusiastic way或者to dance, drink, sing, etc. at a party or in public, especially in a noisy way如果我们说revel in sth.其实就可以理解成enjoy sth. very much 非常享受某事；乐在其中；eg: Revelling in her freedom, she took a hotel room and stayed for several days even though she was expected home.尽管大家都等着她回家，她可是自由地很，开了一间酒店的房间之后，就待了好几天。eg: I miss the days when we could revel in the absolute freedom of summer. 我想念那些我们夏季疯玩的日子。eg: I could tell that he was reveling in the fact that I was going to fail.我能看得出来，我马上要失败了，他可是幸灾乐祸得很！作名词也可以说：eg: The revels often last until dawn.那些狂欢经常进行到黎明时分。Yeah, he brought a lot of his friends. They're acting like total jerks. Alert the media. I don't care.是啊，他带了蛮多朋友来。一群傻货，我无所谓了。Alert the media.是一种非常口语的表达。字面的意思是：我会告知媒体的。一般来说，理解成为：I don't care.我才不在乎呢！管他呢！It's a sarcastic remark saying you don't care. It is usually said after someone says something incredibly stupid or random.eg: 电影片段Arthur: You know what I think I'm going to do? Hobson: What, Arthur? Arthur: I'm going to take a bath. Hobson: I'll alert the media.-- 你知道我要去干嘛了么？-- 咋了，Arthur？-- 我要去洗澡了。-- 哦，随便你啊。另外，Andrew 还说了You're the main party animal, right? 你最喜欢派对了，是吗？party animal千万不要翻译成派对动物哦而是指沉迷于派对，有派对必去的那种人someone who enjoys parties very much and goes to as many as possible:eg: Sarah's a real party animal - she likes to dance all night.Sarah可真是沉迷于各种派对，她喜欢跳舞一整晚。【尝试翻译以下句子，并留言在文章留言区】She is reveling in the adulation of the media.

【句子】Come on. You're the host. Revel in it. 【Desperate Housewives S1E15】【发音】[kʌm] [ɒn]/[ɑ:n] [jɔ:(r)] [ðə] [həʊst] ['revl] [ɪn] [ɪt] 【发音技巧】come on连读；revel in it两处连读；【翻译】赶紧的呀，你可是派对主人，你得玩high一点才行。【适用场合】先来看一下今天关键句当中的Revel in it.revel 本身可以做名词或者动词就是狂欢，作乐这样的意思to spend time enjoying yourself in a noisy, enthusiastic way或者to dance, drink, sing, etc. at a party or in public, especially in a noisy way如果我们说revel in sth.其实就可以理解成enjoy sth. very much 非常享受某事；乐在其中；eg: Revelling in her freedom, she took a hotel room and stayed for several days even though she was expected home.尽管大家都等着她回家，她可是自由地很，开了一间酒店的房间之后，就待了好几天。eg: I miss the days when we could revel in the absolute freedom of summer. 我想念那些我们夏季疯玩的日子。eg: I could tell that he was reveling in the fact that I was going to fail.我能看得出来，我马上要失败了，他可是幸灾乐祸得很！作名词也可以说：eg: The revels often last until dawn.那些狂欢经常进行到黎明时分。Yeah, he brought a lot of his friends. They're acting like total jerks. Alert the media. I don't care.是啊，他带了蛮多朋友来。一群傻货，我无所谓了。Alert the media.是一种非常口语的表达。字面的意思是：我会告知媒体的。一般来说，理解成为：I don't care.我才不在乎呢！管他呢！It's a sarcastic remark saying you don't care. It is usually said after someone says something incredibly stupid or random.eg: 电影片段Arthur: You know what I think I'm going to do? Hobson: What, Arthur? Arthur: I'm going to take a bath. Hobson: I'll alert the media.-- 你知道我要去干嘛了么？-- 咋了，Arthur？-- 我要去洗澡了。-- 哦，随便你啊。另外，Andrew 还说了You're the main party animal, right? 你最喜欢派对了，是吗？party animal千万不要翻译成派对动物哦而是指沉迷于派对，有派对必去的那种人someone who enjoys parties very much and goes to as many as possible:eg: Sarah's a real party animal - she likes to dance all night.Sarah可真是沉迷于各种派对，她喜欢跳舞一整晚。【尝试翻译以下句子，并留言在文章留言区】She is reveling in the adulation of the media.

This week I was happy to welcome my good friend Andrew on the podcast! He was able to testify on how Christ change his Life!Scripture to checkout:John 3:1-19Revelation 18:17 at 32:30"Hold on to Christ and he will never leave"- Andrew You don't have to be perfect... He is never leaving.

Do you know the difference between sailing and boating? We didn't. In this episode of Punch Out with Katie and Kerry, we talk with Andrew Davis about movie clubs, sailing, and mentoring. Andrew is a best-selling author and keynote speaker.  In this episode we learned: Why people who sail can be 'super judgy' of people who boat Why he had bugs in his teeth The rules for anyone who wants to be in his movie club How he built a stand-up career Why his paintings are too 'emotionless' (even for motel art) Want to know more about Andrew? You can find him at: Website: https://www.akadrewdavis.com/ Twitter: @DrewDavisHere This episode is sponsored by the HELLO Conference.  What are you doing on October 22, 2020? You should be attending the HELLO Conference where marketers learn to be human at scale in the age of machine marketing. The speaker line up includes experts from SalesForce, Amazon, Trust Insights, and Firespark. Attendees have a unique opportunity to glean actionable insights on intelligent tools and the future of marketing from professionals who work with the world’s top brands. Tickets available at: https://bsquared.media/helloconference/  Punch Out with Katie and Kerry is the show that dives deeper into topics you care about. We don't ask the questions everyone else does. We get to the real insights (and the weird hobbies, the guilty pleasures, the secret side hustles...the good stuff)! We find out what really makes your favorite folks tick. Punch out with Katie and Kerry! Have a cool hobby or side interest you want to talk about on Punch Out with Katie and Kerry Let us know:  Website: www.punchoutwithus.com Email: punchoutwithus@gmail.com Hosts: Kerry O’Shea Gorgone @KerryGorgone  & Katie Robbert @katierobbert

Eni and Andrew discuss how to approach traditional religions from a place of respect. They explore some misunderstandings and how to get around them. They also talk about the realities of practicing from a distance.  Both share from their journey in two different lineages in two countries. This conversation is important in the wider dialogue of appropriation going now around traditional knowledge.  Be sure to check out the bonus episode on proverbs around this topic for Patreon supporters here.   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.  You can find Eni on her site here or Facebook here.  Andrew is as always here.  Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew Transcript   Andrew: Welcome to another episode of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I am here today with Eni Acho, who is an Orisha practitioner and priestess. She runs a wonderful Facebook group, but also ... website's called About Santeria, where there are lots of great conversations about the traditional practices and approaching the traditional practices of Orisha traditions, especially centered in Cuba. I think that given what I've seen more and more online and other places in conversations with people, this conversation about how do we approach a traditional religion as outsiders, is one that I think is really important. Andrew: I think that there's a lot of misunderstandings, I know I had a lot of misunderstandings or misconceptions about what things might be like. I think that these dialogues are important and obviously for my own personal tradition, but I also think that some of these conversations apply to any other traditional religion that you might approach as well. Eni, for those who don't know you, give us the lowdown. Who are you? What are you up to? Eni: Hi. My full Ocho name is Eni Acho Iya, which means the yellow dress of my mother. That's because I'm crowned to Oshun. Oshun is always associated with the color yellow. I was crowned in Palmira, Cuba and my lineage is called Palmira lineage. It's called the countryside or [inaudible 00:01:47] in Cuba to distinguish it from maybe what you might find in Havana or Mantanzas. But Palmira is one of the traditional centers of the Lucumi religion in Cuba. It was founded by the descendants of slaves who were taken to that part of Cuba to work in the sugarcane fields. After they were emancipated, they founded their own town, Palmira. Eni: It has three of the most traditional and oldest Lucumi religious societies in Cuba. The Sociedad Santa Barbara, Sociedad San Roque, and mine, the Sociedad el Cristo which is associated with the Sevilla family. A lot of people who practice Ifa know the name of [inaudible 00:02:30] or [inaudible 00:02:32] famous Babalawo's from Palmira. And that's my religious family, the Sevilla family. So I guess that's probably who I am, religiously speaking. And I've been running this website "About Santeria" for around six years, I think. As an educational website that aleyo's, outsiders can go to, to get basic questions answered. And just recently I created this page you referred to on Facebook so people can discuss some of the ideas. I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to take a look at that and welcome to the community if you decide to join us. It's a good community. I think lots of very knowledgeable priests in there and good conversations are taking place, so I'm happy with that. Andrew: I think it's great. There's lots of really knowledgeable priests, which is a great part of the equation. They're all, at least all the ones that I know, personally or through online interactions, they're all really solid people as well. Which is a really important part of that conversation too, right? Just because people know something doesn't necessarily mean anything anymore. There's this distinction that can happen between those things. That's one of the things that I also dig about that space and why I'm actually hanging out there as opposed to other spaces, where maybe people know stuff, but their character isn't as inspiring to me. Andrew: One of the things that I find really interesting is this idea of the distinction between what's going on now in a general way, and how stuff was a little while ago, or how things still are in certain parts of the world. Right? So you're from ... your practice and your connection, your family is in Palmira. What's it like there to sort of be born there and live there and practice this religion from that place, from a sort of real traditional community structure? Eni: I feel really fortunate to have had glimpses into everyday life there. I've been going there for over 20 years. And because of my work, I've been able to go and spend considerable amounts of time, like three months at a time, six months at a time, because my university here in Washington state has an exchange program with the university of Cienfuegos. And as an academic, that gave me a license, as ... the United States, it's not always that easy to go to Cuba, but because of my academic license, I've been able to go to Cuba pretty often, spend a lot of time there and really get to know the people very well. I've literally seen a whole generation of people grow up and I know what it's like from their point of view to be born there and be surrounded by this community. Eni: And I think it's important for your listeners to understand that this need that we have as outsiders, as people living in a different culture, we're always thinking, "how can I get in to that community"? Or "how can I get into the religion How do I find my way there"? It's always this destination or goal that people are looking for. And the big difference to me is that for people in Palmira, you're already there. You don't have to look for anything. It's all around you. It's in the air you breathe. And that's not to say that every single person that lives in the town is initiated in a religion, they're not, but certainly their neighbors are, or their cousin or their aunt or their grandma, people down the street. It's everywhere around you. And so if you have a concern, if you want to go get a reading done, you don't have to wonder where can I find a Babalow, where can I find a Santero? They're right there. And everybody knows them. Eni: There's a lot of accountability because literally these same people have lived there and their ancestors have lived there for 150 years and everybody knows who everybody is. Small town in Cuba, you don't have secrets. And I think that that makes it a really different experience because I've seen babies in their mother's arms at drumming ceremonies, because our ceremonies, our drumming for example, tend to be open to the public, people who live in Palmira, everybody comes and the whole family comes. So you have babies that can't even walk yet in their mothers' arms who are keeping time to the rhythm of the drum. And they are totally comfortable in that environment and they grow up with that. I've seen four year olds playing with their little stuffed animals, their bunny rabbits and teddy bears, and they're acting out an ocha ceremony that they've seen their parents do. So when you grow up with it all around you, that takes away a lot of the mystery. So it's not secretive. It's not hard to find. It's there. Eni: Our tradition in Palmira tends to be, for the most part, that we don't initiate very young children. Most people, if their family is religious, everybody in their family tends to get initiated, but they always leave it up to the individual to decide once they reach a certain level of maturity. And so typically you'll find people not getting initiated until maybe they're in their early twenties. That's changing. People now are doing more younger children, but we believe that it's not everybody's destiny to be initiated. That has to be something that's determined on an individual basis. But there are lots and lots of families where half the brothers and sisters are initiated, half aren't, and the cousin show up and they help out with the cooking and the cleaning before and after the ceremony. So everybody is involved in it and everybody feels connected to it, whether they're initiated or not. It's very comfortable. It's very organic and natural to just have it there. And that's such a different experience from what most of us outside Cuba. Andrew: I was in Matanzas last year playing for egun, for my godmother, passed away. Some of the things that struck me were, first of all, everybody knows everybody as you say. Right? You know, we're driving around the city with my godfather and he's like, "Hey, pull over" he leans out the window and has conversation with somebody and they'd keep going. Secondly, I don't know about architecturally in Palmira, but in Matanzas there are no windows on the windows, the doors are open. It's hot and you want those breezes. And so we're there doing the formal meal that's part of the ceremony and neighborhood kids who people know, or maybe they're children of people who are there, drift in, say hi, act like kids and run at the back and go and get some sweets or some food-[crosstalk 00:10:08] and they leave. Andrew: We were doing the drum in the front room and there's no ... the window's open and people are just walking by looking. People are walking by and they'll just start having a conversation with somebody who's there that they know. And it's very different than my experience of other things which it's done in somebody's house probably in their basements where do you see it? You don't see it anywhere. Right? As opposed to there. And also, as you say, driving around, you drive around and Oh, is that another drum going on over there? Oh yeah, it is. We should go by, Oh, is that another drum going on over there? There you go. You know? Eni: It's exactly like that in Palmira and it's hard to hide a drumming ceremony when the houses are so close together and all the doors are wide open. And everybody kind of spills out into the street and that interaction you were describing what the kids coming and going and people coming in and out all day. That happens literally every single day. When I'm in Palmira, I feel like I'm sitting in my godmother's house but it's like a train station with people coming and going and just, "Hey, what's going on?" and "anything going on?" And they have, you maybe know this expression in Spanish, radeo bemba, which means word of mouth, how the word spreads really quickly from person to person. So if somebody is going to have a drumming or somebody who's got an ocha birthday party or whatever's going on, everybody in the town knows everybody and they're very likely to just go by and drop in And see what's going on. Andrew: I think that this sort of leads to this idea of what does it look like to, as I said, is what are we looking to arrive in? I mean, really one of the things that we're looking for, whether we understand it or not when we start out is, we're looking to be welcomed into somebody's family. Eni: Yes. Andrew: We are looking to build a relationship and a connection hopefully to the community, to those people. I was at an event, I'd been hanging out with the Orisha community in Michigan where I was initiated 19 years now, 20 years, a long time. And we were having a conversation and somebody mentioned something and I'm like, "I was there when ... I helped make that person, I helped make that person, I helped make this person. I was there when this person was made, but I wasn't made yet". And there's this like longevity of connection, right? Whereas a lot of people sometimes come to these things with this idea that you're going to just arrive and be welcomed in, just arrive and suddenly everything's great or just arrive and you suddenly can get access or get recognized or whatever. But it's not really that way. I mean ideally it's not that way, right? Eni: No, you're absolutely right. And I think that a lot of this has to do with our understanding and we use the words in our religion. We talk about aleyo's, outsiders, strangers literally. And people in our culture tend to find that a little bit offensive. They think that means that they're not welcome. But in Cuba, that's not what it means. We simply differentiate for ceremonial purposes the people who are initiated, the Oloricha's. They have a certain role, a certain function, they do certain things. And if you're not initiated, you do other things and the rules are not identical. There is a hierarchy there. Not based on your worth as an individual or how smart you are or anything else. It's just are you initiated or not initiated? If you are, go in that room, if you're not going the other room. Right? Eni: I think Americans and, I don't know, maybe Canadians as well, people from outside that culture had a really hard time with that because we here in the U.S. where I live, we have such a consumer mentality and we identify something that we want and then we think "I'm going to get it. It's my decision, it's my choice. I'm in control of the process, here's my money, how much does it cost? Here's the money, okay, now I have it and it's mine." And they expect some kind of immediate acceptance or, "now we're the same. Okay. Because I paid my money and I'm just like you." And that is not how it works. Andrew: No, exactly. And that sense of entitlements that can be there is definitely a problem. And I think in two ways. One, as I know you do too, I get contacted by people sometimes who are like, "I need you to crown me" and I'm like, "my friend, I am not ... I don't even know." Why would I choose to incur a lifelong and perhaps more than this lifelong connection with you as being responsible for your spiritual wellbeing and to some extent your practical wellbeing forever, when I've never even met you. You know? So that's the challenge. And then the other side of that, of course, in a world where we're approaching people that we don't know who are not aleyos, but complete strangers irregardless, there's not that community knowledge of you should go see ... whatever, right? It should be because "I think they could be a good person for you, I think they could guide you, this person's a renowned diviner you should go see them." You don't have that connection. Andrew: And so all of these people, no matter what we think we know about them from seeing them on social media, they're all strangers too. And that's where so much of those problematic situations where people will be like, "Sure, yeah, absolutely. You've got the money, just give it to me, we'll be good." And then it's not good because those people on the other side are just looking to take that money and take advantage as well. It's a big problem. Eni: It's a big problem. And I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that people just get too impatient and they want it now. And a lot of times they don't even know why they want it and they don't even actually know what it is. And so the process always, in my opinion, has to be organic. It has to happen in kind of a natural way, right time, right people, right place. And you can't force it. I think that that's the key thing. You're not in control really. It's going to happen when the Orishas and your egun want it to happen. And the more you push and resist and try to get it all to go your way, I think you're just creating a lot of trouble for yourself. Andrew: One of the expressions that ... I didn't have the pleasure to meet your magua but a very famous oricha who's connected to my godparents ... one of the expressions that I hear, they used to say a lot was, "no, no, what you need to understand is, orisha is the boss here". We as people, we have our say and we get to make our choice. And it doesn't mean we have to accept everything or ... it is a relationship. But at a certain points your orisha needs to be the ones that we trust to dictate and to find the right time and space and, and all of those things. It's like the proverb, "every head is looking for its home". Not every little person, not every house, not everybody's situation is in right alignment for anybody. Right? Maybe someone comes to Palmira and they're like, "Oh, this actually doesn't fit for me". And not pushing there, not trying to push ahead one way or another makes the most sense in that situation. Eni: My own experience I think is a good example of that because I went to Palmira for the first time just because I was invited to somebody's house for dinner and I had absolutely no intention of making ocha there. It wasn't even on the horizon for me. I knew about the religion, I liked it, I was interested in it, but kind of from an academic standpoint. And I went to dinner at a colleagues house, a professor from the university and she introduced me to another professor from the university, her neighbor who lived the next block over and he turned out to be the head of the Sevilla family, a familia who was running a casto at that time. Eni: And I just became friends with that family and visited them for years, just dropping in and having coffee and chatting with them. And I wasn't showing up on the doorstep all the time saying, "teach me about the religion I want in help me, you have to be my godfather. It happened in a very gradual way where I started getting readings. I think most of us began that way where we get readings that guide us. Eni: Then over a long period of time, year. Little by little it came out that I needed to get this or I needed to get that. I got my warriors, I got cofa de orula and then it wasn't until I got cofa de orula [inaudible 00:20:06] in eka, was that I eventually needed to make ocha, and that was really stressed. Eventually, one day before you die. And my godfather said, "Think about it. Don't do it now. You need to kind of wrap your head around this and think about what it means and take your time and do it when you're ready". And I don't know, about four, three or four years later, it just happened like serendipity. That's what we're talking about here. These things just kind of all come together magically almost. I got a sabbatical from my university, I got a scholarship, it was a grant, that paid me to go to Cuba to do this research project I was working on and that turned out to be the gear I was able to make ocha because I was able to be in Cuba. Eni: And that's the experience I wanted with those people that I have known for many, many years and it just happened in a very natural way. And if someone had said to me 15 years earlier, "Oh yes, you're going to go to Palmira and make ocha". I would have said, "what's Palmira I don't even know what you're talking about." Andrew: I think that it's, even for me, I went looking for the religion. I had been explore ... doing Western ceremonial traditions and initiatory groups for a long, long time. And I had sort of hit this place where I felt like I really needed to connect with something deep and traditional. I was trying to figure out what that was, where this was in a pre-internet era. It wasn't like you could just jump on Facebook and find a bunch of things. And eventually I found my way to the community in Michigan and even at that, although I received my elekes and my warriors, I still was involved in that community for eight, nine years before I was crowned. I was one of those things like, "yeah, someday you should do that". Andrew: You should start putting aside your money and when you have the money you should think about doing it. One of the things that I noticed with people I have conversations about it now sometimes is they get to the end of the reading and they're like, "okay, but what do I need to receive? When do I need to make ocha?" One of the questions that I often returned to them with is, "well, is your life horrible? Is your life a hot mess? Are you sick? Are you like having horrible problems? You're reading doesn't say you're magically afflicted? Is there something going on? Your life is a disaster and you need to be saved from it". They're like, "Nope". I'm like, "man just keep living your life and as you need things, stuff will surface if you need things". Andrew: And I think that's another thing that, we don't understand. I didn't understand fully myself, even though I was aware of it going into it, is this notion that within the tradition, these things are medicines of a sort. They're there to either provide very specific kinds of guidance or specific energies or to counter specific energies so that we can live our life to the fullness of our destiny. As opposed to being things that we can collect or accumulate or that give us status or those kinds of things. You know? Eni: That's exactly right. That's how I feel about it too. And, and I think it's hard for people to understand that maybe they don't want to hear it when they're so enthusiastic and so determined that this is going to be their path. That's what they want to do. And one of the things that I hear a lot, and I think you do too, is people get frustrated and say, "okay, you're telling me to be patient, but what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and wait?". They want tips, how can I do something to make me feel like I'm moving forward? And so I actually do have some suggestions if you're determined that you want to learn and do more with this religion, I have some kind of practical tips that might get you started. Andrew: I'd love to hear them. Eni: I break down things into little lists, but I think many people begin with kind of an academic approach to it. So they read books and you mentioned 20 years ago we didn't have as many resources as we have now. Now we have the internet, we have lots more books than we used to have. We have all these religious forums on Facebook and many people are offering online classes of this kind or that kind. And all of those approaches are limited. I think that's the first thing I want to stress is that there's nothing wrong with reading books. There's nothing wrong with reading stuff on the internet, but there are lots of buts attached to that, lots of limitations because yes, there are some good books out there. Fortunately, thank goodness people like Willie Ramos is writing really good books on David Brown and other people who have the credentials and the research methodology down. And what they present is accurate and very good and very helpful. And that's always great to read. Eni: But I remember when I first started looking for books on religion, there are some really wacko books out there because now anybody can publish a book. It's all self publishing. You might go on Amazon and look for books and you might find 20 different titles and you just don't know which ones are good and which ones are not good. You can read the reviews but those are always written by somebody's friend and they don't necessarily tell the truth. You have to be careful when you're reading books too. First of all, evaluate the source. Who is this person writing the book? And if they say magic moon goddess has been practicing 300 world religions for the past year and a half and she's the author of this book on Santeria, I would not necessarily consider her a reliable source because if she's not even initiated what does she know about the religion? Eni: But if it says, "Willie Ramos is a professor of history who wrote his thesis on Havana in the 19th century" and whatever, and he has written these books that are published by university presses and published in scholarly journals. For me, that's an indication that those are serious things that I can read. And even after I read them though, I remember when I first started reading some of those books like David Brown's "Santeria Enthroned". It's a great book. Eni: But I didn't understand it. I was reading it and half of what he was talking about I had no idea what any of that meant and it took me years to realize that I was going to have to piece together all of this information I was accumulating and put it into some meaningful pattern because to my knowledge, there's not one book, a Bible that you just go to and it tells you everything you need to know. Every book will tell you a little bit or something, but nobody's going to tell you the whole story and you have to decide how does this information fit in with other things. You have to analyze it. And the same is true, especially on the internet because there is some good stuff on the internet but there's also a lot of terrible misinformation and the religious forums are the same. Andrew: One of the things that's really important to understand is, not only is there not one book that can tell you everything, It wouldn't even be possible, Right? Like the scope of this tradition is so massive. And when you start talking with someone who's an elder [inaudible 00:28:41] they're a knowledgeable Babalawo, whatever right? Someone who has lived in the tradition for such a long time, the amount of things that come up that are just different situations. I was at a ceremony recently and the person running it was like, "Oh yeah, you know what, your name's Oba tilemi right? Because I know the sound for that one." And so they sang the song that relates to my ocha name, which maybe I had heard it before, nobody had highlighted it, but I never pick that up before because there are so many songs for Shango. There's so many songs for everybody. There's so many stories, there's so many pieces and ceremonies and ideas and advices that it just expands in an unbelievably sophisticated way. Eni: They say the more you know the more you realize you don't know. It truly is a lifelong, lifelong process. But reading books is not a bad place to start given all these limitations that I've talked about. Because I think the positive thing about it is that way at least people who are interested and burning and to know something, feel like they have a little bit of control. Like, Oh, I found a book, I'm so excited and that's great, but it's limited. And eventually, like you mentioned earlier, this is about belonging to a community. And so sooner or later you have to get out of the world of books and meet people in a religion. It must be a personal experience and you must become part of a community because you cannot do this on your own. Eni: And you know that's full of challenges as well because then you have to say, how do I meet these people and are they legitimate? Are they going to cheat me? Is this community a good fit for me? You have to consider things like your physical proximity, because if you're like my ocha community is in Cuba and when I made ocha there, I had to decide, am I going to be able to go back to Cuba on a regular basis? Do I have the money to be able to travel? Does my job allow me to go there whenever I want? Eni: You have to really think about these things because if you don't live near your ocha community, you've got to travel. You know that. You also have to think about the language and the culture, and this just completely confuses me. I hear about people who go to Cuba, they don't speak Spanish, they know nothing about Cuban culture. They make ocha, they're there for a week and they go home and then they say, "I don't have a good relationship with my godparent". I'm like,"well, who is your godparent"? "I don't know. Some guy that lives in Havana." Eni: If you don't speak the language, if you don't know the culture, how can you fit in that community? How can you learn anything? And like you mentioned, you also have to consider a character there of the people. Are they upright people? Are they honest people? Do they have good reputations in the community? I've been talking just about the Lukumi practice, which is my practice. But for a lot of people who are at the very early stages, they have to decide what branch of this religion do they want. A lot of people want traditional Yoruba and they want to know about those practices in Nigeria. I don't know about that. I can't teach you that. I'm Lukumi. Andrew: Well I think that's also a whole other branch, right? But the problem remains the same. You and I would likely have equal ... we'd be next to ground zero by just dropping into Nigeria or wherever. I'm just going to go hang out with some traditional people. It's a roll of the dice. Right. You just never, hopefully it's good, but you never know given that every other day I'm befriended on Instagram by a Nigerian Prince wants to help remove the curses on me if I'll just send them a bunch of money by wire transfer. That stuff is out there, it's everywhere. Eni: And not only that, but our actual ceremonies are different and we have the same basic route. But, I only know how to do ocha ceremonies in Cuba and if I went to Nigeria, I'm sure they do it differently. I can't just walk in there as a functioning priest and expect to be accepted in this community because I don't know anything about them and they don't know anything about me. Before you waste time reading a million books on Lucumi, and then you decide I don't really like Lucumi, I want to be a traditional Yoruba. Make that decision first I think. And focus on what resonates with you. Andrew: I think one of the other things that I would say if you're reading books and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well, is the more a book on Orisha tradition talks about what you could do or should do on your own, the more likely I am to think that it's not helpful at all. There are some folks that there where they're like, do this super power Orisha bath and it's like, well, probably not right? These things come from, ideally come from, divination or they come from the ashy of an elder who speaks of where they come from. You know, an Orisha possession.And they don't come from, "huh, I really wish that this was different, maybe I should do this thing", right? Eni: I honestly don't think a reputable priest would write a book like that. I'm sorry, that probably sounds really harsh. But the books that I value ... Andrew: Please, feel free to be harsh, that's fine. Eni: The books that I value are written either from a historical perspective, maybe I'm just a history buff. But that really, really helped me to understand how this religion came to Cuba and how it transformed and who are founding mothers and fathers were and how the religion spread. And having a historical foundation, to me, has just been so valuable. That really helped me. Eni: And I also like books, like the most recent series that Willie is doing where there's a whole book that's just about, Oshun and another book that's all about Obatala and he talks about, these are the songs and these are the prayers, and these are the herbs, and these are the characteristics of Oshun and these are the different roads. That's great. Because it gives you more profound insight into who that Orisha is. But it ... I never ever have found a book helpful that starts telling you, "okay, you're not initiated but you can still throw the shells and learn how to read them and do these spiritual baths and make up all this stuff. And you don't need a priest and you don't need to be initiated". If I see that, I throw that book in the garbage. Andrew: Yeah, that's totally fair. I think one of the things I think is also significant and understanding tradition is one of the things about understanding initiation, especially, well even becoming, just taking on somebody, becoming someone's godparents, you're becoming part of, in a way that lineage, right? That lineage is tied to those people and to those places. My lineage goes back to Mantanzas and when I was there with my godfather, he took me to meet certain people and certain Orishas who are close to the sort of origin of that. And there's this living legacy of those connections from me to my godparents, to their godparents and so on, all the way back to the beginning of this tradition as it stands now in Cuba and then beyond into sort of the, the reaches of history. And that's really significant. That's a really important part of this tradition because without that lineage, in some ways nothing happens, right? Like what happens without that. Eni: That's exactly how I feel. I feel so grateful to be able to go to a place like Palmira and [inaudible 00:37:22] when you go to Mantanzas, same thing, it's like you have a very clear sense of this is where it comes from. I'm connected to this and it gives you such a grounding that it ... I don't even know how to explain it, but it's just really powerful. And I want to connect to something that you said earlier because when you were talking about somebody just contacting you out of the blue and saying, I want you to be my godfather, or please initiate me immediately. Here's the money. I think it's important that people understand that priests have to be selective about who they choose to initiate because it's a big responsibility. Like you said, it's a lifelong commitment. Eni: And if I don't know you and you turn out to be a crazy person, I'm bringing you into my religious family. I'm bringing you into my house and you're going to disrupt everything and make everybody miserable and cause trouble. I don't want that. There really is this kind of trial period and a lot of people who want an immediate access are so put off by that. They'll say, "I went to somebody's house and I asked them to be my godfather and he said, no". Well that's because he doesn't know you and it's premature and it's like you said, why do you need to be talking about making ocha right now? There's nothing to indicate you need that. So this idea that priests should be available 24/7 and a lot of people think "Oh, our religious communities or our centers or wherever we do our ceremonies. They imagine it like some kind of community center or maybe a Christian Church where there's this physical building and there's a little office attached and the priest gets paid a salary and sits there 9:00 to 5:00 and receives people. Eni: And to my knowledge, I have never seen anything like that in our religion. We do our ceremonies in our homes most of the time. And I'm not going to invite a stranger into my home. It's my home. That can really be off putting to people who are new to the religion, but they need to understand that you have to gain someone's trust. They just think they're protecting themselves. Like, "how do I know my Godfather's not a crook and he's cheating me"? Well, that is a concern. You need to know that. But at the same time, the godparent is looking at the potential godchild saying, "is this person a good fit? Do I want to do something with this person"? And people don't like to be judged. They think, here's the money, take it, give it to me. Andrew: No, for sure. I think it's kind of like asking somebody to marry you on the first date. It doesn't make sense. And if the person agrees, well, 99% of the time you should be really suspect about that because that person's got some issues. Go deal with those issues, right? Eni: Exactly. Or it could be like "we have never met, we just know each other from Facebook. Do you want to get married"? Andrew: It's such an interesting modern phenomenon. Right? Eni: Yeah. And another thing that's connected to this that I think is really difficult for newcomers or people who are looking for the way in, is they don't understand that some knowledge in our religion is only meant for priests. It's not open library, here's all the information in the whole world that anyone can access. Traditionally it's been passed by oral communication from generation to generation. You learn it from your elders, you learn it from hands on experience, some information you simply cannot know before you've been through the ceremony yourself. So when somebody comes with a million questions and the potential godparent is saying, "I can't tell you about her. That's not for you to know", Or "that's something only priests do". People get offended by that and think, "Oh, it's secretive they won't share their knowledge". Andrew: I think it's one of those things, and also depending on what we're talking about, I think it's fair for people to ... for the keepers of the tradition to honor the tradition by managing where that information goes. And if they think you're going to be online telling all your friends about this and that and making orisha baths and selling them on the internet when you're not even initiated or whatever, then probably they're going to hold that back as well. There needs to be the evidence of respect over time. Eni: Yeah, for sure. Going back to my little tip sheet though, after the recommendation of get to know people in the religion, sometimes people don't even know how to do that because they say, "where I live there isn't anywhere, It's not visible or I can't find it". So sometimes you have to start with just a wild goose chase in a sense that you might look for some public events that are advertised maybe on Facebook or in your community. Somehow you might look for like a tribute to Oshun at the river that's going to happen on such and such a date and everybody's invited. You make a point to go to that and you can meet some people. Or maybe if you get invited by somebody you know to an ocho birthday party or a drumming, definitely take advantage of those kinds of invitations that come your way. Eni: If you don't know anybody in the religion who could invite you to something, you could even just start with universities in your city or cultural centers, because a lot of times they'll have performances of some kind that's related to Afro-Cuban culture and there might be dance ... Orisha dancing or there might be drumming as performance. There might be lectures, films, scholars who work on that topic. And that's a place that you can meet people. If you just go to the performance or the dance, you might meet somebody who would then invite you to something. So I think that's a pretty safe way to do it if you can find something like that to attend and just keep going. You're going to see the same people showing up and you'll start talking to them, they'll start talking to you. That's a good way to meet people. Eni: Botanicas, a lot of people will say, "Oh, I went to the botanica and I met somebody". I think that can be good. There are some good botanicals, but there are also some shady ones. Andrew: So many shady ones. Eni: Yeah, so many shady ones you have to be really, really careful. You can't just walk into a botanica and assume that the person behind cash register is an orisha, maybe they're not. You can't just go in there and buy a bunch of stuff and ... be very, very careful about the botanicas. It's possible you could meet somebody legitimate there, but it's very likely you're going to meet as a person who wants to scam you. Andrew: The thing is, because I run a store, right? It's not a botanica the sort of sense that it focuses on orisha stuff in that sense. But it's not that dissimilar either. I sell candles and herbs as well as a bunch of other stuff. But I think that that's where also ... do some reading and know what it's really about, and what things are and so on, that you can ask the person some questions and see what happens. Andrew: There was a time where I sold more orisha specific stuff and people would come in and they'd start asking me questions, who were initiates and then they quickly realize, "Oh yeah, okay, this guy's an initiate, he knows what's going on". You could have a certain conversation about stuff and that doesn't need to mean that you need to be an initiate to know about that. But you could be like, "Oh well, where were your initiatives? Who are you an initiatives? What's your lineage? What's your orisha?" or whatever things that can come up and you can gauge things from that person that way and sort of feel them out a little bit. Eni: Absolutely. And by all means, don't walk into a botanica with a wad of money in your hand and say, "I want to get initiated". That's not going to work out well. Or they'll say, "my uncle can initiate you, step in the back room". Go ahead. Sadly that has happened so you have to be careful. Eni: I think social media is similar in a sense that you can be on these religious forums and you can meet some great people on social media. I met you on social media. There are definitely some good connections to be made on social media, but you have to be so careful and don't just put out there, "Hey, I'm looking for a godparent who wants to initiate me". There are also charlatans on social media. You don't know who's who's going to grab you. So for me, the most reliable starting point, Sooner or later you've got to get to a point or you can go get a reading, a consulta. And by that I mean by an orisha or by a babalawo who will use the traditional divination tools of orisha to tell you what's going on with you. I have nothing against taro cards and psychic readings and all these other things. But that's not how you find out what's going on with oricha. Andrew: Exactly. I've created and made an orisha tarot deck that is not for marketing orisha things. It is for exploring and understanding the philosophies and the ideas. Exploring how some of these worldviews overlap in the worldviews of tarot. But if you go and somebody says, Oh yeah, "[inaudible 00:47:51], your Orisha with my taro deck". You should get up and leave maybe even ask for your money back, because it's not what it's for. It doesn't work that way. Eni: I think that finding a good diviner is so crucial. That's to me, a turning point because if you can find a good, reliable, honest diviner, that person is going to be able to guide you. Even if that person doesn't turn out to be your godparent, that person is going to be able to hook you up with the right people if they're a member in good standing and in their Orisha community. I think that having these kind of warning signs to look out for, that's very important. You need to go understanding that if you sit down with a diviner, you've never been there before, the first thing he says is, "Oh my God, something really horrible, your children are all going to die unless you make ocho right now". If somebody starts pressuring you like that and trying to manipulate you and make you be really afraid and you have to be initiated right now, that's a warning sign to me. Andrew: One of the things I think that people ... in life there's not always solutions. But one of the things that I understand now at this point in my journey is I've been through some very hard stuff. Last year my business burned to the ground. It's not easy, life isn't always easy. But when I got a reading about that with my elder, it was so comforting. Even though there's a ton of hard stuff still in front of me, and there are ways of which we can approach difficulties and there are ways in which we can make a bowl, do little ceremonies and offerings or whatever, to make our situation better for almost every situation. And it's one of the things that I think is fascinating and different is that there's not ... sometimes there's a miraculous transformation. Andrew: Sometimes there's something you do and it just turns everything around. But there's always something to do, even in difficult times. Approaching it with fear or putting fear into the other person's heart, it's one of the worst things that I think people could do. Divination should come with solutions as well. Advice to mitigate it. And even if it comes we have this sort of orientation where it comes Okinawa, where it comes ... what you brought from heaven. Meaning you can't change it. But we can use it. You can find ways to mitigate your suffering. You can find ways to fortify your strength. There are solutions. If people are working to make you afraid, it makes me so mad when that happens. So, don't fall for it. Eni: And the solution doesn't have to cost $2,000 all the time. There are lots of solutions that are much less expensive. We always just start out with fresh water, omi tutu and coconuts and fruit and things like that. And a lot of times a simple abo an [inaudible 00:51:13], prepare some rice pudding or [inaudible 00:51:15] or whatever it doesn't have to be $2,000. Eni: I think that if people get to the point where they can find a good divine and rely on that information and understand the process of divination and what it's for, that is definitely going to put them on the path they need to be on. Because as we said at the very beginning, not everybody needs to be initiated. If your life is fine and you don't need to get X, Y, or Z, you don't need it, you're fine the way you are. And you don't need to go into the religion thinking, "I'm going to acquire ... I want to have 30 ori shots and I want to have the fanciest soperas and beautiful decorations. That's great, but that doesn't make you a more devoted orisha worshiper than the poor, simple Cuban who's just got his Orishas in a little clay pot. Andrew: I remember talking to this person and they gave all their money to buying things for their Orishas. And they're like, "well, the orisha is going to give it back to me twice as much". But then they were always broke because they were always spending all the money they got on ... You know and at a certain point you have to be mindful of the realities of these dynamics and even if the Orishas did reciprocate one of their offerings with double the amount of investment or they were so happy they blessed them, that's great. But then when you take that blessing and you turn it ... and you don't put it to use in the way it's intended. That's not helpful either. Eni: It's not all about material wealth either, because we have to remember that this religion came from, for the most part, very poor people. People in Cuba, the old people, a lot of times they didn't have anything. If they could go out and buy one apple to give to Chango on their Orisha birthday, that represented a big sacrifice. That's all they could do. They weren't going to go get a loan to buy something better, but they spent their money buying that apple for Chango and they gave it with love and they spent the whole day sitting there with Chango and praying and singing and receiving friends and godchildren. Those people are incredibly blessed even though materially they're poor, they have a really rich spiritual life. And for the most part they have long life, good health and they would say that their life is going well. Even though from our perspective it's like, "Oh my gosh, you don't have anything, you're so poor". They have what they need. Andrew: I think that it's funny because people have often a very strong reaction to the financial part of the religion, that we have to pay money for these things to happen. And I get it, it's not always easy, it can be a lot of money, especially in North America. I mean really anywhere, any Cubans, a lot of money for people who are in Cuba. Also, it's not just people ... I almost want to say their, despite the way in which money plays such a significant role in the tradition, so many of them are less capitalists than a lot of people are They're less caught up in that consumerism. And so they are way more content with doing things and being a part of things and showing up. Eni: There are lots of different ways to make sacrifice. You can sacrifice your time, you can give your attention, your love. There are many, many ways to show devotion. It doesn't have to all be about money. Andrew: Exactly. Do you have anything else on your list there? Eni: I have a little summary. Andrew: Okay let's hear it. Eni: We've talked for a long time here, it's been really interesting. But first of all, I guess I want to stress that there's only so much that you can do alone. This is not a religion that you can practice all by yourself. There's no such thing, in my opinion, as self initiation. I really don't like it when people just appropriate and steal little parts of our religion and say, "well I don't like that other part. I'm not going to do that, but I like this little part, I'm going to do this". No, you're either in it or you're not in it. And if you're in it, it means you follow the tradition and the rules of your house. You have to show respect that way in my opinion. Andrew: I want to add to that point, I live in Toronto. There are a few other people in the area, but pretty much everybody here travels to do anything of any consequence. There are no Ochas happening in Toronto, there are no whatever. What it means to, even for me, who has dedicated a lot of time to study and to try to learn the tradition and so on. There's so much that you can only learn by watching somebody do it. And whether that's how you peel the stem out of a leaf or whether that's how you put things together in a certain way. There's all this knowledge that it's just deeply practical that nobody would ever even think to explain to you because you would just see it by being in the room. But when you're not in the room and you're reading about these things, you can learn a bunch of stuff, but still doesn't mean that you know how to do anything, which is a really, I think, important distinction to understand. Eni: Oh, absolutely. That was one of my points as well, that if you're geographically isolated from a large Orisha community, you are definitely going to have to either travel a lot or move. I feel so bad for people who say "I live somewhere in the middle of Nebraska and I want to be initiated". Well unless they moved, I don't think that's going to happen unless they can travel a lot. You have to be practical. Some people live in these isolated communities where there is no Orisha community and if they can't travel and can't go anywhere and can never participate in anything, there's definitely a limit to how far they can go or what they can do. Y Eni: You do have to be proactive like we talked about, you have to get out there and look for opportunities and connections, but at the same time you have to be really careful that you don't fall into the wrong hands and you have to be patient as things happen in their own way. Sooner or later at some point you're going to need a mentor. And usually that turns out to be a godparent who can lead you along. You can only go so far on your own. Eni: My final point, and the one that is the most important that I say over and over again, is you just have to have faith that if it's meant to happen, it will happen in the way it's meant to happen and you can't control the process. Andrew: Absolutely. I think that is a great summary and maybe that's a great place to wrap it up. For people who want to follow along more with what you're doing, how do they connect? Remind us of your websites and how do they connect with your new Facebook project as well? Eni: My website is www dot about Santeria, all one word and no capital letters aboutsanteria.com. www dot about Santeria dot com. If people go to that website, there's a little button, click here to contact me, and you can write to me and I'll write back. Or you can go on Facebook and we have the About Santeria page where people can find connections on Facebook to what's on a website. And there's also the About Santeria community forum and that's open to aleyos, non initiates as well as priests and the Lucumi. I'm keeping a focus on Lucumi because I'm not qualified to talk about traditional Yoruba and I want the focus to be on Lucumi. Andrew: Perfect. All right, well thank you so much, Eni for making time to be here. We've been talking about it for a while and I'm really glad that we finally got our time zones coordinated and made everything happen. Eni: Thank you for the invitation. I really enjoyed the conversation. Andrew: Oh, it's my pleasure.

