Podcasts about chuck yeah

Chuck Tanowitz (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ctanowitz/) is a seasoned professional in strategic communications, with a history of building strong programs that drive media and brand growth. His experience spans more than 15 years—he has played key roles in shaping the marketing and communication strategies for various brands, including Paytronix Systems, Greentown Labs, the N-Squared Innovation District, TenMarks, and a long list of others. Chuck is back on Confessions of Marketer for the second time—having joined us in 2017 in the very early days of this podcast. Transcript Mark Reed-Edwards: Welcome to this special episode of Confessions of a Marketer. I'm Mark Reed Edwards. We're back with this mini series of shows I've dubbed the Talent Showcase. These episodes focus on people in marketing, communications, PR, and allied fields who are looking for their next opportunity. My guests share their stories, successes, and how they can help their next employer or client. Today, I'm joined by Chuck Tanowitz. Chuck is a seasoned professional in strategic communications with a history of building strong programs that drive media and brand growth. His experience spans more than 15 years. He's played a key roles in shaping the marketing and communication strategies for various brands, including Paytronix Systems, Greentown Labs, the N Squared Innovation District, 10 Marks, and a long list of others. Chuck Tanowitz is back on Confessions of a Marketer for the second time, having joined us in 2017, the very early days of this podcast. Chuck, welcome back. Chuck Tanowitz: Thank you. I I really appreciate you having me on. Mark: It's great to chat. So can you tell me more about yourself beyond what I just shared, you know, your background and career path? Chuck: You know, it's interesting. I was reading an article recently that talked about developing a career portfolio as opposed to a career path, and I feel like that's actually a little bit of what I've done. Yes, the core of my career has been in PR and marketing and brand, but I've also taken on these other roles outside. That's how I ended up, for example, at the N squared Innovation District, which was really more of an economic development effort, as much it was a marketing effort. So it's given me this broad base of very interesting kind of pieces that I've done. You know, when I look at the work I did at Paytronix, which was very much traditional marketing and PR and brand, which was: drive leads and drive interest in this company. But then you look at something like N-Squared, where it was: "How do I develop a community? How do I bring in art into the project and develop placemaking? How do I connect with local colleges and universities?" And then something like Greentown Labs, where it was: "How do you build something from zero and get it known where you're trying to not necessarily build leads, but certainly build brand around a name and what it means and giving it some brand equity?" And then also creating my own PR from, which I had done a few years ago. And then also being a local advocate and sit on the Economic Development Commission. And then most recently, I spent three days in Vermont learning how to bake croissants. So it's, you know, how do I put all those things together and begin to say, "What do they all mean and how do you move forward?" Mark: Boy, there are some analogies one can make to baking related to our profession. You know, being patient, right? And letting things rise. Chuck: Yeah, sometimes I am not nearly patient enough in my rise. But yes, that is a big part of baking. In fact, I said to my wife the other day, "What I need to do when I bake is plan out a series of bakes along the way, so that while one thing is sitting and rising, I'm working on the next thing." You're right, it does align with where you are in PR, where you're kind of, yes, you might be working on a press release over here, but that's not going out, you know, for two months, three months, six weeks, whatever it is. I also need to be doing the short- term pieces that's going to be driving things forward. But that's actually, I think, where, you know, if you want to kind of bring that analogy back out, where a lot of companies are missing the boat on PR. I know when I was doing my own agency, people would say to me, "Well, how will I know PR is working in the leads that I get?" And I heard it described recently as: demand generation is my sales in this month and next month. PR and brand are my sales in six months to a year. Looking at that over the long term is very difficult to kind of parse out how much is PR and brand doing for you and how much is demand gen doing for you. Those things have to work together, but you're right, there is a lot of patience involved in that PR and brand strategy because they are long term. You're not going to flip a switch and people are just going to know about you It's going to take some time. Mark: And croissants are layered, and it's very fine layers, so maybe there's another analogy we could make there. Chuck: I don't know if you've ever made croissants, but I was learning how to lock in butter which is a whole different thing. But yes, they are layered. There's a very careful folding process you need to do to get the right layers. You need to be patient. I was so proud of myself the other day when I made these croissants and I bit into it and I could see the honeycomb layer within it was like, Oh yes, I hit all those layers just right. But again, you don't know until you're done, right? When I bake a bread, it really takes 24 hours for sourdough to mature and come to life. And you put it in the oven and at that very last step, you could burn it. You could put it in too early, too late. And suddenly all this work you've done for the last 24 hours, is shot. And that's it. Right? So there's a lot of businesses that operate like that, but PR is definitely the end of that process. You can't rely on a single launch to make or break a company. You have to do it over time because there's too many factors that could get in the way that are often outside of your control. I mean, how many of us were working on a launch and the week before something major happens in the world and it completely changes what you're trying to do, right? Happens to Hollywood all the time. How many times have you heard a movie getting delayed or moving around because another one was coming out? Or some major event happens in the world-- a news event, a death, something tragic-- and it's like, "Well, we can't release a movie into that environment." So there's a lot of places that operate like that. Businesses need to be aware that they exist in that market and they can't plan these things out and say, "We have to hit that date, otherwise we're going to die." That's not a good way to run that company. You have to think long term and having a whole host of things moving throughout the year. It's a long growth process. Mark: It's kind of interesting. I don't want to get bogged down in this subject, but ESG and DEI have cropped up in the last several years for good reason. Prior to that, it's almost like companies existed in a different world. Most of them didn't want to get involved in what was going on in the greater society. Chuck: We dealt a little bit with that at my last position. During the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter, before the federal government declared Juneteenth a holiday, my CEO had decided: we are going to close the office on Juneteenth. And we are going to encourage our employees to do public service, to take some time to read and to think. And we put out, you know, internally, a bunch of reading suggestions and so on. I was on the DEI committee, so I was part of that decision. And we sent an email off to our customers to let them know that we were going to be closed that day. And our customers were nationwide. Many of them were convenience stores in the Midwest and South. And we had a very mixed response back. Some people were very supportive: "Well, this makes a lot of sense." Some people felt that we were politicizing the business world. And to my CEO's credit, he said, "This is what we're doing." We didn't lose any business over it. None of that happened. And a year later, the federal government made Juneteenth a holiday regardless. So clearly, we were heading in the correct direction, but you know, he had to look at that response to say, "That's okay. I'm going to take that." And businesses do need to do that. They do need to realize that they live in a greater world and what they stand for matters. I'm seeing that shift a little bit from where it was even a year or two ago, where people are getting a little less comfortable being out there. But I do think it's important and I do think people are making purchasing decisions, at least on the consumer side, in part by what your business stands for. Mark: So this is about you, Chuck. So let's turn the focus back to you. And can you share one of your most important career accomplishments? Chuck: It's interesting that there's actually a lot of things I can pull from that. Let me start recently and go backwards a little bit in time. I was very proud of the work that I did at Paytronix in launching the brand. Getting the opportunity to launch a brand of that magnitude where it was not just, "Hey, let's just change a few aspects of how our logo looks." But this was a complete change in what we looked like, what we sounded like, who we were, how we talked about ourselves-- across the board, the tool sets, the graphic tool sets, the conversations. To have that opportunity to build that and to say, "How do I bring that out internally? How do I bring that out externally?" That was really interesting. I learned a tremendous amount from that project. I was proud of the work that I did there. I was proud of what it did for the company. There was an, you know, some immediate jumps in, you know, that, that brand awareness that happened. You don't often see that, but you know, it was nice to see those Google searches go through the roof. So you certainly saw that impact right away. Then I was sitting in a sales meeting a few months later and the chief revenue officer stood up there and said, "this is one of the things that's really working in our company. Our brand is making our sales process move faster." There's some direct result. I can see that. I was also equally proud of some of the work I did with Greentown Labs, spending a couple of years launching them into the market and getting them going from a place of sitting empty, really, to something that became very much part of the fabric of the clean tech landscape, certainly in Boston and began to emerge as we were wrapping up that work emerged around the country. They're now in Houston. And a lot of the branding and the concepts that we laid out for them, they still use today. You know, one of the things I remember we talked about early on was we were debating how do we talk about their tenants, right? Because they were charging rent. How do they talk about tenants? And we were like, "Well, if we call them member companies and we give them a badge, that's going to help our SEO." And they still talk about member companies and alumni companies and that sort of thing as part of their language. I was very proud of that work. It seems so small and minor, but it changes the nature of the way that you think about yourself. It changed nature of the way companies think about themselves within it. And then the work I did at N Squared was spectacular. Not only did we see the results and the people coming in, but one of my favorite projects was the Greenway Arts Project. We had this greenway that was really underutilized and we were looking at how do we drive awareness for the N Squared Innovation District and engage with the local community. And I synced up with Studios Without Walls to bring in sculpture. We had looked at a lot of different directions about how to do this. And we brought in this for two years, we brought in this the sculpture exhibit and not only did it get the neighborhood excited, but it completely changed the way the neighborhood looked at the center of its being where it had been looking at other areas. This was a neighborhood that didn't really have a good center of downtown. They began to look at that greenway as their center, which they hadn't before. And considering that there's a major development happening on the other side of that greenway, the fact that they changed the center of their site to that location will change long term, the way that that whole neighborhood sees itself. Mark: I think anybody who has listened to this podcast would know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What do you think you can offer your next employer or client? Chuck: I certainly bring a breadth of understanding of how people think. Right? And be able to get into that conversation in a very interesting way. You know, there's the tactical: writing skills, etc., down the line. But there's certainly then the broad sweep of: "Who are we? How do we get that to market? How do we encourage people to know about us? How do we raise our awareness?" So I bring that kind of skill set. At the same time you know, I have a pretty solid track record of training people, so there's not only the ability to bring that out, but also build a team underneath me that can help execute on that and help grow that team and encourage that team and keep them engaged in storytelling. One of the things that I do take great pride in is the ability to tell that story and the ability to kind of turn that story outward. At Paytronix, I changed some things around to create what I called story- driven marketing, where we went and dug into the customer stories, figured out where those stories were, how those matched with our brand message and then move those into the various content components, the eBooks, the webinars, etc., blog posts, case studies, and pushed those out through our own marketing that we needed to get out for demand gen, but that also then fed the PR. So being able to create these systems that can run and can help build for the future is where my skill set is. And then, you need to build the infrastructure underneath it to maintain those long term. But certainly it's about: "How do you create a process that's going to continually benefit across multiple touch points?" So that's a lot of what I try to bring to the table. Mark: Well, Chuck, it was great chatting again. Always enjoy it. And I really hope this podcast helps you find your next great gig. Chuck: I appreciate it. I appreciate the time. Mark: I'm Mark Reed Edwards. Join me on the next Confessions of a Marketer.

In today's episode of Building Texas Business, I speak with Chuck Leblo, founder of Interact One. Chuck shares his entrepreneurial journey from working in the corporate world, where he was overwhelmed by paperwork, to starting his own business. He offers valuable lessons learned from launching a side business while employed and the critical decisions that helped him succeed. Chuck leaves us with wisdom on building effective teams and maintaining a balanced lifestyle as an entrepreneur. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Chuck Leblo, the founder of Interact One, shares his journey from corporate America to entrepreneurship, detailing the reasons behind his transition, such as the overbearing workload in his corporate job. We highlight the importance of having a side gig while starting a business to ensure financial stability. He explains how his unique problem-solving skills were instrumental in the exponential growth of his business from a modest $14,000 to a whopping $140,000 a month. Chuck details his process of tackling a telecom company's issue of short duration calls and building a team of diverse fractionals to aid in problem-solving. He talks about the various challenges he faced as an entrepreneur, including the need to make decisions and pivot the business when necessary. We discuss the impact that COVID-19 had on his business and how he successfully managed to meet the new market needs. He emphasizes the importance of building a successful team of partners and fractionals and shares his experience in helping businesses navigate the remote working world. Chuck shares his experience of managing a large-scale door-to-door team in the deregulated electricity market in Texas and the challenges of the project. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance, sharing his personal experience and strategies. Chuck advises entrepreneurs to treat everyone with respect, earn people's trust, and widen their network to succeed in business. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller GUESTS Chuck LebloAbout Chuck TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode you will meet Chuck Leblo, founder of Interact One. Through Interact One, chuck helps business owners solve problems and stresses the importance of building trust with clients as the foundation to successfully growing your company. All right, chuck, I want to thank you for joining me here on Building Texas Business. It's great to have you on the show. Now it's a pleasure to be here. So I know you've got a business or two you're involved with now and maybe others you've had before. But let's just kind of start by you telling the listeners kind of a little bit about yourself and the company that you've got and what it's known for. Chuck: Well, I'm pretty boring story, but so Interact One. Really, we're known for being problem solvers right, and not the type of problem solvers like I need a guy whacked right. Chris: Yeah, we have to stop the recording right now. Chuck: Right, right right, so I can say use the money, you can be my legal counsel, right. So, but now we solve problems for businesses right, and we've been doing that for about 17, 18 years now. I've always been known as a natural problem solver, from the time of a kid all the way through the military, through my corporate days and into my business. So it was a natural, natural evolution for me to just basically start a company that solves problems. Chris: All right. So I guess you mentioned a lot of, I guess, background going back from your childhood and military service. What was the real inspiration for you to kind of becoming an entrepreneur and actually starting a business? Chuck: Well, so 20 years in corporate America I was. I started out as a problem solver on an engineering basis right In telecom and then I got into the business side and I solved business problems which were more to do with like profitability right. And one day I was sitting there and I looked around my office and I just saw stacks in the business 20 years ago, right, everything wasn't digitized then. So stacks and stacks of invoices and contracts and lease cost, routing guides and all of this kind of stuff and I realized I was wasting my life away just doing that, just spending all my time. I was heavily compensated for what I did. Most people would die to have the job, but I was just like I'm not spending time with my family, I'm working 20 hours, sometimes 20 hours a day, right, and I said enough is enough. So I started my. At that point, you know, I had the funds available and I started my own company. Now, unfortunately in retrospect, I started a company doing basically exactly the same thing that I was doing for the telecom companies. I was controlling profitability for helping other telecom companies do that and then helping fortune 1000 clients and government agencies do it. So so that was like my little step in entrepreneurship, because I was really doing the same thing, but just doing it on my own. Then, about five years later six years later is when I really said no, we got to go full tilt into just solving problems. I want to solve them for all types of businesses. So really it was just sitting there looking at all the boxes and just to press the heck out of me. Chris: Yeah, the guy sounds like you're in a situation where you lost your motivation and you had to kind of look introspectively to go. How can I regain the motivation and inspiration I had about what it is I did? Chuck: Yeah. Chris: I wasn't excited about it anymore. Yeah, so. So you step out on your own, whether it was kind of that in that first venture or the five year later, let's talk about that. I mean, what were some of the, the lessons you learned that you were like, oh, I wish I to someone would have told me this. Right, it's like I gotta imagine some things kind of hit you in the face and you had to learn to adapt really quick to now you know, owning your own show. Chuck: Yeah, so the first thing I learned was when I took that first step, right where I owned the company, doing exactly what I was doing before, and what I learned was one it's feast or famine out there, right, as a consultant. It was a. It was feast or famine. The second thing I learned was it's okay to keep your toe in the corporate pond, right. So what I would do is, during those types of famine, I would go get a little gig you know, part time gig help a company out to pay the bills. One of the examples is we did an analysis for state government where we looked at five years of their telecom bills going back. We got them about five million bucks back, okay. So we renegotiated all their contracts, saved them about three million dollars a year going forward. Wow, it took us two years to do that analysis and to start getting that money back and we were paid on a contingency basis. We got a percentage of what we got them back. So two years without money. So if I hadn't known at the time that it's okay, it's okay to be, it's okay to be a part time entrepreneur, and in most cases it's better to get your side gig going before you take a full time side, before you take that side gig full time yeah. Chris: Yeah, that's interesting perspective because I don't know that. I've heard people use that term before, but I think there's some truth to it about that. Okay to be a part time entrepreneur, to kind of get your legs underneath yeah. Chuck: Now most people think that they have a side gig and then that side gig becomes their new job. I looked at it as that, that my business was my job, that I looked at the corporate America side as the side gig. Chris: Yeah, okay. So so you get you kind of learn that lesson and you move forward. What were some of the things, when you look back, that you feel like were the decisions you made that kind of set the foundation for your future success Because anything right, you can use any analogy you want, but also you got to have a strong foundation to be able to build from Anything that comes to mind that you really look back on and are kind of proud of the early decisions you made, in the way you set things up. Chuck: I think that you have to choose your clients wisely, right? There's an old saying out there that if everyone's your potential customer, no one's a customer. Right, you have to and I'm listening up, because I'm not perfect in any means. When I first started, I started going just after telecom companies, and that because that was what I knew. I'd spent 20 years in telecom and I had to learn all other aspects if I wanted to do this. So, you know, I became an expert at digital marketing. I already knew operations from telecom. I already knew finance from telecom. Right technology, of course I knew that one. I really know a whole lot about HR or legal, but what I didn't know was marketing and sales. So I had to become an expert in that Right. And that was really the catalyst is when I went from just being a just knowing, just doing telecom companies to now specializing in really all types of businesses, but only particular size businesses. So I learned that I didn't want to do business with those big fortune 1000s anymore. The big electric providers right, those were our clients. Telecom companies, those were the state agencies, government agencies and things like that. I didn't want to deal in that arena anymore because I can impact a small business much more. Right, if I save a small business you know $100,000 a year or fix a problem that solves, that's worth $100,000 or $200,000, that's much more impactful than getting a state agency back $5 million because it's not real money to them anyway. Right, it's just taxpayer money. It's not like they're going to give it back to the taxpayers. They're going to find someplace else to spend it. Chris: Right, right. Well, I think there's some truth to what you're saying is, as you're starting out with the new business, it's very important to be really laser focused about who your customer is and stay kind of within those bounds and not start to chase every little thing that may come your way because it may not fit your skill set, it may not fit your purpose and it can be distracting. Chuck: It can be distracting and it'll give you, you know, doubt as to what you're doing, whether or not you're competent, right, and that'll kill you as an entrepreneur. When you start doubting yourself and doubting your abilities than others will. Chris: So we've talked a little bit about kind of getting started as you were kind of moving through the process. You've talked about kind of focusing in, I guess after about five years on really just being a problem solver. Let's talk maybe a little more detail about what are some of the things you're talking about when you say you know we solve problems. I know they can vary, but I'm just curious about some kind of specifics, to the extent you can share some specifics on that. Chuck: Sure. First of all, I always tell people is your problem worth at least $2,000? Don't be gonna do me with a problem, right? That's not worth something. I'm not doing it for free, so let me give you an example. So about a year and a half ago I got called by a customer of mine, a roofer, and he goes hey, I've got this company that I want to outsource my back office to and I need you to vet them. So that's a problem. I said, okay, fine, let me vet them for you. So I did that and they were a good company, right. And about six months later after that, I get a call from that company and as owner of the company, and she held up a little sticky note and it said hire Chuck. And I said what's that? She goes. When we had our conversation I know that I knew that I needed a Chuck and I said, okay, so how can I help you? And she goes listen, I've been in business for almost a year now. We're an outsourced VA virtual assistance company and we're just not really making. We're not growing fast enough. We're going to get about $14,000 a month in revenue. And I said okay, and I took a look into our organization and we started making some changes and first thing we did was we rebranded her as a business process outsourcing company instead of a virtual assistance company. Then we made some operational changes with her personnel, helped her grow and hire the right people, got all of her people certified in the softwares that they were using so they could truly be viewed as an expert instead of just a virtual assistant. In less than a year they went from $14,000 a month revenue to $140,000 a month in revenue. Okay, just changes that. We did Another company, a telecom company, swiss telecom, a telecom company right, they were getting a lot of short duration calls that they were being billed for and they didn't know what the problem was. So we've got a problem. So we did an analysis of tens of millions of TCAP messages which are getting technical here in SS7. It's like a phone record, but it's the digital version of it, right and we found that what was happening was, down the line, one of the providers that they were connecting to, because, remember, you go through several switches. You call them the US, it might go here. Anyway, one of those switches was given back what's called false answer supervision, before the call was ever answered. So that's why they're having short duration calls. People would call, it would ring nine, 10 times, no one would answer and they'd hang up but it was showing it's answered. So we fixed that problem. So really, it's any type of problem. It's like I want to open a new location, okay, so one of the things that we do in our LinkedIn reach out, that we do how we find clients is we just ask people what their problem is and we tell them everyone. We tell them how we would solve the problem. One is what's the true problem and what's the real problem? Because a true problem or their problem might be I need more revenue. Okay, so what's the real problem? Or is the real problem you need more revenue because your costs are too high, because if your costs are too high and we bring in more revenue, we put you out of business because you're selling low cost, right? Is it because you're marketing? Is it because you just don't have the right staff in place? So we do that analysis and take them through that and either fix it for them and hand it back to them or, once it's corrected, we can monitor on an ongoing basis. Chris: So when you do these projects, you assume you're not just a one man show. You've got a team working with you, and how have you gone about, I guess, building that team around you to make sure you have the right people? Chuck: So what I? Did is listen. So experience is important, diversity is important right, and diversity from the sense of people with different backgrounds are going to have different ways that they interpret a problem and the corrective action that they would find for that right. So although I'm the chief strategist for the company, I don't really go by the title CEO, but I'm CEO and chief strategist. I'm more of a strategy kind of guy, so I do handle a lot of the problems. Chris: When you know, name of the companies interact one. Chuck: You're going to interact with me, right? In most cases, but what we did is we wanted to find people like me, because I don't know everything that lets surround yourself with people smarter than you, right? So we go out and we find fractional people just like me, right? Possibly someone that's got a full-time job, they are a CEO of a company or they're an entrepreneur that own their own company or they're an accountant, right? So we have a lot of people that are working with us for finance issues, it professionals, right, and we've built a network of these people to where we hold all of their information so that when a problem comes in, we have three or four or five in some cases, 10 people that we can send that problem to and see what their thoughts are on it and then engage that person the one that we want to engage with to help us solve that. And then we do the program management or the program project management of that and we have a lot of employees, but we have a lot of fractionals working for us. Chris: Okay, that's an interesting model. I mean it makes sense, given what you're doing, and then you can kind of pick the right person for the issue at hand, Absolutely. So we were talking a little bit earlier and I know you know we talked about challenges you faced and being an entrepreneur and I just want you know, maybe share, some of the challenges you've gone through and how that's impacted the business or changed what you've done. From you know, from a, I guess, a business strategy. Chuck: Well, I mean, if you're in business, you're always going to have challenges, right. So you know, starting from the very beginning, just being able to redirect yourself. You know don't beat a dead horse, redirect, you know, make a decision one way or the other lead, follow. Get out of the way all those little sayings they say is you know, do that? Make decisions. Some of the you know. The first one was switching from being just strictly telecom to really handling smaller businesses. That was one. Then we diversified into where we had our own public relations firm because a lot of companies, what they were, what we found is a lot of companies have an issue with actually people knowing who they were right. So we created that company and being able to to in the economy, be able to utilize, you know, both companies right. Listen when very small businesses, they can't afford a lot sometimes but they can afford a little bit and that's like the PR company. One of the challenges that we had with that diversification is when COVID hit. Right, we were leading up into COVID. We were spending probably 90% well, 70% of our business was from a revenue perspective, was coming from the PR firm and these are small clients paying $395, $500 a month, right, for our PR services. And the Interact One, the more consulting, the high dollar ones, was really just me at that time, okay, and when COVID hit, basically all those customers call me hey, we don't know what's going on. We've got to stop and we've let everyone out of their contracts, for sure, but we lost about 90% of that business, and at the time I really didn't know what I was. Yeah, it was a very big hit and they really know what to do. But then I started thinking well, people really have problems now. Right, they've got problems that need solved. A lot of problems were, you know, during COVID is. You know, how do we maintain a remote workforce? How do we keep our store open but just have deliveries? How do we keep our employees engaged out? You know, how do we give our customers engaged? How do we transfer our shop from totally brick and mortar to an online right? So it was a godsend for me as far as building back up or getting more involved in the Interact One business. But because if I didn't have that, I don't know where I'd be today. I'd probably be dipping my toe back in the corporate pond again, right, right, but you've got to be able to. Chris: Yeah, the ability to, I guess you know, kind of pivot when necessary and kind of keep going is critical, yeah, For an entrepreneur especially small business owner Yep. What other? I guess, excuse me, what other advice when you think about how you interact with your? You know your partners, your kind of your, these, maybe these what I would call maybe alliances you have with other fractionals. But maybe there are other type of partners you used to keep your business successful, whether that's you know banking relationships, you know accounting, legal. What are some advice you have on that, on you know best practices to make sure you kind of surround yourself with that kind of strong team that you need to kind of have a stable business. Chuck: Yeah. So, listen, a lot of small businesses out there, right, they try to do it all themselves, right and don't. Right, there are professionals out there that can help you and even if you want to build everything in house, you know, make sure that you know, like you said, have a strong relationship with a banker, a financial person, you know, some sort of business coach maybe to help you do things. What I do is I just try to treat everyone with respect and, as a consultant, sometimes we especially when we're solving problems, right, I can't, someone can't say something to me and me go well, crap, how stupid are you? Right, you got to treat that business owner with respect and sometimes, if they're making boneheaded decisions, there's a little bit of dance involved in it. Right, so be respectful and earn people's trust and with, whether it's your business partners like me, you know all the other C level professionals that I work with, right, because most of the people that we bring on as our partner or our hybrid or partner or fractional whatever you want to call it consultants that we lean on in areas that we don't have the expertise, they're all C level, okay, so you've got to be respectful of them and trust their decision. Now we have a leave at them. First, right, trust just isn't given. But you know, be respectful and widen your network. Right, you're only as good as the people that you're surrounded by. Chris: Yeah, no, that's for sure. And they're a reflection of you, right? If you're bringing them in, whether that's an employee and you're putting them on a project or a consultant, and you're bringing them in, whoever that client is sees them as a reflection of you. So it's important to make sure they align, you know, with your fundamental values, absolutely, absolutely so in what I think you referred to this a minute ago, when you're talking about certain problems, you've been helping people solve anything you've seen in the last couple of years where you've been involved and maybe in certain projects and develop some. I don't know if there are best practices, but I'm thinking about work, the work remote world we're in and helping companies kind of navigate to a place that can work for the business, to remain profitable but also allow for some of that flexibility. Anything you can share on that regard. Trust Right. Chuck: So one of the biggest problems Just in case. Chris: I didn't hear that clearly. I want to make sure the audio is clear. You said trust. Chuck: That's what I'm talking about Trust, right, that's my text is coming out Trust. So what happens? And it's instilled a sin from the very beginning? Oh, 40 hours a week, and this is your rate, right? And how do I know that my people are working if they're not here? And I can see what's going on behind the desk? And my answer to them is the work being done. Right, is the work being done? And you, as a manager this is what I tell the business owner you, as a manager, need to make sure that you're giving them the work that can be done in the time period that you want it done in, right? You know, if you give someone three things to do and they can do it in four hours instead of eight hours, well, those are the things you needed them to do and they did it. So why shouldn't they get paid what you would have paid them, which was eight hours, okay, but then again, if you don't have your finger on it to where you know how long it takes them to do something, then that's on you, that's not on them. And if you give them too much and they're not getting it all done, then that's when you've got to start looking into it. Am I giving them too much Right. Chris: So the main thing with work remote. Chuck: That I tell, like I said I tell people is trust your people Trust, trust yourself that you made the right decision when you hired them, right, or it's your fault anyway, and then trust the fact that they're working. I've seen businesses that are like well, they've got to log into this system and stay logged in. Okay, well, they could be logging in while they're taking a nap. That doesn't mean that they're doing the work. Well, you know, we make them have a zoom open so that at any time we can look and see if they're working. I said you know I would quit. I don't, I'm going to do the work, but if you're insisting on having a camera on me making sure that I'm doing work all the time, then it's not a right fit. Right, there has to be trust. Chris: Yeah, you're right. I mean I think you know, in addition to trust, I think what I've seen and I think you're saying this as well is you got to communicate clearly what the expectations are Right. So when you talk about these assignments, I mean you know not only is the word getting done, is it getting done timely and efficiently and correctly Right, and if so, then you know you're on to something. And if not, then you got to correct that from a work performance standpoint and be able to say look, this is what the assignment was, this is what the deadline was, and if it didn't meet the standards, be able to explain why. And then figure out what's the right corrective action from there. Chuck: Yeah, expectations are everything and then being able to you know, another thing you do is get buy in from that remote worker you know how, what can you do, how much can you do it? You know, it's like my telecom days, the old telecom days. You had what was called an occupancy rate, so you had a call center where people are answering the call and then, oh, I want 100% occupancy, which that meant that 100% of the time that people were on the phone. And it's not possible, right, even the best call centers run at 60 to 65% occupancy, right, and you got to realize the way your people are too. If you're paying them for eight hours, you know what you'll be good, you're doing really good if you're getting six hours of real work out of them. Because you got to stop and think sometimes, as, as American culture, we really, I guess we really think that our employee employees owe us when really we owe them. Chris: Yeah, that's a good point. So let's talk a little bit just about you know, maybe on your personal leadership style. How would you describe your leadership style? And first there, and then you know how do you work with some of your clients. Maybe help them with their leadership style when those opportunities present themselves. Chuck: Well, I think that in the business that I'm in, I have to be collaborative, right, you can't make all the decisions and do everything yourself, and really that's what business owners have to do all the time telling them that you're, you know, you're micromanaging your people, you know. Give them some room to breathe, let them have some creativity, let them help make decisions. Don't just tell them what to do, ask them what needs to be done, and that's kind of my leadership style, right. But then I always go back to problem solving. So I want to know what the real problem is, what, not just the problem, the problem, you think the perceived problem, but what is the real problem and how can we correct this with any decision that's made? Chris: Yeah, so kind of we talked a little bit about this maybe. But I want to ask you a maybe different way when you think about yourself and your career, any kind of setbacks that you've encountered, that you look back and go man, that was a tough time, or I made a boneheaded decision or whatever, but what I learned from it benefited me so much that I can look back and be grateful for that experience. Anything come to mind for there that you can share? Chuck: Yeah, Back when I kind of first started the Interact One on the marketing side, when I was learning marketing, I had a company come to me and it was like we want you to help us acquire more customers. You remember back when deregulation happened on electricity in Texas. Chris:So we started working. Chuck: The problem and the problem that we gave them was you need to have a door-to-door team that needs to be trained this way and done this way and do all this kind of stuff. And they said, okay, great, do it for us. And 286 people later right, five locations across the state of Texas, a lot of money, Thank you, but it wasn't worth it and it almost made me to where I didn't want to even continue. Right, it was so stressful having that many people that are working on a commission-only basis right, Selling electricity, training them, looking at Perf and all of that kind of stuff. So it was very profitable and it's one of the things that, if I had my if I go back in time, that's maybe one thing that I would have changed is I wouldn't have went down that path that took so much energy and took three years of my life to do that. I could have done much greater things. Chris: I believe, interesting. So that kind of segues well into the next question I want to ask you and that is how do you go about maintaining you know there's all the. You know the typical word is work-life balance, and I'm kind of a believer and I had some other guests on the podcast and I agree with this is more about work-life integration than how do you manage both, because you have work and you have your personal life and how do you integrate those so you can show up effectively in both? What are some of the things that you do to try to make that happen in your life? Chuck: I take naps. Chris: I love it. Chuck: I'm a big proponent of taking naps, but really OK. So I've got, maybe, a different viewpoint, because I did the corporate America gig for 20 years and I had my business, grew it very big, then pulled it back small again and I work because I want to work. There is no work-life balance. I have life and I work when I want to work. And if I want to work five hours this week, that's what I work this week. If I want to take a week off, I take a week, and I know it's different for a lot of entrepreneurs, you know. But I'm entering the, the, the twilight state. I don't look at that. I'm pretty dang old, right, and I think that for the younger people starting out, or you know, mid-mid-age, right it's important, right? Don't do what I did in the first 20 years of my career, where all I did was work and I saw my kids on weekends, which initially eventually led to a divorce, which meant that I only saw them every other weekend, right? Yeah, 14 years ago I started over again. Wonderful woman, she keeps me grounded and she is my life, makes me want to be a better man, and we started a new family, so that helps out too. So I've got an eight year old son now, right, and I've got an eight year old granddaughter and I've got an eight year old grandson right. Oh, wow, yeah. So it gives you the. It's allowing me to have a second chance with that and I'm not going to fail it. So, yeah, I don't necessarily know how you do it, whether it's working out or yoga. This is the one of the one of the people in the podcast. They were doing yoga and all this kind of stuff. I know that you have to have something that stimulates your brain at all points in time. I've got an eight year old that does that I've got. You've got to have something that exercises your body. I've got an eight year old that does that. I help coaches lacrosse team and the day after practices I can barely walk. So I don't know if I have a great answer for it. I know it's important, but I'm not there anymore. I just I work because I want to work. Chris: Yeah, no, I work great hours. I think what I love there. Everyone has a little different take on it because, look, everyone's situation is different and so you've got to get to figure out what works in your ecosystem and your environment, and that includes, right, the family and the business and the career and all those things, and those things can change over time. Chuck: There's another camp. Chris: All right. So yeah, I appreciate all this has been really good stuff. I'm going to turn it a little bit to the lighter side and ask you what was your first job? Like real job or entrepreneurial job? No, that real job, I mean I don't know, like in junior high you had to pay for route, or yeah. No, I didn't, I didn't do the paper route. Chuck: So my for my, as I was raised by a single mom, right, we didn't have anything. She was a waitress. So I went into the family business and I bust tables and lost dishes at a restaurant. Chris: That will humble you really quick right, make you hungry, and not just hungry to say I want something different. Chuck: Yeah, I know that I want. I always knew that I wanted to have something more than what I had growing up. Chris: I know you said you listened to some of the prior podcast episodes, so I know you're ready for this one Tex-Mex or barbecue. Chuck: Well, it depends where right Sure, you know. So I do my own barbecue. Okay, so if I'm eating out someplace, I don't necessarily do Tex-Mex very well, except for guacamole I'm a great guacamole. But so I would say, if I'm eating out, it's a text. I eat more Tex-Mex than barbecue, but I enjoy barbecue. Chris: Ma'am, I may have to see if you can ship me some of yours and I bet it's pretty good. Yeah, I make some pretty good barbecue. I love. The honest answer there was. It depends where, because so many of us have. Well, if it's, you know, if it's this that I'm hungry for, then it might be this barbecue joint or this different Tex-Mex place. So I have to share. I just saw and I share with my girls, you know the L L L L Roya in Austin in their signs. There, there was, I saw a picture of this. One says Texan a person who chooses a restaurant based on their chips and salsa. Chuck: You know that's very true, Isn't that true? Chris: What we need is a. Chuck: Tex-Mex barbecue. Chris: Yeah, but we have some of that here in Houston. We have some places that are using like brisket in their tacos and things, so it is. Chuck: They have Korean barbecue. Right, they have Korean barbecue, so why not? You know Tex-Mex barbecue and you know have more. Of. You know the beans would be more of the barbecue style beans with some jalapenos in there. So I put jalapenos in everything. So everything is Tex-Mex. Chris: I like it. Well, you and I may have to get offline and we may come up with a new restaurant concept here. Chuck: Yeah, so okay, last question. This one's out of the menu, yeah. Chris: Everything's out of the menu. Yes. Last question is, if you could take a 30-day sabbatical or you just get away, where would you go and what would you do? Chuck: Well. So sabbatical means something different, right, and getting yourself in a different thing. So I like, at least twice a year, we go to the Smoky Mountains, which is my, that's my spot, right. When I first went to the Smoky Mountains, I was like this is where I belong, right. But a sabbatical might be a little bit different, and I think it would be really cool to go over to Africa and do a photo safari. I don't want to shoot the animals anymore. I did that growing up. I don't need to do it anymore, but to get them on camera and to live in the camps and stuff like that would just be. That'd be something to be really cool, yeah. Chris: It's a bucket list item for sure. Yeah, that's great. Chuck: Well, Chuck, I want to thank you again for taking the time. Chris: come on the show and share your story. I love hearing kind of the career you've had and the way you evolved and I love this the way you're helping companies solve big problems, so really appreciate it. Chuck: Well, I appreciate you having me. It was fun. Chris: All right, we're going to stop the recording there. Let me see if I can actually do that. Hmm, no, here we go. I'm not the host, it won't love me, but they know where we stopped, so hey. I was talking, I talk enough. No, you did great. Look, we, you know I was watching our timer. Yeah, we were. We probably stopped the recording in minute 3435 and 30 to 40 minutes is our goal, so we were right in the sweet spot. And yeah, and it always goes so fast because you're just having a conversation and I think everyone gets amazed that I can't believe it went that well. We were actually talking for that long, but yeah. Chuck: In my business I don't talk, I listen. So it's hard for me to fathom that I'm. You know, when I listen like when I do a conference call with a client I one of the people you had said they use order. We use order also and it shows you the stats on how long each person talked and I always make sure and always tell the other people that make sure that the client's talking more. Chris: Yeah, what you're talking, you know. Chuck: you look at the the the recap and it says Chuck talked for 36 out of 60 minutes. Well, that's too much, Right? Chuck needs to talk for eight minutes out of an hour and let the customer talk. Chris: That's good, that was good. Chuck: I look forward to seeing the seeing the episode. Chris: Absolutely, we'll be back in touch. I don't know. So, josie, with my team and Mackenzie they're my marketing kind of folks and I can't remember the name I know you kind of came through, a group that was, you know, helps you book these things, yeah, thanks. We want a headshot, kind of thing and all that. Chuck: They're having great the ride up on me. All that kind of stuff yeah. Chris: Well then, what we'll do? We'll give you a little. Obviously, there'll be some advanced warning once we get it all packaged up and we have a date certain that we're going to release it, and we'll get it all to you and your people, and then it'll be, it'll hit the presses. Chuck: So also, and the next time I'm in Houston I'll look you guys up and we do lunch or something. Chris: Please do. I would love that Love to go grab some barbecue. Yeah, thank you All right man, I talk to you later. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye, bye. Special Guest: Chuck Leblo.

In this week's episode of Breaking Battlegrounds, we are honored to welcome a lineup of exceptional guests, each bringing their unique perspectives on pressing issues that matter most to our nation.Our first guest needs no introduction, as he is a dear friend of the show and a prominent figure in the political landscape. Matt Lewis, the acclaimed columnist at The Daily Beast and the author of "Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections (and How It Can Reclaim Its Conservative Roots)," graces our platform once again. Today, Matt joins us to share insights from his newly-released book, "Filthy Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America." Next on our show is Congressman James Moylan, representing Guam. As Guam Liberation Day approaches on July 21, Congressman Moylan joins us to shed light on this historic event and its profound significance to the people of Guam. We explore the remarkable journey of resilience and freedom, honoring the spirit of those who have shaped Guam's vibrant history.Our final guest, California State Senator Shannon Grove, enters the conversation with an urgent and compelling topic. She discusses her crucial bill that aims to designate human trafficking as a serious and violent felony. Despite the importance of this legislation, California democrats voted it down. Tune in to learn more about this critical issue and the efforts to combat human trafficking in the Golden State.Subscribe now and stay informed on the latest developments, only on Breaking Battlegrounds!-Connect with us:www.breakingbattlegrounds.voteTwitter: www.twitter.com/Breaking_BattleFacebook: www.facebook.com/breakingbattlegroundsInstagram: www.instagram.com/breakingbattlegroundsLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/breakingbattlegroundsCalled a “first-rate talent” in The Washington Post and “super-smart” by John Heilemann, Matt K. Lewis is a center-right critic of American politics and pop culture.As a journalist, Lewis has earned a reputation as an “independently minded” (Columbia Journalism Review) and “intellectually honest” commentator (Ben Adler, Newsweek). He is a senior columnist for The Daily Beast, and his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, GQ, The Washington Post, The Week, Roll Call, Politico, The Telegraph, The Independent, and The Guardian. He previously served as senior contributor for The Daily Caller, and before that, as a columnist for AOL's Politics Daily.Lewis dissects the day's issues in conversation with other thinkers, authors, and newsmakers on his podcast Matt Lewis and the News, and co-hosts The DMZ Show with liberal pundit Bill Scher. He has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS NewsHour, ABC's “Nightline,” HBO's “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and CBS News' “Face The Nation,” and has contributed to radio outlets including NPR and the BBC.Kirsten Powers described Lewis's 2016 book, Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Went From the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump, as “a lively and fascinating read for any person confounded by the state of today's Republican Party.” In 2011, Lewis released The Quotable Rogue: The Ideals of Sarah Palin in Her Own Words, an edited compilation of the Alaska governor's much-discussed public utterances.-Congressman James Moylan proudly serves as Guam's congressional delegate to the 118th United States Congress. As the first Republican to win the seat on Guam in nearly 30 years, Moylan's victory was historic. He is a strong and trustworthy leader who's focused on issues that affect Guamanians most. Moylan believes island residents have a right to know what's happening in their governing offices. Therefore, he has created an open door policy allowing constituents to have their concerns addressed. Moylan's history of service includes his time as a senator in the 35th and 36th Guam Legislature, a Veteran of the United States army and a parole officer at the Department of Corrections. Additionally, Moylan has more than two decades of experience working in the private sector, including healthcare, financial services, and insurance.In his current position, Moylan serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee.  Both Committees address issues that are vital to Guam.Additionally, Moylan is a native of Guam and is from the village of Tumon. He graduated from John F Kennedy High School and continued to the University of Guam where he obtained a  bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice.  Most of all, Moylan is a proud father to Abby and Krissy Moylan.-Senator Shannon Grove was born and raised in Kern County.After graduating from high school, Senator Grove served in the United States Army. While stationed in Frankfurt, Germany she witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.Following her service to our nation, she established a staffing company with her sister-in-law called Continental Labor and Staffing Resources. Senator Grove currently serves as the CEO.Prior to her election to the State Senate, Senator Grove was the first woman veteran elected to the California Legislature as she served the 34th Assembly District from 2010 to 2016.Senator Grove was elected to represent the 16th Senate District in November 2018, which includes portions of Kern, Tulare, and San Bernardino counties. In January 2019, she was elected Leader of the Senate Republican Caucus where she served in that capacity for two years. As the Republican Leader-Emeritus, Grove remains a committed representative working with legislators to advance policies that benefit the constituents, businesses, and communities within Senate District 16.Senator Grove is an advocate for small business, school choice, the developmentally disabled, farmers, and families. She currently lives in Kern County with her husband, Rick. They are the proud parents of five children and eight grandchildren.Transcription:Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren on the line with us right now. Fantastic new book out came out on the 18th. Matt Lewis. He is a friend of the program, columnist for The Daily Beast, author of Too Dumb to Fail How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections. Yeah, we are not too dumb to fail. That's been proven many, many times. And today he's joining us to discuss his new book, Filthy Rich Politicians The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America. Matt, thank you for joining us and welcome to the show.Matt Lewis: Well, thanks for having me back.Chuck Warren: So what gave you the idea to write a book about this issue about filthy rich politicians?Matt Lewis: Well, to be honest, it was because I'm a capitalist. And I was I was actually approached by a book agent, believe it or not, who had this idea to rank the 100 richest politicians in America.Chuck Warren: Interesting.Matt Lewis: That was the original idea of the book. It was 100 chapters. Each chapter was just going to be on. Wow. The 100 richest politicians in just how they made their money. And that's how it started. And it evolved, I think, into a much deeper, more important topic, which includes, you know, the original idea, but but goes so much deeper into like, what it all means. And so it was one of those just the stars aligned and I think we ended up writing a great book.Sam Stone: We got the book a few days ago. I've gone through most of it, I admit, to skimming a few portions. Who is the richest politician in America?Matt Lewis: The richest politician in America is JB Pritzker, who's the governor of Illinois. He is an heir to the Hyatt fortune. There are 11 billionaires in his family and interestingly, when he was running for governor in Illinois, there were three billionaires running for the seat last year in 2022.Sam Stone: Well, amazing. You know what I love about Pritzker? I don't know if you've ever read the book Super Mob, but that family got its start with mob financing.Matt Lewis: Well, you know, it's like the Kennedys, you know, I mean, you go back far enough.Chuck Warren: I think we just call those hard money loans today.Matt Lewis: But in in Congress, it would be Rick Scott. Most people and by the way, it's impossible to know the actual net wealth of most politicians because the range have ways of hiding it. And it's reported in broad ranges. But it used to be Darrell Issa. Right now we believe it is Rick Scott, senator from Florida, who's the richest in Congress.Chuck Warren: Well, so why should this matter to the average voter? I mean, so, for example, you know, as a 2020, I believe about half the members of Congress had a median net worth of $1 million. Okay. And there's almost 22 million people in the United States that have that net worth now. Now, most of that's probably in their home, right. Something they've lived in 20, 30 years. And a couple other things.Sam Stone: I mean, half of California has, but it's.Chuck Warren: Still a lot of money. I mean, you know, a population of 350 million, 21, 21, 22 million people are worth $1 million. And, you know, and that seems like a lot of money. But we also realize that's a lot. And it's not in a lot of ways, right? I mean, you can't retire on that per se and just live on it. But why is this important for Americans and why should they demand some reforms on this?Matt Lewis: Well, so the book is about two things. It's about how the rich get elected and how the elected get rich. And I think both things are important. So right now, the average member of Congress is about 12 times richer than the median American household. And so I think you know, look, I don't begrudge rich people from, you know, for running for office. And in fact, there's some ways that I even admire that. But I do think it's it seems likely to me that when and by the way, I should say that this this phenomenon where the average member of Congress is 12 times richer than the rest of us is kind of new. It's been going on for about three decades now. The gap has dramatically widened. And it just stands to reason, to me that when our elected officials are that much richer than the rest of us, there would be some sort of a disconnect or just a worldview difference in terms of connecting with working class Americans. But that doesn't bother me near as much as the second half of the story, which is the fact that once people get elected, they tend to get richer. And I think that is much more corrosive and damaging than just having rich politicians.Chuck Warren: Well, it's true, though. If you have a certain amount of wealth, you have different concerns than somebody who's making 15, $20 an hour. I mean, that's fair, right? And so how can you really relate if you're all full of people who are highly successful financially?Matt Lewis: Totally. I mean, you know, because of, you know, I'm from a very kind of middle class, working class background. My dad was a prison guard in Hagerstown, Maryland, for 30 years. And that's kind of how I grew up. And I live in West Virginia. I went to a little a little college in West Virginia, but I've been blessed to get to, you know, also know some, you know, folks in journalism who come from maybe more privileged backgrounds than me. And there are some of the nicest, kindest, best people. But I'm telling you, they see they see the world differently than I do. And who could blame them? I mean, they've come from wealth, right? They grew up. And I just think we're all formed by our experience. And and it's impossible not to be at some level.Chuck Warren: Absolutely. We're with Matt Lewis. He is a columnist for The Daily Beast. He has come out with a new book that was released this Tuesday. You can get it at at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble wherever you find your books. Filthy rich politicians, the Swamp Creatures, latte liberals and ruling class elites cashed in on America came out this Tuesday, July 18th. All right. So I want to ask a couple of questions, because your book covers many topics, but who are some of the politicians that we have that are married into money or inherited great wealth?Matt Lewis: So you're the first person to ask me this question. I have a whole chapter or a whole section on this. So thank you. Because this is so I ranked well Business Insider ranked the they have a ranking of the 100 richest politicians in America. And so when the appendix of my book I took the richest 25 and then I personally did kind of a deep dive into them how they made their money. And of the richest 25 members of Congress, more than half, 13 of them made their money through inheritance or marriage the.Sam Stone: Really old fashioned way.Matt Lewis: Yes. And I'll give you a few examples. Richard Blumenthal, his father in law, and by the way, it's usually fathers in law for what that's worth. Interesting.Chuck Warren: Interesting.Matt Lewis: Yeah. Richard Blumenthal's father in law is Peter Malkin, who basically owned the Empire State Building. In fact, he was involved in a in a fight with Donald Trump at some point over control of that.Sam Stone: There was a long time when he was the developer in New York, the real estate guy. Yeah.Matt Lewis: Indeed. There's a Texas congressman named Michael McCaul. His father in law runs Clear Channel Communications.Chuck Warren: Oh, wow.Matt Lewis: Rokana, who's a congressman out of California who's starting to really make a name for himself. His father in law owns a trans max or started trans max and also runs Mara Holdings. Wow. And Mitch McConnell, a lot of people were like, how did Mitch McConnell all of a sudden get all this money? And there are like conspiracy theories about.Chuck Warren: That cocaine.Matt Lewis: Mitch And and and by the way, who knows, right? I mean, maybe there's some secret, But but basically what happened is that, you know, Mitch McConnell is married to Elaine Chao and her mom. When her mom died, you know, she inherited a ton of money. And how much how.Chuck Warren: Much she did inherit, how much did she inherit?Matt Lewis: Oh, we're talking you definitely were talking tens of millions of dollars. Yeah. I mean, he became incredibly wealthy overnight and it looks super suspicious, but it's a matter of public record directly correlates to when her you know, it's money from her her father but but she inherited it when when the mother died.Sam Stone: Andy Biggs is a $10 Billion publisher clearinghouse sweepstakes win is starting to look more and more legitimate.Chuck Warren: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know.Matt Lewis: You know, what's you know, what's interesting is, is Kevin McCarthy, the current speaker of the House, won the lottery.Chuck Warren: Oh, really? I thought he did the sandwich shops. Did he really?Matt Lewis: Well, what happened is when he was very young, he won $5,000 in the lottery and he used that money to buy like a deli. And that is what led him to Congress. So.Chuck Warren: Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah, but see, that's that's a little more of a that's more of an all-American story. I got $5,000.Sam Stone: Yeah, that's a great story. Yeah.Chuck Warren: Yeah, it is a great story. It's sort of like, um. Oh, what's it what's that movie? Will Ferrell, where he gets sent to prison for insider trading and he's talking to us. He's talking to his father in law and said, I started this business all of myself with this computer and a $9 million loan from my father. And, you know, there's a lot of people like that. Um, so next to insider trading and I want to get into that probably the next segment. How do certain members benefit their family members, either via their connections or congressional campaigns? That happens a lot more than people think. And it always seems like a surprise to people that some kids on the payroll and we've got two minutes here, but can you give a couple of examples how that's happening?Matt Lewis: Totally. I'll give you it's a by the way, it's a bipartisan book. Um, both pretty much everyone's equally guilty of this. And so we'll start with Ilhan Omar, you know, a member of the squad on the left. She has directed millions of dollars, millions of campaign dollars to her husband's consulting firm. Likewise, Bernie Sanders, who, by the way, he became a millionaire from a book deal, but his wife, Jane, he has paid a lot of money to her over the years, including hiring her to be his media ad buyer when she had zero experience doing that. So she's basically getting a cut or a percentage of the money his campaign spends buying TV advertisements.Chuck Warren: Does she do that during the presidential, too?Matt Lewis: That is a good question. I think most of this happened in the his congressional races, like in Vermont senatorial races. But, you know, we're talking about a lot of money. And this one.Sam Stone: There's a lot of money when there's no risk, because he was never in doubt for any of those re-elections. Right. I mean, that's really kind of a.Matt Lewis: And Bernie. Bernie didn't just pay Jane. I mean, he paid her like her children, too. Which brings me to Ron Paul, a Republican who has employed six. In 2012, when he was running for president, he employed six family members, but he was a piker. He paid them a grand total of $300,000. So, you know.Chuck Warren: That's that's that's literally not surprising, though, right?Sam Stone: That that's chintzy, cheap. He's hosing his family.Chuck Warren: Do you think that do you think Congress should crack down on this and just not allow you in campaigns to hire family members?Sam Stone: We got 30s. We're going to. Okay. Going to head to break here in just a moment.Chuck Warren: We're with Matt Lewis. He is the author of a great new book came out this week, Filthy Rich Politicians The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America. You can find this at Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Wherever you get your book, go buy it. This is a very important. We're going to come back and talk to Matt a little bit about what reforms he thinks need to be done so we can clean this up. This is Chuck and Sam breaking battlegrounds. You can find us at breaking battlegrounds vote. We'll be right back.Advertisement: At Overstock. We know home is a pretty important place and that's why we believe everyone deserves a home that makes them happy. Whether you're furnishing a new house or apartment or simply looking to update and refresh a few rooms, Overstock has every day free shipping and amazing deals on the beautiful, high quality furniture and decor. You need to transform any home into the home of your dreams. Overstock Making dream Homes Come True.Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warrem. I'm Sam Stone. We're continuing on here in just a moment with Matt Lewis, columnist of The Daily Beast, author of Too Dumb to Fail, and his newest book, Filthy Rich Politicians. We're talking about that one today. But folks, if you're looking to get filthy rich, maybe you should give our call. Our friends at Invest Y refy a call, go to their website, invest y refy.com that's invest the letter Y, then refy.com and learn how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return on your money. That's right. 10.25% Phenomenal rate of return not correlated to the stock market. The stock market goes up. The stock market goes down, your investment continues, racking up the great interest and great returns for you. So give them give our friends there a call. You can do that at 888 y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you Matt.Chuck Warren: All right. So, so much to cover in your book, but tell us what are reforms of your king for the day? And they said, Matt, you make these changes and we start building a little trust back up in Congress again. What would you do?Matt Lewis: Okay. So the first couple we've talked about, I would the most important is to ban individual stock trading for members of Congress and their family. That is by far the most important thing we can do, because.Chuck Warren: Certainly I want to make one appearance.Matt Lewis: Of insider.Chuck Warren: Trading. Right. I don't want to hurt you, but you made a good point. I listened to on a fellow podcast, which you made this point. It's not even so much about them increasing their wealth. Sometimes it's that they prevent the loss of wealth. So let's use, for example, Senator Barr in North Carolina as an example, if you can share that with our audience.Matt Lewis: Yeah, this is really corrosive. So Senator Senator Richard Burr, he just retired, but he was chairman of the Intel Committee. So like in that capacity, you know, he had access to all sorts of of kind of classified briefings, classified information. And you might remember back in early 2020, like before most Americans realized how damaging Covid 19 was going to be like in terms of shutting down businesses and the economy. Um, Richard Burr dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in things like Wyndham Hotels, the kinds of things that would be damaged in a global pandemic shutdown. But making matters even worse. Then he picks up the phone and calls his brother in law and within one minute of hanging up with Richard Burr, his brother in law calls his broker and dumps his stock. And so that is the thing. It's it's not just that politicians are able to make money by virtue of what certainly looks like insider trading, but it's it avoids the downfall. And certainly during times of change and crisis, that's when they can really use information to dump stock and avoid like a major catastrophic loss.Sam Stone: Well, and that has the the so as someone who does trade stock issues, the other side of that is if you dump at the start of something like that on an industry like hotels, like airlines, all of that, you're going to get that going two ways. You're going to avoid the loss and then you're going to be able to buy back in at a low point and you're going to know when that low point is hit.Matt Lewis: Absolutely. And and again, think of it. I mean, the average American at this point doesn't know how bad Covid 19 is going to be. We're being told it'll disappear. It'll be, you know, like a miracle. It'll disappear or, you know, two weeks to slow the spread or whatever.Sam Stone: This is when you had De Blasio telling folks, go out in the streets and celebrate the Chinese New Year. Right. I mean, it's literally coinciding with that moment.Matt Lewis: And so that's a classic example, right? Our politicians are telling the public, don't worry, everything's fine. And yet what are they doing? What are they doing with their money? And so I think that is super corrosive. And that's by far, I would say, the most important reform in the book.Chuck Warren: Let me ask you this. I'm a follow up two questions real quick. How many members have siblings or family members that are in the brokerage business or selling and trading stocks? Do you know that you were you able to find that out?Matt Lewis: I it's in the book. I don't recall offhand. Okay. I do know it is in the book. And I will I will say this. I mean, in 20 so in 2012, up until 2012, it wasn't even illegal to engage in insider trading in Congress. It's only been the last decade when that was illegal. Now the problem is policing. And I can tell you that the law it's called the Stock Act that made it illegal has has done very little to alleviate. The problem.Chuck Warren: There's always a loophole, right? There's always some loophole they'll find. All right, what else would you do? What else would you reform?Matt Lewis: Well, we've talked about family. I would I would ban the practice of hiring family for campaigns or official congressional offices. If you want to volunteer on a campaign, by all means. I just. We just wouldn't pay you. I would have a ten year moratorium on lobbying so that after serving in Congress, you can't go out and just start lobbying your former colleagues immediately. You would have a ten year basically ban on that. Some people like Ted Cruz and AOC want a lifetime ban. I don't even know if that would be constitutional right now. It's, I think, two years in the Senate, one year in the House. But like you said, Chuck, I mean, there are ways around it. There's this thing called the Daschle loophole where politicians immediately start lobbying. They just don't register as lobbyists.Chuck Warren: They're consultants. They're consultants.Matt Lewis: Yes. They're yeah, exactly.Chuck Warren: You know, and you know what? You see this a lot, too. I mean, take Congress out of the equation. You see this a lot in legislatures. Legislatures. You know, you see people who couldn't rub two nickels together for their elected to the legislature, which doesn't take as much money. And now they're lobbying and making six high, six digits a year.Sam Stone: Watch every governor's staff, if they've just won their second term, they get into year five. Right. And that whole staff disappears into the lobbying land and they're all rich by year eight.Chuck Warren: Is that something that you think we should push also on the state level? And hopefully, you know, I find out a lot of times if states start pushing something, various states, then it goes to the national level is that's something that people should be pushing their state legislatures to pass?Matt Lewis: I would say definitely I would I would strongly encourage that. And, you know, sometimes states can be the laboratories of democracy. And if these reforms can begin there, that would be very healthy.Chuck Warren: What else? Okay. Lobbying, banning stock, hiring kids and family on campaigns. Those are three great things. What else could be done?Matt Lewis: One of them this is one that is not sexy, but it's book deals, believe it or not. You know, Bernie Sanders, who's a socialist, was asked, how did you become a millionaire? And he said, and I'm paraphrasing, but this is pretty close to the real quote. He said, I wrote a best selling book. If you write a best selling book, you could be a millionaire, too. But but the book deals are really I mean, people are using their their perch, their position to become millionaires. But the worst part of it is the bulk orders, right? So you write a book, but instead of real people buying the book, it's like the National Republican Senatorial Committee buys like 50,000 copies of it. And some of that money very well could trickle back into your pocket. Well, for example.Chuck Warren: For example, Bernie Sanders, I just looked it up, made $170,000 in book royalties in 2022, which almost matches his $174,000 congressional salary.Matt Lewis: There you go. There you go. And I don't think you wrote a book in 2022. No, he's still making royalties.Sam Stone: Well, and you know, the quality of most of these books, you know, they're ghost written or co-written, and most of them are just garbage. And you see these huge payouts, you know, it's not for their incredible insight in that in that no tome.Matt Lewis: Totally. Yeah. These are not this is not Hemingway you know.Chuck Warren: Well with Matt Lewis good friend of the show, daily columnist at The Daily Beast. He has come out with a new book. You can buy It now, Filthy Rich Politicians, the Swamp Creatures, Latte, Liberals and Ruling Class Elites. When we come back, we're going to talk about the latte liberals and what Matt dug in about that. I'm going to.Sam Stone: Bring up Joe Biden also. You can do.Chuck Warren: That as well. That's right. This is breaking battlegrounds. Find us are breaking battlegrounds vote. We'll be right back.Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone, continuing on right now with Matt Lewis, friend of the program, columnist for The Daily Beast and author of the new book Filthy Rich Politicians, Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America, available right now at Amazon or your favorite bookseller? Matt As I read it, I did get to the section on the Bidens. And two things I think stand out is, one, they're cashing in less than most of of a lot of these other political families are. But two quite frankly, Matt, the stupidity of their schemes with Hunter Biden and all this stuff when there are so many ways that they could I don't want to say legitimately, but at least entirely legally make huge amounts of money. Did nobody in that family take notes from the Clinton Global Initiative?Matt Lewis: Well, I think if you've seen the pictures of Hunter Biden recently, you know that at least some members of his family are not operating based on reason and logic. Um, Joe Biden kind of has, it seems like I mean, who knows? I mean, I don't know if he's, quote, the big guy who's getting a cut from the Burisma money or whatever, from Hunter. But Joe, according to his actual, you know, disclosure reports, really wasn't all that wealthy compared to most of these politicians until he left the vice presidency. And then he had about three years where he really cashed in. He made about $15 million off of, you know, the usual boring stuff, speeches, book deals, being a adjunct professor, that kind of thing. But the one thing that is clear is that Biden has a long history of his family cashing in on on his name. And it's not just Hunter, it's James and Frank, I think it is, who've been doing this. And, you know, I found that way back in 1988, the first time Biden ran for president. He raised about $11 million. There's a lot of money. In 1988, he raised $11 million, and 20% of that money went to the Biden family or companies that employed the Biden family. So this thing of him spreading the money around to his family has been going on for 25 or 30, I guess 35 years something.Chuck Warren: Yeah. So in 1988, if you go and say, what's the dollar value, then that's worth about 5.1 million today. Yeah, I mean, it's real money. Sam, what are your what's your family doing for you?Sam Stone: I I've got to run for something more significant than city council is what you're saying. Chuck Yeah.Chuck Warren: Matt Let me ask you a question and Sam Biden Biden stuff, but I want to ask you a question. I, I heard you on an interview and I thought this was really interesting. And folks, Matt has just a wonderful wife. And the thing I love about Erin is she is so dang blunt. And you were talking to her about maybe on a walk running for Congress. Would you tell I want to understand really how hard this is to do, first of all, and why there is a certain wealth factor involved with it. I don't think they quite understand. You know, I have a congressional candidate friend who's running right now. He's put 300 grand on his race and just he just said it doesn't seem like it's enough. And that's what I have. That's what it is. Right. Would you explain your conversation and why this is so hard and why we are getting a certain amount of people in office?Matt Lewis: Totally. And this was eye opening for me as someone who's been, you know, in politics for decades, even for me, I had to kind of grapple with this realization. So but so my wife, as you know, Chuck, my wife is a Republican political fundraiser. And while I was writing this book, you know, we went out for a walk and we were talking and I was you know, I live in West Virginia and my congressman is running for Senate against Joe Manchin. And so we were walking. I said, you know, if things were a little different, maybe I someday I could run for Congress. And she's like, oh, you don't have enough money. And I said like, well, what are you talking about? Like, number one, I've been in you know, I know a lot of people. I've been in journalism for a couple of decades and I've got a good network and I'm like, number two, I'm married to a professional Republican fundraiser. Surely I could run for Congress in West Virginia. And she was like, Well, let me put it to you this way. If I didn't know you and you approached me and you wanted to hire me, I would say, come back to me. When you've either donated $300,000 or raise $300,000 from your personal Christmas card list, and then and only then would I introduce you to political action committees and high dollar donors. And that's when it hit me that even I who wrote on the Straight Talk Express with John McCain could not win a congressional seat in West Virginia because I'm not rich enough.Chuck Warren: Well, you need better friends. Yeah.Sam Stone: Yeah. Chuck and I are not going to be able to help you that much there. Matt Lewis, we want to thank you again for joining us. We have just about 30s before we end the segment here, we really appreciate having you on. How do folks stay in touch with all of your work?Matt Lewis: Oh, awesome. Well, first, get filthy rich politicians. Follow me on Twitter at Matt K Lewis and check me out at The Daily Beast.Sam Stone: Perfect. Thank you so much. Once again, Matt, we always love having you on the program. Looking forward to the next round breaking battlegrounds. Back in just a moment.Advertisement: At Overstock. We know home is a pretty important place and that's why we believe everyone deserves a home that makes them happy. Whether you're furnishing a new house or apartment or simply looking to update and refresh a few rooms. Overstock has every day free shipping and amazing deals on the beautiful high quality furniture and decor. You need to transform any home into the home of your dreams. Overstock Making Dream homes Come True.Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone in studio with me today. Kiley Kipper dragged reluctantly onto the mic once again back.Kiley Kipper: By popular demand. I'm just.Sam Stone: Kidding. People love you, Kiley. They are always happy to talk to you. And you know what else makes people happy? Earning a really high rate of return on their investments. That makes almost everybody I know happy. And folks, if you haven't checked out our friends at Invest Refy.com, you need to do that right now. Go to invest the letter Y then refy.com you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. The market goes up, the market goes down, your rate of return stays the same. It is a tremendous opportunity and we highly encourage you to check it out. So again, go on their website, invest y refy.com or give them a call at 888 y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Now, our next segment up, we have a returning guest, someone we really enjoyed having on the program last time, Congressman James Moylan of Guam. And we have something actually this is coming out on Saturday, the 22nd. We record on the 21st. And folks, the 21st is a very special day. July 21st is a special day in Guam. Congressman, tell us what's going on.Congressman James Moylan: Sure. I'll be happy to. Hi there, Sam. And hi, Kiley. And we as we greet folks from Guam, we say half a day. So half a day to you both.Sam Stone: And half a day to you as well, sir.Congressman James Moylan: Thank you. So we I was just on the floor today and gave a five minute speech for Congressional Record announcing the celebration of Guam's 79th Liberation Day 79 years ago. Guam was liberated and from during World War two. We also had a ceremony at the war. Let me see. World War II Memorial on July. July 13th here, where we had a wreath laying presentation on the monument at the War Memorial with Guam on it. This is a tradition that has been long ongoing for for quite some time. And we've joined in with our Guam Society of America, the oldest tomorrow group in the nation. We have so many different tomorrow groups throughout the nation, but this is the first and the oldest. We also had other members of Congress that were present. We had the undersecretary of the United States Air Force, Christine Christine Jones, and we also had the commandant of the United States Marine Corps, General Eric Smith, also do a presentation. So what's really happening is to remember this day for celebration. 79 years ago, on July 21st, 19, 1944, Guam, after two years of occupation by the Japanese Imperial Army military, the United States service members landed on our south west part of Guam, to liberate over 20,000 tomorrows and Americans from the occupation of Guam.Congressman James Moylan: The actual the war in World War II were not. Many people know that Guam was actually occupied by the Japanese soldiers, and that day came as an invasion on December 8th of 1941. This is a special day for Guam because we were celebrating the feast of Santa Maria Kamalen, and that's Guam's patron saint. And after people were coming out of church, the sounds of bombs were just dropping and planes flying overhead. And and it drowned out what was a peaceful neighborhood and a great celebration of of of our services there. And that's what started the occupation on Guam. So we're very thankful 79 years later for the liberation Day of Guam, when the Marines came on back on July 21st, 1944. So that's our celebration. And we we're very patriotic and we're we're rededicating ourselves to chorus. And Guam is even even just as important then as it is even more so now with the Indopacom situation and the Communist Chinese party threat for national security and our sister nations out there who are supporting us as well, with the U.S taking the.Sam Stone: Lead that has I mean, that is something that I think is so almost incomprehensible, Congressman, to any American right to you're stepping out of out of a services or a celebration in your country is being bombed around you. And there have to be people there who who lived through that experience, who still have that direct memory. Yes. And that has.Congressman James Moylan: In fact.Sam Stone: Never leave you.Congressman James Moylan: Right. And many of war survivors still tell the stories. And we did have a war survivor here for a celebration here in Washington, DC at the Pacific Memorial. So but my mother was also one. So my mother had told me this story and she was 12 years old at the time. She was coming out of the cathedral with her grandfather. And she she explained the story in this way, that as they were exiting and they see the Japanese zeros flying over and the bombs were coming on down and she's yelling at her grandfather, too, Grandpa, we got to go. We got to go. Let's run, run, run. As an older man, he said, No, just leave me here. And she started she had to pull him so they can run, run for protection and run and hide and get back home to their family. So them with my mother's explanation. And and by the way, my father was in Pearl Harbor at the time of the bombing in Pearl Harbor, too. So every everybody's generations and generations, families have been affected. And the war stories continue to the brutality that was taken against forced labor, forced marches, beheadings, stabbings, grenades and and caves where where locals were were killed and massacred. And it was it was tremendous loss of innocent lives. But that's why we celebrate the. With the Liberation Day coming out, with the Marines, coming out back with US soldiers, with the United States Navy there to re reclaim Guam and give us our freedom back.Congressman James Moylan: And my mother was part of that as well. There was what they called the Bennington Force march, where the Japanese troops used the local residents as a shield, As the Americans were coming onto the shore and coming inland, the Japanese were marching that direction, but using the local folks as a barrier. But of course, you know, the US is not going to kill innocent citizens. And my mom would explain to me as she's climbing up the hills in Menningen when they see the star on on the army, I believe it was an army tank or an army jeep. Then the soldiers would call them over and tell them to keep quiet, keep quiet, just come this way, come this way. And they felt so, so relieved to see the US, see Americans, see the military there. And it was a joyful celebration. And that's why this this has continued in celebrating and remembering in memory of this throughout the nation. We have Guam societies that we have calendars of events for just about every state where there's Guam residents. And they establish their organization and they celebrate to to remember those that have died, that have sacrificed. And if there are survivors to celebrate their lives as well for what we consider the greatest generation.Sam Stone: Congressman, one of the things I think people know from, you know, books and movies like Unbroken a little bit, some of the experience that, for instance, American POWs went through. But I don't think they know enough about what the people of the occupied islands of the Pacific, including Guam, went through. You were just, you know, referencing some of it right there. But that occupation was just absolutely brutal in every regard and with with really little consideration for the humanity of the people of Guam or any of the other islands of the Pacific.Congressman James Moylan: Very true. And and not all were able to talk about it some more. Chose to to forget my my mother's father was imprisoned in Japanese in Japan as well. And then when he came back to the to Guam after the war was over, he died shortly thereafter just from lack of lack of nutrition. So it was very it was it was brutal. And and the rules of war and Geneva Convention, there was there's nothing like that. The forced labor that was placed upon the people, the beheading of of local folks and the fights that went on and and what they had to endure. And you had to bow also to the imperial Japanese Army. And if you didn't, you're whipped and beaten. It was it was a sad day for those almost two and a half years of occupation. And that's why when the Americans came back, it was a great celebration. And since that time, of course, we've grown and we had we're considered per capita, the highest enlistment in the nation, where people joining the military, because of our commitment and the happiness and the joy that the United States came back to claim that U.S territory, which was the U.S territory at the time.Sam Stone: So there are few, few populations on the planet that love America and the ideals of America like the people of Guam.Congressman James Moylan: Yes. And I'm happy to represent as the delegate here. And there's a couple of committees that we were able to get ourselves on. And one is the House Armed Services Committee, which I play a great role in the readiness and also the personnel part. And I focus on on Guam and the Northern Marianas and and the Indopacom region. So we've had also we're able to have within the first quarter, a congressional delegation come through Guam. Second quarter, we just had another one, the House committee, House Armed Services Committee, to include the chairman and several other members of the House to come on up over an experience of what Guam is and what the role was and what it is now for the Indopacom region to defend against communist Chinese threat. And then we're going to have another one through the Natural Resources Committee, Department of Interior Affairs, which I'm a part of also, and the subcommittee specifically regarding our nation's Republic of Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Marshall Islands as well. All these nations joining in so we can protect freedom and democracy. Right. And we are against the Communist Chinese party. So I'm very fortunate to represent Guam in these two committees that have a great impact in the Indopacom region. And we're I believe the United States will be here for a long, long time to ensure that the Chinese threat is is deterred by our show of strength with all our other countries that are involved with our democracy.Sam Stone: And people folks out there may not realize that as a territory. Guam, obviously, we're talking to their congressman member right now. Congressman, you don't have a vote on the House floor, but you do have a vote on committee. And I think most people don't recognize that what happens on the House floor is often kind of a dog and pony show, that the actual sausage gets made in those committees that dictates what's actually going to be voted on and how those bills, you know, interact with with the intent of the authors.Congressman James Moylan: Exactly. And we just were discussing the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA, which is the one of the biggest budget for the defense of the nation, and so much billions of dollars going into the Indo-Pacific region. Our influence there, we were able to double what we received last last fiscal year for for the island defense. So that's a great influence there. So in committee, yes, we do this and pardon me.Sam Stone: Sorry, we had a little technical glitch right there. Apologize for that. Let's just keep going here. I want to switch up topics just a little bit. We have only two minutes left. Are there any traditional celebrations, the traditional foods like here, obviously July 4th, Independence Day, it's hot dogs, hamburgers, fireworks. Are there celebratory traditions around Guam's Independence Day, their liberation day?Congressman James Moylan: Yes. Unfortunately, this year we didn't have it because we were hit with Super Typhoon Marwar. So we're still recovering from that. However, we'll we get back to our traditions. We usually have a parade with all the branches of the military, all our department agencies and a lot of villages are also represented with floats. It's it's it's a beautiful parade that goes down what's known as Marine Corps Drive. That's our main road on Guam. In addition, people overnight on the sides of the roads and they picnic because it's right next to the beach and they barbecue. We love our fiesta. We call it Fiesta food. We have what's called red rice barbecue chicken, barbecue ribs. And our marinade is delicious. We have a sauce called Vinodhini, which is our hot sauce. And we have something special called Chicken Kelaguen that everybody loves. So.Sam Stone: Congressman, I think we I think we need to check the weather and make some plans for next year to come. There.Congressman James Moylan: There you go. You're more than welcome and you're invited. Please come on down. It's going to be the 80th. And that's where you should have your show coming out of. That'd be great.Sam Stone: I think that sounds like an absolutely fantastic plan. Congressman James Moylan of Guam, thank you so much for joining us once again. We really appreciate having you on the program, folks. Stay tuned for our podcast only segment. You're not going to want to miss this one. Breaking battlegrounds. Back in just a moment.Speaker1: The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a your name Web domain from GoDaddy.com. Get yours now.Sam Stone: Welcome to the podcast. Only segment of breaking battlegrounds. In studio with me today the irrepressible haven't broken that out in a while the irrepressible Kiley Kipper. She remains irrepressible folks. She is our producer. She does a fantastic job. We've got Jeremy in the booth, as always, doing a beautiful job on all our audio and on the line. Now, I saw this come out a little while ago and it kind of blew me away. We have Senator Shannon Grove from California's 12th Senate District. Senator Grove has served in the US Army and had the amazing. It had to be amazing. Senator, the experience in Frankfurt, Germany, of watching the fall of the Berlin Wall. She's an advocate for small business school choice, the developmentally disabled farmers and families, and we're having her on today to discuss her proposed amendment to Assembly Bill 2167. Senator, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. Tell us what this amendment was. First, I think this is news that was so much going on in the country, escaped a lot of people, but it really blew me away when I heard about your bill. I'm shocked California didn't have something like this already on the books and then shocked and disheartened at the Democrats response to it.Senator Shannon Grove: No.Senator Shannon Grove: And I appreciate you guys covering this subject matter. I really do. And thank you for having me on. Sb 14 was a simple solution that would just allow us individuals who sell children for sex, sex trafficking, minor children, 0 to 17in age group. It would make it a serious felony in the state of California right now, there's two subsections that deal with this subject matter. And selling a child for sex does not automatically make it a serious felony unless there's coercion, torture, violence, you know, all these different things that go along with it, then it can be considered serious. But I want the actual act of selling the child to be a serious felony.Sam Stone: And it shocks I mean, honestly, it we're sitting here in Arizona, obviously, we've had Republican leadership for a long time. So it's a very different environment. Obviously, every state is different. But this should be a no brainer, right? I mean, so much of the problem and we've dealt with the issue of sex trafficking and child sex trafficking here quite a bit. Obviously, with the border. Arizona is also another hub of that activity, just like California is, unfortunately. But a lot of times it's very difficult to prove those if you can prove any element of it at all. It's really difficult to prove those other elements. This has got to be just hamstringing prosecutors, this current law.Senator Shannon Grove: It really is hamstringing prosecutors. And that's why we work together with our district attorneys, including all the statewide district attorneys, with the exception of 3 or 4. But specifically Nancy O'Malley, the former district attorney of Alameda County, who established the heat unit, the human trafficking exploitation unit. And what happened is, is that that was the first unit set up like that in the nation that was victim centered. She's prosecuted over 850 cases of human trafficking. And one of the big issues that she has is that you can't convict these individuals because this particular bill, SB 14, the language is not on the books. When we first introduced the language, we wanted to make sure everybody was encompassed, that everybody in sex trafficking, labor trafficking were all included. But to get it out of the Senate, we had to narrow it to minors only. So we moved the football a little bit. We got a unanimous vote in the Senate. 40 senators in the state of California, all 40 voted I no abstentions and no no's. Fast forward to the Assembly Public Safety Committee, where the bill dies.Sam Stone: Oh.Sam Stone: I it stuns me. What was to hear that? I mean, it's sort of it's just gross. I mean, quite frankly, it's just gross. They clearly killed it when they they figured it wouldn't draw much attention by killing it in committee. But, my goodness, how how did what did they what did they say? How did these Democrats look at themselves in the mirror?Kiley Kipper: That's what I want to know, is what is their response when you're trying to have these conversations with the people that you work with?Senator Shannon Grove: So, yeah, no. So I did I was, you know, they requested me leadership, requested me to meet with the chair of the committee after it was killed and he wanted me to take an amendment. So let me explain the bill just a little bit more so people get a full grasp of it. If you sex trafficking a minor child in the state of California and you get caught and you get prosecuted, you get sentenced to either four, 8 or 12 years, let's just take the maximum 12 years with California's criminal justice reform laws. You go to school, you go to classes, you're a good behavior in prison. You can get out in less than four years. So let's just take that scenario, which happens quite often. You get out in four years and then you go back to sex trafficking a minor. That's when my bill kicks in and creates a strike offense that when you get busted on your second offense for selling a child for sex, then you have to serve your full 12 years and you have a strike against you, which could, if you continue your bad behavior, you could end up with life in prison. The chair wants me to take an amendment to allow the second offense of sex trafficking, not the first one. When you get convicted, you go to prison. You get out in four years, but then you get out again and you sex trafficker minor do or do another bad felony, something that's listed as a serious or violent felony. He wants me to take an amendment to allow the perpetrator to plea bargain down. I said no. So that's why the bill died.Sam Stone: That that is that is Kiley. That is stunning to me.Kiley Kipper: Just sitting here shaking our heads.Sam Stone: Yeah, My mouth is my mouth is on the bottom of this table right now because can you even.Senator Shannon Grove: Believe we're having this conversation?Sam Stone: No, no, no. Senator, we're talking to Senator Shannon Grove of California's 12th Senate District. She proposed this bill that would have made it a serious and violent felony to traffic minor children for the purposes of sex. That's a really narrow thing. I mean, trafficking any person should be a serious and violent felony. I like your original intent, but I understand cutting it back. You have to make a deal. I cannot comprehend the inhumanity that it takes to not move this out of committee.Senator Shannon Grove: Well, I think it just, you know, with the the media engaging the way they did and Californians raising up their voices and, you know, with the the the exposure that the bill got from dying caused the Public Safety Committee to reverse their decision, you know, 24 hours later. So it still is moving through the building. They are still pushing for amendments. You know, the public safety chair voted for the bill. We got it out of public safety. And now he's on, you know, TV. Every time he turns around going the bill is still flawed. I have to fix this bill. There's nothing wrong with my bill. It says that if you it just simply says you can't. It's a serious felony to to sex traffickers sell a child for sex. It's just ridiculous that you wouldn't be able to get this passed with flying colors. And what's interesting is, is that, like I said, every senator voted for it, including Scott Wiener out of San Francisco, The San Francisco Chronicle, and I'm talking about San Francisco, not normal California, but San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle even did an article, you know, against the chair's arguments like like you mean sex trafficking. The minor isn't enough like that. They have to brutalize them. You know, there's a whole list of things that they have to do in order to make it a strike or a default to life in prison. But I mean, branding them with a branding iron instead of tattooing all these different things in the details that will allow you to make it a fallback for the strike able offense. I just want to make it a strike able offense for sex trafficking. A minor like you shouldn't need all these other things. I think sex trafficking, a minor like my witness said it and it's kind of gross, but you have to get this vision in your head. Grown men all over a ten year old child, that in itself should be a serious felony.Sam Stone: Okay. I'm glad to be here. We are, folks, we are recording this just before lunchtime and I started the intermittent fasting thing. And I'm right now really glad that I don't start eating anything till noon because I think I would have thrown up right there. I mean, that's just.Senator Shannon Grove: This is disgusting. It's the hardest bill I've ever. I met parents that whose daughter was trafficked. And I said, How did you find out? You know, you know, tell me your story. She got a text message, a video. She clicked on the video and it was five guys gang raping her daughter. I met a and it's it's disproportionately does affect black women and people of color. If you look at Figueroa Street, the National Coalition of Human Trafficking down there says that 70% of the women that are in their shelters are are black or brown. And then also 55% of them on the streets are black or brown. So for them to say that this disproportionately affects black people, I agree with them in that portion only. They are concerned about the black people that could possibly go to prison for perpetrating these crimes against black women. And I to me, I don't care what color your skin is, I, I don't care what I was in the military. Everybody's green, but I don't care what color your skin is. If you're sex trafficking minors, I do want you to go to prison for a long time. Yeah.Sam Stone: I mean, this this hesitation on their part, it's protecting the evil people and not protecting the innocent ones. And who gives a darn about skin color? That just makes no sense at all.Senator Shannon Grove: But when they can't make an argument on the substance, they always throw in race. And they always do that. They always throw in race. And then you've got these people out there doing the q-anon thing. If they can't make an argument on the substance, they try to distract from the substance. And I keep saying the bill is very simple. If you sex trafficking a minor 0 to 17, you should go to prison.Sam Stone: Well, and part of the backstory behind some of their opposition, I imagine, is what they've been trying to do to essentially legalize or decriminalize however you want to put it, prostitution. But they present it as as a choice for the people that are engaging in that activity. This is not a choice. I mean, this is not somebody. Yeah. Who's who's making a decision about their own life. This is somebody who's being abused in the worst way possible.Senator Shannon Grove: You're exactly right. But when you get into the details, I guess you'd say the the the serious felony doesn't kick in when you traffic a minor because, you know, you just you have to imagine somebody's going, come on, you know, like a family member or do this for dad, do this for mom. You know, whatever a neighbor come on, just do this one time. Well, they're not they're not beating her into submission. They're not. So it doesn't count, right? It just doesn't count. So there are there are it is very, very hard to prosecute a serious felony in the state of California for this because the girls are scared. They're young. They they they're afraid to turn someone in. And so basically, they have to have all these additional things that happen once you sex traffic the minor. And that's why I was trying to make it simple that that selling the child or sex trafficking the child should be enough alone by itself as a serious felony.Sam Stone: I, I.Sam Stone: Would agree, Kylie, in part because when you talk to experts about this, about sex trafficking, particularly a minor, children, you know, even regardless of the physical abuse, what they're using is mental abuse and mental torture to to keep these these young people in a position where they can continue to be exploited. They're tearing their mind apart. Yeah.Kiley Kipper: And it'll never be recovered. Obviously, their life will never be the same.Senator Shannon Grove: I mean, Kiley, you're absolutely right when you think about it. You know, even my survivors that have gone on to have families and you know that I have Odessa Perkins, if you haven't watched her testimony, she really nailed them with her responses. But she was she was trafficked as a minor and went through the anger stage, the criminal stage, the whole bit where she was, you know, didn't function right in society because of the trauma in her. And then you become a survivor versus a victim. Right. And now she's an interventionist. She's a speaker and author. She has a nonprofit where she rescues at risk kids and deters at risk kids and rescues people out of human trafficking. So there is a is a road to recovery. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't deal with this trauma that affected her as a child all of her life, every single day. And the same with Jenna McKay, who does the Jenna McKay Foundation. And you know what's interesting about these two individuals, Odessa is a black a black woman trafficked as a child in a in a poor socioeconomic disadvantaged neighborhood. But Jenna McKay came from a Christian home, no divorce, got a full ride scholarship to Vanguard University and was lured out of that by someone who said they loved her. She fell in love. She thought she they'd been dating for a few months. He asked her to go to Vegas, knock on the door. When they get to Vegas, they exchanged money and men came in and raped her.Kiley Kipper: Wow.Senator Shannon Grove: So there's different stories in this human trafficking realm.Sam Stone: And it takes an enormous amount of courage to be able to come out and tell those stories. But it takes as much courage in the moment to be able to go and tell that story to police. And it just sounds like this, you know, anything you do that adds barriers, that makes it more difficult for them to have the the the resolution in part, I guess, of having their assailant be actually placed in bars and behind bars and face real penalties. That has to be part of the healing process for a lot of them. Right. Is is seeing justice actually happen. And this is this this hesitation by some California Democrats is really denying that.Senator Shannon Grove: It really is. And that's a perfect way to explain it, too. So we're trying to remove barriers. There's barriers now to testimony which you just said. So this bill would remove barriers. It just the act of selling the child for sex would be a serious felony. So there wouldn't be any barriers where you have to meet a certain level or did they beat you? Did they sodomise you? Did they I mean, all these crazy things, right? So just the act. So we're trying to remove the barriers for these these kids to testify. So that's a very good way to put it. Thank you for phrasing it that way.Sam Stone: Fantastic. Senator, anything else that we should be focusing, you know, people should be paying attention to around this upcoming hearings or anything like that. And then secondly, how can they support you in the work you're doing? Because I got to say, especially in California, you're you're swimming upstream in a big way. But they need more voices like yours who provide some balance.Senator Shannon Grove: I appreciate that. So the bill did get out of public safety. It quieted the media down a little bit. So now everybody's off on their what they call summer break. We come back on August 14th and the bill will go before the Appropriations Committee in order to get through one more committee, the opposition, the Democrats that killed the bill originally in public safety and then re voted for the bill two days later or a day and a half later. They are still saying that I they are going to fix this bill and they're going to make me take amendments. There is nothing to fix in this bill, so please stay engaged in the process. You can follow me at Shannon Grove, CA on Instagram, Shannon Grove, CA on Twitter, Shannon Grove, CA on Facebook, or Senator Shannon Grove on Facebook. But and we'll post the, you know, the day that the hearing is going to take place. We'll keep everybody updated on social media. So please stay engaged and to pray for this process because it really is just just a mess the way that the California state legislature operates. And then also, you know, participate in the hearing process. They still allow call ins. You can call in, you can write in, you can you can just participate to support the bill. So thank you, folks.Sam Stone: We have a lot of listeners out there right now who are listening to this who are in California. Make your voice heard. You know, make stand up, exercise your right as a citizen. I think that's incredibly important in this case. They need to hear from voices outside the political process and where people really stand, because I don't see. Senator, thank you so much for joining us. Senator Shannon Grove. I don't see anything at all that needs to be amended in this bill. This needs to pass.Senator Shannon Grove: I agree. Thank you so much for taking the time to interview me and get the message out there. I really appreciate it.Sam Stone: All right. Fantastic. Folks, remember to tune in every week to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're on all your favorite Salem network stations. And you can also download us wherever you find your podcasts, Substack, Spotify. Apple Podcasts. I think we still even post to YouTube, although I've never I've never actually been on our YouTube site. Kiley To find out what's up. It's up. Okay, folks, make sure you're tuning in. That's how we keep the lights on here in this studio. That's how we pay the bills and that's how we continue to bring you stories about what's going on around the country that maybe aren't getting enough coverage like this one. Again, thank you to all of our guests today and particular thanks to our final guest, Senator Shannon Grove of California. It is, as always, been an enlightening and and not always easy journey here with breaking battlegrou