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 Apr 19, 2018 Chris: G'day world, Chris Hogan coming to you live from MeMedia studio here at Burleigh Heads and I have with me today our usual suspect, Andrew Groat and a guest, Brendon McAlpine from Internet Removals. How are you going Brendon? Brendon: Good morning, thank you for having me, I'm great. Chris: How are you going, Andrew? Andrew: Yeah good. Chris: Awesome, so today we've invited Brendon in because Internet Removals is a company that we believe every business out there needs help from and one of those reasons is because it's all well and good you marketers like us, driving traffic to websites and pages and improving conversions and all the rest of it but it's no good if your reputation is sub-par. Brendon: Correct. Chris: So, Brendon, do you want to tell us a little bit about Internet Removals? Brendon: So, hard to believe, but I am an online content removalist, we help businesses remove content from the internet, quite simply. When you have a negative online footprint, the misdirection's horrendous in the sense you could spend hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars getting directed to website, on Google, we're talking about Google's platform, but it's just bombarded with some negative content from the past or new or for whatever reason. And it's our business to help people let the right platforms know that the content is either misleading, untrue, false, defamation and getting the content down. Google Reviews is a platform that I don't think anyone want to be on sometimes, it's not initiated by the company in themselves, it's just you get an email saying, "Yeah, "let's become Google Reviews." but unfortunately it opens up a can of worms in a sense, simple as a customer not getting her dog cut correctly and they've got a platform to just put a barrage of negative reviews and you're measured on it unfortunately with Google Stars. People, their online footprint's pretty important, it has to be now more than ever. So yeah, that's what we do, remove content from the internet for corporate as well as public and public's more the bad side of the internet in the sense of image-based abuse as well as revenge porn unfortunately that's where you've lost content between yourself and a partner and they post it online, we do our best to let the people know to get it down quick. Chris: What was that term? Brendon: Revenge porn? Chris: I've never heard that one. Brendon: Oh wow it's big Andrew: Yeah it's huge. Brendon: Yeah it's a name now that's, I mean the government's spending millions of dollars on different commissions to recognise it and to get it prosecuted as domestic violence, which it is. As you know, domestic violence isn't just measured by fists and that sort of stuff, it's the mental abuse. Chris: Yeah, it's cyberbullying. Brendon: Yeah, look we've been doing it six years, so we've been at the coalface if not the leader in a sense, getting content down and recognising it but now new laws are coming out and people are starting to recognise that it is abuse and that's as simple as breaking up with someone and sending a barrage of messages threatening them, saying, "I'm going to post this stuff of you," we monitor it and then if it goes online we do everything we can as quick possible to get it down. Yeah that's the nasty side of it unfortunately but in businesses you've just got to look at your footprint and see if there's a problem. Chris: What have we likened having bad reviews to before? Andrew: It's similar to if you had a physical business and you had a whole bunch of people protesting out the front you wouldn't get an awful lot of people through the door and this is basically the digital version of that, the online version of that. And what I found was interesting, what you were saying before is that a great deal of the reviews and stuff, the negative reviews are bogus. Brendon: Yeah, a lot, most of them, I mean you can see it in the review, companies engage us to find out what the problem is and where it stemmed from as well as to remove it, put all our means possible to get the content down. And I've seen cases where, I'll give you an example of a real estate agency had a rental property with a person and that person obviously had a-- whatever happened between the person renting it from the real estate went pear shaped. Which is normal. And in Queensland property laws are pretty strict, you know, there's guidelines on how to do things but either way that person that was renting it didn't like what happened, had all the right procedures in moving them out, they weren't paying rent or whatever but decided to take their grievances online so they found out the person who owned the property had a business. Barraged it, put a massive amount of content on there, where they could, Google Reviews, saying stuff that was really relating to their business but they had no identity with them, they didn't know these people he just wanted-- he was calculated and said, "This is how I'm going to ruin it." And then he found out the daughter had a business, did the same thing and unfortunately that daughter's business relied heavily on the way she's looked in the market, it was all lies. And unfortunately what we've got to do is get that message and that story to Google through all their means and that's exactly what we do. Chris: Which is a full time job, I'm sure. Brendon: Yeah, it is. Chris: So, essentially, it was really a good point that you made there about practically every business out there on the internet, even if you're not on the internet, you can have a Google My Business page which is capable of having anybody from around the world post a review on it. Brendon: Correct. Chris: And you may or may not know it. Brendon: Yeah. Chris: And most people don't, in fact we had a client recently that signed up for our marketing services and the first thing we did was an audit based on all of their channels that they either knew about, owned or didn't know about, unowned. Brendon: Correct. Chris: And found that basically their reputation was quite bad. And that was actually through no fault of their own in some regards, there were some really good ones and really bad ones, so their star rating was sitting quite low under the threes, due to the fact that they've had some people out there post some negative stuff that just either wasn't true or there might have been an element of truth in it and the rest was crap. The interesting thing about that one is they weren't even aware of the Google My Business page being set up and they weren't aware of the Facebook page being set up. Some had been set up by staff that had since left and some of it was just set up by people doing the reviews. They didn't know even know it was there Brendon: That's very common. Setting up fake profiles to discredit a business is huge, there's that many businesses out there I've seen that have had fake profiles up and they've gone, "Wow." And it's explained their reasons for drop offs and turnover and their volume's still good but customer callings have changed and stuff. Yeah attacks like that, it's more common than you can imagine. I mean, let's put it in perspective, let's say there was an employee of a floor shop who was rude. Who was really not a good customer service person, so that business owner's gone through the process of employing this person, he's now recognised that, not just through Google Reviews, but through customer's saying, "This guy's not good for my business," and he'd take the means either of training him or moving him on. Fair enough, the guy's moved on. On those reviews they'll state the name most of the time, that, "This guy, this and this," and should those reviews stay if the business has fixed the problem? Andrew: No. Brendon: Correct. That's a big part of what we see, most businesses fix a problem but unfortunately the bad name stays for good. I look at Google like this, and I probably changed this story a few times, but let's say we back in the Mediaeval times and they used to have billboards, big billboards, so you walk down the village street and there's that sign that has blacksmith, so-and-so and that's Google the billboard. Now if someone put up there the blacksmith and really nasty content, what would happen? The village, I guess the king would come along and pull it off. Chris: Or the guy would go out of business. Brendon: Correct or either way, the village would get together and say, "That shouldn't be there because it's against the law," all these different laws. And that's how it should work, we should be able to pull it down if it's illegal. Unfortunately with Google, there's a long process to let them know. Their problem's bigger than it is, I mean they get a quarter of a million flagging every day and what people don't realise is Google do take content down, it's just the way you take it, you make sure that the content's correct. You've got to look into each review and make sure that it's strength in what you're telling them and then it ticks all the boxes to get it escalated to a moderator, that's that person in whatever country that's got six seconds to read it so you want to get everything correct to there for them to go, "Well I believe everything "at the front end is correct, "so I've just got to read this and yep, "if it seems legit we'll get rid of it." And that's how primitive it is, it's primitive. Andrew: It's an incredibly easy process to set up an account and leave a review or set up a Google My Business page for another business, but it's much harder to get it down, I think that's half the problem here. Brendon: It shouldn't be. Andrew: You don't need any form of identity or anything to be able to leave a review on a business. Brendon: Correct, no qualifying really. I mean, I see reviews, they show you the location where they leave the reviews and you have to scream, "Bots," you have to scream, "It's computerised," or, "Someone's done this." This is on positive reviews, I'll just tell all of the viewers out here, do not engage in companies that give you positive reviews, okay? Because if the ACCC rings up and says, "I want to know that guy's name and I want to speak to him "and I want him to sign a stat dec saying "that you wrote the review," It's a $22,000 fine if you're wrong. And people engage these, I think they call it brushing, these bot companies to increase Google Reviews. Unfortunately the reviewer's not as dumb as you think. They'll look at it and go, "It's a guy's name that I can't pronounce "and then there's another ten of them." And you see different locations all over the world and you put two and two together and go, "No, it's not true. Andrew: Yeah and you're a local Gold Coast business. Brendon: It's the worst thing you can do. Never put false content up in the sense of positive reviews. Chris: Yeah so there you go, you can get stung both ways. I think it's great that Google reviews and the ability to get reviews from people exists because it's important as business owners that we keep our customers centric to the operations of our business. They give us insights to our business that we otherwise just cannot see, you know? And there's a fantastic interview that my co-founder for BeachCity just did with a gentleman by the name of Nicklas Bergman, best-selling author of The Tech Storm, great book, you should go and read it. Nicklas interviewed the chairman of Ikea. Now I'm not going to reveal what the chairman said, but you need to go and watch it. In a nutshell, be consumer-centric. And the way that he did that was fantastic, go and watch the video, we'll link to it in these comments. But that was a really valuable lesson from that chairman of Ikea, that they keep, or he in particular, keeps his customers at the centre of their operations of their business and knowing what they want is valuable for the future growth of the business, it's valuable for the current operations of the business, it's valuable for knowing how to deal with your current clients and what they expect from you and if you can't get around to a lot of your customers yourself, you do need to take heed of the potential that they have already gone and commented online and if they haven't then you should be talking to them anyway you should be talking to your customers. Internet Removals sounds like a fantastic business for my mind and I'm not saying this to butter you up or to tell people to go and get business from you, but I know in everyday operation of running businesses that shit can happen, yeah? Yeah I might deserve some of those bad reviews but if they're managed correctly that potentially I could get them removed, resolved and therefore improve my reputation and because I've improved my systems or I've changed something in the business or I've got rid of that person as you mentioned earlier. So I think it's a fantastic business and service that you're offering because I don't have time to do that. Brendon: That's exactly it and the time it takes for you to go and research the policies of a big provider and find out what's the process to get the content down correctly and be in that part of 150,000 applications, of which ours are coming up front because we're doing it right, is key. Every business owner I know and dealt with respect the customers and listen to them because it's their business, they wouldn't be in business if they didn't understand customers. They would prefer that the reviews are controlled in a sense of it goes to their website, all these big companies have these processes of letting them know there's a problem. The problem is, when you have something like Google Reviews, that it become a mob mentality when someone puts a review up and then you get some disgusting content that just has no relevance and that's where our customers feel it's completely unfair and it shouldn't be their biggest measure really. I mean, Google's it, guys. Google is it. I mean, what else do you use to find content? Andrew: Yeah and your reviews appear before everything else. Brendon: Correct. Andrew: It's the most prominent thing on the search result. Brendon: I had one customer who was going to spend lots of money on advertising and that particular advertiser gave me a call and said, "Man, can you look at this guy's footprint, "this guy's about to dump a tonne of money." I looked and I said, "Man, I would wait six to twelve months "until we can get some results before you even invest." There's no point making that redirection. And the customer stood back and I got to mediate with him and said, "Have you looked at the concerns?" He said, "Yeah," and again, that was about an employee. He said, "We got rid of him, he's gone. "We've done everything that we can "to resolve that issue, we saw." It just didn't need to be made public and stay there and just drag all these customers away. Andrew: The big problem there and we keep saying that you need to take Google My Business and Google Reviews seriously, is people think that they go away eventually because, I mean the old mentality was, if you have a bad name out there and you turn things around that eventually word gets out that you've improved your business. It doesn't work like that on Google, they stay there forever unless you do something about it. Brendon: Correct and it's important, there's no doubt about it. Not only for the corporate world but for the public, as I said, we help the public more than anything with getting content down. I mean, education's a big thing on us, for schools we're about to do education pieces for year eleven and twelve, for me to sit there and say, "Hey guys, "you're about to step into the corporate world, "I just want you to step back and look how you "present yourself online. "If there's any issues, clean it up now." Because we have employers call us to check out people's online-- Chris: I've done that myself. Andrew: That's certainly something that's happened here. Chris: So if you're ever going for a job interview beware of Google because I've done it, I've just Google searched people's names and funnily enough, I still employed someone, even after I saw all of the crap that they were writing on social media channels. But I took it for what it was, they just didn't think. They just went, "Ah you know, "I'm just having a conversation with my friend, "it's only me and my friends that can see it, "we're having a bit of banter." And, you know, lots of swearing and calling each other names and all that sort of stuff. "That's just fun banter, that's what we do in our lounge room." Yeah, that's right. Brendon: It's not in your lounge room, man, it's in a stadium full of 1.5 billion people. Andrew: Yeah, but when one day you're going to be managing business social media profiles and things like that you need to be aware that people need to be able to trust that you're not going to have it come back to you. Brendon: Ever since I've been doing this I've deleted a lot of posts of mine that weren't that bad but I've looked at it and gone, "What's the perception another person's going to take of it?" And go, "You know what? It's not worth it." You know, it's not me, I'm only saying a joke between my mates, yeah plenty of times I've deleted posts, because I've thought about it, only because I know about it. Chris: Well, I've been sued for making a comment on a Facebook group. Because I basically said something about somebody that maybe I thought would have been true but it wasn't. And I was just trying to be a helpful citizen. It turned out to be, you know, if I had my time again I wouldn't have written it. Brendon: It's funny you say that because we have people that ring us to help them, because they're being sued to get content down from a provider. We've actually had people that have rung us quite a few times that have said, "I've said something, I want to get it down." And we go, "Okay, what did you say?" And then we look and it's, right, same process. So there's people out there, a lot of people going, "I wish I'd never said that. "I can't get it down." I talk to my daughter about this every day. How you present yourself online is how you present yourself on the market. Andrew: Yeah it might be just a matter that you got hot headed about something but the problem is it stays there forever now if you don't take it down. Brendon: Yep, and content is a lot harder to take down and a lot easier to put up. I mean I tell businesses, I had a guy recently ring me and ask me about, "Google Reviews, Google My Business sent me an email saying do I want to register." I said, "Don't even bridge with them, "I'd prefer you didn't. "Establish your business now, iron out all the kinks, "all the parts that could go wrong "where people could write a review "about you making a mistake." I said, "Wait twelve months and have a look at your business "and then decide if you're prepared to go on Google Reviews. "Because those twelve month periods are the periods where "you're going to have ups and downs in your business "and you're going to open yourself up "so just wait twelve months." I just said, "Don't, don't open Google Reviews." Google Business, do not, my opinion. Unless you're ready and your business is safe, it's one of those areas where you can't. Chris: What do you mean? Sorry, what do you mean by that? Don't open Google Reviews? Brendon: So Google Business will find out about your business and they'll let you know. "Hey, do you want to be on Google Business?" And you go, "Yes, of course." Details, where your address is and that sort of stuff. Chris: But anybody can go and create one of those. Brendon: They can but they also promote it. Do you know what I mean? We've had them call us quite a few times, saying, you know, not call us but notify us. But I say either don't or just check out your business as a high-risk area where, you know, if you're in the car industry, reviews are are, you know. I feel sorry for those car dealerships because really, all they're doing is selling a brand new car, okay? And you decide to buy it or not. And they invest a lot of money, those people that own those businesses, millions of dollars and the land to store the cars. If you have a pleasant experience coming in. And I don't want to name these particular hashtag because it could promote the thing, but there was one particular hashtag where a guy's bike got damaged and he decided to hashtag with a group of Australian larrikins who had no idea of the context of what happened, and barraged this social media with hundreds of content. And that's terrible and this business owner's invested a lot of money, spending with the Mercedes and the BMWs to get the licence to be part of their website, they pay a lot of money for that just like McDonald's does, to own a McDonalds. And now he's got a one star and there's 300 reviews, because of the hashtag. And these guys had no idea. And the simple thing that happened was yes, they did drop the bike and they scratched it and they fixed it. But the guy wasn't happy, for whatever reason, so he decided to hashtag it. And there was 300 terrible comments. Andrew: From people who had nothing to do with it. Brendon: Nothing to do with it. No idea, don't even know the person it happened to, it was just part of that group. And we spend a lot of time fighting those groups too. Those social media pages, unfortunately Facebook's honestly gone to ground right now and our response time back from is just pitiful. Chris: Yeah shutting down pages is probably easier. Brendon: I mean, yeah, it's all about the numbers, there's 100,000 people on their Facebook page. Pretty bad stuff, it's either got to have terrorism or child or sex related before they'll take it down, if it doesn't, they can do what they want. Chris: So I think we should probably pull it up there, we could go into some really great stories. Brendon: Maybe another time, love to have a chat. I'm pretty sure people want to know more. Chris: Absolutely, Brendon, how do people reach out to you? Brendon: Yeah look, our website as well as we've got a 1300 number that we can-- Chris: What's the website? Brendon: www.internetremovals.com.au If you type in content removal Australia it'll pop up on Google's search words as well. As well as I've got a Twitter page which is @contentremove, I think, I can't remember the exact-- Andrew: We'll put all the links in the bottom. Brendon: But yeah, just be aware of your footprint is all I'll say and have a look, if you watch this, step back and go, "I'll just have a little look." Any issues, let me know, if not, education is to be good. Chris: Don't drink and review, don't just think that you're in your own little lounge room when you're reviewing. And I know I've learned some lessons, maybe the hard way. And it's best not to. Brendon: Thanks for having me too guys. Chris: Thanks for watching guys, that's episode 84 of Get Fact Up, you know where we're at but I'll tell you anyway. We're on memedia.com.au you can watch the full episode there, also on YouTube and on Facebook, just search for MeMedia on Facebook. Thanks for watching, we're back next week for another episode of Get Fact Up.

Published Oct 20, 2017 Andrew: G'day world. Andrew Groat and Chris Hogan coming to you live from the MeMedia Studios here at Burley Heads for, Get Fact Up! And today we're talking about? Chris: Podcasting. Andrew: Podcasting. Chris: Podcasting as a marketing tool. Andrew: Absolutely. Chris: Or a content marketing tool, yeah. Andrew: Are we podcasting? Chris: We are podcasting right now. We're doing a podcast about podcasting. Andrew: We are. We're more vodcasting, so video on demand casting. Chris: Is that what it is? Andrew: Yeah. Chris: Oh, okay. Of course. Of course, it is! Andrew: I actually don't know what "pod" means? Chris: It's just from iPod, it's just stuck around since then. Andrew: Excellent. Cool, let's get cracking on! So podcasting as a marketing tool is actually really effective and I think there's plenty of high profile entrepreneurs that have been alluding to podcasting as a great way to get out to your audience, and that audio is a great way to engage with your audience, especially during those down times that people have. Those mundane tasks that people have throughout their day. Some of those might be driving to and from work, some of them might be walking to and from the post office, or while you're on lunch walking to and from the café, or sandwich shop where you're getting your sandwich. And the other ones are on the weekends, so mowing you know, I have to mow lawn so- Chris: So you listen to a podcast as well. Andrew: ... I listen to a podcast. Chris: I mean, you can listen to a podcast while you're working, you can ... yeah, driving, driving's a big one yeah. Andrew: Yeah, so some people I know that have pretty lack lustre jobs, actually do have a earpiece in one ear, and they're not that engaged with their work, it's packing boxes or something or other, and that's how they get through their day. Chris: Yeah, and stuck on the train, there's heaps of times when- Andrew: Exactly. Chris: ... when you need something like that. The thing is, the reach of podcasting is huge at the moment. There's so many platforms out there that you have access to and everyone's looking for this sort of content. And it's strange, I was talking about this today, like the success of podcast, it's a little bit surprising when you think the format would've died out by now. But I think it's because it's so personal and endearing, and when someone's done it professionally, it really gives you a window into the people behind whatever industry you're talking about. What it's like to be in their shoes and their world. And you learn really vicariously through podcasts I think, so it's a cool format. Andrew: Yeah, a lot of people that I listen to. So one of my good friends got me into listening to podcasts only a few years ago, and the first one I started listening to was Joe Rogan. Now, he's not for everybody, he swears a lot, and he's very opinionated on certain topics, but he'd get some really interesting cats on there, and they have great conversation and tell life stories that are just fascinating. Or they're researchers, they're authors, and they're sharing how they came to write about the book that they wrote, and man, there's some amazing stories that come through. Chris: It's funny, because if you think about these podcasts, and you just feel like you're getting smarter listening to them, it doesn't matter what they're talking about. You're like, "These are smart people talking. I'm getting smarter listening to this." It's just how you, especially Joe Rogan, you feel that way about him, but most of the time he's just talking about crap. Like he's just, he's waffling on about stuff. Andrew: He really is. Chris: But you genuinely feel smarter listening to it. Andrew: You do. You absolutely do. So some of the podcasts that I love is Joe Rogan, London Real was the next one that I think I got into, which is fantastic. Then there's Ben Greenfield's Fitness, which is awesome. Doctor Rhonda Patrick, she's a research scientist and goes heavily into nutrition and is big on mental health and how to improve mental health. Doctor Michael Greger, I'm not sure that he actually has a podcast, but he has appeared on many podcasts and he's also a researcher on nutrition. I'm heavily into nutrition, I love nutrition, so I listen to a lot of those types of ones. But then there's the business ones like Tim Ferris, he's got a great podcast. He's always talking about optimising time and stuff like that, and the guests that he gets on, he's talking to them about how they made the best of their lives and stuff like that. So I guess there's lots of different niches where people can actually plug into with podcasting. Like there's already heaps of podcasts out there worldwide. Chris: Yeah, that's it. A lot of people might think, "There's so much there, is it saturated?" But it's not really. Andrew: No. Chris: The amount of people watching and listening to podcasts doesn't mean saturation, because if you got a unique podcast, you're not really competing with anyone else. If you have a really general podcast, then maybe you're gonna have problems. But yeah, if you have something unique, you're only really creating some space for yourself, and if you're committed to it, you're gonna get an audience, because what you're saying is gonna be interesting to someone. Andrew: So let's get onto ... If you're not listening to podcasts and you're happen to be watching this video because you came to it via our YouTube or Facebook channel, then obviously, we are producing the video version, which I call vodcasting, and that's great. But if you wanted to listen to the podcast, there's heaps of channels to do that on, and I think there's a whole world of discovery out there for you that you're gonna be totally blown away by, once you start tapping into those podcasting channels. Chris: So yeah, I've put a couple of the big ones here. Like the obvious ones. I would say you don't want to be on all of them, just find one or two that work well. iTunes is the most obvious one, because you say, "Podcast," people just immediately think iTunes, so you kind of have to have a podcast on iTunes if you want to be in podcasting. Andrew: Yeah. Chris: It's not easy to get on. It's a bit of a weird service, so there's all these things that sort of facilitate getting onto iTunes. We can talk about that some other time. Andrew: Yeah. Chris: Stitcher. So only eight million registered users on Stitcher. It's by far the smallest, but it's only for podcasting, so if you have a podcast on Stitcher, the audience there is there to listen to a podcast, that's what they're hungry for. So if you want to be taken seriously, you should probably be on Stitcher. You got SoundCloud, which is sort of pitted as the "YouTube of audio." It's definitely the biggest audio streaming site. Andrew: 175 million unique listeners, yeah right. Chris: Yeah, there's a lot of features that are really good about it, like the inline commenting, and you could do a lot with the artwork, and there's messaging and things. My problem with SoundCloud, I've got personal issues with SoundCloud, because I used it for a while, they killed all of the community features. They pushed the pay too much, so they've really dampened their growth and they don't get taken quite so seriously now. It's good to be on though, it's good to be on. It's easy. Andrew: And there have certainly been rumours about their financial difficulties as well. Chris: Yeah. Andrew: And potentially shutting down, so yeah. Chris: Yeah, they're running a massive loss. Andrew: Don't put too much effort into that one maybe. Chris: It's there as an extra thing to be on, because it's not that hard. But the big one is YouTube, and I've put some stats here. You got 13 billion registered users. Andrew: 1.3 billion. Chris: 1.3 billion, yeah. There's a dot between those numbers, yeah. Andrew: 1.3 billion, yeah. Chris: Five billion videos viewed a day, so there's some serious reach and serious traffic happening on there. And out of all the platforms that we've spoken here, that's definitely the one to be on. It's free, user base is huge, you don't need to be registered or even logged in to watch the videos. Like all the other ones, you have to have an account, so it's really, really accessible. And also, YouTube's owned by Google, so you're exposing yourself to search engines and stuff like that. Yeah, it's got the biggest- Andrew: And just to touch on YouTube for a second, because most of you, we alluded to, "Hey, you're listening to something while doing a mundane task," whereas YouTube's a video platform and, "Well, I can't watch the video while I'm doing that mundane task like driving, or mowing." But I actually do, so if I can't actually find the podcast that I want to listen to in iTunes, I'll actually start up the video on YouTube, and ... I've got an iPhone, so I don't lock my phone, because once you lock it, it turns the video off. So then, I just chuck it in my pocket and yeah, it gets a little bit warm, because it's using a lot of battery power and bandwidth, but so what? Chris: ... But their answer to that is YouTube Red. YouTube Red's like the next version up. You don't get the ads and you can lock your phone while listening to it basically. So that's where they've turned it into an actual streaming service. Everyone's like, "I'm not paying for YouTube," well everyone pays for Sound, everyone pays for Spotify, everyone pays for iTunes and stuff, like that's not really that much of a jump there. Andrew: Cool. So I mean, there's heaps of niches out there that are probably undiscovered that absolutely anyone could start up a podcast on. I think one of the biggest downfalls of podcasts is the fact that it does cost a little bit of money to get started, and it does cost money and time to keep operating, so absolutely we need sponsors. So Joe Rogan, I feel, is probably one of the best examples for sponsors, and Tim Ferris. These guys, when they deliver a sponsorship message, it's always at the beginning, and they always do it from their own personal experience. So that- Chris: That's right. It's in line with what they're doing and it's very honest as well. They're like- Andrew: It's authentic. Chris: ... "So here comes a sponsorship message." And it's always about stuff they use, like for us it's Rode, but we're literally using the Rode microphones right now, so what's the big deal saying, "We're sponsored by Rode?" Right in front of our faces right now, so. Andrew: Exactly. So those guys, when they actually do deliver their messages, they're absolutely saying, "From personal experience I love this product because ..." And then they tell their own story. They put their own flavour in it, they put their own language in it and if they want to swear, that's what their audience wants. Chris: Yeah. Andrew: So I think, if you are gonna make the decision to embark on a project, make a decision whether or not you're gonna swear or not, who's your audience, and then match your product to fit that audience. Hardware. Getting started, we want to just break into it really briefly. We've got some kit here that actually allows obviously the two of us to talk to one another in the same room. We can have up to four and I think even six people in the same room with the kit we've got, but most of you are probably gonna start out either on your own or with one other person. So, let's just cover some of that gear. Chris: So, you've got your Rode Podcaster Mics. They're good because they're USB powered, it can go straight into a phone if you don't want to have the whole mixing desk set up. Pretty cheap. How much are they, because we got a couple of those in there and they're like 160 or something like that? Andrew: Oh, so the Podcaster Mic is different to what we've got here. It's actually a white version and these are the Rode Pro-Caster. The Podcaster will plug into a USB on a laptop, so that's really good if you're a one-man-band. Chris: Yeah, it skips all the extra hardware and stuff. Andrew: Absolutely. Then, if you do actually go to multiple mics, then you'll potentially need a mixer, or sorry, you will need a mixer. So there's different cabling and stuff. Not too hard to figure out once you've got the mixer, because obviously you just match that hole with that hole on the mixer. And one of those great mixers is a Yamaha. Chris: Yeah, they're cheap. Andrew: Yeah, they're pretty cheap. We've actually got a ... What do we got? A Zoom H-6, which is six channels, it allows up to six channels, but it's just a little bit more investment. So close to, I think, $700. Chris: Well, the good thing about those is they're super portable. The idea of that is to be able to podcast anywhere and do live video and all that sort of stuff we do. Then the next step is if you want to go video, you're obviously gonna need a camera. So you start with the Sony Handycams, they're like 500 bucks each to 4K, they're great. Andrew: Yeah. Chris: Next one up is you got the Sony NX. I'll probably stick with Sony for this sort of stuff, but you got the Sony NX range, which is what we're using right now, but that's a bit of a jump up. If you're gonna go with video, you also need lighting. Stick with LED lighting. It's cheap, super bright. It's what we use here. And then you got boom arms as well, which is, they're just handy to have. It's really good because you can manoeuvre around and things like that. Andrew: They're Rode boom arms as well. They either clamp directly onto the desk or they actually give you a plugin if you want to drill a hole, you can fit them directly into the desk. There's heaps of videos on how to set up podcasting studios. Actually, Rodes got some good ones on their website. This is just meant to be, I guess, an introduction as to why we think it's good. Yeah, a little bit of kit, and get out there and have a crack I reckon. Chris: So why would you do it? Honestly, it's one of the best forms of content marketing. It's why we're doing it. We're literally doing a 15, 20 minute video just showing our expertise in podcasting. It's a great way to showcase yourself in the industry, isn't it? Andrew: It is. It is. Chris: And people like listening to it. It's great. It's not often you get a captive audience and you get to showcase your skills. Andrew: Absolutely. Chris: I think that's where it's good, yeah. Andrew: And of course, I mention it every time, if you do want MeMedia to help you with your podcasting, or vodcasting for that matter, we do have all the kit here, so absolutely you can hire this space, or hire us to even set you up. Why not? We can give you plenty of tips and tricks around actually doing that, because once you embark on the video space, then how many cameras are you gonna have? Then it's a matter of editing and all that sort of stuff. There is cheaper ways to do that, and we've spoken about that before, that's live video, yeah? Chris: Yeah, for sure. Andrew: We've spoken about that before, so go back and review that episode, it's really cool. I think that's all we got time for today? We're trying to keep it a bit short. Shorter? We won't even go into predictions. Let's keep it nice and neat. Thanks very much for watching Get Fact Up! Thanks very much Andrew. Chris: No worries, thank you. Andrew: And keep watching. We are on YouTube, Facebook and our website is memedia.com.au. Cheers.

Published Nov 13, 2017 Chris: Good day, world. Chris Hogan and Andrew Groat coming to you live from the MeMedia studio here at Burleigh Heads for "Get Fact Up" episode number 68 - on important marketing metrics to track. How you going, Andrew? Andrew: Good. How are you? Chris: Good, mate. So website traffic is probably the number one metric that people tend to track when they're looking at - obviously their marketing reports. And we know that being that high a level probably isn't good enough. Andrew: Yeah, traffic's not really that important. There're other things that you should be looking at. Chris: Cool. So we've got some example Google Analytics snapshots that we've got here from the Interwebs. And we wanted to just have a look over those and break some of them down. So here we have the Google Analytics snapshot of acquisitions and channels, it's real easy to find. And it's breaking down that high level traffic into multiple different channels... Andrew: The different marketing streams, yeah. So this one's eCommerce business, and straight off the bat you can see that something's wrong here, ‘cause you've got paid searches as the highest traffic. But, you need to circle a few things here, so the problem here is the bounce rate is massive. Paid search, high bounce rate, a lot of money's gone down the drain quite frankly. Chris: So let's talk about bounce rate while we're on that. So between 55% and 70% bounce rate is considered high. Anything over 70% is considered pretty much extreme. So it's time to bring that down. Andrew: So just to explain what a bounce is, it's when someone comes to your page - doesn't click on anything and then they leave. So someone that didn't interact with your page at all. Chris: And bounces can happen a lot. Especially in search and social - ah sorry, in paid search and social, because people have searched for a particular product. Andrew: They may not necessarily wanna see it. You might have put it in front of them when they don't want it. Chris: In paid search they've searched for a particular product, they've clicked on that link to that paid page and they've seen what they wanted to see - probably priced, they're shopping around, boom they're gone again. If you didn't entice them to click through to another page, then essentially they've bounced. And they could've been sitting on that page for a long time. In fact, they could've been sitting on that for hours, all day, reading all the content that you had to offer, but if they didn't click through to another page it's called a bounce. So the same thing can happen in social, right? Because... Andrew: Yeah, we say this all the time that social's people's down time. And if you're putting ads in front of them and they don't realise it, they've clicked through to an ad, they're often just gonna bail back out of that. Social traffic tends to have high bounce rate and lower engagement metrics because of that. But, it's a great branding opportunity, it's not a right off there. You just have to be showing the right sort of content, maybe not necessarily trying to get someone to buy something straight from Facebook. Chris: And then we've got on that same slide we've got their conversion rate, and 3.11 conversion rate. Conversions categorised as 2% as average, 5% is good and 10% plus is great. So they're sitting between averaging good. Now if we were going to say, for example if the client said, "Hey, while I'm getting lots of traffic on paid search, that's great, I'm gonna increase my spend." Andrew: Well I would say don't even bother. Especially when you have a little bit further down that email traffic is a 10.24% conversion rate. I would be saying do more email campaigns, 'cause that's obviously working really well. And then maybe have a look at bringing this bounce rate down, put a bit of work into that. Make some more relevant content, have a look at your page load potentially and have a look at your targeting - maybe you're showing your ads to the wrong people. Chris: There's so much you can do in eCommerce. Show that there's a sale on and that it's a limited time. For example, there's a counter there just above the "add to cart" button that says buy now or you'll miss out. For instance... Andrew: Get some more testimonials. Get some more reviews and writings and things like that. Chris: More content on that page essentially. So that is called conversion rate optimisation. Improving your page to improve conversions. If you can improve those conversions then potentially go back and invest more dollars into that paid advertising. Andrew: I would also say maybe get a heat map or a screen recording software installed on the website and actually get some hard data - hard evidence about what's going on there. It might just be as simple as there's no calls to action above the fold, it might be a real easy fix. Chris: Could be an error. Paid search - don't forget if you've got so many heaps of campaigns, that's a very high level view. You could have one campaign that's absolutely tanking because for whatever reason your products are no longer available, discontinued or something like that. Andrew: Yeah, that's right. Especially with AdWords, it could just be one keyword's just ruining your entire campaign. It's really important to be looking at those metrics as well. Chris: So let's move on to slide 7 where we've actually got a different eCommerce business where their highest traffic source is organic. Andrew: Whoa, yeah, they're doing really well. 11% conversion rate. Chris: And they're converting 11% on that organic traffic. That's really good. Essentially then we looked at paid searches, their second biggest paid channel. And they've got a 7% conversion rate there. And so therefore they're advertising campaign on AdWords needs tweaking and improving because obviously there's a good conversion rate happening in organic. There's not a lot wrong with their pages, but that conversion rate indicates to me that maybe their actual advertising campaigns wrong. Andrew: Yeah, that's what I think. Maybe they just needed to tighten up what they're targeting there. Another good thing that I've seen with this one - we've got a great ad, but they've got their revenue filled in there. So they're actually pushing data of all their sales back, which is awesome because that means they can actually measure ROI properly, so you can have a look at your AdWords page and analytics - you can see how much you spending and what you're getting back for it, then you get that ROI metric. That's awesome if you can actually get that, it's not possible for everyone. Chris: Which comes down to cost per acquisition. Andrew: That's right, so if you know that then you can scale as far as you want. Chris: So cost per acquisition is basically cost per sale. Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Chris: Instead of tracking cost per click, track cost per acquisition. If you bring that down... Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Also, here their bounce rate is incredibly low on this one. Chris: Yeah, 19.43% on organic search and 14.78% even on paid, which is just awesome. Really good. Andrew: Two other metrics I think worth mentioning here because this is so high on this one I just want to say. Under behaviour on here, you've got bounce rate, pages per session, average session duration. Pages per session is really important, that's how many - for each person that comes to your site, that's how many different pages they go on there. And if you're above 2.5% that's pretty good. Their average pages per session across all channels is 6.89%, that's great. That means people are really searching around going through everything. Chris: Yup. Andrew: Also, the session duration: 3 minutes, that's great too. If you've got above 2 minutes that's awesome. People spending a lot of time on their website. They've obviously got a lot of really good related content, a lot of good internal linking. I'd say they've got a really good interface there as well. Chris: So, on product pages you may also be interested in if they're doing blogging then potentially they've got interlinked pages. Here's the product we're talking about - go and check it out in the cart, all that sort of stuff. Andrew: They've got a great funnel, that much is obvious. So yeah, they're doing great. Chris: Slide 8, we've got a service based business, and obviously which means no eCommerce tracking on the site. And the highest channel - highest volume of traffic coming through is via organic for this one. Now, they've got a 56% bounce rate on their organic and 2.12 pages per session. Andrew: It's not bad. Chris: Yeah, that's right. Andrew: But there's room, room to improve, that's for sure... Chris: There is room for improvement. So, with bounce rate, like we said, that people are coming in and their not exactly seeing what we wanted them to see and they're leaving. But with 2.12 pages per session on organic - they kind of are finding what they are wanting to find. They're not really that eager to make an inquiry because their actual conversion rate is low, in the 2%'s, so it's an average conversion rate. Andrew: Yeah, so maybe there's a trust issue there and that's where I'd say probably maybe looking at getting some reviews, testimonials, that sort of thing - maybe having a look at the form, reducing the amount of fields in the form. Just to bring down all the barriers, make it easier for an inquiry to happen there. Chris: Really good point you've made there, Andrew, about the barriers to inquiry and completing a form. Those - Don't ask for too much information, what do you really need from people? Name, phone number, email address - that's pretty much it. Andrew: Yeah, like that's it. Even have a request to call back can be a better option than having an inquiry. Sometimes people don't feel that comfortable about filling all that information in. Chris: An optional message field is good. I think leave that one optional. So the top 3 required and an optional message field, boom. And then that could absolutely increase the conversion rate on those inquiries. Andrew: If I was to give these people any advice, though, it would be look at they're social campaigns, though here. Cause you can see there that their conversion rate is .9% on social. Bounce rate's 84%, like obviously they're sending the wrong message out there or maybe just reaching the wrong people. There's massive room for improvement there. Chris: Yeah, hard one, I'm with you on that. There's definitely some improvements that are needed. I mean, what are they sending people to this site for? Is it to consume content? They're not really clicking through to other pages on the site. It's - pages per session 1.6, time on site a minute ten. They really do need to reconsider why they're sending people there and... Andrew: Obviously sending them there for maybe promoting blogs or something like that. But then you just have to look at what they're doing next. Chris: They need to encourage and click through... Andrew: Calls to action in their blogs. Chris: Yeah, super important. Cool. Slide 9, we've got another service based business. So again organic search is the highest traffic source. Bounce rate is lower, 48%, that's great. It's good, rather. And 2.39 pages per session, which is pretty much average there. And a conversion rate of 4.84%. So, their conversion rate's obviously better than the last. And that means that their calls to action are much better and their barriers... Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative)... Chris: Their forms are probably better. They potentially got testimonials or some kind of - they've developed some kind of trust with the audience to encourage that inquiry. Maybe there's some sort of free offer, potentially round that... Andrew: Yeah, their funnel could just be better overall. And it might just be a type of service that people are more interested in, in general, you never really know that. Chris: Industry comes in... Andrew: That's right, yeah like some people just have a tough industry that you always have to consider. Chris: Exactly. So apart from website traffic sources we wanna focus on what's happening out there in amongst the other - I guess campaigns that we could be running. So, obviously social is probably the most popular and most common activity that people are undertaking when they're doing marketing. I think we've spoken about this before, but just to recap, what's some of the metrics people need to be tracking when they're doing social campaigns? Andrew: Okay, big thing for me is always engagement, especially the social. You wanna say that people are actually interacting with your content. Clicks through the website not always that important, 'cause you can see that they might be doing nothing when they get to the website. Most important thing is that they're having a good time on the social platform first and foremost. And then something that people don't often look at is one called "social clicks", which is a sort of like the viral effect. It's when someone's interacted with your content and then their friends doing it or maybe they've shared it to someone else. That's that sort of roll off growth effect that happens on social, that's a really important one, cause that means that the community's accepting it. It means it's getting shared around. Chris: And another really important metric that people need to be targeting - I'm sorry, monitoring when they're looking at their reports, their monthly reports, is search into results pages. So the results of their ranking of their keywords in search. Andrew: That's right. So you can look at your traffic for organic and that's great but you really wanna know where it's coming from, because you wanna know what you wanna optimise for on what you should be creating more content for. If you're not using a software for tracking your search engine results, you can go into search console and everyone should have search console. Google search console set up. You can have a look at your keyword report in there and that'll show you all the traffic that's coming in for different keywords and it will also show you the impressions for different keywords. So you can see who's seeing you for different keywords. And that at least is very important because that data's not in Google analytics anymore. Chris: It's not a complete picture because Google has wiped out a lot of the keywords that people actual typing in under a category called, "not provided", but... Andrew: It shows a lot more than Google analytics at least. Chris: Exactly. Andrew: So you get something there. Chris: Yeah. Is that all we got time for? Look I think this is a very high level view. Still, we've sorta dived in a little bit. But, with eCommerce there's so much more you could be looking at. Once you've got some of that conversions - what's happening with the conversions? Well potentially people are getting to the cart, and they're abandoning cart. So you need to look at the exit pages and what can you do there? Well you can be running automated email campaigns. You can be running remarketing campaigns on Google AdWords and social. There's lots of opportunities there. But again we said we're gonna have a high level view, and I think we've done that here so hopefully that's - I guess helpful. Anything to add, Andrew? Andrew: You know what? We could just go on forever. But I think maybe we'll do one on each specific channel, in the future, I'd think it'd be good. Chris: Yeah. Great! Well, thanks very much for your time. That was "Get Fact Up", episode 68. And you're here with Andrew Groat and Chris Hogan from MeMedia, here at the Burleigh Heads Studio's on the Gold Coast. Cheers.

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.