This week on Breaking Battlegrounds, Chuck and Sam are joined by friend of the show, Chris Wilson. Later in the program, Maya MacGuineas of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calls in to talk about Bidenomics and our growing national debt.-Prior to starting WPA Intelligence in 2004, Chris Wilson was Global Director of Research for Weber Shandwick International, the world's largest public relations firm at the time.In 2021 Chris was named Pollster of the Year by the American Association of Political Consultants for his work directing survey research and predictive analytics on the Glenn Youngkin for Governor of Virginia campaign. In 2019 he was named Technology Leader of the year by Campaigns & Elections magazine.In 2016, as the Director of Research, Analytics and Digital Strategy for the Cruz for President campaign, Chris is credited for playing a key role in Cruz's triumph in Iowa and helping the Texas Senator finish with the most delegates earned by a 2nd place finisher since Ronald Reagan in 1976. Wilson and WPAi work with organizations like the Club for Growth, Freedom Works, Family Research Council, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee providing data and polling.WPAi's data management platform, Bonfire, has become the dominant desktop as a service tool for conservative candidates and organizations from US Senate down to school board. Bonfire has leveled the playing field with the progressive left when it comes to the important use of predictive analytics by those on the right.Perhaps most importantly, for six consecutive cycles, WPAi clients have outperformed the partisan average win ratio in both their primary and general election contests by double digits.An Oklahoma native, Chris is a graduate of University of Oklahoma and remains an avid Sooner fan. In the rare instances that Chris isn't working, he enjoys watching OU and Cornell College, where his son Denver is the starting quarterback, football, spending time with his five children, reading, and racking up impressive amounts of frequent flyer miles.Chris is a regular political analyst on Fox News.-Maya MacGuineas is the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Her areas of expertise include budget, tax, and economic policy. As a leading budget expert and a political independent, she has worked closely with members of both parties and serves as a trusted resource on Capitol Hill. MacGuineas testifies regularly before Congress and has published broadly, including regularly in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Atlantic, and numerous other outlets. She also appears regularly as a commentator on television.MacGuineas oversees a number of the Committee's projects including the grassroots coalition Fix the Debt; the Committee's Fiscal Institute; and FixUS, a project seeking to better understand the root causes of our nation's growing divisions and deteriorating political system, and to work with others to bring attention to these issues and the need to fix them. Her most recent area of focus is on the future of the economy, technology, and capitalism.Previously, MacGuineas worked at the Brookings Institution and on Wall Street, and in the spring of 2009 she did a stint on The Washington Post editorial board, covering economic and fiscal policy. MacGuineas serves on a number of boards and is a native Washingtonian.-Connect with us:www.breakingbattlegrounds.voteTwitter: www.twitter.com/Breaking_BattleFacebook: www.facebook.com/breakingbattlegroundsInstagram: www.instagram.com/breakingbattlegroundsLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/breakingbattlegrounds-TranscriptionSam Stone: [00:00:11] Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our first guest up today, Chris Wilson, founder and CEO of WPA Intelligence. Prior to starting WPA in 2004, Chris was global director of research for Weber Shandwick International, the world's largest public relations firm. At the time, in 2021, he was named Pollster of the Year by the American Association of Political Consultants for his work directing, survey, research and predictive analysis. Analytics. Can't speak this morning on the Glenn Youngkin for Governor of Virginia campaign. In 2019, he was named Technology Leader of the Year by campaigns and elections. Awfully impressive resume. Chris, thank you again for joining us and welcome back to the program.Chris Wilson: [00:00:55] Well, thanks. I made it all up and sent it to you. You know, that's actually real. So wannabes out there, that's okay. That's okay. It's 2023. You can do whatever you want. Now, this is radio.Sam Stone: [00:01:01] We're good with fluff. So.Chris Wilson: [00:01:03] Exactly. Before we get to before we get talking some politics, tell us a little bit. Your son's playing at University of Oklahoma and playing quarterback, right? Well, no, they actually moved him to tight end. So really appreciate you asking. Yeah, I actually played quarterback his whole life. I was recruited out of high school to a small college in Iowa as a quarterback, but decided he wanted to come home. And it was a long story, actually. I ran into former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops at a fundraiser for Kevin Stitt, who's a client of mine, the governor of Oklahoma. And they got to talking. And one thing led to another. You know, Stoops is a walk on wide receiver. Stoops, the son, is a walk on wide receiver at Oklahoma. And he was they were talking about that. And so. Denver yeah, he moved back and and walked on in the in the spring and you got to play about probably two thirds of the snaps in the spring game and we'll see. I have high hopes for him. The kid works his tail off and he's really a proud dad.Sam Stone: [00:01:56] Quarterback move into any kind of receiver position You just up your chance to get drafted by Bill Belichick. That's right. That's all there is to it.Chris Wilson: [00:02:02] That's right yeah that's Yeah. Six three about £210 tight end. You can get out there and rumble a little bit. Yeah. There you go. Um.Chuck Warren: [00:02:10] What a wonderful experience. I know you're a big University of Oklahoma fan, so that's probably extra pleasure for you seeing your boy out there.Chris Wilson: [00:02:16] Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's very cool. I'm pretty excited.Chuck Warren: [00:02:18] That's very cool.Chris Wilson: [00:02:19] And, you know, they'll be out playing at BYU this year.Chuck Warren: [00:02:20] That's right. We're going to see you out there for dinner. Looking forward to it. You'll you'll enjoy the Provo experience. All right. We're going to play a clip real quick. We'll click here real quick here. We'll click on Kamala Harris's word salad yesterday about culture. Jeremy, go ahead.Kamala Harris: [00:02:33] Well, I think culture is it is a reflection of our moment and our time. Right. And and and present culture is the way we express how we're feeling about the moment. And and we should always find times to express how we feel about the moment. That is a reflection of joy because, you know, it comes in the morning. We have we have to find ways to also express the way we feel about the moment in terms of just having language and a connection to how people are experiencing life. And I think about it in that way, too.Chuck Warren: [00:03:14] So Kamala reminds me a lot of your either Sam in elementary school asked to give a book report in front of the class, and we had not read the book. I mean, that's basically what she talks like, right? It's just many words as possible. So my question for you is, and you've done so much polling for so many years, does the vice presidency even matter anymore in regarding how we view the presidency? I mean, because who no one takes her serious. I mean, polling shows that.Sam Stone: [00:03:41] Kamala Harris brought to you by White Claw. Yeah, yeah.Chris Wilson: [00:03:44] Yeah. It's a word salad against word. Salad is a bad name. And she doesn't she clearly has no idea what she's talking about. And anytime she starts ripping on time or moments, you know, it's going to get good fast. Right. And it's also it's it's cringe worthy in the sense that even if you disagree with her and are are sort of watching sitting back going, okay this is now people are going to realize who she is. You're also thinking how embarrassing for the United States of America that this woman is in the second highest office. I guess it's arguable, but one of the highest offices in the land. And she can't deliver a simple sentence without a without embarrassing herself. And then the in the morning and then she does that cackle thing. It's really embarrassing and it's embarrassing for the administration. And somebody's got to just cut her off. They need to travel around like one of those big hooks that they used to have on game shows back in the 50s and 60s and just kind of pull her off stage before she goes so far that the dollar starts losing value.Chuck Warren: [00:04:47] But so my question. Yeah, I mean, so does she prove that who we So you're working for the superPAC for Ron DeSantis, correct? I am. That's correct. So you've you've I'm sure this is not the primary object of your research, but I'm sure you've thought about who's the best fix for him. Right. Do you think unless you get a real popular governor in a battleground state who actually has a. Political organization. Do they really matter at all?Chris Wilson: [00:05:14] Well, you kind of you kind of answered the question with your preamble to the question is, yes, it can matter a lot. Did it matter for Joe Biden? No, because it was an affirmative action pick, sort of like his Supreme Court pick was. He made it very clear that he was looking for an African-American woman and he just wanted somebody to fill that role. And so does it matter? Let's go back a step, though, is remember, whenever Joe Biden was rolling very damaged into South Carolina and he got the endorsement of a very important member of Congress by committing to that member of Congress that he would appoint a black woman as BP and or as to the Supreme Court. And things turned around for him there, because that vote constituency matters in the Democratic primary in South Carolina. So he went from someone who was in danger, grave danger of coming in distant in the primaries, as he had in Iowa and New Hampshire, to moving back into the frontrunner status. So it mattered to him in the primary. And did it matter in the general for him? No, it didn't. But I think you could argue that you can look at past picks that did have a strong impact. And I think about Lloyd Bentsen, even though he lost, but for Michael Dukakis had a big impact for him in 88, probably made a pretty significant difference. I think Al Gore had a big impact for Bill Clinton. He was able to deliver Tennessee. It's the last time, you know, Tennessee went for a Democrat.Sam Stone: [00:06:43] And and there are certainly been picks that that had impact. Kamala, though, Chris, I have to ask, I mean, I don't remember her being this incoherent previously. And it's not age like Joe Biden. So what the heck is going on? Or did we all just miss it? And she actually was this this absolutely this big a mess?Chris Wilson: [00:07:07] Well, I don't think many people paid attention to her as a senator from California or an attorney general from California. And the good thing about being a prosecutor is you're one. You don't really do much prosecuting in those roles. You have people who do it for you to your lines are pretty scripted before you walk out there. And when she's on script, she's not bad. I mean, she can deliver a good speech, but it's just whenever she starts riffing and I think she's developed a little bit too much confidence in her ability to do so. And so that's how you end up with this sort of common the sort of ongoing, embarrassing moments that you saw. I think it was yesterday when she gave the cringe speech.Sam Stone: [00:07:41] How does someone not pull her aside on her staff and be like, this is terrible, you need to fix this?Chris Wilson: [00:07:48] Well, have you read much about the situation with their staff? I mean, every time they do a camera angle, they all are just sitting there staring at you want to blink if they need help. And it's I feel like there is there's probably not anyone who can deal with her in that way. That's on her staff. She just seems to be one of those horrible bosses that just runs through people on an ongoing basis. And it's a it's an unfortunate story. And, you know, it's I often joke around that being a Democrat press secretary has got to be the easiest job on the planet. And this is certainly a representation of that because you think through what if we had if you were working for someone like that, Chuck, and you're doing political campaigns on a major level, or if I was today, there's no way you could survive that kind of situation. So you have one misstep word or, you know, you think back to whenever. Whenever Dan Quayle put an extra two E on potato because that was on the card in front of him. And it was a story that went on for weeks, if not months. And she's able to just roll right through this stuff as if it's we're being unfair or overly critical by by analyzing the fact that she can't put together a simple sentence about what culture is or what time is or what moments are.Chuck Warren: [00:08:58] All right. Let's go. Let's talk. Let's talk presidency. What issues do you feel are the winning issues for whoever the Republican candidate will be to defeat Joe Biden?Chris Wilson: [00:09:12] I think that starts and almost ends with the economy. You've got to understand that, that Americans are hurting. The price of everything has gone up substantially under Joe Biden, that the price is almost cost prohibitive for people to be able to commute to work on an ongoing basis. And that's by design, frankly, by the Biden administration. And so those are the those are the contrasts that have to be drawn and that and they're important. It's really just the overall significance, the overall ability of America to continue to succeed is is incumbent is dependent on that. And so I'd say that's number one. And if you were to go to a second point, I think there is a little bit of building, not a little bit, but there's a lot of rebuilding America's stature in the world after the withdrawal in Afghanistan, the way China has acted toward us, the way that Russia has acted toward us, there is just a complete dismissal of the United States as a foreign power at this point. I think that's an that is an important aspect, someone who can reclaim that. And I think there is another important aspect is just the overall important issue is the ability of parents to raise their own children. It is a a stunning development the way that Democrats have tried to get between parents and their kids. And I'll tell you, it's one of the reasons why you mentioned at the beginning that I worked for Glenn Youngkin. It's one of the reasons why Glenn Youngkin beat Terry McAuliffe, because Terry McAuliffe said made the famous gaffe that he didn't want parents telling teachers what they should teach their kids.Chris Wilson: [00:10:53] And moms and dads in Virginia rose up and said, no, I disagree with that. And I really think that and to be clear, I'm on the super PAC side of the partisan super PAC side. So let me compliment the campaign. They put out a video yesterday for moms for DeSantis, which Casey DeSantis talked about the role that Governor DeSantis has played in the state of Florida of protecting the rights of parents to raise their kids in the way they want to and to stop any woke teachers or woke systems from being able to intervene in the right of a parent to make decisions for their children or their children's education, their children's, the way their children are raised, whether or not their children are able to go and mutilate themselves with a doctor or have themselves mutilated by a doctor. It's just the overall the decisions that or the process that's going on right now. Those of us who have kids have kids. And, you know, I have five that the attempt of the left to get between a parent and their children and inject themselves into everything from the education to the raising to even the mutilation of that child is stunning to me that they believe that that is okay. And so I think that is also going to become it's a major issue that's going to come to light, particularly if Governor DeSantis is the nominee because of what he's been able to do to protect the parents rights in Florida. And I think that is could be the difference between a Republican winning and a losing right again, like we did in 2000.Chuck Warren: [00:12:28] Great. Well, we're going to take a quick break. We're with Chris Wilson. You can find him on Twitter at Wilson, WPA. You can also find him on Instagram at Wilson, WPA. Follow Chris. He has great insights. You'll stay up to date on what's going on on country. This is Chuck Warren Sam Stone at breaking battlegrounds, vote. We'll be right back.Sam Stone: [00:13:05] Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, it's been another crazy week on the stock market. And if you need a opportunity to make a very high fixed rate of return, if you're looking for a fantastic return, that's not coupled to the stock market where you'll know what each monthly statement will look like with no surprises. You need to check out our friends at invest y Refy.com invest y refy is connecting student loan borrowers to to investors and they are just doing great for people on both sides. It's a fantastic opportunity. We highly encourage you to check it out. Go to their website at invest y refy.com or give them a call at 88yrefy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. All right. Continuing on with Chris Wilson of WPA Intelligence. Chris, you are working in the primaries right now. One of the things I think there's obviously a lot of noise with Trump and DeSantis and some of the other candidates out there. But in terms of the issues, what issues should Republican voters be focusing on or Republican candidates be focusing on first to win the primary, but second, and more importantly, set themselves up to win the general election?Chris Wilson: [00:14:19] You know, I think from an issue standpoint, kind of what we covered in the last segment is, is what matters. I mean, all of those issues matter for Republican primary voters to the economy, parents right to raise their own children, a strong education, things like that. But I'll tell you what, if I were advising candidates directly, and particularly if I was advising this kind of gets into you move down from the presidential campaign because I still work with and WPA intelligence, we work with dozens, sometimes even hundreds of candidates around the country. And one of the things I can tell you I hear from them to a person is a concern about who is at the top of the ticket in 2024. And I'll tell you, this is not to nerd out too much on you guys, but there have been a lot of academic research that's been done about the impact that Donald Trump has had since he emerged on the political scene on elections and everything. Be careful what you wish for. Impact of President Trump endorsed in the midterms by Ballard and others, Comparing the impact of Joe Biden on popular attitudes to the parties. By Jacobson. 22 elections by also by Jacobson. But the most recent one, which is really interesting one by experimental evidence on public perceptions of Trump endorsements by Barron, McLaughlin and others all quantify the impact that Trump has had going back to 2018 on close elections. And the reason why this matters is if Democrats take a majority in the Senate, they're going to stack the Supreme Court. They're going to get rid of the filibuster. They're going to make D.C. and Puerto Rico states these aren't these aren't like pie in the sky speculations. These are things they say they want to do, they would do today if it wasn't.Sam Stone: [00:16:00] They've been very clear they want to do everything you just said.Chris Wilson: [00:16:04] So the study I just mentioned by Barron McLaughlin and Bloom on experimental evidence on public perception of Trump endorsements is that when Trump gets involved in a race, it actually costs that candidate seven points. It goes a high from nine to a low of five in a competitive general election. So I want you to think back to last cycle. You know, obviously in Utah, Mike Lee got into a close race. He was able to pull it out at the end, but there were some close races we didn't pull out in Arizona and Georgia and Pennsylvania. We almost I mean, think about how far behind Governor DeWine, JD Vance ran in Ohio. All of those are states are races where Trump had an impact. And so you can quantify that number at 79%. So we as Republicans, I think, should really care about what happens if we have somebody at the top of the ticket that takes 7 to 9 points off of every single candidate who's running in a competitive race. That's a and you can real quickly run down the numbers and think about how many House and Senate seats we would ultimately lose.Sam Stone: [00:17:03] Yeah, I mean, that's a bloodbath that that you're describing. And one of the things, Chris, that I don't think I haven't really seen polling that quantifies this more so just dealing with anecdotal evidence from independent voters or soft voters, whatever you want to call them, they are completely hardened against Trump, rightly or wrongly. And this is one of the things I tell a lot of Trump supporters.Chris Wilson: [00:17:29] And moving more against him, by the way.Sam Stone: [00:17:31] Yeah. And moving more against him.Chris Wilson: [00:17:32] Surveys, they continue to move more against him. Yes.Sam Stone: [00:17:35] And so I mean, for him to if he's going to be at the top of the ticket, he and his team have to address that. There's no evidence they're doing so. I mean, they're doubling and tripling down on all the things that are driving that cohort away.Chris Wilson: [00:17:48] No, I agree. And it's it is a real problem because there is nothing that's been done since 2020 to change the face of the election. If you believe that that weird things went on in Georgia and Arizona last time or there's there's nothing that's being done by their campaign to guard against that. And I'll tell you, there are weird things that happen in elections, no question about it. We had as many people, as many lawyers in Virginia at the Youngkin headquarters as we did staffers, because we wanted to guard against that. And that's how you have to do it in any close election. It's that has been the case since I've been involved in politics, which is over 20 years. And so you've got to guard against that. You've got to understand the rules and play against it. You know, I grew up playing basketball and I was there when the three point line came out. My coach hated the three point line. I said, Well, we still have to use it. Well, the same thing is true with with with ballot harvesting. I may hate that as a rule, but I can't leave that to the Democrats to do all by themselves. And so we will compete at that level and we have to be able to compete at that level. And I think that's the challenges that exist is if Donald Trump is the nominee, Republicans lose in 24 and they probably are 24 and they probably lose the House and the Senate by by historical numbers. And it puts us in a situation where America in 2025 and 26 is a very different place than we live in today. I don't mean to end on a down down note, but since you asked, I think that is the most important thing that every voter should take into account when they cast their ballot for in any primary in 2024.Sam Stone: [00:19:10] And Chuck, if the things that Chris just said listed at the start of this segment come true, in other words, Court-packing, Puerto Rico, DC. There's no recovery for Republicans.Chuck Warren: [00:19:21] No, that's right. No, no, there is not. Chris, what is something we've talked about these main issues, the economy. You know, we have we now have out today that they did a poll of 2500 US adults and they said they need to earn $233,000 a year to feel financially secure. Then you have America's role in the world. And I think one big thing about that's always been is our role as the preeminent power have made us feel safe. But I also think Americans like being number one. I mean, just look at Olympic sports, right? When we win. Right. And then we have the parents, you know, being able to, you know, decide what their children do. What are other issues with your crystal ball and research that you think lawmakers need to start paying more attention to? That can be that could really turn quickly against conservatives.Chris Wilson: [00:20:12] Well, another one that I think is has really come to the top is, is the wokeness of corporations. And I think the the the sort of forcing their values on Americans. And we've seen a lot of backfire on that. We've certainly seen a backfire with target Bud Light and it's even Ben and Jerry's over the weekend where they said you know every every company built on a tribe should give that land back. Everyone should give it a try. And then it turns out their their corporate headquarters on the tribe, they've lost $2.5 billion in corporate value since that happened. So because from people from people selling the stock and and the collapse of the company. So I think those are other aspects of it that where you look at someone who has been willing to take on woke the woke corporate left and stand up to them and take away things like tax incentives they asked for, which really I would argue that tax incentives are a conservative way of approaching work on corporations from a from a local government standpoint. And so I think those are aspects that matter, too. And it's an important thing for us to be paying attention to.Chuck Warren: [00:21:18] Well, Chris, we sure appreciate you joining us today and wish you the best of luck this cycle. We hope to have you on again before the Christmas season. Folks, please follow Chris Wilson at Wilson WP at Twitter, same thing on Instagram. Wilson. Wp There you can learn you can follow University of Oklahoma football quite well and you can also you can also you can also stay in touch with the research that's going on in our country. Chris, we sure appreciate your time and we hope you have a fantastic weekend, my friend.Chris Wilson: [00:21:46] Thank you. Good to talk to you.Chuck Warren: [00:21:47] Thanks. Bye bye. This is breaking battlegrounds. You can follow us at breaking battlegrounds. Vote and listen to us anywhere you get your podcasts. We'll be right back.Sam Stone: [00:22:05] Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone, continuing on with our fantastic guests for today, we have Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Boy, is that something we have needed for a long time. She is an expert in budget, tax and economic policy and has worked closely with members of both parties and serves as a trusted source on Capitol Hill. Maya, thank you and for joining us and welcome to the program.Maya MacGuineas: [00:22:32] Yeah, happy to join.Chuck Warren: [00:22:34] So both the left and right seem to be like Keystone cops on the national debt and budget deficit. They both think this is the one way or highway and that's the only way that works. So let's take, for example, let's start first with the belief that you can just tax your way out of this by taxing everybody who has money in the country. Is that possible?Maya MacGuineas: [00:22:51] There's not a chance. This is a problem that, quite frankly, you're going to have to put everything on the table in order to get where we need to fiscally. But the notion that you can just do this by raising revenues and you'll hear people who make that case saying, listen, what are the lowest tax countries in the world? We can certainly have higher taxes. True. We can have higher taxes. True. We're going to have to have higher taxes. But absolutely not the case that you can fix this problem entirely. On the revenue side of the budget, the biggest growth in our budget imbalances comes from growing health care costs, growing retirement costs, most of those fueled by the aging of the population and growing interest costs. Because we've borrowed so much interest payments on the debt are the fastest growing part of the budget. So no matter how much you bring your revenues up, the fact that spending is still going to be going, growing faster than your economy means it won't be able to keep pace. And you're going to have to bring some of those spending levels back under control.Chuck Warren: [00:23:50] All right. So now let's go to the argument the right likes to make. We can just cut all these programs and we can do this all in budget. Everything, balance it in ten years. Is that reality? Yeah.Maya MacGuineas: [00:24:01] That also not true and not even close. One of the things during the debt ceiling fight that I was really worried about was that people who thought you could do this on the spending side and wanted to be aggressive and are fiscally focused, which I am, and I share those beliefs. But I was worried they would overshoot and that they would say we have to balance the in ten years and do so by spending cuts. We're not going to be able to come anywhere close to balancing the budget in ten years. To do so would take saving about $16 trillion over that ten year period. The last time we saved $16 trillion was easily never, not not even close. Right. So this is not even in the realm of the possible. Now, a fiscal metric that I think is aggressive but doable would be what if we just stabilized our debt so that it's not growing faster? That doesn't grow up to above where it is right now, which is almost 100% of GDP, just doing that over ten years so that we keep it at the same level of debt to GDP that would require $8 trillion in savings. That is an aggressive amount. It is doable, but it is not doable. On just the spending cuts side of the budget. There's no way that no matter how much you pull back these programs, no realistic way that you could cut spending enough to save $8 trillion. The trajectory we're mythbusting here, which is good because everybody's out there making promises we don't make.Chuck Warren: [00:25:27] I mean, I'm convinced, you know, with our show, we have people I mean, we're conservative, but I don't think people understand math anymore. That's my concern. I mean, this is this is yellow pad, pencil in hand, math. And no one wants to seem to admit it. And we all created this problem. So we're all going to have to work together to get out of the problem.Maya MacGuineas: [00:25:48] Boy, do I agree with that one. And let me talk about that fuzzy math, because basically what you have on both sides of the aisle now is kind of made up fairy tale economics. So on the Republican side, you'll hear time and time again we're going to cut taxes. It's going to generate so much growth, it's going to pay for itself. Just nowhere close to reality. If you cut taxes, it is going to help grow the economy and it will do so so that it generates about $0.20 for every dollar you spend on tax cuts. So you still have to offset the bulk of those tax cuts by cutting spending or raising other taxes. And then on the left, you hear things like this policy is so important, we shouldn't have to pay for it, just not true. Like if something's important, the whole point of budgeting is you should pay for it. And if it's not important, you shouldn't do it. But the other thing that we've been hearing is people for the past year are saying, don't worry, we can just print more money. That is so fundamentally wrong. And we've seen that it's wrong because we've just had a huge bout and are still in the midst of of high inflation kicked off because we we put too much money in the economy. Borrowing for Covid was the right thing to do. But the last bill that we did put way too much money in the economy and created this inflationary problem that has only gotten worse with with additional factors exacerbating it. So there's a lot of made up economics out there. There's a lot of made up mathematics. This basically comes down to the basic issue of budgets and trade offs. We shouldn't be borrowing as much money as we are, and I can talk about that more.Sam Stone: [00:27:17] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Maya, we're going to come back with more from Maya macGuineas here in just a minute, folks. Continuing on. She is the president of the Bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And frankly, Maya, we really appreciate having you on this program. We love having these kind of honest discussions that I don't think are out there enough. And we're going to be continuing on with that. More in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Folks, are you concerned with stock market volatility? What if you could invest in a portfolio with a high fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market or portfolio? Well, you know what each monthly statement would look like, but no surprises. You can turn your monthly income on or off, compound it, whatever you choose. There's no loss of principle. If you need your money back at any time, your interest is compounded daily, you're paid monthly and there are no fees. The secure collateralized portfolio that delivers a high fixed interest rate and by investing, you can do well for yourself by doing good for others. So check out our friends at Invest by Refy.com. That's invest the letter Y, then refy.com or give them a call at 88 y refy 24 and see how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return.Chuck Warren: [00:28:50] Maya So I think one thing that gets lost when we talk budgets and deficits and debt is it becomes sort of an Excel spreadsheet. It's numbers and I think the numbers seem like monopoly numbers to a lot of people, right? So, for example, we want to talk here about, look, we need to have entitlement reform. There's no if butts ands it's, you know, two thirds of our budget Congress doesn't even control. It's just mandatory. And Sam and myself and you, we have loved ones who need Social Security. They're in it or they're expecting it real soon. Right. But I think one thing that doesn't get talked about enough is I'm a father. You have children based on Wikipedia. And Wikipedia never lies. Yeah. How does this when you look at these things, does that concern you for their future? What you have so much debt where you're paying interest more, you're paying spending more than money in the federal budget on interest debts than you are things that matter that it will create inflation, higher interest rates. Does this concern you as a mother?Maya MacGuineas: [00:29:48] Yeah. I mean, it's right. It's both systemic and personal, this issue. And so first, you know, we are actually spending this year more on interest payments to finance the debt of the fast pass than the entire federal budget spends on programs for children. That's how backwards this is. But absolutely, I mean, there are many reasons that I worry about the effects of the national debt. They're economic. They're leaving us vulnerable for future emergencies, their foreign policy and national security, where we're increasingly vulnerable and dependent on other countries. But one of the bottom line issues here is we are spending a lot of money because we want to we like those things and we are refusing to pay for it because none of us like paying taxes. And so the other option is we are then saying we will borrow this money and we will push those bills onto the future, onto our kids. And I will say, my kids refuse to listen to my deficit speeches at the dinner table. So shame on them for not caring. But no, but it is. And it's hard to get younger people to care about it because they think, as we all did when we were in our teens and 20s you're like, the world is great. Everything's going to be fine. I don't need to worry about future. But the truth and it's discouraging truth right now is we are leaving a country and frankly, a world that is much riskier, much more difficult to navigate, much more filled with potential risk to the next generation than we've ever seen before. And this goes well beyond the debt. It goes to national security, to the effects of technology, to all sorts of things that they need a strong budget to be able to respond to. And instead, we are giving them tens of trillions of dollars in debt that they owe just because we were unwilling to pay for these things ourselves, even though we are the beneficiaries of them.Sam Stone: [00:31:32] Yeah, one of the things that I find interesting, Maya, is that the the media and academia or whatever has sold kids on the idea that we are facing an existential crisis, potentially the death of the planet within 20 years from environmental issues. That's not particularly realistic. But we are facing a financial cliff that would affect them far, far more than anything the environment ever will in their lifetimes coming up very soon.Maya MacGuineas: [00:31:59] Well, I think it's interesting. I actually think the environment and the fiscal challenges have something in common, which is there's no immediate moment where it turns into the problem if you default. That happened on a certain day. If there's a government shutdown, that happens on a certain day. But when it comes to these issues, they slowly compound if we don't do anything about them. But there's no one moment where you say we can't return. And so you have members of Congress constantly saying we can punt this off until another day. But there should be no disagreement on the severity of having the amount of debt we have. We're not only are we spending more on interest than we are kids today, five years from now, we'll be spending more on interest payments than we are on national defense. This is an increasingly risky world. And so I don't know how you get kids to take this issue on and make it their own. Again, I think there's this eternal optimism that comes with youth. That means people can't believe it's really that big a problem. And numbers like trillion are so hard to follow. It's very difficult to personalize this. And lastly, the solutions, they're not fun. Here's the truth. We have to raise taxes, cut spending, fix our entitlement programs. Nobody thinks that's going to be fun, but you have to do that for the sustainability of our economic health. And so it's hard to get people to rally and march in the streets calling for fiscal reforms. But really, it's one of the most important things that we could do that also affects all the other issues that people do worry about.Sam Stone: [00:33:22] My I don't know if you saw the piece that was in the Hill on the fourth by Andrew Hale said China is in default on $1 trillion in debt to US bondholders. Will the US force repayment? This is debt that was created by the previous government prior to the Maoist takeover. But in international norms that doesn't erase the debt. China is the only country on earth not paying that. He actually suggested. Simply, we essentially nationalize that debt and wipe it off our books, take, you know, balance it against $1 trillion in in our treasuries that China holds, which would free up $95 Billion a month in interest payments. Is something like that practical or possible? And how much would that trillion dollars actually make a difference to our overall financial situation?Maya MacGuineas: [00:34:10] Yeah, I saw that.Maya MacGuineas: [00:34:11] Piece and I did think that was interesting. And I definitely think that a lot of this is interconnected with the tensions that we have with China and the fact that we are dependent on them, that they own almost $1 trillion of our treasuries. But I don't think unilaterally sort of nationalizing that debt or declaring that we're not going to repay what we owe China would be good because markets are beyond just the bilateral agreements. If we were to do that with China, there would be growing concerns through other countries, and I think that would hasten the effort that there already is to move away from the dollar as a reserve currency. And that is something that benefits us tremendously. So I think it's actually very important that the US not make changes that risk its status right now, something that we benefit from of being the safe haven and the reserve currency. I think what we really have to focus on is balancing our own books, spending only as much as we're willing to pay in taxes, borrowing only when there's economic emergencies and a real reason to do so. And we can't find any shortcuts around those those hard truths.Chuck Warren: [00:35:12] So let's talk entitlements for a minute, a little more detail on it. So like we said, there are people who are on Social Security now. We'll just use Social Security example, but there's Medicare, too, and you've got people who are close to retirement age. What do you think is the type of retirement reform we really should be talking about without affecting those who really count on this right now for day to day living?Maya MacGuineas: [00:35:33] Yeah, and I think that's the right question because I think we need to fix these programs in a way that strengthens and preserves them for the people who most need them, but understands that both of them are headed towards insolvency. Social Security and just over a decade, if we do nothing, there will be across the board 23% benefit cuts. And yet you have politicians of all stripes making promises not to touch Social Security or Medicare. Medicare also will have across the board 10% provider cuts if we don't make changes. So these folks are promising you not to touch your entitlements, are promising you that you will have provider and benefit cuts that will affect everybody. Instead, what we should be doing is. This isn't thought out. Policy solutions and Social Security. This is about 4 or 5 options. You can raise payroll taxes or the payroll tax cap. You can raise the retirement age, which makes sense because we're living longer. And you could start it now, but have it kick in very, very gradually over time for people under 55, 50, whatever. You can slow the growth of benefits. And I would do that on the high end, not across the board. And you can fix the way we calculate inflation, which overstates it right now. There are a lot of fixes we could put in for Social Security, but the longer we wait and we've already waited too long, the more difficult they will be.Sam Stone: [00:36:44] Maya.Maya MacGuineas: [00:36:45] Oh.Sam Stone: [00:36:46] I'm sorry. You talked about slowing benefits on the high end of the scale. This is something that's come up a lot on both sides is means testing for Social Security. I've fought this battle with Republicans for years and just said, look, we're just going to have to do this. This is going to come. There's one objection coming from the right. There's another from the left. It's from the left, though I don't understand their objection because it seems like that falls in line with everything else that they talk about.Chuck Warren: [00:37:13] Make the rich pay their fair share.Sam Stone: [00:37:14] Tax the rich. Why do we need to be, from their perspective, giving wealthy people this benefit rather than means testing it and directing it at the people that need it?Maya MacGuineas: [00:37:25] It's just a great question because it's honestly a policy I have never understood. If you support progressive policies on the tax side, you should also support progressive policies on the spending side. And right now we have actually very we have regressive Social Security benefits where the well-off, their benefits are more reflecting that they paid in more in taxes. And so the concern is, oh, if you if you reduce the benefits for rich people in Social Security, there won't be a strong constituency of support. They won't fight to save Social Security. That's just not true. The biggest growth we've seen in government benefits in past years have been like an Eitc and Medicaid programs that were directed towards the poor. So there are support. There is support for smart programs that help people who need them the most. And when I go out and I talk to people in town halls, they always say means test my benefit. If I don't need it, no problem. I just want it there if I do. So when I hear Democrats saying you can't touch benefits for rich people or having someone like Bernie Sanders actually suggesting increasing benefits for everybody, including rich people, it means it's more money getting spent on those who don't need it and less money for things that you might really worry about, like education, investment in children or at risk youth, things like that. So I think it's an internally very inconsistent argument. And I think means testing is one of the areas that makes the most sense given the situation we're in with Social Security and Medicare.Chuck Warren: [00:38:48] Well, I think I think the left's argument on this is based upon union loyalties, because they get good pensions and they don't want to see it cut for their members. But that's that's a red meat conversation for another day. All right. So let's talk about this. What do you think? I think it's really important that the US stay the economic superpower in the world. We have certain benefits that most countries do not have, nor will they ever have. My question for you is, what do you think we need to do realistically to make sure we keep and maintain that position for the next couple of decades?Maya MacGuineas: [00:39:18] I think there's a few things. One, we need to start paying for all the policies that we do instead of borrowing to we need to switch our budget priorities. Right now, about 85% of our budget is consumption. 15% is investment. We need to turn that on its head. We need to be making investments in human capital, basic R&D. We just put a lot of money into infrastructure. So I think that that should be fine for a while and we need to reduce overall spending so that more of that money can be in the private sector and making private sector investments. And finally, we need to switch our spending priorities, which are all focused on the old into investments in the next generation, because just the same reason it's damaging to borrowed so much and pushed that into the future and to kids not failing to invest in them, but giving very comfortable benefits to my father who doesn't necessarily need them. Those priorities do not keep us strong as an economic superpower. We also want to deregulate and a lot of ways and smart trade policy, all of those things which are going to recognize the importance of our being an economic superpower in this highly integrated global economy.Sam Stone: [00:40:22] You know, one of the discussions, Maya, that never comes up that I mean, and this may be a little bit outside your specific area of expertise is the cost of government programs has gone up dramatically, far more than the delivery of services from those programs. You're seeing a huge bureaucratic bloat. And it would seem at some point like one part or the other needs to start getting serious about leaning down government to actually deliver the dollars where they're intended to go.Maya MacGuineas: [00:40:51] 100%. 100%. If you talk to anybody in agencies right now, they are feeling the bloat. There's been so much money that has been a big run up in funding agencies in the past years, that there are situations where people are traveling because they don't know what to do with their budgets. There are people who are absolutely underworked and it's well known and that undermines the morale in place. So, listen, I don't want to take away from the main point, which is we have to fix our entitlement programs. We're not going to be able to do this without revenues. But there are savings to be had throughout the government, in the Defense Department, in the health care industries, in every one of our programs that's out there and in the government bureaucracy itself. And this should be something in order to help regain trust in government that we are able to really go through with a fine tooth comb and revamp a lot of these programs, free them of some of the bureaucratic constraints so that people can have more trust that if they are paying tax dollars, that those tax dollars are going to be used.Sam Stone: [00:41:48] Well, yeah, absolutely. I think all of that is critical. Maya macGuineas, thank you so much for joining us today. We really, really appreciate having you on the program. Folks, You can follow her on Twitter at Maya macGuineas, Mac McGinnis at Budget Hawks at Fix USA. Org and Crfb. Org. Maya, again, thank you so much for joining us on the program. We love having you on and look forward to having you on again in the near future.Maya MacGuineas: [00:42:17] Great. Nice to talk with you.Chuck Warren: [00:42:18] Thank you. This is breaking battlegrounds. Join us next for our podcast segment. We'll be honored to have Kylie Kipper straight from Houston talking crime and baseball. We're very excited about this.Sam Stone: [00:42:29] It's been a long time since we had Kylie.Chuck Warren: [00:42:31] She's got she's got a doozy. So folks, follow us at Breaking Battlegrounds Vote, share the podcast, and we'll talk to you here briefly on the podcast episode by.Sam Stone: [00:42:51] Welcome to the podcast, only segment of breaking battlegrounds. Up next, it's been a long time. It's been a very long time since we had a kyli true crime update. Kylie Kipper, our producer, hates being on the microphone today. She's been forced to be better at it. You know, you're great at it.Kylie Kipper: [00:43:10] That's the I'm getting more comfortable. I meant.Sam Stone: [00:43:12] Okay.Chuck Warren: [00:43:12] Two years will do that to you. Two years will do that to you.Sam Stone: [00:43:14] It's been a while, huh? So.Chuck Warren: [00:43:16] Kylie, you're actually in a state where there's been sort of this mystery. This young man was missing seven years ago, and then he showed up. And, you know, look, Americans love a kid being recovered. Story. All people do. If you don't, you don't have a heart. Right?Sam Stone: [00:43:29] So this is a strange one, though.Chuck Warren: [00:43:30] Chuck, So we're all excited about it then. Come to find out there's a little bit more to the story, which sadly seems to be a lot to these stories now. There always seems to be a little bit more to the story, right? So you've done some digging on it. Tell us about it. What's what's the true story here?Kylie Kipper: [00:43:44] Yeah, So there's a few pieces of this investigation which it's still ongoing. They have another press conference tonight, but they had one yesterday which has caused a lot of feathers to be ruffled. So Rudy Farias was 17 years old when his mom reported him missing after he took the dogs for a walk. It turns out that he had just run away and his mom had told him that police are looking for him and we'll put him in jail if he does not come home. So at that time, he went home two days later, but his mom never reported him of coming home. She just kept the investigation saying he's still missing. So he was discovered this week unconscious outside of a church in Houston where the police, when they reported to it to the scene, had just ended up calling his mom, saying, we found your son. And she was like, oh, this is amazing. She posted photos. I'm putting in air quotes of him in the hospital, which people, family members, his aunts, cousins have come out to say that those photos were taken in 2012. And they're not recent photos in which he did not, after being discovered at this church, did not go to the hospital to get any of the help that he may have needed. Um, the yesterday and the investigation. Police chief had said that they had many run ins with their family and that the entire time his mom would just say he is still missing if they would ask who he is in the house, because at this point he's gotten older, she would say, this is my nephew and give him a fake name.Sam Stone: [00:45:17] So So he was around. They they like set him up with a fake ID or something and were telling people he wasn't him.Kylie Kipper: [00:45:25] Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so the weird part about it is, is when they did the investigation with him and his mom, Rudy obviously would not speak about any wrongdoing of his mom the past eight years. So he would just say, you know, yeah, I was living at home. She just wanted me to keep it private. X, Y, z, until he got separated from his mom, which then he was doing an interview with a detective and this community activist named Quanell X. So this is where it gets like, all kind of. Different sides of the story. So the police chief in the interview yesterday said Rudy did not report any sexual assault charges by his. Or sexual assault wrongdoing by his mom. However, this Cornell gentleman who came out and was speaking and seemed very passionate about it was crying in the interviews. He was in the interview with the detective, and he clearly stated many times of sexual encounters with his mom that ultimately led him to run away after eight years, which is how he ended up at the church. So he had stolen his mom's car to get away from his mom. And some of these can be a bit disturbing, but you know, many things. So a little backtrack, a little history about his parents is his dad was also a part of the Houston Police Department until he committed suicide in around 2011, I believe, after they were investigating him for being corrupt. So people think that that has something to do with why the police chief is saying that there was that Rudy did not report any of this. However, Quanell has come out and done a bunch of interviews on Newsnation and Fox and is just saying he's reported that his mom would make him play daddy and would sleep naked in bed together.Chuck Warren: [00:47:19] And oh my gosh.Kylie Kipper: [00:47:21] Can use that kind of imagination, which ultimately would lead him to try to escape his mom again. After eight years. He would take she would take Rudy to work and make her or make him do her job.Sam Stone: [00:47:35] Um, she what was her job, do we know?Kylie Kipper: [00:47:38] It just seemed like some, like, low level.Chuck Warren: [00:47:41] Clerical type job.Kylie Kipper: [00:47:42] Yeah. Um.Sam Stone: [00:47:44] Was there any, like, financial incentive? I mean, was she, like, raising money for the search for him or something? What's the.Kylie Kipper: [00:47:50] Yes, she did have, um, a fundraiser online, which her goal was 75,000. I have not been able to find if she actually raised that money. But something else that came up was in Texas. If you have a child that goes missing after three years, you get a basically like a life insurance payout. So that's another thing that their goodness to see if she got that money. Um, but an ex-husband came out and said this is a little background about his mom now is an ex-husband came out and said that she was a bigamist. And what I could find is in 1997, she married some she married a guy. Then again in 1998, she married another guy in that same year. She wanted a annulment on the basis that she was already married to the previous guy, which neither of these is the police detective. In 2007. She then marries the detective for the Houston Police Department. And then in 1999 to 2010, there's another marriage that's been found and then a fourth marriage from 2009 to 2012 that has also been found.Chuck Warren: [00:48:56] Boy, some kid sure draw the short end of the stick who they get stuck with, parents and folks for you if you don't know, bigamy is when the crime of marrying someone while you're still married to someone else. In case you don't know that term, I hope it doesn't come up a lot in your conversations at home, but nonetheless, that's what it means. So what do you think happens now? What are the police saying? Or I guess we'll know more tonight, right? I mean, that's really the key.Kylie Kipper: [00:49:16] So everyone so after this investigation between his mom and his and Rudy, the detective that sat there with Quanell X, this community activist, left the room and Quanell, said, I'm going to do interviews on this. Is there anything you don't want me to say? And he said, No, you can say whatever you want. The detective then went into the next room and arrested or put handcuffs, not arrested, put handcuffs on the mom, which indicated that Quanell says this detective thought his mom had committed a crime. However, at the end of the day, they ended up just walking both of them out and they left together. So now no one is 100% positive where Rudy or his mom are located today.Chuck Warren: [00:49:54] Well, how old was he when he disappeared?Kylie Kipper: [00:49:56] He was 17 and.Chuck Warren: [00:49:58] He's been missing. They may say he was of sound mind to be in a relationship. I bet. I bet that's part of it. So we're going to have you talking about this again next week. You'll keep us up to date when you're back in the studio now, folks, so you don't understand. Kylie is in Houston today, not because she loves the summer weather of Houston, but nobody.Sam Stone: [00:50:16] Nobody loves the summer weather or the smell of Houston in the.Chuck Warren: [00:50:19] Summer. Her fiance, Isaiah Campbell, who's been playing Double A for the Seattle Mariners affiliate in Little Rock, was called up to the big league club, the Mariners, yesterday. And Kylie hopped on a plane and flew out there. And Kylie, just what was that experience like? What were your feelings? I mean, it's you know, look, a lot of people don't get to do this. So how was it for you?Kylie Kipper: [00:50:41] I mean, sometimes still to this moment, it doesn't feel real. Um, I think I did an interview yesterday with an MLB TV reporter, and it was very hard to articulate how I was feeling. And, you know, just like the emotions that go into it because he has just had this dream For him since he was little. And it's finally coming true. He is. Yesterday he was not in the game yet, so we're still waiting for his. Actual official debut. But he is on the roster and we're hoping it's. Tonight or tomorrow.Chuck Warren: [00:51:10] Well, folks, as you know, Sam and I adore Kylie and the great work she does on the show and Jamie. And so I was last night watching two teams. I could care less about the Astros and Mariners waiting for her to pitch. And apparently Isaiah's good teammate was the starter last night and decided like, let me pitch like a Cy Young Award winner this year. It's what he did. So Isaiah did not get in the game. So this weekend, if he can pull up the Mariners and Houston Astros and look for Isaiah Campbell to come in late innings to help the team out.Kylie Kipper: [00:51:39] Yeah.Sam Stone: [00:51:40] Can we just get Kylie to post a clip of his appearance so I don't have to watch a mariners Astros game?Chuck Warren: [00:51:45] Chuck Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. So before you get Kylie off and end the podcast, we just want to give a congratulations. And since Kylie is engaged, she'll appreciate this. Jimmy, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter today are celebrating their 77th anniversary. Now, folks, let me let me talk about this for a minute here. The US census says 6% of married couples in the United States make the 50th wedding anniversary, one tenth of a percent make their seventh of those 75 years or more. They don't even keep the statistic. So that's that's how rare that is. And Sam makes a good point. You know, it's the longevity. The lifespan of.Sam Stone: [00:52:23] A man is like 79.Chuck Warren: [00:52:24] Years. There's a lot to this, but there's a lot of people who just don't want to be together 77 years. So there's something to this, right?Sam Stone: [00:52:30] It's an amazing it's an amazing thing. And congratulations to both of them, without a doubt. And it speaks to great character on both.Chuck Warren: [00:52:37] It really does. It really does. And it speaks to a great partnership. Yeah. So happy anniversary to the Carters. Kylie, We're very excited for you and we're excited for his first pitch to Major League Baseball this weekend. And so we'll keep in touch with you on that, folks. This is breaking battlegrounds. You can follow us on breaking battlegrounds vote. Besides the radio stations we're on, you can also catch us on podcasts wherever you listen to a podcast, please share. Please rate. Thanks a million. We'll be back next week. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com

Chuck Greaves was last on the Binge Reading Podcast in May, 2020. Now he returns to talk about his fourth book in the Jack MacTaggart series. The Chimera Club. It's a fast moving behind the scenes look at LA nightlife with a wonderful twist. As well as giving us an update on his other activities since he was last on the show Chuck's going to talk about a recent adventure, a Grand Canyon canoe trip with an unexpected ending.... But before we get there, if you haven't heard the original interview with Chuck it can be found here:  www,thejoysofbingereading.com/chuckgreaves/eco-thriller-la-law Jenny: Before we get into talking about Jack MacTaggart, you've been having some adventures of your own Chuck haven't. You just recently you went away on holiday and something happened. Tell us about that. Chuck Greaves' holiday misadventure Chuck: Well, I was rafting down the Grand Canyon. I was supposed to be on a 14 day trip, and at about day eight, I was helicopter rescued and taken to the hospital with a nasty case of COVID. Jenny: Terrible. I mean they reckon that when you're out in the wild, with all this fresh air. that you pretty much protected, but it seems not. Chuck: Well, it was a group of 28 people and we were in pretty close proximity to one another. And as soon as somebody introduces the disease to the group it spreads like wildfire, that's exactly what happened to us. Jenny: Yes. Were you having stops on the banks? Were you in contact with other people or did you all set off together and stay in an isolated group for the whole time? Chuck: Yeah, we were in a pretty insular, isolated group. So it, there was a couple who traveled from Europe to join the group. And I suspect that was how it was introduced and then it kind of made its way around. Jenny: Well, we're glad that you're back on deck and, hopefully not feeling too many long term consequences. So we are talking about Jack MacTagggart, the fourth book, as you know, I was a great fan of the first three. A classic set up for an brain twister plot This time Jack gets tangled up in a case, and it's a very interesting twisty beginning because the man who's being accused of murder is actually physically in Hong Kong at the time that the death takes place, but the police are still very confident they're going to make the charges stick. Tell us about that. It's a really fizzy opening. Chuck: The basic setup for the book, is what if DNA evidence pointed to only one possible suspect of the crime, but that suspect had the perfect alibi.? So the way the case sets up, there's the murder of an amorous Hollywood producer, a sort of a Harvey Weinstein type character, who's found naked and tied to the bed posts in a luxury hotel in Los Angeles, stabbed. Then they recovered DNA evidence from the sink in the hotel bathroom. There are two different blood types in the sink, the victim's and another person's. And when they run that DNA through the state data bank, it identifies one person who could only be the assailant. The problem is that assailant is 7,000 miles away in Hong Kong on the night of the murder. So that's the scenario. Jenny: And where on earth did that come from, in your head first up, was there anything that sparked that kind of scenario. Chuck: Not a real case, but I did want to set up a situation that would be a puzzle to unravel. Let's put it like that. Different book in terms of writing process Jenny: And when you're writing a book like that, it's extremely intricate in the way that the plot weaves in and out with different revelations. Did you work it all out ahead of time, or was there a certain section where you just let things flow and the answers came. Chuck: Yeah. This book for me was completely different, in terms of process from the previous three books, because I'm not an outliner, I'm not the kind of writer who starts with a detailed outline and follows it from beginning to end.