This is the 6th annual episode with Barbara. Andrew and Barbara talk about making change. The challenges in trying to notice the end before feels like it has gone too far past us. The talk about the last year and the grand changes that are coming for both of them in 2020.  They also recorded a bonus for the Patreon on how to tell if something is fate or not. You can get access to that and all the great bonus material by signing up over here.  You can catch all the previous episodes here on my website. Or look up episodes 22, 44, 58, 72, and 90 where you listen to your podcast.  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. You can find Barbara through her website here.  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.  Transcript ANDREW: [00:00:02] Welcome to another episode of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. This week I am catching up with Barbara Moore just before the end of the year for our annual podcast episode where we check in on what's going on, what's changed, and, [00:00:17] you know, talk a lot about the shifting perspectives in our spiritual lives and practices and so on. You know, it's hard to imagine people don't know who you are, Barbara, certainly anyone in the tarot world, but for those who don't, who are you? [00:00:32] BARBARA: Oh, I forgot about this part of the interview. Yes. My name is Barbara Moore. I've been playing with tarot for, I don't know, maybe 30 years now. I'm probably best known for [00:00:47] a couple of things: one, creating tarot decks and writing books to go with them, and a few stand alone books as well, and I'm also the tarot acquisitions editor for Llewellyn, and I sometimes do some work for Lo Scarabeo as well. [00:01:02] And I teach here and there. ANDREW: Awesome. BARBARA: Yeah. ANDREW: So, I mean, I guess, you know, one of the things that I wanted to talk about with you was, it seems like [00:01:17] for me, everything's changed, you know, since our last podcast, I have gotten divorced, and my ex has moved out. I had a fire that burned down my store, and I have since reopened and, you know, opened a studio [00:01:32] to see clients out of and opened a new store. And, so for me, it's been a massive year of change, you know, perhaps unsurprisingly, if you follow the tarot birth card, year card business, as my death card just ended [00:01:47] at the beginning of the month, but it's also been a year of or at least a time of change for you too, right? Like you're also, maybe not quite where I am on the other side of it, but really sort of [00:02:02] setting in motion a bunch of change for yourself as well. Right? BARBARA: [00:02:17] That is absolutely true. The cycle of change, I would say it started back in 2016, and it has ushered in a period of challenge and becoming stronger and having things ripped away to find out what really matters, [00:02:33] and, as your listeners, if they've been listening to our conversations know, that two years ago, I moved to California, my wife and I moved to California, and we've been having a great adventure as [00:02:48] well as a lot of challenges and struggles. And we have recently come to the conclusion that this has been a really fun adventure, and we're grateful that we had it, but it's time for the adventure to be over, and so we [00:03:03] will be moving sometime this summer. So that is a really big change that we can talk about. It's not like having a store burn down or having a divorce, a relationship, a marriage end, [00:03:20] but our relationship also has gone through some struggles, luckily came out the other end stronger and better, richer and deeper, but it's still, we're both like two different people now, so it's [00:03:35] almost like a new relationship because we're learning to be together in new ways. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, you know and one of the . . . one of the things that people always say is something like what you said, whenever they start talking with [00:03:50] their own things, like, it's not as bad as your situation or whatever, right? And, I mean, on the one hand, yeah, maybe, right, like I get that, but also I think it's . . . I think it's really real, [00:04:05] how difficult struggle is for people, right? And you know, I mean there is tragedy and loss and people dying and all, you know, all those kinds of things that you know, no joke are very difficult. Right? [00:04:21] But I think that it's really important to not diminish our own struggles too, especially in the face of that. Right? Like it's, there's no scale. There's no competition, you know? And maybe other people [00:04:36] feel differently, if they're in positions like mine, but I actually feel like just relating around stuff is so much better than when it starts to kind of slide into, you know, areas where it's like, [00:04:51] well, it's not as bad as your life, but you know, whatever. It's like, yeah, that doesn't feel so great. And now I feel like there's a sort of other element to it, that isn't, doesn't need to be there, you know? BARBARA: Like a competition [00:05:06] or something. ANDREW: Yeah, a competition, or a sense of apology, you know? I mean, I feel like if, if I know somebody well enough to talk about my life and their life, then we're on the same ground, right, you know? And everybody, I think [00:05:21] everybody understands that some things are more difficult than others, from a certain perspective, you know, but, but either way, I think it's . . . I think it's important to sort of just keep that relationship open, you know, and not, [00:05:37] I don't know, create that distance that sometimes comes with that for me. BARBARA: Yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting point. Like, how did we, as a people start doing that, because it really is a habit and I feel like it's a little bit like social [00:05:52] behavior niceties, because when I'm not talking publicly, like on a podcast, I would talk about what I went through in terms of now that I'm through it and I can see the other [00:06:07] side when I look back on it, it was so hard I don't even know how I got up every day. ANDREW: Yeah. BARBARA: You know, so to say to you, "Oh, it wasn't so bad." When, if I talk to you privately, I would be like, "Oh my God, I don't know how I did that," you know . . . so, you were right. We [00:06:22] are on equal terms here. It's been hard. ANDREW: Yeah, you know, and life is difficult, right? You know, I mean not all the time. Luckily there's great things, you know? I mean, one of the things that was interesting was being at the tail end of the summer, [00:06:37] and I was checking in with the kids, just before they went back to school this year, and I'm like, “How was your summer?” Right? And they were, they both gave it like rave reviews. And they were like, “Well, how was your summer, Dad?" And I was like, I'm like, you know, [00:06:52] “I don't give it an 8 a 10, and like those two missing points are cause like, relaunching the store during the summer was a ton of work and very stressful, you know? And like, just dealing with all the stuff that came with that was very stressful.” [00:07:07] And I was like, “Man, I'm doing pretty good at having a good time despite all this, you know, horrible stuff that's gone on and all the stress that comes with it,” right? You know?  But that also doesn't mean that there weren't days where I was like, “Oh my God, I have no idea, is that just [00:07:22] it, is this, you know, am I done having a store, is this over? Is that over?” You know, it's . . . Yeah, it's complicated when we lose that direction, right? I think it's . . . I think it's been challenging. And I think it's been a long time that you've been [00:07:38] sort of wrestling with this sense of direction, you know. BARBARA: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: I'm thinking about . . . We talked somewhere in one of the past episodes about, probably before you moved out there, right? When I did that impossible reading for you, and you were like, “Oh, yeah, I'm [00:07:53] going to do all these things now,” you know? It's been, it's been a quite a while in some ways, I think, right? BARBARA: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I have, especially in terms of my tarot . . . well, in a lot of areas in my life, but in terms of my tarot career, [00:08:08] I have felt really lost. So, so lost and I . . . and there are a lot of elements to that. One, I should have wrote notes. [00:08:23] One thing that changed is I wasn't working with tarot for myself. Well, I wasn't reading for other people either. I quit doing that a while ago for, mostly because I didn't feel like I had enough [00:08:38] to bring, to give, I wasn't, my cup wasn't full. I couldn't fill anyone else's cup and I wasn't working with the cards for myself. So, starting in January, I started pulling a card a day, because that's like, what you tell beginners [00:08:53] to start and I would do it and I'd mark it in my daily journal and, but, and never did anything with them and so finally, but it was enough. I mean, I had, all I had energy to do was that. [00:09:08] And that was a start. I was touching my cards again and that mattered. Then when things started, mmm, taking an upturn, I added something like, "Okay, I want this daily draw to do [00:09:23] something more than just get marked down in my book and mean nothing, but use ink," and so I decided to start pulling two cards a day. And making them mean something. So the first card was [00:09:38] some energy that I was going to find myself into that day, you know, whether it was something that happened or my added something, just, just the energy of the day, something, and then with an eye to improving myself, [00:09:53] or becoming the person I want to be, more than I am. I pulled another card: "How can I interact with this energy?" To do that. And that has been super helpful. [00:10:08] That's made a big difference and made things more active for me in terms of like, doing something with the cards. So, you know, that's just a little thing but it's made a big, big difference. [ping from phone] I am so sorry about [00:10:24] . . . ANDREW: Well, that's okay. BARBARA: And I also had been thinking a lot about, like, I had been questioning the whole doing readings thing. Right? What do we do readings [00:10:39] for? What's the purpose? Oh, these mundane readings about our everyday problems. How boring is that? Or is that even the right thing to do? I mean, just very angsty, kind of pointless, spinning my wheels questioning, [00:10:54] and then, you know, when I was thinking about, we were going to talk, and I'd thought I'd like to talk about that, and I had a kind of a revelation. I'm not sure if it's going to stick, but it's a thought, that because I [00:11:09] want to do readings about different things, or in different ways, or with a different focus. I had to denigrate those readings, for some reason, you know, I think maybe it's human nature sometimes to make ourself feel better and more confident, we have to put [00:11:24] down something else for whatever reason. And so, even just that thought made me feel a lot better about things like, "Oh, well, just because I don't want to do that and just because I want to do this, [00:11:40] that doesn't mean the other is bad. I don't have . . ." You know? I mean, does that make any sense? ANDREW: I do. BARBARA: Yeah. ANDREW: Yeah, you know, maybe a year, two years ago, [00:11:55] I was sitting during my, you know, not daily draw, but regular draws, and I was like, writing in my journal, and I found myself writing something like, "Well, when I'm free, blah blah blah [00:12:10] blah blah," right? BARBARA: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And, and I, for whatever reason, on that day, as opposed to the various other days when I'd written something similar, I stopped and I looked at it. And I was like, [00:12:25] “Well, when is that going to be? And what does that look like?” Right? And I'm like, you know, at the time I was in an open relationship without a huge amount of limits on it. I mean some, but not, you know, I'm like, it's pretty darn free, I'm like, [00:12:40] you own your own store and you work for yourself. Like, what, what is it that other people are defining for you or that are limiting for you, right? You know? And the answer became pretty clear that it was very [00:12:55] little, right? Not nothing. But very little, right? I still have to pay taxes, I still have to, you know, whatever, there are certain things, but . . . And, I spent a lot of time sort of chewing on that for a while and realizing how [00:13:10] how often, movement, change, you know, these ideas were sort of created on continuing to define myself in relationship to other things [00:13:25] that actually had no sway or real say over my life, right? You know, I mean if I, if I decided, you know, I mean, I'm a, I'm a very fortune-teller-oriented card reader, but if I decided that I had enough of [00:13:40] that, and all I wanted to do was psychological readings, I could just change my website and filter people based on that and inform them, when they tried to book that, you know, this was the process going forward and that would be it. Like there's, there wasn't a lot of [00:13:55] things that prevented me from the various things that I was sort of waiting to become free enough to do. And so, since then I've spent a lot of time keeping my, keeping my definition and directions [00:14:10] in check, right? Like really looking at them, and saying, “Okay, am I, am I defining this relationally? Am I in relationship with some idea that I'm not actually interested in or don't want to live by," and so on, you know, and it's, [00:14:25] it's not always easy, but I think it's really helpful. Right? So look at those pieces and say, you know, your practice has no bearing on day-to-day type questions, right? Your practice doesn't need to have any relationship to the way I read or other people read [00:14:40] or the, you know, the whims of the tarot community and, you know, this year, next year, or 10 years from now, you know. BARBARA: Yep. Yeah, knowing [00:14:55] what you want, cleanly, and being realistic about it, and not just finding excuses, that takes a lot of self-reflection and honesty, [00:15:10] but will really make a big difference.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. BARBARA: In how you feel about your life in this moment. ANDREW: So, how do you, how do you generate that self-reflection? [00:15:25] You're talking about tarot, as one part, your tarot practice this year. How else do you talk--how else do you figure out? Because andone of the things that I think is--yeah, it's a bit of a theme, I think, with some episodes, it comes [00:15:40] up in various places, but this idea of like, how do you know when you're done? Right? How do you know when enough's enough? How do you notice that change, mark that change? You know? And so on, right? BARBARA: Yeah. [00:15:55] And, hmmm . . . Like, if we could come up with a format, a step-by-step format, on how to get yourself to that spot, we could probably be millionaires. Because everyone wants to know that, I [00:16:10] think. Because, at least for me, I have not come up with a method that, like, walks me to the spot where I can step over the line out of, you know, the mists of confusion into clarity. [00:16:26] I don't have that. For me, it has been, it has felt like waking up. ANDREW: Mmm. BARBARA: Like, like I've been either asleep or underwater [00:16:41] or walking through Jello or something. And I don't realize it at the time for that. I mean, I know I don't feel right, I know I feel confused and unhappy, no energy, but [00:16:56] I don't really fully understand that state of being asleep or underwater until I start coming out of it. And then I see it. And then I start thinking, [00:17:12] I don't have to be that way anymore.  ANDREW: Mmm. BARBARA: And so, when I can, it's like this pivotal point, this space where, like, a liminal space between what has been going on and what could be and [00:17:27] I have this opportunity to keep behaving the way I had been or changing the behavior. But before that, I don't know that I could have changed the behavior. I don't know that I was in a place where I could have [00:17:42] done that. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. BARBARA: So, for me, it's this point where . . . Or at least how it feels for me right now, is, I can't wait to get started on the next phase and [00:17:57] I haven't had that excitement, energy, or enthusiasm in two years. So how . . . But how do I know? It's, it's, it's vague. I don't have . . . well, maybe as we keep talking, I'll think of more concrete things. ANDREW: Uh-huh. BARBARA: But, to start the conversation, [00:18:13] it, that's what it feels like for me. What's that feel like for you? ANDREW: I mean, lately, so like in the last year, I've been noticing [00:18:29] where I'm not putting energy, that I officially think that I'm putting energy right? Where do I feel a difference between, you [00:18:44] know, something that I'm excited about, you know? It doesn't, it doesn't make it difficult for me. It's not difficult for me to show up and make art in my studio. You know, making art is great. I mean, [00:18:59] it requires, it requires having some time, you know, and it requires, you know, ideally not having sick kids at home or whatever, like certain things, but it's pretty easy to make that commitment. [00:19:15] You know, I've been sort of in and out of relationship in terms of polyamory this year a bit, and one of the things that I noticed around some of that was, where I was [00:19:30] willing to put in a certain kind of effort or show up in a certain way in one situation, but not in another. You know, and to me, that starts to be like, okay, so if I'm, if I'm willing to make the extra time or [00:19:46] hang out with them if they're sick or, you know, whatever, but with somebody else, I'm not feeling that as much, then those kinds of decisions start to be little flags for me. It's like, not necessarily that it's the end, but it's, something needs to change there, right? Or something has changed [00:20:01] there, and I need to sort of look at that. Right? And I think that, I don't know that we ever notice the moment, right? Like I don't know if there's a, you know, barring like, really, you know: And I said something and then they smack me in the face and I said [00:20:16] "We're done," like, you know, unless it's, like, ridiculous and dramatic, which is, you know, never really my life. I don't think that we ever notice explicitly those moments. I think that we notice, we can notice [00:20:31] when we're wobbling along that line, and then we can sort of reflect and see what's coming. Or what makes sense from that point, you know? BARBARA: Right. Yes. Yeah. Yes, you're right. It's, it is hard [00:20:46] in these things to pick a point, as you said, and for most of it's probably more like a process, you know, that it takes some time and, but, sometimes even within that process you can find like little mini points, you know, [00:21:01] like, I remember, I remember admitting to myself . . . Because we'd already started talking about how California wasn't right for us. ANDREW: Uh-huh. BARBARA: And, so, the next question was, where do we go next? ANDREW: [00:21:16] Mm-hmm. Is the answer Tijuana? BARBARA: The answer is not Tijuana. ANDREW: Okay. BARBARA: I found myself not being super excited about thinking about where to go next.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. BARBARA: I knew I didn't want to be here. Didn't know where I want [00:21:31] to go So, I kind of made myself think about that, and in that moment, I had this realization that hit me very hard: I want to go home. [00:21:47] And that was hard to admit, and hard to feel, and hard to know, because I knew it wasn't going to fly for us, for us, my marriage, my, our family, our little, just the two of us were a family. [00:22:04] Because we didn't want the winters. We . . . The winters in Minnesota are just too, too, too much and we're not ready for that. But just knowing that, one of the things I learned during this adventure is my family [00:22:19] and my Minnesota friends are very important to me, like more important to me than I knew before I left. ANDREW: Hmm. BARBARA: And so that little, and that, so that was a mini, like, you know, moment. [00:22:35] And then, like, when I actually told Dylan that, that was another moment, because it was scary to say that, you know, for me, because it was like, I can't believe I'm gonna say this. Because one fear was, what if she says, “Okay, let's go [00:22:50] home,” and then I'm stuck in Minnesota winter again! But anyways, so, yeah, these little mini moments of, you know, revelation. Oh, and another thing that I have noticed. I don't know if you've had this too. But now that I feel like [00:23:05] I'm being more honest with myself, that we're on, we have some more clear direction on what the future is going to look like, synchronicities are happening.  Like, I can barely like, take a breath without something, like [00:23:20] helping me feel like I'm on the right path. You know, and I've heard people talk about that, like well, if you're looking for it, of course, you're going to find it. You know, like cynics might say that. And other people might say, [00:23:35] “Well, yeah, that's a sign that you're on the right path.” I don't know if I'd quite go that far, because I'm not sure what I believe about the right path thing. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  BARBARA: Fate and destiny, that's going to be a focus of study this coming year. I'm very excited about it. ANDREW: [00:23:50] Well, you know, it's funny. I have those as listed, at the top of my list of things I want to follow up on in this conversation: agency, force, death, destiny, and free will. So we can, [00:24:05] we can set some explorations on it in this conversation and then, you know, a year from now we can report back as to where it's gotten. So yeah. BARBARA: Absolutely. Totally. Yes, right. So synchronicities, you know, [00:24:20] they always, I find them comforting, and encouraging, so whether they're actually real or not, it doesn't matter to me right now. I'm taking my comfort where I can get it. It's helping. ANDREW: So, and I think that, [00:24:35] first of all, I think, you know, as the song says, you know, whatever gets you through the night. Like, I think that finding comfort where we can is always, you know, as long as it's not too self-destructive. [00:24:51] I think it's always a great move, right? I think that, you know, this year of sort of moving through the fire and doing that has definitely been a year of more indulging- and comfort-orientated behavior [00:25:07] than is usual for me. And I'm just like, you know what? Life is fricking hard right now, so I'm not going to worry about that too much. And I'm just going to, you know, lean into that wherever and whenever I need to, you know, so there's been [00:25:22] more naps, more ice cream, and more TV this year than would normally be a thing for me, because sometimes that, you know, for me anyway, that's part of getting through these times, right?  BARBARA: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: I think that, you know, [00:25:38] so, synchronicities are a thing that I am very interested in, especially because it's often touted as the explanation of how tarot works, also, right. You shuffle the cards and the universe [00:25:54] through synchronicity arranges them in a way that is meaningful. And, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of fine and fun as an answer unless you try and like [00:26:09] say, “What does synchronicity mean? How exactly does that function? And you know, is there anything behind that?” And then all of a sudden you just like slide into utter chaos of inexplicable mystery, right? And I think that that's fine. I have, for me, I'm [00:26:24] like, you know, mystery is the answer, right? I'm like, tarot runs on mystery. That's all we need to know about it. BARBARA: Right. ANDREW: Exactly, exactly, right? But, so, I think [00:26:39] that synchronicity is, you know, lots of people are really into numerology, and, you know, they're like . . . I've, you know, people come for readings, like, "I've been seeing lots of triple eight lately, or triple this, or triple . . ." [00:26:54] And I'm always like, "Well, that's cool. What does it mean?" And you know, it . . . And then they'll often say a thing followed by the question, which is usually, “So when is that going to manifest?” Right? [00:27:09] And so, you know, and I don't mean this to make fun of people, like I'm not at all, right? Like absolutely, there are those moments where like, “Oh, there's a sign. Okay, where's the, where's the product?” Right? “Where's, where's the actual outcome of that?” So, [00:27:24] sort of more and more over time, I've been, I've been looking at what it is that I believe, how I approach things, and thinking about . . . [00:27:39] You know, people always ask me, like, well, so “What's the, what's the astrology in the Orisha tradition?” Right? “What's the astrology in your Orisha practice?” And I'm like, there is none, it doesn't exist. Right? It's not a part of it at all. There's no, no consideration [00:27:54] given to it in any real sense. There, there is, notions around times of day, a bit, depending on what we're talking about, and if you practice in a syncretized kind [00:28:09] of way with the saints, then maybe certain Orishas have their day, right? You know,  where many people celebrate them extra, but there is no astrology. And, and I've been noticing the sort [00:28:24] of growing tension for me between, like, astrology, which I stopped reading this year, and stepped away from and decided that I was going to actively not engage any more, and [00:28:39] the way in which I was feeling stressed and tense around that stuff some, and the fact that it's not actually a part of my religious practice at all. Right? And I'm kind of the same with, like, some of the [00:28:54] synchronicity stuff, you know? There have been times in my life where I was very intense on that kind of stuff and, you know, thought about it and wrote about it, had a bunch of experiences with it. And now there's [00:29:09] basically only one symbol from the universe that I'm interested in. Well, there's a couple. One, but the synchronous thing, or the thing that I think fits this way, is if I find a playing card on the street, [00:29:24] then for me, that's a message, and I will interpret the card based on my knowledge of reading them and we'll go from there. Right? The other thing that is synchronous, you know, from a certain perspective, but I see it as more directly as a message [00:29:39] from spirit, which kind of has a different definition in my mind. So, like, three months ago, maybe a little less, I broke up [00:29:54] with someone that I'd been with for a long time. We decided to change the nature of our relationship. And it was very kind and very honest. And you know, and the relationship has changed into [00:30:10] a really good friendship, which is lovely. But about two days after I . . .  that happened, I found a robin's nest on the ground with three dead eggs in it like broken eggs, right? And I was [00:30:25] like, everyone's like, “Oh, that's just so . . .” I'm like “No, this is just sad and unpleasant,” right? You know? And I was just like, yeah, that's, that's, that's definitely acknowledging like the depth of the disruption that's happened here. And, [00:30:40] and so, you know, I took that, I picked up the nest, and I saved it, and you know, it's around still. And, and then, maybe three weeks ago, two weeks ago, [00:30:55] I was walking through this laneway that I identify with the spirit that I work with a lot. And there was a pigeon on, like sort of flopping around a bit, with this, what looked like a branch [00:31:10] wrapped around its neck, and I'm like, "Oh, how am I going to free this poor bird? Is it going to let me get close enough to liberate it?" And as I got a little closer, the bird, I realized, was actually holding onto the branch. It was not stuck by it. [00:31:25] And it flew up and it flew directly up over my head, circled maybe like five feet above my head, three times, and literally dropped the branch into my hands. BARBARA: No way! ANDREW: And I was like, "Perfect, now [00:31:40] there's a new nest. Now I'm going to build something new. Now I've moved on, internally, I've moved on," right? BARBARA: Ohhhh . . . ANDREW: So to me, these are events that I take as as close to synchronous as people usually mean by that, right? [00:31:55] You know, direct message from somewhere else, right? And to me, they are clear, and concrete, and so on, in a way that, you know, not to diminish anybody else's experience, but [00:32:10] that those other kinds of symbols, I'm not sure what they mean, right? At least in my life, you know? And so, yeah, but also, you know there have been plenty of times in my life, where I'm like, [00:32:25] "Oh, yeah, I saw that, I saw that number again. I'm on the right path. I'm on the right path," you know? And I think that that's fair too, I think I just have a different relationship to it now, and I have a different set of expectations maybe. So. BARBARA: [00:32:40] Yeah. Okay, great. It all makes sense. And I love the story about the pigeon. Oh my God, I'm still stuck on that. Anyways, yeah. So, synchronicity, like levels of synchronicity, or is it [00:32:55] synchronicity, or is it a message from the divine, are they two different things? Those are really great questions. I think I agree with you. I think there is a difference between them. And, like synchronicity, I mean, I think the actual definition of it is like two [00:33:11] disconnected things that seem to have a connection. And I think that we humans are the ones who give that connection or give that meaning, so, so maybe what, why it's comforting to me is because if I [00:33:26] see something that brings to mind something else that's connected with what I'm doing at the time, or going through or thinking about, it just helps remind me that that's where my attention is.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. BARBARA: So, you know, maybe it's just this, a [00:33:41] way of like stoking the fire, like, yes, this is what my intention is. This is what I want to think about. You know, but on a kind of more subtle level or something. And then, you know, messages from the divine, then, I think, are kind of different. [00:33:57] You mentioned finding the cards, playing cards, specifically playing cards on the street is pretty funny. It reminds me of . . . Dylan has something that she has always called parking lot divination, and she started it when she was [00:34:12] a book cover designer at Llewellyn. Now, as you could imagine, the trash cans, the big garbage bins outside of Llewellyn, sometimes would have cards in them, for, you know, if a package had been damaged or whatever. [00:34:27] And so, sometimes, I guess, they would blow around and she would always walk around the building, you know, for exercise every day. And so sometimes she would come across these random cards on the, you know, and she would always pick them up and they would mean, she would read them as [00:34:42] a divination, and she still does that to this day, and she finds a surprising number of playing cards just out and about in the streets. It's very strange. So, so yeah.  ANDREW: They're definitely around. BARBARA: Yeah.  ANDREW: The other thing [00:34:57] that's funny is I almost never find a whole deck. A couple times I have. Yeah, and often I'll find them clustered for periods of time, you know, like I will find [00:35:12] different, different cards in different places for a couple months, and then I'll find nothing for six months. BARBARA: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And then I'll start finding them again, which is also, to me, interesting. Yeah. BARBARA: Huh. I have another kind of [00:35:27] a symbol story, and you know, does it mean something? Or does it mean nothing? Or did I give it meaning or whatever? That . . . it's a story that I wanted to tell you, you know, any, at some point today, anyways . . . ANDREW: Yeah. BARBARA: Cause it's very, it was very significant [00:35:42] to me. So, So, okay. How to tell the story? Okay. So, Dylan is not going to be here at Christmas. She's actually flying back to Minnesota for Christmas. I'm going to be [00:35:57] here alone, which is great because I have a whole, you know, personal retreat planned and ritual, and all kinds of crazy great stuff, but because of that, we did our little personal celebration on Sunday. And, [00:36:12] but we had agreed on no presents because of reasons. And, but she said, "But, I do have one present that I actually started the process for it a few months ago. So, there'll be [00:36:27] the one present." I'm like, “Okay, I can, I can let you give me a present, no problem.” ANDREW: Uh-huh. BARBARA: And so, well, so the back story that you need to know to understand the present [00:36:42] is: When we got married, she gave me a necklace, and it suited me perfectly, it was meaningful and beautiful and we both loved it. And it was just, it was [00:36:57] like a symbol, one of the many symbols of us.  ANDREW: Uh-huh. BARBARA: And in May, we were, we were out at the coast. I was taking a watercolor class, and we'd gone together, and I brought the necklace but I didn't, [00:37:12] I don't sleep in it. So I, you know, just take it off, and I, you know, put it somewhere, then . . . Long story short, it got left in the hotel, and when we called the hotel, they're like, “No, it's not in the room.” You know? So, [00:37:27] I mourned that necklace. I cried, it felt, it felt symbolic. It felt like “Oh my God, our marriage is,” you know? It's, it just made me so sad because [00:37:42] things had been hard, we're working through some things, and I just took it as this horrible, horrible omen, and it just broke my heart. And the company, [00:37:57] we couldn't find, it looks like the company didn't make the necklace anymore, so I couldn't even get a replacement, and it was just horrible, horrible. Well, so Christmas comes, present time. She gives me a . . . Okay. So she brings me a card and a little, little present and I opened the card and I start [00:38:12] reading it and I start bawling because she's written some stuff that is breaking my heart in a good way. And she's like, “Well, since you're crying, hold on, we'll just keep going.” And she goes in the other room and brings out a different package [00:38:27] and I start opening it. And it's wrapped in this kind of a gift baggy thing that we've had for years and we only use it for a very special gift. And . . .  ANDREW: That's really sweet. BARBARA: It [00:38:42] is, it is, we haven't used it in a number of years because you know, it hasn't been like that. And so, she, I start opening it. And then inside it is a bag from Arthur's Jewelers, Arthur's Jewelers [00:38:57] is the Jewelers in St. Paul where we got like our wedding rings from, and if we ever get like actual real jewelry, which we don't have a lot of, but we get it from them, and as I saw the bag and I'm like, she got me jewelry, what? And, and, then all of a sudden [00:39:12] I knew what was in that bag and I have never ripped the package open so fast in my life, and it was the necklace. And I saw it, and I have, I cried like my [00:39:27] soul was, I don't know what was going on. But I've only cried like that like maybe three times in my life, and it felt like a symbol, you know, like a sign like, okay, like, you lost [00:39:42] it. You guys were in the like, the three days of death or the three days after death, like, you know, in the bowels of hell fighting the demon, and now you're done, and now you, you know, you have the same, it's a new necklace, but it's the same necklace. It, [00:39:57] so, it's kind of like our marriage. It's the same marriage, but it's a new marriage and it was hard won. And until I lost it, I didn't realize how much it meant to me, and, you know, so, [00:40:12] I felt like the necklace, was always symbolic, the loss of it was symbolic, the reacquiring of it was symbolic. So that's another thing entirely, you know, was that divine? Was that something we, [00:40:27] that . . . I don't know. How did that happen? ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, I think that, I think that the answer is probably always really complex, right? You know, I mean, people, [00:40:43] you know, people talk about like, the fire, right? Me having the fire. They're like, “Well, you know, maybe it happened for a reason so you could whatever.” And I'm always like, "I don't, I don't buy that answer at all.” Right? I mean, you know, that [00:40:58] said, right? I think that, like many things, I hold sort of contradictory ideas about it, right? And in myself, they seem fine to be contradictory, right?  I know that, [00:41:13] you know, in some ways, that the fire must have been a part of my destiny, in some sense, because of the advice of the Orishas in the time around it, right? You know, we have this [00:41:29] kind of source of negativity, which is Otonowa, which means that which we brought with you from heaven, right? And sometimes it means, sometimes it means that literally. Maybe sometimes [00:41:44] it stands for things that just can't be changed and we have to work through in one way or another, but, you know, this was part of my advice from the Orishas around that time. So, I'm like, well, fair enough, something was going on there, in that regard. [00:41:59] But also like, the idea that, you know, I talked about this, I think in the last episode too with Chiron Armand, you know, the idea that we are always progressing towards other things, or better things, and [00:42:14] so on. I don't necessarily believe that, either, right? I think that, you know, we can look at people's lives and see that that doesn't happen, sometimes, right? Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. And the reasons for that are, [00:42:29] you know, complex and, you know, and always a bit obscure as well. Right? Why does, why does one experience sort of break a person in a way that they don't recover from? And why does it, you know, [00:42:44] you know, just deeply bruise or wound or maybe not even apparently sort of injure another person, right? You know, there's such a diversity amongst us all and why that is the case, right? But for me, I look at [00:42:59] these situations and I think that it becomes a question of what do we, what do, you know, there's, if we want to call it fate or whatever, those, those experiences that are beyond our apparent control, right? [00:43:14] Or that are the unexpected byproduct of decisions that we have made, maybe in the case of a relationship, that might sort of give the appearance of fate, and might coincide with synchronicities, right? That moment when you lost the necklace and it cued you to, [00:43:29] you know, all of the bigger changes that were going on, right? And then there's the question of what do we do with it? Right? You know? And I think that that is also, you know, such a big distinction, [00:43:44] right? You know? And like, me ending up in the situation that I'm in now, which is in many ways more ideal than the situation I was in with the store. You know? Or where the store was at, at the time of the fire. You know, on the one hand, [00:43:59] yeah, that's, it's great that it's, that it's sort of working out really well, but also there's a, there's a lot of it that's really, was already in my two year plan. You [00:44:14] know? Like I was already thinking about these ideas and working on them. And so, some of this transformation, you know, I'm just going to take credit for, by saying, you know, like look, I had these ideas that because of the [00:44:31] concreteness of having the store were going to take me a long time to make shift, that in some ways the fire basically just liquidated my assets into cash and allowed me to transform it, you know, [00:44:46] and applying it towards those plans. You know? There's that, that sort of balance of agency, free will, and the intersection of fate, right? Because I think that what we, what we do when things happen is, [00:45:02] you know, is important, and makes a big difference in that, you know? And I think that the more we cultivate a capacity to, you know, to make good decisions during those times, [00:45:17] you know, the better that can go and so on, right? So, anyway, I don't know, I don't know if that makes any sense at all. But . . . BARBARA: Oh, yeah. Well, as you say, these things get confusing to talk about, so, yeah, I think yeah, insofar [00:45:32] as it can make sense, it totally makes sense. And, kind of, almost kind of connected with that is, you know, this, the idea [00:45:47] of like judging something as good or bad. Okay. It's, and it's kind of connected with the idea, “Oh, it happened for a reason.” Well, I mean first of all, almost everything does happen for a reason because cause and effect exists. And you know, so there was a reason, [00:46:02] but I know people are talking about a grander reason then electrical faultiness or whatever. So, things happen for a reason, maybe, you know, they . . . Things happen, [00:46:17] is what what it is, and trying to judge whether they're good or bad. I mean, we want to do that because that's what we do because we're binary beings, I guess, you know like, “Oh, that's good. That's bad.” I mean, people always say [00:46:32] what they think, but you can't always tell if something's actually good or bad in the long run until time has passed, because there have been things that I went through that I wouldn't want to go through again, [00:46:47] but I'm glad they happened, because then XYZ happened, not saying it happened for a reason, you know, like because it didn't magically do anything. It also ties kind of into what you're saying, your own agency and own preparedness, [00:47:02] your own, you know, strength of will, whatever you want to say, you know, you can bring that to it and turn things around.  But it's also one of the things that bothered me, puzzled me about these, you know, more everyday readings, you know, like, people are like, “Well, [00:47:17] you know, I'm thinking of taking this job. Should I take this job?” And you know, I mean, I don't know about you, but like if I'm looking into the future, I'm not real comfortable looking more than six months out. I just don't. [00:47:32] And you know, so if I'm, you know, do a reading and it's like, well, yeah, the job says this, this, and this, and maybe some things they consider not good and then they don't take it. But if they took it, then it would [00:47:47] have led to XYZ. So, you know, just, we don't always know. We think we know what we want in the short term. We think we know what our goals are. Oh, I want to manifest this, I want to do this, if the cards say it's all going to be positive. [00:48:02] I think we lose something in that, because not everything we do has to be completely positive or successful to be worthwhile or to be part of a larger journey that might be more worthwhile. ANDREW: Right. BARBARA: Does that make sense? ANDREW: It does. [00:48:17] I mean, I think that, I think that the question of like, you know, one of the questions that I've been thinking about for a while, specifically around, you know, my work life, is like, what's enough? Right? [00:48:32] At what point, at what point am I successful enough? I mean, to put it in really basic terms, at what point am I making enough money? And what, what is it that I would like from going beyond that point? Right? You know? And I think [00:48:47] that, you know, working for yourself is not like kind of getting into a job description position that you like and just sort of like, "perfect, if I just stay in this job till I retire, that's great," because working for yourself doesn't really work that way, and I'm not sure the economy works that way [00:49:02] that much anymore anyway. But you know, but I think that we have these sort of notions of progress, of enlightenment, of, you know, all those kinds of ideas that are, you know, cultural [00:49:17] to capitalism and you know, like cultural to North America and so on, maybe, that, that I think are questionable how helpful they are, right? You know, like, [00:49:32] I don't, I don't know that . . . Like mostly what I'm interested in is making art, making more art, making more art, and doing the things that supports [00:49:47] that, right? And you know, like, I love running the store. I love doing readings for people. But I think that like, the idea of it sort of going anywhere. I'm like, well, I [00:50:02] don't know where, I don't know where it goes, and what the definition of where it goes, and what the grand plan is. I just want to, you know, do my practice, which is, you know, making art and reading cards for people, and just continue to do that. And I think that, you know, [00:50:17] that you're right, that it's hard to say, on a big arc of time, what might be good or what might be difficult. You know, like if we get, if we take a job, maybe it's crummy for six months and then it's great [00:50:32] after that, and so on. But I also feel like the idea of persevering through stuff towards an outcome. I'm really [00:50:47] less and less interested in that these days, you know? If something, if something, if the exchange isn't good in the short term, then I don't, you know, I don't, I'm not really that interested in sort of engaging in that [00:51:02] to get to a theoretically better long-term, you know? And, and I think that, I think a lot of people, especially around relationships, right, sort of work through, try to work through stuff, [00:51:17] you know, to get to . . . Especially newer relationships, right? Like maybe if you've been with somebody for a while as you have been, that, you know, there's a, there's a different math around, like, well, I was involved for this long. [00:51:32] And so now I'm willing to commit a longer stretch of time to working on things.  BARBARA: Right. ANDREW: But, but, I think that for me, I'm like, I'm not that interested in working on very much these days in those kinds of ways, you know, and if something isn't [00:51:47] flowing, I don't have the, I haven't seen the value of spending the resilience and capacity on working hard at stuff that is difficult [00:52:03] towards accomplishing longer term goals without making a change, right? You know, I think about it like Crowley talks about the Strength card or the Lust card in his tarot deck, right? And, and I think [00:52:18] that he draws a distinction in his writing on it, where he says that, you know, lust is not the absence of effort, right? It's not the absence of exertion. It is the absence of noticing the exertion, right? [00:52:33] Or something along those lines, right? And that idea that, you know, if we don't mind the work that we're not going to notice it, right?  BARBARA: Right.  ANDREW: And if we do mind the work, well, then, maybe we need to, maybe that's one of those cues to make a change, right? [00:52:49]  BARBARA: Yeah, that's gorgeous. And if you follow it, like if that's kind of a guideline that you're following for your life right now, as you were saying, then you probably [00:53:04] wouldn't be doing readings on things so much, because if you're like, I'm, I'm going with how things feel now, you are attune enough to yourself to know what you're . . . You know, [00:53:19] so you probably would need less readings because you're paying attention to your energy and how you're feeling and what you're doing and the effort and the payoff. Is that true or not true? ANDREW: That's true. [00:53:35] Trueish. I mean, I think that there are always practical considerations that are difficult, right? You know? [00:53:50] Dealing, dealing with insurance companies after having had a fire. It's like, man, nobody wants to insure you, right? It's like, it's difficult. And so, there are . . . For me, there are always practical questions, [00:54:05] and, you know, questions along the lines of, is there anything that I can do to make this better, to make it happen, especially because I have a very strong practical magical practice, right? You know, so there are those kinds of questions. [00:54:20] But really the question that I ask more often than not, these days, is either something along the lines of like well, should I run my Tarot de Marseilles class in January, or should I run my other course, [00:54:35] right? Like very sort of strategic business kind of things? Or a question, the question I go back to most of the time, is how do I show up fully today? How do [00:54:50] I show up fully in this situation? Right?  BARBARA: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And you know, and for me, that's a question that I've kind of come to answer by a sort of multi-step open-ended [00:55:07] kind of practice. Right? Like I don't, I no longer just kind of, if I'm going to read cards for myself in that way, I don't like just draw a card or two cards for the answer. I'll usually draw start with drawing a playing card, [00:55:22] checking in with my guides and ancestors, drawing three trumps from the, from a Marseilles deck, reading those in light of what's already been set in motion in the early part of the reading, and then [00:55:38] drawing a card from my Land of the Sacred Self Oracle that I self-published. And doing some writing on that, and then usually photographing that, and then drawing, doing, drawing back into it [00:55:53] and embellishing it further, and then at some point, that feels finished. So, like that's the, the process that I do when I do that stuff. And you know, it's all, if you, if people were to look at it, which I'm not [00:56:08] going to share it anywhere. But anyway, if people were to look at it, you'd be like, wow. I don't know what sense this makes a lot of time because a lot of it is very nonlinear and very, you know, like a lot of channeled reading, writing, you know, like, [00:56:23] and so on. But at the end of the process, I'm like, “Oh, now, now I'm aligned for the day, and now I know how I stay aligned for the day. You know for this project or whatever.” Right? So . . . yeah. BARBARA: Yeah, well and yeah, [00:56:38] that sounds like a good process, and I think like, some, I've heard people, you know, say, “Oh, I can't read for myself.” And I think sometimes part of that is they don't read for themselves the way they read [00:56:53] for somebody else. Like they give themself short shrift. You know, they won't go through the whole process, just throw the cards, look at them, go, and then pick them up and put them away. You know, it's different. I think if you treat [00:57:08] yourself as if you were, how you would treat a client . . . ANDREW: For sure and I think if you're going to read for yourself around practical considerations, you just need to have a lot of discipline, right? You know? For me when I read for myself [00:57:23] around practical considerations, it's actually usually really short because I'm like, like, you know, it's whatever. The Tower card says, this is a horrible idea. Don't go down this road. It's like, it's like, it's the end of the conversation. Just stop [00:57:38] there, you know, because the more I talk about it, the more I might try and talk myself into it or think that I have agency where, where the Tower says it doesn't, you know? And so on and so on, right? So but for me, yeah, it's like, you know, there's a short list of [00:57:53] sort of core meaning that I would attribute to every card that if I want to read for myself, I'm going to hold hard to that no matter whether I like it or not, whether it even makes sense or not to me, and be like, “All right, the card says that [00:58:08] someone's going to really betray you here, 10 of Swords. It's like, well, all right, let's not go there then.” Well, so I'm going to go instead, “What else can I do?” You know? Yeah. BARBARA: I think that's important too when you especially, well, like your first practice was more of [00:58:23] an internal deeper kind of a reading. And now we're talking about practical readings, and I think one of the reasons we want to do a practical reading is because we want to bypass our head, because we keep thinking [00:58:38] about it, and we keep justifying, and we know we're justifying, or making excuses and we know we're making excuses. So, you do this reading and keep it short and hold yourself to it. It helps bypass all of that, but you're right, if you start thinking about it, like, well, the Tower [00:58:53] can be, you know, how we can sometimes spin things. ANDREW: Carl Jung thinks of buildings as being a symbol of our ego and our persona in the world, maybe I just need to change the way I approach this, so that I can have a different experience of this and then I can learn [00:59:08] and grow and blah blah blah. It's like, no. Still gonna get hit by the lightning. Definitely don't like that. Thank you, but I'll pass. Right? BARBARA: Yeah. ANDREW: For sure.  BARBARA: Or someone wants to know, "Oh, I started dating someone, how is it going to go?" Five of Wands. "Oh, it's going to be so exciting [00:59:23] and fun!" And you know, it's like, one of the exercises I would give beginner students is, for reading for themselves, is okay, before you do a reading, the question, you know your question, and you know what answer [00:59:38] you want.  ANDREW: Yeah. BARBARA: Go through the deck and just like, if you don't already have the meanings, like you have, for reading for yourself. This is new people, go through the deck and you know pull out the cards that you think would make that answer.  ANDREW: Yeah. BARBARA: And then [00:59:53] shuffle your cards--and make note of them--shuffle your cards again, and then do your reading, and then if, you know, the Two of Cups, Ten of Cups, whatever doesn't come up. It can be like, "Well, okay. This isn't one of the answer cards. [01:00:08] This is a different answer." And it's a way to kind of discipline, discipline yourself, which is what you said when we started. ANDREW: Sure. Yeah. No, exactly. Well. It's like, you know, I think that that approach is, you know, really [01:00:23] helpful for a lot of things, right? And especially for, you know, I mean not everybody reads for, for everything, you know, but I do. Right? Like I don't really have limits around what I'll read for, you know, for [01:00:38] the most part. So, like, if someone's like, well, am I going to get pregnant, right? Am I going to conceive? Well, I have a short, short list of cards that answer yes to that, right? There's only like three or four of them, [01:00:53] depending on the deck I'm working with, and if those cards don't show up, then I'm going to say, "The cards don't give you a solid yes." Right? And you know, the same with the question people are like, “Am I cursed?” I'm like, “It happens, magic is real. I believe [01:01:08] it,” you know. But there's, there's only a couple of cards in the deck that are going to answer affirmatively to, to me around that, and my expectation is that the mystery will surface those cards, so that the answer feels unequivocal, [01:01:24] you know. And I think that that's also a practice that is a bit hair-raising when people are starting, but I think that, you know, as we talk about it, I realize how many different kinds of questions I have a very short list of [01:01:39] cards that I would take as a solid answer to, you know, and I think that that's a really helpful way maybe to, to avoid feeling ambiguous about the readings that you're giving, right? BARBARA: Right. ANDREW: So, yeah. [01:01:56] All right. Well, maybe, is there something else you want to add? I see you looking like you're gonna . . . BARBARA: Yes, I, there's one, like, I kind of said that I was going to be studying fate and destiny in the coming year. ANDREW: Yeah. BARBARA: The other thing I'm [01:02:11] looking forward to is, over this past year, I've heard a couple of people refer to mythic living, like I should know what that means, and I don't, and I've asked a couple of people, you know, "Well, what do you mean by [01:02:26] that?" And I haven't gotten, I was, kept getting this idea that it was like, where you just live really big and loud and you know, mythically legendary, you know? And, but . . . I read something a couple weeks ago that made me think okay, you got that wrong, obviously, [01:02:42] and what this blog said was, it's when you understand the mythic rhythms of life, things that happen, the mythic, well, [01:02:57] anyways, you know what I mean. And when you understand them and when you can learn where you are in your life in terms of a mythic story, or cycle, then you can learn how to live within that. [01:03:12] Have you ever heard anything like that? What do you think of that?  ANDREW: I mean, isn't that how people feel about the hero's journey? BARBARA: It's the whole, yes, exactly. Okay. So similar thing. ANDREW: I think, right. I mean, I've my [01:03:27] own ideas about mythic stuff, but we'll save that for later, for another time, maybe. But I think that, I think that [01:03:42] the idea of sort of myths as true guides to our, to our lives, or as, you know, true models of experience, in the same way that I think of this sort of way in [01:03:57] which people sometimes default to astrology, and sometimes default to other ways of creating definition. I think they're, I think that there is value in them, and there are [01:04:12] values in those stories, you know?  And as a person who practices a religion that is based on, we could say, has a huge swath of it that's based on stories, right? You know, nobody, nobody [01:04:27] in my tradition would tell you . . . Well, no, nobody with a solid grounding in reality would tell you that, you know, as a child of Shango, I'm gonna live the life, live the myths of Shango, [01:04:42] right? You know? And you know, and I think that this idea that, that sort of these myths define the arc of human experience, right? I think [01:04:57] it's pretty questionable. I think that there is truth in it, right? You know, like the, the myth of Percival, which is so popular amongst, you know, Western initiatory stuff, [01:05:12] right? It's like, there are pieces of that that are true, and valuable, and you see most people encounter in some way, right? Like, you know, once the, once the hero decides to go on their journey, something arises to distract them, right? You know, [01:05:27] Kundria arrives to distract Percival from pursuing whatever, right? But the idea that every myth ends with, you know, “Oh, you are the person you were searching for all along and you had it with you the whole time.” [01:05:42] I don't think that's true at all. Right? I see lots of people whose lives are, are not that way, right? And, you know, and yet, the, the, questions that arise from looking at that myth a bit, like what would, what would distract you from your deeper commitment? [01:05:57] Right? In what ways are you not already acknowledging your gifts, you know? And so on, right?  Like those, those are powerful questions, but as sort of models for, for sort of promoting everybody's [01:06:12] experience, you know, it's like the hero's journey. I'm just kind of like, I'm like, "Yeah, maybe, for some people, some of the time," but then we're back to this question of like, agency and free will and how much does our expectation that is the course that we're going to [01:06:27] continue on then shape the course that we live afterwards, right? And I think that, yeah, so. But yeah, so I think that that's a really mixed bag [01:06:42] of things, you know, for me, you know? And probably because I did not come out of tarot from that sort of Angeles Aryan, sort of archetypes of people, you know, archetypes are what's behind [01:06:57] tarot piece, but came from a sort of practical magical and sort of ceremonial background into this stuff and then into a non-Western tradition religiously. I always look at those pieces, and I'm kind of like, eh? [01:07:12] I get it. I see it. Like I can see how you see it. And I can see how it's there, but it's like, what it's defined as, seems overstated or, or incomplete in some way to me, [01:07:27] in a way that I've never been able to reconcile it, or kind of close the loop on it. So yeah. BARBARA: I guess that's why there's a lot of different approaches because . . . ANDREW: Yeah. BARBARA: Some work for some people and some work for others [01:07:42]. ANDREW: Exactly, right, you know, and it's, of course, it's not to say that, you know, if people find value in that, fantastic, right? BARBARA: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, please, please don't write me, I don't need to have this conversation again. I've had it so many times, you know? But no, not [01:07:57] that, not talking, talking about you, but like, but yeah, it's like I've had many people, very smart people try to convince me. Or want to have conversations around convincing me about it. Like it's not my jam. I just, I just don't, I just don't jive with it, so we could just go [01:08:12] talk about other things instead, right? BARBARA: Right, or yeah, because that's not a really interesting conversation, because trying to convince someone who has, especially someone who has a perfectly workable system, you know, and they're not like [01:08:27] asking for advice or looking for a new way to live or think. It's just evangelizing, and why do you, why . . . Just because you believe something is true, the, the other person doesn't have to think it's true. [01:08:42] That doesn't diminish its worth for you. You know, you don't, everyone doesn't have to believe the same thing. ANDREW: Exactly.  BARBARA: You know, what might be more interesting would be to say, "Well, let's talk about what I think and what you think and see if there are any parallels and maybe talk about where they [01:08:57] differ. And isn't that interesting? And why is that?" You know. ANDREW: No, for sure. Yeah. I'm curious to hear what your explorations of mythicness deliver to you, bring to you, over time, though, for sure. BARBARA: I [01:09:12] know. I have a feeling that next year, next fall, our conversation is going to be super interesting. I mean not that these haven't been, but these have been personal, and hard, and important, and [01:09:28] valuable, but I think for next fall, we might, our listeners might get a treat of something different. ANDREW: Or maybe they'll just get a lovely, what are we at now, fourth helping, fifth helping of, you know, [01:09:43] whatever this is. But yeah, we'll figure it out. We'll, time will tell. BARBARA: That's right. ANDREW: Well, thanks for making time again, Barbara. I appreciate it as always. BARBARA: I do too. I love these conversations. ANDREW: Me too!  

This long overdue episode was record back in the summer.  Andrew and Mal talk about the nature of magic, initiation, religious practice and more. They talk a lot about how to know if you are on the right track and the pitfalls of walking a magical path. The upsides and pitfalls of gnosis. How to become a bishop by chance 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. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. To find more out about Mal check out Lux-Umbria or hang with him on Facebook here.  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: [00:00:02] Welcome to another episode of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I am joined today by Mal Strangefellow. And I've been following Mal online for quite a while. And recently, he's gotten into starting a church. And [00:00:17] a lot of the dialogue around that has been very fascinating to me. So I thought that inviting him on to talk about some of these things would be really entertaining because I think there's so many fascinating questions about legitimacy, legacy, [00:00:32] lineage, and all sorts of stuff that people are or ought to be thinking about as they're going about in various traditions right now, and at the birth of something new, seems like a great place to revisit those conversations. So, for people who [00:00:47] might not know you, Mal, give us, give us the introduction. Who are you? What are you about? MAL: [laughing] Oh, wow, um, you know, and I don't mean this to sound, sound like I'm bragging. It's mostly just because [00:01:02] I'm getting older and my memory is lagging, but when you, when you've done, I don't want to say so much, but when you've done enough, at some point, it starts to become difficult to figure out how to answer that question. [00:01:17] [laughing] ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: I got my start in esoterica during the mid-80s. I'm solidly in that, you know, Boomer cusp/early Gen X region. [00:01:34] Went into, went into the army right out of high school, and after that, got it into my head that I wanted to be a Buddhist monk.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And ended up doing [00:01:49] that for a number of years. I was a Tibetan Buddhist monk, a novice and, and fully ordained getsu and gelong. After a few years, or early 90s, wanted to go and get a college degree, [00:02:04] went to the University of Oregon--go Ducks!--and you know, discovered that it's a lot harder to be a celibate monk in a university than it is in a monastery! ANDREW: [laughing] Uh huh. [00:02:19]  MAL: Go figure! ANDREW: I imagine. MAL: And ended up returning my vows, and, at that point, just kind of wandered back and forth among a number of different things, sort of exploring [00:02:35] alternate routes of spirituality, continuing to practice magic. Of course, the Internet was really just sort of starting to become popular at this time. You know, we were moving beyond the [00:02:50] text-based, green screen kind of stuff and actually getting a graphical interface to the Internet discussion boards. Alt magic, of course, was going like gangbusters. This is just at the cusp of the, the [00:03:05] infamous Golden Dawn Wars of the early, early to mid-90s, and ended up getting involved with the Golden Dawn. Was--actually, my neophyte initiation in the Golden Dawn was done [00:03:20] with Israel Regardie's handmade tools, and I believe a mutual friend of ours, Poke Runyan, was the keryx for that and gave me his flu.  ANDREW: [chuckles] MAL: So.  ANDREW: That's a magical blessing, indeed.  MAL: [00:03:35] Right? And kind of . . . There was some floundering, I would say towards the late 90s. Got involved in the Temple of Set, stayed there long enough to [00:03:50] be recognized to the third degree, their priesthood, at which, and this, I bring this up because it encompasses sort of a pivotal event for me. James Grabe was [00:04:05] also a member of the temple and a member of the OTO, and at the time, when I actually met him in person, there, he was on the outs with the current leadership. I [00:04:20] mean, he has made, I don't know if I'm saying that right, I've never done any OTO stuff. So. That guy. And I don't know what there was, so I don't know if they were, I think there was some sort of lawsuit or some-- Anyway, they were pissed [00:04:35] off. We were at a conclave, which is an annual temple gathering, and we were in the hotel bar, and just sort of chatting, and you know, I was a second degree adept at the time, and so I was star struck at his degree and [00:04:50] his history. And we were just talking and he was mostly talking. And he had mentioned that he had apostolic succession as a bishop, and one of the things, among other things, that the current leadership wanted from him was consecration [00:05:06] as a bishop for their EGC.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: And he was basically just inviting them to peruse the fine example of the back of his middle finger on that. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And you know, he said, "You know what, basically, [00:05:21] I'll consecrate, you know, anybody else, anybody but them. Right? Hell, you want to be consecrated?" and I was like, "Um, yeah, okay." He's like, "All right, cool." So we actually made a plan for the next night. He [00:05:36] had a suite in the hotel and I showed up and we went through deacon priest and I was consecrated a bishop that night. And it was like, "Here you go. Now, you're a bishop." I was like, "Well, awesome. Thank you." This is [00:05:51] 1998-99-ish and, which, oddly enough feels like, you know, maybe five or ten years ago for me, but . . .  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: Yeah, I was like, you know, "So what do I do with this?" It was like fuck, [00:06:06] I don't care. Can I say fuck? I can say fuck, right?  ANDREW: You can say fuck. It's fine. Go ahead. MAL: All right, cool. Fuck, yeah. [laughing] He was like, "I don't care," you know, "here's some stuff," and I got like loose leaf print outs, you know, some ideas that he had had [00:06:21] about sort of a Johannite spirituality and you know, I got, you know, an old Xeroxed copy of his succession, apostolic succession, and stuff like that, and I just sort of filed it away and did nothing with it. [00:06:36]  ANDREW: Mm.  MAL: Until I resigned, after I resigned from the temple as a priest. It was, you know, interpersonal political stuff. ANDREW: Isn't it always, right? MAL: Right, you know, it's, there was a group that was up-and-coming [00:06:51] in the temple. They have since been, been purged out, but I was not in that group, and ended up just resigning rather than dealing with all of the, the people bullshit that comes with that, and [00:07:06] in trying to figure out, all right, what the hell do I want to do now? Said, you know, well, I've got these kind of things to fall back on. I wonder if I could do this? And so I pulled out all of James's stuff and decided [00:07:21] you know what, fuck it. I'm, I'm a start a church!  And that's how the Apostolic Johannite church was founded, [laughs] and I ended up posting on a couple of message boards online at the time: "Hey, are [00:07:36] you interested in an esoteric organization and an esoteric church?" And got a couple of hits. One of the very first ones was, of course, the current patriarch of the AJC, and you know, the rest there is history. [00:07:51] I ran the AJC for a couple of years, and at that time, kind of felt like I had some unfinished stuff that I wanted to do elsewhere. Plus, [00:08:06] I feel like, at least for me at that time, it took a different personality to run things than it did to start them, and I didn't know that I had the personality to keep that [00:08:21] thing going, and I feel justified in making this statement, you know, in hindsight 20/20, but just in looking at how well they've done, you know, since I, since I handed it over to Sean McCann, their current patriarch, you know, I think [00:08:36] it's the, like the largest, fastest growing international gnostic church on the planet right now, some crazy crap like that.  ANDREW: So. Let me ask you a question.  MAL: Yeah, yeah! ANDREW: Cause you've talked about so many things here and I want to . . . MAL:  I know, I'm sorry.  ANDREW: No. No, it's [00:08:51] why I had you on, I want to have these conversations and I love hearing you chat. What, what kind of personality does it take to run these things? Because you know, I've, you know, I've been in my share of, you know, I was in the OTO [00:09:06] in several different groups that all imploded or exploded. And I was in the Aurum Solace for a bunch of time, and change of leadership and it, you know, my local group was excommunicated. And you know, I [00:09:21] was in the AA for a while and there are various, you know, things with that, that just left me, you know, with nowhere to go. What is it, you know, and I've seen my share of that in the, in the Lukumi traditions as well, you know, different places. [00:09:36] What does it take to run a thing like that well? Because I feel like there's, you know, what I've seen is, there's, like, if there's a strong personality and they can kind of hold it together with their personality, [00:09:51] that works until it doesn't, until they leave or retire or whatever. What actually does work? What makes sense when it comes to sort of bigger organizations around that kind of stuff? MAL: You know, I think you [00:10:06] kind of hit on it with the, the big personality, not in that that's the answer. But in that, that's not the answer.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: I think a strong personality, a willingness to get shit [00:10:21] done, to say, you know, what, screw it, we're going this way. We're doing it. Like that's the kind of personality you need to start something, to really get it going, to gather people in, to inspire other people, but to keep it going, [00:10:37] I think you need somebody a lot more conciliatory.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, somebody, somebody who is open to, willing to, desirous of working with other people and incorporating them into the, [00:10:52] the, the living, you know, the daily life of the organization, a strong personality. You know, again, I think it's absolutely necessary to get a thing started. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: [00:11:07] You know, there's just so much inertia there, at the beginning of anything that you need to build up a certain amount of momentum to, you know, to, to overcome initial obstacles and you know, nothing kills [00:11:22] momentum faster than a committee meeting.  ANDREW: [laughing] Especially if not much is already happening. Right?  MAL: Right. Right! You know? So you need that strong personality, but after you reach a certain point, I think that strong personality [00:11:37] becomes detrimental, you know? ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And if you don't have it within you to drop that and become more conciliatory, then you're just kind of a, you know, you're kind of a bully, you, you end up with, you know, strong personality clashes [00:11:52] with other people who, you know, who might be able to come in and do amazing things. Yeah, I think of . . . Okay. So, a perfect example of this going back to where I was and where Sean McCann was at the beginning of the AJC when I handed things over to [00:12:07] him . . . You know, he was, he'd only been a bishop for like a year.  ANDREW: Okay.  MAL: You know, I'd consecrated him and, to be fair, I had even gone, like right after his consecration, [00:12:22] I went on vacation!  ANDREW: Uh huh. MAL: Like six months! [laughing] And I was like, you know what, I just need a break from all of this. I'm tired. You run things. Call me if you need to, but I'm out for a while. So, you know, really, even that first six months, he [00:12:37] was kind of running things. Because of his age, and because of his natural temperament at the time, you know, sort of, you know, not really sure of himself, [00:12:52] not wanting to make a mistake. MAL: Okay. So the current primate of North America for the AJC, Mar Thoma, was a bishop with [00:14:07] another organization who came into the AJC. We had become friends while I was still there, but he officially joined the AJC after I left, and he is a very strong personality. But he's also [00:14:22] been, you know, has been just an amazing asset for the church and, you know, in looking back, I don't know, like, would I have given him the same opportunity? You know, when you've got those, the [00:14:37] two alpha dogs clashing, right? The, you know, the two strong personalities, would, would the same results have come about? And I'm not so sure that it would have, you know? I think by me stepping out and by Sean coming in [00:14:52] and having that, that natural conciliatory manner and welcoming him in, [coughs] excuse me, as a, another leader. I think that was a huge part of their success. And so, what does it take to run [00:15:07] an organization? I think it takes the ability to find, to find that in yourself, to realize that, you know, you know, it's not all about me.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: If I care about this, if it's going to run, I need to, I need to be conciliatory. [00:15:22] Does that make sense? ANDREW: Yeah, I think so, for sure. MAL: Oh good, cool. ANDREW: Because you know, yeah, a lot of people just . . . A lot of what I've seen is, it gets to a point where people are just like, look, it's my way or the highway, and then you know, and then you just [00:15:37] have, you know, whatever, right? Like, like the thing around the apostolic succession, where they're like, will you please give this to us? And be like, absolutely never, you know, like you just end up in these things where it's so stuck that there's no, there's no movement possible, right? You know? MAL: Right, right. ANDREW: [00:15:52] Mm-hmm.  MAL: Yeah, and you know, when you lay down something, like it's my way or the highway, you end up with a ton of fantastic people choosing the highway. ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: And, and you're left with, you know, just the, the sycophants, [00:16:07] and what happens to your, the organization, then? I mean, you mentioned your experiences in the Aurum Solis, and I remember, you know, when Leon proclaimed it an all Christian organization [00:16:22] when he was still, you know, Grandmaster. And, you know, it was that, this is it, it's my way or the highway. This is what we're proclaiming.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: A bunch of people chose the highway! [laughing] You know, and then he kind of pulled back from that a little bit and then [00:16:37] somebody else took over and then [garbled right before 16:43] Anyway. Yeah, I think that that's a perfect example of what you were talking about. When you have leadership like that, [00:16:52] things tend not to grow organically and even if they do survive that personality, that type of personality, they don't survive the end of that personality. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. For sure.  MAL: When that person dies or, you know, [00:17:07] converts to evangelical Christianity, and says, you know unicorns are bad or whatever. [laughing] ANDREW: Sure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think it's interesting. You know? I also think it's, it's interesting how . . . I wonder how, [00:17:22] contrary to what people might think, that that sort of more conciliatory aspect actually works to sustain the teachings versus dissipate them? MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Because what I see where there, where there's no [00:17:37] or nominal flexibility, is then there's these sort of backlashes and waves that come back and forth, right? You know, the new group comes in and you know, they're, they're all, they're all into witchcraft, and that's it. And if you're a Christian, you're [00:17:52] out, right? In response to the Christians who are like, "Well we're Christian," you know. And especially in a group like the Aurum Solis that, at least sort of in its heyday was so founded on research, you know . . . I mean, I think that, you know, what's, what are you losing, [00:18:07] you know, by these massive sways, right? So, yeah. MAL: Right, right. You know and also you get, you know, you get buy-in from everybody when, you know, regardless of the kind of organization, right? Whether it's a business or a teaching [00:18:22] order or a church or . . . You get buy-in with conciliatory leadership. You know, people feel like they have ownership, you know, they have a stake in it, and so they care about it. Whereas if it's just: here it is, [00:18:37] it's my way or the highway and then you know, well, okay, it's your way. It's never my way at that point, no matter where I am in the organization. If I'm not on top, it's never my way. It's always, I'm doing their way and you know, we as people, we [00:18:52] tend to like our way . . . [laughing] ANDREW: Well, and especially more magically inclined people. Right?  MAL: Right. Yeah. ANDREW: You know, I think there's, there's a tendency towards ego, you know, not necessarily in a bad sense, but just ego, that [00:19:07] doesn't really, if it's not addressed in some capacity, you know? So, how did, how did you find the transition of, how did you sort of manage that transition from Tibetan Buddhist practice, which [00:19:22] is pretty, you know, which is very structured, you know, to, to kind of your other practices, which sound like there are through lines, but they weren't as rigid? If that's fair. [00:19:37]  MAL: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. [lost words--exception?] about that. Yeah, you know, actually, I think it was . . . Being on sort of those diametric poles was beneficial to me. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, as structured and rigid as [00:19:52] Tibetan monastic life was, the Temple of Set, on the other hand, and I think why, why I enjoyed and sort of embraced what they were doing so much was because there's so much [00:20:07] more open, right? You know, you show up and one of their, their primary tenets from The Book of Coming Forth by Night is, you know, "the text of another is an affront to the self." You know, so, every, initiatory degrees, you know, [00:20:22] okay, it's time for you to be recognized as a second-degree adept. They don't confer initiations. They recognize after you've achieved something, and then they say, okay, well now, go write that initiation ritual, you know, go [00:20:37] do it. Go create it, you know, come up with your own, you know, have it, have it . . . You know, don't, don't just pull crap out of your ass, you know. There, there's, there's a very scholastic aspect to them. I think when I, when I [00:20:52] joined, I got a binder that was like, and I'm holding up my fingers. Nobody can see them. [laughing] It's like an inch and a half to two inches thick and the vast bulk of that was a reading list. ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, so, and part of recognition [00:21:07] is, their recognition process is, go out and read these books. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Go out and study this material. Go find more and then come back and tell us what you think about it, you know. You know, so there's this, this, this scholarship and then this production [00:21:22] and it's really, you know, and I don't want to give the impression that it's this loosey-goosey kind of thing. But it, it is very different from the structure that I experienced in Tibetan Buddhism. Right?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And [00:21:37] I think I tried to incorporate some of that in in my later work and it's still something in my own personal practice and when I'm working with students, it's still something that even down to, you know, giving them offhand a reading [00:21:52] list. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And saying, you know, pick, pick six books, or pick three books, or whatever. Read them all from different categories, and then come back and let's talk about how, you know, what [00:22:07] material from this book on this topic and this book from this incredibly different topic. How do they play together? ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And what do you get from reading both of those back-to-back that you wouldn't have gotten from reading either one separately, [00:22:22] right? In isolation. What, what new comes out of that? And I think that's sort of been, that came out of that experience, of strict rigid practice with, with Tibetan Buddhism and then the [00:22:37] more open, but, but scholastically-informed Setianism, like, like this kind of was born out of that, and I think that has been, regardless of what I've done since, sort [00:22:52] of my, my entire method of, approach for things.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: Does that make sense? I really feel like I'm just rambling on . . .  ANDREW: No, no, not at all. It totally makes sense. MAL: Okay cool.  ANDREW: I mean, for me I kind of went in the opposite direction. You know, I was doing ceremonial [00:23:07] stuff, you know, throwing some chaos magic, and you know, all that kind of . . . different things and then I'm, as I moved into Lukumi, and you know, the Orisha tradition that I got initiated in, it's, [00:23:22] there are just ways that things are done, you know. MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And so it's been a move away from, from that kind of structure and a stepping into that structure, and what I see is that so many people struggle with that axis. MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know? Like, you know, [00:23:37] for people to accept that there is a way that things are done, or, you know, in light of a tradition, the way that things are done, and that that part isn't [00:23:52] subject to conversation so much is very difficult for a lot of people, you know? MAL: But it's also a really important experience, I think. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, I went from the founding of the AJC into East Asian esoteric [00:24:07] Buddhism, tendai [spelling?], and from their Korean Zen, you know, Seon Buddhism, and those are both, I mean, you don't get more rigid than the Japanese. ANDREW: Right.  MAL: And, but there's a purpose for that. You know, they, [00:24:23] there's this idea that when you take all of these people together and you force them to do this sort of thing, this sort of way, we kind of polish our rough edges off. ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, and if everybody was just allowed to go off and do their own thing, [00:24:38] you would never find your rough edges, you know, and so in practicing tendai [spelling?] Buddhism and then in going through, you know, the Zen Buddhist koan curriculum, that was, it was very rigid, there's a way [00:24:53] you do it. There's even an entire different language almost for going through koans that if you don't, if you don't know it and if you don't do it, you're not going to pass. You're not going to advance. You know, it's almost [00:25:08] like learning that language, which is both, you know, poetic and performative. You know, there's a physical aspect to it. But learning that language is what allows your brain to operate [00:25:23] in the way that it needs to operate in order to get the insight that you need to get.  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: You know, there's no book that you could read that, that, that, you know, could tell you that. There's a story out of Daido Loori's [00:25:38] place, Zen Mountain Monastery, back when he was still alive. They had a book with all the answers to the koans in it, and somebody stole it. And one of the head monks was like, you know, ran up to Daido Roshi and was like, "Hey, you know, somebody stole the book. What are [00:25:53] we gonna do? What if they publish it?" And Loori Roshi was like, yeah, don't worry about it.  ANDREW: Mm-Hmm.  MAL: The answers aren't in the book. It doesn't matter what was written down. The answers aren't in the book.  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: The answers are what we see in front of us. It's like, you know, I live here in Cincinnati. [00:26:08] And, if you read a ton of books about Cincinnati, but had never been here, and then tried to pass it off, you know, in talking to somebody that was born and raised here, they'd know pretty quickly you're full of shit. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know? [00:26:23] Whereas if you've both, you know, if you've been there, if you've visited there, if you're talking about "oh, man, you know, did they finish the construction over on . . ." or you know, all of that sort of stuff that just, you know, then they're like, "oh, yeah, yeah, you've been there." So I think . . . [00:26:39] There's definitely value to "this is the way things are done" for a lot of traditional things, just because, if you don't do it that way, you don't get the experience or have the effect that it's supposed [00:26:54] to provide, you know?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. For sure. Well, it's why, you know, my experience of memorizing tables of correspondences when I was doing ceremonial stuff, you know? MAL: [chuckles] ANDREW: I mean, on the one hand, it's like, well, why memorize [00:27:09] it, there are books, but on the other hand, it's, it preloads your cognition with a framework that stuff that wants to work within that framework can then work straight through . . .  MAL: Absolutely. ANDREW: As opposed [00:27:24] to, you know, having to attempt to bridge that gap without that extra framework there, you know? MAL: Yeah. Absolutely. ANDREW: It's possible, anybody can have a vision of, you know, take your pick, and that might be authentic and whatever, but It's [00:27:39] a lot rarer and it's really atypical, as opposed to sort of the, you know, that that more you've done the work, [lost words at 27:48? sounds like "you're fed up"?] and now they're going to show you a thing in this way.  MAL: Absolutely. Well, and you know, putting on my clinical [00:27:54] psych hat, in the middle of all of this I also went on and got various graduate degrees in psychology. We know that the thoughts that we think change the physical structure of our brains.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, and so, memorizing [00:28:09] tables of correspondences, it's not just putting information in your head so that you can have it at quick recall. It's literally making a physical change to your brain. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Is that physical change necessary? Is that, [00:28:24] you know, an integral component to the experience that you're trying to have? I-- Maybe not, but maybe it is, and if that's the case, if it's not just about being able to have something on immediate recall, in which case, you know, why don't [00:28:39] I just load, preload 777 on my phone?  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: And then if I, if I need to know a correspondence, I'll pick it up. But you know, if it's not just about having that piece of information, but if it's about the change that it's affecting in your brain that is allowing [00:28:54] you to maybe perceive or experience, you know, something, then, you know, by not doing it, you're either never going to get there, or, like you said, it's going to be really damn rare that you get the experience that, you know, that [00:29:09] you're hoping for. ANDREW: Yeah. I think the, the, you know, the real answer is, the magic is in many, many parts of it, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: And not just in the quote unquote secret word that activates the ritual or what, right? [00:29:24] MAL: [laughing] Exactly! ANDREW: It's got so many parts of it that that are not, they're not necessarily glamorous. They're almost never talked about overtly in books or in other contexts, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know, I almost never see anybody talk about [00:29:39] that when I read a book about magic. It's like "yeah," and then you just like, do this thing and it'll happen. It's like, oh, maybe, maybe so.  MAL: [laughing] Yeah. Sure. It's just the magic word. You just say the word, the word.  ANDREW: Well, the bird is the word, right? That's where we'll go with that? MAL: [laughing] [00:29:56] Yeah. Well, I was going to say, Aidan Wachter recently made a post that I think brilliantly comes to this point and it was a . . . Oh, how did [00:30:11] it go? [sighs] See, I brought it up. Now I should at least be able to remember it, but it was along the lines of you know, the vast majority of success comes from mastering the basics.  ANDREW: Yes. MAL: Not from some advanced, you know, rarefied thing, you know, [00:30:26] and he was coming from it from both an esoteric and a physical, you know, point of view. And I thought it was brilliant when I saw that. ANDREW: Yeah. I remember that post. He was basically sort of saying like, you know, sure, some super custom tailored [00:30:41] fancy technique might get you this extra increase, because--it was coming from a fitness training point of view, the article that he linked to--but the reality is, you know, showing up four days a week and you know doing the basic things, [00:30:56] that's going to get you almost everything and the other stuff is, you know, especially over the arc of time, right? So.  MAL: Right. And that applies to so much of what we do, right? Just showing up and doing the basic stuff. And . . . ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. [00:31:13]  MAL: Oh crap, there was, where was I going to go? There was . . . ? Eh, never mind. It'll come back to me if . . . [laughing] ANDREW: Let me ask you this question, then. So . . .  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: We've popped out this term a couple times here and there: gnostic.  MAL: Okay. ANDREW: What is, [00:31:28] what does that mean to you? What does that mean? You know, like I hear it a lot. I've seen it a lot. You know, I mean, you know, Crowley talked about it a bunch, you know different people talk about it, you know, there's the knights cathars and you know, all that stuff or whatever. [00:31:43] But what does it mean to you? What does it actually . . . What's the relevance of it at this point in time? MAL: Sure. Well, so first off a caveat, I . . . Technically, I don't even really identify myself as gnostic any more, [00:31:59] which, I suppose is actually kind of peak gnosticism, itself. ANDREW: We live in a post gnostic era? MAL: Right. And I'm glad when you asked, you asked, you know, "What does gnosticism mean to you?" Because it is [00:32:14] a . . . I mean it's . . . We apply it retroactively to a lot of ideas, right? None of the ancient texts, like none of the Gnostic Gospels say, "And I am now writing this Gnostic Gospel."  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Or, you know . . . [00:32:30] Gnosis, for me, the way, the way I learned it, the way I taught it, and the way I experienced it, gnosis is knowledge as opposed to [00:32:45] information. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And specifically, it's that, it's that noetic apprehension that comes after the sort of die neue [spelling?]. [00:33:00] After the intellectual information gathering and crunching and . . . It's an apprehended knowing, you know, in the spiritual sense. More mundanely, it's just knowing [00:33:15] right? It's eating peanut butter rather than having somebody read off the ingredient list of peanut butter to you. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The experience of it.  MAL: Yeah, you can never tell somebody else what peanut butter tastes like. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: You can taste it then and then from then on you will forever and always [00:33:30] know what peanut butter tastes like. And that is, you know, exponentially different from knowing what goes into it. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And, and so, in a spiritual and in a magical sense, then, gnosis is [00:33:45] that experience, just like we were talking about, that experience that comes from doing certain things.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, and, and it's specifically that experience that can only come from doing certain [00:34:00] things as opposed to just reading about them. Whether that's a, you know, an in esoterica or spiritual, religious, and, and oftentimes those are blended. You know, you can read about an experience [00:34:15] of the divine. Or you can have it. I think one of the most underappreciated esoteric texts out there is by St. John Chrysostom, in defense of the hesacasts. So hesacasts, heretic [00:34:30] Orthodox, not heretic but almost, near heretic Orthodox sect, who practiced hesachasm, this, this mystical combination of the Jesus prayer kind of a yoga position and breathing [00:34:45] technique that they said would allow you to experience the energies of the divine.  ANDREW: Hmm.  MAL: In fact, you know, advanced practitioners of this were said to literally physically glow, like they would just glow in the dark. And this got [00:35:00] a lot of bishops' panties in a twist and John Chrysostom wrote this brilliant defense of them, basically laying out theologically why this, this theosis, this knowing of [00:35:15] God is not heretical. You know, they're not saying they can know God, because you can't wrap a finite mind around an infinite thing, but you can experience, right? Can you hear that humming right now?  ANDREW: [00:35:30] No, from your side? No.  MAL: Yeah, so, my mic, I'm going to flick it real quick. [thump] I fixed it. Sorry, I've got a loose connector there. ANDREW: Uh huh. MAL: But, you can experience it. You can have an experience of it and he likened it to a number of different things. [00:35:45] One of them was, you know, sitting in a ray of sunshine: you know it, you can experience it. It's not all of it. Nobody's saying it is. But that, that's gnosis to me, [00:36:00] that experience.  ANDREW: So, let's, I'm gonna ask you a really unfair question. Okay? MAL: Okay. Sure.  ANDREW: So, how do people determine what is different [00:36:15] between an authentic gnosis with something, with a spirit, with god, with wherever, and a more [00:36:30] psychological, or, you know, even intellectualized engagement with it, you know? Because there's so many people who have experiences of different things, and you know, going back to your, your Zen stuff [00:36:45] and to your Tibetan stuff. There are very clear things that are markers, right? For what's an authentic experience, you know, and I even remember when I was in the Aurum Solis, I came to my teacher and I was like, I had this, I had this experience [00:37:00] with one of the archangels, and they showed up in this way. And he's like, "Great," and then he pulls out a piece of paper and shows like, pulls out a book from his notes about it and shows me what I saw. He's like, that's, that's [00:37:15] because you're, you've moved beyond your own cognitive stuff being in the way of that connection.  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know? So, how do people know that, though? How do people even begin to work with that if this is a new idea for [00:37:30] them? MAL: You know, it's, the easiest way is having a teacher, right? ANDREW: Sure. MAL: There's the famous story of Gampopa and Milarepa, his, the yogi Milarepa, who was Gampopa's meditation [00:37:45] teacher and at that time, you know, the Tibetans generally don't meditate in groups. They don't do silent meditation. They get the instruction. They go away, they practice, then they come back. And Gampopa came to his, Milarepa after some time practicing, [00:38:00] and he's like, "I don't know what's going on, but I'm beset by devils constantly. This is what . . ." And Milarepa was like, "Just chill out, keep doing the practice, that that'll all go away." A few months later, Gampopa comes back again, and he was like, "Teacher, you're, you're so right. It's amazing. [00:38:15] All the devils were chased off. Now. I'm visited constantly by angels and dakinis and it's just wonderful and it's bliss." And Milarepa was like, "Uh huh, that's cool. Just keep practicing, that will go away."  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: You know, having that that teacher that can that can guide you . . . [00:38:30] You know, in Buddhism, especially in Tibetan Buddhism, emptiness, shunyata, big deal, and having an experience of emptiness is a big deal. Like this is [00:38:45] one of the major mileposts and the literature is just scattered with warnings about, you know, don't intellectualize this, don't intellectualize this, because [00:39:00] when you do, when you get an idea in your head of what that experience is, you reify it and then you're stuck, right? You're stuck with that idea. And you think "Oh, I have had this experience and therefore . . ." You know, and without [00:39:15] sort of that external verification by somebody else who's been there, right? Without talking about Cincinnati with somebody who's also been there, you know and confirm: Yes. Absolutely. I know exactly the street corner you're talking about, or you know, whatever, you can easily [00:39:30] be led astray.  How, how does somebody working on their own do this? Well, that's tough, you know, at that point, I think you have to, [00:39:45] I think initially approach, you know, unverified personal gnosis, UPG, with skepticism. ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: You know, I think that has to be the default when you're on your own, no matter how amazingly lifelike and 3D [00:40:00] this apparition was, or like, initially approach it with some degree of skepticism, keeping in your mind, well, this could just be wishful thinking or this could be, you know, whatever, [00:40:15] and then give it time, right? If it was a teaching, if it was a practice, if it . . . Does it bear out? ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: Are there, are there, are there are external things that coincide with it? If you . . . You know, you're given a vision of this, you know, amazing new practice [00:40:30] and then the very next day somebody randomly starts talking to you about, you know, a symbol which is exactly like the linchpin for that practice or, you know, you know, somebody brings you something that you [00:40:45] specifically need in order to . . . You know, you look for confirmation still from outside, even if it's not from a specific like teacher in a lineage of a thing . . . ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You're still looking for that external confirmation. [00:41:00] And it may not be for years and years and years that all of a sudden something happens and then it clicks and you're like, oh my God, I had that dream, you know, three years ago about this and then here is this . . . [00:41:15] Holy crap. This is a, you know, okay, then you go with it. But no, if otherwise, if somebody shows up and just says, "hey, you're the chosen one," or you know, you're yet another incarnation of Alistair, or you know, whatever, [00:41:30] you know, maybe keep that in your back pocket. ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think that that time will tell, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: Time will tell. We'll see if this holds the test of time, for sure. MAL: Right, you know, and you can have, I think, amazing personal experiences that are meaningful [00:41:45] to you.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: That you never say anything to anyone about or do anything with. And that's okay.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: They don't have to be huge revelations. Or they don't have to be, you know, even if it was something that was just the product of your own mind, [00:42:01] maybe it's useful to you. But again, yeah, I think that in order to tell the difference between genuine, a genuine experience of gnosis, like that, yeah, it's external confirmation. ANDREW: And so, [00:42:16] that brings back sort of one of the other questions that I wanted to check in about: what role does lineage play, for you, in all of these things? I mean, I know in my Lukumi lineage, you know, lineage is everything. You know? I mean [00:42:31] you are, you are, in that, in my tradition, you are initiated into the lineage. MAL: Right. ANDREW: You know, lineage becomes your family, and, and that changes so many different dynamics because of it. You know, it's not just like, it's not just [00:42:46] about the information that was passed from person to person, but it's actually the license to practice certain things, the requirement to practice them in a certain way in accordance with lineage, and a connection to all of those spirits who carried that [00:43:01] lineage forward, you know? MAL: Right. ANDREW: So it's a, it's a very living dynamic thing. What role does lineage play for you? And, and what do you see as its sort of values and challenges? You know?  MAL: Wow. [00:43:17] I'm going to cheat and refer back to something that I wrote a while ago. ANDREW: Which is always welcome.  MAL: Okay, cool. I tend to think in terms of three different kinds of lineage for any organization.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: Physical lineage, [00:43:33] practice lineage, and, you know, ultimate or primordial lineage, right? Which, so, and what do I mean by these? The physical lineage is just the people, the stuff, right? The boots on the ground, the people doing the thing, the [00:43:48] buildings, the, you know, the institution. The practice lineage is the stuff they tell you to do. Right? These are the, these are the teachings that ideally have been, you know, tried, [00:44:03] tested, passed on, initiatory aspects of initiatory power, right? That are meant to facilitate things. Obeah or apostolic succession. These are all conferrals of a power [00:44:18] meant to facilitate something. Sorry. I'm going to thump the mic here again. ANDREW: I think you might be picking up on the, someone's running a shop vac or something downstairs. I'm also hearing that in the background.  MAL: [00:44:33] Then I'll trust it's on your end and not mine.  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: So, yeah, the practice lineage there. And then the primordial lineage is what you're ultimately connecting to via these three things, [00:44:48] right? So, the physical lineage exists primarily to transmit to the people it brings in. The practice lineage, which then facilitates connection to the [00:45:03] primordial lineage. And, you know, the first two exist ultimately . . . They function only to the point that they do those things, right? If at any point a physical institution loses its connection [00:45:18] to the primordial lineage, they're dead. Right? It's just a, it's a fossil. It's a club. It's a, it's, you know, it's cosplay or whatever. If the practices [00:45:34] no longer facilitate connecting you to that primordial lineage, then they're not doing their thing, right? They don't work anymore.  But then once that connection to the primordial lineage is made, at that [00:45:49] point, new practice lineages and new physical lineages can be instituted. Without that connection, they can't be. You know, this is, this is one of those things that, like in Buddhism, people, [00:46:04] there's this idea from people outside of it. For example, tons of sutra is attributed to the Buddha, but he, you know, we know historically he didn't say these things. The Buddha didn't write that. The Lotus Sutra isn't taught by the . . . But no, technically, yeah, he did, because [00:46:19] within . . . You know, the game rules of Buddhism state [chuckling] that there is only one Enlightenment, right? Buddha means awakened. Once you have had that experience, right, once you're connected [00:46:34] to that primordial lineage, there's no difference between you and Siddhartha Gautama, right? So, if you have legitimately had that experience within the game rules, you can write something today and [00:46:49] say this is a text by the Buddha.  ANDREW: Mmm. MAL: And that's, you know, 100% legit. There are institutions [00:47:06] where I think you can bypass some of this, but I find them to be so phenomenally rare. Right? The person that just [00:47:21] stumbles upon either a practice lineage that works to connect them to a primordial lineage, or, or, you know . . . Okay, a big example of this, you know, with what I'm doing now, apostolic [00:47:36] succession is a huge thing. Right? There is a conferral of authority and power with that, without which, none of the other sacraments will be there. Period. Full stop. Yet, [00:47:51] within broader Christianity, very few people question the legitimacy of Paul as an apostle. Because in the middle of his, you know, previous [00:48:06] life as a, and I don't know if you can hear the air quotes I put around that, [chuckles] as a, you know, assassin for hire, he had this vision, on, was it, the [00:48:21] the road to Emmaus? [He means Damascus. The road to Emmaus is where Jesus appeared after his resurrection.] I think. Anyway, he had this vision of Christ and he converted and now he's an apostle.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And I think most, most people in the broader Christian world: "Okay, we'll accept that." You won't find any apostolic lineages, [00:48:36] I believe, tracing themselves back to Paul. I'd be surprised if you did, but you know, nobody lists him as an apostle with an asterisk by his name, kind of thing. ANDREW: Right. MAL: But you also then don't hear about this happening [00:48:51] all the damn time.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, nobody spontaneously . . . Well, damn it, okay. The gnostic revival in France in the 19th century, [laughing] Jules Doinel. Yeah. Okay, he claimed it. But then, even [00:49:06] he went on to get actual apostolic succession. So. You know, I think it's rare. It's more rare than people think.  ANDREW: I think there's a big difference between a connection to spirit, [00:49:23] you know, and even a spirit that might have, you know, like, you know, I mean, I'm certainly not the reincarnation of Crowley, but perhaps, perhaps I could connect to his spirit in a way, and his, his Spirit could act as [00:49:38] a guide and an animating force in my work, you know?  MAL: Absolutely, yeah. ANDREW: I'm not saying that that happens per se, but, but that could happen. And that is not uncommon, you know. MAL: Right. ANDREW: [00:49:53] Like there, there are lots of things you know, where . . . MAL: But, when those things do happen . . .  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: But when that does happen, there's a lot that preceded that.  ANDREW: Yes. MAL: Right? It doesn't, it doesn't happen to, you know, the random grocery [00:50:08] store clerk who has, you know, never even picked up a copy of book four, or you know, whatever. Right? ANDREW: For sure. And, but that experience is also not necessarily the same as the experience of the [00:50:23] connection to that primordial, you know, energy or the current even though if I was connecting to Crowley, I'm connecting to you know, the prophet of Thelema, that doesn't mean that I'm actually connected [00:50:38] to that step behind that, you know? MAL: Right. Right. ANDREW: And I think that . . . I think that's also an interesting distinction, you know, and that's where lineage and traditional initiation facilitate that.  MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, because you may connect to that current, possibly, as you [00:50:53] say, there are examples, but I think there's a big difference between connecting to a spirit that engages your work and guides you and something sort of one step further beyond that into that lineage, that [00:51:08] deeper force, you know? MAL: Right. And, and access to one aspect of a lineage also doesn't necessarily confer access to another aspect of lineage. So, for, you know, I have [00:51:23] apostolic succession via the episcopi vagantes, you know, right, the wandering bishops. And we may trace our lineage, you know, even up into, you know popes in Rome, but that doesn't make me [00:51:38] a Roman Catholic bishop. Right, that's the physical institution, and even though I might have access to both primordial or, you know, both practice and primordial lineage there, that grants me absolutely no standing whatsoever in the physical, you [00:51:54] know, lineage kind of thing, which is something I think a lot of people tend to forget, especially in the independent sacramental movement. They tend to not get that these things are [00:52:09] . . . They're disparate. They're separate. They're discrete things. Yes. Generally they're connected and hopefully, you know, if you get involved in one, it is, but yeah, if you stumble across it, if you just happen to meet up with some guy in [00:52:24] a, you know, hotel bar in Ontario and get, this sounds so bad now that I'm saying it out loud, get invited back up to his hotel room to get consecrated as a bishop one night . . . [laughing] Great. [00:52:39] You know, that doesn't mean, you know, you can show up at the Vatican and be like, you know, where's my room?  ANDREW: Like, yeah, that dude. He initiated 50 people that week. Come on!  MAL: [laughing] Right? [00:52:54] Yeah. So. It's, you know, lineage is, lineage is important. And, you know, I'm sure you could make the case that even though I'm breaking it down into three different things that you could say, well, they're really all the different aspects of the same thing, [00:53:09] and you could probably break it down even, you know, you could break it into four different aspects or two or whatever. But you know, in general, I think, for those three reasons at least, lineage is important, especially [00:53:24] in religious, spiritual, and, and esoteric bodies wherein the point is connection with something higher, with that primordial aspect. If, you know, if the point is just [00:53:39] education, then, you know, lineage is, you know, by-the-book kind of. Like the modern grimoire revival. There's no living lineage, you know, Solomonic lineage that's [00:53:54] passing this kind of thing . . . No, it's: you find the book, you, as best you can, decipher what the hell they're talking about.  ANDREW: Uh-huh.  MAL: You do it as best you can and you hope like hell you have an experience similar to what they said you're going to have. And that's [00:54:09] kind of it. The book, at that point, is the lineage until, you know, you make that connection. The book then is the practice lineage. There is no physical institution, you know, physical aspect of it. And then, you know, hopefully you do the practice until [00:54:24] you get that that connection that then continues in your work. You know, I think a physical institution could happen, but it's not necessary. So I guess even in that [00:54:39] sense, there is a lineage or just accessing it through the information that's passed on through both having the right book, having the, the brains to figure out what the hell it's saying, and then having the guts to follow through and do what it's saying. [00:54:54]  ANDREW: Yeah, I mean I tend to look at some of that stuff as more, more technological, right?  MAL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: Like, I mean more in that second realm of the practice.  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: Than the lineage, because I think [00:55:09] that you can, to some extent, plug some of that into whatever lineage you, you might have access to, right? Or whatever sort of primordial elements you would have access to, you know? MAL: Right. ANDREW: When I was very interested in those kinds of things, [00:55:25] you know, I was, I was not interested in the Golden Dawn. I was very interested in Thelema. And, so I would just go through and swap out all the words, you know, the words that weren't Thelemic for words that were Thelemic and do work in that direction, [00:55:40] and then use that, that sort of connection to that primordial juice and that piece of it to you know, you know, call up whomever and be like, hey, listen, by the power of Babylon you're going to do this, or whatever . . . MAL: [laughing] ANDREW: You know, and, and [00:55:55] I think that's possible, because it's, it becomes, the grimoire stuff can be more technological maybe than sort of lineage-based necessarily.  MAL In general, I tend to think tech is tech. [00:56:10] But you know, then again there are lineages where, without having the appropriate lineage, it doesn't matter what knowledge or information you have, it's not gonna work, or it's not going to work the way you want it to. You know, when you look at, [00:56:25] you know, Tibetan Buddhist magic, or just Tibetan Buddhist practice, you know, if, if you're, if you don't have the empowerment of a particular deity, the practice is at best ineffectual [00:56:40] and at worst dangerous, because you're in effect, you know, trying to contact these, these powerful personalities and they don't know who the hell you are.  ANDREW: Right. MAL: Right? It would be, it [00:56:55] would be like showing up at, I don't know, pick a, pick a powerful, a famous powerful person who could be dangerous to you. I immediately, I don't want to make this political, I immediately think Trump. [laughing] [00:57:10] Not that you can, anybody, I don't, you know what? I'm not even going to go there. Um, but yeah, you pick a person with temporal power. All right, prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. He seems like a really nice guy. [00:57:25] Right? I mean everybody in Canada seems so super nice to us here in the hinterlands, but I bet as nice as he is, if I went to Canada, and I saw him on the street, if I came running up to [00:57:40] him at full tilt saying, hey Justin, let me . . . You know, trying to get . . . I'm thinking there's some people that would tackle me to the ground.  ANDREW: Exactly. Yeah. MAL: You know, and so, you know, the empowerment, that connection to that lineage at that point is the facilitation of that contact, right? It's somebody [00:57:55] coming in who has that connection, somebody who's saying, hey, you know what? Let me introduce you to my good friend, Mr. Trudeau. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And then, once they facilitated the introduction and we've shared a couple of drinks or whatever, at that point, you know, I can then, you know, wave from him [00:58:10] from across the street and maybe he'll remember me and then we bump into each other, you know, that sort of thing.  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: And, and I'm absolutely convinced that Tibetan Buddhism can't be the only place where something like that is, is [00:58:25] required, where if you don't have the hook-up, if you don't have the official connection to that lineage through the prescribed means, you know, best of luck to you.  ANDREW: Yeah, yeah. Something might happen, but who's [00:58:40] to say what it is and yeah, how it's going to go.  MAL: Yeah. And whether or not you wanted it! [chuckling] ANDREW: Exactly, exactly, for sure. So, we've been, we've been chatting for a long time, because this has been really lovely, and I want to ask you one more question before we wrap it up though. [00:58:55]  MAL: Sure. ANDREW: Because there's one other thing we haven't gotten to, which I was delightfully enjoying on your Facebook, which is these various statements of gnostic belief, [00:59:10] you know, or the sort of, you know, where you're discussing how you believe in, you know, this, the fallen angel, and the energy that comes with that, and how you believe in Christ in this way, and how you believe [00:59:25] in, you know what I mean? If we think about the apostles' creed, we have a very clear example of a statement in that direction, but you know, all sorts of traditions have their own. But your seemingly contradictory, [00:59:41] from some people's perspective, ideas about the nature of the universe, really both sort of tickled my fancy . . . MAL: [chuckles] ANDREW:  And, [laughing] if that's, if that's not a weird thing to say and reflected [00:59:56] a bunch of my own kind of contradictory or apparently contradictory notions about it. So I'm curious what, what you were looking to do as you were expressing that and sort of what kinds of beliefs you have around, [01:00:11] you know, the nature of the universe in that kind of construct.  MAL: In general, I have a very dim view of belief. [laughing] I think they're very dangerous things, people ought to stop having them. ANDREW: Uh-huh. MAL: [01:00:27] And when I post that . . . I think one of the worst things that ever happened to the world was--and this is ironic, I think, coming from me--is Christianity and its emphasis on creeds. You know, Christianity was weird for any number of things, when it arrived on the [01:00:42] scene, but one of the things that it was most weird for was that it was a creedal religion. It was, you know, it pivoted around what people believe as opposed to what people did. It wasn't performative. And, you know, this idea of having right belief [01:00:57] then is something that came into play and, you know, I think history has shown us what a dangerous thing requiring right belief can be. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: And then determining that. When I post [01:01:12] shit like that, and I feel absolutely justified in calling it that, a lot of times it's just to kind of work out for myself what's been bouncing around in my head, what's going on at the time, [01:01:27] and also looking for a little bit of that sort of external verification, right? If everybody responded with a what are you on? or did you not sleep last night? or is that . . . You know, then I know, okay, this is maybe a little bit out there, but then when I get responses [01:01:42] like, you know, that really tickled my fancy, or you know, that's a sign that, okay, you know, maybe, maybe I might have figured a little bit of something out, or maybe I might have glimpsed a little bit of something here. And I think [01:01:57] having creeds that don't fit together nicely works together well for me. And by creed, you know, having beliefs that are paradoxical, that, that aren't, you know, that are sometimes juxtaposed [01:02:12] against each other, is beneficial. I mean, it goes back to, I think what I was talking about with my own sort of practice, where you know, you take these two disparate things, you take these two different books, two diametrically opposed . . . See what comes out of it. [01:02:27] See what, see what you make from it. And I think a lot of times, the thing that makes something paradoxical is really just a limitation of our language. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: You know, [01:02:43] I get a lot of, I think I get the most push back, for example, with the Church of Light and Shadow, which is, you know, my newest endeavor, because I talk about the morning star and people [01:02:58] are like, well, okay, you seem to be implying that this is both Jesus and Lucifer, which is it? And I'm kind of like well, yeah, you know, we have this tradition that Lucifer is the Fallen Angel. However, [01:03:14] there's only one figure in the Bible who ever identified themselves as the Morning Star.  ANDREW: Mmm.  MAL: That's Christ in the Book of Revelation. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: You know, and the more I sat with that and their specific [01:03:29] roles and functions, especially the. you know, not, not the, not the Satan of you know, the HaSatan or you know of, the opposer of . . . ANDREW: Or Anton LaVey.  MAL: Right. Yeah, but this . . . [01:03:44] more the Lucifer of Milton and Dante, and, you know, the very popular romantic Promethean myth of Lucifer that we have today. That is very much a Christ figure [01:03:59] when you look at the role that Christ played. Right? Christ did not show up and be like, "You know, what? All right, everybody just do what the temple priests say, and follow . . ." You know, he was very much an ego-driven [01:04:16] individual. I mean, we can consider the gospels as spurious as we would like as far as whether or not this figure, Jesus, actually said these things. But the [01:04:31] one thing that you know, like when you get to, like the Jesus scholars, that came together and try to figure out well, what's most likely that he said? One of the things that they had pinpointed as most likely coming from Jesus, based on what we know of the context, and what got passed . . . [01:04:47] His doing away with the old law and saying, "A new law I give to you," right? "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and love your neighbor as yourself." [01:05:03]  And what people gloss over here is, it's not saying, love your neighbor, which by that he means that everybody, right, love everybody else. He's not saying love them more than yourself. He's not saying debase yourself before . . . He's saying love them [01:05:19] as yourself. And if you don't love yourself a great deal, you're gonna be shitty at loving anybody else.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, how Luciferian is that? You know, he . . . [01:05:34] And so looking at these two figures in that way, looking at them both as, as light bringers . . . You know, in fact, it was really, it was not until I looked at [01:05:50] the gospels and teaching of, teachings of Jesus from a Luciferian perspective, that they really started to make sense to me. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Does that make sense?  ANDREW: It does. It does, for sure.  MAL: And so, I think there's, [01:06:05] there's, there's definitely something there, and this, this perspective is not new. I did not make this up. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: This idea of having a, you know, a sacramental Christian Church practicing [01:06:20] folk magic is also not new, you know, magic and Christianity have been tied together for as long as they're . . .  ANDREW: Catholics everywhere. Right?  MAL: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think I commented recently on Facebook that you know, if you're not ready to accept that Christianity [01:06:35] is a weird necromantic cult, then you're not ready to study church history.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: But when looking around for this, you know, for something that really embodied and [01:06:50] embraced that, I couldn't find it. There's nothing, you know, like there's, there's, there's nothing out there. There are Catholic witches that are, you know, going to mass, and you know, practicing in private or in secret, [01:07:05] and there are Christian witches, but there's no organization that's embracing both of these things. And the more I kept looking for this, and the more I kept posting, you know, both things like, you know what? I believe this and I believe this and the more [01:07:20] feedback I kept getting from people saying, you know, yeah. Yeah, me too! Where's that from? This ought to be a thing! ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And you know, I'm a firm believer that we have enough independent apostolic [01:07:35] Christian churches running around. I don't know how familiar you are with the independent sacramental movement, but in general, you know, you end up with jurisdictions of one, somebody belongs to a church long enough to get consecrated a bishop. [01:07:50] And then they're out of there so they can go do things the right way. ANDREW: They had a great experience while they were in Vegas from somebody they met in the bar.  MAL: [chuckling] Right? Next thing, you know, then they're off.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: You know, and so, I get in trouble, I get [01:08:05] people in the independent sacramental movement angry with me when I tell them, you know, look, if it's really about the mission, like you say it is, you would stop what you're doing, find a larger church that's actually already doing this, and doing it a lot better because they've got the bodies [01:08:20] and the resources, and you'd join them, you're doing this just for the title. And so I was, I was loathe to start yet another church. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know.  ANDREW: Well, and I think just before [01:08:35] you move past that point, too . . . MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: And I think there's also value in doing a thing like becoming a bishop for yourself.  MAL: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That's great too. ANDREW: You know, I mean, many many Orisha practitioners become priests for their own [01:08:50] well-being, you know, and that's fantastic, but be clear about that, and then go from there, you know.  MAL: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, you know, I went for years ordaining people and limiting their faculties. [01:09:05] So, when you're ordained a priest, you receive faculties or permissions from the bishop that tells you what you can and can't do, basically. And I would ordain esoteric practitioners who just [01:09:20] wanted that, that plug into apostolic succession for their own spiritual and magical practice. And I would, you know, I would tell them well, okay, great, but without any sort of pastoral education, I'm not going to license you [01:09:35] to do any sort of pastoral work. [laughs] You don't get to go start a church, you can say mass in your home privately, that sort of thing, that's fine. Just go be a private priest. And it took a lot to move me away from that [01:09:50] and, and decide, okay, you know what? I think I am. I think there's enough momentum around this to do something about it, to found it. I'm a firm believer in, if you have an idea for something great, and nobody else has done or is [01:10:05] doing it, maybe that's a sign it's supposed to be you. And after poking around and getting enough encouragement, I decided all right, screw it, we're going to do it. But if we're going to do it, this is how it's going to happen.  ANDREW: You'

Somehow fancy corporate jobs and working in cubicles have become the international emblem of what it looks like to NOT following your calling. Ladies and gents...that's a false notion, and my friend, Andrew Winker, can prove it. Andrew is a follower of Christ who has faithfully followed God's call to work as a management consultant for one of the top 3 consulting firms in the world. If you (like me) have asked: "Why would you want to spend your days making a big company richer? Don't you feel like a cog in a machine?" then this episode is a MUST LISTEN. The wisdom Andrew shares will help you expand your perspective far beyond these oversimplifications so you can see the purpose in all work, particularly if you're in the business world working for a large company. Have a question for Andrew? You can email him at: winker3969@gmail.com -------------------------------------- 1:1 Coaching // Discern your unique calling and design a career aligned with it ➡️https://kelseykemp.com/1-1-coaching Instagram // @kelsey_thecalledcareer LinkedIn // www.linkedin.com/in/kelsey-janna-kemp Private Facebook Community // The Called Career Collective by Kelsey Kemp