Democrats have finally passed their climate, tax and health care legislation through the Senate. Chuck Schumer and his colleagues are toasting their successful out-manoeuvring of the GOP. How will the Inflation Reduction Act affect carbon emissions, prescription drug prices and the deficit? And will it improve voters' views of Joe Biden and his party?The Economist's Vijay Vaitheeswaran assesses the climate provisions in the bill. We go back to another occasion when Democrats had to go it alone in Congress. And The Economist's Elliott Morris considers whether a legislative victory can change voters' minds. John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard and Idrees Kahloon.You can now find every episode of Checks and Balance in one place and sign up to our weekly newsletter. For full access to print, digital and audio editions, as well as exclusive live events, subscribe to The Economist at economist.com/uspod. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Democrats have finally passed their climate, tax and health care legislation through the Senate. Chuck Schumer and his colleagues are toasting their successful out-manoeuvring of the GOP. How will the Inflation Reduction Act affect carbon emissions, prescription drug prices and the deficit? And will it improve voters' views of Joe Biden and his party?The Economist's Vijay Vaitheeswaran assesses the climate provisions in the bill. We go back to another occasion when Democrats had to go it alone in Congress. And The Economist's Elliott Morris considers whether a legislative victory can change voters' minds. John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard and Idrees Kahloon.You can now find every episode of Checks and Balance in one place and sign up to our weekly newsletter. For full access to print, digital and audio editions, as well as exclusive live events, subscribe to The Economist at economist.com/uspod. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Allen: Passive Traders, welcome to another edition of the Option Genius Podcast. In this episode I have the pleasure of introducing you to a fellow passive trader, Mr. Charles Betz. He is a passive trader and he is gonna talk about how he got started with a small dollar account and how he is using the Wheel Options Strategy to generate some very significant returns. I think you're gonna enjoy this one. Stay tuned. Allen: Cool. So tell me, tell me about Chuck, tell me about Mr. Betts, you know, what do you do? Who are you? How'd you get into trading? Chuck: I'm a high school teacher, I teach math and physics. It's a second career. My first career was in the restaurant industry. And you know, things just didn't really work out for me there. So then a teacher for then going into my 10th year of teaching. And the whole reason I got into trading was when I looked at the retirement system, the pension, everything that teachers can earn, it's like one of the few professions that still has a pension, I looked at how old I was going to be when I was going to be able to collect a decent income. And I thought, wow, I'm not sure I want to work to be that old one. I'm still working and retire at that age, like, how much am I going to have left? Who knows? So I started looking into other things that could maybe do to dial that number back. And I met with a buddy of mine, I have a real estate license, that's one of the things I got into while I was transitioning careers. He's he owned a, he ran his own little brokerage for a little while, and I was thinking about maybe, you know, selling some homes or listing some homes in the summer or on the side while I was teaching to make extra money. And he told me about options. He's like, you got to check this out. This crazy thing, like, and I'd heard of them, I'd looked into different types of trading, trading currencies and, and trading stocks. You know, that's one of the things I teach in one of my math classes was investing, you know, stocks and what are they and all that stuff. Just the basics, though. And I had never heard of options. So that's how I found out about options was through my buddy knows about two years ago. Allen: So okay, only about two years. All right. Chuck: Yeah. Allen: Cool. So instead of telling you to "Yeah, come on board and you know, love you sell houses for me", he just, he put you in a whole different direction? Allen: Well, he did offer to, you know, give you some leads, I could follow up on his real estate leads. But having done real estate full time in the past, I know how much time and effort and energy it takes to be successful in that industry. Yeah. And as a teacher, you know, I already had a few years under my belt, and I, I love this job. I love what I do. But I just don't want to do it forever. I couldn't see doing real estate and then teaching. At the same time, it just I don't know where I would find the time to do both. So I thought I'd look into options or something to do with the financial markets, because that's something that can be done without as much time to invest into it, you know? Allen: Yeah. What state are you in? Chuck: I'm in California, in Southern California. I live in the city of La Mesa is just outside of San Diego. Allen: Okay. And so they're unionized teachers there? Chuck: I was teaching at a school that had a union I was part of the Union have since left that school for.. Now, I teach from home. I was another thing I reason is because I had more time, I didn't have to go drive and be in a school building all day. I work with homeschool kids Allen: Oh, interesting. Chuck: It's homeschool them. And, you know, they get to that point in their schooling where they're like, I can't help you with that math, or I don't know how to teach you Physics. So that's where I come in. But we aren't part of a union. But we do still pay into the State Retirement where we get our funds from public schools. And from you know, the same way public schools do we are a public charter school. We're just not part of a union. So, that's the only difference. Allen: Okay, so I think you might have touched on this, but besides the money aspect, what drew you to trading? Chuck: I just wanted to not have to work until I'm in my late 60s. And I knew that if I could somehow increase our income, and put that into retirement savings. You know, we're we're starting to fund our Roth IRAs, and we're starting to give money to our 403B's. And we're, we also, you know, my wife's a teacher, too. So, you know, we're starting to we pay into the 403B is like a 401k. But.. Allen: ..for teachers Chuck: For teachers, right. And I was thinking, well, gosh, you know, it'd be really cool if we could just build up our investments faster. That way, we wouldn't have to rely on you know, that number they're gonna give you when you reach that age, it's all this calculator and this crazy math, and they tell you, well, if you teach this many years, and you're this age, we'll give you this much money. And I was like, that's all great, but I don't want to be 68 when I retire, how can I dial that back? So yes, it was about the money, but it was more about how can I start coming back from 68 and make it more like 65 or maybe 62? Or maybe even younger than that, you know, so yeah, that was really the goal was to not have to work until the 68 and how does your wife feel about that? She is on board like this whole thing is just been a huge eye opener. You know, I've kind of been a sucker in my life for all of these crazy money making schemes and it's something I learned from my mom growing up she got into all these crazy money making schemes and and you know, I've met a lot of really bad decisions and so it took a while for me to realize that no, this is legit like this is real. This works this this is not a scam it's not an overnight get rich quick scheme but but it's a legitimate way to increase your income and to reach that goal of financial security a lot faster than you normally would. So she's totally on board. Allen: That's awesome. That's really, I mean, I would say it's becoming more common. But in the.. Originally when a lot of people come to us, you know, they're like, yeah, you know, I want to do this, but my wife, she's totally against it. And she just thinks, like you said, you know, she just thinks it's another one of those things that I'm getting into, that I'm all excited about, I'm gonna spend money on course, or whatever. And then, either it's not gonna work, or I'm not gonna do it. So we have that pushback a lot from a lot of people, and I get where you're coming from. Because I mean, when I was little, you know, I've done it all to you know, network marketing, you know, real estate, sales, all that stuff, everything that I could think of, I even did those chain letters. I don't know if you ever did that, where no, you get a letter.. Chuck: I know what you're talking about. Allen: You get a letter, and it has like, 10 names. And you're like, Okay, you got to send $1 to each people on the name. And then and then you change the last and you put your name there, and then you send out 1000 letters, and then all those 1000 people are supposed to send you $1, and on and on and on. And yeah.. Chuck: Oh my gosh I totally remember those. Allen: That was cool. I think I got like, $1 back. Chuck: Yeah well growing up, you know, my mom bought into, I don't know, if you remember Carlton sheets, you know.. Allen: Yup, we got his programs Chuck: She was into Amway and selling Avon, and, you know, she was always trying to find that, you know, that next thing and, and so that's kind of the mindset I had growing up. But, you know, I just didn't really learn any financial literacy from her, you know, it was, it was kind of a struggle, really. So when I, when it found this, I've always, you know, when I got older, a little bit older in life, I started to realize, like, I don't have a whole lot of good financial knowledge from growing up. So I need to be a little bit more cautious about things. So I kind of made sure that this worked before I introduced it to my wife. And once she saw that it was working, she's like, Let's go, this is great. Are you kidding? Wow. Allen: Okay, so how did you so you said, you made sure that it work? How did you do that? Chuck: So we had a brokerage account that I had just bought some stocks in, we opened it up when our daughter was born, we had a few thousand dollars in there. And you know, just it was just sitting there not really doing anything and never really appreciated and value never went up. It was you know, over the years, when I was in real estate, some of the guys in the office, we're doing penny stocks, and maybe have a couple $100 of that. And, and so over the years, there was a total of a couple grand in there, I read that a little over 3000. And so when I first found out about Options, I used that because she really didn't even know about that. It was like this account that she barely knew.. Allen: She forgot about it.. Chuck: Whatever, it's no big deal. And so I used that to figure out, is this legitimate? Is this going to work? Or is this another one of those things where I'm just going to be like, oh, there I go again, making poor decisions about things don't really work. And at first, it didn't, you know, one of the the the program and the education program that my buddy introduced me to, the thing they used to get me into it was buying options, which totally went against everything that I heard from you, and from another podcast person that I listened to where all you guys talked about as being a seller of options. But the way they presented the course and all the information, it made so much sense. There was logic and you know, a program and a trading plan. And so I put that in, in motion with my little small account and lost a third of it over the course of about four or five months. So that's my start into option. Yeah.. Allen: Yeah that's pretty common. A lot of people go that route because it I mean, it's more appealing because oh, if you buy an option, you can double your money, triple your money 10 times your money overnight, you know. And it's great, because they have plenty of examples, you know, they can show you Oh, we did this trade. And we had this trade we did this trip, they don't show you the other 99 trades that didn't do well. But they show you the few that did. So great. So how did you find out about option genius? How did you get started with us? Chuck: I was looking for more education, more information. You know, I watched tons of YouTube videos about what options are. All the Greeks and all the details and all that stuff. And I go out, mental part of my daily routine is to go out for an hour long walk, walk about three miles every morning, I'll put my earbuds in and I started listening to podcasts about investing and and then eventually trading and now options. And yours was one of the few out there that I could find there aren't that many people doing consistent podcasts about options trading. So between you and this other one that I was listening to. Again, both of you were primarily talking about selling options, and here I was over buying options and like something is.. I'm not doing something right. I'm losing money, and these guys are talking about doing something different. I gotta get this figured out. So that's how I found you guys was through podcasts. So thank you for putting out the podcast. Allen: Okay, no, you're welcome. It's been a it's been an interesting journey for the podcast. So what was the the first product that you tried with us? or what have you had? Chuck: So I went to your website, I signed up for your emails, just your basic emails, here's what we do that kind of stuff. And you sent out a scholarship request, you were offering a scholarship for your passive trading program. And, you know, like I said, I didn't have a whole lot of extra money on the side, I was using a really small account, you know, to buy a program is like, Oh, I'm still not sure about this stuff. But you offered a scholarship and your your introductory video for what you want. And you're like, you know, I've offered this before, like, nobody's ever really done anything with it. I was really kind of disappointed by all the people who, you know, I've given the scholarship to I haven't really had any success stories. So maybe you can be a success story. And I'm like, Yes, that is me. I want to be that guy. So I put together my video and I sent it in and you emailed me, congratulations. You know, we're awarding the scholarship, and I just about my head exploded, it was fantastic. So I watched all the courses. I take notes on all the courses that you teach. I have my little options notebook here that I write everything down, like, word and awesome. And just right when it all was over started, started working the plan. So that's how I found you guys. Allen: And how how's it been? so far? That was about two years ago. You said? Chuck: A year and a half ago.. Allen: Year and a half. Okay. Chuck: It was actually February of 2020. Good Time to get started, right? Yeah, I started placing my first trades, and my first few trades were profitable. I hit my profit margins, just like the plan says everything was going great. Oh, my gosh, let's keep going. Let's do the next month beginning of March, you know, open up my trades, and then Coronavirus, right. And so everything went south, but I could see like this is working. I totally get that this works. We just had this huge adjustment in our market based on what was going on. So I just kept going and going after that. And it's been going great. Allen: But you had the hope, right? Chuck: Oh, yeah, no, I can see that it worked. That was the thing I saw the results, I saw that this new strategy I'd never used before. It works. What all of these guys talk about books that I've read, talk about selling options is the way to make money. It works. It was the first time I had ever sold an option. I was like, Oh my gosh, this stuff works. Kind of like how you talked about in your story where you're like, man, I was losing money. And I looked at the this one option. And it was the one I sold. And I was like what it was like a light bulb moment. Right? Allen: Yep. Yeah. So So how did you handle the the Corona bear market? Chuck: You know, I lost some money, but I just got right back in. Like, I think it turned around within a few weeks. Like actually, as it started going down, I start I just flipped to the other side of the options chain, you know, and started taking advantage of it on that side. And okay, because I could see, okay, we're gonna go down for a few days, or maybe a week or who knows how long but that's the beauty of options is, you know, if there's a clear trend and what's going on, you can jump to the other side. Allen: Awesome, cool. Cool. So how have your trading results been so far? Chuck: Um, I'm keeping track. So that account was so small, and I really wasn't doing what I wanted to do based on what the passive trading formula, you know, they're the three main types of trades and you break it all down by account size and my accounts, I was so small, and I wasn't having as much luck with what the one strategy to build it up. So I rolled over my 403 beat from my previous employer to my current brokerage as a rollover IRA and got it approved for options and started trading there. That was October of last year. Allen: Okay. Chuck: And since October, it's up 26%. Allen: Okay, so what does that like nine months or so? Chuck: Yeah, yeah. And also, if I, if I look at the graph, because most math people would like to graph things. As I look at the graph, I should be right around 30 to 35% on a year over year basis. So using using that strategy. Allen: Sweet, very nice. So what strategies are you using? Chuck: Right now and selling puts to get into positions.. Allen: Okay. Chuck: And once I'm in that position, I do covered calls, and I'm doing them a little closer to the money because I don't really care if it gets called away. As long as I'm, you know, not negative in that particular option, like position, I should say, I look at each position like a little business, right? If I'm going to put this money out there, I want to make me money. And as long as I'm profitable in that position, if it gets called away as long as I've made money on it, you know, when it's all said and done, perfect. So that's what I've been doing. It's just kind of been bouncing back and forth right now. I don't I'm not holding anything right now. I might get assigned this Friday. We'll see depending on where that put closes. So yeah, that's what I've been doing. Allen: Then what type of stocks? Are you doing this on? Chuck: Actually, I've only been using ETFs. Allen: Okay Chuck: So I found that stocks dip, you know, they move a lot I've been I've been looking at, I've been doing credit spreads a little bit like, you know, you're taught to do credit spreads. So, I've been doing a couple of those here and there, I'm starting to get back into trying those out and making sure I can figure out I know what I'm doing. But I like doing it on ETFs. Because I feel like you know, an ETF isn't going to go bankrupt, an ETF isn't going to go down to zero. So I've been using, you know, smaller ETFs, some of the different ETFs that have smaller, you know, price per share points. So that, because my IRA account isn't that big. So, you know, but and I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket, I don't want to do all of it one trade, so I want to spread it around. So I've been using just this list of ETFs that I found that, you know, fit all the criteria you mentioned in the course and just keep selling puts on them until I get assigned and then doing covered calls. And if it gets called away, then I just go back to selling puts again, and it just keeps going around around around. Allen: Awesome. So that puts your selling in the covered calls, they are what weekly every two weeks, three weeks a month? Chuck: They're on mostly I'm doing monthly, most of the time, I'm looking for like a 30 to 35 days till expiration, put to sell all of the ETFs do offer weekly options, you know, I want to make sure that fit that criteria of having weekly options. And there's lots of liquidity, you know, not that you necessarily need it if you're okay with being assigned. But still, you know, if there for some reason you wanted to get out of a trade, you got to be able to get out of the trade. But there is one where I've been doing it a little bit more like just testing out this idea of trying it every like two to three weeks. So I've been doing puts where they'll expire anywhere between 18 and 24 days instead of 30 to 35 just to see what the results aren't, you know, playing around with things and right, keeping tracking data and keeping track of everything to see if it offers any edge whatsoever. Allen: Right. And you're not and you're not keeping the stocks too long. So you're not really worried about the dividend? Chuck: No, not at all. I mean, I'm hoping to build, you know, to get to that point. And like you say in your program where it's like, Okay, you got this host of really good stocks, you get your dividends that are coming in, and then you're just doing calls on top of that to help juice those returns. So but my accounts not quite there yet. Allen: Okay, no worries. Chuck: Or size goes. Allen: Yeah, no, that's awesome. So okay, so you're doing like basic butter, I mean, bread and butter covered or naked puts, get some premium, maybe they expire, maybe they get assigned. And then you turn around right around and you do what like at the money covered calls are a little bit out of the money or.. Chuck: Depending on how if I do get assigned, you know, it depends on where I got assigned at. So if it did go through a couple of dollar drops, let's say it was trading at $40 a share and I sold that put and and then it drops to 38. You know, I'll make sure that I sell the call. So that I'm above my cost basis. I want to make sure I'm not losing money on the position. So sometimes it's a little further out of the money. But most of the time, I'm trying to sell it pretty much right at where I got it sound. Okay, awesome. and collect the premiums to build my account faster. Allen: That's cool. Yeah, I mean, congratulations. I mean, you're doing better than most people out there and a lot of Professionals. Chuck: Yeah it's amazing. I'm floored I really am when I started plotting everything and looking at the returns. I was like, Are you kidding me? This is crazy. Unbelievable. Allen: How long does it take you in the day to do this? Chuck: Oh, not long at all. I do in the morning. You know, before my workday starts or some sometimes before I go out for my morning walk. You know if it I'll look Monday or Tuesday. Okay, let's sell another put in, I just got my list of ETFs that I look at and I say okay, how much did that one expire? Cool, I've got some more money in my account. Let's sell another one. Did I get assigned? Okay, let's look at the chain where where do I need to do my covered call at. Okay, let's do it there. And then I go on with my day. That's it. It's I love it because it's so low maintenance during the school year, my days are unswamped. Like I don't have a whole lot of time to sit here and stare at a screen of the markets and go through and look at charts and all that. So this plan really just fits what I'm looking for. Allen: Okay, so okay, now, I don't know if you've done this. But if you extrapolate and say, okay, you know, I'm doing about 25-30% a year, if I can do that every year, which you know, with the style that you're doing, you should be able to do somewhere close to that, right? Does that help you or does that? Have you done the numbers and be like, Well, you know, I could probably retire five years earlier, four years early or something like that. Chuck: That's been a moving target. And it's really been hard to nail down because all of this is just so recent. It's also very recent, and you sent out that email. I don't remember like a month or two ago. What's your number and you linked it to that article. where, you know, that guy offered to give you as much money as you want you write a number down? How much money would you need to never work again for the rest of your life. And I'm going to ask for other people. And whoever gives me the lowest number wins. I thought that was amazing. Because then I got me to think, what is my number? I never, I mean, I know that this whole thing was designed to dial back my my want to work till 68. Right. But what would this get me if I were to project this out? Could I stop teaching at 62? Could I stop teaching at 59, I really need to look at all of the pieces of the puzzle, to get a clear picture of what that's going to look like and when. But it's very exciting. This is exciting stuff to get to do, you know? Allen: Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, if you, if you're still looking at that way, that's great. But I would like you to look at it from a different point of view as well, now that you've already seen, you know, that it works is power behind it. Now, let's figure out okay, how much do you need every month to pay the bills, so that we don't need to worry about what your big number is in the, you know, in the big number in the sky? Think we need X dollars every month to pay the bills? How much do I need in my account? To cover that amount? Right? So if you want to, you know, like, let's say your monthly expenses are five, six grand, and you know, as an example, well, hey, if I can make that much five, six grand from my trading account every month doing these simple trades, boom! I can retire today, you know, and then it's up to you. It's I could do I want to keep teaching? Yeah, that's great. Or do I want to go volunteer? Or do I want to teach for free? Or, you know, it, the sky's the limit at that point? So, you know, definitely, I don't want people to think that they have to wait till 6568, they could do it a lot sooner. And when you look at it, from that point of view, that's another like, aha moment like what really that possible? Yeah, it is. And it doesn't take as much as you would think, especially when you're, you know, bringing in like, one 2% a month. If you can build it up, then. And once you take a look at it, your expenses. I mean, you're in California, so maybe a little bit higher with the taxes and whatnot. But if you structure it in a different way, it might be a lot less than you realize. Chuck: I think I'm going to do that. Just knowing that, you know, I haven't done a full year, I think once I hit that October deadline, where I've been doing this a year, and I see that number, and I know that it works, that's a really good opportunity to say, hey, how much would I need in my account? In order to do this and live off of it, like pay my bills, pay my expenses, and not have to worry about going to a classroom every day during the school year, or teaching zoom classes or planning lessons or grading papers? Or you know, any of that just, you know, then what would I do with my time? No, I could, like you said, volunteer or tutor for free or do something else. Just Yeah, that's a that's a really interesting thought. Allen: I mean, I wouldn't want you to leave teaching because I know we need our teachers. But you know, just the fact of not having to worry. Like we've had multiple, multiple people that come into our system, where they get to that point, you know, where hey, yeah, I'm making as much as from my job as I am from my trading. But I love my job so much. I want to keep doing it. Yeah. So it feels really good. your self esteem goes up the way you think about yourself, the way you carry yourself all that changes, because now you're like, wow, you know, I'm in control of my own destiny. Chuck: Yeah I can see that I just just from the success I've had, I can kind of see that mindset shift for me, you know, what my thoughts are about the future and, and what's possible. Allen: Like, I know, like, you know, recently after Corona, we've had this really great bull market, you know, things have been going up things have been doubled, tripled since when they from the hit the bottom and they went up. So a lot of people have made a lot of money, especially the buying option, guys, right now they're walking on water, because they're like, oh, everything that every option I buy, it goes up, every call option goes up. So they're making money, but the thing that you're doing, it works in a bull market when things are going up, but it always works when things are going sideways. And it works really good even when things are going down. You know, so if you came to me and said, Oh, yeah, you know, I've been buying options, and I made 40% or 30% this year, really Congratulations, but you're not gonna be able to do that year after year after year. You know, but what you're doing, yeah, it can be done year after year after year. And then you start compounding that eventually, very quickly, within three, four or five years, you know, that number every month of what you're bringing in just exponentially grows and grows and grows and it gets huge. So I'm really excited for you. So it's like the, you know, future looks really really bright for you. Chuck: It really does. It's it's just an having come to you know, financial stability, I will say at a later age in life and thinking about okay, when I got into teaching at least I will be able to retire at some point, you know, even though that was 68 and then stumbling into this It just blows my mind. Because, you know, I wish I had found it sooner just like teaching. I love teaching. I wish I had started doing this earlier in my life. But yeah, the opportunities that trading opens up are limitless. This has just been amazing. And I can't thank you enough because you guys offered me the scholarship. And here I am. I'm loving it. Allen: Yep. Okay, so now we've talked a lot about the good stuff, right. But what now what was maybe the most challenging thing to get you started to doing this or achieve some success with this? Chuck: I think well, two things. One was the account size, small account to start with. But the second was more of a mental thing. And again, I don't know if it had to do with all of those horrible schemes, those money making schemes that I've come to in the past to really just trust and believe in this and know that it works and trust in the process and click Submit on that order and just watch it work. But I think the mental part of it was probably the hardest thing to get over. And I hear so many people that I listened to and read about talk about that aspect of what it is we're doing, where the mental part of trading is probably one of the most important things, because anybody can do a strategy. And anybody can come up with a trading plan. But if you don't have the right mindset about that plan, it's not going to work for you. It's just not. And I think that was the hardest thing that when it clicked for me, it was like, Oh, my gosh, why did it take so long? But I think getting the right mindset was probably the hardest thing for me. Allen: Okay, and how did you go ahead and get that mindset? Chuck: Knowing that there's limited risk, like what we do you limit your risk? You know, the, when there are certain things that you know, people talk about options, I have a friend who used to work in the financial markets. And I was asking him if he knew anything about options, because oh, man, I don't know, the only thing I know is those are really risky. But what we do you define your risk, right? You You have a, here's your maximum loss, you are willing to lose, you're not going to lose your house and your life savings and be destitute living on the street. There's a and you can make that as small as you want. And I think that helped comfort me a little bit and just saying, Well, look, if it doesn't work, this is what I'm going to lose. Am I okay with that? Yeah, that's not going to make a big deal in the long run. So let's give it a try. So that part of it really helped me get over the mindset of losing, or the fear of losing being greater than the fear of opportunity, or the the actual idea of opportunity. So yeah, just the mindset thing that really took a while for me to wrap my head around, and just do it. But I again, reading so many people talk about it, and great examples of how to get over it. Just, it's I'm so glad I did. Allen: Awesome. Awesome. Cool. So let's say if we have a listener who's in your shoes, where you were about year and a half, two years ago, what would you tell that person? How would you tell? How would you advise them to get started? Or what should they do first, second, third? Chuck: Educate yourself. Definitely, you know, I spent several months just educating myself as much as possible with from reputable people. Like I said, I listen to your podcast, I listen to podcasts of other people, I read books, watch the YouTube videos from reputable sources, you can kind of tell the snake oil salesmen out there, so I would always just kind of tell them, you know, ignore those. But, you know, there are plenty of valid sources of free material to educate you about what options are and how they can work for you. So first, make sure you know what you're doing. But then second, get yourself a somebody who knows what they're doing to help you out. This has been such a helpful community that you've introduced me to everybody in our Facebook group, you offer all of the support, you know, it's just been so helpful to know that there are people out there doing it with me, even though I'm here alone in my office, you know, watching the screen or doing what I'm doing, but definitely somebody who's new - educate yourself, find somebody who's going to help you, and then just do it. You just be okay, with losing a couple 100 bucks. Trust me, I think most people have probably spent a couple 100 bucks on something useless Anyway, you know, and so, I think it's worth it to see that this works. And that'll just be a complete different, a complete mind change for you. Allen: Cool. Okay, so now thinking back to the program that you were in the passive trading formula, give me like maybe two or three takeaways that you know, when you went through it, it really hits you and you're like, Okay, this you know, this makes a lot of sense. This is good. I need to start using this stuff. Chuck: There are rules for everything. You have everything there is a template, it's a pre determined, this is how you do it. This is what you look for this is when you see this go. And as a math teacher math is just rules, right? And what you do when you know there are rules for every type. Math. So if you follow these rules, you'll get the right answer. So if you follow that trading rule, you will get the desired outcome. You know that I think that was one of the biggest takeaways from your entire program was that there's a template, it's laid out for you, you know, here, here's what to look for, here's what to do when things go wrong. Here's what to do when things go right. Here's how to be successful at this and then just do it. That's it. That was the beauty of it is how simple it is. And the fact that I don't have to be glued to my computer screen all day. It's perfect. Allen: Mm hmm. Cool. Okay. Chuck: I hope that answer your question, I hope. Allen: Yeah, I did. Yeah, it's up to you is whatever I mean, you know, everybody looks at it from a different point of view. You know, when some people start asking the same question, it's like, some people they talk about, oh, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be able to do this. With like, some people have certain disabilities, and they can't, they can't work or they can't focus, or they can't do some some other things. And they get drawn to this. Other people look at it. And their takeaway is like, Oh, you know, I'm coming at this from like, let's say, a real estate background, we have a lot of real estate investors, they get involved in options, because it makes sense. You know, you're you're buying a house, you're renting it out, you're cash flowing it, well, you could do that same thing with stocks, you know, your covered call is cash flowing your stocks. So it's kind of the same thing. And so different, like I love your answer is great. Everybody looks at it from a different point of view. So I just like hearing what attracted and what people took away the template thing, you know, that that's something, I've heard it but not not too much? And I think it is, it's one of the things we like to do is just keep it simple, you know, you can, like you said, there are other people out there, they're teaching this stuff. But what I find is that they make it so complicated, that it stops people in their tracks from like, oh, man, I'm never gonna understand this stuff. What is he talking about? i? Geez. So that's what we kind of, you know, especially this program is like, yeah, this is really simple. You know, like, just get started, start with one foot, start with another foot, you don't have to go running, you just start walking a little bit, and crawling a little bit, and eventually you'll, you'll get the hang of it. So.. Chuck: Yeah, it's been great. I think the other thing that hooked me the most was you use the analogy of insurance a lot. And that really was like another lightbulb moment. For me. There was a book I was reading, where they talked about it from being an insurance company perspective. You've talked about it from that perspective, I used to work for AIG selling life insurance back before they had to get bailed out. That was an interesting time. But insurance for that perspective, and selling options totally makes sense to me. And being able to define your risk, you know, what insurance market Do you want to go into? Do you want to be a reinsurance company where you're going to handle all the crazy insurance that nobody else will touch? Or do you want to be a super conservative insurance company, that's really what trading options is, you're, you're out there taking on a little bit of risk and collecting some money and just do it month after month. And it's amazing. It's just amazing. And that so that whole insurance analogy just really clicked with me. So between that and and the step by step, here's the template, follow this process, and let it fly. That those two were the huge takeaways for me. Allen: Okay, cool. Awesome. So based on your experience, would you recommend Option Genius to others? Chuck: Oh, yeah, I already have! A buddy that I mentioned, options to he used to work for the wealthiest guy here in San Diego County was the guy manages several billion dollars worth of investments. But you know, his portfolio kind of shrank over the past several years, and he's just looking to hang it up. So he got laid off. And he was the one I asked if he knew anything about options, and he could get all freaked out, oh, they're risky. And I said, Well, you should look into this guy, you should, you know, go listen to some of his podcasts. That's how I was introduced. And if what he's saying makes any sense, you know, I'm happy to turn you on to what they're doing over there. It's It's amazing. It really is. And so, I don't know if he's, I haven't talked to him. I don't know if he's listened to the podcast and ran with it or done anything with it. But I'll probably check in with him here before I go back to school next month. Allen: I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, you know, everything that we can do to get the word out there, because the situation for.. I mean, you're you're lucky that you're a teacher, and you have that built in pension, you know, it's kind of I've learned a little bit about it, but it's like your teachers are kind of in that situation, or better often. Most companies are most people that don't have that fallback plan. A lot of people are really, really and you have the other thing, I don't know if you, you're in high school teacher, right. So I mean, if you were unionized, I've seen these, it's harder to lay off a teacher. Chuck: Oh, yeah. Allen: But we have so many, so many people that come to us and say, you know, I was a high level executive. I was making a couple 100 grand a year, but then they decided to lay me off and they brought in somebody that's, you know, doing the work cheaper. And now I can't find a job that will pay me the same amount I was making so my family's used to a certain lifestyle. I can't provide it anymore. Yeah, I wish I had found this stuff so much sooner. And so that's why it's like I'm out there like man, you know, we really need to get this stuff out there. People need to hear about it. Chuck: I agree! Allen: Even if they're doing just the basics, you know, just, you know you already have, most people already have a stock portfolio, they already have their indexes, just, you know, just sell a few options every few years, every month, you know, not even every month, they can do it every few months, they can still make a little bit more than they're making now. And in the long run, it'll add up and workout. So Alright, last question for you. What do you think the future holds for you now? Chuck: That is completely up to me. You know, I've always been a believer in that, that I kind of control my destiny and my circumstances, don't necessarily, I'm here because of who I am. So, but I feel like my future has just, it's wide open. It really is I daydream a lot more. I think about the opportunities and the possibilities a lot more. You know, it's like you said, What if 5, 6, 7 years from now, this could replace your teaching income? Would you continue to teach, you know, or would you do something else? And those are the thoughts that I have. And I just, like I said, haven't really committed it to paper and, and, and talked it over with my wife to figure out okay, if I could, you know, would I? Or could I? Or should I, and what would I do? You know, what would I deal with all that time? But those are the, that's that's what I see for me and a future is just so many possibilities. You know, there's so many things that I thought I would have to wait to do until I'm much much older than I am now. And, and the thought of being able to get to do those sooner rather than later. It's really exciting. Allen: Yeah. Is there anything that one thing that you've always wanted to do that you're like, yeah, I'm gonna give it a shot? Chuck: So interesting story. My last job in the restaurant business, I was a brew master. And I worked for a company called rock bottom breweries. There used to be one I know you're in. In Texas, there was one in Houston for a long time. I don't know if it's still there or not. But I was a Brewmaster for the rock bottom breweries, and I absolutely loved it. It was a fun company. It was a fun job, that beer community, the craft brewing community, and this was back in the late 90s. No, this was before everything blew up like it is now. So and I had to get out because of a workplace injury. Well, you know, so many of these little tiny neighborhood breweries are opening up where it would be super easy to manage on my own and just do it part time, B 4 days a week, I've seen people do that business model. I think that would be a fantastic thing to do with my time. Just make some beer for the local community sponsor, some little league teams and some softball teams and just just, you know, work part time and have a great time. Allen: That sounds awesome. Yeah, yeah. So what are you gonna do it? I know, I'm pushing you here. Chuck: I know, I think I should I really do. I think if that's the one thing I could do, if I got out of this, what would I do with my time? I think that's what I would do. I really do. Allen: Sweet , cool. I like it. I like it. It's a good plan. I mean, I wouldn't want you to stop teaching but you could do this in your afternoons. Chuck: Tutoring is an option. And with tutoring, you can set your own hours tutors get paid fairly well, you don't have to, you know, be locked in a classroom for six and a half hours or glued to a computer screen teaching three or four hours a day. Tutoring can just be Hey, an hour here an hour there. And you know, you're still helping students out you're still passing down that knowledge that you know, and, and being a part of the education journey, you know, somebody who's who's never been, you know, to college, or whatever it may be. But at the same time, having all my other time to do other things that I want to pursue, like, like running my own brewery. Allen: That sounds interesting. That sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, I mean, I'm in Houston. Well outside of Houston. So I don't remember that one. But there are several here. And like, I've been to a couple of them. There's one called St. Arnold. I think they they sponsor, you know, the MS. Ms. 150, which is like a bike race. They're big sponsors of different charities and stuff around. I don't drink, but it's just the vibe when you go there. And it's just a whole it's, it's just different atmosphere. So yeah. Chuck: Oh, yeah. And that's what drew me to it was the community, you know, as a job. It's just a job here. You know, it's pretty physical manual labor to run one of those breweries. Yeah. But it is more of the community, you know, sponsoring local events and just reaching out, you know, giving giving money away cuz brewing beer is like printing money. The cost of the materials to make that stuff is next to nothing. And they're selling it for four or five, six bucks a glass that's, it's like printing money. It's crazy. So you know, I would just love to be a part of my community here and give back. Allen: Yeah, I've always thought to get into something like snow cones or something like that. You know, you're just selling. Chuck: Yeah. Oh, my gosh, those used to come to my daughter's Elementary School. Same thing. Yeah. You know, just putting a little flavored syrup on a cup of ice and you're charging four bucks for that. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Allen: Fun thing. Cool. All right. So thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for your time. I'm so happy and proud of your success. Had you really, you know, you took that scholarship, you ran with it, it was all on you, you know, I mean, we we did what we could we supported you however we could, but it takes, like I said, you know, when you saw the video, there are several people that have been through that program, and they start everybody starts out fresh and excited. And you know, but then life happens and they kind of fall off. But not you. I mean, you took it, you ran with it, you're actually doing it. And I think that's the biggest thing, you know, you want to change your life, you have to set your goal, you have to set it and this is something that I'm going to do. And then you just do it month after month you keep at it and you work on it, like you said you had, you know, you lost a little money in the beginning with the different program, and then you found something that made sense. And that's like, the biggest thing is, oh, this makes sense to me, okay, I press this, I do this, I do this. And that happens. Okay, let me try, you tried it, it worked. Allen: And you're like, Okay, I could do this. And then you just kept building on it and building on it. And like you said, Now you're getting you know, you're trying to do the credit spreads, you're learning a different strategy, you're getting a little bit more creative and more advanced. You don't really have to, you know, you've had great success, you know, if the S&P was doing 30% every year, like, we'd all be billionaires, we wouldn't have to do any of this. But it does it. But if you could do that year after year, I mean, you'd be you know, you could be starting your own school and your own Brewmaster school or whatever you want to do. You'd be starting up pretty soon. So I'm really excited for you. I appreciate you. Thank you for taking the time to apply for that scholarship, and then just taking and run with it and doing it and it just makes me so, it makes me so happy. You know, it's like, yeah, you know something, I'm actually doing something that's making a difference for somebody. Chuck: I can't thank you enough, Allen, for extending that, for offering this all the support, you know, for the past year and a half that I've been part of the program, you know, the the coaching and the support community on Facebook, and just, you know, just putting that information out there and sharing your knowledge and your belief in other people. So I just want to extend that thank you to you personally, because I will be forever grateful. Allen: You're welcome. You're welcome. And I mean, you've made me come to the decision, that yeah we want to offer this scholarship again this year, you know, in the past? I don't know, man, is it helping anybody? We just wasting our time? But no, I, you know, I think we need to even if it helps out one person like it's, I think it'd be worth it. So normally, we do it around Thanksgiving. So those of you who are listening, if you're interested in the program, you want to wait till Thanksgiving, I wouldn't advise it. But hey if money's tight, then maybe that's what you got to do. Right. So we're on Thanksgiving, we'll probably come out with a scholarship again, for a limited number of people. But yeah, thank you so much again, Chuck. This has been awesome. Appreciate it. And we'll talk to you soon. Chuck: All right, thanks, again, take care. Allen: Uh huh. Buh-bye LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps.

1. Not A Morning Person 2. Wake Up Streach 3. Wood Work 4. Music Situation 5. Cable Company 6. Indestructible Package 7. Technology Rules 8. Fat Coach 9. Fly On The Wall 10. Spider 11. No Guns 12. Dare 13. Birds 14. Disappointed Vs. Angry 15. The Hobos Are Out

In today's part two of two Chuck is talking once again to Mike Nunez about his tips for being a successful buyer. We first heard about Mike's nine tips for a successful acquisition, and today he delves into the types of things he looks for in a business he is considering for purchase. We're also diving deep into one tip that Mike shared on part one of this two-part series. Finally, Mike also shares some great efficiency tools he's loving these days. Episode Highlights: What Mike looks for when buying a business. What he brings to the business with his own expertise. Examples of things that stand out to Mike in a listing. Advertising account criteria he checks for in a potential new business. Goals and intentions he has and the opportunities he looks for when on the hunt for a business. The importance of keeping criteria lists. Tips for content sites looking for affiliates. Certain synergies to look for in a search. Lessons Mike has learned through his acquisitions. Tools Mike is using and recommending these days. Transcription: Mark: Chuck in the last podcast episode that we had we had Mike Nuñez on. He offered nine very actionable tips on how to be a very good buyer; how to be a buyer that can win deals by having the right disposition. And I know you guys talked; you guys are friends, you live close to each other there in Florida and all that. So you guys are friends and naturally, your conversations are long but also Mike's got a ton of content to share with us and you guys got into a second episode. What can we expect from the second episode with Mike Nuñez? Chuck: Yeah, so let's start off by saying if you haven't watched the first one or listen to it make sure you do because it kind of leads into this. On this one, we talked about what are the types of things that he's looking for as a buyer and you should be able to get some stuff out of that to help you figure out maybe some ideas for the types of things you're looking for. We also talked about; there was like one tip that we gave that he gave us somebody at Rhodium conference a year or two ago and it gave that guy a 25% boost in his revenue like overnight. So that was a nice little take away there and then at the end of the call, one of the things I always like to do is just ask for any special tools or things that he uses so he gives us a list of additional tools he uses so a pretty little bonus at the end. Mark: Fantastic. Mike is a great guy. I'm super glad that he was able to come back on the podcast. Let's get right into it. Chuck: All right welcome back everybody this is Chuck Mullins here with Quiet Light Brokerage and this is part two of a two-part segment with Mike Nuñez. Welcome, Mike; welcome back. Mike: Thank you, Chuck. Thanks for being accepting of my long-windedness. Chuck: No, I think we had a lot of great stuff in the last one. If anybody didn't get a chance to watch it you might want to go back and watch that one first. What did we end up on; nine super-secret tips? Mike: They go to 9, yeah 9 super-secrets. Chuck: 8 or 9 super-secret tips of how to be a great buyer which Mike Nuñez is a great buyer. Now we wanted to segway in and Mike wanted to make sure that everybody know that he's not wearing, or he is wearing the same suit but only because we're recording these back to back because the last one went pretty long. So you still look great Mike. For anybody who didn't watch the last one, Mike purchased a custom-tailored suit business from us so this is probably why he's wearing the suit because I've never seen him wear a suit before he had purchased that business. So he's definitely stepped up his wardrobe game since then. So today we wanted to talk about what you're looking for when you buy a business and maybe some of the lessons you've learned along the way. So again maybe let's start off; before we jump into that just give a brief introduction for anybody who didn't watch the first part of the series about you. Mike: Well, so I think it's important if you're listening to this one you probably should listen to the first one first because it does set up a lot of the things that we're going to talk about here. But for those that just don't listen, I've been in internet marketing for about 20 years now. I spent most of it working for an agency or owning an agency. I worked for Google for four years in their paid, search division. And so today I own a company called AffiliateManager.com that manages affiliate programs as well as the performance company which manages paid search for companies as well. So that's the super brief synopsis. Chuck: Perfect. So let's jump into what is it that you look for when you're buying a business? Always people come to me and they; Chuck what kind of business should I buy? And I say okay well what are your interests, what are you good at? So I think you probably you're looking…well, let me just let you tell what are you looking for. Mike: Yeah, so I think it's important to say what I look for or what we look for; so I do have a pretty solid team around me but what we look for is going to be very different than what somebody else looks for. And so please take that with a grain of salt; everything that I'm going to say today and I think is important for everyone to just recognize, just be self-aware what is it that you are incredibly good at? If you're good at sales go find a company that has an incredible product and but they're bad at sales and you plug yourself in and you now have an incredible business overall. Or if you're fantastic at operations go find a company that's selling like crazy but their operations just can't keep up with all the offers and plug yourself in there and that's going to work. I like to say that real opportunity is at the intersection of two different expertise or two different types of expertise. So for me, it's online business and online marketing and I'm not so great at everything else. So I'm not an operations person, I'm not a finance person so I don't look for companies that are lacking in those areas. I look for companies that are strong in those areas and that are; I don't want to say lacking because I think that's potentially disrespectful to either the people that I purchased businesses from or will in the future but it's more where I see opportunity where they wouldn't know unless they worked at Google for several years or they wouldn't know unless they've been in online marketing for 20 years or they never had an affiliate program. They never thought about it and we're incredible at it. So plugging what we are really good at into things that maybe they've tried that they're above average at because you have to be above average if you're going to own an online business but they've spread themselves so thin that they couldn't be an expert at just one thing. Another nice side effect that I've seen with buying these businesses, some of the previous owners they just worked so long and hard in the business that when you're so down in the weeds like that it's hard to pull yourself out and kind of take a 40,000-foot view picture. When acquiring a company it's almost a natural thing that happens along the way and you start to say okay let me take a step back and look at this not so closely; so close I can't tell exactly what this is and what's going on. And then as you start to peel that back and say okay this is something that the previous owner did, is this something that I need to take over, do I bring the value? The previous owner either maybe they enjoyed it, maybe they liked it, or maybe they were really good at it but I'm not and so the answer there is who else within the company can take that over. And I got to say that's probably one of the biggest benefits of purchasing an online company not only for the buyer but for the seller that they're able to peel themselves out and all the while that's the transition of okay these are the daily duties that this person does and this is who can take that over. So the new buyer; so myself as an example can go focus on what we're good at. So with that caveat to what it is that you're asking some of the things that I look for and I think just another quick note on this; this is an ever-evolving list, just because I've written this today doesn't mean that there's not more to come. Every time we go through a business or every time actually we have a call we run into an issue with the current business. I say okay that sounds like an opportunity that when we purchase the next business that we need to look at and say can we help there. So some of these are super simple and most listeners might say oh well that that's kind of common sense. Well, it's not always common sense. Somebody on this call is going to really or somebody listening to this podcast is going to really benefit from it but I listed because it's things that I want to make sure that I go and check every time that we're looking at a business. So, for example, we are like I said really good at online marketing specifically affiliate marketing and paid search. So we'll go look do they have an affiliate program? Are they overpaying? Are they not paying out commission based off of the influence that each affiliate had on that actual transaction? It's actually super interesting to see how much people overpay for things. And even more interesting to see when they're underpaying affiliate. So for example affiliates, they are business just like you, just like me and they want to maximize their revenue for their inventory. A lot of people get stuck and they look oh my competitor pays 5% commission, that's what I'm going to go pay. But a really good affiliate is equivalent to an upper-funnel page search keyword. And if you're paying a two to one for an upper funnel page search keyword; let's use my custom suit business, if I'm willing to get a two to one for the keyword custom suits or men's custom suits, if I'm willing to take a two to one return on ad spend for that I should be willing to pay an affiliate who is upper funnel; who's educating customers about me, I should be willing to pay them a 50% commission because they're upper funnel. Chuck: Alright so that makes a lot of sense to use something that you do on a day to day basis with your main business to look to acquire a company. So can you give some examples of specifically what something you might look for is? Mike: Sure. I'll give two examples one of where we succeeded at this and one where we failed but then you use that failure to learn and regroup. So the first business that we acquired we identified that there was a significant amount of overspent. It wasn't the previous owner's fault. They had hired an agency who was just; they were doing good. I would give them a six out of 10. But within 20, 30 minutes we can evaluate a Google Ads account and say we can save this account 10, $15,000 a month. Chuck: And you were talking about like an Ad Words account as opposed to affiliate stuff? Mike: Correct. Yeah, a Google Ads account that maybe this ad, the Google Ads accounts is spending 50, 60, $70,000 a month and if we can look in there and say we can save 10, 15, 20,000 on this and still get the same level of sales based off of our expertise we're adding 1 to $200,000 straight to the bottom line; straight to EBITDA and we did exactly that. We actually just finished reviewing January through October and we actually generated more sales than the same period last year and we spent I think it was $160,000 less to do so in that period. Chuck: It kind of goes against the thought of ad expenses are going up, right? There's more and more competition every day for ads so people think that but yet you're able to cut ad spend and make more money with it. Mike: That's 100% correct. You have to know what you're doing. There are very, very few good paid search companies out there. And I know because I used to work with a lot of them when I was at Google. Kevin who's on our team; his job was to go out and train agencies on how to appropriately use Google Ad Words. Pat who's the mastermind on our team has been doing Google paid search since Yahoo or as Yahoo started before Google was in existence. So it's just such a level of expertise that we have on our team overall that we can go and then apply and get these level of savings overall. And again it's straight to the bottom line and we take that money; the first acquisition was partly done via an SBA loan and the savings that we've got doesn't quite cover the SBA loan but it's about 75% of it. It's almost like we acquired the company for the price of the down payment and a much smaller SBA loan so to speak. So that's got to be our number one criteria; same thing with an affiliate program again with the first acquisition they weren't doing attribution based commissioning. It was a smaller effect on the overall business. We probably saved somewhere between 30 and 40,000 for the entire year on that one. So it's again a much smaller effect but that's a part-time person. That's an initiative that we can go fund now because we're saving 30 to 40 grand that we wouldn't have to spend otherwise. Chuck: So let's call out specifically there what it is you're looking for. So Mike looks at a company, requests access to their ad account, and then Mike looks for what? Mike: So in their ad account I'm looking at are they using negative keywords appropriately, what bidding algorithm are they using on Google, what matching types are they using, are they using segmentation correctly. And this is all super 40,000-foot level things but as Pat, our behind the scenes masterminds like to say, a poorly run paid search program is typically death by a thousand paper cuts. It's not one of these things. It's a thousand of these things that we meticulously go and identify, find, correct, and improve. Chuck: Alright so you will go into an account, you see all these things and they're doing everything right does that mean okay it's a great company I'm not looking to buy this one; like are you specifically, if there's not something you can fix you're not going to acquire it? Mike: Yeah, that's a fun question. The good news is for me at least I've never seen one. That's good. And to be fair I've seen; when we are getting an RFPN for the agency business I've seen two or three that were so well run that we tell them we can't help, they're doing an amazing job. You're going to look to us for growth in three or four months and we're not going to deliver because your current company is doing fantastic so don't leave them. But when acquiring a business and the research that I do before making an offer I have not yet come across that. If that were the case yes it's not a kiss of death but it is a factor in whether or not we feel like we should purchase the business because we know that there's so many out there that do it so poorly. Investing; I know I'm not teaching anybody on the call anything new with this but investing is where's the next best place to spend your dollar? And if they're doing a bad job with paid search that's a good place for me to spend my dollar because I know we can fix that. If they're doing an incredible job well there's probably a better place for me to go spend my dollar. Chuck: Sure. And I don't think it's a negative thing for you to say nope I'm just going to move on to the next one they're doing everything right. Like you're looking for specific things in order to want to acquire and like you said you've only got so many dollars to spend. You need to place it where it's going to do the most good for you. And if somebody else is doing everything right like that's not your area of expertise to grow the business. Maybe again they're not doing sales well and that's not what you're specifically looking at so sales is where the person that is going to end up ultimately acquiring the business is good at. And there's also people who maybe they don't have necessarily an expertise at something and they're just looking for an overall good run business that can keep chugging away for the years to come. And that's not a negative like just because you don't have some really specialized thing that you're good it doesn't mean that buying a business would necessarily be a bad idea for you. Mike: Yeah it's one of those things begin with the end in mind, right? And if the if your end goal is that you want a super stable business but it's not going to grow because everything is so well optimized and you're willing to pay the same multiple for it and you just want to kind of run that business day to day as is without expectation of growth then that's it. And there are people that want that. I would even consider a business like that if it was strictly almost a lifestyle business. But the businesses that we're buying; our goal, our intention is to take this 15 million dollar company and turn it into a 25, 50, 100 million dollar company and so there has to be opportunity when we're purchasing and the bigger the opportunity that we identify that we can do so fairly quickly with what we have the more we're willing to pay for it and the more we're willing to compete for it overall. Chuck: So we were talking recently we had lunch and you said that you recently discovered something with one of your businesses that was something you know I'm going to start looking for that and it revolved around shipping. Do you remember what we were talking about? Mike: Oh yes I have it. It's on my list. And that's funny and that's yet another reason to have a list right, right? Chuck: Right. Mike: And so as we're talking like; I know I'm not alone in this, right? I know you're like this Chuck. I'm sure you, the person listening to this right now is the same way. And I'll wake up in the middle of night and I feel like sometimes not thinking about things or telling yourself think about this in the back of my mind and you'll solve problems; like I'll get things out there just to solve them. I'll wake up in the middle and be like that's the answer to this and literally I'll roll over, I'll pick up my phone, and I'll just type a note to myself and say this is the answer and I'll go back to sleep. And the one that you're talking about is we have a warehouse for both of the business but the one that we're talking about now has a warehouse, a large warehouse; tens of thousands of square feet, I'm not sure exactly how big it is but we were getting fined by the shipping company because the dimensions of our packaging was incorrect. And so as we printed out the shipping labels for it, it was off maybe by an inch or whatever it was. And so when we send it to FedEx who was our shipping carrier and they would measure it we would be off by however much and they would actually fine us and so it added to tens of thousands of dollars in fines that we are receiving; not shipping costs, fines because our dimensions were wrong. And so for less than $10,000, we purchased a dim scanner and basically eliminated that. That dim scanner pays itself in one to two months and then from that point forward we now recovered yet another 20, $30,000 back. So you see the recurring theme here; paid search, this is how much we can save by doing it better, affiliate, this is how much we can save by doing it better, shipping, this is how much we can save by doing it better and then here's the freaking key. Like this is the thing though; don't just sit on that. And again I guess this depends on your goal. If your goal is to just absolute squeeze every penny out of these companies that you want then go and do it. My goal is growth and to turn these companies into large companies so that one day I may list with Chuck and get a great multiple on these companies. But take those dollars that you're taking and now do all of the things on the list; in that plan and the things that the previous owner said I could never afford, I could never get to, I can never pay somebody to do it. Now you found the funds to go and actually do those things. Use that money to fund that growth. Again I'll refer to Pat who runs our paid search; he calls that feed the winners starve the losers, so just taking the wasted money and putting it back into reinvest on growth and winning. Chuck: So with the shipping fines that you discovered how long have you been running this business; it's been a year and a half? Mike: A year and a half, yeah. Chuck: And you just discovered it now. Is there something that you are having; we don't know what we don't know, right? So we don't know what to look for. Is this something that you could have identified on day one to have seen even more value? Mike: Yeah, thanks for pointing it out Chuck. It's always painful to look back and say oh we could have made an additional 30 to 50 grand in the last 12 months if we just would have found this. Chuck: And this is probably not a common problem, right? But it's something you're going to look for in the future. Where would they have identified that; what due diligence would you have done in order to have seen that? Mike: Yeah, looking at the shipping invoices and seeing exactly what those are. And there are some pretty cool companies out there that will A) look at that for you and B) they'll actually monitor your shipping and make sure that it arrives on time. There's one called Late Shipment it's I think the one that we use; LateShipment.com and if FedEx doesn't deliver within the agreed-upon time; the one to two days, they'll actually refund; we get a refund on that shipping cost. So that's another example if they're not using; if you send out a million dollars or if you pay a million dollars in shipping costs every year and I think I know ours is above a million but I'll just use that, so a million dollars, if you can recoup 2, 3, 4% that's 20, 30, $40,000 back in your pocket that just appeared out of nowhere. So that's another one on my list. So are they using a dim scanner? Are they getting fined for this? Are they using LateShipment.com and getting a refund on anything that's late? Again stacking up this $160,000 in savings in paid search, $40,000 in savings in affiliate, 30 to 50,000 in dim scanner, late shipment another 30 to $40,000 just stacking and stacking and stacking. Another one is credit card fees; are they using a good credit card process? Have they negotiated their rates since they grew from zero to 15 million dollars in sales? And if they haven't that's an opportunity like just a one or two; what do they call them? Bits I think is what they call it but it could mean a huge difference in your overall company. Just one or two bits is 15 to $30,000 on a 15 million dollar business. Chuck: And so in your defense, I think on the shipping thing the company that you purchased did have one of those companies in place that were looking at the delayed shipments but that company wasn't looking at the penalties you were receiving. Mike: That's right. Chuck: So even if somebody is using a company that is monitoring the late shipping and getting those refunds they may not be looking at the fees which is strange. You think they'd be doing it but they weren't. Something I've heard you say at conferences when looking at it from a different type of business, so right now we're kind of talking about e-commerce but you also work with people who are doing content sites and their affiliates with other people. So what's your number one tip if you purchased a content site that makes money off affiliates; what's your number one tip for those people? Mike: Go ask for a raise. Chuck: What does that mean? Mike: Go to the affiliate management; either the advertiser or the affiliate management company who's managing them and say I want to make more. And there's many ways that you can position that. One is if you're a content site just know that my affiliate company, AffiliateManager.com is always looking for more content sites. We want to bring that value to our clients and you are in a position; it's a content site's market, let me put it that way. We all want what you have and some make the mistake of because they've been beat down and offered 1, 2, 3, 5, 10% commissions in the past day they just turn away affiliate marketing. Don't do that. You're leaving money on the table. If you find a good advertiser or a good affiliate management company that knows what they're doing and they know that this content site is upper funnel and bringing incremental business to the table they're going to be willing to pay for that and they might pay 20%, 25%, 30%. One of our clients pays 100%. Another one pays up to $150 for an acquisition and they might make zero on it. So it's just one of those things where you have to go and be willing to ask for a raise. And again a good affiliate management company they're going to look at the incremental value, we; not to get too much into us because I know this is more about acquisition but we actually have an attribution tool that we built because it didn't exist that shows where in the clickstream each of these sites are. And if it's a content site going back to your point and we look at their overall numbers and 70% of the time they're the first touch for anybody who's making a purchase on your site, yes we want that incremental traffic and sales coming from that content site. So to you content sites out there you are in a position of desire. We all want to work with you more and go and ask for raises. Somebody who recognizes your value is going to very much be willing to pay it. And if they're not go find somebody else; they're going to be willing to pay it. You are valuable. Chuck: And just to give an example of something like that. I've got a number of content sites and one of them the affiliates that I was getting paid from is a Canadian company and they send me a Canadian check. So every time I cash the Canadian check I get hit with like a 10 or $20 cashing fee. And it's just like annoying and it's small amount of money but it's annoying so I emailed them and I said hey can you just like PayPal me the money or wire me the money or do something else because I want to get ahold of the $10 fee every time I cash your check and they go oh how about we just double what we pay you? Okay, that'll work. So they really are willing; if they see the value in what you're providing them they are willing to pay more, so just a nice little tip there from Mike Nuñez. Mike: Yeah. And there was a guy Greg; I won't say his last name at Rhodium one year and I said that at a table and one year later he came back and said by that one tip that you just said because he was a content site or is a content site, I have grown my revenue by 25%. All I did; I didn't do anything else but go back and ask for a raise and the revenue on my site grew 25%. Chuck: Amazing. Mike: Free, yeah. Chuck: Alright, so we've talked about shipping, we've talked about affiliate, we've talked about ads, is there anything else specifically that you're looking for when you're acquiring? Mike: Yeah if they're not on Amazon I think that's a pretty obvious one. If they are on Amazon and either doing a poor job or no job at Amazon ads; Amazon ads I probably the biggest opportunity right now for everyone that sells on Amazon. Chuck: And this is kind of new to you in the last couple of years, right? Mike: Yeah. Well, I mean it didn't really exist a couple of years ago or it was very nascent. So it's still one of those things like if you remember Google back in the day when clicks used to be available for a penny or five cents and such. Chuck: Yeah man they sent me a refrigerator. I had spent so much money I got a Google refrigerator. Mike: So I'm not saying that pen that clicks are available for a penny on Amazon but if you incorporate the right system and how to manage it you can gross it; like I'll give you physical numbers year over year in November even those Cyber Monday fell outside of November this year. We grew Amazon sales on that outdoor brand by 50% using Amazon ads. So it's another example of having expertise in this paid search world and finding opportunities within it. Amazon ads; I think maybe that's super-secret number 10. I think we've gotten away from the super secrets but maybe super-secret number 10 and it's probably one of the most powerful ones I see right now available for people. Chuck: So what else are you looking for? Mike: So besides being on Amazon and Amazon ads, me personally I'm looking for a strong operational foundation because I'm not an expert at that. I'm not good at that but thankfully the businesses that I purchase have that. I'm looking for a barrier to entry like how replicatable is this business and what is the barrier that people have to get through? And this is a little bit less quantifiable but this is just a general do I want to be involved in this business; how hard is it for somebody who's just as good at paid search as me or Amazon or whatever, if they just got a hold of my supplier could they replicate this and do I want that? And if the answer is it's too easy then I move on. Is it a learnable industry? One of the things I was worried about with the custom suit company was maybe before purchasing it I wasn't as sharp a dresser, Chuck. Maybe my wardrobe might have consisted of free conference t-shirts but I was worried about that and… Chuck: You're pulling it off still. Mike: Thank you. And once I got into it I learned no this is a learnable industry. I can do this and it's worked great since then. Is it Amazon resistant? And I know that's a little counter to saying are they on Amazon. Is Amazon going to move into that space? Are they going to want to replicate what it is that you're doing? And on the outdoor brand, it's more of we joined to them; we couldn't beat them so we joined them and a good 50, 60% of our sales are on Amazon on that brand. On the suit brand, we're looking to sell accessories; expand our brand awareness because you can't sell custom suits on Amazon and it's unlikely that Amazon is going to get into that realm. So we're thinking how can we use Amazon to expand our brand awareness, generate some confidence in the brand, and yet not have to; since we're not able to send custom suits and sell custom suits on Amazon directly so is Amazon a threat to the business is something that we look at overall. Inventory management optimization; so leveraging just in time inventory because anybody that's involved in an inventory-based business knows that a lot of times your profit can go straight back into purchasing additional inventory. And if you want to realize any profits before you sell the business you've got have inventory optimization. Is the current ownership leveraging that inventory optimization? Are there conversion rate optimization opportunities; have they ever even tried it before? I just had a call today for the suit company and this is going to be ultra-specific but it is an indicator of what we've done. We launched a new cart in early November and we just ran the numbers and today on desktop for new customers we have doubled our conversion rate which anybody knows that the lifeblood of a business is acquiring new customers. So to do that is pretty amazing. Now on mobile, it was pretty static but we've also generated significant amounts of more traffic on mobile to the suit company. So that's a little bit misleading to say that it's exactly the same. Well anybody who knows conversion rate optimization and knows how traffic works; if you increase traffic the quality is potentially a little bit lower and so the fact that we slightly beat our previous conversion rate on mobile is a huge win. So are there conversion rate optimization to opportunities in the acquisition? Here's one that you know is near and dear to my heart, Chuck. What is the current platform; are they on Net Suite, on Shopify, on Magento? Because the one thing I never ever recommend is changing platforms. So can you accomplish all of the things on your list that you want to do on the platform? We use Net Suite as one of them and it is extremely difficult to get changes done but we are not moving. So it's just something that I think everybody should really consider. Or are you on an archaic platform like at Yahoo stores; something that's not being updated anymore and there's seven people in the world that can code to Yahoo stores? Now you're beholden to them. You have to pay exorbitant rates for their development because they're the only one that knows it as opposed to a Shopify or a Magento that developers are plenty. Chuck: If you're on Yahoo shout out to Rob Snell, look him up if you need help with your Yahoo business. Mike: There you go. See I didn't even mean that. That helps. And I think the last thing; us particularly we enjoy custom products, so custom made suits is a really good example or even for the branded products; things that other people makes, turning them into custom products. We really think that that's a good market to be and again slightly more defensible against an Amazon. And then finally this is my last on my company acquisition algorithm that I'll share today just I know we're limited on time is what synergies can you participate in? So if you listen to the last call you heard me talking about a brand that we made an offer on that it was a full price offer, quick close, no due diligence because it was a trusted brand. And before Chuck chimes in, he recommends that you never do that but the reason why we wanted that brand is because it was geared towards outdoor enthusiasts and we have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of outdoor enthusiasts that come to our website every day. So looking for synergistic brands that are out there to acquire and diversify the income and now not only sell other people's brands but also sell your own brand; white labeling things like that, finding things with opportunities like that, that's the last opportunity that we're looking for in our algorithm. Chuck: Awesome. Alright, so now let's maybe move into what some of the lessons you've learned from the various acquisitions you've done. And you had acquired some stuff before Quiet Light as well. Mike: Yeah. So I think a lot of them are listed on what I just said but I will say there's; because every time I learn a lesson to me it's an opportunity for the next acquisition. So again I will buy another business on Net Suite but I wouldn't have bought the first one knowing what I know now about Net Suite. But now that we've had to learn it, now that we've had to; our developer is familiar with it now and can make the changes that we need and want, now I'll buy another one. And so to me there's an opportunity there, right? It's harder for people to do that than it is for me. It's yet another level of expertise. So that's one thing is a lot of the lessons are kind of listed already in that but there's one I would say recently and again it's with the custom suit business, don't get so caught up in your own expertise. Again we are really, really good at paid search and one of the reasons why is because we're so return focused. A mistake that we made with the custom suit business is we went straight for a return. If a dollar didn't turn into five; I'll just use that as an example, we didn't spend it. And because of that, we saw sales drop. And I talked to the previous owner about it and said hey we're seeing this, why? And he's like well yes cross-device tracking is good however it doesn't capture everything. And mobile devices; think about who buys suits these days, and it's somebody with a mobile life. It's a lawyer that's always in the courtroom. It's a doctor that's always walking about. It's a financial person that's not necessarily sitting at their desk, they're going to meeting after meeting after meeting and where are they searching up for their next suit? Well, it's probably their mobile device. They find it and then they go on the desktop and they go on and they purchase it. And we had pulled back pretty significantly on the mobile spend because the conversion rate just wasn't as good. And so that's one example of us kind of getting in our own way. But to our credit, we were able to kind of step back and say okay we learned a lesson here, let's get better at it and change our approach. And since then that's when we now had some of our best days that we've ever had. So I like to think of it as a lot of these owners or the previous owners they had levels of expertise; they were doing something right and so it's our job as experts that are better at it to take the lessons that they've learned and apply our expertise to it to just throw some gasoline on it. Chuck: Alright Mike so one of the ways I like to usually end these things is just to ask if you have any kind of tools that you use on a regular basis; just some things that can either help with productivity, it could even be outside of work. One example the other day I was kind of upset about it because you ordered the chicken sandwich from Popeye's through Uber Eats so that you didn't have to wait in line and you didn't bother sending me one. That's a great little life hack. So what else do you have? Do you have any tools that you might recommend or any other little things? Mike: I did the same thing with Amazon two years ago when they were operating like the one-hour delivery and we had a hurricane coming to Florida and I just ordered all the bottled water and had it delivered while everybody else is fighting each other at the store. But now that secret's out. That's no longer an advantage but yeah some tools that I like that we use; so for Google Ads, I'll say if you're using things like maximize for clicks run we prefer an enhanced CPC bidding algorithm or a target CPA. We always test to see which one's better. Prioritization, I love Air Table. I got to give a shout out to my business partner Daniel for that. Air Table is a prioritization tool and basically, it can help identify what is the easiest to implement to get the most impactful change that you can make. And so it just really helps to prioritize what it is that you're doing and the changes that you're making to the company because obviously, we all want to make the biggest impact as quickly as possible. I love Grammarly for sending emails so that I don't sound silly. Chuck: That one saves me all the time. Mike: It's so good. I haven't used their pro version but even just the regular version is fantastic. For the affiliate management company, I got to give a shout out to Mail Shake. We love Mail Shake. We use that very often. It's a terrific tool. I love Moz. So the Moz toolbar is something that I use a lot. And then I think we use a lot of the things everybody else uses like the Evernotes and Google apps and things like that. So I think the first ones that were probably some of the others may not have heard them. Chuck: Awesome. Well, I think everybody who's been listening appreciates your time. I'd love to have you back at another time. We can talk about some more stuff once you've hit that next goal of purchase through us we'll talk about that one. But again thank you for the time today and we'll talk to you again soon. Mike: Thanks, Chuck. Links and Resources: Affiliate Manager