最近，对于不少同学来说，暑假已经彻底结束，只因为三个字:开学了！无论你有多么不情不愿，瑟瑟发抖，又或是斗志昂扬，都得老老实实背着书包去上学。暑假结束的前兆之一就是通宵达旦补暑假作业，不知道即将要报道的你，有没有将暑假作业完成呢。今天我们来听一些关于开学季笑话，相信一定会让你感同身受，会心一笑哦。 Silly, but ridiculously funny School Jokes For Kids can break the ice between new friends in school, lighten up an awkward moment while waiting for a school bus and can definitely win a lot of hearts for teacher. Check it out!愚蠢，滑稽的学校笑话可以打破学校里新朋友之间的僵局，在等校车的时候让尴尬的时刻变得轻松起来，肯定能赢得很多老师的心。过来看！ Teacher: Andrew, where is your homework?Andrew: I ate it.Teacher: Why?!Andrew: You said it was piece of cake!老师：安德鲁，你的作业在哪里？安德鲁：我吃了。老师：为什么？！安德鲁：你说是小菜一碟！ Johnny: Teacher, would you punish me for something I didn't do?Teacher: Of course not.Johnny: Good, because I didn't do my homework.约翰尼：老师，你会因为我没有做的事惩罚我吗？老师：当然不是。约翰尼：很好，因为我没有做作业。 Teacher: Why did you eat your homework, Joe?Joe: Because I don't have a dog.老师：乔，你为什么吃作业？乔：因为我没有狗。 Teacher: Why are you late for class, Peter?Peter: Because of the sign on the road.Teacher: What sign, Peter?Peter: School Ahead. Go slow!老师：彼得，你为什么上课迟到？彼得：因为路上的标志？老师：什么标志，彼得？彼得：前方学校，请慢行！ Q: Why did the math book look so sad when school started again?A: Because it had so many problems..问：开学的时候，为什么这本数学书看起来那么悲伤？答：因为它有很多问题。 Q: Why did the teacher wear sunglasses to the first day of school?A: She heard her new students were bright.问：老师为什么要戴墨镜上学？答：她听说她的新学生很聪明。 Nate: Why was school easier for cave people?Kate: Why?Nate: Because there was no history to study!奈特：为什么穴居人更容易上学？凯特：为什么？内特：因为没有历史可学！

最近，对于不少同学来说，暑假已经彻底结束，只因为三个字:开学了！无论你有多么不情不愿，瑟瑟发抖，又或是斗志昂扬，都得老老实实背着书包去上学。暑假结束的前兆之一就是通宵达旦补暑假作业，不知道即将要报道的你，有没有将暑假作业完成呢。今天我们来听一些关于开学季笑话，相信一定会让你感同身受，会心一笑哦。 Silly, but ridiculously funny School Jokes For Kids can break the ice between new friends in school, lighten up an awkward moment while waiting for a school bus and can definitely win a lot of hearts for teacher. Check it out!愚蠢，滑稽的学校笑话可以打破学校里新朋友之间的僵局，在等校车的时候让尴尬的时刻变得轻松起来，肯定能赢得很多老师的心。过来看！ Teacher: Andrew, where is your homework?Andrew: I ate it.Teacher: Why?!Andrew: You said it was piece of cake!老师：安德鲁，你的作业在哪里？安德鲁：我吃了。老师：为什么？！安德鲁：你说是小菜一碟！ Johnny: Teacher, would you punish me for something I didn't do?Teacher: Of course not.Johnny: Good, because I didn't do my homework.约翰尼：老师，你会因为我没有做的事惩罚我吗？老师：当然不是。约翰尼：很好，因为我没有做作业。 Teacher: Why did you eat your homework, Joe?Joe: Because I don't have a dog.老师：乔，你为什么吃作业？乔：因为我没有狗。 Teacher: Why are you late for class, Peter?Peter: Because of the sign on the road.Teacher: What sign, Peter?Peter: School Ahead. Go slow!老师：彼得，你为什么上课迟到？彼得：因为路上的标志？老师：什么标志，彼得？彼得：前方学校，请慢行！ Q: Why did the math book look so sad when school started again?A: Because it had so many problems..问：开学的时候，为什么这本数学书看起来那么悲伤？答：因为它有很多问题。 Q: Why did the teacher wear sunglasses to the first day of school?A: She heard her new students were bright.问：老师为什么要戴墨镜上学？答：她听说她的新学生很聪明。 Nate: Why was school easier for cave people?Kate: Why?Nate: Because there was no history to study!奈特：为什么穴居人更容易上学？凯特：为什么？内特：因为没有历史可学！

Very often, what takes the headline these days are how AI will change our world, whilst these capture attentions, we should not forget about what need to go behind the scene to support AI, data, and business analytics. To support a data driven organisation with strong application of business analytics (incl. AI), you need get the fundamental foundation and enterprise architecture right. Andrew Swindell is a TOGAF qualified Enterprise Information Architect and with over 20 years’ experience in the field of information technology and enterprise architecture. In this podcast episode, Andrew will share with us the importance of informationarchitecture , the opportunities it presents and the value generated from focusing on your data assets. In particular, we will learn how data and analytics are applied in the energy business, that's often asset heavy. Andrew explored how analytics could be used in asset management for an organisation. Favorite book: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't, by Jim Collins. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewswindell/ Published papers & past presentation: https://www.orbussoftware.com/resources/authors/andrew-swindell/ https://www.slideshare.net/AndrewSwindell https://www.architectureandgovernance.com/strategy-planning/business-capability-models-might-missing-better-business-outcomes/ Want to become a certified enterprise architect like Andrew? You can find out more about TOGAF Certification: http://www.togaf.info/togaf9/index.html --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/analyticsshow/message

The band brings back Jenn Zahrt to catch up on how the winds of change are moving everyone. The gang gets into how to roll with change and work magic to aid it too.  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 Spotify, RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. Fabeku is at Fabeku.com and Facebook.  Aidan is at AidanWachter.com on Facebook and Instagram Jenn JennZahrt.com or CelestialSpark.com and on Facebook and Instagram. Andrew is on Facebook, Instagram, and TheHermit'sLamp.com.  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.  Transcript ANDREW: [00:00:03] Hey everybody, welcome to episode 100 of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I decided to get the band together for this episode. So, I am here with Stacking Skulls, being Fabeku and Aidan and myself and we have corralled [00:00:18] Jen Zahrt to come in and add to the mix today. So, hey, everybody! FABEKU: Hey. AIDAN: Howdy.  ANDREW: It's three months since we recorded, four months since we recorded, what's going on in your worlds? How are things, what's up? [00:00:34]  AIDAN: I've been good. I'm just enjoying the spring. Weather has been lovely. We got new kittens and yeah, everything is good. I, since the last time, we crested the one [00:00:49] year on Six Ways. So that's kind of wild, is to realize that that's been out and perking for more than a year.  ANDREW: Yeah.  JEN: Wow. AIDAN: And yeah, it's just, just keepin' on! ANDREW: That's great. [00:01:04] How 'bout you, Fabeku? FABEKU: Uh, good. It's been, yeah, probably the best thing for me. I've been doing tons of art, just cranking out tons and tons of art on an almost daily basis, which is good and [00:01:19] fun and exciting and then writing like crazy, usually in the middle of the night, which kind of sucks, but you know, at least it's getting done. Yeah, digging the spring/summerish weather that's finally happening, and [00:01:35] yeah, it's good, mostly things are good. Tea, donuts, cats, you know, usual shit. So. ANDREW: Usual stuff.  FABEKU: Yeah. For sure. ANDREW: Curtains being destroyed. FABEKU: Yes, every day, every day. [laughs] ANDREW: How about you, Jen, [00:01:50] you went on a bit of an adventure?  JEN: Yeah. I realized I'm on day 87 of my trip. [laughter] JEN: And it's been um, three continents, and also, you know, [00:02:05] I thought to myself like when I go home, I'm not really going home to anywhere specific and that it's been almost just over 400 days since my apartment flooded last year. So, I really haven't been home for quite a long time. Yeah, so [00:02:20] it's a wild ride.  ANDREW: How do you find that sense of continuously shifting right? Because since the flood you've been sort of on the move in one sense or another that whole time, right? [00:02:35]  JEN: Yeah, pretty much. I always have traveled to England for work. So, when I come here, I feel . . . That's where I am right now. I'm in Bristol, United Kingdom right now. So, I'm staying with somebody who I've stayed with for longer than I ever lived in the apartment that I had, so [00:02:50] it feels more like home than my home did, but it doesn't have any of my stuff in it. So that's a continuity. And yeah, it really makes you think about continuity and change. I really enjoyed the cross-country trip that I took last year, [00:03:05] and I went to Mongolia last year as well. So, these things were sort of moments of excitement and I was staying in a temporary place in Seattle. But yeah, so it's just kind of, it's been kind of having to roll with it. And ironically, [00:03:20] it's been amazing creatively because I've had all of this energy unlocked to just do my stuff, you know, like, and try to do magic on the run. [laughs] So, yeah.  ANDREW: And how is magic on the run? JEN: [00:03:37] Not as easy as you'd think. Well, I mean, maybe you wouldn't think it's easy. [laughter] JEN: But yeah, it can happen. You can do it. It's possible. You just have to get really creative and not be too attached to certain things. You know, you can't reify like, that object, you [00:03:52] know, you sort of have to just launch a sigil when you need to launch a sigil and not be too concerned about being precious about the things that you're using.  ANDREW: But do you think it's changed your, the way you're approaching stuff going [00:04:07] forward, or do you think you'll sort of revert to what you were up to before once that's more of an option? JEN: I don't really know. The astrology's showing me that it's going to be quite a while until I have something that people [00:04:22] would consider fixed and stable. So . . . [laughs] Knowing that, I'm just kind of like, okay, you know what? Here we go, swim, you know, you can't really fight it. So I'm really trying to go with it. Yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: We're trying to pretend that we're being, that we're fixed and stable but we expected this. [00:04:37]  [laughter] JEN: Well, that's just it, you know, it is actually an illusion!  [laughter] AIDAN: It's probably a load of crap, so . . .  [laughter] JEN: It's an illusion, and sadly, Andrew knows all too well! You know, you have this thing where you're like, it's all good, it's going, it's going, and suddenly, boosh, it's gone. And like what are you going to do, you know?  ANDREW: Yeah. JEN: And you just have to keep going, you know? AIDAN: Well, that was my interpretation of Andrew's stream of questioning, is he's like, okay! [laughter] What can I dig out of here that would be helpful? [laughter] ANDREW: Right? For sure! For folks who may not know, on March [00:05:08] 20th, my store had a fire and basically everything was destroyed. You know, nobody was . . . Nobody was hurt seriously. Firemen had some issues with smoke during the fire. But other than that, everybody was okay, and they're okay now. [00:05:23] But yeah, it's a big change, right? You know, I've been running the shop for six, almost seven years, I've been in that space for almost, for over 5, you know, and it's . . . Yeah, what can you do, right? [00:05:38] Uranus transits your midheaven and you're like, "Oh, I guess I'm changing a whole lot of stuff about where I'm going." [laughter] ANDREW: Unexpectedly, right?  JEN: Yeah. Exactly.  ANDREW: Yeah, and you know, I mean, kind of what I hear from what you're saying, Jen, which is what I've been [00:05:53] really trying to do is: Okay, how do you just lean into that change, right? JEN: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Instead of being like, "Oh my God, how do I get back to where I was?" How do you, how do you kind of lean into that? How do you accept that and embody that? You know and I, [00:06:08] because you know, after the fire, there's so many questions about whether or not, like what would be the future of the space that I was in. I have the answer now. It's going to be a very long time and I'm not going back there. So, that's done. [00:06:24] You know, what's, what do you do next? How do you do stuff? You know? JEN: Yeah. ANDREW: And when you've been doing it for a while, it's often, if, it's often so much easier to sustain than it is to step [00:06:39] back into it as if you're starting over, you know? And so, you know, for me, the the prospect of retail is a big question mark, as it stands because rents in Toronto are insane, and because I'd been there [00:06:54] for such a long time. I had such a good deal, right? So. JEN: Yeah. ANDREW: Looking at all those possibilities, but also endeavoring to lean deeply into that change and be like: Okay, what what can I do? What would I like to do? Where's my excitement about this [00:07:09] stuff? You know? And so, just last week, from the recording of this, I took over a space that I'm calling The Hermit's Lab, and it's a space to, you know, see clients and teach, but also to work magic [00:07:24] and make products and make art and you know, really kind of get into what I've been enjoying anyways, which is the, the process of, like, you know, collecting plants and making things from them, and you know, doing stuff like that, that sort [00:07:39] of more, more, more active magic and craftsmanship, and more stuff that comes out of, you know, my, my sense of connection to the land and the plants and the things that are here, you know, [00:07:54] so, yeah. JEN: Yeah, yeah, it's, it just clears the decks in a way, and you think differently because all the potential things that used to be habits are completely shifted and you can't rely on that default mode anymore.  ANDREW: Yeah, exactly. [00:08:10]  AIDAN: Yeah, it is an interesting thing to think about cause there's a way that I look at . . . I know what Fabeku's up to, I know what y'all are up to, and the shifts that I did in the shop and everything kind of produced that same thing. You know, Blu and I just looked at it and went: [00:08:25] Okay, if we do this, we'll be able to pay the rent, and so, let's just do that and see where we end up and what makes sense to do in there. And we're way deep in that process because it's, it is, it's like, yeah, we've gotten into the habit we were in, even though we've [00:08:40] moved a lot, and switching that up changes, changes the possibilities.  FABEKU: Yeah. I think it's interesting because I was thinking about, I mean for me, a lot of the flux and shift . . . It hasn't been location-based so much, because that's not, [00:08:55] that's hasn't been much of my experience. But you know, there's just been weird health shit in the last handful of years and stuff just pops up out of the blue like, every, everything is totally cool, and the next thing you're in the emergency room. And they're like, "Oh, you could have died." And it's like, what the fuck is happening, right?  And then [00:09:10] on the other side of that things are different, and you, like Jen was saying, you, you end up doing magic differently. Again, for me, not because I'm traveling and don't have access to my stuff, because there's, there's different physical capacity, there's different energetic capacity, or there's just different bandwidth. And [00:09:25] you know, I was thinking, I think originally, one of my main drivers in getting into magic was I wanted . . . This was, you know, 30 whatever years ago. So it shows the sort of naivete of youth, but it was this desire [00:09:40] to somehow control the chaos, right? Like if I can, if I can just get a firm enough grip on it, then shit won't pop up out of the blue and shit doesn't happen and these weird things . . . you know, of course, all this anxiety, fear-driven kind of stuff. And then at some point, you realize: "Oh, [00:09:55] that's, that's not the way life works." Right?  So instead now, it feels to me like magic is more about, for me, figuring out how to sort of surf that chaos, you know, how to stay on the board, instead of getting taken under by the waves and drowning [00:10:10] in the process and, realizing as the wave travels, as it goes, life looks different, magic looks different, the responses to magic looks different, and just learning to be way more fluid with that then, then I ever really thought I would be or could be, [00:10:25] or wanted to be, really, so. ANDREW: Yeah, I mean, I think that the, the magical cultivation of resilience and capacity to go with the flow. You know, it's [00:10:40] not, it's not sexy. Right? You know? [laughter] FABEKU: Not at all. Not at all.  JEN: I think I make it pretty sexy. I have to differ! [laughter] ANDREW: I think we all make it pretty sexy. But I think if one was to publish a book that says, you know, The Magical [00:10:55] Guide to Resilience. I'm not sure it'd be a best-seller, you know?  JEN: Are you challenging me? Are you challenging? That's a challenge! I'm writing this down. [laughter] AIDAN: Don't worry, I think we could have-- ANDREW: I'll write a chapter, it'll be lovely. JEN: Good! AIDAN: Exactly. Surviving the chaos . . . ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: . . . while generating chaos. Yeah.  ANDREW: [00:11:19] But yeah, that's, I mean, that is a lot of what's been going on. Right? And a lot of what I've been doing, you know, I mean, I only recently returned to divining for myself. I was just like, "I don't know. What am I going to ask? Is it going to be okay? Is it going to be okay? Is it going to be okay? [00:11:34] It's like, well, you know, just work at it, work at making it okay, as opposed to like, you know, going to the cards all the time and you know that kind of stuff. And you know, and I think that a lot of the, [00:11:50] the stuff that makes getting through these challenging times possible, is about just showing up where you're at and being, "Okay, you know, this is, this is where my health capacity is. This is where my energetic capacity is. This is . . ." [00:12:05] You know, it's like, you just, you go there and then you work from that place and then, that's either the new limit for the time being, or a permanent limit or whatever, but you just kind of keep trucking with that, right? I mean, I think that's, [00:12:20] that's the deal.  AIDAN: Absolutely, and I think it's super interesting because it's a . . . There was a guy who was one of the co-trainers at a strength-training seminar thing that I did years and years ago, who dropped [00:12:35] off the map. He had kind of a highly relevant website for me for a while in the . . . Around 2010, is when I was kind of really involved in his stuff. I don't remember him from the seminar, but I know he was there assisting. And he just popped [00:12:50] back up on my radar because he had, in the interim, become a Green Beret medic, and then got blown up and lost both of his legs. And the thing that was, is the most fascinating [00:13:05] about that, to me, is, it's like it really made me look at how much I kind of . . . Because the guy looks great. You know. He's like . . . His target is like, "I won't be able to ski this year, but next year I'm skiing." You know? And he's got that kind of [00:13:20] capability to ride that, go, "Okay, I did this thing that truly mattered to me, and this is part of what came from that, and so that's just what it is, and let's continue, you know?" And I think it's been very helpful for me, that he popped [00:13:35] up when he did because I was kind of being a whiny whiny person about some stuff. And it's like, oh, yeah. No. No, all of this is kind of because of how I chose to live my life and all of that. And I haven't had anything severe happen. It's all good. It's all, it's all stuff I can [00:13:50] functionally work with, you know?  JEN: Yeah. I mean the length of my lease-less-ness or home-free-ness, I would say, is my own fault because I could have easily flipped around and said, "Oh, my apartment flooded, let me sign a lease," but my goal was actually to travel, [00:14:06] and then I just didn't stop. AIDAN: Right. JEN: And I haven't stopped and now I'm actually getting to the point where I'm realizing what my limits are, because I've finally met them, but I didn't, I hadn't met them until this point, you know? And so, and it's good like, now I know, but I just kept going, [00:14:21] you know, it wasn't enough. I had to go to Mongolia. I had to spend three months in Africa, you know? And now I finally get it and it's like, "Oh, I think I could probably be okay with signing a lease now, you know?" But for 400 days, it wasn't okay, you know, and I was choosing not to have that, so I wasn't [00:14:36] complaining about having a home. It was more like, I'm, I just, wasn't done with my trip. You know. [laughs] I was choosing to continue it as much as it needed to be, I guess. AIDAN: Yeah. Well, it's [00:14:51] interesting. I was, I've been thinking a lot about you, Andrew as you roll through with the Instagram feed and stuff and seeing your thing. And it is such an interesting . . . It's an interesting experience when kind of life makes the move, right? Because [00:15:06] we like to have that impression that we make the move, and in general, we just don't, right? [laughs] Or we pick the really safe minor ones, and then something really major that is seemingly random, you know, from our control [00:15:21] side. And it's been interesting to see because I can kind of cycle going like, "Okay, what are all the things he's got to figure out now?" ANDREW: Mm-hmm. AIDAN: Because I know you're not really . . . There are some folks that, that happens, and they go, "Okay, [00:15:37] 90 days, I'm back in business as I was before, bigger and better," right? That's kind of, we're not going to tip. We're not necessarily going to take any information out of what occurred. What do you find is kind of, what's the process [00:15:52] that you have going on with you about that? What are you thinking about? What do you find is brought up by this?  ANDREW: So, I think that leading up to the fire, like always, I'm always sort of like, looking at: [00:16:08] Where am I? Where am I enjoying stuff? Where am I not enjoying stuff? Right? What are the challenges? And you know, I sort of had like an 18-month to two-year plan to shimmy stuff in different directions, right? And, you know, I had been finding myself [00:16:23] realizing that there were things that I wanted to do that having a retail store kind of acted more like an anchor to, you know? Going to a conference is a huge effort [00:16:38] when you have to make sure that the store is running in your absence. Right? Taking time off is more complicated when you don't have full, full-time staff and you have to kind of cover payroll and make sure everything's flowing around your work time. [00:16:54]  And I've been having this sort of impulse towards making more art, making a new deck, you know, like a bunch of stuff like that, and, and I didn't have any time for them. And not because I'm [00:17:09] like, horrible at managing my time, but between, you know, having, having two kids half the time and running the store, it's not a lot of spare time left over, you know? And so, when [00:17:24] this happened, my first impulse was like, I mean, I certainly felt that like, "Hey, you should decide stuff now, you should get going," and my first impulse was like, "I'm not doing anything for like two or three weeks. I'm just not going to think of a decision. I'm just [00:17:39] going to deal with immediate stuff, insurance and what-have-you," right? And then, and then, I felt this like, push, be like, you know, you should, you should re-establish something, you should whatever and I was like, "No, you should make a list of things [00:17:54] that you would like," you know? And it . . . One of the things that it started with, so, in Toronto, I live, some people would say downtown, but kind of downtown-ish. Right? And when you go north to where the shop was, there's, for Toronto, [00:18:09] not for where Aidan lives, a big hill, right? AIDAN: [laughing] ANDREW: And it used to be that I cycled everywhere, right? But I'm a person who gets kind of sweaty, and [00:18:24] in the winter, it's dangerous, because we get snow and ice, right? To go up and down that hill. And I don't have a shower at the space, or anything like that. And I was thinking about where it would be nice to be and kind of one of the, like what I would like? I was like, you know, it'd be really nice, [00:18:39] really nice, if I could just cycle to work again all the time. Like if I could just not take transit very much, and just, you know, just cycle, and then as I was sort of kicking around looking at opportunities, you know, there's . . . [00:18:54] I was out strolling around with my partner, Sarah, and we saw this place in Chinatown. And I was like, "How great would it be, to like, you know, be, be just 15 minutes from my house?" As opposed to like the, [00:19:09] you know, somewhere between 40 minutes and an hour that it takes depending on transit. You know? I was like, "That'd be really nice," and it just sort of became this like question of like, what's possible? And what can I make happen? And so on? And then, [00:19:26] my other partner, Erin, sent me a link to this space that I ended up getting, which is literally a five-minute walk from my house. And it's just kind of, it's amazing. Right?  And so now, they're these changes that happen where, [00:19:43] things that I wanted to do but wasn't doing because of time, things that I wanted to do, like, I've been thinking about running a men's circle for a couple years now, but it doesn't make any sense if I have [00:19:58] to commute an hour each way to get there to run it or go in that much earlier than my regular day. But now, I'm like, oh, that's a five-minute walk. I can just, I can do it on any day that I feel like, and just be like, oh, yeah. I'm going to walk down to the shop. [00:20:13] You know? I'm gonna be there in five minutes. I'll be there a few minutes early, we'll hang out, we'll do our thing, we'll go home or whatever. Like, it's easy, right? And you know, the, the prospect of, you know, I mean, having kids, it's easier now, but I live [00:20:28] in Toronto. I don't have a huge place. And having space to make art and really like make a mess and whatever, you know, it's complicated, right? And leaving out my paints and stuff. I mean, the kids are great about it now, but it's like, there's not a lot of room, you know. The place [00:20:43] where . . . I either was thinking about setting up some space and giving up the walk-in closet in my room, glamorous space, right? Or it's the kitchen table, which you can't leave it on indefinitely, right? But now I have this space where I'm just going to have a permanent [00:20:58] worktable and easel and wall space for doing big stuff and you know, these kinds of things.  Because that was one of the other things. I was like, thinking about . . . People kept . . . People have been making references between the Orisha deck I made and Basquiat's art. And [00:21:13] I remember how much I loved how big a lot of his stuff was. And I'm like, I would love to be painting big, but I just have nowhere to do that. Well, you know, I've got 25 feet of wall space here. It's got enough and it's just, I can have it [00:21:28] on the floor. I can do whatever I want on it, you know. So, so it's this process of like looking for where the excitement is, looking at . . . You know, I sat down one night and made, [00:21:43] made this big list of, okay, kind of panicking about the future, is how do I, how do I make the kind of money I was making before? Which I need to support everything that I do in my life. How do I get to that? [00:21:58] You know? And my partner Sarah and I made this list of like, okay, well, what's everything that you can or have or would like to do for money, you know? It's just like going down a list of all these things. You know? One of the great realizations was, I was like, okay, what do I need [00:22:13] for these things? And the only one that requires a store was retail, right? AIDAN: Right. ANDREW: You know, that was the only one on the list that actually required it, you know. There's like, a whole, you know, field notes little pocket journal of like list of like 25 [00:22:28] things that I could do or have done or, you know, are currently doing, that I can just opt into instead, right? And it's just, so, it's not like I've been sort of, I don't know, [00:22:43] aimlessly leaning into abundance mentality and thinking that I'm going to just manifest everything without kind of thinking about it or working at it, but it's a lot more like I've been looking at possibilities, challenging assumptions, [00:22:59] looking, looking to keep an open-ended set of possibilities, you know? Like, even the place that I'm in now, you know, the advertisement said that you had to be willing to sign a year lease and I, when I came and I was, met the landlord and was getting shown around, I was like, [00:23:14] "So, what do you think about six months, because this is my situation" and they were like, "Yeah, that's cool. We can do that." You know, like, it's like, let's see what's possible, you know, and I think that when that happens then, you know, more becomes possible [00:23:29] and, you know, I've been thinking about stuff that I never even considered before, you know?  One of the projects that I'm going to start undertaking is I'm going to hand paint a set of majors, [00:23:44] major tarot cards, and you know, and then depending on how that feels, maybe I'm going to offer to do that for people, you know? AIDAN: Right. ANDREW: Like, you know, it's like, my friend Sullivan, who from [00:23:59] Tarot Sheet Revival, who does the Budapest Tarot and other stuff. Hey Sullivan, if you're listening, this is, this, this is a question I'm going to email you about soon. I'm like, he mixed cards in the traditional way, right? And he comes to Toronto sometimes. And that, you know, so he hand laminates all the layers, [00:24:14] and folds the background onto the front, and does all this stuff, I'm like how, let's do a workshop on that because like I want to learn, I'm sure there's lots of people that want to learn, you know, and so stuff that, that was never even on the table, that migrates in different directions starts to feel [00:24:29] really possible. And then also noticing the, like, yeah, that's what I want to spend my time doing, you know, really, really takes it that way, you know, so. Anyway, that's my long-winded rambling answer to your question, Aidan.  AIDAN: No, [00:24:44] that's awesome. And it syncs up with my kind of experience so well and it's interesting because I'm like, I don't have much resistance to change compared to most people, but I still do have that [00:24:59] thing? ANDREW: Sure. AIDAN: And then I have all the kind of layers of worry that come along with, if you're going to make a big change and it's going to directly impact your ability to pay the bills and, you know, feed your people and all that stuff, but . . . ANDREW: You've got kittens to take care of, right? AIDAN: [00:25:16] I've got kittens to take care of! Kittens need beef!  [laughter] AIDAN: Beef is the answer to all kitten ills, truly. A little off [00:25:31] and not right. We switched them to half beef and they're giant now and totally healthy. So, beef is the answer. ANDREW: Perfect.  FABEKU: I think the piece of it that makes sense, in my experience. What you're talking about is that [00:25:47] that kind of figuring out where the zing is, you know, figuring out the things that are exciting, figuring out like it sort of, once the chaos happens, it creates this weird kind of break in state where, rather than just continue to roll through the list of shit [00:26:02] that you do every day and assume that that's the program and that's the thing, you have a moment where you either get to or have to look at that stuff and say wait, is this really the stuff I want to do? Is this the stuff that matters? is the stuff I'm excited about? Is this the stuff that drives me? It's [00:26:17] this, you know, whatever it is.  And you know, I mean it's certainly been, you know, kind of a big reassessing and reshuffling of some of that stuff for me, and you know, kind of redistributing the weight of attention and you know, what I'm, what I'm spending my time doing, and [00:26:32] you know, I think for me that kind of sinks up to that deeper idea of looking at that chaos and kind of relating to it as like sort of building materials. You know, it's like somebody takes it and throws it all up in the air and it's like, okay, now that it's everywhere, rather [00:26:47] than look at that as some tragedy, and not that there's not tragic components to it, obviously, but you know, rather than sort of drown in that, looking at okay, now that the deck has been reshuffled, how can I how can I reassemble this stuff? You know, what do I want to keep? [00:27:02] What do I want to toss out? And if this is what's left, then, you know, what is, what is the new, the new octave of stuff look like on the other side of this, this weird chaotic event, so. ANDREW: Yeah. I mean, one of the things I find myself saying [00:27:17] sometimes to people around the Tower card is, you know, when when the Tower gets struck or whatever that disruption is, you have a choice, right? You can either be like Bugs Bunny in the cartoon sticking fingers in holes in the dam and hoping [00:27:32] that it's not coming down, or you can get at the sledgehammer and help, and then once it's disassembled, then you call in the architect and the engineers and, you know, work together to figure out what's happening next, right?  FABEKU: Yeah.  ANDREW: So. Mm-hmm. So, and I also think [00:27:47] that you know, one of the things, you know, to be clear too, because I think that there's a lot of "rah, rah, I just overcome stuff," out there, right, you know? And, like, this process [00:28:02] and what I'm talking about now, you know, it's almost three months post fire, you know, and, like, you know, I was in shock for the first two to three weeks, like literally just still physically in shock, you know, and [00:28:18] there were, there were times, you know, like I . . . I'm usually a person who has a lot of control over their mind, you know, I mean, I spent years sitting and meditating and training myself in different magical and sort of yogic [00:28:33] driven ways. So, like, for me to not be able to wrangle my mind back under to, you know, some semblance of control is, you know, it doesn't really happen much. And it totally happened after this, you know, I was out [00:28:49] at a concert, and I was I was just watching my friend play, and then this thought just came to my brain, which is your house is on fire, your house is totally burning down right now, and people are trying to call you, and you're in the concert and you can't hear them. And [00:29:04] I couldn't restrain it. I . . . In the end, I pulled my phone out and looked at it. I'm like, nobody's called me. If someone . . . at that point, I was like, okay, now, nobody's called me. Somebody would have called me if my place was on fire. There are lots of people who would get direct ahold of me. It's fine. But [00:29:19] you know, it's, it's important to really notice that stuff and to deal with that too, right? FABEKU: Yeah. ANDREW: Because even, you know, even as somebody who has, you know, a lot of experience sort of wrangling back their mind from various things, [00:29:35] there comes a point where it's just not controllable and that's fine. You know, it's acceptable. It's real, you know, and to, to work with that, you know? And like, I also, you know, I have a person I do peer counseling with, [00:29:50] and other friends I get a lot of support with, and, you know, my friend that I do peer counseling with was like, I'm available as much as you want, and I saw them like, a couple times a week for the first stretch, just you know, and just one-sided more than an exchange, because it's just [00:30:05] like, I just need the support. I just got, I just need to talk this through, you know? And so, I think that leaning into the possibilities is absolutely crucial, and, you know, dealing with the trauma of it, whatever [00:30:20] level that's at, is the other side of that equation, right? Because without that, you know, I feel like I would just carry the sense of worry about stuff going forward . . . FABEKU: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And it would make every exchange with things, you know, like, [00:30:35] you know, like when my landlord voided my lease, you know, that would be a re-triggering thing, when, you know, this happens, you know when you're sitting waiting for the insurance to tell you how much money they're going to give you, that'd be another thing, and you know, just keep stirring [00:30:50] it up and stirring it up. And instead, I'm like, you know, have done a lot of cleaning up of it and so, it's way way easier now. So, yeah.  FABEKU: Well, you know, one of the things that happened for me after the [00:31:05] other big health event last year, which was about . . . It was mid-April last year, and after that for like six to nine months every time I would have even a tiny sensation anywhere in my body that didn't seem completely normal, [00:31:20] I would freak the fuck out. It was like, that's it. It's happening again. I'm about to drop dead. What's going on? At one point, I was talking my doctor and I said "Listen, this is a thing that happens." And she said, "Right, you get that like people get PTSD or some version of PTSD from events like that [00:31:35] that pop up." And I was like, "What?" And she was like, you know, "Come on, like, this is a thing that happens to people." And so, I get that, I think that there . . . And, and I appreciate that you brought that up, because I do think that it gets a little . . . The conversations [00:31:50] about it get a little one-sided. I mean the possibility is great and that's useful and important and helpful and there is this other shit that you know, it just kind of goes along for the ride with these weird kind of chaotic life events.  And then figuring out how [00:32:05] to manage that and how like you said kind of clean it up, and for me it was a process, and it's still kind of a process sometimes, of, you know, like how do you peel, how do you peel those layers of that charge off of that thing to where, you know, when your, when your leg goes numb because you're sitting weird, you're [00:32:20] all of a sudden like, "I'm about to drop dead," and then you just lose your shit, you know, it's inaccurate and not helpful, you know? But I think that that's it and you know, one of the things that my doctor said to me, it was interesting, was she said, well, you know, over time, [00:32:35] just, that I get that you're not going to love this answer, but, she said, "Over time you'll get that you're actually not about to drop dead, you know, because these things have come and gone, and you know, they pass and you're still here and it's fine." And yeah, I didn't, I didn't really love [00:32:50] that answer too much. But, but that's it. I mean that is part of the, that sort of peeling off of the charge, and I think that's that's a huge part of the process. It's a huge part of the process, for sure.  JEN: Yeah, it took me a long time to feel that [00:33:05] charge dissipate. When I was in downtown Seattle, it hurt and that's one reason why I kept leaving, was because it hurt too much to be near my old apartment. I felt like it had somehow spontaneously rejected me and said no, you can't live in downtown Seattle anymore [00:33:20] and it was physically painful and it took . . . It wasn't until I got back from Mongolia that it started to be, and that was about four months after the event? And then it slowly started when I would leave and come back and leave and come back, [00:33:35] each time I came back from a long trip, it would be less painful and less painful. And now I can walk around just fine, and I don't feel as much, but being there was painful, so I had to go and then return and . . . Just that, it was almost like I had to establish a new [00:33:50] story of my relationship to the city, because my only relationship had been with that apartment, and suddenly that was gone, and it was like, now, how do I live here? I don't know how to live here. It doesn't want me. You know, it felt like it was rejecting me. So, I had to re-establish that [00:34:05] relationship by rejecting it many many times before I could say, oh, okay. Yeah, I know, I think I can actually do this, you know.  AIDAN: Yeah. It is really interesting . . . ANDREW: [34:15 something is missing] AIDAN: [chuckles] Yeah, it's super interesting, because I do think that we, and I think that we've been [00:34:20] over all pretty good in these conversations in kind of going back to the reality, because it's you know, it's like, Fabeku and I have kind of, you know, I was thinking about this the other day, our time lining on a bunch [00:34:35] of stuff has been really similar, even though what's gone on for us is very different. And for a lot of that, I was a wreck, you know, it's like I was totally able to do certain pieces of what needed to be done. And then there was a bunch of shit that [00:34:50] just kind of had to be jettisoned. And I do think that it's kind of what you were talking about, Jen, is like post injury and surgery and stuff like that. It's been really a weird feeling out process, getting comfortable [00:35:05] moving pretty actively, and doing what I do, because it is, it's like, so, I can pick this thing up. And I know that that will be good for my body overall if I get back to working out because I kind of need it, but is this going to cause me [00:35:20] to have to go back and get opened up again and fixed again, right? And you've slowly got to go, okay, we just take it easy and do what you can do in any moment, but I think yeah, it's a . . . The Instagram culture [00:35:35] is right. Nothing ever, nothing bad ever happens, if you have, if you have the ability to grind hard enough. [laughs] ANDREW: Well, that's just it, right? You know, for me, you know, back when I used to do martial arts, it was like, oh [00:35:50] you just sprained your ankle. Here. Here's some tape. Let's go, you know? Tape it up and keep moving. Right? You know? It was such a bizarre, otherworldly thing, right? And so, you know, I kind of got to the place where I would get injured, and my response to it [00:36:05] was, did I go into shock? Because if I didn't go into shock, I don't need to go to the hospital. I'm probably okay. Which is which is really not ideal at all. Right? And so like, you know, as I've get, you know some injuries and stuff around climbing, you know, and going [00:36:20] back to climbing, it's always tempting just to push, and I'm still, you know, you could still be strong and weak at the same time, right? With injuries, you know? And so, I was like, how do I control this? How do I like, derail my impulse just to like [00:36:36] get excited? And it's not even about being macho in that sense. It's just like, oh my God, this is so fun, and this is so exciting. I really want to like, hang off this upside-down thing and try and do this move now, right? And it's like, oh no, that's not good. And so [00:36:51] I was like, okay, what I'm going to do is this: I'm gonna go to the gym and I'm a climb every single climb of one level in an evening, and when I can do that, then I'll go up one notch, you know? And you know, it's like, but it's this constant [00:37:06] thing, and you know, just be like seeing stuff and looking at it, being like, oh my god, I'd be so excited to do that. But then it's like, well but can my body, actually, in a deep way, sustain that, right? You know?  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: It's, yeah, requires patience and attention, you know. [00:37:22] So. AIDAN: Yep.  ANDREW: Well, and the other thing that's, you know, interesting for me is, I mean, all my Orishas are at my house. So, they're fine. [00:37:38] But almost all of my functional magical gear and altars and statuary and all of those things all burned, right? They're all gone. You know. I saved one meteorite that I had, that I found, I'm like [00:37:53] if it can go through the atmosphere, it can go through this. That's not a big deal. I'm gonna see if I can, if I can clean, and I mean like not spiritually, but just practically, clean my, [00:38:08] moldavite pendulum. I'm not sure, you know, it was exposed to a lot of smoke stuff. And, and that's it. You know, all my, all my cards are gone, you know? All the decks that I've had over the years are gone. [00:38:23] You know, and I mean, for me it's fine. I can replace many, if not all of them, and I don't really need a ton anyway, but yeah, it's this question of like, okay, what do I need? You know.  And I just remember it was a time in the process where [00:38:38] it was kind of getting down to, they're like, okay, so the engineers have been in, it's safe, you need to go in and decide what you're taking, and then everything else will get disposed of," right? Because you know, although a lot of people were like, oh you can clean stuff [00:38:53] and whatever, it's like, you know, my couch burned, so like all that Styrofoam smoke is in the space, you know, like so much toxic stuff, right? And it's like yeah, maybe you can clean that off, but I'm not really sure. And I don't know, [00:39:08] it's got toxic stuff on it, and I don't want to keep a lot of stuff, you know, and that smell is really hard to get rid of, even off of hard stuff, right? And so, I just kind of went in and I went where all the, all the shrine stuff was, [00:39:23] and just brought flowers, and I'm like, all right. So, this is a juncture, my friends. If you want to continue with me, let's continue, carry forward, and if this is a time at which you want to, you know, go on to do something else and then then let's called it at that, [00:39:38] you know, and just spending some time there. And you know, it's sort of, there's been a bunch of conversations where people, you know, expressed sort of that the loss of these items was the loss of that connection to spirit and, you [00:39:53] know, for me it hasn't really been, you know, and I don't think that it ever needs to be, but I think it's easy to identify in those kinds of ways, and you know, I'm like, I wonder how that is for you, Jen, too, like, did you lose magical things that you've [00:40:08] had to reorganize yourself around? JEN: I did not. I had a very lucky experience in that the part of my house that flooded destroyed property I was already getting rid of but that was quite valuable [00:40:23] and so it turned into a car. So, my apartment left, my things were fine. But . . . And the flood happened in a part of the apartment that made it unlivable. It was the entryway, the bathroom, and the front hallway. [00:40:38] And there was nothing in the bathroom of worth, and then the front hallway, there were stacks and stacks of astrology books that I was going to sell but they were all destroyed so I couldn't sell them. And then, the insurance replacement cost was enough for a down payment on the car. So, [00:40:53] I ended up converting them that way and yeah, anything else, it was, you know, not really things that I missed. You know, certain things I had to get rid. I had to get rid of because they got wet and just was, you know, [00:41:08] we didn't know what was in the water, basically, but overall, the most important things did get saved and so I was lucky in that way. But I put it all in storage. So, I haven't really had access to it up until just before this trip, [00:41:23] but then I left for 90 days. So, it still is like not in my possession. But so, yeah, our stories differ somewhat in that respect and I feel really lucky that I didn't lose everything in that way. Yeah, [00:41:38] I had a feeling that the protection magic that I had set up in my house was quite strong and it could have easily been that the water had gone in the other direction, which would have been catastrophic, but it didn't go that way. So. And also in terms of timing, is, Aidan, you were speaking that you and [00:41:53] Fabeku had the line up, Fabeku's health incident happened the exact same weekend that my flood happened. So, we were commiserating about that at the same time. AIDAN: Right. JEN: "Holy shit. What is going on right now?"  AIDAN: Yep. JEN: Yeah.  AIDAN: Yep. [00:42:09] Yeah, it is. It's a peculiar thing I had . . . This is kind of a switch of topics. But one of the things that was really kind of fascinating, this [00:42:24] last week, is I went and visited my brother in San Francisco. And his place is super cool. They're like, they do an amazing amount of really cool work. [00:42:39] Some of that is art and a lot of it is food and fermenting, and you know, they've got the bees and all of that stuff. But one of the things that I found really interesting is that there was a big fire on their block that took out [00:42:54] the building next to them, basically, even though it was a gas line fire in the streets, just because of the way that the pipe was pierced. It like shot this jet of fire at that building and messed that up. And then, [00:43:09] to get that building put out, the fire department ended up destroying a number of apartments basically, just with water damage, you know, that were attached to that. And then across the street, but moving away from their apartment, got taken [00:43:24] out by smoke and heat, because of the way the wind was blowing, you know. So, it was really, I'm sure they had a mass-, way more awareness that I did. It was very odd being in this house that was like, you know, a couple of feet [00:43:39] away from not existing with so much stuff in it. That was, that they've put so much work into. And it's, yeah, it's pretty interesting, because we've moved so much, we've become kind of so [00:43:55] minimalist, in some ways, though not in the way that usually gets used, that there's not much here if that happened. And that's where I kind of went. Like, I don't have much left, you know. It would be easier if I could grab [00:44:10] my computer. I would be happier if I could also grab a couple of guitars, but other than that, other than that, it's just the animals but there's really not, there's not much left in here that I am attached. And so that's an odd . . . It was just kind [00:44:25] of an odd thing. Like, yeah, if this place burned down, I could walk away. I could just walk away, and it would be no . . . It wouldn't be fun and there would be shit after the fact, I'm sure. But in general, I don't have enough for it to get taken out. That's [00:44:41] a weird thing, though.  JEN: Yeah, I think it all goes down to also like an illusion of stability, you know, we can set up shop somewhere and unpack and feel the continuity of a certain [00:44:56] period of time and then if it gets cut short, out of our control, and it's not our choice to move, or our choice to end the lease, it feels totally destabilizing, and yet we were actually unstable the whole time, really. You know, it's, it was sort of a, [00:45:12] I don't know. I've been thinking about that a lot. Like what is continuity? what is rupture? You know, how . . . What is security, even? And you know, through these types of challenges, can we still feel a type of security, even though we know at any moment it could change, you know? [00:45:28]  FABEKU: Well, you know, for me what's been interesting with that, kind of going back to that kind of post-event sort of panic trauma stuff that would kick up. I -- and I'm not pretending it's all the way resolved. But I think the way that I finally figured out how to manage [00:45:43] it on a day-to-day basis was, like I started to figure out like how do I, what do I do? Like, how do I amp this anxiety down? So, it's not a constant thing, and I was I was failing at that, because I was trying to grab hold of something [00:45:58] that would say: Oh, you're fine. It's stable. Nothing to worry about, nothing will happen again. It's not a big deal. And that was bullshit and I know it's bullshit because you know, that's, Jesus, I mean, I'm 44, shit happens.  But, and so that's ultimately how I started [00:46:13] to amp it down. It's like, well, the way you amp it down is you realize everybody dies, and everybody dies at some point, for some reason, however that happens, and you really have zero control over it. So, this constant anxiety and this, this grasping [00:46:28] for some kind of control mechanism that absolutely doesn't exist. It's a . . . it's an unwise investment at the end of the day. It's unwise, and it's ineffective and so it really was that kind of almost cliché thing of like making as much peace as you can with your [00:46:43] death, right? It happens, people die. And the only thing that I can reliably trust is that I'm in the current. I have no idea what the current's going to do. I don't know where it's going to go. But I'm in the current and that's all I know and that's it. And again, [00:46:58] I don't love that. You know, I mean, if somebody gave me the option of, you know, here's a, here's a foolproof control mechanism, I would probably take hold of it and say "give me door number one," but that's not a thing. It's not a thing. And the interesting thing . . . And I fought that [00:47:13] as a resolution because there was, there was a part of me that that kind of increased the panic for a minute, like well, that's a shitty answer to the question. But then when I realized that's literally the only answer to the question. That is it. There is, it might be shitty, but [00:47:28] there is no other answer. Then there is, then there was a whole lot of levels that started to settle in, and, and it's just stay in the current, that's it.  And then that also then circles back to what we were saying about, you know, figuring out what you're [00:47:43] actually excited about, and prioritizing the shit you spend time on, and the people you spend time with, and, you know, all of it. It's, so that's, that for me is the thing, and I don't, and I want to be clear, like I'm not, I'm not coming at that from some enlightened state. Like, it's not like, [00:47:58] "Oh, I realized my own mortality and I'm at peace." I'm not at peace with any of it, but it is what it is. And so that, the constant trauma response has amped down considerably, once I realized that, just stay in the fucking current. That's it. That's [00:48:13] the only option you have, really, so. ANDREW: Well, and I think that, you know, too like, you know, we all do some form of looking towards the future in divination and astrology and whatever, right? And you know, people ask me like, oh is that, you know, did [00:48:28] you see it coming? Did you whatever? And I was like no. No, I mean I didn't see it coming, right? And you know, there's, there's, in the Lukumí divination that I do, there's, when, [00:48:43] when you're in a sign of loss, say or like, you know, whatever, right? And I was in a sign, in a negative sign, when the fire happened, unsurprisingly, but there's a modifier that goes with it, which is Otonawa, right? And it means, [00:49:00] kind of loosely translated as that which you brought with you from heaven, right? And it tells you that it's, it was immutable, right? That whatever, whatever this is going on, the actual core of it you can't change. Maybe you can mitigate [00:49:15] it. Maybe you can bob and weave with it. Possibly, hopefully, you can accelerate your, you know, ramping up back out of it, but it means it's coming, right? And you're not going to be able to change that and make that happen--make [00:49:30] that not happen.  And, you know, understanding and thinking about life in those ways, where it's like I'm literally in a time where this is . . . So many things are beyond my control. And that that energy continued for a good stretch, right? Because, [00:49:45] you know, the insurance company is going to do what the insurance company's going to do. I have some say in that, but not a lot, you know. The landlord is going to do what they're going to do. The other people are going to do what they're going to do. And you know, you have to, you know, you have to [00:50:00] make some kind of peace with the fact that all you can do is are those things that are in your control and keeps, as you say, staying in that flow and moving forward, you know? So.  FABEKU: Well, one of the two things for me was-- JEN: When I--  FABEKU: I did a consult [00:50:15] with Jen last year and, we're kind of looking ahead at the year, and she said, "Well, you know, like I kind of hate to tell you but like in October there's a thing that looks a whole lot like the thing the past April where the big health--" and I was like, [00:50:30] "Fuck me, are you serious?" Like what the fuck! And then it was this whole conversation around so what can we do about it? Right? So, like you're saying, fundamentally the energy is there. That's the frequency. And then I think as magicians the question [00:50:45] becomes, how do I, how do I handle that frequency? It's not like I can just hit the delete button and it's gone. So instead, you know for me it was this whole Saturn thing that was happening.  So, I did this nine week long thing with Saturn and all kinds of shit. [00:51:00] And so something that could have been a life-threatening thing: I still got sick, weird shit still happened, and I saw the potential in it for things to get super serious, but it didn't. It wasn't serious. And I moved on the other side of it, because I think again, [00:51:15] there was this looking to the future, and okay, how do we and-- Listen, I wanted to completely eliminate the energy, but I got that's not how it's going to work. So instead, how do I shape this shit so that it's as least problematic as possible. You [00:51:30] know? And again, I didn't love any of that. But, but for me, that was, that was, that was the way to stay in the current at the time, and continue to maintain a relationship to the current as a magician, when it would have been super easy for [00:51:45] me to just lose my fucking mind about the fact that oh, this period of time looks a whole lot like that period of time that was super horrible. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. JEN: Yeah. So, did you, Andrew, [00:52:00] do the Lukumí reading right after the fire, to get that message? ANDREW: I was already in a reading.  JEN: Oh, okay.  ANDREW: They govern at least 28 days. So yeah, I was already within that structure. So, yeah.  JEN: So [00:52:15] when my flood happened, the city condemned the apartment as unlivable, and I had five days to move, and they would help fund relocating. So basically, just pay you a bunch of money to leave. But you have to leave within that period of time. And I called my neighbor and I said, "I [00:52:30] have to go, because there's a lot of money on the line, and I'm ready and willing. I mean, you guys know me, you say 'jump,' I'm just gone," you know. So, I was already packing and everything and I said, "I just need a mover, tell me who I should get." So, she said, "Call TGA Movers," so I called his number, and this guy named Harvey [00:52:45] comes on, and he comes by on Saturday, and I have to leave by that Tuesday. He appraises everything, and says, "I'll come by tomorrow with my truck and a guy named Eddie." I was like, "Okay, cool." So, on Sunday, he rocks up in this truck. It's this white van. And on the outside of [00:53:00] the van, there's this massive black elephant. And on it, it says, "The Great Ancestors Moving and Maintenance." ANDREW: Mm-hmm. [laughter] JEN: So, I'm like, you mean the great ancestors are moving me out of this [00:53:15] flooded apartment? [laughter] JEN: Like it suddenly went from being this like very traumatic, like holy crap, my life is just completely changed in one weekend, and I had to come back from, you know, speaking in a planetarium about astrology early, from, I was in Alaska when the flood happened, so [00:53:30] I had to fly home early, and this was so chaotic and everything, and then suddenly like within that week the ancestors are moving me? And I was just like, "How can this be a bad thing?" You know, and it suddenly from that point on was like, oh, okay, like this is actually something good, you know, and it feels bad [00:53:45] now and it's definitely traumatic, but you just can't ignore a sign like that. I mean, what are the chances? I didn't even look what TGA stood for, you know, and then there it was, like the great ancestors, you know. So.  ANDREW: That's amazing.  FABEKU: I think that kind [00:54:00] of going back to that thing I said earlier about originally wanting to kind of control or eliminate the chaos. Now a lot of my magic is focused on sort of asking that the chaos works out in my favor. You know? That it, and again not in some weird Pollyanna [00:54:15] like, oh everything works out the way it should, because I think that's a fucked-up idea. But it, to me, that's the way I shifted, like, as much as I would love to eliminate that kind of chaos all together, realizing that's not going to happen. So instead if we can kind of slant it [00:54:30] so ultimately, as shitty as it might be, as uncomfortable as it might be, as horrifying as it might be, somehow it sort of shakes out in my favor at the end, as opposed to . . . So again, to me that's the sort of asking the current to carry me forward versus, you know, kind of pulling you under [00:54:45] and the undertow at some point. So. ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I did a lot of praying to have the intelligence and awareness to benefit from situations [00:55:00] and to find my way through them, right? You know, they're like, I'm like, there's definitely some like, "Hey everybody, grease the wheels for me, please," but then there's also like "and help me see, help me be aware, help me like, notice these things instead of just gloss [00:55:15] over them," you know, so that I can actually, you know, benefit from those opportunities and so on. So. FABEKU: Yeah, for sure.  AIDAN: I think that's a really, that's a really brilliant thing. And it's something that is actually kind of came up in a way this morning in the Six Ways group. [00:55:31] Is there's this, to me now, there's this difference of how I work. Like there's, there's the stuff like, the sigils on the wall are saying, "I want this, like this," right? But the vast majority of the work is more in line with what you were just describing. [00:55:46] It's like, there's all the stuff that is always going on and always changing, and this is the general direction I'm trying to go, and what's really important is that I keep going into something that is pretty similar to that, but [00:56:01] I don't care, in truth, most of the sigils are the best idea I have of what would get me there, right? But kind of the offering side or the prayer side, if that was how I thought of that, [00:56:16] is way more geared towards "yeah, let's, let this, let's let all these crazy things that occur, occur in a way that I could use more so than not, and yeah, let me have the brains [00:56:31] to not fight it and be able to get on that right track or get into that right current. Let me know when I actually need the paddle board rather than the straight up surfboard because otherwise it could be a very slow ride," you [00:56:46] know. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Well, you know, that kind of, kind of segues into one of the questions that we got on Facebook. I think it was Dre was asking what skills, what [00:57:01] skills do you not have, you know, that you would like to have, and how might that relate to your magic as well? Like not necessarily just magical skills, but kind of skills in general, you know? Is there stuff you're thinking about learning, [00:57:16] building up, adding to your to your vocabulary, or the things that anybody needs to kind of, or sees it as a benefit for moving forward? AIDAN: Man, that's such an interesting [00:57:31] one, because I'm always working that stuff.  ANDREW: It's clean and press, isn't it? Or . . . AIDAN: Yeah.  ANDREW: More clean than press.  AIDAN: Yeah, totally. Yeah for me it's, it's like, [00:57:46] I'm trying to not live so entirely in my own head. Like I'm aware of it, but I still get trapped by it, and how that usually happens is that someone else will say something that seems [00:58:01] crystal clear, but that I have actually totally misread, [laughs] and that's my biggest thing, and that's really interpersonal more than specifically magical, but that's I would say my biggest kind of . . . That's the [00:58:16] biggest hole that I'm aware of that I'm really working on is, especially if I think it's totally crystal clear, asking for . . . to verify, you know, because I find that I'm usually wrong. FABEKU: [00:58:33] I think for me, I was just having a conversation. A couple weeks ago, my oldest friend in the world was in town and we were, we've known each other since we were three or four. And we were talking kind of late at night. And, and I said, "You know, I feel like the next level for me [00:58:48] personally and probably beyond that is," and one of the things you said, when we very first started, Andrew. This thing of, after these things happen, like you're not the same anymore, and I think that what I've realized for me [00:59:03] is an in response to the last handful of years and some, just events and shit that have happened, there's . . . When I was in some, doing some trance work, one of the others spoke about it as, spoke about it as like this, this accretion of grief, which I thought was kind [00:59:18] of a fascinating language and it made it clear for me in a way that it was a little--it wasn't before--in this, the way that these, almost like the way a pearl forms, you know, like these layers of grief kind of buildup. And sometimes it settles, sometimes it's not, [00:59:33] but then over time, all of a sudden, there's this thing that just sits there and you're like, fuck, what is this thing? And then, you know, you realize what it is.  And so, I've been kind of looking at that and the way that that's affected me and you know, how to deal with that magically, how to deal with it in other ways, just how to deal [00:59:48] with it personally, and kind of moving through that, and, and again, not in the sense of being who you were before, because I don't think that's the way things work. But, but how to peel off some of those layers, that, that begin for me to feel really problematic [01:00:03] at a certain point. And I don't, I'm making some progress, but I, I for sure know that I don't have the . . . I don't have the skills yet and I don't even necessarily have the full sense of the right angle of approach. [01:00:18] You know, it's more, it feels, and I've had a few of these dreams, where it's like being inside of an egg and kind of pecking at the wall to figure out, okay, where's the where's the thinnest place to make this kind of initial puncture? Kind of a thing. [01:00:34] And I don't know if that makes sense as I'm saying it. I don't know how lucid that sounds, but yeah, I think for me that's, that's the focus. You know, how do you, how do you work through and sort of peel off some of those layers that have built up over time?  ANDREW: Yeah. I mean, [01:00:49] I think that it fits with stuff that I've talked about on the podcast somewhere, but I no longer remember where, about my work with meteorites and my idea of sort of like leaving, leaving the, the Earth or leaving for a different orbit and a bigger, [01:01:04] sort of more universal picture, right? You know. FABEKU: Yeah.  ANDREW: I wouldn't have sort of said originally that that was tied to grief, but it definitely was tied to a process of shedding a lot of things that . . . FABEKU: Yeah. ANDREW: . . . Have their roots back in some of those kinds of things. [01:01:19]  FABEKU: Yeah. ANDREW: And either were, you know, either became dead and unhelpful or were just problematic to start with, you know, so. FABEKU: Well, and it's interesting you mention it because I'm sitting next to this heart-shaped meteorite that I've been hanging out with for weeks and weeks and weeks and I, I [01:01:34] get, I get, yeah, I get what you mean on a real visceral level with that.  AIDAN: Yeah, that's pretty interesting. That's, that's, as you know, Fabeku, cause we've talked about it some, that that's a lot of what I've been doing for the last chunk of time, both on [01:01:49] grief and then kind of on the PTSD from just being fucked with in various ways at different points, you know?  ANDREW: Yeah.  AIDAN: And running a couple of people now through the process that I was given by the allies to see if it works for anybody else. [laughs] Cause [01:02:04] that's not always the case, but so far it seems to be doing its thing. Yeah. I think that's a very real thing. FABEKU: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: How 'bout you, Jen, anything, anything that you're working on, hoping [01:02:19] for? JEN: I don't have anything specific in mind at the moment. I think what I need to work on is not traveling. [laughter] JEN: And actually understanding [01:02:34] what it means to be in place and develop a kind of soft momentum as opposed to the fire hose that I'm used to. So, if anything, it would be learning how to throttle down and understand [01:02:49] sort of compa-, not capacity, but like amount, you know? Like not turning everything all the way up to 11 all the time, but figuring out more subtle modes, and also, you know learning [01:03:04] how to gather moss a little bit, because I feel like at this point, I'm like a polished little bullet, you know? And that can be fun to a point b