Some of the most popular episodes we've aired have been with guests who have experienced the buying or selling process firsthand. Today's guest has acquired several businesses and is genuinely good at the acquisition process. In part one of a two-part series, Chuck is talking to Mike Nunez about his various acquisitions and his 9 super secret to tips to being a great buyer. Mike has been in the online marketing space since 1999. After gaining experience in affiliate marketing, he launched Affiliate Manager with his brother while he continued to work full time for Google. More recently, Mike has purchased several e-commerce businesses from Quiet Light. We'll hear about how Mike is becoming one of our top buyers, how he's realizing his dreams, and that one last goal he may just reach. Episode Highlights: What it means to be a good buyer. What values the seller looks for aside from the monetary value. Ways to put the seller at ease by focusing on what is important to them. The importance of having a plan in your approach to the seller. How to accept and value of the previous owner's advice during the transition. Why you should avoid poor positioned questions when working with the seller. The buyer needs to find what he wants – the fit has to be right for the buyer too. Finding the component that will help make the business yours and not focus solely on the money piece. The relationship of trust in your broker is also a key factor in being a good buyer or seller. Transcription: Mark: Some of the most popular podcasts that we've put out here at Quiet Light Brokerage are the episodes where we get the chance to interview either a seller or a buyer on their background or their journey of going through a buying an online business. And Chuck I know you had a good friend of ours, a good friend of Quiet Light Brokerage's and a previous podcast guest as well, Mike Nuñez on because he's acquired a couple of businesses from us and more specifically from you in the recent months. How did that discussion go? Chuck: Yeah it went great. Mike is what I would consider probably one of our best buyers. The way he's able to get on a phone call and just talk to people, and sometimes I use the word tactics throughout the call. I don't feel like when he's doing it he's being tactical, I feel like he's just a very genuinely friendly guy who is just really good. His experience is that he's been in internet marketing for 20 years I've been in it for 24 so he's almost up there with me. Mark: He worked at Google so he's got that on you. Chuck: Yeah, he worked at Google for four years in the paid search department. So he talks a lot about on this one so I ended up having to split this up into two podcasts because it was just going so long. So the first one we talked about his nine super-secret tips to being a great buyer and there was a lot of really actionable stuff in there that I think everybody is going to be able to get a lot out of. Mark: Guys that's awesome and you talk about the difference between tactics and just being a good guy and look they can blend together, right? I mean Mike isn't the type of conniving guy saying here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to say this phrase and that phrase to make sure somebody absolutely loves me and then I'm going to be able to get an additional 20% off. That's not the way he works. He is just generally a good guy. He helps a lot. He's got that help first mentality. We preach this all the time and Joe is the one that coined a lot of these phrases which is nice buyers tend to do better. And it's just really, really true that sometimes we need tips on how to do it. This is why Dale Carnegie wrote the famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People just to give us some actionable tips to be like how do you actually encounter people in a business environment in a way that will benefit you. And if you read the book you find out that a lot of it is; well it starts with that right disposition and who you are. And Mike is a good person. I love that you broke this out into nine tips. Are you able to give me any preview of any of the nine tips or do you not remember them offhand? Chuck: Yeah. So one of the questions is around positioning the way you ask questions I think it's a really good tip. I won't get into all the details but you'll see it in the video. Mark: Okay, so not just going out there and hammering people with questions in a very kind of combatant way but I'm sure Mike has a very unique approach to that. Chuck: Well, Mark I just said I'm not going to get into the details. Don't try to pressure me. Mark: Alright. You know what I was talking to Joe the other day and he's like do you listen to the podcasts, Mark? And I said no, I don't because I hear enough of you Joe I don't want to hear more of you and he records all the episodes. So he said your intros are getting to be too long so let's cut it out. Let's get to it. Chuck: Hey everybody today on the call we have Mike Nuñez. Welcome, Mike. Mike: Thank you, Chuck, it's great to be here. Chuck: So people may have heard your name before because we mentioned you quite frequently on the podcast. And the reason we mentioned you so frequently is because you're what I would consider my number one buyer. I think probably one of Quiet Light's top buyers and not from a monetary perspective. You do purchase a lot of businesses, you purchase a lot of large businesses from us but more so just from your personality; the way you interact with clients on phone calls like whenever I'm telling somebody how to be a good buyer I'm always in my head thinking what does Mike do and then I'm telling them what Mike does in order to be a good buyer. Because we're friends and I know you outside of Quiet Light but like I really do mean that. Like you are really a great buyer and you're easy to talk to. And if anybody's watching the video today they're going to notice that you look somewhat like a sports commentator with that headset on and you've got a suit and tie and the suit and tie isn't the normal way I see Mike but one of the businesses he purchased was a custom-tailored suit business so I guess he's got to rep that brand now. Mike: That's right. Chuck: But maybe you could tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Mike: Oh great. I'm happy to. And first, let me say thank you. That was super just kind of you to say. I always whenever I have any of these phone calls I just take an approach of what I want to hear and recognizing that these business owners have been working on this; their babies, right? And you just have to be careful as you ask questions because we all want to know where the opportunity is and I'm sure we'll talk much more about that here but we want to know where the opportunity is and the way that you find that is by asking questions. But it's a very fine line between asking questions and becoming insulting and so you just have to walk that fine line. But there's absolutely a way to do it and there's a way to lead these sellers into that and realizing that you're both kind of on the same team. But again; well I think we're getting ahead of ourselves or at least I am so I'll tell you a little bit about me to start this off. I've been in online marketing since 1999, I was in college at the time and I know that dates myself a little bit. The first job was in lead generation, online marketing. I moved in to travel doing affiliate marketing and travel. I eventually launched my own affiliate marketing business along with my brother that's still going today so its AffiliateManager.com. Last year we merged with a company called Rhino Fish to create the performance company which is our page search division. Overall that marketing company is about 22 people. We have 3 former Googlers myself included on that staff. So we're quite good at both affiliate marketing and paid search. I like to say so. We also have two other businesses or I have two other businesses; one is an outdoor equipment seller that I purchased from Quiet Light, another is a custom made to measure suit company that I purchased from Quiet Light as well. So overall I'm about 20 years down it hurts to say experience in online marketing and business and online businesses in general and it's been a really fun journey. I always like to say Chuck my dream used to be I want to be able to work from anywhere and now I'm there. The new dream is that I want to not have to work. So someday I'll realize that second dream. Chuck: I don't like to hear that because I think the term not working would be not buying additional businesses and you're one short away from a special goal that I; I told him if you bought a certain number that I would buy him a specific thing. So he's just shy of that goal. Mike: Yeah it's just without getting into too many details like we're talking about less than what is it 4% on millions of dollars that I'm short. Chuck: But I set this goal early on, right? So it's your fault that you haven't reached it. If you have just paid a little bit more in that last acquisition you would have hit that goal. Mike: We need to round up Chuck. That's what I'm saying. We need to just round up and I should hit that threshold. Chuck: I'll remember that on the next acquisition. We'll just round up. Mike: Right. Yeah. Only when it's in my favor, please. Chuck: So part of the reason I wanted to have you on the call today was one just to talk about maybe some tips or just maybe even not tips but just discussing what it is to be a good buyer. But then also from your perspective what it is you're looking at when you're looking to buy businesses. I know you have a specific criteria that you're looking for and your criteria is different than other people's. And I wanted to also maybe talk about some lessons you've learned along the way. So I guess to kick it off maybe let's just dive in a little bit about being a good buyer. So I would start off just by saying that you know I talked to a lot of people; constantly I'm on the phone and people are always asking me what it is to be a good buyer? And some people I talked to think that in order to be a good buyer it's about being aggressive in trying to negotiate. And maybe they're not thinking that as being a good buyer but they want to try to get the best deal by doing that and they'll say negative things about people's businesses. And you take a very different approach than that. So I think you already addressed it a little bit but maybe you want to dive into maybe the approach you take to negotiating and to speaking with others. Mike: Sure. I think it's important context to say both of the businesses that I've purchased from you Chuck and Quiet Light had multiple offers, were very much generating a lot of interest and so there were multiple potential buyers. And I don't want to say we were the lowest offer. I don't think we were. I know in both cases we weren't the highest offer either. Chuck: Yeah just maybe to add a little context before you dive into further, one of the; I think actually both of them said I wanted to sell to Mike. So they're talking to multiple people and they said get Mike up to this number I want to sell to him. Even though that number was lower than what some of the other potential buyers were offering. Mike: Yeah. Chuck: So I think that speaks a lot to you. Mike: Thank you again, Chuck. But I would say that therein lies the quote-unquote the secret which is money is valuable, right? They want money. If you're nowhere near what they're asking or if you're nowhere near what their magic number is, the rest of this conversation goes away. Let's put that aside. I think Quiet Light does an incredible job overall of valuing companies fairly and appropriately. And you know that walking in. So if you know that walking in okay this is a fairly and appropriately valued business now it's a matter of percentage points maybe either way and in either direction of that. The purpose of the call, at least the initial call is to identify; one of the purposes of the call is to identify what value is this seller seeking beyond the dollars because the dollars are going to fall within a certain range. So a good example for the suit business is the seller really cared about his people. He really cared about his co-workers that he's had for the last however many years; almost 10 years that have put in their blood, their sweat, their tears into this. And he wanted to know that they were going to be okay. And I think actually in the ranking of why I won the business even though I had a lower offer than other people had, that's probably number one is just feeling comfortable about that the new owner is going to come in and take care of the people that were there. And I made no promises. Let me say that. I didn't say I promise I'm not going to let anybody go or I promise; I said no, I promise I'm going to be fair and appropriate with everybody and evaluate everybody based on performance. And he was confident knowing that he had hired stellar people. And it was part of what was so attractive about the business is he had incredible people that were already working there so it made it even more attractive for us. So I think that was number one for him. Second I think there was a sense of patriotism maybe. So this is a European company. It was based in Europe. It's in a European country. And this European country is kind of known for textiles and for creating things and such. And so I think one of the other buyers; and again there's multiple people in here that you're kind of competing against and so you got to think of like a pros and cons checklist and I'm being compared to each one of these other potential buyers in their pros and cons checklist. One of the other potential buyers wanted to move the production out of Europe and into China. There's nothing wrong with that if that's where their connections are if that's where their factories are and such; great. That's where they want to move their production, good for them. However this particular seller wanted to keep production because of his pride for his country, because of his desire to benefit his country, he wanted to keep production in his home country. I didn't have any alternative contacts in China or in any other potential production areas and so I felt like that was important to them and so I made it known. And I think a lot of, and I think it's the second thing is kind of just listening on the calls. Maybe that's super-secret number two is listening and hearing what's important to them and asking that question okay let's move money aside what's important to you in the future of this company? And another good example of that is potential branding or taking care of the customers. I know this may sound a little bit cliché but this is their baby, right? They've grown this baby. They've watched this baby grow. They've poured their love, their sweat, their tears, their hours. The seller of the custom suit company is an example. I remember him saying like I can't remember the last time I took a vacation. He just poured everything he possibly had into this company. And so when you're that invested overall they just kind of feel a comfort level that the new owner is going to come in and do right by what they've built. They just don't want to see it go away and it's they've already got their cash at that point and they still care. And I will say one positive side effect and please know that this is partly or mostly; not even partly, mostly because of the owner and this is one of the criteria; we can talk more about this later, but one of the criteria that I look at is an owner that cares and they're selling for potentially a different reason other than they don't care about the business anymore. I think those are the ones that kind of phone it in afterwards. The two owners of the businesses that I've purchased are still very much invested. One of them still works full time in the company and works as hard today as when he owned it. And I am very appreciative for that. Same thing for the custom suit company, he chimes in all the time. Like hey, this is how we did things, this is how we did it. It's so helpful in the transition of a company to have the context of somebody who built this business from the ground up. And I think the super-secret number three there is when somebody is on your side, let them be. Both of their intentions aren't to harm the business in any way. They want to see it grow. And even though in both instances there's been times where we didn't quite agree on how to take things to the next level, we absolutely welcomed their feedback and sometimes they were right. Sometimes we were right. Kind of checking your pride and moving it to the side for a second when you're good at something and allowing them to tell you, yes I know you're good at this, let me tell you how what you're doing applies specifically to the business that you're purchasing from me. It's a really important lesson in the growth of the business which might be a good segway Chuck if it's okay with you to start talking about the lessons learned for some of the businesses or did you want more on…? Chuck: Before we move on you mentioned that both of the owners of the businesses were kind of still somewhat involved in the company. Is that something you're specifically looking for or was that just a happenstance of you buying a good quality business that had an owner that actually cared about the business? Mike: So in neither instance was it a requirement beforehand that the owner would stay on with the business post-acquisition. The first acquisition, the owner requested it. They said hey I see the plan and I didn't intend to call out these super-secrets but let's call it the super-secret number four is have a plan. Don't just walk in and say hey I'd like to buy your business. In that instance, I just so happened to be in London and as I'm trying to buy this business the owner of the business lived in an island off of the coast of Morocco. I had a free weekend while I was in London and I flew over and met with him and his wonderful wife and they were gracious. They took me to dinner. I insisted but they wouldn't let me treat for dinner. I think they were just thankful that I flew to go visit them and talk about the business; so just again that personal connection there. So while it wasn't a requirement that they stay with the business post-acquisition I'm always open to it if they're open to it. And I started talking about the plan; having the plan and being able to approach them. In both instances they got excited. One of them and I'll try to talk vague because I don't want to say anything about either one of them that they wouldn't want me to share. But one of them said when I said why are you selling it they said well I'm almost running out of ideas. Like I don't know what the next thing to do is. I don't know where to take this next and how to make it grow. And so for me, it's a choice of whether we stay at the level that we are now and continue happily down that path. Or do I allow my baby to grow by giving it to somebody who's going to take it to that next level? And so to be able to show them okay not only can we take it to next level here's how; yes, you recognize we have the experience before this on how to get this to that next level but here let me lay out the plan in front of you. And all throughout the while of reviewing the business and going to the website I have a checklist and I'll go over some of the points with you later today, here's all the opportunities that we think that we can have. And based off of those opportunities that's how we create the plan. And then we plug that into our for lack of a better word, our company acquisition algorithm to say okay is this worthwhile? And based off of the competitive advantages that we have with this business can we offer a little more? Do we need to offer a little less? Like where do we think that we're going to fit into this overall picture? So I feel like I didn't fully answer your question. The answer is no we don't require the owners to stay on post-acquisition. We are completely open to it. We prefer it. In both instances, they're both quite engaged overall. And just to reiterate the point maybe super-secret number five is if somebody wants to be on your side let them be. And in this instance, both the previous owners want to be on our side. They want to give us the feedback. We 100% remain open to receiving that feedback even if it's counter to what we want to achieve we'll at least receive it. I have a philosophy that you're not entitled to have a point if you can't justify it. And so if they come to me and say hey I think you're doing this incorrectly or I don't think you're doing this right. I tell myself okay, here's an expert that's owned this business for a long time, they feel strongly enough to come to me and say I think you're doing this incorrectly. I feel strongly that I'm doing it this way. But feeling trolling isn't good enough. I need to go pull data, go look at numbers, go say why are we doing it this way. And then I go back to them and say okay here's the reason why we're doing this way and they can poke holes in it or say no you know what that looks good. I wish I would have known that when I had the business. So I think that answers your question, Chuck. Chuck: Yeah I think so. And maybe secret; what number are we on, number six? Mike: I think we're on number six now. Chuck: Okay, so I would say super-secret number six, what you kind of just alluded to and what you didn't is you know when in school like high school or whatever and the teacher is like oh there's no such thing as a dumb question. There 100% is such a thing as a dumb question when you're talking to a seller. I would say super-secret number six is be prepared when you get on a call, be dedicated to the call that you're on, don't be in a car with a lot of background noise. Be at a desk, be in one place, do some research, if there's an interview to watch, watch the interview with the seller, read the package, ask intelligent questions about the business. It's okay to ask something that's already been addressed in the package if you want some additional information but show that you've actually researched the business because constantly when I'm talking to my sellers and we get off a phone call they're like that guy is not serious, don't connect me with him again. They want to know that you're serious and a way to show that you're serious is to have done some research ahead of time and ask intelligent questions about the business. And that's something that you definitely do. Mike: Thanks, Chuck. And I think that goes with having a plan. Like I don't have the time, I know you don't have the time, I don't have the time, I'm sure the sellers don't have the time to just sit there and answer questions that for somebody who clearly isn't prepared for the call it's a horrible signal to the seller that you're not serious about this that even if you do have the cash, even if all other things fall into place you're not going to be an organized person handling their business moving forward. So it's just an awful signal to send upfront. And I think one of the other things that you said; I don't want to say that there's bad questions, there's unprepared questions. Chuck: There are bad questions. I've had them on my calls. Mike: Okay. Chuck: And I know you're; Mike again this gets back to Mike being a super nice guy and doesn't want to; there are dumb questions and I've had many of them on my calls. Mike: I'm still going to stay that there's poorly positioned questions. And one of them might be hey Chuck I feel like this is a really dumb question and so forgive me for asking what's going to seem like a dumb question but it's just weighing on me and I need to ask it. That's a well-positioned dumb question. Another really good example of that is starting a call. I have a big belief and maybe this might be in one of the other super- secrets but we'll call it super-secret number seven, are we on seven now? So super-secret number seven, figure out what they want and give it to them. And again part of that is money but that's the beauty of working with a broker especially Quiet Light, that part's already figured out. That's almost done. They've declared that this is the multiple that they want now it's up to you to figure out does that fit within your company acquisition algorithm. Can I afford this based off of all of these criteria? And again I'll go through some of those in a little bit. Move that aside and now figure out what do they want. Do they want to stay on with the business? Do they want to hand it over to somebody who's going to keep the work within their country or somebody who isn't going to start selling poorly made products to their customer base that they've built up over time? Figure out what they want and give it to them. It's the best negotiation technique. If you walk into a call or a negotiation and you're trying to think how can I squeeze every dime out of this person on the other side of this phone call; I mean good luck to you, you may win or you may not. I have the philosophy of; I took a course from the Wharton School of Business one time and we talked about negotiation and one of the things we talked about was the difference between an average hitter in baseball and a Hall of Fame hitter in baseball is one in nine hits. If you can get one more hit in nine at-bats, that's the difference between average and Hall of Fame. The same thing with negotiation, if you can get one more hit in nine at-bats it's potentially a huge difference in the overall success that you're going to have. So same thing here, and so I approach the call as hey let's figure this out together and I'm listening the entire time trying to figure out what's important to the person on the other side of the call. Also, another; super-secret number eight is going to be disarming the call. It doesn't have to be this contentious conversation where I'm battling you for information. That's not the case. I start out almost every call and you can attest to this Chuck, and by the way, I've purchased a couple. I've probably had maybe less than 10 but several phone calls with people. Some of them after the call I decide this is not the right fit for me. I can't give them what they want so I just walk away and I go on to the next business. Other ones I've made offers for and maybe somebody else was giving something that they wanted and I didn't get that. But the two that I've got I'm very happy with thus far. But when I start the call I say hey I need to ask some questions and some of these questions might come across the wrong way. They may seem offensive or it may seem like I'm trying to prod or I'm trying to poke, all I'm looking for is opportunity. What opportunity exists in your business? And I'm trying to use it to go justify pulling this money out of other places and spending it and handing it over to you. So I'm looking for your help in bridging that gap here. And so when you position it that way and say help me get there it's amazing how they almost start to fall over themselves to tell you all of the potential opportunities in the business beyond what they've already written into the marketing package. And I'll even call that out. I've read the marketing package. I see that you see that this is an opportunity, this is an opportunity, this is an opportunity, based off of some research that I've done I think that this might be an opportunity. Is there a reason why you haven't attacked that market? Is there a reason why you haven't advertised on this channel? Is there a reason why this or this or that? And after you've position that I'm looking for opportunity, I want to make this happen, help me get there, usually they're quite open and willing to volunteer that information. So I'll call that super-secret number eight. Chuck: Yup, number eight. I can see the headline of this interview now; eight super-secrets of Mike Nuñez. We've got to get it to like 9 or 10 maybe. So yeah I think that those are some really good tactics. And I hate to use the word tactic because I don't feel like it's a tactic. I guess it is but like that's just your normal personality and maybe some people don't have it. But I think one of the major takeaways there is don't be super aggressive with a seller. Like the businesses we sell at Quiet Light, they're generally speaking super high quality with owners that care. It's not we generally; like sometimes we do but often it's not people that are just starting a business to flip, to flip, to flip. These are people who started a business because it's something they're passionate about and they're ready to move on for one reason or another and they want to pass on the torch to somebody who cares. And when you come in aggressive and if you try to beat down their business or things like that, that doesn't work. Maybe if you're working on a 100 million dollar deal and you got to like get in there and be super aggressive like that doesn't work with what we're doing at all. Mike: I just have to add to that Chuck because I think it's like if it works you should be worried. If it works it's probably not the right business. Like that's not; feel free to take this out Chuck if I shouldn't or can't talk about this but in the last offer I made I did not get the business. I made an offer but in our call, I recognized that what they were looking for was a quick close and a short close. They wanted to make sure that it closed. They wanted to do it quickly. And that was beyond the dollars and it was very fairly priced already, beyond the dollars that's what was important to them. And so for the caller just to give you an example of how much I personally trust after physically spending millions of dollars with Quiet Light already I made an offer, all cash so that they knew that this was going to close. I offered close at your convenience. And third I offered no due diligence. Now I wouldn't recommend that for everybody and all things. Chuck: I don't recommend that either. Do not offer to close. This is a certain special deal with a person that is a known entity that was trusted. You should always do your due diligence. Don't listen to Mike. Don't rely on us to do due diligence. It is your job to do the due diligence. Mike: 100% that was my decision that I was aware of this company, the numbers were small enough where even if this was a complete disaster it wouldn't be a disaster for me. But it was a complete cash offer, it was a complete quick close and I offer that with the hope that that was the value that they were looking for that was not a cash value that would allow them to choose me because they had; I mean I don't even know how many Chuck. Chuck: There were nine offers on the deal and you were; because of that they wanted to sell that component to you but the other offer was just so much; it was more money, the guy was willing to do a quick close as well so it just beats you out. They wanted to sell it to you. The other guy was just; it was a better offer with the other person. Mike: Understood. And so I got close right with the untangible non-monetary aspects of the offer.; it got me super close, right? I almost got that extra hit and that nine tenth bat. So just a good example of listening to what they want, trying to give it to them, and it's going to save you dollars in the long run. And the fact that they were considering me sounds like even though my offer was lower; yet again that seems to be the MO here overall. And by the way, I made a full price offer so it wasn't even like I made an under offer. I made a full price offer but somebody beat the full price offer and I'm still under consideration. Chuck: And just to let maybe another super-secret number nine; this isn't Mike's this is mine so I think that's like two of the nine. Listen to the broker. If I'm telling you something there's a reason I'm telling you it. Like when I say this is going to sell for at or above asking, it's probably going to sell for at or above asking. I'm not just trying to increase the price, right? I do represent the seller and I'm trying to do my best to get as much value for the seller but I'm not going to do that by lying. I'm going, to be honest. There's things I can't say to you. If you say well what's the other asking price is or what's the other offers, I can't tell you that but I will try to lead you in the direction of making an offer that's going to be accepted. Don't think that we're just; if I tell you there's multiple offers, there are multiple offers. I'm not just B-S-ing you. And we get it all the time where I tell people there's multiple offers put your best highest final offer in and then yeah okay asking price and I'm like put your best offer like I'm just telling you and then it goes for above asking and then the person is mad oh why didn't you tell me? I would've put a higher offer. And it's like I did tell you; I told you to put your best offer in. Like I don't want you to stretch, I don't want you to put an offer that makes you uncomfortable but you need to put your best offer in if you want to win this business. Mike: So I just want to say to that people have been kind of beat down and trained to not be trusting especially to brokerages. And at the risk of sounding like a Quiet Light commercial, it's just not the case with Quiet Light. And is it okay with you if I tell the story of how I found Quiet Light and why I just trust you guys implicitly? Chuck: I'm not sure of the story but please do tell it. Mike: I've had the affiliate manager and the performance company; the affiliate managed business overall since 2002. I started it with my brother and we built up the business. And in 2015 my brother passed away. He passed away fairly unexpectedly. And I was working at Google at the time and I had a decision to make; do I leave Google and come back to Affiliate Manager or do I sell the company? And so through some mutual contacts, I was referred over to Mark and Joe. This was before Chuck was there so I totally would've went to Chuck. But I went to Mark and Joe and just talked about the business and they asked me just great questions and they asked me for the P&L and they asked me what does the growth rate look like over the last few years. And we had been growing at like a 50%; no I'm sorry 100% rate year over year. We had doubled every year for the previous three years from '13, '14, and ‘15. And this is in January 2016 that I'm talking to Mark and Joe. And they even though this would have been a multimillion-dollar deal to sell that company; and I'm sure they do many, many multimillion-dollar deals which makes it easier to; I don't want to say turn it away but to give this advice. Chuck: So I will stop you there before I was with Quiet Light which was I've been about three years they weren't doing a lot of multimillion-dollar deals. So at that time a million, two, or three million dollars was a lot. It's just been in the last few years that we've really got up to where we're selling some of these really large businesses. Mike: So that makes it even more impressive, right? And I just remember this phone call with Mark and Joe so clearly where they said Mike when you sell this we'd love to be the brokerage for you. This is the wrong decision to sell right now. If you keep growing at this rate you will get what you want. Because of that conversation; I talked to other brokers who are ready to list my business or promising me the world and because of that especially now knowing that it would have been a very high multimillion-dollar deal for them and that they weren't doing as many at that time, for them to turn away that commission just gave me a level of trust with them that this is the company that I'm going to do business with. I am not comparing myself to Warren Buffett, Chuck. Not in the least. But one thing that he does that I love is he makes things easy and he; I don't want to say he takes shortcuts but he has built-in shortcuts. He can go from looking at a potential deal to executing a deal very quickly. And I don't know how he does it but my interpretation of how he does it is he identifies businesses and companies that he feels confident and he trusts. And so to me the implicit trust that I get from working with Quiet Light is a shortcut. To me, it gets me from here to this point. My comfort level right off the bat knowing that Quiet Light is not going to take a company that's shady or take a company that doesn't have solid P&L numbers or things of that effect, it's just such a comfort level. And if my comfort level was at a 90 pre these two deals because of what Mark and Joe did when they told me go continue to grow your business. It's at 100 now that I've actually purchased two companies and both of them are better than what I had expected. Now granted I'll take some credit for that that I've done the due diligence on it; I hired Centurica actually for both due diligences. We did the due diligence and we got into the company. Both of them feel; were over a year in on the first one, we're almost a year on the second one and both are solid. Both are growing. We just ran the numbers and after a little bit of a rocky start with the suit one because of some of the changes that we were making and that's what happens but we are now; November is our biggest month and we were up 30%. If you shift to include cyber Monday because everybody is obviously one of our biggest days. Chuck: How long have you owned that company? Mike: Since April of this year. So to go from there we beat our biggest day previously in the company not once, not twice, but three times by over 25%. So to beat your previous biggest day which was Black Friday; I'm sorry Cyber Monday last year, we beat it Black Friday this year, we beat it the Sunday after Black Friday this year, and we beat it again on Cyber Monday this year. So we literally doubled Black Friday. So it's been amazing. And again if my comfort level was a 90, it's 100 because of that. Like I'm not walking into a business that's a money pit or that has craters I didn't expect or potholes that I didn't expect. So I think that's just super important overall. Chuck: Awesome. So we're running a little long on this call, we've got a ton to talk about. So would you be interested in having this become a two-part segment where we'll end it here and then we'll keep going but we'll put that as a part two, to be continued? Mike: Yeah. But in case people are watching this on video just know that we cut it into two parts. I didn't wear the same suit on two different days. Chuck: We'll make a quick wardrobe change. Mike: Okay, I'll go change my jacket. Chuck: No. Mike: But that's fine. Yes, I'm happy to do that. Chuck: Alright. So, everybody, Mike Nuñez thank you for the interview today. And for everybody watching stay tuned. Next, we will discuss some of the lessons you've learned and what you're looking for when you purchase a business. So, for now, bye everybody and thank you, Mike, for joining us. Mike: Thanks for having me. Links and Resources: Affiliate Manager

How important is content marketing strategy to your e-commerce business? Crafting valuable content helps build brand trust with both existing and potential customers, allowing you to successfully grow your brand. Today we're talking all about content and smart ways to ramp up your strategy. Jeff Coyle is co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of MarketMuse. Coming from twenty years in the SEO and content strategy arena, Jeff's products use AI to accelerate content planning, creation, and optimization. With their spokes-of-a-wheel keyword approach, MarketMuse's content marketing strategy connects ideas, allowing clients to demonstrate product expertise. Episode Highlights: How content relates to growth and where to start assessing the need for your business. Strategies that help tell the story that you are trying to tell. How to gauge the success rate. Where the news dynamic fits into your content campaign. The breadth and depth of your content. Figuring out where the gaps are. When to hire an expert. How the Marketmuse suite of services help the writer. Using smart content to illustrate expertise. Why search volume is not the only strategy for content valuation. Some quick win strategies – aka one-page plans. Packages MM offers for different sized audiences. Tools and hacks Jeff recommends. Transcription: Mark: So there was a time early on in Quiet Light Brokerage when I was doing all of the Content Marketing for the firm and I was writing on average eight blog posts or articles per week averaging about 18,200 words in length. And I underestimated when I started on this kind of venture of can I do these eight to 10 per month; I underestimated how much work it was going to be and it was a lot of work because it's not just writing down your thoughts it's writing for the web and writing for SEO and understanding what do you write about next. It's amazing how quick the writer's block comes in. I know that you had a conversation with Jeff Coyle a mutual friend of ours from Rhodium and one of the founders of MarketMuse which is an awesome company; a great tool from an SEO and content marketing standpoint. You guys talked about everything content which is relevant to buyers, anyone looking to acquire a web-based business and grow it. I know it's been a huge part of our marketing plan. What are some of the things that you and Jeff talked about in this conversation? Chuck: It's quite great. I had a great conversation with Jeff and we're talking about if you've got a dollar spend where to spend it. Most people they're doing basic keyword research, they're looking for what's the keyword that's getting the most searches versus the keyword difficulty. And he takes it like way beyond that and they're looking at not just the specific keywords but what keywords are actually tied to other keywords that show that you're an expert in the topic. If I'm talking about like a specific thing but I fail to mention other words Google then thinks that I'm not an expert because anybody who's an expert would be using these other words or when you're just looking at keyword tools to look at the ones they're getting the most traffic you often miss the additional keywords that are in there. Mark: Right. And I know full disclosure I use MarketMuse with Quiet Light Brokerage and actually with my other company as well. I use their service and the general sales pitch is pretty simple. It's this idea of setting up pillar pages and having this kind of spokes on a wheel branch now so the example that they use I think in some of the marketing materials is if you're going to have a website on craft beer you should have a blog post on craft beer but you should also have an entire section on hops and an entire section on barley and malts and then even from there if you want to be all about hops and afford it to do a page on hops you should also have some satellite pages on imperial hops or these other types of varieties of hops and being able to have this kind of wheel with different spokes coming out. And you know what a bunch of SEO tools use this. Like I've been using Sight Bulb recently; a really cool software that diagrams out your site and the sort of hub sort of format. What MarketMuse does is they take a blog post and had topics so you say I want to focus on craft beer and they say okay if you want to really be known as an expert, make sure that you're talking about hops at least 10 or 15 times in this blog post. And make sure that you're also talking about different types of barley. And then you can use that and say well okay I'll talk about this in this blog post but what do I write on other blog post? It's made for me and I don't do a lot of the writing anymore but it makes the content creation process super easy; like the ideation part, I mean that's the hard part about all of this. How do you come up with new ideas on what you should write about? But I don't want people to think this is just a sales pitch for MarketMuse. It's a great piece of software, obviously, I believe in it from that standpoint. But I think from a buyer standpoint also from a seller standpoint having a solid content strategy is really really key. If you were to spend money; Chuck you've had a bunch of businesses in the past and I know you've used content, if you're going to spend your money somewhere for long term marketing dollar I'm kind of leading you to the answer here, where would you spend it? Would it be in the content marketing world or would it be PPC or what are the advantages in your opinion of this content marketing versus other types of marketing? Chuck: Yeah I mean it really depends I think on the type of business you have. Obviously, if you have a content-related business then you want to hop out as much quality content as you can. If you've got an e-commerce business there's different funnels and then buckets may be that you need to put your money in but you definitely need to be investing in content. Even on Amazon when you're thinking about like selling something on Amazon you go to some people's pages and the content is just horrible and it's so important. One of the things we didn't talk about but like when you're looking at Amazon you'll look at the questions people are asking and then answer those questions. So content is definitely important. We talked just a lot about what you should be writing about next. When you're looking at competitors sometimes you can actually see the direction they're going and then beat them and write a bunch of content. Actually, get in front of them because you look at their keyword list and you know the direction they're headed and you can actually get in front of them. Mark: Yeah for my money I think the two areas that are the most important for a marketing strategy at least long term return will be content marketing and CRO, conversion rate optimization. Those two things alone have such staying power where you invest now and you're going to benefit for years to come as opposed to PPC which is great because you can throttle PPCC; that's the reason people love it. You can throttle up and down. You can really find some gems and it's very immediate. But long term success I think is predicated on this content strategy frank that's something we've even bought a little bit at Quiet Light. I just got to give you a quick shot out Chuck because you are wearing a Quiet Light shirt. So for all those people that are watching on YouTube and I know it's not a ton of you that are watching on YouTube but those that are you can see that Chuck actually has a really cool shirt. I don't even have that shirt. Did you give me one? Chuck: I think I kind of bought Joe one but I didn't get you one so maybe I'll have to get you one as well. Mark: Okay, I think Brad gave me one and it was like enormous. I was swimming on the thing. Chuck: I think that's the one I have with Joe when I bought his it was too big for him so I have to get your size. Mark: Make sure you size it down and hey if we get a few extras of these maybe we can set up a contest for people that actually want a Quiet Light; I don't care what you do with it but it's kind of fun to give that away as a prize. Let's get into the episode. Content marketing is where I cut my teeth early in the Internet world. I love this topic. I think Jeff is one of the smartest people in the industry when it comes to content marketing [inaudible 00:07:02.0] good market views and this is definitely one to learn from. Chuck: Yeah absolutely and two things before we dive right into it; one they're giving a special discount. Again we're not trying to promote it. It's just a good product if you want it great but in the show notes, there's going to be a discount code to get a nice percentage off. And stay tuned to till the end of the video because I also asked Jeff for some additional tools that he likes to use. I always think it's fun to ask entrepreneurs what are some various tools that are unrelated to our discussion from what you're using so. Chuck: All right hi everybody Chuck Mullins here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today on the call we have Jeff Coyle the co-founder of MarketMuse and chief is it, product officer? Jeff: Yeah, Chief Product Officer, I manage the product data science and engineering teams as well as the marketing team at Marketing News. Chuck: Awesome. So I've known Jeff for a couple of years, we run in the same circles. I've been on the Internet world for quite a while. Jeff do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself? Jeff: Sure. I am as you mentioned the co-founder and chief product officer for MarketMuse. Prior to this, I've been in this space as Chuck mentioned for quite a long time; about 20 years as scary as that might sound in the search engine optimization content strategy game. I have generated like 50 million leads and not as an exaggeration for B2B technology primarily companies in the early part of my career. I worked as an early employee at a company called Knowledge Storm which sold to Tech Target which is also a great B2B publisher and an intent data and ABM platform for enterprise and mid-market B2B companies. I worked for them through their in-house team and in-house capabilities while I was there really focused on driving engaged users through content and content strategy. When I left Tech Target having already spoken with my co-founder about ways that we could grow MarketMuse I came on as a bit of a late co-founder and we've since grown the company to almost 50 people; really, really an amazing story about growth, building a new category about content strategy, what should you write next, what should you update or optimize next that's going to have the biggest impact on your business and everything that goes along with that from how do I assess my own authority, how do I understand where my gaps are, how do I know where my strengths are. And that's been the mission of our business is really to tell the story of I could spend a dollar on content; creating, optimizing, blah, blah, blah, tomorrow what should it be? And that's what MarketMuse is for; to tell that story. Chuck: Alright so kind of you alluded to it but today we'll get you on a call to talk about SEO and maybe more so how content is applicable to SEO. So maybe starting at the base when somebody either acquires a new site or maybe is looking at a site trying to think of how do I grow this site like where's my opportunity, what kind of analysis do you think somebody should start off with? Jeff: Well I think that traditionally the way that people have assessed sites for their strengths sometimes is only by looking at their current and existing rankings or their historical rankings. So it's a bit of you know kind of a tail wagging the dog assessment of where you're at, where you have been, but that as a starting point does provide some value as to where you are. It just doesn't tell typically the entire story about what it means to be about something. So when I'm looking at assessing a site for the merits of its; the collection of its content or its inventory of content, when I'm looking at is to say yes certainly I want to see performance. I want to look at also things that I might get out of my analytics package engagement. I have to understand the goals of the company the key performance indicators of the business. Am I driving those things? Can I peddle out of them? But divorcing those concepts for this point in discussion about conversion rate optimization and such from a search engine optimization or authority perspective I want to see where I've written great content so how much content have I created on core topics that I care about. When I do cover those topics how in-depth do I get and how successful does that; what kind of success does that yield when I write about a concept I care about when I get deep when I write high-quality content on concepts that I care about. Those two things really tell the story of your existing momentum on a concept. And so that when I'm assessing a site that's one thing I want to want to figure out is where do I have momentum? What concepts can I write about and I expect to be successful. And that's Stage 1. Chuck: Before we move on from that one how do we gauge that success rate; what do we think is successful, what are the indicators that say hey I'm already doing well here or I'm not doing well here? Jeff: Absolutely and that's the hardest part. And to run an effective content marketing team and a content production team for any company you've got to start at what are the key performance indicators? If I'm an e-commerce site the key metrics that I have is my average order size, it's my conversion rate close to a closed cart, it's my cart abandons, it's my total revenue. If I'm an affiliate site it might be an RPM metric and I have to be agnostic of and when I have agnostic a reference of affiliate and then I want specific combinations of affiliates because sometimes you can actually fake your books accidentally if you've got great affiliates on one page and not great affiliates on another. So it's really about I think engagement with affiliate opportunities in addition to revenue. You get a look at both of those things. If you are a publisher it's going to be RPM but also it's engagement with those pages. Because again how your ad server validates is do you have paid ads? So if you have a bunch of house ads and those have a different rate you want to always account for that because you might have great content this shooting off impressions engaged users clicks and such. So I always like to look at my current value per visit and then by the way from a B2B tech or something PI attorney; all these places are where MarketMuse does business so I like to kind of list a full fledge. I'm looking at my conversion to lead. I'm also looking at as far down the funnel as I can track and attribute. Every deal no matter what every situation you're looking at you always want to get it back to current value per visit and aspirational value per visit from a channel. In this case, let's say organic. So if I'm in a scenario I want to always be able to back that up. That's the only way I can truly define quantified value. And for MarketMuse obviously, that's the only way we can truly walk in the door and be confident in that ROI analysis. And that's why we've had to do this hundreds of times. When we talk to somebody it's to say how much do you really value each one of these visits? And if you can't answer that question it's okay, let's back into it, let's figure it out. How much is that truly about? Because then if you grow your traffic 20% you can say okay well that's worth this much to me. How much am I willing to invest in that? And that's how I define. So that's a long way of answering a short question that was actually really duped question. But the answer then is my quantified value metric. How much did I publish? How much did I update? How much do those act motions cost or those actions cost? And what was the efficiency rate on the content achieving some sort of baseline goal? I like to use recurring traffic from organic search as my goal. So I might get a boost from other channels and then it dies off. So I want recurring traffic at or above a particular baseline. So if I wrote 100 articles and 10 of them achieved my baseline of ongoing recurring traffic when I have 10 percent efficiency rate in that zone. If I updated 100 articles and 40 of them grew in traffic at or above a particular level. Then I've got a 40% efficiency rate on optimization. So when I talk about effectiveness of content I want to see how much should I publish, how much should I update and how often did that achieve my goals? I see ranges by the way just it scares the crap out of me sometimes, 1 to 2% of efficiency. Like I write 100 articles and only 2 get rankings. Quite often 40 and 45% at best practice that it's so wide. So you need to take stock today whomever you are and say how often did I write, how often did that yield recurring traffic; that's my efficiency rate. Am I in that 10 percent zone? I got some work to do. Am I above 20, 30, 40? I'm kicking butt. Now how do I take advantage of that? What do I do? No matter where you are there's always steps you can take to really maximize your earn. But it's a great question because so many people talk about ROI and they can't explain how they calculated. Chuck: Right. And it sounds like what you're saying is maybe like diving into your analytics but not looking at like how much traffic this page is doing but what is the segmented traffic; how much is coming from Google or Bing or whatever you're targeting. Maybe you're targeting link acquisition with an article then you got to figure out what's the value of a link that's coming in, how many did I get on this piece of content, and then maybe kind of summing up the value of all the different components. Like knowing what your KPIs are for the specific content. Jeff: Absolutely. And so the ways that I do that so it's manageable; there are ways where you can do that so it's manageable because [inaudible 00:16:38.2] I have thousands of pages or I published hundreds of pages how could I possibly do that? It's do it for the site level. Do it by site section; it's the way Google thinks about your site anyway. Do it by site section and then take your marquee pages and do a more thorough analysis of them. And marquee could mean your best pages that you feel are the best but they punch below their weight class, stuff that does really well, stuff that you invested a lot of money in. So build your plat; this is the stuff I'm going to do with deep dive but I'm also going to get my section level and sight levels metrics. An example might be that when Chuck writes an article he's on a 20% conversion rate to my effectiveness metric. But when Ron I don't know who Ron is but well just say Ron, when Ron writes an article he's 5%. So you're to get; you could do person level, you could do section level. You really want to get that slice and dice to know what's the thing that is causing success to happen or is it luck. A lot of sites a lot of B2B companies they rely on all of their authority for 5, 10 pages and they've got hundreds. Not only is it completely scary and unhealthy from a competitive space situation but if you're a Quiet Light listener it's an opportunity. I mean it's an opportunity to see a site that has a risk of ruin. It's an opportunity to see a site that has huge opportunity if they just publish the right content. So all of those things are what we're typically looking at. It's when I publish about Chevrolets it does real well when I publish about smart cars it doesn't. So when I get that site I'm shooting off about Ford and about gosh as my adjacent so I'm talking about; so it's really getting into when I get in how can I write about tangential or semantically related concepts, really expand my inventory in ways I know we'll have more success, and if I do want to cover other things. I think a reasonable expectation about investment need because I can't just go right kitty cats and crush it. But I know that if I cover what hubcaps should be on the PT Cruiser I can. And so those are the types of conceptual analysis, editorial content strategies I have been doing with years. Now you have data to support it. And that's where I think that the next phase of great Search Engine Optimization outcomes comes from this type of content strategy analysis for sure. Chuck: And one of the things I was reading the other day was just and I think everybody already knows this but they were talking about news websites and why don't news websites rank for everything. Like a news website gets all the links because everybody's linking to articles but yet they don't have the ability to rank for all topics, right? Certain news agencies actually get a lot more traffic for specific topics because that is maybe their topical relevance of their business. Jeff: Yeah. Oh, I mean news is so unique. The news algorithm has so many components and so from a Google news perspective and Google top stories there's components of real-time boosting. There's the concept of the fact that news articles appear in organic search. And they're coming from different channels of information. So they cross the chasm from just being news to being appropriate in search results. So then there's the dynamic of some of those items stay forever. Some of them are temporal and they're going to bounce out when that thing becomes less of a temporal story. We actually have a solution for that. MarketMuse allows you to analyze both serps and overlay analysis and it's called newsroom but that's neither here nor there. But the point of the message is what if you write news articles about this topic you care about but there's four to five aggressive publishers also publishing in that that have authority for news and you're just picking up the scraps. You can see that with solutions that are out there now. You're going to just see what those things are and then tracking that back to assessing performance. If I'm looking at my content items and I write 80 articles about some topic I get no news referrals and I get trickles in of organic and I'm writing it for the purposes of news, is that great? Let's say they get other KPIs, let's say they do gather links and they become powerful. But I'm not winning news, I'm not getting the organic search value that I think I should, how do I use that? How do I use the power that those pages are acquiring to my benefit? And most of the time when I see problematic content strategy; document the content strategy at a company they're not looking at their existing power pages. What content are they publishing that is gaining some value and how do we use that? Because I've got something that's a link magnet that every SEO in the world will go we need to do something with that but they don't necessarily know what that is. And a lot of times you see these link magnets and they're out there. They got a little bit of traffic upfront. They're not valuable enough to get recurrent traffic or it's not; it was a temporal staged story so they don't know what to do. And so weaving that article; weaving that item into some real good content strategy, that's the win. That's building my thought leadership, building my clusters of content, and hey this powerful battery. Plug the battery in here, plug the battery in here, and weave it in with internal link, weave it in with appropriate content, upgrade opportunities for conversions, there's so many things you can do to repurpose but when you get a winner use the winner. And we see that older people are scared to touch them because they're like it might break up. So these are the main dynamics that we run into with kind of the Assessment Authority and news as a special case. But it's so misunderstood what to do when you get a news winner. Because if you can predict that every time you publish a news story on Linux you're in the top three of Google top stories. Like, open that wallet every darn day. And I have clients that are in that scenario and we're like you must write about this every day and they cringe at first and I'm like here's the value that this produces; it's not just traffic. It's all the good stuff that comes as a result of that. It's also a long answer to a short question but I think that's usually a theme with me. Chuck: Alright, so number two you're about to say before I ask you a question? Jeff: Oh gosh I don't even remember what it was now. No, I'm just kidding. So it's kind of breadth and depth and then is the things that you see as being really high quality that you've written. These pillar pieces, the centers of the universe, the things that have acquired the KPI. How are those KPIs; they've acquired some metric that gives you that sense. So we've talked about how your existing momentum, well what are these cornerstone pieces, what are the center of the cluster pieces that exist and how are you using them today? Are you weaving them in? Are you using them to write then support pieces, etcetera? And how do you combine that with analysis of your target readership or user or buyer intent? So what's their purchase cycle; do you have coverage in the information phase, do you have coverage in the middle of funnel, do you have coverage late in the funnel, do you have post-purchase troubleshooting and adherence in ownership? So when you have a beacon of power really that's the time your mirror needs to be the most clear. I always say this. Like, stop tilting the mirror your way because you think you have success. The garbage in the game right now as I call it is people looking at search results and saying I need to write articles just like that search result item regardless of whether you want to argue differentiation it doesn't work. It only works if you have existing power to start to do things like that. What you have to do is just say with my site that I'm assessing, do I have coverage at all phases of the cycle that people would care about who are in this motion; I mean research, intent, decision, conversion, adherence, troubleshooting, whatever the metrics of the buy spying journey would be. And that comes to the why I say this way because the pragmatic approach is to say does this site truly represent my business as an authority and as an expert? What about this collection of pages or this content inventory tells a story that I actually am an expert? And so when you're looking at coverage, you're looking at momentum and what's been validated that I am an authority. But then it's also going to be like aspirationally if I truly were an expert what would I have covered? I can do that by doing competitive analysis or I can do that by doing semantic analysis and manual research. And so when you cross-reference; the punch line here is cross-reference the aspirational model against what you have and that's your gap analysis. So think about the outcomes there. I have gaps in this part of the bio journey. I have gaps, I have blind spots I don't ever cover these topics. I have blind spots here blah, blah, blah. I also have ranking gaps where I have striking distance keywords like I'm on page two that's that the SEO trick, right? Go tell them to update the pages where you're on page two and they'll go up a little and hey you did your job. So but if you weave that into this type of semantic analysis; this gap analysis, your content strategy becomes 2, 3, 10x more impactful overnight. And so compare that to keyword gap analysis, think about the outcomes. You get a word out of it. You get a word where you're ranking 12th and you think you should rank 5th. Well, now you know why. And then you know what you need to do. And that's the secret here. It's get yourself out of just keywords; get yourself into the content that's needed to plug the holes. Chuck: So we don't know what we don't know so how do we figure out what the gaps are? Are there tools you can recommend? How do we figure this out? Jeff: Yeah. Well I think that they're certainly on it and they're obviously not just the ones I present with MarketMuse but there are ways if you want to see. You want to be able to look at using your analytics, using any off the shelf Search Engine Optimization suite whether you are a higher-end person in a more enterprise or kind of using an [inaudible 00:27:29.2]. Looking at those pages; again all of your pages trying to organize them or you're looking at you don't want to buy those things, you've got analytics and you look at something that can crawl and analyze the structure of your site like a screening frog or a [inaudible 00:27:45.5] or a solution like that. Get a true understanding about your site and what it's about. What are the things where every time you publish it it's a winner or more of the time versus what's the stuff where you've been tilting at; aspirational goals. So looking at that or even looking at just traffic and revenue versions by section or by page type or by publish state because last year this was under this person's management this year this is under this person's management. Just a combination of this basic information from analytics and page-level data from a [inaudible 00:28:23.7] can get you at least started. And just to start thinking critically about your content inventory. A solution like the MarketMuse obviously is going to give you the sniper rifle to say go write this page, go fill this gap. But even if you if you're just looking to get kind of a basic understanding it can be easily put together to say gosh Chuck I don't know if we should publish any more articles about backgammon we're a chess site, it just hasn't extended. But when I write about you know particular defenses, we crush. Why don't we just lean into that? So you can make those types of decisions but then how do you get where we want to be a backgammon site. What are the ways that we can bridge the gap between chess and backgammon? How can we become more of an authority on strategic board games in general? So those are the types of questions that are out of this type of analysis, if you're real with yourself you stop publishing stuff that's not going to succeed. Try to figure out why it's not succeeding. That's where a person like a business like ours operates. But there's many out of an agency that knows the answer to these questions that can do that introspection that can do that analysis. But if you're analyzing your site I think it's truly to step back and say am I putting myself out there as an expert? Am I really showing it or was I chasing keywords? And it's always that oh man I haven't even thought about; I've just been looking up keywords, building lists, writing articles, keywords, lists, articles, keywords, lists, articles especially in the affiliate side not knocking always [inaudible 00:29:58.8] so much. It clearly comes out of a keyword list. And then I wrote the article some of them get linked together. Some of them don't. It's not leaving the web of somebody who actually knows their stuff. A great example of this; I've got uprise for every product in the world prices or reviews combination; bottom of funnel. That encompasses my contact strategy against this topic. It could have helped with that and then people wonder why they get hit when there's a quality change in the algorithm. It's because they're looking for that thing. They're looking for that stuff. You haven't told the story about buying that thing. Why are you the expert on pricing it? It doesn't make sense. And so that's the thing that; think about; get out of these search engine optimization shoes get into an editorial shoe. Hire an expert to say hey if you were writing an inventory of content about sound bafflers what would you cover; what are the things you need to know? And then cross-reference that against your stuff. Obviously, there's ways of doing both of those things taking technology like what we do. Chuck: So let's talk about that I know we don't want to like hardcore pitch your product but you have a great product that I think is a lot of value to a lot of people. So let's talk about like how your product can help and maybe even hit it as like these are the things that my product can do and some of the stuff people can do without the product so they could do it on their own but you're offering a service that makes it a lot easier. So let's talk about that. Jeff: So if I'm going to assess the value of a site; for example, if I want to see where there's areas of opportunity to create content or update content and be more successful. If I can get that hit list immediately and go execute on those plans; really move the needle quickly, that's a direct value of what one of the components of MarketMuse Suite. So MarketMuse Suite is a collection of; a combination of an automated content inventory and content auditing solution. We'll also take it to the next level and say after you build; after you say I want to create this page or update this page we'll build a comprehensive content brief for your writer. So it acts as a blueprint or an outline or a brief if you're familiar with what a brief looks like. And it tells a story so that the writer can be creative. So that the writer can research imagery; so the writer can research their sources and doesn't have to worry about is this thing going to have success after I hit publish. So many writers the anxiety they have; this is a huge pain point in the writing space is am I doing my keyword research correctly. Ask them. I mean that's the part I don't know. That's the part I really don't care about. I'm speaking from their standpoint. So take that mystery out of it. Take the SEO mystery out of it. Here's the outline we need you to follow. Be super creative. So we answer that question with that side of MarketMuse. We also have some point applications for doing competitive analysis so I can look at any search engine result page and understand who's got great content; high quality, who's got weak content, what are the gaps. And if I were going to put out true best in Class content on this specific intent, this specific topic what would it look like getting into the gritty details. Chuck: So what are some of those details? Jeff: Yeah. So what are the concepts that need to be included, what are the variants to consider, what are the questions to ask, what are the questions to answer, what are the internal linking; things you should do to internally link to other pages to tell the story that this isn't an orphan page on left field that actually weaves into your existing inventory and then grading your existing coverage and understanding how to interweave and to weave those things together. I have this great page; the one that you talked about, the news one, I want to make sure that it's linked. So all of those things we have point solutions so you can do a one-page analysis and get recommendations to improve it. You can get that one-page analysis and recommendations to make it equal to or better than your competitors every time and go head to head or against the whole field; questions and answers analysis, internal and external linking recommendations, and then we have for premium; one of our premium offerings is the newsroom solution specifically for Google News optimization. So basically the story is what should I write next, can you give me details as to how I would execute that so that you're getting me as close as you can to publishing? And then for all of my adjunct workflows; this specific analysis, this one-page analysis, we have applications to solve those specific goals to say okay why is Quiet Light Brokerage beating me for this topic? Is it because of quality; MarketMuse will tell you. Is it because of links and they have a worst page? Darn, they're more authoritative than me; what do I need to do? I need to go write a package of content. Tell me more of the story that I'm the expert because I don't have that off-page authority. So no matter where you sit it's giving you the advice as to what those next steps should be. And that's kind of the spirit of what we do. Chuck: So one of the examples I've heard you say before is like you're writing about a specific topic blue fuzzy widgets, everybody who writes about blue fuzzy widgets also includes pink monkeys and if you're not writing about pink monkeys then you clearly don't know about blue fuzzy widgets. You're not an expert. So maybe can you talk about that a little bit? Jeff: Sure. So our core technology is built on it. It's a topic modeling technology and it tells the story of what it means to be an expert on a concept. So it tells me by analyzing in some cases hundreds of thousands or millions of content items that people who know a lot about blue fuzzy widgets also know a lot about pink monkeys and so if you write about blue fuzzy widgets and you don't include pink monkeys you're not telling the story that you're an expert. So often in the market people have just looked at like the top 10 results to do this assessment. For so many reasons that I could get into there's a great article online called TFIDF is not the answer to your content and SEO problems and it goes into detail of each one of these logic challenges that exist. It's great for information retrieval. It's been around for 30 something years. Obviously, it's still being used. The challenge though is don't base your business content strategy and thousands of dollars of investment on that. And so what we were able to do is to say that but we're also then because we're analyzing so much data we're able to say that well guess what the top competitors aren't talking about orange donkeys and it's very relevant. That's a way for you to differentiate yourself. So you're covering the blue fuzzy widgets, your covering the pink monkeys but then you're going to differentiate yourself by also illustrating that you know all about those orange donkeys and that's what makes you special. And how does that drive back to true expertise? In this, we see constantly being successful with the best content strategies. They're writing about the table stakes content but they're also illustrating that they really know this stuff. And I always use more detailed examples but a cool one I always use for content marketing is a lot of people that write about content strategy don't talk about buyer personas. They don't talk about target audience. They don't talk about the roles on a content strategy team. Do you know why? Because they're chasing keywords. And if you can look at a search engine results page and go ooh, they're chasing keywords, there's my opportunity. Even if they're 9,000-word articles by HubSpot if you can find gaps in their game you can really take advantage of that and you can punch above your weight. And if you can pop a page that doesn't have as much traditional off-page authority link profile to build that beautiful cluster you can start ranking with undersized off-page pages and sections. And that's niche hunting. That's what the niche hunters talk about. That's what the UN fencers of the world; that's what they're really focusing on. How can I punch above my weight with undervalued off page sites? That's the way you get there; great content illustrates that you're an expert every time. Chuck: So we're thinking; traditional people when they're thinking about articles they're doing keyword research they're finding those low difficulty versus high search volume relative and then they're just going after that but what they're missing is just because people aren't searching for a specific word doesn't mean that it's not important. Jeff: You shouldn't have it in there. Chuck: Right. Jeff: Oh yeah. Chuck: Or specific words within content that you need to have to show you're in authority even though people; the average Joe may not be searching for that. Jeff: Exactly right. And that is the funniest thing about to watch the evolution in this market. When we first launched four years ago everyone when they would see a list of topics; this is the most interesting thing I'll say today, four years ago they used to look at that list and go why isn't it sorted by search point? And I said because that's irrelevant to what we're trying to do here. We're trying to tell you what it means to write that golden article to be an expert. Why does it matter what search volume is because you're so ingrained to use volume and PPC competition which that's another story for another day; crazy. Why don't do it? By the way, I'm not correlative to organic competition. I can get into that in a second but they're so ingrained; heavily so ingrained to use search volume as their North Star. They want everything to have search volume next to it so they can sort by it. So if we sort by that and then you discredit the stuff on the bottom, that's bananas. You're thinking about this from a content strategy perspective or from an expertise perspective. And that's what we see time and time again. Fun fact and I think you've heard me speak about this; it's totally exploitable. If you see competitors who clearly take topic lists and sorted by search volume you can; we usually call it chopping down a tree, you can chop down the tree. Every time it works because they have this strategy gap. You can predict what they're going to do. You can also chop down the tree in areas where they have blind spots. They will never fill them because they're using search point as a North Star. And so another way to say it is stop using that four square; that volume competition, you've all seen it. Alright, let's try to find those low competition high volume words. Sure those are great. Lean into those but that's not the whole picture of how you should write your content. Because the last thing I'll say about this is if you have no content at one stage of the purchase cycle and you think that you're not at risk with having content at another stage you've got another thing coming. It's going to catch up to you. Someone is going to fill that. Somebody is going to fill those intent gaps and crush you. It's just common. And we see it with publishers that have been resting on the laurels of their powerful content. They're just getting their tail handed to them by real content strategies every day. Chuck: So what are some quick wins you think people can have? Like okay, I have a let's say a site about; I don't know, let's just say a general content site, you pick the topic. What are some real quick wins I can get? Jeff: I like to call them one-page plans. So I'm going to find a page of interest. So something that's special about my site and maybe it's a small collection of pages. This is my page that's for some reason it's special. It's really long form, it's beautiful, it converts very well. Chuck: Are we defining special meaning like it's already getting traffic or I just think it's pretty? Jeff: I like it and it gets me some KPI that I think is legitimate and is giving me value. So it could be traffic already. It could be rankings that I am already getting; it ranks for lots of words. So that's a signal of comprehensiveness. A quick win could be to look at what that page is ranking for and pick out the words; this is using SEM Rush; using that to pick out the words in that list that the page doesn't actually satisfy the user intent for rewrite those pages; quickest win ever. So that one-page plan I rank this; I'll use a great example. Content Marketing Institute; I love that site, they have a wonderful page on LinkedIn profiles. It dominates LinkedIn profile marketing. They also rank for marketing profiles, not very good. And the site; the page just covers LinkedIn profiles. It doesn't cover generally marketing profiles. So they could beam their other zoom higher and now cover marketing profiles in general and write about other marketing profile presences as a cluster. All boats are going to rise. So you do that exercise, a quick win every time. You can find it. We call them content mismatches or unaddressed intent plants; always a win. You can always find one on your site because you've probably got pages that rank for hundreds of things. No one page can answer a hundred things beautifully. So when you go write that page people are like won't that cannibalize? No. I mean [inaudible 00:43:23.2]. Do I have to explain myself no? Chuck: So the key there is again you've got that one page; it's linking for a lot of words, you've got tons of words, you'll pick out the few that it's not ranking well for and then you'll link through that keyword to a new article that is specifically about that content? Jeff: Or expand it if it's a fit. If it's not a fit writing new but the key is it's not just that it's not ranking. I mean if it's not ranking for that's important but it could be ranking reasonably but not satisfying like user searches for that on Google and then they land on that page and like this sucks this isn't what I wanted. So if that intent mismatched so can you correct that and improve the page or do you need to do that in a new creation motion? So that is a tried and true technique. That's a recycle, recycle, recycle. Inside MarketMuse you just press a button and it tells you those plans which make life a lot easier obviously but you can do it. It's just that manual labor to use that one technique. And if you ask me for a quick one it's always a quick one. Look for that hundred word or more ranking page, find the word that this; read the page. You'd be surprised how many content strategists and CEOs don't actually read their sites; it's amazing. Read the page, know what value it has, and does this page get people to achieve that value. It can also be done on the back end. Andy Crestodina who works at Orbit Media; he is an expert in Google Analytics and content strategy. He wrote a book called Content Chemistry. Inside his analytics book; parts of the book, it shows you how to do this in Google Analytics by looking at exit rate and engagement gaps. So you can do it there or you can do it from keywords or any other ways but those are some quick ones. Look at your worst exit rates. So many people don't break those down by; they don't cross-reference those two things. So they've got a page, this thing is broken it's 90% in exit rate. Go back to the words that are driving the users to that page. What if all of them are out of alignment? You can just flash the content double engagement overnight. So there's so many wins that you can do with just a quick one-page plan analysis. I like to say pick one you like, get started, put few wins on the board, prove it out, and then decide is this something I want to get serious with and invest in technology that can support it. Chuck: I got you. Now when I started first looking at your product a couple of years ago and seeing kind of the wonderful amazing things you were doing, it was at a price point where I actually kind of like when high price points because it keeps; on really good things it keeps other people from being able to do it. But I guess you just launched a new price point for a self-service. Jeff: Yes. It's actually something we've been looking forward to doing. And we are a mid-market enterprise large publisher; people who have really invested in content that's traditionally been our target market. Chuck: Could you give an example of some big players that you work with? Jeff: Yeah sure. I'm trying to think of who's on this site. G2 Crowd is a customer and they're on there; we work with divisions of the Walmart Corporation, Home Depot, large e-commerce but also just great publishers. Business.com; love them so there's a lot of people who are publishing content. A lot of people I can't name and I wish I could. But if you type in MarketMuse case studies you can find a cool example from Tomorrow's Sleep on that one and how their site grew from 4,000 to 400,000 in a year with their agency that works with us. So that was always a big focus of ours. It was make sure that they can write content. Make sure that they can update content, that they've committed; they actually believe content can get them there because then life's going to be a lot easier for everybody. But we then also said let's look at the mirror. I'm always about looking in the mirror and look at the demand that we have. And so we really looked at who's coming in the front door saying we want to be MarketMuse customers. And right now having made that case internally or I just I'm not a profile of a customer that can spend tens or in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars on software. And so what we did was we right-sized for a specific target market, we right-sized a self-serve offering. And there is also a trial experience that everyone who's listening can go to the site. Go to MarketMuse trial. Go to MarketMuse, see the trial and you'll get an experience with your data; we've actually set this up so you can use your site, optimize a page, create a content brief, update some existing content like I mentioned, get that content brief and then there's also a special workflow baked in there that'll amaze you that I'm not allowed to explain but you'll see it when you get there. But you can do a competitive analysis, you can update a page, you get a content brief; by the way, take that with you it's free and make that decision of whether you want to become a MarketMuse Pro customer which is our self-serve offering at 499 a month. Quiet Light Brokerage Podcast listeners have a promo which Chuck will include in his notes which gets you a discount there. Or if you're a larger team, if you have four writers, if you write 10, 15 articles a month it's going to make more sense for you to be in one of our other packages; a bronze, a silver, or a gold, or a higher offering. So it gives you an understanding about the value that we provide, the opportunity to buy, to see if that's a fit, or to immediately recognize oh gosh this is what I need for all of my content items. I need one of the larger offerings. So the experience we typically is that people find the right car on the lot. Or they begin using and saying oh wow I need more of this. I was successful with the first thing I did. I know this makes sense. Making your content higher quality, that's the fun part about being in Market Muse; it's you never look at it and you're like oh man I wish I hadn't made that page better. You're always on this ongoing quest to do a better job, write better content that resonates more with your audience. And that's what we do every day. Chuck: Awesome. So to wrap this up I always like to ask people could you give us a few random tools not really related to what we're talking about but just things you like to use in your daily work or just regular life. What are some of the hacks you may have? Jeff: Man, there's so many. I love this. So a couple that I use, when I had some personal time management issues I tried everything. I tried boards with; con bomb boards and everything. And one thing that helped me analyze where I was spending my time was called Tomecular and it looks like an eight-sided dice and you put stuff on it. And as you're working on stuff you move the dice around and it seems so; maybe it's because I like touching things like that but it really gave me an understanding about where I was spending my time and I fixed some stuff within MarketMuse like the business organizationally just from that information. So that's cool. I love Boomerang. I think it's a beautiful solution for making sure you don't forget stuff if you get a lot of e-mails. It's a really good productivity tool. Chuck: Before you move on from Boomerang I think Google now have something similar built-in where they have the… Jeff: They have don't let me forget this. Chuck: Yeah. It's like a little reminder you can set for different dates and it comes back in. Jeff: Yeah. Boomerang has some features that I'm so used to being able to set and forget things pause so I don't know if Google's ever going to pause Google so that's something that, but I like Boomerang. It's not that expensive. You do need to watch your SaaS subscriptions though. That's another story. Another one I love, love, love, love is Full Story. Full Story isn't; they keep going a little bit a little more expensive each time you look at them. Good for them. It's like having a DVR on every user that ever comes to your site. You can watch the experiences; obviously anonymized but you can watch their experiences, build pattern matching, look at segments, and really get an understanding about why people are doing things. I mean I think that that's really valuable. Chuck: It's kind of like what is it Crazy Egg? Jeff: It's similar to a Crazy Egg but it's more of like a heat map reporting. They've got this capability and a handful of other solutions that are out. I just think Full Story has this like really robust like I can go in and I can find users that went through this specific sequence and just watch all the sessions. I mean so many times. Just learn from that to really tell a story and it really is powerful when you are already doing a new multivariate testing to really catapult that into the next level. I mean if I told you what conversion rates we have you'd blow up. But yeah I mean you really have to think critically and fly the flag of your customers so that when you do get these solutions they don't just sit on the shelf. I mean my goal every day is to make sure that the next article that every one of my clients publish is more successful than it could have been without us. And I think that comes through in our online messaging. It's not just that we're this secret weapon of the elite agencies which I know for a while that's what we were. It's that if you use MarketMuse your stuff will do better more consistently and then I will be happy. And if it does not happen then I and our entire team will not be happy. And we hope that our messaging comes through and we couldn't do it without these other solutions that we work with Full Story, like Pendo; Pendo is a beautiful thing, and some other metrics, some other things we use to really dive deep into our customer experience. Chuck: Awesome well I appreciate you taking the time to talk with everybody today. Is there a way that people can reach out to you or the company? Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. So MarketMuse.com, Chuck's going to post a promo code that's for the MarketMuse Pro self-serve offering as a discount. You can email me directly Jeff@MarketMuse.com, Jeffrey_Coyle on Twitter. I'm pretty active. LinkedIn, please. I typically don't say no unless you've sent me a weirdo request that tells me in an unreal way that you like my profile and you'd love to connect. If it's clear that you bought or sold a website before in your life I'm probably going to connect with you and want to talk in any light. So yeah please reach out and go check it out. We have a lot of content. I have a lot of; this conversation is like this throughout the web that I think can really level up your game and give you the ability to assess deals quickly without just hunches. You got to go with your hunches but it's nice to have hunches and data. Chuck: Yeah for sure. And a quick pro tip from me, if you're trying to get somebody to accept your LinkedIn profile and they don't know who you are, write a message. Don't just send the like later. Personally, I feel like if I've LinkedIn with somebody and I'm connected then I'm somewhat vouching for them so I don't just accept random LinkedIns. Like, everybody, I've accepted for the most part are people I've actually met in person. But then we go to these conferences and somebody sent me a request and I don't remember them so it's like just send a little message with them, take the two seconds to write. Jeff: Yeah, and make it from the heart. We can smell of that. Come on. I think MarketMuse is cool. Oh really do you? I do too. So I guess we are connected I love the thing but you know. Chuck: There you go. All right well I appreciate your time and thank you, everybody, for taking the time to listen and see you soon.   Links and Resources: MarketMuse MarketMuse coupon code (mentioned in the podcast): QLBMM Email Jeff Twitter LinkedIn

The Good Life (Part 1) - Chuck ColsonThe Good Life (Part 2) - Chuck ColsonFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. The Good LifeDay 1 of 2 Guest:                             Chuck Colson From the Series:         Coming to Grips With Grace________________________________________________________________ Bob:                Does it seem to you that people today appear interested in spiritual things, but when you start talking about authentic biblical Christianity, they tune you out?  Here's Chuck Colson. Chuck:            We live in a time what's called "post-modernism," which means there is no truth, everything is relative, so there's no standards, no yardsticks, nothing to measure your life by, and what I'm saying to people is, "Yeah, that's where the secular world is."  And if we hit them with a Bible, they're going to turn away.  They're just going to say, "Here comes one of these people preaching at us.  This is the Bible Belt."  But if you start talking to them about the meaning of their lives and where they're going to find fulfillment in life, you can engage them. Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, August 29th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll talk about how to engage the culture in a spiritual conversation with our guest, Chuck Colson, today.                         And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  You know, it's not often when somebody comes to faith in Christ that it makes national news headlines.  But I remember back when I was – I guess I was in high school or in college when the news came that Chuck Colson had found Christ, and the reason I remember it is because, honestly, if I'm telling the truth, I was kind of cynical about the whole thing, and I thought, "Oh, yeah, I bet he found Christ."  You know, the guy is trying to get out of a prison term, and he thinks maybe religion will help him out a little bit with that.  Did you think – do you remember hearing about it? Dennis:          I do.  And, frankly, I remember having some of those same thoughts, and he joins us on the broadcast.  It was the real deal.  Chuck, I'm glad it wasn't a fake. Chuck:            Thirty-two years ago, if it was a fake, I've certainly maintained it over these years.  But you guys weren't alone.  I mean, 90 percent of the world believed I was just looking for sympathy. Bob:                Well, and Larry King has said to you – he has been impressed by – he's been witnessed to by the fact that you persevered in your faith. Chuck:            Every time I have an interview with Larry King over the years, and I've had many of them, he would say, "You know, I just am so impressed.  You keep doing this."  And a number of the secular interviewers will say, "You're really doing something with your life that I should have been doing in my life."  Dan Rather said that to me this past spring.                           So maybe that's the witness, and when you say publicity, goodness, most of our listeners won't remember Eric Sevareid or Walter Cronkite, but they devoted almost an entire broadcast on CBS News to my conversion.  It was bigger news than Watergate, because it was so improbable.  "The Boston Globe" said "If Mr. Colson can find God and be forgiven, there is hope for everybody." Dennis:          And there is. Chuck:            And there is.  My life proves that. Dennis:          There really is.  You write in your book, you just released a new book called "The Good Life."  You mentioned that this book is like looking in a rearview mirror.   Chuck:            Yeah, it is. Dennis:          And you're looking back over how you describe a tumultuous life.  You know, if you would have said that to me 25 years ago, Chuck, I'd have said, "Well, yeah, maybe you, because of where you came from, being with Nixon in the White House and going to prison and all the fallout of making national news with a crime," but you know what?  Now, being 57 years old, I understand what you mean.  Life is tumultuous and looking back over it, we can live a good life if we have our hope in the right place. Chuck:            Yes, it's true.  Everybody thinks that you can go through life, and it's a breeze.  People who haven't had a major crisis in life, people who haven't fallen on their face, just have to wait for their turn, because it will happen.  You think you've got life all together, the world rolls over on top of you.                           But I've tried to write this book – you're quite right – looking at my life through the rearview mirror.  I'm 73 years old.  You learn a lot; you learn a lot from your own experiences; you learn from your own failures, which I've had my share, certainly; and you learn from the lessons of other people's lives.  And so "Born Again" was written prospectively.  I told the story of my conversion, coming out of politics, coming to Christ, going to prison, and that was sort of a forward look at a new life in Christ.                           Now, 32 years later, let's look back and see what really happened – what worked out, what didn't work out.  And I wrote this basically – I think you fellows know, I wrote it principally for seekers.  People today are searching for questions about meaning and purpose and what is life all about and how do I find my fulfillment and why am I here and what's my purpose, what am I going to do with my life?  So I wrote this, hopefully, because my life has been such a rollercoaster, up and down, that people would look at my life and then learn some of the lessons that I've learned, and it leads you to only one place, as all of us know. Bob:                Well, it's interesting, because as I started reading through this book, I had the thought this is your Ecclesiastes. Chuck:            Yes, it is – vanity, vanity and striving after the wind, precisely. Bob:                All of life is that until you come to the end, and you say if there is no faith, if there is no hope, then there is nothing. Chuck:            Yes, the last words of Ecclesiastes capture it all. Dennis:          They really do.  There is a scene that I think really sets the stage for your book, and it's early in the book, but it tells the story of how you got together with a group of people and announced your conversion.  You were near some bay or some sound … Chuck:            Hope Sound in Florida, which is one of the watering spots for the truly rich and famous and wealthy from all over the world.  And this woman was a lovely, beautiful, Christian woman, took her back yard, which looks over the bay, and the bay was full of beautiful, 70, 80, 100-foot yachts, and she put a tent out, and she had a 5:00 party, and everybody came in their white dinner jackets and long gowns, because we were heading off to different parties for the evening, and I gave my testimony because she had arranged it this way.  I would give my testimony and then take questions and answers.                         I gave my testimony, and most people were looking away, or they had this studied indifference about them.  They didn't want to appear to be affected by it.  All the questions were then about Watergate, Nixon, the presidency, prison, and just as it was getting ready to get over, and it was not an easy experience – just as it was about to end, this man leaning against the tent pole, legs crossed, a cocktail in one hand, looks at me and says, "Mr. Colson, you had this dramatic experience going from the White House to prison, but what are you going to say to the rest of us here," he said, "You can see," and he sweeps his hand overlooking at the bay, "You can see what we really – we have the good life.  We don't have these kinds of problems."  I said, "Well, you may not have had them yet.  You will.  If there's anybody here who has really had a life without problems, I'd sure like to talk to him afterwards, because everybody has their share of problems, and if you don't now, you will when you're lying on your deathbed and all of these things will have no meaning to you because you know your life is about to end."                         It was like letting air out of a bellows.  I mean, they just – whoosh.  You could feel people exhaling.  There wasn't a sound.  Nobody applauded.  The hostess got up and said, "Well, make yourselves comfortable, and Mr. Colson will stay and answer questions."  And I had a stream of people, and my wife did as well – and we did a dinner that night, coming up and telling me "My son is on drugs, and I can't find him," and "My husband's got four mistresses.  I don't know how to deal with it."  I mean, it was just a never-ending series of problems.                         There was one study I cite in the book – times that people can become content and happy in a middle class lifestyle, money in excess of that doesn't do anything.  It does not increase their happiness by any measure, and very often creates unhappiness.  And I showed some examples of that in the book.  So one of the biggest myths I want to get rid of is that the purpose of life is to make money and be successful and be powerful.                         I tell the story of Dennis Kozlowski who was recently convicted in the Tyco scandal.  A poor kid growing up in Newark, New Jersey; works his way through school; is a whiz in the company; gets to be CEO at an early age; starts getting million-dollar salaries, multimillion-dollar salaries; and then starts dealing the employees blind and ends up with a $2.2 million party for his trophy wife in Sardinia with [inaudible] running around the place and with an ice statue of Michelangelo pouring out vodka, and that's the good life?  Nah, he's going to be in prison the rest of his life. Dennis:          You know, there is a generation of our listeners who really have never heard the story of how you came to faith in Christ.  So to set the stage for how this book has come about, how your Ecclesiastes began to be written, take us back to the White House.  You were working for President Nixon; had one of the most prestigious jobs there; you were a powerful man; an attorney.  You and your wife, Patty, were raising your family at the time. Bob:                Were you counsel to the president?  Was that your … Chuck:            I was special counsel to the president, yes, and I was in the office – as a matter of fact, my office was immediately next to his, and his working office in the Executive Office Building, and we were very close.  I was one of the four or five people closest to the president.  I really came up with the strategy for the 1972 campaign, which was a landslide victory for the president – historic landslide victory, as a matter of fact.                         And when the election was over, that night, as a matter of fact, when the voting was taking place, Nixon had me and Bob Haldeman, just two of us, in his office.  We sat there until 2 in the morning, Patty and my kids were in my office waiting for me, and he's toasting me with all of the results coming in and talking about the fact that I'd made his presidency, and I can do anything I want from the cabinet.  Go practice law, and I'd make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which I had done before I'd gone to the White House.                           So I really had life made, and the next morning I woke up feeling miserable, and for two or three months, I would sit in my office and look out over the beautiful, manicured lawns of the South Lawn of the White House and think about, "Boy, this is pretty good, you know, a grandson of immigrants comes to this country, rises to the top, earns a scholarship to college and had been a success at everything he'd ever done, and here I am, and what's it all about?  I had this incredible period of emptiness.                           And then I went to Boston one day after I left the White House; I went back to my law firm.  I had a meeting with the president of Raytheon, one of the largest corporations in America, because I was once again to be their counsel.  I had been counsel before I went to the White House, and now I was coming back to be counsel again.  And Tom Phillips, the president, just seemed so different.  He was calm, and he was peaceful, and we had a great conversation, and he started asking me about me and my family and how I was weathering in Watergate.                         I said, "Tom, you've changed.  What's happened to you?"  He said, "Yes, I've accepted Jesus Christ and committed my life to Him."  He kind of looked away when he did that, almost like he was embarrassed to say it.  But he shocked me, and I took a firm grip on the bottom of the chair.  I'd never heard anyone say something like that that boldly. Dennis:          Now, wait a second, you hadn't grown up in the church? Chuck:            Oh, no.  I'd been in church twice a year, if that.  And would say I was a Christian because I grew up an American, it's a Christian country, and I wasn't Jewish, so I must be a Christian.  I had no idea what a Christian was, no clue.                           And he said, "I've given my life to Jesus Christ," it was shocking words.  But over those next several months, I began to think about that conversation and wonder what he really meant and why he was so peaceful and why his personality had changed so dramatically.                         And so in the summer of 1973 in the darkest days of Watergate, the world caving in, I went back and spent an evening on his porch of his home outside of Boston – a hot August night, and he witnessed to me; told me what had happened to him; told me his story – an amazing story.  And he also read to me a chapter out of C.S. Lewis's book, "Mere Christianity," about the great sin – pride – and it was me Lewis was writing about, and I realized my life I thought was idealistic, I was trying to do all these things for my family, I was trying to serve my country – it was all about me, and it was pride.  And I didn't give in, he wanted to pray with me, and he led a prayer, but I didn't. Dennis:          You resisted. Chuck:            I resisted, sure.  I'm too proud – a big-time Washington lawyer, a friend of the president of the United States. Dennis:          You didn't want to bow to anybody. Chuck:            That's right, and I went out to get into my automobile and start to drive away and got about 100 yards and had to stop the car, I was crying too hard.  I called out to God, I said, "Come into my life.  If this is true, I want to know You, I want to be forgiven."  And that was the night that Jesus came into my life and nothing has been the same since, and nothing can ever be the same again.  The world all scoffed, as you guys noted at the beginning of the program, but it was okay.  I persevered, and my faith really sustained me through prison, and then I saw a mission in life, and, of course, that's the great paradox.                           One of the things I talk about in this book is that everything about life is a paradox.  It's not the way it appears, and we get this idea about what's good in life, but usually what turns out to be best for us is the thing we least expect or maybe don't want.  The greatest thing that ever happened in my life was going to prison.  I've been doing a lot of interviews lately, and I've said to every reporter – "Thank God for Watergate, thank God for what happened to me.  Because I went through this, I've discovered what life is really all about."  And that's what I write it in here – basically what I've discovered life is all about.                         And I think what we Christians have to do today – I think it's really a difficult period, because we live in a time what's called "post-modernism," which means there is no truth, everything is relative, so there's no standards, no yardsticks, nothing to measure your life by, and what I'm saying to people is, "Yeah, that's where the secular world is."  And if we hit them with a Bible, they're going to turn away.  They're just going to say, "Here comes one of these people preaching at us.  This is the Bible Belt."  But if you start talking to them about the meaning of their lives and where they're going to find fulfillment in life, you can engage them. Bob:                Well, and we can be seduced, as believers, by the cultural message, which says, "You will find meaning and purpose and fulfillment" – I think materialism is the greatest seductress of our day, don't you? Chuck:            Absolutely, and it gets into the church.  It's almost impossible for it not to affect Christians, because you can't turn on a radio, look at a billboard, go to a movie, even if you took PG movies, you're still going to get it.  And you'll get it in college, in schools, where relativism is being taught, naturalism is being taught in all the public schools in America.  So we Christians absorb all this stuff, and then we kind of give it a little bit of a holy varnish by saying, "Well, we're really Christians, and Sunday morning, at least, I'm going to be devoted to Christ."  So we get affected by this.  Yeah, we've got to look at ourselves and our values.  Dennis:          Chuck, there's a scene that you paint vividly in your book of you've just been picked up by the federal marshals.  You are being taken to this prison that was anything but like the White House, and you describe a peace, a lack of fear.                         Now, I have to ask you – was it your newfound faith in Christ that was the basis of you moving toward three years of incarceration? Chuck:            Yes.  You go through something like Watergate, where you pick up the newspaper every day and here are these charges made about you and headlines and screaming headlines, people saying outrageous things.  You're in the middle of a battle for your life.  It just totally absorbs you.  It's very hard on the family.  And so, all of a sudden, I made the decision, I pled guilty, I got my sentence, I'm going off to prison, and on the ride to the prison I was kind of, well, I'm relieved.  It's over.  In fact, the first night in prison I slept better than I'd slept at home in months because I knew what I had to do, and I knew what I was going to have to face, and I knew it was going to be tough, but I knew that Jesus would sustain me. Bob:                Even as you recount that, I'm thinking of the paradox that must have been a part of your life.  You were a Marine, right? Chuck:            Mm-hm. Bob:                The Marine Corps is all about character. Chuck:            Oh, yeah, absolutely. Bob:                Chuck Colson in the White House was the antithesis of character. Chuck:            Well, he didn't know it at the time.  He thought he was being the embodiment of the Marine Corps character.  The Marine Corps character is "Semper Fidelis," "Always Faithful" – "Can Do" – whatever the job is, you're going to do it – it doesn't matter – walk through fire and bullets.  So when Nixon would say, "We've made a decision," and there were times when I argued with him, because I thought he was wrong sometimes, but once he made the decision, he was the guy that got elected president, I wasn't.  I was there to serve him.  I had two choices – obey the order or resign.  So if I chose to obey the order and continue to serve him, I ended up doing things now, as I look back on it – for example, what I went to prison for was giving a file, an FBI file about Daniel Ellsberg, who stole the Pentagon Papers, giving it to a reporter.  That's a terrible thing to do.                         Ironically, that's what Deep Throat did.  Now, all these years later, we've discovered it at the same time.  But Nixon told me to do that, and I didn't question it.  I had friends who were in the Marines who were in Vietnam, I had Jack McCain, the Navy admiral's son, John McCain, was a POW.  I figured we've got to stop this guy Ellsberg, or we're going to put American lives at risk.  So I did it.  For me, the ends justified the means. Bob:                Maybe instead of calling this the Ecclesiastes of Chuck Colson, it's the "Confessions of Chuck Colson." Chuck:            Well, it is that, too. Bob:                Augustin starts with that great statement that "The heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee." Chuck:            "In Thee," yes, and Augustin wrote in his confessions of all the things he had done in his life, and they were many.  I mean, all the mistresses he had, and the debauchery that he lived in, and I could identify with Augustin.  What he said was his principal sin, however, of course, was stealing the pear off the pear tree of his neighbor.  And the reason it was his principal sin and the most convicting one is he didn't need the pear, because he had his own.                         So what he said is the heart is desperately wicked, because we enjoy sin.  That was the powerful thing about Augustin, and that's the powerful thing I've realized, and that's why I say in this book, you cannot live the good life until you recognize the evil within yourself.  The good life is impossible without recognizing evil in yourself. Dennis:          Yes, and it's all centered around who God is, and that we must live our lives and not only who He is but that we will give an account someday.  In fact, we've been talking about your Ecclesiastical book here, let's read the last couple of verses from the real Ecclesiastes – "The conclusion, when all has been heard is fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person."  And then the way the book concludes is chilling, "because God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil."                          And the undeniable truth is we have been made in the image of God.  We are spiritual creatures, and I really pray, Chuck, that God breathes his favor upon this book, and I just wanted to say, too, at the conclusion of this broadcast, thank you for being faithful.  I am sure there have been many traps in leadership since you came to faith that have been far more significant maybe than the one that sent you to prison, because they would have brought disrepute to your testimony and to your character and who you are as a man and, personally, I'm glad Bob and I were wrong back when we heard of your conversion and that the cynicism that many felt has been disproved by a life well lived and by someone who is finishing strong.  I just personally want to say thank you to you for not just living the good life but for following the King faithfully and representing Him exceptionally well. Chuck:            Well, I thank you very much, Dennis, those are kind words.  I have to tell you that I've just been a man doing his duty.  When I think of what my Savior did for me that night in the driveway when it became so clear to me that my sins had been forgiven, I would be dead today were it not for that.  I would have suffocated in the stench of my own sin, so I do what I do out of gratitude to God for what He has done for me. Bob:                Yes, and because you have shared with many through the years about what Christ has done for you in your books – in "Born Again," in "Loving God," "Kingdoms in Conflict," and now this new book, "The Good Life."  You have pointed people to Christ through your life and through what you've written.                         We've got copies of your new book in our FamilyLife Resource Center, and as with all of your books, it is provocative, it's challenging, and it's the kind of book that someone could pass along to somebody who doesn't know Christ.  You can go to our website at FamilyLife.com if you're interested in getting a copy of the book.  Click the button at the bottom of the screen that says, "Go," and that will take you right to the page where you can get more information about Chuck Colson's book, "The Good Life," and other resources available from us here at FamilyLife.                         In fact, a book that was influential in your life, you mentioned "Mere Christianity," by C.S. Lewis, we've got that in our FamilyLife Resource Center as well.  And if any of our listeners want to get both your book and "Mere Christianity," we'll send them a copy of the audio CD of our conversation together at no additional cost.                          Again, the website is FamilyLife.com.  You click the "Go" button at the bottom of the screen to take you right to the page where you'll get more information about resources.  Or you can call 1-800-358-6329.  That's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY.                         You know, it's been encouraging the last couple of weeks we've been hearing from a lot of our listeners who are aware that this time of the year is a particularly challenging time for us at FamilyLife.  We're ending our fiscal year, and the summer is winding down, and as a result, we've had many of our listeners contacting us to say we'd like to make sure that FamilyLife's financial needs are met, and we'd like to do more than that.  We'd like to challenge other listeners to get involved in the same way that we've gotten involved. We heard from a mom in Plano, Texas, who said she hoped other Texas moms will help support FamilyLife Today; heard form a listener in Salem, Oregon, who is hoping that folks from the Pacific Northwest will donate to FamilyLife Today; and a listener in Chattanooga, Tennessee, called in and said, "We listen to your program regularly, and we hope other who have benefited from FamilyLife Today will join with us and make a donation to help the ministry."                         Well, we appreciate you folks standing with us, and we appreciate your challenge as well, and if you've not made a donation recently to FamilyLife Today, maybe you can meet one of these challenges or issue a challenge of your own.  Call us at 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation or donate online at FamilyLife.com, and we look forward to hearing from you.  Thanks again.                         Well, tomorrow we're back with our guest, Chuck Colson.  We're going to talk more about how we can engage people in a conversation about what really matters in life and how they can live the good life.  I hope you can be with us for that.                         I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.  On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.                          FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.   ________________________________________________________________ We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you.  However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website.  If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would   you consider donating today to help defray the costs?         Copyright © FamilyLife.  All rights reserved.       www.FamilyLife.com                      