Are we seeing a plateauing of Amazon? Those who think that any type of e-commerce conducted outside of Amazon is a dead-end are dead wrong. Today we welcome back Andrew Youderain to discuss his third annual State of the Merchant Report for 2019. If you've never read or heard us talk about the report, it's a comprehensive report of all things e-commerce that comes from Andy's exclusive database of real entrepreneurs, all running physical product e-commerce businesses. With more than 400 qualifying merchants completing the questionnaire, the report covers an array of important topics including growth and conversion rates, profitability stats, advertising ROI, and even one surprise question about ways our members would fulfill their biggest indulgences. We'll go over all the questions, responses, and the surprising trends in e-commerce for 2019. Episode Highlights: What is providing the best return on investment in terms of advertising? The facebook marketing factor, why it's so different, and how can be tricky. A shout out to email marketing as a very valuable and viable advertising tool. The reality of advertising fatigue and the big three – Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The typical store owner makeup and whether dropshipping is coming to an end. Surprising gains in manufacturing of original merchandise. The impact of the new tariffs on the surveyed businesses. Does everything seem to be growing? We discuss general growth rates in the e-commerce industry. The surprising thing we learned from the survey this year regarding Amazon. The place for premium and niche products. Andrew's top three takeaways from the survey. A rise in Chinese sellers on Amazon and what that means for e-commerce merchants and counterfeiting. Andrew's view on the FBA nexus and the state to state tax impact for his community of clients. The fun and surprising final question in the survey. Transcription: Joe: Mark back in Savannah I think it was 2016 was the 2nd time I ever went to eCommerceFuel. In a great location because I could drive there and it was a beautiful, beautiful location. And I was so proud because I brought copies of my e-book some would call it a book called 10 Steps to Selling your Amazon Business and this is back in '16. We're talking years ago. And so I thought I was at the forefront of things. And then Andrew does his presentation at the beginning of eCommerceFuel events which was really the state of commerce back then and what we've had him on the podcast about what this podcast today is about. The 1st thing he talks about is how few of the eCommerceFuel attendees are using Amazon; like less than 10%. And it was a very small part of their business and that Shopify and other channels were much, much bigger. And I was slightly mortified. But then the next year, the biggest growth I think in 2018 that we saw—actually it was at '17 because we stated e-commerce from Andrew in 2018 and the biggest growth factor was Amazon. And now that you've had him on again I think that that's changed a little bit, right? Mark: That's right. In this year's State of the Merchant Report from eCommerceFuel, they've found that this is the 1st year that non Amazon e-commerce stores outpaced Amazon as far as new sales channels which is pretty amazing when you think about the impact. The quote directly is this was the 1st year non Amazon sellers grew faster than those on the platform. So there's more growth happening off of Amazon among their members than on the Amazon platform. That's pretty remarkable to hear that because it feels like feels like everybody's on Amazon. And we've often preached this idea of having diverse revenue streams and making sure that you're being multichannel with your revenue streams and platforms but you and I know a lot of Amazon sellers that have gone all in on Amazon so that they could just focus on the growth there to get as much sales blossomed there as they can because it's easier to do than trying to manage multiple channels. Those who think that outside of Amazon e-commerce is dead; it's not at all, not even close. There is a couple of other interesting things that came out of this report and I'm going to let Andrew really get into some of the things that he found impressive. But one of the things that that stood out to me was the effectiveness of Facebook as a marketing channel. It seems like everyone we talked to always says Facebook is such a great marketing channel and if we could just figure it out and what my experience has been is that everybody's trying to figure it out. Which means it's really difficult to actually do. I think those that have “figured it out” are doing well. But among the people that responded to this really lengthy survey that Andrew puts them through Facebook ads came in as the 5th most effective sales channel or advertising channel that people were reporting. And the ROIS, the media in ROIS was a full point lower than the next highest. And again we'll let Andrew talk about some of these things because I'm sure he has more insights than I do into the report itself. From just a general like where are you in the market as an e-commerce business or when you're looking to buy and identifying the right trends and the types of businesses that are going to be around for the next several years a report like this is just invaluable, right? You get to see where a business is going, where the industry is going, and maybe where the next opportunities lie. Joe: Yeah and it comes directly from the eCommerceFuel membership database. As far as I understand it Andrew sends a survey out and collects all of this data and all of this information so it's from real entrepreneurs down in the trenches running their businesses; physical product e-commerce businesses. So if anybody is out there that is looking to grow their business outside of Amazon this report can help. If anybody's buying a business and wants to take it beyond Amazon this report can help. If you're on Shopify and you want to learn the other channels, what number 2, 3, and 4 are before that 5th one that's most effective being Facebook this report can help. And it comes from Andrew. There are very few people in the industry that are as good character as Andrew and the folks at eCommerceFuel. Mark: Oh I was just about to say that now. A shout out for the good guys Andrew is certainly one of those. So let's get into this discussion between Andrew and I on this report and find out what some of the insights he [inaudible 00:05:59.2]. Joe: Let's go to it. Mark: Andrew, thank you so much for coming back on to the podcast. You were on last year and we talked about the awesome report that you guys do over at eCommerceFuel; the State of the Merchant Report. And this is where you survey a lot of the members of your community which we've talked about here on the Quiet Light Podcast, Joe and I talked about it quite a bit. One of our favorite conferences, one of our favorite communities out there for high revenue e-commerce store owners; it's a fantastic community that you built there. And you do this report every year. It's a really good pulse of what's going on in the world of e-commerce. So thank you again for joining us. Andrew: Yeah thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And good work with the podcast. I'm enjoying the Quiet Light Podcast. I kind of love your episodes and yes you're putting up good stuff; you and Joe. But your episodes seem to have just a tiny edge on Joe's. I don't know maybe it's just in my mind but regardless you guys are doing awesome, awesome stuff. Mark: Yeah I'm just going to record that. I'm going to put it on a loop and I'm just going to send it to Joe a few times so he can hear that over and over again. You need to submit at some point we've been adding these movie quotes to our intros at random so you need to listen to those and tell us what you think it is and we'll give you a shout out. I don't know what they are myself so I'm excited about this. I'm excited to talk about this year's report because you always come out with just some really fascinating bits of data. And I'm going to start with one that I've run across a decent amount because I think it really speaks to a lot of buyers are thinking about when they're evaluating an online purchase and also sellers who are looking to scale their business and this is what is providing the best return on investment at this point in terms of advertising? Facebook is often quoted you know if we could just unlock Facebook and this is something that I want to get into a little bit here but your report showed some surprising numbers with where the most value is and where some of the lowest hanging fruit is for advertising. Andrew: Yeah so there are a couple of things that are new this year. I wanted to take a look at what merchants are using the most in terms of promoting their business; so what's most popular and then also what's the most effective because often those are not the same thing. And so you look at the most popular marketing channels and we just ask people what are you using and in the number of popularity 1st was email marketing, 2nd Facebook ads, 3rd was Google AdWords, 4th was SEO, and 5th was Instagram. And so then we—of course, it was a popularity—to get a sense of what was most effective we looked at okay, of the people that are using every single one of these things we asked about which, how many, what percentage of them ranked that specific one as the most effective? And the one that came to the surface wasn't even the top 5 that we talked about. The number one most effective marketing channel reported by merchants was Amazon Ads. Over half of people running Amazon Ads said it was the best highest ROI marketing channel to use, number two is e-mail marketing, three was SEO, 4th was Google AdWords, and like a distant 5th not even like a close 5th, but a distant 5th was Facebook Ads. And another thing that we explored was the average return on Ad Spend for Facebook Ads versus Amazon and Google and they had the lowest return on Ad Spend at 3.4 compared to Amazon at 4.6 and Google at over 5. And they're increasing of the costs on the Facebook platform were growing up the fastest as well; almost 20% versus 16 for Amazon and 10 for Google. So that was kind of the Facebook—I think a lot of people, so many people are doing it and it's easy to have like almost some fear of missing out if you're not doing it or if you're doing it like you're not getting the secret when everyone else is. But I think it's a harder nut to crack than people like to admit. And those were some of the numbers based on the advertising. Mark: Yeah there's a lot that I want to get into on this here and let's see if I can remember all of it but I want to 1st talk about the Facebook ads because you put it in that way; it's a tough nut to crack. And I wonder if that's really maybe some of the secrets that's going on behind these numbers with the EBIDTA ROIS and also the effective marketing channel. We've had Ezra Firestone on the podcast here before. He's a friend of Quiet Light Brokerage. He obviously is a big advocate of Facebook advertising. I've seen some other people who have been doing Facebook Ads with a lot of effectiveness but and this is the big caviar, it takes a while to figure that part out. And a lot of these guys have gotten there where they're seeing these ROIS of five plus, they've taken months—literally months and lots of dollars down the drain to really get to that point. I'm wondering and maybe you looked into this a little bit with the survey; did you look into people that have tried Facebook marketing and maybe gave up after two or three months because they couldn't get it to work or did you not look that deep or ask that deep of a question? Andrew: Yeah I didn't go quite that deep. And it's always tough designing the survey because it's already like 50 plus questions and I'm trying to balance—making sure we get people who get all the way through it with you know what are the critical things we get. So sadly I didn't get that kind of data. A lot of the kind of the fox and the stories behind people getting into Facebook and having a hard time with it are more anecdotal that I hear from people. And so sadly yeah I wish I had some good numbers and data behind it but it's more anecdotal than anything else. Mark: I mean look there's a couple of things on here on your top; 5 Amazon Ads, e-mail marketing, SEO, and Google AdWords. So let's go through here with Amazon Ads, SEO, Google AdWords; those are all high intent advertising channels, right? So if somebody goes online and says buy shoes or buy cheap shoes or best running shoes; that's a really high intent search, Facebook Ads not so much of a high intense search, e-mail marketing side if they're on your list that already a warm contact. So it shouldn't be too surprising that we're seeing that but the other side of this too that I would say is like if you're looking to create a market and let's say you have kind of an odd channel, maybe you take a spin on a new type of ice cream scooper that doesn't get stuck ever. So the ice cream never gets stuck in that ice cream scooper and you've invented this and you're going to sell it; well nobody knows that it exists. So it might take a while to build that market and so Facebook Ads might be a good source for that because you can have that proof of concept and really kind of educate the marketplace. But it's also going to take a little bit more work to get people to really peak their attention. Andrew: Yeah Facebook is just a totally different mindset for advertising. It's really great if you're good at targeting if you're good at—the way you build a funnel is just totally different. It's more so about you get to be able to catch people when they're doing something else, get their attention, pull them off the platform or engage them for a while and then pull them off versus being able to drive a sale short term. I think it's a longer term game and just a different mentality you need to have if you're going to do it well. And targeting too with Facebook I think is getting trickier [inaudible 00:12:57.7] that some of the targeting the traffic that Facebook had been sending hasn't been converting as well for some members and some people I know. So that's a big part of Facebook performing well as them sending you people that are based on their intelligence they know are going to work well. So yes it's interesting. Mark: Yeah talking to crack I think is the best way to describe it. So I do think it's a viable source but you've got to have the right type of product and you really have to know what you're doing with it and be patient. I mean that's just a lot with these; Amazon I'm not surprised at all, still a very young marketplace so I think we're still seeing kind of those numbers equalize out. Talk about a high intent marketplace and high intent searches so I think that makes complete sense they're number one on the list. And let's give a shout out to email marketing probably the old man in the room there, right? Andrew: Yeah although it's funny I think about if you look at email and even email it's still of course you know the number two most effective marketing channel and it's still highly—super valuable but I feel like even probably it's getting harder. I think advertising, in general, is getting so much more difficult because we've had so much of it—a part of it is fatigue; just advertising fatigue. And you've got three main giants who control so much of it and they're kind of squeezing all of the juice out of it they can with rising ad prices but even my email inbox I don't know about you Mark but I'm way more ruthless now with my email. I've got a ton of filters set up. I have used like unroll.me to unsubscribe from a lot of stuff because you have to. Because I'm looking to change my email address in the next couple of months to just have a team address to really focus on because it's—the levels most of the messages coming at us are increasingly just –they just keep going up and up and up. And so I don't know, it would be interesting to see if anything comes up in the next two, three, four years where—that it makes it able to get through all of that noise. Because it's getting—just any advertising, in general, is just getting a lot harder because there's just so much out there. Mark: You know I really think it comes down to the personalization. Email marketing, you're right I mean email it's a complete mess and now I use Gmail, we use Gmail, Google Apps throughout Quiet Light Brokerage and they tab everything down in that promotions or updates or forums tab. And I'll tell you what I don't look at promotions ever. Basically, its spam light is what it is and so you just throw all that stuff away. I go through it every few days and select all and hit the archive. Coming through that though like having personalized messages, very, very hyper focused hyper personalized messages I think that's really the only way that people are going to be able to survive with that email marketing. That's tough, that's not easy to do. Andrew: You know I agree and I think—you know I did a podcast with somebody earlier this year and they have an antiques business and every week they send out an email on Saturday and at the click through rates are like 25%. I talked to him about how he was doing this, I mean trying to get some secret out of it and there wasn't any secret. It was that he spent hours and hours and hours on an email that was totally unique and it was amazing deep interest level to the customers and people open it. And like I look at the email that we have that goes out to our private communities [inaudible 00:16:34.2] it's not nearly as good as his is but just that so much smaller group only about a thousand people but we're able to get it. It takes a lot of time to put together but it gets generally open rates of close to 50%. Mark: Let's move on here to another thing. I want to talk about the anatomy of a store owner. You put together a really nice simple graphic on the link to the report and I will link to this report here in the show notes and we'll also throw it into an email as well. So people listening to this take a look at the email coming through from Quiet Light Brokerage but I want to talk about the makeup of the store owner. Drop shipping seems to be kind of on the losing end of things these days. Andrew: Yeah I feel like it's had some pretty strong headwinds for the last couple of years. And this year the number—every year we ask and we look at what percentage of store owners is a certain type of business model; drop shipping, manufacturing, private label, hybrid, or reselling products. And this year the number of drop shippers that reported got cut in half. So only 8% of people this year down from 16% last year were drop shippers which is a pretty huge—just a massive cut. And if you look at the number of manufacturers that we're reporting that reports for the survey that was up by almost a 3rd by 32%. So it seems like a lot of those—this has been a couple of narratives that have been talked about for a couple of years now but it's really playing out in the numbers. Mark: Yeah I think so as well. What's funny though is we had somebody on recently to talk about drop shipping and they were killing it. They were doing a great job with drop shipping. So I feel like it's one of these areas where for a while there were Ad Sense sites, a pretty number of Ad Sense sites all over the place, a bunch of those got wiped out and the general thought was this is kind of a dead business model. Well, I've seen some of them come by and those people that actually survived through that and how they got some strong, strong businesses. I feel that way with drop shipping a little bit. Like if you can survive these head winds you've got something good. Andrew: It's funny you say that Mark because when I looked at the revenue growth by business model and the income growth by a business model guess who was leading the pack on both of those metrics? It was drop shippers. And I think what happened is exactly like you said there's a little bit of a Darwinism at play here where a lot of the herd got thinned out and the people that were left were able to make it work well. And I think you're actually right it definitely can work in some models. I think it's much harder to get the things to all align and get a model where it works well for reasons that—I guess I don't want to get into on the show right now but if you can get it right I mean it's a great business model because no inventory, no upfront cash, no cash flow issues, location independent. If you get it to work right it's a pretty good gig. Mark: It really is but it seems to be so dependent on the product and also your relationships as well because obviously, the problem with drop shipping is competition. It's so easy just to spin up something and compete directly with you and you get the sort of you bicker with a sort of marketplace of every product that is exactly the same, same images and everything else. It's tough to work in that area. On the flip side—so like I like to think about this on a spectrum. On one side we have drop shipping where you can see the products sometimes you get into reselling which might be a little bit of a step away from that drop shipping where you're still doing with some physical product but it's not yours. And then you go all the way over to the other side of the spectrum and you get these unique manufactured products, some of them private labeled but the most extreme would be hey I invented something or I've created a product and you're seeing some pretty big gains in that area. Andrew: Yeah I mean the number of manufacturers like I mentioned was up a 3rd this year. If you look at also not just the number of people that are doing it but the benefits that they're seeing and the pay off, so we tracked gross margin, net margin for those—for all these different types of sellers and manufacturers and by far the largest gross margin at 53%, the highest net margin at 21% and those were up year over year too for each category. I think the gross margin for manufacturers was up from 45% percent up to 53 and the net was up as well. So yeah I think manufacturers are—it's a harder business, there's less of a roadmap, it's more capital intensive, it's more stressful but if you're able to crack it more and more people are going that way. It's really the only way I feel like you can play on Amazon these days because if you're going to try to go resell someone else's product on Amazon you're going to get destroyed. And it's where a lot of people seem to be going and getting paid for. Mark: Yeah I think all those things that you talked about; the stress, no roadmap, everything else there's a flip side of that. It's defensible, right? Because there's no roadmap you're not going to have everybody saying oh I know exactly how to do this. It is difficult to do and figuring out how to get that manufacturing [inaudible 00:21:21.3] done is tough. Did you ask people and if you only have just kind of from what you've heard in the community obviously China I would guess would be the number one sourcing location for most people manufacturing, what other countries are you hearing from some of the members on the community that—where people are sourcing products? Especially when we're recording this—I don't know when we're going to air this episode but when we're recording this we're staring down potentially more tariffs going on with China. Obviously, this is going to impact everybody selling from China so finding other sources would be great. Have you heard of any other countries that seem to be emergent? Andrew: That's a great question and the honest answer is no. I mean there are people in Asia—I hear occasionally about people sourcing in Taiwan which depending on who you ask is China or isn't. Vietnam is another one that comes up but apart—and you know some people I know occasionally hear their source from India or make their things in Canada or someone I met with recently is building some footwear in Mexico. So there definitely are some other places people get certain things but in terms of a potential runner up to China that could even remotely start to be an alternative to where people are manufacturing 90% of things I don't think of someone who's pulling away or even you know accelerating at all. It's kind of just a whole bunch of a lot of different options all over. So not really an emerging source for manufacturing that I'm seeing. Mark: That's a little disappointing but not surprising. I mean wouldn't it be great to have something on this side of the ocean where we could maybe just pull up from Central America instead of having to—I talked to some of these store owners and they're talking about three months plus lead times where you're committing capital and then that goes on the ocean and it takes—I can't imagine how difficult that would be. Andrew: Oh yeah it would be really hard and you know it's one thing we did ask this year was did tariffs impact your business and granted I know we're talking you and I are both in the States, I know a lot of people listening aren't in the States but probably the vast majority of 85% or so of respondents for the survey are US based or 75% rather but we asked did tariffs impact your business this year? And over a 3rd of people, the 36% said the tariffs meaningfully hurt their business this year. And like you just alluded to they are only getting more from slapped on. So it's a big deal and it'd be nice to have a silver lining; maybe be that sourcing out of some of the countries closer to us maybe, maybe get a boost. Mark: Yeah that'd be interesting. Hey if anybody has an idea on where we can craft and not let me know. That'd be great to get that part out. Let's go to like some of the Sunday news here and that is everything seems to be growing. You know I started Quiet Light Brokerage right before we hit that great recession so a lot of my entrepreneurial journey has been slogging through a difficult economy. It seems like from what we're seeing we're in a bull market right now. Andrew: It seems really strong. So we—looking at growth rates over time, and again these are the average merchant—the average e-commerce store owner reporting for the survey was right around 3 million. So that's relatively small when you look at the macro economy, if you look at e-commerce trends, in general, they're probably could be growing closer to 20% plus or minus but for this segment of store owners if you look at the growth trend over 3 years, 2017 it was about 25%, last year it jumped way up to almost 37%, and this year it's down a touch to 36% but still meaningfully about the same. So revenue growth is good, income growth has also remained real strong and if you look at the conversion rates too and it's just continued to go up the last two years. I mean the conversion rate we're looking at this year was over 3% up from 2.60% last year. And in terms of like our earlier margins are up so all in all for store owners things are good, growth is good, margins are good, the conversion is great and it's kind of a boom time is the right word. But it's definitely—things are robust and healthy out there for stores in this segment. Mark: Yeah that's fantastic. One of the surprising things that I've seen from the report and we talked about this last year and I know Joe tells me and we mentioned this in the introduction to this episode here that the very 1st eCommerceFuel Live that he attended he brought a book on 10 Steps to Selling Amazon Business. You asked at one point to raise your hand if you're selling on Amazon and it was only a small portion of the room that did so. And he was thinking oh man I completely missed the mark bringing this book. Well, we've seen this number increase over the years although this year from—unless I've got [inaudible 00:26:19.5] I'm not reading this backwards, it looks like you have a decline in people that are selling on Amazon and an increase in people that are not selling on Amazon. Is that really what you're seeing? Andrew: Yeah I wouldn't say a decline but I would say a plateauing of something in the report that I wrote I call it like a plateauing Amazon—I hesitate to use the word peak Amazon because every time that I think that they've peaked anything they blow up and accelerate to the moon. But looking at like three examples here, or three data points; if you look at the number of merchants who just sell on Amazon or they don't. A couple of years ago 49% last year, it was 55% so a fairly meaningful jump. This year that number barely budged; it went from 55.2% to 55.8%. So up a little bit but wildly decelerating. Along the same lines if you look at group sales from Amazon last year, two years ago they were up really sharply and this year they barely budged; 27.6 to 28.2% of the total sales that all of the merchants generate coming from Amazon. And this is maybe the most surprising number. If you look at just the revenue growth of stores that sell on Amazon versus don't last year stores that sold on Amazon grew faster than stores that didn't. And this year stores that don't sell on Amazon actually grew faster than stores that do by a small margin which is just really, really surprising. So I think that there's so much here. We could do a whole episode on I don't think Amazon is going anywhere, I think they're going to be shaping the e-commerce landscape for the next 5 to 10 years. But I do think a lot of merchants are starting to really struggle with counterfeit issues, with increasing fees, with loss of control, with feeling like they're totally beholden to Amazon, and a lot of host of other issues. And they're not getting off the platform but the number of merchants that are saying hey yeah let's go hitch our wagon, go to Amazon and sell there—and some people are just deciding to leave the platform altogether. So one of my predictions and here I'm almost certain that it could be wrong because I'm going out on a limb is that next year is the 1st year we see the percentage of stores selling on Amazon actually decrease year over year. So we'll see when that happens. Mark: Yeah that's interesting. I wonder if shopper's behavior is changing at all and just again you just can't draw any conclusions from this here but I know for myself I've become more of a diversified shopper than I have in the past. I still use Amazon probably like 4 or 5 times a week, I'm still a really heavy Amazon shopper but I'll actually look around a little bit off of Amazon as well. And if I get the chance to order directly from a store I do so. Now that's probably just because I worked with so many entrepreneurs that have these stores and I know the benefits for them. But there's something nice about that specialization, right? If you think about the big box stores and how they couldn't specialize in any sort of gear but if you want something high end and specialized, it makes sense that there is somebody that actually does specialize in that. It's pure speculation on my part of course. Andrew: No. I think you're absolutely right. I think we're going to see in the next 5 years a real hollowing out of e-commerce where you have Amazon; if there's something you'd know you want to buy it's more of a commodity or a fairly inexpensive product that I think Amazon is going to be the place you go to get it quickly and cheaply and efficiently. But I think for anything else, for merchants I think the place to really thrive and survive over the next 5 years is to have a premium product or a very niched product; ideally, one that you manufacture. Like just for example yesterday I called up and I was in the market for a nice bike rack for my vehicle. And I went into a lot of research and the company I ended up buying it from I ended up talking to him on the phone for 35, 40 minutes. They custom manufacture in the United States, they ship that to me and it's that kind of thing. They have an incredible product and they don't sell on Amazon surprisingly because they don't need to. Because everyone that wants the site or this product they go right to them and they don't want to give up the marginalized control and guessing. And I think those are the kind of merchants that are going to do really well in the next 5 plus years. And I think that's kind of the best place to be going forward if you're not going to be on Amazon. Mark: Yeah. I would agree 100%. I think just from a long term sort of defensibility mindset and that's what I've seen and I actually see it on Amazon as well, the companies that are doing really, really well long term Amazon really care about their products. And they're spending a lot of time on that product development cycle and doing their research and trying to make sure that they have something that's a high quality product. But then they're also looking outside of that as well and becoming specialists in that space which makes a big difference. With everything that you surveyed here was there any one or two things that really stood out to you as being surprising this year or would inform you if you were an owner of an e-commerce business yourself that you would definitely want to take action on? Andrew: I think the big things were the massive shift and we kind of touched on this but the massive shift of people going away from drop shipping and into manufacturing. And the benefits financially that those manufacturers we're seeing. That would be a big one. The other one was the Facebook ones we talked about where Facebook Ads really are definitely at the back of the pack especially relative to their popularity in terms of effectiveness. So those would be probably two of the big things and then in terms of Amazon just I think it still makes—it can make sense if you have a great product that's proprietary. It doesn't—if you do it carefully I don't think you shouldn't go on Amazon but just the fact that so many people are kind of hitting the brakes on that or at least new entrance in saying aren't rushing in as head long as they were before I think is pretty telling. So nothing new there Mark that we haven't talked about but three things if I was in the middle of kind of defining strategy or starting it from scratch I think would be things I would think really carefully about. Mark: You said earlier in the episode here with advertising how much more difficult it's become. And I generally think that what we're seeing with the Internet and Internet based businesses and we've been seeing this pretty much since the time I started as an entrepreneur 20 years ago now is this maturation of the businesses where I think they're all getting more difficult to do. And you look at this and you think oh man that's such a bummer. I know I talked to some friends who are entrepreneurs back in the early 2000s and we kind of reminisce about the quarry days of Amazon was a thing of the website waiting for the movie dance to happen and now all of a sudden they're making gobs of money. But what do we learn from all that? We learned that dries up and disappears pretty quickly. The people that are surviving are the ones that are embracing some of these challenges and looking at them saying I'm going to build something really sustainable, a real product and they're doing great. They're doing really good. And that bears out in some of your numbers. Andrew: Yeah and one thing—it absolutely, absolutely does and I think one thing for you to touch on in terms of Amazon and in terms of sourcing in more of a macro level, if you look at one of the things we asked it was what are your most common struggles, what macro changes are you seeing, and what are your future plans? And one of the macro changes that came up the 1st time this year on the top top list was the number of Chinese sellers that were coming into Amazon. And I think I saw a stat today that 40% of the top Amazon sellers in 2019 are Chinese sellers versus 26% two years ago. And so A. on one level you have just a lot more competition directly from factories who are the low cost provider. Which isn't a bad thing for consumers in and of itself but it's harder for merchants. And if those sellers don't have the same kind of quality standards; some of them do, some of them don't, and you also run into problems. But you also have a lot of—one thing I've noticed is a lot of counterfeit issues. This has been in the news. We've had a number of members in our community who have had problems with this when they had a product it got knocked off and then these people—you know a lot of overseas sellers started selling this product directly in competition with the original manufacturer which was really problematic because the quality wasn't as good. And so consumers got it and it really hurt the brand because they assumed it came from the original source when it didn't. And so you see I think this also ties back into Amazon and why people are getting a little bit more careful about that platform is because there are some meaningful counterfeit issues out there that again going back to the difficulties of manufacturing that merchants are having to face that weren't really as much of an issue two, three years ago. Mark: That would be interesting to see what happens with that platform. And also I'm going to touch on one last bit of the report here that you spent some time on and that is the impact of politicians and judges and we've covered two areas; we were already talked about tariffs briefly and how many were impacted by that. I think the other big elephant in the room and it's been there for several years and we've talked about it a ton here at Quiet Light Brokerage and that is the FBA Nexus. Do you have Nexus, are you filing those sales taxes in different states, and you still have a very small percentage [inaudible 00:35:49.6] to the speaking of your community that was paying those sales taxes. I think 21% is what I'm seeing is that right? Andrew: Yup that's correct. So the percentage of sellers who have Amazon inventory that is filing for sales tax, [inaudible 00:36:04.0] sales tax in any state that they have “FBA Nexus” whether or not you agree that [inaudible 00:36:10.1] Nexus. Yeah only about a quarter of merchants are submitting sales tax to those states. Mark: And do you have any idea why such a small percentage? I mean obviously nobody wants to pay taxes and that it's a pain to most people. I've run into sellers who make the argument that it's really not—oh there's no legal basis for it. Andrew: I think it's a couple of things. I think one it's it is potentially disputable whether or not and again this is something I need to personally do a deep dive on but from the very—this is where things get dangerous when I talk but from the very little I know I don't know if it's—I don't believe it's that very crystal clear, there's a whole lot of present presidents that said yes this does definitively give you Nexus. And it could be a state by state issue as well. So I think that's part of it. I think the 2nd part of it is thinking about—so because it's a gray area you can have more people who start thinking on a risk basis. What are my risks I submit? What are my risks if I don't? Also relative to the workload because it's not just about the tax; I mean if it was mostly about the tax and the administering this and the managing of it was really easy and you didn't have any you know long term liability or exposure to being audited I think most merchants would say hey it's a little inconvenience but let's go ahead and let's set this up. You can snap your fingers I'll collect the sales tax; it's not a big deal. If it is a federal level it's much easier to do. I think you'd see that number jumped to 25 to 50% plus but that's not the case. Like you've got—it's hard to administer. You potentially open yourself up to dozens, hundreds, maybe even theoretically thousands of different municipalities who can audit you. You run the risk of getting on a sales tax agency's radar to come after you and maybe it wasn't before. So I think those are some of the reasons why people are not exactly thrilled at the thought of jumping in and waving their hand at taxation seasons saying hey here I am I'm not sure if I'm actually legally obligated to do this but come check me out. Mark: I completely get it. I get the risk versus reward analysis and frankly if I were a seller I would probably be among that 75% that's not collecting. Not that that's what I would advise here in my role because I know that if you do want to sell you got to be doing that right. And most buyers are looking at that and saying we want you to be paying those taxes. We don't want that to come back after us [inaudible 00:38:31.9] later on. But I mean from my opinion I think it's pretty legally shaky ground to say that people do have that Nexus. But the best practice from a selling standpoint would be to be filing so we do—I mean that's our default position here at Quiet Light is that you should be filing for sure without a doubt. But I would love to see this resolved within the next few years because it as if Amazon sellers don't have enough things hanging over their head. There's this potential like you said of being audited by the state of California or all of a sudden getting a bill for seven, eight, nine years of tax—what a mess. They need to get it together and figure this part out. Andrew: There's a little bit of encouraging news [inaudible 00:39:16.5] different sales tax issue we're talking about the FBA Nexus tax issue but the wayfarer versus South Dakota Supreme Court case that opened up the doors for states to tax inbound orders to their residents even if you don't have Nexus in the state as a whole opened up a whole other can of worms. And California I believe just passed some legislation that increases the threshold for—I think that the term for that is economic Nexus. They bumped that up meaningfully to half a million when before it was really low at like 100,000 and 200 transactions. So there's a little bit of encouraging news on some of that fronts and I believe there's been maybe half a dozen other states that either followed suit or are in process of doing that but its sales tax right now in the United States is just an absolute disaster. And I agree with you, I think we really need something at the federal level to clean it up because it's just a nightmare. I know people and I know you have to Mark that have sold their business not entirely based on but this definitely was a large part of the calculation thinking through I don't want to deal with this. I don't want to deal with the stress. I don't know with the liability and this is making business harder than it needs to be and I'm ready to be done. Mark: Yeah absolutely. Alright, we got to get to the most important metric that you've got and then wrap this up because we're actually long already with the episode. And you know what it is, it's your KPI the thing that you're focusing on the most. And in the past, you've learned stuff about your community rather be attacked by a swarm of angry bees and a bear and you say that they're crazy. I don't know the bear sounds pretty scary. But this year you asked what luxury gift would you pick; unlimited use of a private jet, $300,000 in annual income, a monthly lunch with anyone, or a tropical island and a house. So that 300k of annual income is that like forever? Andrew: That's forever. Yeah and I think overly weighted this one. I should have been all stench here with the annual annuity that you got because 2/3 of people picked the 300k income which yeah it's hard to argue against that. That's a pretty sweet little set up for life but like 10% picked the jet, about 13% picked the monthly lunch with anyone. That was my pick. I think like you can—I mean to be able to sit down once a month with the likes of U.S. presidents, heads of state, Nobel Prize winners. I mean you can't buy that. I think that'd be cool. Mark: Do you have to buy lunch? Andrew: You do. I should have included that. That was probably what the deal breaker was. Mark: Right. Because it's got to be a pretty nice lunch if you're going to have lunch with these guys. You're not just going down on like [inaudible 00:41:45.4]. Andrew: That's a good point. And then the last one was a tropical house, about 30% of people picked that. But yeah I mean to me this is I feel like it's going to a cornerstone—I suppose we can lead with this one actually Mark. I think next time maybe we mix things around and lead off of the Kardashian performance. Mark: You like to always put the best content at the end so that people will listen all the way to the end. Because where would your day be today if you hadn't learned that most people would take 300k annual income over a monthly lunch with anyone. I actually think you make a pretty valid point there. That would be pretty valuable. You can't buy a monthly lunch with anyone. That'd be tough. Andrew: Buffet—I think you could buy lunch with Buffett for—I don't know it's in the millions I think to have lunch with him. And he's just—I can imagine he's a pretty cool cat but yeah to build it up monthly with anyone; that's pretty cool. Mark: Yeah that is pretty cool. Alive and dead? Andrew: No, I don't think—I think it has to be alive. I didn't put that in there. If we had some inane abilities to be able to resurrect people, that would be pretty sweet. I'd put that in there too. I probably would have bumped it up a touch but I don't know, that 300k was pretty [inaudible 00:42:53.4] people. People like their cash. Mark: I think I could probably make 300k a year with some inane abilities. I'd be like one of those fortune tellers but I'm pretty sure I could spin that off into a pretty desk. Andrew: I know you could too. Mark: Hey thanks so much for coming on; tons of really good information. Go check out eCommerceFuel.com and the State of the Merchant Report. We will link to it in the show notes. We will be sending out an email to every one of our subscribers here on this. If you're not a member of the community are you taking applications right now Andrew? Andrew: We are. Yes, we are. Mark: Okay. If you're not a member of the eCommerceFuel community and you are an e-commerce seller you definitely need to check them out. I don't recommend a lot of groups. I don't recommend a lot of people or sites. We do so very stingily here at Quiet Light Brokerage but eCommerceFuel is one of our favorite groups out there. So please do check them out. Anything you'd like to end with Andrew? Andrew: No. I think that maybe two quick things; one if you want to check out the report directly its eCommerceFuel.com/2019-report that'll link you right to it. And then if you happen to be a podcast listener which I'm guessing you are, we also do a weekly podcast, sometimes twice a week on e-commerce, e-commerce news, store owners, kind of cutting edge just whatever is happening in the e-commerce world and strategy. That comes out weekly as well so if you're interested in that you can check that out [inaudible 00:44:15.2]. Mark: Yeah and you guys also sent out really good emails. I know we talked about email marketing and there's not a lot of people I feel add value to my inbox. I think you guys do a great job of adding value to my inbox. So definitely check out the community, check out the podcast and the report. And once again Andrew thanks for coming on. I look forward to having you on next year for the 2020 State of the Merchant Report. Andrew: Yeah. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it. It's always fun to come on and great work with what you guys are doing in the online space with businesses. It's always fun to talk and I appreciate the invite. Links and Resources: Andrew's website State of the Merchant 2019 Andrew's Podcast