Today we welcome Chuck (iii) Mullins, we are talking with him about his background, experience, his algorithm knowledge, ask him our rapid-fire questions, and pick his brain about the business. Chuck built his first profitable website back in 1996 when he was an impressionable 18 years old. He studied computer software engineering in college, which taught him the skills to analyze search results and implement strategies. Throughout his career of developing, managing, consulting, and investing in internet-based companies, Chuck has developed a keen ability to spot opportunities and develop strategies that lead to growth and profitability. Episode Highlights: Chuck's background, entrepreneurial experience, and success stories Web-based business ups-and-downs The difference in long-term cash flow from web-based businesses and get-rich-quick cash businesses Chuck's favorite web niches Chuck's favorite audience member (who is also a buyer) Websites that are more/less desirable The importance of knowing your Profit and Loss Biggest mistake buyers can make Best practices for buyers and sellers The importance of understanding the business and doing your research Quiet Light's vision and how we can help you Transcription: Mark: Joe, one of my favorite things about working with team Quiet Light is some of the camaraderie that we have with each other. The fact that we get to tease each other a little bit, egg each other on, but also help each other out; talk about deals, collaborate on our transactions because everybody at Quiet Light has so much entrepreneurial experience that it's like having this built in board of advisors for every single thing that we do. And one thing I think you and I need to do a better job of; I know we've had each of the advisors on Quiet Light at the Quiet Light Podcast. I think we need to bring them on a bit more so that others can enjoy some of the experience that they have. You had Chuck on recently and grilled him a little bit in this episode. Joe: I did. I want people to get to know Chuck for the fun experienced entrepreneur that he is. And so I mixed it up a little bit. I had some fun with him we did some rapid-fire questions. I intentionally; just let me get this upfront and out there for the audience. I intentionally mispronounced somebody's name. I butchered it intentionally. Again I did it seven or eight episodes ago and I got some email saying I think the person you're trying to find is so and so. I did it again. Mark: Same person? Joe: Same person; yeah, if he's listening. Mark: He needs to start listening to the podcast especially my episodes because frankly, I've got a leg up on you. Joe: You have overtaken me for the most popular episode on the Quiet Light Podcast. I will overcome that because I've got some great ones planned coming in here soon. Chuck is a fascinating individual. I've known Chuck for a long time and he's really, really smart when it comes to his entrepreneurial acumen. It's almost annoying to be honest because with a model that we have at Quiet Light Brokerage; we don't have employees, right? No one's an employee of Quiet Light Brokerage. We have a lot of entrepreneurs who work together in sort of a collective group. Well, one of the benefits to that is all the advice and feedback I'm able to get from people. And one of the most annoying things is all the feedback and advice I get from everyone. And sometimes; Chuck especially, Chuck is so thorough. What's the term he gives to himself? Whatever it is he just hyper focuses on the most minute little detail and I fear asking questions sometimes because of the level of detail that he's going to give to me in terms of what I have to fix and correct in a document that I'm creating. Mark: But at the end of the day even though sometimes it can be overwhelming like come on you think I'm doing everything wrong evidently because I keep getting his feedback, it's always on point. And I don't think I've ever received feedback from them where I look at it and say this is not worth considering or looking at; so a smart, smart guy. I'm looking forward to it. What are some of the things that you discussed in this episode? Joe: Well we talked about some of; he's got almost three years brokering now and over 20 years as an entrepreneur now. And he talked about some of his experiences; the pros and cons of A. being an entrepreneur, some of the things that he's found that certain buyers do better than anyone else, and how he wants new buyers to adopt that style, and then the biggest mistakes that someone's selling their business can make as well. And it's fascinating as I just said he's got 20 plus years as an entrepreneur. I'm in the same boat. You're in the same boat. So collectively the team at Quiet Light I'd say what 250 years of entrepreneurial experience that we share with our team with our clients and I think it's fascinating. Chuck is just the tip of the iceberg here in terms of the experience. So it's exciting to share this with him and we had a lot of fun. So that's the key to this one. Mark: Fantastic, well let's get to it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage on the Quiet Light Podcast. And today we have the most special guest. His name is Chucky. Now that's not what we call him. It's Chuck. I use his personal email address. I'm not going to tell you at what you can all haul in the mail anyway. You know his e-mail address its Chuck@QuietLightBrokerage. Chuck Mullins, welcome back to the Quiet Light Podcast. Chuck: Thank you, sir. Thank you. For any that's specific it's actually Charles Clifford Mullins III. That's my D-I-I-I. Joe: You know I am from New England I can't talk with a British accent; it's something about us. Chuck: Well I can't either. Joe: Alright. Well listen you know the routine. Normally on the podcast we ask people to give their own background; who they are, what they're all about so that we're not sounding like we're reading from a script which we don't. We wing these things. You know that. Our audience knows that. But before we get into that I want to ask you a series of rapid-fire questions; the first one so that people understand and establish your experience here at Quiet Light Brokerage, how long have you been brokering at Quiet Light Brokerage? Chuck: About two and a half; almost three years. Joe: Almost three years. Okay. So let's start with…I've got a total of six questions. Number one; and you've got to give me a quick answer. Number one, who's your favorite broker? Chuck: Joe Valley. Joe: Good, good, good. Alright, if you were stranded on an island with me, Brad Wayland, and Jason Yellowitz and a rash floated by and they would only carry three of us; there's four altogether, who would you leave behind and why? Chuck: Jason Yellowitz, because he would be able to burn his stacks of cash to stay warm. Joe: And he carries it with him, is that what you're saying? Chuck: Inaudible[00:06:25.8] Joe: Jason I know you all listen to the podcast so everybody make fun of Jason. That's your job here. Alright, this is a really important question. Who is the better podcast me or Andy Youderainan; I mean in Andrew Youderian? Chuck: I would have to go with Mark. Joe: You are… Chuck: Hello? Isn't it you that people come up to the Booze and ask for or is it Mark that they come up and ask for? Joe: That's me. It's me. Mark doesn't go to Booze. Alright, sid you know Walker Diabel wrote a book; and a best seller book? Chuck: Have you heard about the second book that he wrote? Joe: No. He wrote a second book? Chuck: Yes. If you go to WalkerDiebel.guru you can check out the second one that hasn't been released yet. Joe: Okay, Alright. So this is a tough question. This is not a trick question. I want to know if you can answer this one. What's the name of Walker's book? Chuck: Buy Then Build. Joe: You got it. Okay. Alright. Chuck: How can you not get it? I've heard it at every conversation. Every conference I go to there's these three books that are just floating around that conference and I'm like wait a second how did that get there? Joe: And it's the bottom of every one of his e-mail signatures. One of these days you're going to dig way back into the archives when he was actually an actor and find a clip and we're going to change his email signature line somehow some way. Alright, so as you know historically Quiet Light Brokerage does not recruit brokers. I have conversations three or four times a week these days with people who want to join the team. But we, for the most part, don't recruit. We have as you know or Mark has as you know recruited a few starting with Amanda back in the day. She was the first. And I think Brad was also recruited. And yourself was also recruited. Of all of the brokers that Mark recruited; last question by the way, what was his best decision? Chuck: Probably Brad. He's been killing it man. Joe: Man and give yourself some credit Chuck. Come on. Anybody but you would probably be the politically correct answer but essentially you just threw Amanda under the bus. But fortunately Amanda doesn't really listen to our own podcast either. Alright, enough of this nonsense; let's talk about you and your experience. I know all about you but for the audience members, Chuck has been on the podcast before Mark had him on when he first joined the team two and a half years ago, three years ago. And the focus of that podcast was a tiny little bit about Chuck but mostly about Chuck's due diligence experience. And I think you had a list of was it 25 due diligence tools? Chuck: Who can remember? Joe: Yeah, a lot. And it's all; if you Google Quiet Light Podcast, Chuck Mullins, due diligence you'll find it. It'd be at the top of the Google search engine and it's great stuff. And I learned a lot when I did it. But I would say I refer most people out for due diligence; buyers that is to our friend Chris Yates at Centurica. They do a great job. Well, let's talk a little bit about who you are and your life experience and a little bit of your brokering experience now that you're three years into Quiet Light. So who the heck are you? Tell us about your entrepreneurial experience. I know that you started way back when you were in college, right? Chuck: Yeah. I graduated high school in ‘96 and I always wanted a computer but we couldn't afford one. So finally for college I needed a computer so I got a computer and started a free website on it's like Angel Fire or Tripod or one of these things way back in '96. And I remember just putting up some content and that is an online library for college students. And I remember somebody offered me like 10 bucks at some point to put a link on my website. I'm like $10 awesome, I'm making money and then somebody offers me like a hundred bucks and I'm like what $100? So then I was; this is before I even had a domain so it was like AngelFire/blahblahblah. I started thinking about okay we'll buy a domain and back then they were like thirty-five bucks. I was talking to my mom and I'm like mom I'd buy a domain and she's like you're crazy you shouldn't buy you know like you're just wasting your money and why are you spending all this time in front of the computer and then it just started growing and then somebody offered me a thousand bucks. And before you know it I was making about sixteen grand a month off of advertising back in the ‘90s. Joe: In college, right? Chuck: In college; yeah, and so I was just… Joe: That's a lot of Jägermeister. Chuck: And the Internet bubble ended up bursting in like the 2000, 2001 and all that money like dried up overnight. So I was like okay now what? So I had to figure out how to pivot and myself and two other guys; we had different businesses. We all pooled together and started a membership site. The first month with our membership site we made like 60 grand. It was just like mind-blowing like oh my God we're in college. I didn't have keggers I had like full bottle; like full bar parties. Joe: Everybody wanted to be your friend, right? Chuck: It was fun and we'd stay at like the Ritz Carlton for Mardi Gras and like just do crazy things. We rented like a ski chalet; it was like a 15 bedroom house on the slopes and I forget where it was bit we then brought all of like; we had affiliates at the time, all our affiliates to come and ski with us and so we had a great time. And at some point, I was making a lot of money and I didn't really know what to do with it all. I was definitely wasting my fair share of it. Actually kind of going back, my mom, the whole thing with her telling me I shouldn't start the business and this and that in 2003 I think it was about my mom and sister cars for Christmas. Joe: I wrote that down when you said it because I knew that. You told me the story about Christmas and your mom went outside and there was a big ribbon on a brand new car. I guess she's happy you bought that domain name, after all, isn't she? Chuck: Yeah. Yeah for sure and I do not usually tell that story so maybe we'll have to edit that out. Joe: No. No editing. Tell the story. Chuck: I made two giant boxes and I had my mom like a box of some keys and she sees them and it had Lincoln in it which I had a navigator at the time and she's like oh it's a scavenger hunt he put his keys in here and she walks outside and sees this giant box and just like; my mom doesn't curse and she goes oh shit and she runs outside gets ready to tear into the box. And I said wait, mom, hold on hold on there's a card on there you've taught me better; open the card. And so she opens it and it says to my sister and my mom is like inaudible[00:12:57.1] my mom's like…well my sister is like to me? And again I wiggle the keys in front of my sister's face and she's like what?! So she runs and dives in and my mom looks at me like what this like WTF and I'm like you're over there. Then she starts walking and then sees it like buried on the other side of the house in a big box and like runs over and dives in. We're in Georgia at that time at a family house and it was cold and she didn't have shoes on. It was a great time. I've got the video. One day I'll have to share with somebody but I don't know that I want to share it. Joe: What a great experience and a great thing to do for your mother and your sister did. Did your mother get the nicer car or was it equal to both? Chuck: I was actually going to buy them the exact same car and then I was talking to my sister trying to like make sure that it was the kind of she would want and I said well what do you think Mom would like? And she said well my favorite car is a Sequoia and I ended up; my mom a Lincoln Aviator and my mom's Sequoia. They're about the same price. I think my sister was a little more but I did get some grief about that. Also the night before or a couple of nights before we went to Walmart and I bought every single piece of cheesy add on part you could get and added it to the car. So I got like a fuzzy steering wheel cover, dice, a little light-up things that go on the rims, and just totally like made the car look as ridiculous as possible and told them in order to get it they'd have to drive it with that stuff on it. Joe: That's hilarious. So for anybody that's listening instead of watching if you look at my chin and Chuck's chin you'll see some gray; there're probably a little more on mine than his of course. His is more his cheek mine's dead on center of my chin that's because of age and life experience. So you had some amazing times Chuck out of college making more money in a month than most people in this country do in a year; all web-based business experience. It's not always wonderful though. Chuck: No, absolutely not. Yeah, entrepreneurship is ups and downs. We've gotten hit by Google so many times I couldn't even tell you. And most of them were just algorithmic. But I have on one of my big businesses, we had about 12 that were all doing the same thing and one of my partners had used the same email address in our Webmaster Tools account and somebody from the spam team I guess noticed and went in and just manually penalized all of our businesses. I think except for two because those were the only two that didn't have those email addresses. And just overnight it's like poof gone and it's just like oh it's heartbreaking. At least when it's the algorithmic type of penalties it's easy to kind of; well maybe not easy but you're going to recover from that. The manual penalties, we hired somebody who used to work in the spam team. They told us what to do. We did it. We just haven't been able to recover from that on those other sites. Joe: Yeah I know it's always hard. Google algorithm updates I think are getting a little better, a little easier to handle and manage I think ultimately. I always used to say this actually if you do the right thing the way Google tells you to do it, ultimately it's not going to hurt you; the algorithm updates. And I guarantee there are people out there shaking their head no right now because a good friend of mine, he built a great business, a great, great content site, and sold it and there was a an update recently. And the buyer, another great entrepreneur bought it and did have some negative impact. What they both know is that sometimes when Google casts a wide net some of the wrong sites get caught up in it and over time that does get corrected but it does sting initially, doesn't it? Chuck: Yeah. And I will say like the reason we got caught up in a lot of the updates wasn't because we were doing the things that Google tells you to do. We were gaining the system and we deservedly got caught for doing those things and we would adjust our technique and then regain. So like one of our sites had like 100,000 pieces of unique content that we were in Google index for like 30 million pages. Joe: Wow. Chuck: So like how does one do that? Joe: How does one do that? Good Lord. Chuck: Trickery. Joe: Well the grey in your chin has matured you to the point that I think you're beyond the trickery because you look at the long term cash flow and benefits of owning an online business now it's not just a quick cash anymore. At least that's the way I look at it; you too? Chuck: Yeah, absolutely. And you're talking about like the algorithm updates and I feel like there's been so many and that most of the really garbage sites have probably gotten taken out by now. I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong but now it's more of like just tweaking the knobs a little bit. So unless you're in one of these like fringe business models I tend to believe and I could be 100% wrong but I tend to believe that most of the major algorithm updates have been already done and then now they're going after I guess like medical websites and things like that. Joe: Yeah. The updates are far further I'm sure in between and in many cases not as severe. Alright so I'm going to throw a question at you. I don't know if I told you this story or not or if you've heard it. Some of the audience members might have heard it so I'm going to just test your algorithm update knowledge. And if you answer within two seconds then I know you heard the story. So I bought a business, I sold my business in November 2010; yada, yada, yada. People have heard this a million times, or at least tens of hundreds of thousands of times if they've listened to every episode and keep downloading everything. No we haven't done 100,000 episodes that's totally inaccurate. I can't do math by the way apparently. Alright so I bought a content site. I sold a great site. The content was amazing. And then I bought a piece of junk. I had 42 amazing days. I bought it March 1st, 2012. I had maybe 3 or 4 keywords on the first page of Google and then boom they fell to the bottom of page 1 and then page 2 and they were gone and I lost over a quarter-million dollars in the course of twelve months. What happened? What algorithm update was that? It was; again I bought it March 1st, 2012; I had forty-two amazing days. Chuck: Panda. Penguin. Joe: Penguin. Alright, you're close. We're going to have to throw that quiz out there. Everybody in the audience wouldn't throw that quiz out there for a price. Chuck's wearing a beautiful Quiet Like Brokerage…is that a polo shirt? Chuck: Yeah. Joe: We need to get some of those packaged up and give away prizes for that kind of stuff. Alright let's jump on to your Quiet Light Brokerage life; your entrepreneurial life, amazing ups and downs, a lot of great ups and you did some good things for family and friends. The downs, we learn from them and we try to take those lessons and make sure that we are really bringing great listings to market so the buyers are making good safe investments and the sellers of those investments can move on with peace of mind to their next adventures whether that's another business or retirement. In your history of transactions here at Quiet Light, is there any particular niche that you gravitate towards and enjoy more than another because as you said a ton of content and affiliate experience, but I think some of your larger deals have been physical product e-commerce sites. But is there anything that stands out for you? Chuck: Yeah I mean so my heart is in like membership sites. I love recurring revenue. I think everybody does and that's why the multiples are higher because of that recurring revenue and the predictability. So I would say that that's kind of where I'd like to be but my biggest sales have been around physical products inaudible[00:20:53.3] an outdoor sporting equipment one that was great. One that I really love that I sold like six months ago was a company that did custom-tailored suits. That thing it's like awesome. Who doesn't want to say they have a business that sells custom-tailored suits? Like it's just; I think it's got the cool factor. Joe: That's the amazing thing about what you do and what we do at Quiet Light is that we come to this role with a lifetime of experience that; I was talking with Walker and Brad about this recently that we didn't know it but all of our entrepreneurial life was preparing us for this role. And now we get to experience so many cool different business models. You come to this role with a ton of membership experience but custom-tailored suits and you're like that's the coolest thing. Who doesn't want to say they own a custom-tailored suit business? I need to buy a custom-tailored suit. I know who bought it and I can reach out to him. I know who he is too. Speaking of that I do want to ask a random question although its timing is not very random and you have to answer this. There's only one answer to this. This buyer listens to the podcast and he comments and he tells us about us sometimes when he's riding his bike. So do you have a favorite audience member that also happens to be a buyer? Yes or no? You have to say yes and you have to say his name now because he's a… Chuck: Sure. Mike Nuñez. Joe: There you go; Mike Nuñez, this is just a shout out to you. Thanks for listening Mike. Chuck: Well I'll tell you it shouldn't just be a shout out to him. If anybody wants to know how to be a good buyer and how to buy businesses they should talk to Mike Nuñez because he is 100% the absolute best buyer I have. And not like just in a sense of like the actual acquisition of the company. When he gets on a phone call and talks to the sellers he makes them feel like they are the only person in the world; the most important person like he's just so smooth and he's not doing it as like a ploy or a gimmick. He's just a nice guy and he really appreciates these people and the businesses they've created. And it's just he's really good on a call. Joe: It's the unknown secret that we tell all the time to buyers. Look, when it's a great business it's a great opportunity. There are going to be multiple buyers. And it's not always the most money or the most cash that gets the letter of intent. In some cases, it's the buyer that the seller likes the most. And being likable on those conference calls is critically important. Mike does it very well. Chuck: And one of my businesses; actually I think two of them that Mike purchased, the sellers actually said like I want to sell to him. Make him buy this. It doesn't matter; I mean within reason, right? The price; but they were willing to take less than somebody else because they liked him so much. Joe: Oh boy. Now if Mike's listening and he paid full price now he's going to be like inaudible[00:23:49.1]. Chuck: That is the problem because of course I did make him pay more than the other people but they were willing to take less. And what's funny is one of my sellers told him as much oh like I would have taken less from you and I'm like don't say that to him. Joe: In his heart, he was willing to take less but his checkbook and his head was willing to take the highest bidder as long as it was Mike Nunez. That's the key. In your experience both as an entrepreneur and as an adviser here at Quiet Light you've seen a lot of businesses that have come up for first they reach out to us for a valuation, they start thinking about an exit sometimes the day before they want to exit, sometimes months or a year or so in advance. What do you see being the biggest thing; most consistent thing that those particular entrepreneurs do wrong time and time again that there's just if there's one thing you could just like shout into the microphone right now to everyone listening even though some of them are doing it right, what are the majority of folks not doing that that you want them to do to bring more value to their business? Chuck: Silence question. Joe: Yeah it was a long one. I kept rambling on in my sentences because I could see you thinking. Chuck: Yeah. Joe: Maybe I should have asked a little more. Chuck: What's weird about at Quiet Light is we actually get so many great businesses to sell. People bring us quality things. So what are some of the bad things people do? Joe: Let me just get some stats behind that though; because it's true what we bring to market, it's great stuff. But the reality is Chuck if you look at my numbers I've closed 105, 106 transactions in seven years. People say well that's not very many but in order to close those transactions; I've ballparked the math and I've talked to 2,500 entrepreneurs. That's 2,500 valuation calls. Your stats are similar. What is that consistent theme that if you could speak to somebody that someday may sell their business what should they be doing? Chuck: Sure. So when we talk about like specific like product-level things like when people are just selling random shots keys that aren't unique in any way; those are really difficult to sell. When you have an actual unique product that's got some sort of a brand to it that's not easily knock off-able that there's a moat around it like that makes it so much more desirable to people and so much more valuable. One of the things I also see probably is just P & L's; having clean P & L's. Oftentimes people's profit and loss statements are just a complete mess. They'll lump, they want to save; I was just thinking about a specific one, but you see people are just lumping things in because they know they had a cost but they don't really know when it was or where it was and they just kind of guesstimate things and put them in the wrong ones. So then you'll see like really lumpy P & L's. And we always try to work with people to flatten those out and figure out where the real costs are. So that often takes a lot of time to just figure out what the true P & L is on a business. And for doing add backs; what's a real add back? We fight with people a lot on what's a real add back versus something they think they should be adding back. Joe: Yeah I want to just step in and shout out that there's no question I think that preparing your business for sale is the number one thing that people don't do. They decide to sell as I say instead of planning to sell. That means they work their tail off. They launch this business. They work like crazy against all odds. They succeed. And it's producing solid revenue and profit for them. And they just burn the candle at both ends and then the candle starts to burn out. And they're emotionally tired, they're frustrated, they're exhausted, and they wake up one morning I'm just not into this. I'm going to sell. I didn't know I could sell but it just occurred to me. I'm done. I'm calling Chuck Mullins. And at that point because they're tired; because they're emotionally worn out they need to sell because trends will go down. They won't do the things that they need to do to keep the business growing and strong and in great shape for somebody else to take over. And so at that point you get those P & L's and you're like yeah Excel is not really accounting software. Ideally Quick Books and Xero or one of the other so that we can run a historical P & L and do year over year trend analysis and look at the metrics. All that is really hard and then there's the commingling. So I'm going to just mention a podcast; not ours, somebody else's. EcomCrewPodcast247. Chuck as you know I sold Mike Jackness' business ColorIt last spring. And Mike is a bright guy. Mike knew exactly what to do as most people in this audience do. They know what to do. And the mindset that Mike had was simply I'll get to it someday. What happens is you end up chasing too many rabbits and that someday comes when you get exhausted and in his case, he had four brands under one LLC and three of them were really not sellable at the time that we decide to list the business. So what does that do? You've got four brands all in one LLC, tax returns commingled, and you're only selling one brand. What does that eliminate? Chuck: SBA financing. Joe: SBA financing; exactly. Is it required to get an SBA loan? No it's not to sell a business; absolutely not. We sold multimillion-dollar businesses without an SBA loan. But what it does do is it casts a broader net; buyers. And even some of those buyers; I've had it. Have you had buyers that have more than enough money to stroke a check for a multi-million dollar business but they use SBA? Chuck: Absolutely why not leverage if you can? Joe: Yeah, so that's I'd say number one. I'm in total agreement on the documentation. We always talk about that the risk, growth, transferability, and documentation; gets your numbers right, get those P & L's in great shape and it's going to help you learn about your business and set goals and then that passion may get reignited and you may do more in the business and grow it and have a bigger exit someday down the road. It's not that I don't love it when somebody calls me and says I'd like a valuation and part of that is okay, what's your timeframe, when are you ready to sell, right now. Not that I don't mind that; I love that if everything's in great shape. It's just tougher to sell it when it's not. They get a lower value, right? Chuck: Yup, absolutely. Having those four pillars and the clean books it makes a big difference. Joe: It really does. I think I'm in total agreement. Buyers or sellers of businesses, get your documents in great shape. The best way to do that, just call, email inquiries@QuietLightBrokerage.com, Chuck@QuietLightBrokerage.com. Reach out. It's a service that we provide. I mean what do we do Chuck? We help, help, help, and then keep helping, right? Chuck: Build value. Joe: Build the value. It's my; I've got a mentor that I talked to long and hard about all my business opportunities and in this particular one as we chatted about the model and what we do here at Quiet Light he's like well it just sounds like you're giving away all your knowledge for free in hopes that maybe they'll work with you. And I' like that's exactly right. We help first and we're entrepreneurs so there are times that we wish we got good advice and we were too young to listen or there was nobody around to talk to about it. And now we share that when it comes to business values and planning an exit. The number one thing you can do is just reach out to somebody. It's free. Talk to Chuck, he's got a ton of experience. Chuck: I'll tell you kind of in my entrepreneurial days if I wasn't going to be an entrepreneur I always wanted to be a consultant and help other people. And I never had like the actual desire to go out and build a portfolio and charge people to help them grow their business. But like you said I've been do this since '96. I've met so many businesses; a lot of focus on optimization and SEO and just so many things. And one of the things I actually like about is giving unsolicited advice. So when I'm on all these valuation calls I'm constantly asking people like oh have you tried this, have you thought about this? So even if they're not ready to sell I'm often giving people advice on how to increase their business. And even when I do have listings like I think of one and particularly like I give him so many ideas and then he did those and the business just kept growing. That actually came to bite me because the business grew so much that we ended up pulling it off the market after getting multiple full-price offers because it just had grown so much and he wanted to just wait a little bit and we're going to actually getting ready to relist that here soon. Joe: It's a good problem, right? I mean I've been in situations that you say it bit you but ultimately this is a long term play for us; it's building relationships and that person respects and appreciates you obviously because he's coming back for some of your entrepreneurial life experience and it's benefited them financially. It's going to grow the business and ultimately they're going to get a bigger value and tell people about what you did. So that was a little bit more about the sellers and the things that they can do and then number one I think we both agree, plan that exit; call somebody, e-mail somebody, get a valuation. It's not going to hurt. What about buyers; biggest mistakes that buyers can make? Chuck: Disrespecting somebody's business. So getting on a call and like; I'm trying to think of a of a PC term that I could use that's not a profanity, just talking smack about somebody's business, trying to negotiate them down in price, and like trash-talking the business. That doesn't work. At least not at this size but maybe it works when you're dealing with a couple hundred million dollar business or something. I don't know. But at these levels, people care about their businesses at least the ones we sell. Inaudible[00:33:38.9] and when you talk smack like… Joe: It's personal even at the 15 to 20 million mark. Mark just closed one just under 15 million. It's owned by an individual. When you're talking about a hundred million, yes somebody is up there at the top like their shareholders and the CEOs and COOs and all that and big-time attorneys are in there negotiating. It's not you're talking to the guy across the table that actually built it and owns it for the most part, right? So he cares about it. Chuck: He worries about it like he's had the baby. I mean you wouldn't believe how many people I've talked to; sellers that cry on the phone about their business like it happens a lot. People are deeply invested emotionally in their business. When somebody comes in and disrespects it for no reason other than they're trying to negotiate, it doesn't go well. You need to be nice. That's what Mike does so well. And I want to keep talking about Mike. Well like… Joe: Should we talk about Walker again? Chuck: He's about people and he's nice. Joe: Let's talk about Walker again then. Actually you're absolutely right. I remember being at the Rhodium Weekend Conference before you were a member of the team here at Quiet Light. Now he's up presenting and talking and I could swear in that environment and I used the word that begins with an A and ends with an E; figure it out, folks. Everybody's got one. And what's the secret to being a great buyer? And I said don't be one; as simple as that. I can see you out there in the audience shaking your head up and down. And that's exactly right. Mike is very nice, very kind. When I sold my business I had people that were well I remember one, in particular, ripping my business to shreds on a conference call; initial call and I'm like why am I even talking to this guy. I'm not selling it to him even if he gives me an offer over asking. And then, strangely enough, the last call, the person that ended up buying my business first thing he said is thanks for creating such a great site. Your products have helped people exactly like me. By the way I took stuff like this and I ran the Boston Marathon actually the Chicago Marathon last month and it's because of products like yours and I said cool. It was actually a really short call; 20-minute call. I didn't ask any great questions I had going on. That was really nice but I don't see he's buying my business and he almost; he bought it almost full price offer. Chuck: I'll tell you what you just mentioned something that is often overlooked. When you get on these calls don't just wing it; do some research, educate yourself before the call, and ask the right questions. It's so important. So many times I get on a call and the seller or the buyer doesn't ask any decent questions and the seller just writes them off and says let's not take any more calls from that person. They weren't serious. So make sure that you understand the business and you're asking good questions that a good buyer would ask, right? Joe: Yeah. They don't have to be the most intelligent questions the seller has ever heard but that you've done your research and you care. I mean yeah Chuck you put there together a great package and all the great questions are in there. They just have to dig into them and digest it a little bit and ask the same question in their voice and see if you get the same or similar answer from the client on it. I think that's great. I think you're absolutely right. Too many times there has been a few buyers that they're not prepared for. You can hear them walking down the street getting in the car and it just feels like a complete and utter waste of everyone's time including the person who's making the call and asking the questions. Okay, is there anything else; before we wrap up is there anything else you'd like to say about Walker Diebel? Chuck: Visit WalkerDiebel.guru to check out his new book that's coming out in a couple of months. Joe: Let's do this; actually everybody do is too. Go to IMDB and look up Walker Diebel the actor and watch some of the movies he's been in. Add a review, let's see if we can boost that one-star rating up to one and a half. Chuck: Inaudible[00:37:37.6] tomatoes maybe. Joe: Alright Chuck, you're a good man. I appreciate you coming on. We'll wrap it up here with time. Any last thoughts for anybody out there thinking about selling their business or buying one; any last pearls of wisdom and I know I didn't prepare you but any last-minute pearls of wisdom? Chuck: Yeah. I would just say that reach out early. We're not here to be high pressure as far as trying to sign you to sell your business. We're here to lead with value. We're going to offer some hopefully some wisdom that's going to help you sell that business in the future. So don't think that like oh I don't want to reach out because I'm not going to sell it for six months or a year. Talk to us now. Let us help you get the business in shape to sell it later. Joe: Great advice. That's Chuck Mullins folks. We will be back in the next podcast. See you soon. Thanks, Chuck. Chuck: Bye-bye. Thanks.   Links and Resources: Chuck Mullins Chuck's LinkedIn Walker Deibel's IMDB

Dr. Chuck and Suzanne Lynn share the results of a recent study by the United Concordia Dental insurance company that shows how patients who take care of their teeth save thousands of dollars in annual medical costs and see a significant reduction in annual hospitalizations versus those who do not. Here is a link to the study. TRANSCRIPT: Dr.Chuck – Hi, I’m Dr. Chuck, welcome to Your Filthy Mouth. The dollars and sense of medical care. Insurance companies want you to stay healthy. Does anybody else? Stay tuned. Narrator – Your smile is beautiful and possibly deadly. Dr. Chuck is here to tell you how your mouth can hold the key to your overall health. Now, about that filthy mouth of yours. Suzanne – Hi, welcome to Your Filthy Mouth. I’m Suzanne Lynn with Dr. Chuck. And, Dr. Chuck, your intro really has my mind going here. First of all, why wouldn’t anybody want you to be healthy? Dr.Chuck – There’s a television commercial on right now from, I think Allstate has it. And there’s a gentleman sitting on a chair in the middle of the road and he says, “The facts are, all auto insurance companies “want you to drive safely, they don’t want accidents.” Well, why is that? The more premiums you pay and the less claims they have to pay, the more money they’re gonna make. Suzanne – Okay. Dr.Chuck – Makes good sense. Is the same thing true with medical insurance companies? Absolutely, medical insurance companies want you to stay healthy. In fact, one of the things we’ll be looking at today, this is from United Concordia Dental, the white paper’s called “The Mouth: The Missing Piece “to Overall Wellness and Lower Medical Costs.” Suzanne – Okay. Dr.Chuck – So do medical insurance wants you to be healthy? Absolutely, again, they’ll make more money. Suzanne – Well, you can’t get money, you can’t get premiums from dead people, right? Dr.Chuck – Well, yeah, and you’re gonna pay a lot less, you’re gonna make a lot less money as an insurance company if you’re paying out a lot of claims. Suzanne – I got you. Dr.Chuck – So the healthier you are, the more money they’re gonna save because you’re staying out of the hospital. Suzanne – Okay, that leads me to the question of who wouldn’t want you to be healthy, then? Dr.Chuck – Well, let’s see, who stands to make money if you stay unhealthy? And I know this is almost cynical on this thing. But when we start looking at it, do hospitals want you to be healthy? I think good hospitals want you to be healthy. I think caring doctors, we have a lot of caring doctors out there, we have caring hospitals, they want you to be healthy. And then we have others might have another motive on that. And when you think about it, our last episode that we talked about, why don’t hospitals have dentists? Because according to this study, there’s an awful lot of illness in the body that is caused from problems in the mouth. And these are problems that we can do something about. My thing is I can’t focus on things that we can’t do anything about. I don’t know how to do anything about pancreatic cancer. It’s horrible. 50,000 people a year die from pancreatic cancer. About 600,000 people a year die from heart attacks. And, according to the researchers, about 50% of those are caused by oral infections, we can do something about oral infections. And there’s something that the patient can do, there’s something the physician can do, and there’s something the dentist can do to really decrease oral infections in our population. Suzanne – So when you mentioned the hospital, unlike insurance, we’re not paying premiums to the hospital, they’re getting paid upon seeing people, fixing people, caring people, you know? Dr.Chuck – Well, that’s how they make money, you know? And they get their money mostly from the insurance companies, some from private pay, but the majority of hospital payments come from insurance companies. If you look at, this is again from United Concordia, the link with coronary artery disease. And by the way, this information is on the website, we’ve got a PDF that you can download, you can look, we got links, so you can look at all of it yourself and go over with a fine tooth comb, see what they have to say. But with coronary artery disease, if you will take care of your dental situation, they show that your medical situation, your annual medical costs, go down a little over $1,000. But your hospital admissions go down 28.6%. Suzanne – Wow, that’s incredible! Dr.Chuck – That’s a lot. Just by having a healthy mouth. Now that’s with coronary artery disease. Suzanne – So we could kind of do, when we call this dollar and sense, it doesn’t have to be S-E-N-S-E, it’s also C. Dr.Chuck – C-E-N-T-S, yes, Big cents. Suzanne – Yeah. Dr.Chuck – So cerebral vascular disease, if you take care of your dental needs, your medical needs go down $5,681 and your hospital admissions go down 21.2% Suzanne – Wow! Dr.Chuck – This was on my research. They’ve got, the nice thing about these hospital, these insurance companies is you’ve got hundreds of thousands of dental insured, you have hundreds of thousands of medical insured. You can compare the two and you can see if these take care of their dental needs, what happens to their medical needs? And that’s what this paper has to show. Suzanne – And right now, so far the stats you’ve shared is one out of four can not be going to the hospital. Dr.Chuck – Not be going to the hospital, that’s right. Diabetes, we have a diabetic challenge in our country right now and it’s only getting worse. If we look at diabetes, if you take care of your dental situation, your annual medical expenses go down about $2,800. But the hospital admissions go down 39.4%. That’s huge. Suzanne – Yeah, I mean, they truly they have no reason to skew these numbers. I mean, this truly is. They are comparing the medical front with the insurance. Dr.Chuck – They want you to be healthy. Again, realize the insurance company wants you to be healthy. And also on, if I can turn the page here, the outpatient drug costs for diabetic patients goes down to about $1,477. Again, so your outpatient costs decreased by taking care of your oral situation. Pregnant women, oh my gosh, your annual medical costs with a healthy mouth go down $2,433 on average. Suzanne – Wow! Dr.Chuck – So we looked– That’s a lot of diapers. and a lot of baby care that you can buy with that. Suzanne – It’s an awful lot. Dr.Chuck – It is. Suzanne – So again, the insurance company has the motivation to keep you well, to keep you healthy. Just like the auto insurance, they have motivation for you not to be in an accident, they want you not to be in an accident, medical insurance companies want you not to get sick. I don’t understand why more physicians aren’t pushing oral health with their patients. Now, there are some excellent physicians that really do this but they’re hard to find. Dr.Chuck – Right, right, right. And that’s the whole purpose we’re doing this is to try to connect the dots between oral care and the rest of your body. I’m having a hard time going back to the fact because in hospitals, there are doctors don’t they take an oath to? Dr.Chuck – Part of the Hippocratic Oath actually says if they come across something that they don’t know how to treat, they will seek the advice of someone who does know how to treat it. Well, if you’re not even looking for it, how do you know what’s going on? So this is why so many dental infections have absolute, I had a new patient this week. Nice guy, we did an oral exam on him, four abscesses four dental abscess going on inside of his jaw. Not one bit of pain from any of ’em, we’re showing them on the X-ray, you can see exactly what’s going, he has no idea these are going on. Now had we not done the examination, he would not know that they’re going on. But remember, and it’s not rocket science, every infection in your body, I don’t care if it’s in your hand, foot or your mouth, every infection produces pus. And that pus is being dumped right into your bloodstream, goes through, makes its way to the heart, to the lungs, back to the heart, and is pumped everywhere in your whole body. Is that healthy? I mean, again, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that’s not okay. Suzanne – Right, a simple dentist in a hospital, is what you’re saying? Dr.Chuck – Yeah, it’s– Dr.Chuck – I mean, an oral department would be ideal. But could we just please get a dentist in there until? Dr.Chuck – Well, at least diagnose that there’s an oral issue there, it could be gum disease, it could be dental infections, it could be an airway issue, it could be the bite, there are different things that can cause different problems within the the body. The hospital doesn’t have to be the one to fix it. But it would be nice if they would at least inform the patient, “Hey, you’ve got periodontal disease. “There’s a real good chance that that has “something to do with your cardiovascular disease. “Why don’t you go back to your dentist “and get that taken care of?” And that’s just not being done yet. Yet, they say that it takes 20 years, we’ve mentioned this before, 20 years before something that’s actually proven to be true with medical research, before it’s implemented into everyday care. Well, it was 19 years ago that the US Surgeon General wrote a large report on oral health in America that basically says you cannot have a healthy body with an unhealthy mouth, you need a healthy mouth. I’m looking forward to 2020 ’cause that’ll be 20 years. So we just got a few more months until this is gonna be widespread, maybe. Suzanne – Well, one of the ways that’s gonna help is people who are watching Your Filthy Mouth, sharing that with your dentist, having them speak up and not be afraid. Dr.Chuck – Yeah, this is not about us. This is this is about you. This is about your family. When one person has a stroke, it doesn’t affect just that one person, it affects their entire family. Suzanne – Amen. Dr.Chuck – When one person has a heart attack, it doesn’t affect just that one person, it affects their entire family. So we when we look at the 300,000 people that have deaths that could have been caused from oral infections, how many million people have that really affected in a negative way? Suzanne – Right, right. All right, well, we’re gonna come back with a question of the week and Joe’s got a good one. Hang on. Narrator – Here’s Dr. Chuck’s Question of the week. Joe – This is Joe. I wanna know if there’s a problem with using mouthwash several times a day? Suzanne – That is a good question. First of all, Joe, we’re gonna be sending you one of the Your Filthy Mouth mugs. I have to say that slow because it comes out your filthy mug mouth, if I say it too fast, but thank you for your question. Yeah, if you send your question in and we use it, you will get one also. But the question, just asked me about multiple times using mouthwash tells me that he’s maybe trying to cover something up, maybe he has bad breath. But is there a harm in that? Dr.Chuck – A lot of times that’s what’s going on. Most bad breath is caused from periodontal disease, gum disease, and so if you can clean up the gum disease, the bad breath goes away. But a lot of people have the idea that if we use the right mouthwash or mouth rinse, I’m not gonna have any more cavities and my gums are gonna be better. And that’s just really not true. You’ve got to get in there and you’ve got to clean your teeth, you’ve got to just spend that five to seven minutes, at least one time a day doing a proper job getting the bacteria off of your teeth, the mouth rinse isn’t gonna take care of that. Now, they’ve shown that about 26% of the bacteria in your mouth are on your teeth and the rest of the bacteria on your tongue and your gums, all around there. So, you know, yes, do mouth rinses help? Yeah, but you can’t rely on them to kill all of the bad bacteria. You have to still get in there and remove the bacteria off your teeth. Suzanne – Despite what the TV ads show, that that’s the magic cure. Dr.Chuck – Well, I don’t think there’s a magic bullet when it comes to oral health care. Yeah, other than doing the right things, eating less sugar, boy, that’s a big thing, and less carbohydrates. I mean, the bacteria can utilize the sugar, turn it into acid, utilize the carbohydrates, turn it into acid, and this acid gets into the teeth, it demineralizes the tooth, causes cavities, affects the gums. So, yeah, our diet, four things we need to be healthy. Number one is what we eat. Suzanne – Okay. Dr.Chuck – Okay, that does play a role. Number two, little bit of exercise. Doesn’t mean you have to pump iron, but you gotta get that body moving. Number three, a healthy mouth. That doesn’t mean a Hollywood smile. You don’t need a Hollywood smile to have a healthy mouth. But you need a healthy mouth and have a healthy heart. Okay, and the last thing is your attitude. Attitude does play a big role in our overall health. So those are four things. And by the way, all four are affordable. Suzanne – And we have control over ’em. Dr.Chuck – Absolutely. Suzanne – All right, Joe, good question. All right, well, let’s go back to talking about the topic today, is about dollars and sense of good oral health care. And before we started filming you shared a sample of, ’cause I can’t understand the idea of people not wanting to do the very best for someone that’s possible. You know, we’re talking about maybe in the hospitals if they can’t cure it or they can’t fix it, they don’t want to diagnose it or something like that. Dr.Chuck – Well, there a lot of examples in history where someone has come up with a real good idea and that idea has been squashed simply because finances, money. If you think back, there was an automobile, I think was called the Tucker, back in the ’50s, that it had a lot of advances. It had headlights that turned when you turned the wheel. It had– Suzanne – Genius! Dr.Chuck – But yeah, special. Well, that that automobile was eaten up by the big three, by Ford, GM, and Chrysler. And so we look at some other things, if you wanna look at when you get in, you know, a little bit out on a limb here, we’ll talk about Tesla. And he had all kinds of information on how we could have electricity for everybody for free. And soon after his death, all of his papers disappeared. And so you know, there’s a lot of things, you know, what’s the real motivation? So it doesn’t matter what someone else’s motivation is as long as your motivation is proper. And if you can be motivated to take care of your mouth and keep it good and healthy, oh, my gosh, the problems that you can avoid. There are other issues. The mouth isn’t the only thing, you know, and I’m not the expert. We are the messenger. And that’s the message we’re trying to get across to you. Suzanne – So the overall message of today’s show is there is a huge facts, like you said, we can show this on yourfilthymouth.com, to download this white paper, correlation between taking care of your mouth and saving a lot of money. Not just a little bit. Dr.Chuck – A lot, yeah. The insurance company wants you to be healthy. They really do. Suzanne – That’s good to know. Dr.Chuck – Yeah, they may have an ulterior motive other than your health, they make more money, and that’s okay. But at least they want you to be healthy. And we have to make sure what is the motivation of all of our health care providers? Do they wanna treat the symptoms? Do they want to get to the source? And that’s the question between every health care provider and their patients. Suzanne – Awesome, Dr. Chuck, thank you so much, great show today, thank you. Dr.Chuck – Oh, thank you. Narrator – This has been Your Filthy Mouth, a weekly podcast about how what happens in your mouth affects the rest of your body. This is important information, so please share it with your friends. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button on YouTube, iTunes, and all the other podcast sites. And drop by yourfilthymouth.com to ask Dr. Chuck a question or find dozens of links to information about oral systemic health. We’ll talk to you next week.