Kelly and Andrew explore the influence of the planets in their lives and the lives of their clients. Sharing ideas about Uranus moving into Taurus. They also talk about the possibilities and limits of resolving challenges with more difficult placements. They also laugh a lot! 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 Spotofy, RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. You can follow Kelly's work here.  Andrew's fundraiser is located here or using andrew@thehermitslamp.com to send money via PayPal or transfer.  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.  Transcript  ANDREW: [00:00:02] Welcome to The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I'm hanging out today with Kelly Surtees, who is an astrologer, and someone that I've known for, you know, at least a decade, I'd say now a bit longer. And [00:00:17] their approach is really interesting to me because they're super smart about what they do, but they have a great sense of humor about it as well. You know, there's a way in which they seem [00:00:32] to me to continue to laugh and enjoy life and all of those things even when talking about intellectual stuff or hard stuff or whatever and I think that that's a trait that I super admire and [00:00:47] try and kind of hold in myself as I go through all of life's ups and downs and so on. But you know, hey Kelly, for people who don't know you, why don't you introduce yourself? Who are you?  KELLY: Hey Andrew, well, I'm Australian, which might be obvious now [00:01:02] that I started talking. I married a Canadian and so I live, currently, just outside Toronto, but I'm an astrologer, probably what people are more curious about, and I've been an astrologer full-time professionally for nearly 20 years, [00:01:17] so it has been my life's work.  I came to astrology very young, not because anyone in my family was interested in astrology, but because I was, and I started learning the basics when I was 10, 11 years old, back [00:01:32] in Sydney where it was a lot warmer than where we are now, and carried on with my sort of personal exploration. It was style of astrology through my teenage years and then in my early twenties, I actually signed up to do a massage therapy [00:01:47] training course and the college I was studying at in Sydney offered an astrology training program, which just had never occurred to me was a thing. So that's kind of how I got started, and what I do today is, I work with clients and students around the world, [00:02:02] I do one-on-one consults in astrology, but primarily what I'm doing more and more of these days is teaching the next generation of astrologists through my online training programs.  ANDREW: Amazing. So before we, before we were recording [00:02:17] here, we started kind of talking about astrology and we were talking about the history and the way in which sort of history and tradition and sort of practice all flow together, and I think that I'd [00:02:32] love to kind of try and pick that up and talk about that a little bit, right?  KELLY: Yeah.  ANDREW: You know, what, where did your, where did your astrology start? Like what kind of, did you start out studying older forms? Did you, did you...? KELLY: Absolutely not. Not, I started with a [00:02:47] very modern psychological astrology, which was hugely popular in the 80s and 90s, like 1980s, 1990s. I started studying astrology in the late 1990s. And yeah, just had a very, [00:03:02] I would say, a very modern introduction to psychological, almost evolutionary, components in astrology. And that was great, it got me started got me into my practice, and it was when I attended my first astrology conference, which was the FAA [00:03:17] conference in Melbourne, I think in 2004, that I was lucky enough to hear people like Demetra George, John Frawley, and Lee Lehman speak, who are very well respected astrologers who all practice slightly different forms of mediaeval [00:03:32] or traditional astrology, and connecting with those teachers really aroused my interest in things like, where did some of these things we use in astrology come from? Like who first created the houses, for instance? Or why is [00:03:47] this planet associated with the things that it is associated with? So yeah, I would say within, you know, the first five years of starting my practice, that had become a real interest for me and that was like going down the rabbit hole.  ANDREW: Yeah, for [00:04:02] sure. I think that there's, there's always this question about that kind of stuff for me, which is really like, where, how far down do we go? KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: You know, starting, starting out for me, you know my interest in astrology [00:04:17] came out of you know, studying Aleister Crowley and studying his magical systems. And so, you know, it was a lot of magic and ideas around the inner planets predominantly, you know. KELLY: Yes. ANDREW: And you know, and sort [00:04:32] of like working with that and looking at that as a magical model and so on. But you know, as you start digging in and you start looking back, you're like: Okay. Well, where does that come from? And what is that? How far does that go? What, where is the source from which that wisdom [00:04:47] comes from? You know? And I think it's such a, such an interesting and challenging question to kind of slide into, you know?  KELLY: It's a huge question, because it, you know, something… To try and answer that for astrology [00:05:02] takes you back to the origins of philosophy, to the origins of mathematics, you know, things like wondering why we've associated a particular physical thing or phenomenon with a certain emotional experience [00:05:17] or a certain philosophical construct. So when you dive into these origin stories, if you like, of some of the magical practices, you are almost going back to the dawn of human thought and human ideas and that can [00:05:32] be a very broad research project, because then you're not just learning explicitly about the origins of astrology. You're actually reading, you know, ancient philosophers, and you might be reading some of the original mathematicians to get a sense on why [00:05:47] they did what they did and where they were coming from.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think it's so important to also try and understand, it's not just about what they said, which is certainly important. But it's also, [00:06:02] what were they? What were they thinking? How were they thinking about it too? Right? Because you know, like in a divination class that I've been taking with one of my elders, we were discussing how, you know, a hundred and fifty years ago, [00:06:18] the scope of life's experiences, that we needed to speak about in divination, were equally complex probably on the human front, but on the practical fronts, were much narrower in some ways, you know? The range [00:06:33] of human experience and the range of things we have access to is so different. And then you know, when we go back to, like, what was it like in ancient Greece and what was it like in, you know, here, there, or wherever, you know? Yeah, it's hard to even, I think, understand [00:06:48] exactly how they considered certain things.  KELLY: Yeah. That's a . . . That's a really great point. I mean, two topics that come to my mind. One of them is, in the older literature on astrology, there's a lot of questions and a lot of detail around dealing with [00:07:03] ships and dealing with crops. So there's a lot of, you know, what indicates shipwreck? Or is my ship going to come in? And that seems a bit weird to a modern person, because why are they so obsessed with ships? But then you have to remind yourself that [00:07:18] many, many hundreds and thousands of years ago, ships were actually the primary form of transport. We didn't have trains or planes or obviously automobiles... ANDREW: Yeah. KELLY: And just to your point there, you do kind of have to almost put yourself back into: What was life like, two [00:07:33] thousand, two and a half thousand years ago, when things like crops were more likely to perhaps fail, water quality was a massive issue because that obviously led to the spread of disease or illness, life expectancy [00:07:48] was shorter, things like pregnancy were life threatening, in many cases, for women, and many more babies died, you know, in the first 12 months of their life then do today with modern medicine. So a lot of the questions and a lot of the, their life, if [00:08:03] you like, just to almost give a superficial summary, they lived a lot more, closer to the line of life and death than what we do today. And one of the kind of attacks against older forms of astrology is that it's so fated, you know, [00:08:18] and it's so deterministic, but the intention was to try and give clearer answers about really meaningful topics that were, you know, more touch-and-go than what they might be today.  ANDREW: So where [00:08:33] do you, where do you fall on the sort of fated spectrum of things?  KELLY: Oh, this is a really good question. And I've thought about it because it does come up. I have any . . . . ANDREW: Yeah!  KELLY: Over the years. There's a beautiful quote. I think it's by Albertus Magnus, [00:08:48] who says something like, actually, maybe instead of bastardizing it. That's how you know, you're an absolute asteroid nerd, that you have books like this handy, [00:09:03] because there's, he has a beautiful quote that I kind of . . . . When I first discovered this quote, however many years ago, it really helped me clarify my own answer to the fate versus free will argument. So he says, "There is in [00:09:18] man a double spring of action, namely nature and the will, and nature for its part is ruled by the stars, while the will is free. But unless it, the will, resists, it is swept along by nature and becomes [00:09:33] mechanical."  And that idea, like fate is sort of your, your nature, or what's kind of ruled by the stars, and the free will to my mind is our very human thinking, you know, application of effort, and I've seen [00:09:48] this in chart work with clients and students over the years now, enough that I know it to be true. That your birth chart might be, if it's almost like a map of your fate and if you do nothing, if you just allow the fate to manifest freely and purely, [00:10:03] it can give very clear sense of this area of life flows, and that's where you have success, and this area of life is where you're going to hit blocks after blocks. But if you choose to apply your free will, I'm not saying that anyone can make anything [00:10:18] happen because I don't actually believe that's true.  ANDREW: Sure. KELLY: But I do think that there are certain topics, as indicated by the chart, where the application of one's effort, aka free will, can move the needle from completely dissatisfying [00:10:33] to perhaps somewhat satisfying or maybe from somewhat satisfying to more fulfilling. There are some topics in some charts that that have a bit of a firm no and that sort of response. So I do think we [00:10:48] have free will within a scope, if that makes sense.  ANDREW: Yeah.  KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: Yeah, I think people come--because I do predictive card reading, right? KELLY: Yes. ANDREW: People are always like, where does, where's my free will? Like, [00:11:03] you know? Or they're like, well, just tell me how it's going to be. I'm like, well, in this case, it's a free will issue. How do you want it to be? In this case it's not a free will issue. You know? KELLY: Yeah, I think that's, that's a beautiful way of describing it. I mean, I've looked and worked with clients over the years and I've beautifully been blessed to have [00:11:18] a couple of clients allow me to share some of their chart work in my teaching. But I have a handful of clients who have been single their whole lives, and whatever they have tried or not tried or maybe they haven't even been interested. The topic of relationships [00:11:33] has simply not come alive for them. And there are ways to see things like that in the chart, and then there are other charts where it's like, there are some challenges here, but if you put the effort in, you got to be able to get a little bit more. But I like how you summarized [00:11:48] it there, that there are some topics that are kind of fated, and a little bit out of our hands and there are others where it's like, you can move the needle on this, if you desire it enough. Yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah. I often think of [00:12:03] it this way: You know, so, we live on a planet with seven point whatever billion people.  KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: All of those people are seeking to exert their free will.  KELLY: Yes. ANDREW: However, you know, everybody is to a greater or lesser extent [00:12:18] acting based on culture, which is, which is a force that, you know, if it's internalized and not undone, you know, it's just like fate, right? You know, like the cultural bias or cultural experiences or cultural expectations, [00:12:33] right? KELLY: Even family conditioning.  ANDREW: Right? Well, that was going to be the next thing, right? Like, you know, our baggage, our personal baggage, right? And then we're, so, we're not only trying to exert free will, but we're trying to exert free will into the sphere where everybody else is exerting [00:12:48] those forces and maybe some degree of their own free will, and then there's some amount of chaos in the system, and then there's some fixed points, and it's like, so how much, how free is that free will? And I think, you know, maybe it's, you know, [00:13:03] as we're talking about it, I think it's a carryover from my time being so focused on Crowley's kind of magic of cultivating the will and building the capacity, you know, in the way that that quote talks about, right? Like, you know, it's like, how [00:13:18] free can we become from those things? The answer is, never free.  KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: Fully. But like, we can create a lot more space and in many areas of our life, maybe we can create a lot more space so that then we can kind of act, choose, [00:13:33] or discover where we are aligned better maybe? You know?  KELLY: Yeah, and I think that's a huge part of any type of magical healing work, whether it's astrology or tarot, or other ritual practices. One of the things that [00:13:48] Dimetra George said in this very first conference years ago, which has stuck with me, she described that it's partly the astrologist's job to help the client understand the areas of their life that are most likely indicated flowing [00:14:03] fulfillment, and the areas of their life that are less likely to give a reward or sense of satisfaction relevant to the amount of effort that they might put in, and I think that's, you know, sort [00:14:18] of, to what you're speaking about here--We're speaking about. We can influence certain things to a certain extent, but you made a great point, like the 7 billion people, all trying to influence certain things. We [00:14:33] can't all get everything. It's just, it's not the way things are built. I won't have as many children as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, no matter how hard I try, that's just not part of my experience, [00:14:48] and other people might be like, but I want, you know, the wealth of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or what have you and like, that's not, you know, so part of our work is to help guide people. Like you might think that you want these things. It doesn't really bring you fulfillment. Like there is an exploration [00:15:03] around the self-awareness, self-knowing, like knowing the self and moving beneath some of the things that we think we want, to get in touch with the things that really make us all come alive.  ANDREW: For sure. Yeah and I know for me too, you [00:15:18] know, like because I spent a lot of time, especially magically, but you know, definitely in other ways too, kind of working to counterbalance the, you know, tendencies in my chart or the things that are more problematic there.  KELLY: Yeah.  ANDREW: But even [00:15:33] at that, you know, like, you know, like my placement of Saturn is just, you know, it's a it's a recurrent point of friction for me. And that's probably never going to change. I can see it coming. I can see it coming more now. I [00:15:48] can have better strategies for dealing with it when it kind of like, brings up its thing. I can make some degree of better choices in advance. But you know, it's sort of, it's a, it's a, it's in a place where it [00:16:03] just kind of continuously causes a certain kind of friction in my life. And you know, the reality is, it's like, well, I've just got to roll with that, I've just got to accept that, and I've got to learn to to see it and roll with it and move through [00:16:18] it and to not hold onto it. And, and even kind of at this point, you know, I used to think that I would eventually kind of like learn the lesson of that position and and be free of it in a sense, and I've even caught a move past that where I'm like, [00:16:33] I don't even think that-- I'm sure there are lessons that I will continue to learn about it.  KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: But I think that, that that's also a wrong idea. I think that, you know, stuff like, some of the aspects are just about straight up acceptance, you know, and just be like, look [00:16:48] at that. That's just the way it's going to be. Stop hoping it's going to be different.  KELLY: Yeah.  ANDREW: And then see what changes, you know?  KELLY: Well, that is a really powerful piece. I mean, it reminds me of people who are like, I wish I was taller or I wish I was shorter or I wish I had, you know, different, [00:17:03] I mean, you can probably change your hair or your boobs or what have you, but it's very hard to change your height. You know, it just, you are either a tall person or a short person for the most part, and these-- You just have to work with it. You know, I'm a tall person. I'm 5'10". [00:17:18] I'm like a hundred and seventy eight centimeters or something. And you know, when you're a teenager, you hate that, because everybody, you can't hide in a crowd, people see, but you know, as an older woman or a more mature woman, it's lovely. I can carry a little bit of extra weight and [00:17:33] nobody knows, kind of thing.  So my relationship to that fixed thing in me has changed over time and that's kind of, what you're speaking to here is that there are certain parts of our self and our psyche that we do have to [00:17:48] kind of just accept and it's what, the piece that I got really excited about, that you said, is what if I stop mentally and energetically and emotionally resisting this thing that is one way that I so desperately wish was another way? [00:18:03] If I just breathed out and allowed myself to acknowledge and accept, you know, I always have to be vigilant about money or about sexual interactions or about career, whatever it happens to be, based on, you know, you mentioned your [00:18:18] Saturn, someone else might have a problem with their Mars. You know, if you just kind of go into an acceptance place with it, the freeing up of energy and emotional power that you have been using to try and force back on that is incredibly liberating and when you take [00:18:33] that energy and you apply it to, you know, a talent or a skill, the idea of enhancing the good, you can radically change your life, not because you made that problem thing be anything other than what it was, but because you stopped [00:18:48] giving it all your focus. And you put your focus on to something that actually has, you know, some potential to take you in a more fulfilling direction. ANDREW: For sure. And I think that that's, I mean, that's one of the reasons why, going and sitting with an astrologer, [00:19:03] if you're not, you know, or learning it yourself is so helpful because there are aspects, you know. I mean, you brought up Mars, right? You know, I mean, I've Mars in Aries, I was a very angry young person, you know, and I have a, I have, when [00:19:18] it emerges, a very very bad temper. KELLY: Yes. ANDREW: But it's not that much of an issue any more. I mean, I still need to be mindful of it. But that one has been way more amenable to management and modification than [00:19:33] other aspects of my chart, because, because of its nature, maybe because of my nature, probably, because of its placement, and so on. So. There are those things where it's great and you can kind of turn them into an advantage. I mean it's part of what fuels my drive to do [00:19:48] what I do around work, right? Like I have a lot of energy, a lot of the time, and so I can do a lot of work and run the shop and do all those things. You know, whereas other people are always like, how do you do so much? I'm like, I've got Mars in Aries. I've just got gas in the tank. It just keeps going? You know? [00:20:03]  KELLY: Yeah, you're the Energizer bunny, it just keeps going and going. I mean, what we're kind of alluding to here is something that comes to us from the Hellenistic astrology, form of astrology, that has to do with sect, which is S-E-C-T. Which kind of divides [00:20:18] charts into daytime or nighttime. Very simply based on the time of day that you were born. Then this working theory is that if you're born in the daytime, Saturn is going to be a little bit more helpful or productive for you and Mars a little bit more problematic. [00:20:33] And if you're born at night time, the reverse is true. Where in the nighttime, the cool of night tends to calm the heat of Mars, so you tend to get less sharp Mars problems. And in the nighttime, the cool of the night exacerbates [00:20:48] the kind of curmudgeonly Scrooge-like energy of Saturn, so you tend to get more of a harsher Saturn.  ANDREW: Sure. Yeah.  KELLY: In a nutshell. I don't know if that rings true for you, personally Andrew, but...  ANDREW: Definitely, I was born at 9:30 at night. So.  KELLY: Yeah, that was going [00:21:03] to be my question to you, just based on the fact that you seem to really like-- I mean, your Mars is placed in one of its home signs in Aries, and that also is a way of getting a little bit more of the positive potential. The other thing you're talking about too, though, is we are all hotter [00:21:18] as energetic beings in our youth, and if we have Mars problems, they will tend to be worse in our teenage years or in our 20s.  ANDREW: Sure.  KELLY: And then the aging process, where we cool and slow, just biologically, that does [00:21:33] temper some of the Mars problems. The reverse is true for Saturn, though. Saturn problems can sometimes be something we do have to carry with us, even as we age, because the nature of aging tends to kind of stimulate more Saturnian type manifesting.  ANDREW: When [00:21:48] you talked about the, the coolness at night exacerbating, you know, Saturn.  KELLY: Saturn... ANDREW: Yeah, I've had this image of like, oh, it's chilly, and my knee hurts cause it's cold now, and oh.... [laughing] You know, it's just like, oh, man, such a Saturn image, right? KELLY: Yeah, to have sore knees, or a sore back, and it's worse in the winter, because winter is like exacerbating Saturnian qualities as does nighttime. Yeah. I mean [00:22:16] there is a positive reversal here, which is that Venus and Jupiter, considered the two benefic planets, people born in the daytime tend to have more Jupiter type gifts or talents, because the [00:22:31] heat of Jupiter is really conducive to the heat of day time. Whereas Venus is more of a moist cool planet, generally speaking, and she really comes to the fore in the evening. So if you're born at night time after the sunset or before the Sun has [00:22:46] risen, and obviously daytime and nighttime is different depending on season and time of year and birth location. So-- ANDREW: Sure. KELLY: ....being born at 9:30 at night, if you're born in Europe in July, you might still be a daytime baby, because it's a very [00:23:01] late sunset, but if you're born at 9:30 at night in January or February in Canada, you're definitely a nighttime baby though. ANDREW: For sure.  KELLY: Yeah. You do, you get like a specific type of problem, depending [00:23:16] on whether you're born in the daytime or nighttime, and then you get a planet that is giving you, you know, Venus is, can be, more creative or more relationship-oriented and that's nighttime gifts. Jupiter is more about that wisdom and teaching and inspiration and motivation and that's more [00:23:31] of a daytime gift. I mean, you have to look at the planet in the chart as well. I mean...   ANDREW: For sure.  KELLY: You'd want the Jupiter or the Venus to be in a nice sign or making a great aspect. Yeah, but that's, I don't know just when you were talking about your problem with Saturn, I'm like, I feel [00:23:46] like you must be born at nighttime because this is very-- ANDREW: For sure. Yep. My parents remember exactly what time I was born, because my dad was watching Hockey Night in Canada, which was on a Monday, [00:24:01] and you know, whatever right? Like he's like, there's like a very specific set of things that we associate around that, the memories around that, so they're like, there's no question about what time you were born, you know?  KELLY: I love birth stories like that. Yeah. That's fantastic. ANDREW: Yeah, for sure.  KELLY: So yeah, so this [00:24:16] is my guess, we got here, I'm like, how did we get here, fate versus free will and what's in the chart? And [24:24 not quite clear] really amazing.  ANDREW: Yeah, I definitely think so. So, I'm also very interested, because I've been following along [00:24:31] what's going on in the stars these days, even though, even though it sort of, on a personal level, astrology has shifted away from what was at one point a more professional folks into a more just kind of personal curiosity. You know, I got really curious [00:24:46] about: we have this big shift into into Taurus right now, right?  KELLY: We do.   KELLY: Big energy. KELLY: We're recording this just as Uranus, like a big explosive volcanic planet, has moved into Taurus, which is the most [00:25:01] fixed stubborn stable sign in the Zodiac. There's a real contradiction, if you like, in the symbolic imagery here, Uranus loves to shake things up. It literally is like earthquakes and volcanoes and lightning strikes and [00:25:16] Uranus is like the farmer in the field. He's just plowing year after year, so this is a huge-- We're starting this new kind of seven to eight year cycle that is going to radically reshape society, [00:25:31] culture, and individually, each of our lives as well.  ANDREW: Yeah, it's been, it's been interesting to watch sort of-- In my orbit, there's been a lot of people who've had a very [00:25:46] sort of disruptive shift go on in the last kind of, you know, like in the last few weeks, really, kind of you know, and it's sort of like, we're going along, I'm going this way. Oh, wait, what the hell am I doing? No, I'm [00:26:01] going to go this other way, you know? And it's such a, such an interesting shift to watch happen, you know, and to sort of, and also to try and roll with it, you know, because it's been-- A bunch of that's had an impact on me as well. So it's always, it's really [00:26:16] interesting to see it's going on everywhere. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna keep my eyes open, could be anywhere now, because it's the other thing about it. KELLY:  Well, that's-- I was talking about this with a client earlier this week, and they had something in, their chart is being activated by [00:26:31] Uranus, they're a little bit resistant as you know, everyone with planets. So if I back up a second, Uranus is moving into Taurus, so it is activating anyone with planets in the sign of Taurus, but the way the planetary aspect patterns [00:26:46] or energetic patterns work, while Uranus is in Taurus, it will also have a fairly dramatic impact on the other fixed modality signs, which include Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. So those four signs, Taurus, Leo, [00:27:01] Scorpio, and Aquarius are all quite activated but it does get a little more technical than that in the sense that Uranus moves quite slowly. And so we actually had a taste of Uranus in Taurus in 2018 between [00:27:16] May and November, but Uranus was only activating the first one or two degrees of Taurus in 2018.  This year in 2019, Uranus is going to activate all the way up to the first six degrees of Taurus. So [00:27:31] for people who might be familiar with their birth chart. Very specifically, if you have a planet between zero and six degrees of any of the fixed signs, so taught, you know, you could have, could be four Leo Well, three Scorpio or two Aquarius or five Taurus. [00:27:46] They're all getting that Uranus transit. And I was talking, I had a client this week who fell in that category, and they were very sort of resistant around: What if I don't want to make this change? what if I'm not ready to make this change? And [00:28:01] I kind of laughed because having worked with, you know, Uranus for many years, here is an indicator of that major kind of upheaval and change that leads to new freedoms and Independence. You know the Uranus change has a purpose, it leads [00:28:16] to new freedom, it leads to new authenticity, it leads to Independence. But if it's coming, it means that the shake-up, the time for the shake-up is now. And it can definitely surprise you.  And I have a personal story where last [00:28:31] summer in the northern summer, I was very frustrated with where we were living. I just had sort of done 10 years in a little small town and I was just a bit restless and bored, and what's next? and when can we go and live near the ocean again? And [00:28:46] and so my husband and I had some really big talks over the summer, and we pulled it apart, his career really has him here, and we came up with a plan by the end of the summer, this was all while Uranus was in Taurus, where we would move to the West Coast in two [00:29:01] years time, when he would retire. And I was like, that's great. You know, it wasn't as soon as I wanted, but it was sooner than he wanted. So we did that lovely relationship compromise and then like a month later, he came home and said, there's a job in [00:29:16] a whole other part of the world, that I think I'm going to apply for, and I was like, okay, well just apply and see, and anyway, long story short, it took a few months. There's a lot of interview processes and we found out that he's accepted the job and we're now going to be moving [00:29:31] literally in the opposite direction to where we thought we were going to move and that's how Uranus works. I felt the energy of being restless and bored and we started doing our lovely logical human brainstorming about how we could come up [00:29:46] with a practical plan and Uranus is like, you're on the right track, but I want to throw a few surprises into the mix, and so here's an unexpected out of the blue wild idea. Do you guys want to say yes to this? And we did. And that's [00:30:01] so what you're saying, Andrew, it works like almost scanning. Where is this Uranus thing coming from, even when you know to expect the unexpected, Uranus can still surprise you and you know, give you those curve balls. They can be very exciting and very liberating [00:30:16] but they will not be what you had thought.  ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. I feel like my experience so far of this energy is that I was thinking that I would be doing a lot more traveling and teaching over the coming while?  KELLY: Yep! [00:30:31]  ANDREW: And the shift in energy and the shift in circumstance over the last little bit and like right around now has, has gotten me canceling most of my travel plans, and being like, you know what, I think that, I think that what I [00:30:46] need to actually do is focus more on creation and focus more on like, sort of deepening the, the foundation of the store, and, and my work in regards to that, as opposed [00:31:01] to the sort of like, I'm going to go around and teach all over the place, which I love but it's like, it's like, no, that, that's not where you're going right now, and I'm like, all right.  KELLY: Yeah.  ANDREW: Fair enough.  KELLY: So did you have a relatively quick kind of you know, I set up [00:31:16] this schedule and then just a few months later, kind of changing it and reshaping things?  ANDREW: Yeah. I mean, it's really, some of the stuff has been set up for a while, but it's yeah, there's just been a bunch of projects and ideas that have been on the table that, that, [00:31:33] you know, starting, starting about, well really, starting at the start of this year, you know, sort of. So, I mean, I got divorced last year, and then, so I've been, you know, sort of like living separately now for about four [00:31:48] months by the time this goes live and I was just realizing that a) I'm kind of tired because it's been a lot, right? KELLY: Yeah. That's a lot to process, yeah. ANDREW: So there's that. B) My entire day to day living [00:32:03] situation has changed, you know, I have my kids half the time, you know, all my other work life tries to live in that sort of compressed other half time.  KELLY: Yep, three or four days a week.  ANDREW: Yeah, and, you know, and there's a lot more, oh, a [00:32:19] lot more, there's a lot of kind of running around that's a part of my life, you know, especially as my kids get bigger.  KELLY: Yes. ANDREW: You know, they're not big enough to be... KELLY: All the driving. The driving.  ANDREW: Yeah, or you know or like, taking them around, I mean, we live downtown so, you know, but they're, they're cool [00:32:34] to go. The older one's cool to go places they know, but if they're going anywhere new, they need us to take them, you know? KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: So, it's like, all right, everybody's on the bus. Let's go here. Let's go there. Let's do whatever, right? KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: And, and so all of those changes just made me realize [00:32:49] that, you know, I needed to kind of shift back to reassess my actual energies and that I also needed to kind of look at what's, [00:33:04] what am I what am I doing? And what am I hoping to get out of it? And does it make sense from that space, right? And so there are a bunch of things that I've been doing where, like, from a practical point of view, they seem like [00:33:19] they make sense but maybe more from an emotional point of view, I'm, I have some other agenda for being there that's not being met? KELLY: Yes. ANDREW: Around the growth of my career, around, you know, interconnection with people, around a bunch of different stuff, right? And once [00:33:34] I realized that discrepancy... And I was like, okay, so all of these things where I have an unofficial agenda, that's really my actual agenda, that is not in alignment with doing these things, I should stop that, you know? And, and [00:33:49] a lot of the travel was sort of geared around some of that stuff, right, you know, fun, escape, you know, status, whatever, I'm like, none of those things matter that much ultimately and if I want to have fun I should just go have fun. And if I want to like [00:34:04] escape, I should like, take a day off work and go do something, but like, traveling to go work somewhere else is not a way to accomplish those things, you know? KELLY: Yeah. Yeah. ANDREW: So.  KELLY: So this is great because it sounds like you're coming into a deeper sense of what [00:34:19] is authentic and real and right for you. And that's, you know, the whole pathway of Uranus is that it is, it awakens us, if you like, to things that might have been latent or forgotten or neglected, but the [00:34:34] chaos or the upheaval of of changing things is a really critical part. It's like there's almost a dare, a cosmic dare, you know, if you would like this level of authenticity, how much are you prepared to change in your life that's kind of on the fake end of [00:34:49] the spectrum, to really sit in that deeper sense of self.  ANDREW: Yeah. For sure, yeah, it corresponds with sort of a drive that I've been feeling as well. Like there are lots of parts of my life that I haven't [00:35:04] been public about. I mean, I haven't been secretive about them, but I haven't been like super public about them either? KELLY: Yeah.  ANDREW: And you know, so like, you know, being a polyamorous individual. It's a thing that people, if they know me, know about me, but it's not a thing that [00:35:19] I've sort of historically, you know, broadcast per se, right?  KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: But also, I've been feeling like that's something that I wanted to change and so I actually recorded an episode, the episode previous to this is about poly, [00:35:34] polyamory and love and spirituality, you know, and so it's like, it's also that, right? Like what are the risks you're willing to take, right? What's, what are you willing to put in? How much discomfort are you, are you able to engage to get that authenticity? Right?  KELLY: [00:35:49] Well, and this is the key, is that there is some discomfort and that's a really beautiful way. Like what risks, what are you prepared to lose, or put on the line so that you can be more authentic? Are you prepared for people to maybe judge [00:36:04] you a little bit because you're owning your stuff? And Uranus is really correlated with things that are counter cultural or might be defined against society's norms as a little unconventional or atypical.  ANDREW: Yeah. KELLY: I always [00:36:19] think about Uranus in Taurus is like just letting your freak show out, like fly your flag, basically. We all have parts of ourselves--  ANDREW: Yeah. KELLY: That are a bit weird and a bit odd or bit unusual and when [00:36:35] Uranus shows up and really starts, because the last eight years we had Uranus in Aries. So there was a very specific type of Uranus vibration going on. And what I would say is, for most people, the last eight years brought a lot of that chaos [00:36:50] and call to authenticity. The next eight years probably won't be as strong for you, just because, you know, if you are activated by the areas or the cardinal sign piece, you may not have as much fixed signs, you know, in your life, but there is always a risk. There's always a level like [00:37:05] Uranus is like, how can you let the part of you that feels like a black sheep be more on display more of the time, you know, if you think you're wearing red when everyone else is wearing white, how can you embrace that part of you? So. ANDREW: Yeah.  KELLY: It's wild, I mean and Uranus [00:37:20] in Taurus has some pretty specific collective themes that I think we're going to see as well. I don't know if you looked into those.  ANDREW: Well, I'm, I listen to you and Chris and... KELLY: Austin. [00:37:35]  ANDREW: Austin, I was going to say Aidan, and I'm like, no Aidan is a person who's on my podcast, Austin, on The Astrology Podcast where you do a-- It's a great thing, you should go check it out. There's lots of good stuff about it. The episodes that I listen to are [00:37:50] the sort of monthly forecast episodes where the three of you discuss what's coming and so, you know, I heard the discussions about, about that and the other elements, you know, that sort of tie it into maybe a bunch of economic change and other stuff [00:38:05] that might be coming. So, but yeah, if you want to share some of that I would love to hear it here too.  KELLY: Yeah, I just thought, I mean, I always love the personal because I really love working at the individual level, but I know, people are often interested in the collective. So, the last time we had Uranus in Taurus was from about the mid [00:38:20] 1930s to the early 1940s. So we did have Uranus, I just to give people some context, Uranus is in Taurus about every 84 years. So we had that period early in the 20th century and then the time previous to that was like 1850s [00:38:35] kind of mutant 19th century and some of the things that happened globally in one or another of those periods, the mid-1850s, mid-nineteenth century period, was the gold rush, where we had this idea of like mining, [00:38:50] literally blowing up parts of the earth, which is Taurus. The blowing up part is Uranus, and we would, people were discovering gold or precious metals from the land, so there is definitely an environmental component to Uranus in Taurus, around [00:39:05] what are we doing to the land, the environment? What kind of an impact does that have, is it having?  Unfortunately, you know, there may be some innovation in how the land is created or mind or what have you that may not be, that may be destructive [00:39:20] initially. So I'm not saying it's all perfect in that 1930s, early 1940s period: food, manufacturing, really, took off. A lot of what we call sort of modern food manufacturing, the food technologies were really developed [00:39:35] then. Some of those were fantastic and some of those things were relatively quickly proved to be actually quite dangerous. So, you know, every innovation that comes through around safe food, whether it's food production, food cloning, food [00:39:50] development, that type of thing, some of them are going to be great, that we'll want to keep around and others, you just, keep your wits about you but-- The other thing that's really different: Taurus is a feminine sign. It's ruled by Venus and it tends to be associated with [00:40:05] feminine type archetypes or feminine type people in society. And historically, there have been a lot of technological developments that have freed up women and changed women's roles in society when we've had Uranus in [00:40:20] Taurus.  So things like washing machines or sewing machines or spinning looms have been developed in previous Uranus in Taurus cycles, you know, which was typically sort of woman's work with air quotes. And so, if it would normally take you four hours to [00:40:35] do something by hand and now you can use this, use this gadget and get it done in an hour, it gives you back your time. So there is something about Uranus in terms of freeing up time. And you know, one of the big things in that, the, because the [00:40:50] last time Uranus was in Taurus was through World War II, and one of the changes around sort of gender roles that happened then was so many young men sent away to war in many sort of English and first world societies, at the time, women [00:41:05] were allowed to leave the home and the domestic setting to go and fill some of the working job roles that were previously run by men or taken by men. So women got this taste of their own independence. They tried on different roles. [00:41:20] Of course, you know, the men came back from war and then the women were kind of sent back from the offices to their domestic duties if you like, but those women were the mothers of the women who-- mothers, sometimes grandmothers, [00:41:35] of the women who then really got very involved in the 1960s liberation that went on.  So you can see some of these seeds of larger cyclical change that can come through. So just with Taurus being a [00:41:50] little bit more of a feminine sign ruled by Venus, the sign where the Moon is exalted. So the, two sort of typically feminine planets, nurturing, you know, anything to do with people who identify as feminine and, and whether that creates limits or opportunities [00:42:05] in society, and a lot of stuff I suspect also to do with women and childbirth and child-rearing basically, so there are some really key collective themes that we can keep an eye on.  ANDREW: Yeah. Over the, [00:42:20] well, I think, I think it'll be interesting to see how those play out. I mean, I think that we can easily look at what's gone on in the last few years as setting the stage for that, right? Like the emergence, you know, of the me [00:42:35] too movement, you know, in the spiritual communities, the sort of rise of witchcraft and being a witch and the way in which that empowers the feminine often, you know, in a broader sense of definitely a lot of women in particular senses, [00:42:50] you know, I mean, I think that there's, there's lots of layers where, where I can sort of see that energy being ready for a change on some level, and you know, yeah, we'll see where that is.  KELLY: Yeah. Yeah. I mean and I was saying, you know, [00:43:05] I've said to one client this week, you know, it's the idea of, watch this space. You know, Uranus, we know is going to pave new inroads and new types of innovation, new types of technology, 3D printing is a massive Uranus in Taurus thing, the idea that out of the ethos [00:43:20] we can create material objects, but you know, watch the space, just be open, the Innovations are going to surprise all of us, even those of us that are expecting them.   ANDREW: Well, they always do, right?  KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: They always do. Yeah. Yeah, I was [00:43:35] just thinking the other day about about my cell phone and about, for some reason I was talking about the, back when I had a pager, to my kids, right? And they've never known any of those technologies. And they're like, what do you mean? Like someone would just send you their phone number and then you'd just call them? [00:43:50] And I'm like yeah, that was it worked, you know? And that wasn't that long ago. I mean, it was a while ago now, but it's not that long ago, right?  KELLY: It's just been that, in our lifetime, Andrew. I mean, I don't know, I think you and I are relatively similar ages. Like when I was a kid, we were on a rotary [00:44:05] phone still? ANDREW: For sure. Yeah.  KELLY: Yeah. It's really interesting. Alan Turing, who is a code breaker who worked in England, in Bletchley Park, decoding the German codes, funnily enough in World War II, he was [00:44:21] this mad kind of technological guy. He had a very prominent Uranus in his chart. So he's kind of relevant to what's being talked about. He had this image in the late 1940s. He imagined a day where women would be walking around the park [00:44:36] with their computers in their hand. And that was quite striking to me when I read that because that's essentially what we do these days with our phones. There's so powerful that they are I mean, you can store files and record video and interact [00:44:51] with, you know, people halfway around the world, and the phones we have today are better than the computers of the 50s, basically. So it is phenomenal. ANDREW: I mean, they're better than the computers of our childhood too, right?  KELLY: Well, exactly! Those big... [Traces the shape of a big computer with her hands.]  ANDREW: Think about my  big 20-year, [00:45:06] my early PCs, or whatever, right? I mean, those things, you know, they didn't even have color monitors, you know? KELLY: No! We played black-and-white Pac-Man, basically.  ANDREW: Yeah. Yeah.  KELLY: Yeah, I remember being in like, I don't know grade three or four in primary school and there was [00:45:21] one computer in the classroom and each student, you paired up with a buddy and you each had about 20 minutes, you know, whenever computer time was, and all you did was play games. I guess it was just to familiarize us with the fact that these things existed.  ANDREW: Yeah. [00:45:36]  KELLY: But that's you know, that's the late 80s. That's a while ago now.  ANDREW: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I had a Vic-20 and we, I was very excited, that I would spend like a long time doing programming and then I would run the program and it would like change the screen color. [00:45:51] And it was exciting and exuberant and then I, and then I would record my program onto the data storage unit, which was a cassette tape-- KELLY: Oh, my goodness! ANDREW: And it would like record it onto the cassette tape, right?  KELLY: You could put a computer program on [00:46:06] a cassette tape back then because the-- Oh, my lord.  ANDREW: Because they were so small, right? Like it was just text, right? Yeah. So funny, right?  KELLY: Oh my God. Yeah.  ANDREW: All right. Well now that I feel old. [laughing] KELLY: I know, now that we've made ourselves really feel middle-aged, [00:46:21] nurse? Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be fun, yeah.  ANDREW: So, is there anything else that is coming up that you're, that you're, inspired about?  KELLY: Yeah, there is one thing that [00:46:37] I'm really excited about.  ANDREW: Yeah. KELLY: And this is the great conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn that is happening in December of 2020 in the sign of Aquarius. It's a very nerdy type of timing cycle. It's currently being completely overshadowed on [00:46:52] the astrological airwaves because everybody's focused on the Saturn Pluto conjunction in early...  ANDREW: Sure. KELLY: Which does have, I'm not saying it's not important. I'm just saying, personally, I'm more interested in the Jupiter Saturn. Jupiter and Saturn conjunct every 20 years, [00:47:07] but every couple of hundred years and, well, the thing is, every 20 years, they make these conjunctions in signs of the same element. So we have this elemental, you know, 200-year-cycle, and the conjunction in December [00:47:22] 2020 is really officially the start of the, air grand mutation, if you like. And so the last couple of hundred years, we have had Earth Jupiter Saturn conjunction. So we had a lot of Earth-based focus [00:47:37] collectively. We've had the Industrial Revolution. We've had structured work days. There's been a huge focus on money and mining and accumulation.  And the air period is very much about ideas, movement, and interaction. So that's kicking off [00:47:52] December 2020 for the next 200 years. So for all of us alive now, we are going to witness this massive collective shift over the Air, out of the Earth element that has really governed so much of human experience since the [00:48:07] early 1800s. And we're going to be a witness to this change, which the type of technologies we were just talking about is a huge part of.  The last time we had the Air elemental 200-year period, late 1100s, all [00:48:22] through the 1200s and most of the 1300s. Now, that was actually considered to be sort of the very first start of what then became known as the Renaissance. But in that time frame, we had these weird technologies like paper manufacturing being [00:48:37] perfected. And so the idea with Air is that we're talking about ideas and the dissemination of ideas. Astrology actually went through a massive rebirth in that time period, pre the official Italian Renaissance. And [00:48:52] I think what we're going to see is, ideas or philosophies are going to become more of a focus and they're going to spread more. We're also going to have people moving around a lot more. There was a lot of invasions [00:49:07] that happened in that time frame where people spread out with their ideas more. The big disease that happened through that time frame, of course, was the Black Plague, which is an airborne disease. So the idea, at the end of 2020, as we start this Air [00:49:22] period, where everything is to do with the mind, to do with the intellect, and to do with technology, and to do with the dissemination of ideas becomes much more. And it's hard to imagine how it becomes more than what it has become already, but it is going, is going to be faster accelerations [00:49:37] there. And then I think you know from a disease perspective, those types of airborne issues are also something we're going to need to be more mindful of, so yeah, so a few hundred year chapter. ANDREW: Time to double [00:49:52] down on getting your flu shot! [laughs]  KELLY: Yeah, flu shots, you know, when you think about how mobile people are becoming, in the sense that we don't all go to 9 to 5 jobs in specific locations anymore. That's a very Earth kind of thing to do, [00:50:07] and also, you know, this podcasting. I mean, it's the radio of the modern era, but it is about-- Like I think podcasting is just going to get more and more popular, anything that's online, that involves the sharing of ideas or insight or [00:50:22] wisdom is just going to explode. We haven't even touched the tip of it yet, basically. ANDREW: Yeah. It's an exciting time to be alive. KELLY: Exciting time to be alive. I don't know that it bodes well for things like banking industries or credit systems, because I think they're going to go [00:50:37] through a massive upheaval, but that's... We're probably due for that.  ANDREW: Yeah, I think so. I think that, yeah, I mean, I hear every single year that the banks here make more money than they've ever made before. [00:50:52]  KELLY: Yeah.  ANDREW: And I'm just like, how is that even possible? And, you know, and the answer is well, you know, there was a time where having a bank account meant that you accrued money on your, on your savings, [00:51:08] you know, but the idea now, like, you know the amount of fees and this, that, whatever, there's no way, you know, unless you have heaps and heaps of money in there, that, you know, anybody's going to be making any money off of a bank account. So, you know, so those dynamics are going to, you [00:51:23] know, shift again at some point, right? So.  KELLY: Absolutely, and we're seeing that a little bit with alternative payment process and alternative money transfer options, you know... ANDREW: Yeah.  KELLY: Back in the day, we had to go to what, Western Union, to send money internationally. And now, [00:51:38] there are companies, and I, we use one called Transferwise, which allows you to send money if... There's more of a mobility here that the banks don't have the monopoly that they used to. Now look, they still have a massive monopoly, and they're making huge amounts of money.  ANDREW: Sure. KELLY: But [00:51:53] you're seeing more of these little startups popping up that I think are going to become increasingly popular. Venmo, I think, is really popular in the states, that type of thing.  ANDREW: Yeah. Well, even, even PayPal and you know, Apple's integrating it [00:52:08] directly into the, directly into the phone, so you can just text people money and stuff, like it's all changing, right?  KELLY: That's, that's the thing, like you used to have to go and get cold hard currency and nobody has...  ANDREW: Right?  KELLY: ....physical cash anymore, money is just a number on a computer [00:52:23] screen.  ANDREW: Yeah, you don't even have to talk to people anymore. [laughs] KELLY: You don't! I mean, you know, you go to a bank, and nowadays there's more machines than there are people because of the automation, if you like.  ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. KELLY: That's something I think we're [00:52:38] going to have to work on as a human race, is humans get something from being physically with other humans that we can't duplicate, you know, and even doing things like this where we're online and we can see each other. It's great, and it's a, it's a functional [00:52:53] substitute, but it cannot replace the exchange of multiple levels of energy that happen when you're physically in person. And so I think that's going to be almost our goal, is we have to still come together in the flesh, [00:53:08] even though we don't have to any more.  ANDREW: Yeah. So take away from this episode: go hang with your peoples.  KELLY: Yeah. ANDREW: Watch your money.  KELLY: Yeah.  ANDREW: And if and if a company called Skynet comes and wants to sell you some robots, say no thank you because [00:53:23] nobody needs a Terminator showing up at their house later on.  KELLY: Right, nobody needs a terminator. ANDREW: Well. Thank you so much for making time to hang out with me today. It's been so nice to catch up. For people who want to come and follow you. I mean, I already mentioned [00:53:38] The Astrology Podcast and that thing, which I'll put a link to in the show notes, but where else are you hanging out, where should people come and find you to be in your orbits?  KELLY: Yeah. Look, if anyone does want to, follow along if you like. My main [00:53:53] website is KellysAstrology.com, but you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I'm a little bit chatty on Twitter occasionally. It is actually my preferred social media platform. Like, I know that sort of sound and I'm not, that's weird these days. in addition to [00:54:08] the monthly episode on The Astrology Podcast, I also do a weekly show with two Aussie girlfriends called the Water Trio Astrology Podcast, and you can find that, as well as The Astrology Podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, and YouTube.  Coming up at the end of March [00:54:23] is my next online training class on career and life direction in astrology. So the idea here is, I'll be showing you how to answer the question of what should I do with my life and that's a four-part training. There will be a live weekly class initially, but it will also be all online, [00:54:38] and one of the new offerings that I just started last year that's been really popular is my monthly astrology guide service, which is a subscription-based offering where you get details about every astrology aspect happening every week and every month. So if [00:54:53] you're kind of obsessed with astrology and you want to follow along at home with your own chart, that resource provides all the info you need. Everything that you might need on any of those counts can be found on my homepage of my website, KellysAstrology.com.  ANDREW: Awesome. [00:55:08]  KELLY: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Andrew, it's been great to chat.  ANDREW: Oh, thank you for being here.

Andrew and Ariana talk about everyones favourite topic love. Exploring how their relationship to polyamory and spirit guide and shape their world view. The podcast also takes a tour through astrology and spirituality in general. If you are looking to explore polyamory or just for a different world view check it out.  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, Googleplay, Spotify or email. Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  You can find Ariana through their website here.   I hope you are finding all the love you want and need. If you wanted some help with it you can book time with Andrew through his site here.  Andrew Transcript  ANDREW: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I'm here with Ariana Felix and we are going to talk about some really interesting stuff today: romance, love, non-monogamy, and polyamory. [00:00:15] And, I came across Saltwater Stars, which is their Instagram, and started following them, and, you know, have been really enjoying listening to their astrology and listening to a bunch of the other great work [00:00:30] that they're up to. And when I saw a post about polyamory, I was like, yes, this is this is the conversation or the person-- I've been waiting to have a conversation on this for quite a while and it seemed like the right fit, so. But for people who don't know who [00:00:45] you are, why don't you introduce yourself?  ARIANA: Yeah, so I'm Ariana and I run Saltwater Stars, which is mainly an astrology platform, to use the word, but I'm an astrologer [00:01:00] and my work is doing readings and writing a lot of writing, about what's going on astrologically, but I also play with tarot and magic and, you know, brujería. I'm [00:01:16] from Brooklyn, New York, by way of Puerto Rico, but I live in southcentral Pennsylvania right now. So yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up. That's like a 10-second summary. ANDREW: Perfect. So I'm [00:01:32] sure, like, people have heard the term, but I wonder if there are people who don't know what brujería means.  ARIANA: Oh, yeah. So brujería is basically the Spanish word for magic. It is usually referring to Santería. [00:01:47] And it actually has a huge connotation with, like, as a derogatory term.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  ARIANA: So how it's being used now, in the like quote-unquote mainstream, [00:02:02] is really about reclamation of the term.  ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: Even though, still, in like in my culture, it's still, a majority look at it as a negative thing, you know, like brujería. It's witchcraft, basically. ANDREW: [00:02:17] Yeah, for sure. Well, it's the thing that everybody looks down on until they have a problem, right? And then they come knock on your door and be like . . . ARIANA: Yes. ANDREW: . . .please help me with the thing! help me with this! [laughing] ARIANA: [laughing] Right. What, like, what was it, that thing that you mentioned the other day, that I was skeptical about but now I might really need? Like-- [laughing] ANDREW: Exactly. Exactly. For [00:02:35] sure. Yeah. ARIANA: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Yeah. My elder references a Cuban saying, which is something like, something along the lines, in English, of you know, everybody's Catholic on Sunday, and then they go see the saints, like the Santos, when they, when [00:02:50] they have a problem, right? You know, so. ARIANA: Claro.  ANDREW: That's how it goes. ARIANA: Exactly.  ANDREW: So, tell me tell me about, like, polyamory for you. You know, [00:03:05] where did that start, if there's sort of a clear start? How did you, how did you find your way to that? You know, like, what was that journey like for you? Because, you know, that's not a thing that-- I mean, it's growing [00:03:20] in awareness in the media and I think in general these days, but you know, it's definitely not, it's still not everybody's life. Right? It's still kind of different in that way. So, yeah.  ARIANA: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Oh, geez. I [00:03:36] think I was always, like in my adult life, I was always really curious about it. But still from this like, vantage point of being like, “Oh, that's interesting, but probably like, not [00:03:51] right,” you know? Like I grew up very, like, strictly religious. And so, when I like exited out of that and was, you know, doing my own thinking, when it came to relationships, I just, I [00:04:06] was like, fascinated by the idea that like, tap, polyamory taps into this concept of like, the expanse of love, you know, so much of like heteronormativity and patriarchy is [00:04:21] about this like, finite amounts, you know, and that's why you need to have possession over it because there's like only so much, so you better get yours, you know. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. ARIANA: And so that never really resonated with me. And [00:04:36] then I was also, I think, as curious as I was about it, confused, because, you know, well, I wasn't like really educated about it, and I was confused by the fact that I like also really appreciated deep intimate relationships, [00:04:51] you know, and commitment. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. ARIANA: And so I was like, well these things don't fit together, you know, [laughing] and so it wasn't until the past two years, really, that it's been like part [00:05:06] of my life, but it's been very very gradual because there's been a lot of deconditioning that I've had to do for myself to kind of navigate the shame that came up around [00:05:21] it, which is like, fortunately, I have a lot of experience in, because so many things about my life are like the opposite of how I was raised, you know? ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: And what I was taught to think. And so, for me, the, I [00:05:37] think, like the entry point into non-monogamy was really about allowing myself to prioritize pleasure, to prioritize love of all kinds, right? And [00:05:52] I just like, I'm really committed to this idea that, why would I say no to more of that in my life, right? Because of, like, heteronormativity and patriarchy and whiteness. Like why would I block access [00:06:07] points off for myself? And so I think that was the thought that kind of catapulted me into being like, Okay. This is something that I do want to live into and that does feel right for me and that does fit into, like, [00:06:22] my own love ethic, you know?  And so, it was interesting, because I was all, I'm already, I was already in a committed relationship that was like, very seemingly heteronormative, you know? And so, it's like, [00:06:37] I had to, you know, have those conversations with my partner, right? And it was like this learning curve that we shared together, you know? But I had to like, be brave enough to initiate [00:06:52] it, you know? And be like, this is something that I want and that I'm curious about, you know, because it could have very well not have resonated, right? But I had to like make the decision to be open to experimenting.  ANDREW: For sure. Yeah, [00:07:07] I think it's really, you know. My experiences with it is that it's definitely-- There are people who are more naturally suited towards it than others. You know, I think it's not necessarily for everybody. So that being aware that like [00:07:22] you can try this out and be like, “Oh, you know what? No, thank you.” You know, that's great too. Right? But yeah. Yeah, I think, I think this, this process of sort of deconditioning stuff, you know? I think it's [00:07:37] so helpful, right? You know, I mean, I think that as a person who spends a lot of time talking with other people about their love life, you know, being a card reader, I feel like having [00:07:52] committed, you know, continuing to commit a bunch of energy to deconditioning, you know, all the different things for myself around love and other things is super fruitful. But I also think, in terms of finding our own happiness, [00:08:07] I think that that's so key as well, right? You know? And for me, polyamory, nonmonogamy, and like all this kind of stuff, it's kind of been a constant theme for, like, since I was, you [00:08:22] know, in my late teen years, sort of, on and off all the way through my life, you know? And it's been either, you know, it started out as a relatively--unconscious is the wrong word. But you [00:08:38] know, we would, we, me and someone I was seeing, would have conversations about inviting other people over or who we wanted to bring home from the bar at the end of the night or you know, all that kind of stuff.  And so that in that sense, it was very conscious, [00:08:55] you know, because we were talking about it, but it also was not really considered in a framework or a structure. There were no bigger conversations about it. It was sort of always, you know, [00:09:10] close to the moment and without a lot of sort of conversation about what it meant or what else might happen or all these kind of things, you know? And so a lot of, a lot of my journey sort of after that period was of sort of trying [00:09:25] to sort through and figure out what those, what those dynamics that make sense for me around that are, right, you know, and right, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, but yeah, I think, I think that for me, where I've kind of gotten to with it is this place where [00:09:40] I think that connections with people across the board, you know, friends, lovers, relationships, whatever, they tend to have a natural [00:09:55] level or a natural level of intimacy or connection, physical or otherwise, that if there aren't limits placed on them, then they'll arrive at, you know? So it's been this process of sort of, especially [00:10:10] in the last few years of sort of settling into, you know, understanding how I can see that in different dynamics and how sort of finding that level of intimacy, being like, Oh, yeah. This is, this is wonderful, and [00:10:25] and I don't necessarily want more, you know, in a conventional sense, but this is great, and this could just continue to be great or you know, these level of orbits are great, or all those kinds of things. So. Yeah. ARIANA: I [00:10:41] think a huge thing for me, that in retrospect I'm grateful for, was like knowing myself well enough to know that I wasn't, I'm not particularly a casual [00:10:56] person. With the exceptions of make outs, I'm very casual about that. [laughs] When it comes to like intimacy and all that, I knew about and I know about myself that [00:11:11] I do like to have, like, at least the shape of the container, you know, and agreements, and clarity, and I don't know, the word commitment is coming to mind, and I know that has a lot of its own, [00:11:26] you know, baggage, but I like longevity, you know, and so in all my relationships, you know, like with my family and with my friends and etc. It's really important to me. And so I [00:11:41] was really lucky to come across the term poly-capable because I was like, you know, obviously there's that overlap between polyamory, nonmonogamy, but I was interested in nonmonogamy [00:11:56] for the sake of more partnerships.  ANDREW: Right. ARIANA: Right, not so much for the sake of cruising itself, which is, you know, also totally cool. And so I think that piece is what has allowed me to be clear [00:12:11] about what kind of connections I'm interested in or have the potential to grow that way, right? Because you know, obviously it can't be like a decision from the get, [00:12:26] you do have to like build a relationship.  ANDREW: I think I want to pause you there for a second. I think it, I think it, I want to hear what you have to say after too, but I think that one of the things that I think is such [00:12:41] a an important piece to understand, is how to, how do we on-ramp into relationships? You know, and how do we hang out in that space? You [00:12:56] know, like where you're like, I would like containers. I like a sense of commitment. You know, I personally tend to not use the word commitment but sort of tend towards the word agreements, even though maybe it's a bit semantic, but you know agreements, [00:13:11] for me, implies sort of more of a, we're always reaching those things, you know, or they're open to renegotiation and to change in a way that commitments doesn't feel as much, but I think that so many people, especially people [00:13:26] who are not polyamorous, that space where, you know, they don't want to be casual, they don't want to not have a sense of commitment. They don't want, you know, like [00:13:41] all of those kinds of things. And yet, meeting somebody and starting to date somebody always involves all of those kinds of things. Right? And I think that that, that sort of, how, you [00:13:57] know, I'm really curious how you navigate that. And I think that, you know, anybody who's out there dating and is sort of like working with this stuff, you know, I think that it's a really important question to ask and kind of get clear, because I think that there [00:14:12] are so many kind of pitfalls around that, you know, in our own minds and hearts and fears that they really make that kind of wonky for a lot of people, so that's why I wanted to pause you because I thought that was such an important piece there. You know, how [00:14:27] do you know?   ARIANA: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like it's that that knowing what I want. All right, like knowing that I'm interested in more partnerships [00:14:42] in my life, especially with people of color, you know, like black indigenous people of color. Like that's my priority, and so, it's kind of like more like a guide than anything [00:14:57] else, right? Because there is, like you're saying, there is, like you're saying, that part of all of it where you don't know what's going to happen, you know? ANDREW: Sure. ARIANA: And everything is even when there's like, okay, we have this agreement, like you said, is all open for renegotiation. [00:15:13] And I think that's, like you're saying, is a super essential piece to, like, any of this working, right? And so, I think that I know I [00:15:28] feel like it's so highly contextual, right? So you can be, like, with one person, being clear about what you want, and they are also interested in the same thing. And so you're seeing how you can grow that together if it's possible, right? And then there might be another person with whom you're like, this [00:15:43] is what I want, and they're like, I'm not interested in more partnerships, you know, or not interested in what you want, this is what I want. You know what I mean? And so, I think, that allowing for that, allowing for it to be highly contextual, you know, and super nuanced, and [00:15:58] just like, it's never going to be concrete. You know? ANDREW: And when you run into somebody and they're, sort of, you know, looking for something different, will you just let that go, then? Will you tend [00:16:13] to walk away from that? Or what's, you know, like, cause that's the thing, right? You know, when people are looking for love, right? So often we like, you know, cause, oh my, look how cute they are, I mean, maybe I could, I [00:16:28] could be a little different, or like, you know, or like, or I don't have any other options, or, you know, like there are many reasons why we get pulled into this stuff, right? And so, I'm curious how you handle that. You know? ARIANA: I [00:16:43] think that, so far, my, the way that I've handled it has been to kind of like that, oh, walk away, not be like, “Okay, well, we're never talking again,” you know, but that's [00:16:58] like a, that's a hard, that's a hard one for me. If our desires aren't congruent or what's the word, I [00:17:13] don't know, like, if our desires aren't compatible, it's like really hard for me, to, I don't know like, alter my desire? [laughing] ANDREW: Right. ARIANA: So, like, maybe it's better [00:17:28] if, you know, the nature of the relationship or the connection changes, so that I can manage this on this side. Does that make sense?  ANDREW: It does. Yeah, for sure.  ARIANA: And I know, I know, I know about myself that I have a tendency towards being [00:17:43] kind of like working with absolutes and I'm learning my way around that. So I guess this is the honest answer is like, I do tend to be like pretty absolute and I'm learning how to leave more room for what actually happens, [00:17:58] right? Because like life is not absolute at all.  ANDREW: Yeah. Sure.  ARIANA: So yeah, that's my answer to that. So I definitely, the whole like leaving space to [00:18:13] adjust my desires and allowing a connection that might not have been what I wanted but it's still something in its own right is really hard for me.  ANDREW: Yeah, I think that's fair, right? I think that's totally fair. You know, I mean, I tend to be [00:18:30] a very considerate person, you know, as Sagittarian and as exuberant as I am about things, I'm also a very considerate person and so I tend to kind of always temper that by like, [00:18:45] looking at what's going on in, in all the arenas of my life and sort of, kind of, with a half an eye to making sure that I don't inadvertently, like, blow up the stability that I've been building, you know, because it's like, oh, it's so exciting. I could just whatever, right?  ARIANA: [laughing] ANDREW: It's like, no, [00:19:00] no, dude. You can't do that. That's not, that, that actually isn't going to work out well in the long run. And I think that that's true around poly for me too, you know? I mean being aware of like, what are my [00:19:15] actual energetic and time limits? You know, what are my? You know, I mean, like, it's, I do casual very well as well as sort of relationship stuff, but even at that, I only have so much time in my life, you know? [00:19:30] ARIANA: [laughing] ANDREW: Between kids and shop and partners and so on, right? It's like— ARIANA: Right. ANDREW: All of those things require some attention, you know? And I think that my other kind of almost [00:19:45] like my mantra through like, you know, the last couple years has really been: be brave, make the brave choice right now. What's the brave choice here? And sometimes that brave choice is [00:20:00] like, fess up and be like, I really really like you, you know, like I really hope this continues or whatever, and sometimes that brave choice is like, you are so darn hot, and yet also this is [00:20:15] not going to fit in my life, and I can go find that hotness in a way that, you know, maybe does work in my life. And so being brave enough to kind of like, step away from both [00:20:30] of those things. But like, you know, it's not quite a talking myself down to putting down the, you know, put down the phone, don't send that message. You know? It's not quite at that level but there's definitely moments where it's like you know what, just, what's the brave choice here? How do you commit to [00:20:45] the brave choice? You know? And I think that that's kind of been where I've been leaning and you know, it tends to work out well, but you know, but yeah, but sometimes it's not always easy, right?  ARIANA: That is such a Sag mantra. [00:21:00] I'd have to say.  ANDREW: Which part of— ARIANA: What's the brave choice? That's so Sagittarius.  ANDREW: Yeah. What about that, though? I'm curious. Like, which sign are you?  ARIANA: I'm a Scorpio. [00:21:15]  ANDREW: Okay. ARIANA: With like a million planets in Scorpio. That's my issue with absolutes and [laughing] … ANDREW: Uh-huh. Yeah. ARIANA: Just like Sagittarius has this, you know, it's a fire sign and like the other fire signs, [00:21:30] really works with this initiatory energy, you know, and that requires bravery and courage and this, like, transparency of spirit, you know? And so I love that that's what you're working with, because it's actually, [00:21:45] with this, like, when it comes to polyamory, because polyamory itself is about expansion, right? And that's so Sagittarian a concept, very ruled by Jupiter is about expanding things. And so, using such a like [00:22:00] fiery mantra to create room for that expansion, right? and to, like, navigate yourself through it, I think is really powerful.  ANDREW: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things, right? I mean, I think that dating at any [00:22:15] level isn't easy, necessarily, right? Like there are times where it's really easy, which is great. There are times where it's work and there are times where, you know, we get kind of stuck in it, right? Or stuck in ourselves or, you know, or life just doesn't align [00:22:30] with it. Right? And I think that just being so aware of all that stuff is so helpful, you know. Yeah. So, let me ask you a question towards a Scorpio then.  ARIANA: Okay.  ANDREW: How do you deal with [00:22:45] jealousy?  ARIANA: Oh God. BOTH: [laughing] ARIANA: You couldn't, you couldn't find a more original Scorpio question to ask! [laughing]  ANDREW: You know, I'm only a basic astrologer. So [00:23:00] all you're going to get it is [laughing] ARIANA: Fair enough, fair enough! [laughing]  ARIANA: Jealousy… So, what's really interesting is that I feel like I've struggled with [00:23:15] jealousy my entire life. Like I remember as a child, like, someone would play with my friend and I was like, you know, why are they playing with my friend?  ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: And so I've had a lot of time to kind of work through it [laughing] and figure out how [00:23:30] to, how to manage it. And so at this point in my life, I find that it's really parallel to my work with like self-confidence and self-esteem, you know? And then stuff, It's, really, the [00:23:45] intensity of it has dissipated a lot and I-- It doesn't often come up for me. And I think part of that is also just because of my beliefs, right? Like the same beliefs that allow me to be polyamorous and [00:24:00] have an open relationship with systems. Those are the same beliefs that dissipate my jealousy because it's like, okay. I don't want to be in a relationship of like transaction or possession with people, [00:24:15] places, and things, you know? And so reminding myself of that helps me to be like, you know, and it's also, I don't know.  I think that, [00:24:33] I really, it's really important to me that the people that I love and care for feel spaciousness in relationship with me. And I think I have this, like, terror that my jealousy would, you know, [00:24:48] like, reduce that or eliminate that, the spaciousness. And so, if and when it does come up for me, I tend to just like, manage it on my own, you know, like walk myself through words, like, you know, “this is not a big deal, and it's okay.”  And something [00:25:04] that's also helpful is not assigning meaning to things, you know? Because I think for me, my relationship with jealousy is almost always about, “Oh, okay, I am like, not as important, or not as amazing, and I'm going to be abandoned,” [00:25:19] you know. ANDREW: For sure. ARIANA: Basic abandonment trauma issues, [laughing] and so reminding myself that that's not the case, you know, just because someone's like, talking to someone, [laughing] has been really helpful. So [00:25:34] I think also.  Yeah, I think I just like really have this deep priority to not-- I don't want that to take up space and I think growing up in a household where, like, my parents' marriage was so full of that. So, like, just [00:25:49] an abusive level that really turned me off to it, you know, so like when it comes up, I'm like, yeah, no, we're not going to do that. Like, that's not, that's not allowed, but not in the way where I'm like, pretending that I don't feel it, you know? I'm just managing it for myself. So [00:26:04] far so good. [laughing] ANDREW: I find that-- I mean, I think that there are a few things. And a bunch of them, a bunch of them, good chunk of stuff that I [00:26:19] think comes down to like evoking jealousy for me, also, comes down to like, understanding like, how I actually am interested in poly or [00:26:34] what I'm actually interested in, you know? And so like, you know, being aware that, like, you know, for example, maybe if somebody like, if [00:26:49] there's, if I want, if I wanted a more serious connection with someone than they were available for and they were like a super casual person who had a high turnover of like, of lovers? That's probably not a good place for me to be. ARIANA: Right. ANDREW: Like that's not a-- It's not a place [00:27:04] where I can get what I desire from that situation. ARIANA: Exactly. ANDREW: And so like, kind of rolling that back and sort of taking ownership for it and saying, this is not about them and what they should or shouldn't do, that's not helpful, you know? ARIANA: Right. Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And like you [00:27:19] said, one of my, I'm definitely on the side of, I don't want to limit other people's freedoms. And, you know, and I'm not going to allow people to necessarily limit mine either, you know? I mean, there are agreements, which is something different.  But [00:27:34] even at that, those agreements don't extend to, you know, the rest of my life in the sense that they cut off a bunch of things, you know, they're more like, these are these are my commitments to this relationship, and you know, and those tend to [00:27:49] be more about time, energy, attention, and things like that, you know, or safer sex things, or what-have-you, right? But and then, some of the other stuff comes back to like, you know, for me, jealousy, you know, other [00:28:04] than what I just talked about, is either rooted in something that's deeply unexpected?  ARIANA: Mmm. ANDREW: Where, where everything seemed like it was going in a certain direction and somebody talked about things in a certain way and [00:28:19] then something happened that made them realize they wanted something completely unexpected, from my point of view, maybe from theirs, maybe not. ARIANA: Mmm. ANDREW: And so that that can be difficult and invoke that feeling of jealousy, which then, [00:28:34] you know, seeing that and having the clarity to go to the person, and say: “So hey, I'm having some feelings about this because everything that I heard was going in this direction and then this was a change,” you know, that can be like, you know, can make it [00:28:49] clearer, right? You know? And clarifying that and understanding more about what that change was or how it occurred or whatever, usually gets rid of it, you know? ARIANA: Right, right. ANDREW: And then the last one is this, like, you know? You know, there was a time not [00:29:04] so long ago where I had a bunch of feelings and, you know, ultimately it was about the fact that sort of two of my kind of more casual ongoing people ghosted on me. And you know, like, it wasn't about the [00:29:19] person that I felt it towards at all, it was more about that sense of lack of stuff and the disruption in my life. And then that kind of, like, bleh! [laughing] ARIANA: [laughing] ANDREW: You know? I don't have a better word for it than that, but that like that mess [00:29:34] of complicated feelings— ARIANA: Right. ANDREW: Before it got kind of parsed out into what it was, actually about, then was essentially looking for a place to attach to something, you know, instead of actually kind of like looking at it being like, oh, you know what, you should, you [00:29:49] know, feel sad about the fact that this happened or you should, you know, get back on, get back on Tinder and find a new connection, or you should whatever, right? Like, you know, and that kind of returning it back to a place of action, even [00:30:04] if an action is kind of a non-action, of like, just sitting with it or whatever, right? You know, that's always kind of a super helpful thing for me as well. So.  ARIANA: Yeah, I mean, I think, I keep returning to how care for the self, like caring for yourself is [00:30:19] like, just obviously foundational to everything— ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: But like, when it comes to managing and navigating, you know, nonmonogamy and polyamory, it's like, I've [00:30:34] found for myself, I'm like, oh, it's like even more important than ever before that I'm caring for myself. And that I'm in relationship with myself. You know, and like, prioritizing that because it's so easy [00:30:49] to get kind of like get stuck, like you were saying, you know, or just like-- It's so easy to not know how to move forward. Right? ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: And [00:31:04] I think and that's true for most things that involve other people, because there's like, there's no control there, you know? ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: Which is like a cause of panic for me on a daily basis [laughing]— ANDREW: [laughing] ARIANA: But is actually totally normal and healthy and good, you know. [00:31:19]  ANDREW: Yeah.  ARIANA: Learning how to be like, okay, so I can't do anything about them. How can I care for myself in this moment?  ANDREW: For sure, right?  ARIANA: How do I want to move forward? Like I think that it's like, always comes back to the question, like, what do you want? You know? And [00:31:36] I think if that's not like one of the guiding questions, it gets easy to be like, okay, what does the other person want? You know, what do they need? How can I, how can I, how can I change to be that for them? You know? And [00:31:51] then, like, that's a whole mess in itself.  ANDREW: And I think that, you know, as you kind of pointed at, that's so true of everywhere in life. You know, it's true of our family relationships. It's probably true in people's careers and [00:32:06] you know, in a variety of things, you know? And even, you know, I mean I haven't even had a job for working for anybody else since 1998 now. You know, it's been a while that I've been self-employed and you know, for like the last 16 years, I've [00:32:21] been reading cards and running my store and stuff like that. And even like in the last six months I had to remind myself. I'm like, hey Andrew, it's your store and your work, you are actually freer than almost anybody— ARIANA: Yes, yes. ANDREW: [00:32:36] Like, it doesn't get freer than your, then your position, and still actually working. So if you're not digging this thing, stop getting stuck in that and start thinking about, what is it you would rather do instead, right? [00:32:51] Or how would you rather it be instead? You know? And yeah, it's a, it's always, it's always the possibility that sort of like loss of the center of whatever control there is or whatever power there is externally [00:33:07] somewhere, where, you know? And I think that in poly and in everywhere, returning that back to the center is so fruitful, right?  ARIANA: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, so, I'm really curious, if, have [00:33:22] you gone searching for like the poly astrological element? Like is there, is there a thing that you, or kinds of things that you see, where you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I bet you this person's that way.  ARIANA: It's so funny. [00:33:37] I mean, I've kind of thought about it. I'm always like, super hesitant to, I mean like, formulate astrological signatures— ANDREW: Sure. ARIANA: For like, people's lifestyles and choices, but [00:33:53] I'll speak, I'll speak for my own self. I remember like a couple years ago, looking at my chart, and being like, you know, I'm really surprised that I'm not more, you know, like nonmonogamous. Like I remember looking and being like, [00:34:08] and so, you know, obviously in retrospect, it's really funny to be like, okay. I'm not, you know, like I was right, like I did pick up on that, just like certain things in my chart that like, made me think about my relationship to [00:34:23] relationships, and what kinds of relationships would actually nourish me versus the kinds that I've, you know, been conditioned to think or expect from myself, right?  And so I think for myself that just involves having a [00:34:38] lot of air and I also have a lot of water, right? So it's like, I think that's a, that really speaks to how I'm like, I'm, that's why I like the term poly-capable, [00:34:53] you know, or so, like, so I'm open, I'm not, I have like all this airiness, and all this like, yes, possibility, and like, excitement, and experiences, and, what's the word, like perspective, you know, like perspectives [00:35:08] broken open and unlearning and learning new ways. Then I have all this water where I'm like, I want that to be in service of, like, deep lasting connections, right? And so for myself, that's how, that's how I've seen it show up but [00:35:23] no, to answer it in general, I don't have like an astrological signature where I'm like, oh, this person is probably, are not monogamous or poly or like has several relationships, because it's just, my relationship astrology isn't [00:35:38] like that.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. That's totally fair. I find that, you know, my questions around a lot of this stuff, I feel like they end up sort of going back to me. Like, I'm just going to ask some really unfair questions of, like astrologers— ARIANA: [laughing] ANDREW: So, [00:35:53] hey, hey, here's my, here's my like, I know it's not really this way, but I kind of wish it was, and I bet you think I'm just going to ask this question and put you on the spot for a minute.  ARIANA: Underneath that is maybe, and I'm not saying that this is the case, but usually with people [00:36:08] is the question of like, tell me why I am the way that I am! [laughing] ANDREW: Right. Sure. ARIANA: [laughing] Is there a reason that this is happening? And maybe somehow inadvertently by asking this general question I'll have my very personal question answered.  ANDREW: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. ARIANA: [laughing] ANDREW: [00:36:23] Yeah, I don't know. I've looked at my own chart in my own limited ways and I don't really have a sense either. So I think, I think it's, I think for me it's just, you know, so much air and fire and so [00:36:38] much, just like, you know, expansiveness and exploratoriness that I think that it just sort of inclines me in that kind of direction.  ARIANA: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think looking at elements is like, [00:36:53] can be super informative. When we're looking at like, how we move through life, and what our needs are, and our like general sense. How we need to be able to move, right? Like air and fire needs to be able to be free— ANDREW: Sure. ARIANA: In like different ways [00:37:08] than earth and water.  ANDREW: Yeah. No, for sure. I don't have any earth, so. ARIANA: [laughing] You said that in a way that's like, I'm fucked. [laughing] ANDREW: No, no, not at all. It's good. It's fine. No earth at [00:37:23] all and only one water element. So everything else is just air and fire. All the time. ARIANA: That's combustion.  ANDREW: Yeah. I worked on it magically, so it's all good now, so.  ARIANA: Good.  ANDREW: So, [00:37:40] I guess one of the other things that I'm curious about this, for you, is like, you know, does poly fit into an identity or a sense [00:37:55] of, you know, activism, and sort of like, kind of, like we talked about deconditioning and I'm wondering if it goes a bit further to you, in sort of the sense of, is it, is it, is it, is it tied [00:38:10] to sort of a sense of activism or something like that for you?  ARIANA: Like is it radical for me?  ANDREW: Is it radical for you?  ARIANA: Mm-hmm, absolutely. Absolutely. It's deeply intertwined with like, my political beliefs and values, as [00:38:25] everything in my life is, right?  ANDREW: Yeah.  ARIANA: So yeah, I-- A huge, huge reason why polyamory is a part of my life is because of my, like, rejection of whiteness, you know, and like the role [00:38:40] of whiteness in heteronormativity and patriarchy and like all these things that take joy, you know?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. ARIANA: And so, I'm always like, I'm a little skeptical with the word resistance, but it is like an [00:38:55] act of resistance for me, you know, and like, no, actually because, like I said before, like the only reason I wouldn't say yes to more pleasure and love, enjoying my life, is because of these constructs, you know, that are, that are made up, [00:39:10] and are also powerful, right? and like shape us and we are shaped by them.  ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: And so it is absolutely about taking my personal and my political, which is like the same for me, power back, you [00:39:25] know? I mean like, there, so, yeah, like, so little when it comes to like, oppression, that I [00:39:40] like actually have any power control over right? Like I can't change the world or the snap of my fingers or whatever. ANDREW: Sure. ARIANA: So living my life in ways that are like, anti-oppressive, is really important. And [00:39:55] so it's really interesting because even like, when I was sitting with the question of like nonmonogamy and polyamory, a large part of my commitment to like, continuing to be curious about it, even when it felt like scary [00:40:10] or strange, or shameful, was a political commitment, you know, it's like, even if this isn't going to be right for me, I want to be able to be with the questions, you know? And I want to be able to not have fear [00:40:25] around it. Right? Like, and fear that's been imbued by my conditioning, religious and political, you know, and so yeah, that's a huge, huge piece of about it for me.  ANDREW: Yeah. A [00:40:41] long time ago, for me, I discovered this guy, Terence McKenna Terence McKenna is like, psychedelic—was, he's dead now--was a psychedelic explorer like along the lines of Timothy [00:40:56] Leary and those people, and, but, you know, he was mostly into like mushrooms and other things and there was a line in this spoken word thing that he did, where he's talking about how taking mushrooms frees [00:41:11] you from the system, right? Takes you outside of those things and that it breaks what he calls the “three enemies of the people,” you know? And the enemies of the people are hegemony, monogamy, and monotony, [00:41:26] you know, and you know, hegemony being the way in which systems and culture and patriarchy and you know, all of those things seek to not just tell us what to do but to limit [00:41:41] the space in which we can think, you know, it's a very like 1984 kind of idea, right, in that regard, and I think that there's so much of what we come around, and you know, what I grew up in, and what most people grow up in, that, [00:41:56] that is, curtails the boundaries of where you're allowed to think or what you can think or what's, you know, and even to the point where it's like, you know, I mean, I think of my earlier explorations, it's like, I had no language around it. I just had desire. [00:42:11] And I couldn't even really understand--I understood it, you know, I don't want to diminish my awareness of it, but I didn't understand it as a possibility or as a way of life. I just understood it as a desire, right?  ARIANA: Right, right.  ANDREW: You [00:42:26] know, and then of course, like monogamy and the monotony of like a lot of capitalism and the way in which a lot of the world runs, you know, I mean, all of those things work to sort of push us away from making more radical choices [00:42:41] or waking up or you know, doing those kinds of things. So, yeah, I think it's very, it's very interesting, you know. Yeah. ARIANA: Yeah, I mean I [00:42:57] think that this, there's like this, I think this separation, between like activism and then like our quote unquote regular lives is an illusion in a lot of ways. I do think that there is a distinction between like [00:43:12] activist, you know, like, people who are committing their life to that work in a public way. Right? Like I'm not going to call myself an activist. And I think, you know, the word has all of its own like negative [00:43:27] connotations as well. But that like, that false separation between the political and the personal, you know, is really harmful, because it is so deeply intertwined. Right? And so, like even in [00:43:42] our conversations about love and romance and sex and money, you know, like all of these things are wrapped up into power and wrapped up into politics, right? And so for me, as like a [00:43:57] queer Boricua, it's one of the ways that I've been articulating and it's like, it's my duty, my responsibility, to be as liberated, [00:44:13] to use the word, as I can, right? And again, going back to that, like why would I say no to more pleasure and love and joy in my life, right?  And so, it's like, I don't just see it as this, like, oh, yeah, of course, I want more of that but I see it as like, oh, it's my responsibility to my ancestors, [00:44:28] right? And to the life that I'm like, actually living now, to deconstruct these things within myself. You know and to be aware of, curious about, [00:44:43] and devoted to exploring the ways that the political and the personal is intertwined for me. And that's not only my responsibility to myself, that's my responsibility to my community, [00:44:58] you know? In like a literal sense, like people actually, community with, and in a metaphysical sense. Yeah. Yeah.  ANDREW: I mean, I think I agree with that, and I've kind of felt the same way, you know, and [00:45:13] I think that, you know, not in a, not in a like, I feel like I've got it all figured out and I'm going to tell people how it ought to be kind of way. But like, it's why sharing [00:45:30] more openly around being poly, as you know, as a, as a, you know, as a kind of fitting into that conversation, to say, hey, look there are other ways, like I'm living another way, and I could, I could not be public [00:45:45] about it, it would make no difference on a day-to-day level with my you know, personal and romantic life, you know? ARIANA: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ANDREW: But I could also share it in a public way, and that, you know, and share that [00:46:00] in this conversation with you that then creates that space for other people to think, engage, be exposed, find their own language, you know, or whatever, you know, or just be curious and then walk away, like it's all fine. [00:46:15] Right? But like— ARIANA: Yeah. ANDREW: You know, but just to sort of provide opportunities to see because I think that, for me, for so long, I kind of just thought that like my life was like everybody's life and [00:46:30] then at a certain point I was like, oh no, that's not actually true at all, you know? ARIANA: [laughing] ANDREW: And like, the more I have-- The more, over the last maybe six years since I started going to tarot conferences and sort of traveling a bit more again, you know, I was like, “oh [00:46:45] no, my life is not like many people's lives at all,” and not that, not that I need to be role model person, because that's not the point in the least, but that, you know, I have such different, you know-- I mean, poly, [00:47:00] I, you know, like, you know, a couple weeks ago, one of my longer-term partners, their partner and their partner's child came and hung out with me and my kids. And you know, we all spent the weekend hanging out together, and like, [00:47:15] just totally like, you know, experiences that people are like, I don't know, I don't even begin to understand it, and it's just this, like, the most natural and chill thing ever, right? You know, and being an Olocha, you know, and like all the things, you [00:47:30] know, doing what I do for a living, like, there's just so many ways in which it's so different, right? And I think that, kind of like, just floating that out there as a thing to inspire people who want, who are, who [00:47:45] are waiting for inspiration or looking for inspiration, you know, and allowing that to kind of be part of that, I think is really important. So.  ARIANA: Yeah. I mean what I'm hearing, and that is, it just sounds like such [00:48:00] a foundational piece of our work in general as readers, you know, and as like spiritual guides, is this, this, I think like sometimes opening of portals, but more so like, holding of portals, you know, and being like, this is [00:48:15] here, if you, if you want it, and like drawing people's attention, you know, in their own, in their own search for it, you know? And so, like, it's, I don't know, I, [00:48:33] I think that's like, such what you're describing is such a huge cornerstone of my life because I know that I've always been eternally grateful to the resources that exposed me to the language that I didn't have for what I was already feeling or [00:48:48] experiencing or wanting, you know? ANDREW: Mm-hmm. ARIANA: And that those things changed my life. And so I've been, I've been deeper in the practice of embodying that myself, like with Saltwater Stars, like, [00:49:03] showing up more as myself, you know, and being more transparent about my queerness and about my, just like the way that my life is, and it's interesting because I-- That's [00:49:18] like a more recent thing because I've never, I guess I didn't really have like much of a platform, right? Like when you don't have much of a platform, you're not like, oh, I should tell everyone, you know, you're like, no one cares.  So now more [00:49:33] recently I'm like, oh, this is actually like, having these conversations and being transparent about myself, I'm at a position in my life where that can be helpful to others in ways that, you know, it might not have been before, but also helpful [00:49:48] to me, you know? Also like, the whole, like, taking up space thing, as someone who is at the intersection of identities that I'm at, you know, is [00:50:03] something that I've like, underestimated the power and importance of, and I'm now like, coming into more of a, like I said, a deeper practice and understanding of how important that is, you know, and doing that whole thing that I'm sure you're familiar [00:50:18] with, where you're like, “Oh, if I had, like, known me when I was younger, you know, how much would be different?” blah blah blah.  ANDREW: Sure. Yeah. ARIANA: Yeah, so I've been thinking about that a lot, and I think it's this interesting like, [00:50:34] juxtaposition for me, where I'm like a private person more naturally, but then I'm also like so deeply committed to community and to communal revolution, you know, and so the ways that I'll like stretch myself, that I [00:50:49] like, hadn't considered before, because of the ways that my politics grow and change. You know?  ANDREW: Yeah, I think, and I think that learning how to take up space is such a, and not even take up space, how to take [00:51:04], take your space. You know, I think it's such a helpful thing, and I think that, you know, it's also not off topic for polyamory, right? Like, you know, I mean, like, I think that it's one of those things that crosses all those situations, you [00:51:19] know? How do we show up in our career that we take up space and can be seen, right? How do we show up in our relationships so that we can, you know, take up this or take our space and be seen, you know, and how does that change [00:51:34] the nature of the relationships that we have? Right? Because when you start being visible and showing up as being visible, then all of a sudden, the people, the people who can see you, see [00:51:49] something that's more real, and therefore that can be, you know, a kind of higher caliber of connection, you know, because there's a better alignment going there, right? You know, yeah.  ARIANA: Yeah. I love that you bring that up. Because it's like, it's that relationship between vulnerability [00:52:04] and intimacy, you know, and so that's been like a huge thing for me recently. It's like, the more I allow myself to be vulnerable and to be seen, right, and to be visible, the more intimacy that [00:52:19] I actually have potential to access. Right? So like, sitting over here telling no one anything about my life and wondering why I'll lack like a depth of intimacy in my relationships, you know, like, being invisible in my relationships and like, feeling resentful that [00:52:34] I'm like, never, so I like, I had to go through that learning curve. I'm like, oh, actually that's my responsibility, to be like, you know, here I am, you know, and then if you can see me and if this, if my vulnerability does create intimacy with you, [00:52:49] great, and if it doesn't, now I know, instead of sitting here in the corner wondering feeling sorry for myself, you know.  ANDREW: For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely, you know, I mean, for me, taking up space and sort of like pushing myself into [00:53:04] space was definitely a thing that was very uncomfortable around releasing the Orisha Tarot, you know, because, you know, I mean, because of, because I'm a white person from Toronto who practices this religion, [00:53:19] because of like a bunch of different things, you know, there's this very, like I was very, you know, aware, and you know, at times, sort of kind of immobilized by my awareness around those dynamics and my desire [00:53:34] not to, not to be messy about them, you know, and to try and find a good way through that stuff.  And I think that, you know, it's complicated, because when you, when you don't feel like you can take [00:53:50] the space, you know, it's also like there's almost never anybody who can convince you, you know?  ARIANA: Oh, yes. ANDREW: Like I talked to my elders and they're like, “Do it, it's going to be great.” And you know, I asked the Orishas, they're like, “Yeah, [00:54:05] you should do this,” and I'm like, and I talked to like, you know, artist friends and people of color. And like I had all these conversations and still, it was just like, but I just, you know, I'm just trying to figure out what that, like what that inner lock was, [00:54:20] right, you know? And it's now and then and then it came back to my mantra as well as like, well, just be brave dude. Just do the thing.  ARIANA: [laughing] ANDREW: It'll work out well or whatever. It'll be what it is, you know.  ARIANA: Mm-hmm, mmm-hmm.  ANDREW: Yeah, I think [00:54:35] that, that's it's, there's a lot of ways in which showing up is complicated right?  ARIANA: Oh, yeah. ANDREW: Not just around romance so, but.  ARIANA: Yeah. Oh, yeah, and I'm glad you said it that way, because I think that it is often oversimplified. Especially like for people [00:54:50] who do, who do live outside of the dominant culture.  ANDREW: Yeah.  ARIANA: You know, it's like, no, it's not as like this for many, it is actually dangerous, you know, like there is so much risk involved, and [00:55:06] not just like, on an interpersonal level, but on a communal level, right?  ANDREW: Sure. ARIANA: And so, I think that the oversimplification of it, that like often comes from whiteness, right? Because like, whiteness [00:55:21] is more comfortable. So, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, of course, like, you know, this is, not only is this my space, but that's also my space, and that's my space, and the, you know, and so I think that oversimplification of it dishonors [00:55:36] the amount of bravery it takes and also like diminishes the complexity of it.  ANDREW: Yeah.  ARIANA: You know and especially at these, like, intersections of spirituality and unconventional relationships and all [00:55:51] of those things. It's like, the complete, just, you decide to show up, just because you decide to be visible and be seen, doesn't make it any less complicated. ANDREW: For sure.  ARIANA: You know?  ANDREW: Yeah, and I think there's a, [00:56:06] I run across, you know, especially like sometimes in relationship to my, to my kids, with people who are, you know, running programs for them and stuff like that, you know? This notion of, like, you know, you [00:56:21] just, I mean even though my mantra is be brave, right? That's like a complex multi-level thing. That's not, that's not necessarily so much as like, you know, just do the thing and you'll be fine. It's [00:56:36] like, okay, be brave. What's the brave thing? Why am I resisting it? You know? Like on and on and on, there's like a whole deconstruction that, that goes beyond that and then, and then the mantra comes out once I've already processed all those things, and then I'm like, right now, there's nothing to do but [00:56:51] like press the button, make the phone call, say the thing, but there's this sort of notion that I run across a lot where it's like, you know, if you just persevere, if you just push, if you know, it's all, it's all kind of like a bunch of machismo and [00:57:06] it's-- In a certain way, I think, you know, where it's just like, yeah, but like I did this hard thing, so you can do this hard thing, and whatever, and it's like, maybe not, maybe it's the wrong hard thing. It's the wrong way. Maybe [00:57:21] this hard thing isn't even relevant. Like, you know, I think that there's so many, so many layers to that, that become very complicated and I think that there's a desire by many people that I see to [00:57:36] try and come to a point where it's just something simple like, you know, we'll just push through it and it'll be fine. It's like, maybe not. ARIANA: Like yeah, like have you heard of the scenarios where things don't end up [00:57:51] fine because that happens. ANDREW: Yeah. Exactly.  ARIANA: I think that one of the things about like nonmonogamy and polyamory that I appreciate is that it like, at least for me, I feel like it expands my capacity for complexity.  ANDREW: Sure. [00:58:06]  ARIANA: Right? And like my ability be to be with the discomfort.  ANDREW: Mmm-hmm.  ARIANA: Right? So like you were saying, like that that period where, it's like, okay, so I know that I want like partnerships and intimacy, but there's that whole period where we're like, we're figuring [00:58:21] out if that's actually possible. ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: So like, being able to sit in those spaces and to continue choosing to be brave.  ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: You know, it's like this may not work out, like I could very well get hurt, and like I most [00:58:36] likely will at some point, you know, if I continue in a relationship with this person.  ANDREW: Sure.  ARIANA: Whoever it is, that's going to happen and so, like coming to a point of acceptance with that, and like, being willing to be uncomfortable and being willing to, I think, [00:58:51] it just like really comes back to this vulnerability, you know, like, that's what-- It spans our capacity for like all the complexity and all the unknown, you know? And I think that it definitely, we definitely, like kind of semi [00:59:06] get trained to override that and override those times, you know, and like you're saying push through and be like, oh it'll be fine, you know, what, whatever, and so I think that the thing about polyamory is that you can't really do that because there are other people involved.  ANDREW: Yeah. ARIANA: You know? [00:59:21]  ANDREW: Yeah. I think too, like a lot of, a lot of my experience of polyamory is that there are a lot of feelings that in a, if [00:59:36] I was a monogamous person looking for a long-term relationship, would drive stuff in a given direction, you know, like, you know, I can, I can hang out with, you know, one of my partners and [00:59:51] then feel sad that they're leaving and miss them for days, you know, if I'm not going to see them, and that would drive, you know, the sort of relationship escalator stuff. You [01:00:06] know, if I was, if I was a monogamous type person.  ARIANA: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ANDREW: We'll see each other more, we'll do this, we'll, you know, this constantly looking to sort of almost resolve or placate those emotions. ARIANA: Right. Right. ANDREW: Versus come looking at those feelings and [01:00:21] going, it's a hundred percent great, like acceptable, fine, to miss somebody, to, you know, have these different kinds of feelings.  ARIANA: Right. ANDREW: And I don't need to interpret them in other ways, [01:00:36] you know, like, you know, they can, they can just be what they are and I can notice them and acknowledge them and that could be the whole conversation about it too, which is something that's very different, right? ARIANA: Yeah, yeah. ANDREW: And I think there are lots of feelings around, you [01:00:51] know, anything from how people handle their feeling of desire to, you know, all these kinds of things, like I could feel the most intense desire for somebody and also just like, be friends with them and not have that be a thing either, [01:01:06] you know, like, there are ways in which we can handle sort of all these different kinds of feelings in a very different manner and I think that that's also a really interesting sort of situation around this.  ARIANA: Yeah, like it [01:01:21] kind of sounds like talking about the relationship between our, like, polyamory changes our relationship to gratification. Right? And I think in the ways that like, monogamy is so much about that, possession, right, and that gratification, like having [01:01:36] access to that.  ANDREW: Yeah.  ARIANA: Like polyamory, like, breaks all of that. And so, then you have to have these like new and different ways of navigating those responses and those kind of like, it changes the, like the nature [01:01:51] or like the relationships of attachment, you know? Like how, like how we make meaning out of it and how we assign meaning to it and how we, how we, I think even like, don't, you know, [01:02:06] like, don't assign meaning to it, and don't do all of those things to allow there to still be space. Right? ANDREW: Yeah.  ARIANA: I also, I need to go to the restroom very quick.  ANDREW: No problem. Yes. ANDREW: [00:00:00] Well, I want to say thank you so much for being on the show and having this conversation. It has been even more delightful and insightful than I anticipated. So that [00:00:15] is wonderful. For people who want to go follow your work and be in your orbit and I hope that everybody does, where do they find you online? How do they, how do they follow what you're up to? ARIANA: Yeah, well, [00:00:30] so first of all, thank you so much. It's been like such a joy. I really enjoyed our conversation. Online www.saltwaterstars.com. On Instagram, it's Saltwater dot [00:00:45] Stars, and I'm now public on Twitter, SaltwaterStars underscore, and then I'm also on Facebook as Saltwater Stars. So there's like plenty of options.  ANDREW: Perfect.  ARIANA: Yeah, but it's all Saltwater Stars. ANDREW: That's great. Well, thank you so much [00:01:00] for being on. I think that yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing what people have to say about these conversations and stuff, because I think it's, I think it's such an interesting world view, and I think that, you know, I see more and more people [00:01:15] kind of drifting in this direction or exploring in this direction. So hopefully this will find its way to some of those people and be helpful in some way. ARIANA: Yeah. I hope so, too. Thank you so much Andrew.  ANDREW: Thank you.

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.

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