Panel: Charles Max Woods Special Guests: Donovan Brown In this episode, the Charles speaks with Donovan Brown. He is a principal DevOps Manager with Microsoft with a background in application development. He also runs one of the nation’s fastest growing online registration sites for motorsports events DLBRACING.com. When he is not writing software, he races cars for fun. Listen to today’s episode where Chuck and Donovan talk about DevOps, Azure, Python, Angular, React, Vue, and much, much more! Show Topics: 1:41 – Chuck: The philosophies around DevOps. Just to give you an idea, I have been thinking about what I want to do with the podcasts. Freedom to work on what we want or freedom to work where we want, etc. Then that goes into things we don’t want to do, like fix bugs, etc. How does Microsoft DevOps to choose what they want to do? 2:37 – Guest: We want to automate as much as we can so the developer has less work. As a developer I want to commit code, do another task, rinse and repeating. Minutes and not even hours later then people are tweeting about the next best thing. Do what you want, where you want. Code any language you want. 4:15 – Chuck: What has changed? 4:19 – Guest: The branding changed. The name wasn’t the most favorite among the people. The word “visual” was a concerned. What we have noticed that Azure will let me run my code no matter where I am. If you want to run Python or others it can run in Azure. People didn’t need all of it. It comes with depositories, project management, and so much more! People could feel clumsy because there is so much stuff. We can streamline that now, and you can turn off that feature so you don’t have a heart attack. Maybe you are using us for some features not all of them – cool. 7:40 – Chuck: With deployments and other things – we don’t talk about the process for development a lot. 8:00 – Guest talks about the things that can help out with that. Guest: Our process is going to help guide you. We have that all built into the Azure tab feature. They feel and act differently. I tell all the people all the time that it’s brilliant stuff. There are 3 different templates. The templates actually change over the language. You don’t have to do mental math. 9:57 – Chuck: Just talking about the process. Which of these things we work on next when I’ve got a bug, or a ... 10:20 – Guest: The board system works like for example you have a bug. The steps to reproduce that bug, so that there is no question what go into this specific field. Let the anatomy of the feature do it itself! 11:54 – Chuck comments. 12:26 – Chuck: Back to the feature. Creating the user stories is a different process than X. 12:44 – Guest – You have a hierarchy then, right? Also what is really cool is we have case state management. I can click on this and I expect this to happen... These are actual tasks that I can run. 13:52 – Chuck: Once you have those tests written can you pull those into your CI? 14:00 – Guest: “Manual tests x0.” Guest dives into the question. 14:47 – I expect my team to write those test cases. The answer to your question is yes and no. We got so good at it that we found something that didn’t even exist, yet. 16:19 – Guest: As a developer it might be mind 16:29 – Chuck: I fixed this bug 4x, I wished I had CI to help me. 16:46 – Guest: You get a bug, then you fix a code, etc., etc. You don’t know that this original bug just came back. Fix it again. Am I in Groundhog Day? They are related to each other. You don’t have a unit test to tell you. When you get that very first bug – write a unit test. It will make you quicker at fixing it. A unit test you can write really fast over, and over, again. The test is passing. What do you do? Test it. Write the code to fix that unit test. You can see that how these relate to each other. That’s the beauty in it. 18:33 – Chuck: 90% of the unit tests I write – even 95% of the time they pass. It’s the 5% you would have no idea that it’s related. I can remember broad strokes of the code that I wrote, but 3 months down the road I can’t remember. 19:14 – Guest: If you are in a time crunch – I don’t have time for this unit test. Guest gives us a hypothetical situation to show how unit tests really can help. 20:25 – Make it muscle memory to unit test. I am a faster developer with the unit tests. 20:45 – Chuck: In the beginning it took forever. Now it’s just how I write software now. It guides my thought process. 21:06 – Guest: Yes! I agree. 22:00 – Guest: Don’t do the unit tests 22:10 – Chuck: Other place is when you write a new feature,...go through the process. Write unit tests for the things that you’ve touched. Expand your level of comfort. DevOps – we are talking about processes. Sounds like your DevOps is a flexible tool. Some people are looking for A METHOD. Like a business coach. Does Azure DevOps do that? 23:13 – Guest: Azure DevOps Projects. YoTeam. Note.js, Java and others are mentioned by the Guest. 25:00 – Code Badges’ Advertisement 25:48 – Chuck: I am curious – 2 test sweets for Angular or React or Vue. How does that work? 26:05 – Guest: So that is Jasmine or Mocha? So it really doesn’t matter. I’m a big fan of Mocha. It tests itself. I install local to my project alone – I can do it on any CI system in the world. YoTeam is not used in your pipeline. Install 2 parts – Yo and Generator – Team. Answer the questions and it’s awesome. I’ve done conferences in New Zealand. 28:37 – Chuck: Why would I go anywhere else? 28:44 – Guest: YoTeam  was the idea of... 28:57 – Check out Guest 29:02 – Guest: I want Donovan in a box. If I weren’t there then the show wouldn’t exist today. 29:40 – Chuck: Asks a question. 29:46 – Guest: 5 different verticals. Check out this timestamp to see what Donovan says the 5 different verticals are. Pipelines is 1 of the 5. 30:55 – Chuck: Yep – it works on my Mac. 31:04 – Guest: We also have Test Plant and Artifacts. 31:42 – Chuck: Can you resolve that on your developer machine? 31:46 – Guest: Yes, absolutely! There is my private repository and... 33:14 – Guest: *People not included in box.* 33:33 – Guest: It’s people driven. We guide you through the process. The value is the most important part and people is the hardest part, but once on 33:59 – Chuck: I am listening to this show and I want to try this out. I want a demo setup so I can show my boss. How do I show him that it works? 34:27 – Azure.com/devops – that is a great landing page. How can I get a demo going? You can say here is my account – and they can put a demo into your account. I would not do a demo that this is cool. We start you for free. Create an account. Let the CI be the proof. It’s your job to do this, because it will make you more efficient. You need me to be using these tools. 36:11 – Chuck comments. 36:17 – Guest: Say you are on a team of developers and love GitHub and things that integration is stupid, but how many people would disagree about... 38:02 – The reports prove it for themselves. 38:20 – Chuck: You can get started for free – so when do you have to start paying for it? 38:31 – Guest: Get 4 of your buddies and then need more people it’s $6 a month. 39:33 – Chuck adds in comments. If this is free? 39:43 – Guest goes into the details about plans and such for this tool.  40:17 – Chuck: How easy it is to migrate away from it? 40:22 – Guest: It’s GITHub. 40:30 – Chuck: People are looing data on their CI. 40:40 – Guest: You can comb that information there over the past 4 years but I don’t know if any system would let you export that history. 41:08 – Chuck: Yeah, you are right. 41:16 – Guest adds more into this topic. 41:25 – Chuck: Yeah it’s all into the machine. 41:38 – Chuck: Good deal. 41:43 – Guest: It’s like a drug. I would never leave it. I was using TFS before Microsoft. 42:08 – Chuck: Other question: continuous deployment. 42:56 – When I say every platform, I mean every platform: mobile devices, AWS, Azure, etc. Anything you can do from a command line you can do from our build and release system. PowerShell you don’t have to abandon it. 45:20 – Guest: I can’t remember what that tool is called! 45:33 – Guest: Anything you can do from a command line. Before firewall. Anything you want. 45:52 – Guest: I love my job because I get to help developers. 46:03 – Chuck: What do you think the biggest mistake people are doing? 46:12 – Guest: They are trying to do it all at once. Fix that one little thing. It’s instant value with no risks whatsoever. Go setup and it takes 15 minutes total. Now that we have this continuous build, now let’s go and deploy it. Don’t dream up what you think your pipeline should look like. Do one thing at a time. What hurts the most that it’s “buggy.” Let’s add that to the pipeline. It’s in your pipeline today, what hurts the most, and don’t do it all at once. 49:14 – Chuck: I thought you’d say: I don’t have the time. 49:25 – Guest: Say you work on it 15 minutes a day. 3 days in – 45 minutes in you have a CSI system that works forever. Yes I agree because people think they don’t “have the time.” 50:18 – Guest continues this conversation. How do you not have CI? Just install it – don’t ask. Just do the right thing. 50:40 – Chuck: I free-lanced and setup CI for my team. After a month, getting warned, we had a monitor up on the screen and it was either RED or GREEN. It was basically – hey this hurts and now we know. Either we are going to have pain or not have pain. 51:41 – Guest continues this conversation. Have pain – we should only have pain once or twice a year. Rollback. If you only have it every 6 months, that’s not too bad. The pain will motivate you. 52:40 – Azure.com/devops. Azure DevOps’ Twitter 53:22 – Picks! 53:30 – Advertisement – Get a Coder Job Links: Donovan Brown’s GitHub Donovan Brown’s Twitter Donovan Brown Donovan Brown – Channel 9 Donovan Brown – Microsoft Azure YoTeam Azure.com/devops GitHub Azure DevOps’ Twitter Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Charles Jet Blue Beta Testers Donovan YoTeam VSTeam Powershell Module

Panel: Charles Max Woods Special Guests: Donovan Brown In this episode, the Charles speaks with Donovan Brown. He is a principal DevOps Manager with Microsoft with a background in application development. He also runs one of the nation’s fastest growing online registration sites for motorsports events DLBRACING.com. When he is not writing software, he races cars for fun. Listen to today’s episode where Chuck and Donovan talk about DevOps, Azure, Python, Angular, React, Vue, and much, much more! Show Topics: 1:41 – Chuck: The philosophies around DevOps. Just to give you an idea, I have been thinking about what I want to do with the podcasts. Freedom to work on what we want or freedom to work where we want, etc. Then that goes into things we don’t want to do, like fix bugs, etc. How does Microsoft DevOps to choose what they want to do? 2:37 – Guest: We want to automate as much as we can so the developer has less work. As a developer I want to commit code, do another task, rinse and repeating. Minutes and not even hours later then people are tweeting about the next best thing. Do what you want, where you want. Code any language you want. 4:15 – Chuck: What has changed? 4:19 – Guest: The branding changed. The name wasn’t the most favorite among the people. The word “visual” was a concerned. What we have noticed that Azure will let me run my code no matter where I am. If you want to run Python or others it can run in Azure. People didn’t need all of it. It comes with depositories, project management, and so much more! People could feel clumsy because there is so much stuff. We can streamline that now, and you can turn off that feature so you don’t have a heart attack. Maybe you are using us for some features not all of them – cool. 7:40 – Chuck: With deployments and other things – we don’t talk about the process for development a lot. 8:00 – Guest talks about the things that can help out with that. Guest: Our process is going to help guide you. We have that all built into the Azure tab feature. They feel and act differently. I tell all the people all the time that it’s brilliant stuff. There are 3 different templates. The templates actually change over the language. You don’t have to do mental math. 9:57 – Chuck: Just talking about the process. Which of these things we work on next when I’ve got a bug, or a ... 10:20 – Guest: The board system works like for example you have a bug. The steps to reproduce that bug, so that there is no question what go into this specific field. Let the anatomy of the feature do it itself! 11:54 – Chuck comments. 12:26 – Chuck: Back to the feature. Creating the user stories is a different process than X. 12:44 – Guest – You have a hierarchy then, right? Also what is really cool is we have case state management. I can click on this and I expect this to happen... These are actual tasks that I can run. 13:52 – Chuck: Once you have those tests written can you pull those into your CI? 14:00 – Guest: “Manual tests x0.” Guest dives into the question. 14:47 – I expect my team to write those test cases. The answer to your question is yes and no. We got so good at it that we found something that didn’t even exist, yet. 16:19 – Guest: As a developer it might be mind 16:29 – Chuck: I fixed this bug 4x, I wished I had CI to help me. 16:46 – Guest: You get a bug, then you fix a code, etc., etc. You don’t know that this original bug just came back. Fix it again. Am I in Groundhog Day? They are related to each other. You don’t have a unit test to tell you. When you get that very first bug – write a unit test. It will make you quicker at fixing it. A unit test you can write really fast over, and over, again. The test is passing. What do you do? Test it. Write the code to fix that unit test. You can see that how these relate to each other. That’s the beauty in it. 18:33 – Chuck: 90% of the unit tests I write – even 95% of the time they pass. It’s the 5% you would have no idea that it’s related. I can remember broad strokes of the code that I wrote, but 3 months down the road I can’t remember. 19:14 – Guest: If you are in a time crunch – I don’t have time for this unit test. Guest gives us a hypothetical situation to show how unit tests really can help. 20:25 – Make it muscle memory to unit test. I am a faster developer with the unit tests. 20:45 – Chuck: In the beginning it took forever. Now it’s just how I write software now. It guides my thought process. 21:06 – Guest: Yes! I agree. 22:00 – Guest: Don’t do the unit tests 22:10 – Chuck: Other place is when you write a new feature,...go through the process. Write unit tests for the things that you’ve touched. Expand your level of comfort. DevOps – we are talking about processes. Sounds like your DevOps is a flexible tool. Some people are looking for A METHOD. Like a business coach. Does Azure DevOps do that? 23:13 – Guest: Azure DevOps Projects. YoTeam. Note.js, Java and others are mentioned by the Guest. 25:00 – Code Badges’ Advertisement 25:48 – Chuck: I am curious – 2 test sweets for Angular or React or Vue. How does that work? 26:05 – Guest: So that is Jasmine or Mocha? So it really doesn’t matter. I’m a big fan of Mocha. It tests itself. I install local to my project alone – I can do it on any CI system in the world. YoTeam is not used in your pipeline. Install 2 parts – Yo and Generator – Team. Answer the questions and it’s awesome. I’ve done conferences in New Zealand. 28:37 – Chuck: Why would I go anywhere else? 28:44 – Guest: YoTeam  was the idea of... 28:57 – Check out Guest 29:02 – Guest: I want Donovan in a box. If I weren’t there then the show wouldn’t exist today. 29:40 – Chuck: Asks a question. 29:46 – Guest: 5 different verticals. Check out this timestamp to see what Donovan says the 5 different verticals are. Pipelines is 1 of the 5. 30:55 – Chuck: Yep – it works on my Mac. 31:04 – Guest: We also have Test Plant and Artifacts. 31:42 – Chuck: Can you resolve that on your developer machine? 31:46 – Guest: Yes, absolutely! There is my private repository and... 33:14 – Guest: *People not included in box.* 33:33 – Guest: It’s people driven. We guide you through the process. The value is the most important part and people is the hardest part, but once on 33:59 – Chuck: I am listening to this show and I want to try this out. I want a demo setup so I can show my boss. How do I show him that it works? 34:27 – Azure.com/devops – that is a great landing page. How can I get a demo going? You can say here is my account – and they can put a demo into your account. I would not do a demo that this is cool. We start you for free. Create an account. Let the CI be the proof. It’s your job to do this, because it will make you more efficient. You need me to be using these tools. 36:11 – Chuck comments. 36:17 – Guest: Say you are on a team of developers and love GitHub and things that integration is stupid, but how many people would disagree about... 38:02 – The reports prove it for themselves. 38:20 – Chuck: You can get started for free – so when do you have to start paying for it? 38:31 – Guest: Get 4 of your buddies and then need more people it’s $6 a month. 39:33 – Chuck adds in comments. If this is free? 39:43 – Guest goes into the details about plans and such for this tool.  40:17 – Chuck: How easy it is to migrate away from it? 40:22 – Guest: It’s GITHub. 40:30 – Chuck: People are looing data on their CI. 40:40 – Guest: You can comb that information there over the past 4 years but I don’t know if any system would let you export that history. 41:08 – Chuck: Yeah, you are right. 41:16 – Guest adds more into this topic. 41:25 – Chuck: Yeah it’s all into the machine. 41:38 – Chuck: Good deal. 41:43 – Guest: It’s like a drug. I would never leave it. I was using TFS before Microsoft. 42:08 – Chuck: Other question: continuous deployment. 42:56 – When I say every platform, I mean every platform: mobile devices, AWS, Azure, etc. Anything you can do from a command line you can do from our build and release system. PowerShell you don’t have to abandon it. 45:20 – Guest: I can’t remember what that tool is called! 45:33 – Guest: Anything you can do from a command line. Before firewall. Anything you want. 45:52 – Guest: I love my job because I get to help developers. 46:03 – Chuck: What do you think the biggest mistake people are doing? 46:12 – Guest: They are trying to do it all at once. Fix that one little thing. It’s instant value with no risks whatsoever. Go setup and it takes 15 minutes total. Now that we have this continuous build, now let’s go and deploy it. Don’t dream up what you think your pipeline should look like. Do one thing at a time. What hurts the most that it’s “buggy.” Let’s add that to the pipeline. It’s in your pipeline today, what hurts the most, and don’t do it all at once. 49:14 – Chuck: I thought you’d say: I don’t have the time. 49:25 – Guest: Say you work on it 15 minutes a day. 3 days in – 45 minutes in you have a CSI system that works forever. Yes I agree because people think they don’t “have the time.” 50:18 – Guest continues this conversation. How do you not have CI? Just install it – don’t ask. Just do the right thing. 50:40 – Chuck: I free-lanced and setup CI for my team. After a month, getting warned, we had a monitor up on the screen and it was either RED or GREEN. It was basically – hey this hurts and now we know. Either we are going to have pain or not have pain. 51:41 – Guest continues this conversation. Have pain – we should only have pain once or twice a year. Rollback. If you only have it every 6 months, that’s not too bad. The pain will motivate you. 52:40 – Azure.com/devops. Azure DevOps’ Twitter 53:22 – Picks! 53:30 – Advertisement – Get a Coder Job Links: Donovan Brown’s GitHub Donovan Brown’s Twitter Donovan Brown Donovan Brown – Channel 9 Donovan Brown – Microsoft Azure YoTeam Azure.com/devops GitHub Azure DevOps’ Twitter Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Charles Jet Blue Beta Testers Donovan YoTeam VSTeam Powershell Module

Panel: Charles Max Woods Special Guests: Donovan Brown In this episode, the Charles speaks with Donovan Brown. He is a principal DevOps Manager with Microsoft with a background in application development. He also runs one of the nation’s fastest growing online registration sites for motorsports events DLBRACING.com. When he is not writing software, he races cars for fun. Listen to today’s episode where Chuck and Donovan talk about DevOps, Azure, Python, Angular, React, Vue, and much, much more! Show Topics: 1:41 – Chuck: The philosophies around DevOps. Just to give you an idea, I have been thinking about what I want to do with the podcasts. Freedom to work on what we want or freedom to work where we want, etc. Then that goes into things we don’t want to do, like fix bugs, etc. How does Microsoft DevOps to choose what they want to do? 2:37 – Guest: We want to automate as much as we can so the developer has less work. As a developer I want to commit code, do another task, rinse and repeating. Minutes and not even hours later then people are tweeting about the next best thing. Do what you want, where you want. Code any language you want. 4:15 – Chuck: What has changed? 4:19 – Guest: The branding changed. The name wasn’t the most favorite among the people. The word “visual” was a concerned. What we have noticed that Azure will let me run my code no matter where I am. If you want to run Python or others it can run in Azure. People didn’t need all of it. It comes with depositories, project management, and so much more! People could feel clumsy because there is so much stuff. We can streamline that now, and you can turn off that feature so you don’t have a heart attack. Maybe you are using us for some features not all of them – cool. 7:40 – Chuck: With deployments and other things – we don’t talk about the process for development a lot. 8:00 – Guest talks about the things that can help out with that. Guest: Our process is going to help guide you. We have that all built into the Azure tab feature. They feel and act differently. I tell all the people all the time that it’s brilliant stuff. There are 3 different templates. The templates actually change over the language. You don’t have to do mental math. 9:57 – Chuck: Just talking about the process. Which of these things we work on next when I’ve got a bug, or a ... 10:20 – Guest: The board system works like for example you have a bug. The steps to reproduce that bug, so that there is no question what go into this specific field. Let the anatomy of the feature do it itself! 11:54 – Chuck comments. 12:26 – Chuck: Back to the feature. Creating the user stories is a different process than X. 12:44 – Guest – You have a hierarchy then, right? Also what is really cool is we have case state management. I can click on this and I expect this to happen... These are actual tasks that I can run. 13:52 – Chuck: Once you have those tests written can you pull those into your CI? 14:00 – Guest: “Manual tests x0.” Guest dives into the question. 14:47 – I expect my team to write those test cases. The answer to your question is yes and no. We got so good at it that we found something that didn’t even exist, yet. 16:19 – Guest: As a developer it might be mind 16:29 – Chuck: I fixed this bug 4x, I wished I had CI to help me. 16:46 – Guest: You get a bug, then you fix a code, etc., etc. You don’t know that this original bug just came back. Fix it again. Am I in Groundhog Day? They are related to each other. You don’t have a unit test to tell you. When you get that very first bug – write a unit test. It will make you quicker at fixing it. A unit test you can write really fast over, and over, again. The test is passing. What do you do? Test it. Write the code to fix that unit test. You can see that how these relate to each other. That’s the beauty in it. 18:33 – Chuck: 90% of the unit tests I write – even 95% of the time they pass. It’s the 5% you would have no idea that it’s related. I can remember broad strokes of the code that I wrote, but 3 months down the road I can’t remember. 19:14 – Guest: If you are in a time crunch – I don’t have time for this unit test. Guest gives us a hypothetical situation to show how unit tests really can help. 20:25 – Make it muscle memory to unit test. I am a faster developer with the unit tests. 20:45 – Chuck: In the beginning it took forever. Now it’s just how I write software now. It guides my thought process. 21:06 – Guest: Yes! I agree. 22:00 – Guest: Don’t do the unit tests 22:10 – Chuck: Other place is when you write a new feature,...go through the process. Write unit tests for the things that you’ve touched. Expand your level of comfort. DevOps – we are talking about processes. Sounds like your DevOps is a flexible tool. Some people are looking for A METHOD. Like a business coach. Does Azure DevOps do that? 23:13 – Guest: Azure DevOps Projects. YoTeam. Note.js, Java and others are mentioned by the Guest. 25:00 – Code Badges’ Advertisement 25:48 – Chuck: I am curious – 2 test sweets for Angular or React or Vue. How does that work? 26:05 – Guest: So that is Jasmine or Mocha? So it really doesn’t matter. I’m a big fan of Mocha. It tests itself. I install local to my project alone – I can do it on any CI system in the world. YoTeam is not used in your pipeline. Install 2 parts – Yo and Generator – Team. Answer the questions and it’s awesome. I’ve done conferences in New Zealand. 28:37 – Chuck: Why would I go anywhere else? 28:44 – Guest: YoTeam  was the idea of... 28:57 – Check out Guest 29:02 – Guest: I want Donovan in a box. If I weren’t there then the show wouldn’t exist today. 29:40 – Chuck: Asks a question. 29:46 – Guest: 5 different verticals. Check out this timestamp to see what Donovan says the 5 different verticals are. Pipelines is 1 of the 5. 30:55 – Chuck: Yep – it works on my Mac. 31:04 – Guest: We also have Test Plant and Artifacts. 31:42 – Chuck: Can you resolve that on your developer machine? 31:46 – Guest: Yes, absolutely! There is my private repository and... 33:14 – Guest: *People not included in box.* 33:33 – Guest: It’s people driven. We guide you through the process. The value is the most important part and people is the hardest part, but once on 33:59 – Chuck: I am listening to this show and I want to try this out. I want a demo setup so I can show my boss. How do I show him that it works? 34:27 – Azure.com/devops – that is a great landing page. How can I get a demo going? You can say here is my account – and they can put a demo into your account. I would not do a demo that this is cool. We start you for free. Create an account. Let the CI be the proof. It’s your job to do this, because it will make you more efficient. You need me to be using these tools. 36:11 – Chuck comments. 36:17 – Guest: Say you are on a team of developers and love GitHub and things that integration is stupid, but how many people would disagree about... 38:02 – The reports prove it for themselves. 38:20 – Chuck: You can get started for free – so when do you have to start paying for it? 38:31 – Guest: Get 4 of your buddies and then need more people it’s $6 a month. 39:33 – Chuck adds in comments. If this is free? 39:43 – Guest goes into the details about plans and such for this tool.  40:17 – Chuck: How easy it is to migrate away from it? 40:22 – Guest: It’s GITHub. 40:30 – Chuck: People are looing data on their CI. 40:40 – Guest: You can comb that information there over the past 4 years but I don’t know if any system would let you export that history. 41:08 – Chuck: Yeah, you are right. 41:16 – Guest adds more into this topic. 41:25 – Chuck: Yeah it’s all into the machine. 41:38 – Chuck: Good deal. 41:43 – Guest: It’s like a drug. I would never leave it. I was using TFS before Microsoft. 42:08 – Chuck: Other question: continuous deployment. 42:56 – When I say every platform, I mean every platform: mobile devices, AWS, Azure, etc. Anything you can do from a command line you can do from our build and release system. PowerShell you don’t have to abandon it. 45:20 – Guest: I can’t remember what that tool is called! 45:33 – Guest: Anything you can do from a command line. Before firewall. Anything you want. 45:52 – Guest: I love my job because I get to help developers. 46:03 – Chuck: What do you think the biggest mistake people are doing? 46:12 – Guest: They are trying to do it all at once. Fix that one little thing. It’s instant value with no risks whatsoever. Go setup and it takes 15 minutes total. Now that we have this continuous build, now let’s go and deploy it. Don’t dream up what you think your pipeline should look like. Do one thing at a time. What hurts the most that it’s “buggy.” Let’s add that to the pipeline. It’s in your pipeline today, what hurts the most, and don’t do it all at once. 49:14 – Chuck: I thought you’d say: I don’t have the time. 49:25 – Guest: Say you work on it 15 minutes a day. 3 days in – 45 minutes in you have a CSI system that works forever. Yes I agree because people think they don’t “have the time.” 50:18 – Guest continues this conversation. How do you not have CI? Just install it – don’t ask. Just do the right thing. 50:40 – Chuck: I free-lanced and setup CI for my team. After a month, getting warned, we had a monitor up on the screen and it was either RED or GREEN. It was basically – hey this hurts and now we know. Either we are going to have pain or not have pain. 51:41 – Guest continues this conversation. Have pain – we should only have pain once or twice a year. Rollback. If you only have it every 6 months, that’s not too bad. The pain will motivate you. 52:40 – Azure.com/devops. Azure DevOps’ Twitter 53:22 – Picks! 53:30 – Advertisement – Get a Coder Job Links: Donovan Brown’s GitHub Donovan Brown’s Twitter Donovan Brown Donovan Brown – Channel 9 Donovan Brown – Microsoft Azure YoTeam Azure.com/devops GitHub Azure DevOps’ Twitter Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean Get a Coder Job course Picks: Charles Jet Blue Beta Testers Donovan YoTeam VSTeam Powershell Module

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: A.J. O’Neal This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles talks with A.J. O’Neal who is a panelist on My JavaScript Jabber usually, but today he is a guest! The guys talk about AJ’s background and past/current projects. Today’s topics include: JavaScript, Ruby, jQuery, Rails, Node, Python, and more. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 1:23 – Chuck: Introduce yourself, please. 1:27 – AJ: I brief introduction: I am a quirky guy who is ADD and I love to figure out why/how things work. I like self-hosting or owning things in technology. 2:00 – Chuck: Where do you work now? 2:02 – AJ: I work in UTAH at Big Squid! 3:29 – AJ: I have my own company, too! 3:41 – Chuck: Yeah we’ve talked about that before. Where can we go? 3:54: AJ: We have 2 products that are both Node. Greenlock for Node.js is one of them! The other one is Telebit. 5:44 – Chuck: This interview is all about your background. How did you get into programming? 6:04 – AJ: I was in middle school but before that my grandmother was a secretary at the Pentagon. She worked on getting people paid and she wrote a program to assist these paychecks to be printed with fewer errors. Because of that she had a computer at home. I remember playing games on her computer. The guest talks about his background in more detail. 15:21 – Chuck: No it’s interesting! I’ve done a couple hundred interviews and they all say either: I went to school for it OR I did it for my free time. It’s interesting to see the similarities! 16:00 – AJ: Yep that’s pretty much how I got into it! I went on a church service mission to Albania and really didn’t do any computer work during those 2 years. 19:39 – Chuck: You went to BYU and your mission trip. A lot of that stuff I can relate to and identify with b/c I went to BYU and went on missions trip, too! And then you got into Ruby and that’s how we met was through Ruby! 20:25 – AJ: Yep that’s it. Then that’s when I learned about Node, too. There was a guy with a funny hate – do you remember that? (No.) 21:03 – Chuck: Maybe? 21:07 – AJ continues. 27:53 – Chuck: What made you make the transition? People come into and out of different technologies all the time. 28:18 – AJ: Yeah it started with me with jQuery! Rails has layers upon layers upon layers. AJ talks about different technologies their similarities/differences and mentions: JavaScript, Rails, Python, Node, Ruby, and much more. 31:05 – Chuck: Node went out of their way on certain platforms that Rails didn’t prioritize. 31:11 – AJ continues to talk about different technologies and platforms. 33:00 – Chuck: You get into Node and then at what point does this idea of a home-server and Node and everything start to come together? How much of this do you want to talk bout? At one point did they start to gel? 33:33 – AJ: It’s been a very long process and started back in high school. It started with me trying to think: How do I get this picture on my phone to my mom? I thought of uploading it to Flickr or could I do this or that? What about sending it to someone in China? 39:57 – Chuck. 40:01 – AJ continues and talks about libraries and certificate standards. 42:00 – AJ continues with the topic: certificates. 42:44 – Chuck: I am going to go to PICKS! Where can people find you? 42:55 – AJ: Twitter! Blog! GitHub! Anywhere! 43:55 – Chuck: Picks! 43:58 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! 30-Day Trial! END – Cache Fly Links: React Angular JavaScript Webpack.js Serverless jQuery Node AJ’s Twitter Chuck’s Twitter Sponsors: Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Picks: A.J. JC Penny! Stafford Shirts Express for Men Chris Ferdinandi’s GOMAKETHINGS. COM Chuck Wordpress – Plugin KingSumo Getdrip.com Softcover.io

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Sharon DiOrio This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with Sharon DiOrio who is a lead software engineer at Achievement Network (ANet) and lives in Massachusetts! Chuck and Sharon talk about how she got into programming, her education, career highlights, and more! Check it out. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:41 – Chuck: Say “hello!” You were on episode 2 back in the day! 1:16 – Chuck: Can you tell people what you are up to? 1:19 – Sharon: The Angular landscape has changed quite a bit in the past 4 years. I am still using Angular! 1:37 – Chuck: It’s nice to hear people’s backgrounds and their thought process. Let’s talk about your story. To start out how did you get into programming? 2:03 – Sharon: I have a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. The web wasn’t a thing, yet, and it wasn’t an option. 4:04 – Chuck: How did you go from there to Angular and JavaScript? 4:12 – Sharon: I have a soft spot in my heart for Code Fusion. I did Code Fusion and PHP and that paid the bills for a long time. In the mid-2000’s that some of this stuff was going away and the idea of “old is new.” What is going to be my evolution of a developer? The frameworks (at this time) were starting to mature. 8:01 – Chuck: You run an Angular Meetup, so how did that get started?  8:05 – Sharon shares her story. 9:25 – Chuck: I would like to find a group that does this or that – and people find their niche and get together. If it grows great – if not then you begin some great friendships. I would like room for more intimate Meetups. 10:18 – Chuck. 10:23 – Sharon. 10:27 – Chuck: You spoke at NG-Conf in 2014 and what are your tips for people who want to speak at these conferences. 10:50 – Sharon: Get experience talking in front of large audiences before the ACTUAL conference! Also, start with Meetups! 12:29 – Chuck: Just the practice of building good habits and making sure that you are really prepared. Don’t they offer coaching now? 12:45 – Sharon: Yep! 12:53 – Chuck: What other things have you done with Angular? 13:01 – Sharon: I have been mostly in applications. Then I moved into educational technology. 13:55 – Chuck: Yep I identify with that a lot – getting a better career, making a better life for yourself, etc. 14:15 – Sharon: Yep! 15:34 – Chuck: I have seen things like Common Core and seeing what my kids are doing in school. 16:00 – Sharon: Most of the criticisms that people have about Common Core are... 16:35 – Sharon: I have been working in the educational space, too, yes! I have been here for 3 years now and I have “tenure” in technology. 17:18 – Chuck: What are the things that you are most proud of? 17:21 – Sharon answers the question. 19:37 – Chuck: We have shows on React, Angular and others. It’s interesting to see how people are assessing these things. 19:56 – Sharon: Yeah the landscaping is so different from not that long ago! 20:10 – Chuck. 21:03 – Sharon: Yeah our management is using version 6. I am going to do it and not tell them. 21:35 – Chuck: Anything else that you want to shout-out about? 21:37 – Sharon: How you get answers to questions will shift in your life. Learning how to ask a question well is underestimated – it’s an art. What to provide, so you know exactly what to provide to him/her. 22:21 – Chuck: Yeah my brothers 22:47 – Sharon: My father told me the same thing: you need to speak well and write well. No matter what field you are going into. Also, empathy and soft skills are great skills to have, too. 23:35 – Chuck: It is easy to work on the technology b/c it’s either right or wrong. 23:48 – Sharon: I would love to see people wanting those skills within job posts. 24:20 – Chuck: I agree! It makes a big difference. Let’s do picks! 24:35  – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv JSJ 335 episode AiA 002 episode Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Chuck Interview Cake – use our code, please. Marathon (John Sonmez, friend) – St. George Marathon McKirdy Trained Garmin Watches Sharon Brave Browser DevChat TV Programming for people who didn’t go the traditional way!

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Sharon DiOrio This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with Sharon DiOrio who is a lead software engineer at Achievement Network (ANet) and lives in Massachusetts! Chuck and Sharon talk about how she got into programming, her education, career highlights, and more! Check it out. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:41 – Chuck: Say “hello!” You were on episode 2 back in the day! 1:16 – Chuck: Can you tell people what you are up to? 1:19 – Sharon: The Angular landscape has changed quite a bit in the past 4 years. I am still using Angular! 1:37 – Chuck: It’s nice to hear people’s backgrounds and their thought process. Let’s talk about your story. To start out how did you get into programming? 2:03 – Sharon: I have a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. The web wasn’t a thing, yet, and it wasn’t an option. 4:04 – Chuck: How did you go from there to Angular and JavaScript? 4:12 – Sharon: I have a soft spot in my heart for Code Fusion. I did Code Fusion and PHP and that paid the bills for a long time. In the mid-2000’s that some of this stuff was going away and the idea of “old is new.” What is going to be my evolution of a developer? The frameworks (at this time) were starting to mature. 8:01 – Chuck: You run an Angular Meetup, so how did that get started?  8:05 – Sharon shares her story. 9:25 – Chuck: I would like to find a group that does this or that – and people find their niche and get together. If it grows great – if not then you begin some great friendships. I would like room for more intimate Meetups. 10:18 – Chuck. 10:23 – Sharon. 10:27 – Chuck: You spoke at NG-Conf in 2014 and what are your tips for people who want to speak at these conferences. 10:50 – Sharon: Get experience talking in front of large audiences before the ACTUAL conference! Also, start with Meetups! 12:29 – Chuck: Just the practice of building good habits and making sure that you are really prepared. Don’t they offer coaching now? 12:45 – Sharon: Yep! 12:53 – Chuck: What other things have you done with Angular? 13:01 – Sharon: I have been mostly in applications. Then I moved into educational technology. 13:55 – Chuck: Yep I identify with that a lot – getting a better career, making a better life for yourself, etc. 14:15 – Sharon: Yep! 15:34 – Chuck: I have seen things like Common Core and seeing what my kids are doing in school. 16:00 – Sharon: Most of the criticisms that people have about Common Core are... 16:35 – Sharon: I have been working in the educational space, too, yes! I have been here for 3 years now and I have “tenure” in technology. 17:18 – Chuck: What are the things that you are most proud of? 17:21 – Sharon answers the question. 19:37 – Chuck: We have shows on React, Angular and others. It’s interesting to see how people are assessing these things. 19:56 – Sharon: Yeah the landscaping is so different from not that long ago! 20:10 – Chuck. 21:03 – Sharon: Yeah our management is using version 6. I am going to do it and not tell them. 21:35 – Chuck: Anything else that you want to shout-out about? 21:37 – Sharon: How you get answers to questions will shift in your life. Learning how to ask a question well is underestimated – it’s an art. What to provide, so you know exactly what to provide to him/her. 22:21 – Chuck: Yeah my brothers 22:47 – Sharon: My father told me the same thing: you need to speak well and write well. No matter what field you are going into. Also, empathy and soft skills are great skills to have, too. 23:35 – Chuck: It is easy to work on the technology b/c it’s either right or wrong. 23:48 – Sharon: I would love to see people wanting those skills within job posts. 24:20 – Chuck: I agree! It makes a big difference. Let’s do picks! 24:35  – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv JSJ 335 episode AiA 002 episode Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Chuck Interview Cake – use our code, please. Marathon (John Sonmez, friend) – St. George Marathon McKirdy Trained Garmin Watches Sharon Brave Browser DevChat TV Programming for people who didn’t go the traditional way!

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Sharon DiOrio This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with Sharon DiOrio who is a lead software engineer at Achievement Network (ANet) and lives in Massachusetts! Chuck and Sharon talk about how she got into programming, her education, career highlights, and more! Check it out. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:41 – Chuck: Say “hello!” You were on episode 2 back in the day! 1:16 – Chuck: Can you tell people what you are up to? 1:19 – Sharon: The Angular landscape has changed quite a bit in the past 4 years. I am still using Angular! 1:37 – Chuck: It’s nice to hear people’s backgrounds and their thought process. Let’s talk about your story. To start out how did you get into programming? 2:03 – Sharon: I have a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. The web wasn’t a thing, yet, and it wasn’t an option. 4:04 – Chuck: How did you go from there to Angular and JavaScript? 4:12 – Sharon: I have a soft spot in my heart for Code Fusion. I did Code Fusion and PHP and that paid the bills for a long time. In the mid-2000’s that some of this stuff was going away and the idea of “old is new.” What is going to be my evolution of a developer? The frameworks (at this time) were starting to mature. 8:01 – Chuck: You run an Angular Meetup, so how did that get started?  8:05 – Sharon shares her story. 9:25 – Chuck: I would like to find a group that does this or that – and people find their niche and get together. If it grows great – if not then you begin some great friendships. I would like room for more intimate Meetups. 10:18 – Chuck. 10:23 – Sharon. 10:27 – Chuck: You spoke at NG-Conf in 2014 and what are your tips for people who want to speak at these conferences. 10:50 – Sharon: Get experience talking in front of large audiences before the ACTUAL conference! Also, start with Meetups! 12:29 – Chuck: Just the practice of building good habits and making sure that you are really prepared. Don’t they offer coaching now? 12:45 – Sharon: Yep! 12:53 – Chuck: What other things have you done with Angular? 13:01 – Sharon: I have been mostly in applications. Then I moved into educational technology. 13:55 – Chuck: Yep I identify with that a lot – getting a better career, making a better life for yourself, etc. 14:15 – Sharon: Yep! 15:34 – Chuck: I have seen things like Common Core and seeing what my kids are doing in school. 16:00 – Sharon: Most of the criticisms that people have about Common Core are... 16:35 – Sharon: I have been working in the educational space, too, yes! I have been here for 3 years now and I have “tenure” in technology. 17:18 – Chuck: What are the things that you are most proud of? 17:21 – Sharon answers the question. 19:37 – Chuck: We have shows on React, Angular and others. It’s interesting to see how people are assessing these things. 19:56 – Sharon: Yeah the landscaping is so different from not that long ago! 20:10 – Chuck. 21:03 – Sharon: Yeah our management is using version 6. I am going to do it and not tell them. 21:35 – Chuck: Anything else that you want to shout-out about? 21:37 – Sharon: How you get answers to questions will shift in your life. Learning how to ask a question well is underestimated – it’s an art. What to provide, so you know exactly what to provide to him/her. 22:21 – Chuck: Yeah my brothers 22:47 – Sharon: My father told me the same thing: you need to speak well and write well. No matter what field you are going into. Also, empathy and soft skills are great skills to have, too. 23:35 – Chuck: It is easy to work on the technology b/c it’s either right or wrong. 23:48 – Sharon: I would love to see people wanting those skills within job posts. 24:20 – Chuck: I agree! It makes a big difference. Let’s do picks! 24:35  – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv JSJ 335 episode AiA 002 episode Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Chuck Interview Cake – use our code, please. Marathon (John Sonmez, friend) – St. George Marathon McKirdy Trained Garmin Watches Sharon Brave Browser DevChat TV Programming for people who didn’t go the traditional way!

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: A.J. O’Neal This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles talks with A.J. O’Neal who is a panelist on My JavaScript Jabber usually, but today he is a guest! The guys talk about AJ’s background and past/current projects. Today’s topics include: JavaScript, Ruby, jQuery, Rails, Node, Python, and more. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 1:23 – Chuck: Introduce yourself, please. 1:27 – AJ: I brief introduction: I am a quirky guy who is ADD and I love to figure out why/how things work. I like self-hosting or owning things in technology. 2:00 – Chuck: Where do you work now? 2:02 – AJ: I work in UTAH at Big Squid! 3:29 – AJ: I have my own company, too! 3:41 – Chuck: Yeah we’ve talked about that before. Where can we go? 3:54: AJ: We have 2 products that are both Node. Greenlock for Node.js is one of them! The other one is Telebit. 5:44 – Chuck: This interview is all about your background. How did you get into programming? 6:04 – AJ: I was in middle school but before that my grandmother was a secretary at the Pentagon. She worked on getting people paid and she wrote a program to assist these paychecks to be printed with fewer errors. Because of that she had a computer at home. I remember playing games on her computer. The guest talks about his background in more detail. 15:21 – Chuck: No it’s interesting! I’ve done a couple hundred interviews and they all say either: I went to school for it OR I did it for my free time. It’s interesting to see the similarities! 16:00 – AJ: Yep that’s pretty much how I got into it! I went on a church service mission to Albania and really didn’t do any computer work during those 2 years. 19:39 – Chuck: You went to BYU and your mission trip. A lot of that stuff I can relate to and identify with b/c I went to BYU and went on missions trip, too! And then you got into Ruby and that’s how we met was through Ruby! 20:25 – AJ: Yep that’s it. Then that’s when I learned about Node, too. There was a guy with a funny hate – do you remember that? (No.) 21:03 – Chuck: Maybe? 21:07 – AJ continues. 27:53 – Chuck: What made you make the transition? People come into and out of different technologies all the time. 28:18 – AJ: Yeah it started with me with jQuery! Rails has layers upon layers upon layers. AJ talks about different technologies their similarities/differences and mentions: JavaScript, Rails, Python, Node, Ruby, and much more. 31:05 – Chuck: Node went out of their way on certain platforms that Rails didn’t prioritize. 31:11 – AJ continues to talk about different technologies and platforms. 33:00 – Chuck: You get into Node and then at what point does this idea of a home-server and Node and everything start to come together? How much of this do you want to talk bout? At one point did they start to gel? 33:33 – AJ: It’s been a very long process and started back in high school. It started with me trying to think: How do I get this picture on my phone to my mom? I thought of uploading it to Flickr or could I do this or that? What about sending it to someone in China? 39:57 – Chuck. 40:01 – AJ continues and talks about libraries and certificate standards. 42:00 – AJ continues with the topic: certificates. 42:44 – Chuck: I am going to go to PICKS! Where can people find you? 42:55 – AJ: Twitter! Blog! GitHub! Anywhere! 43:55 – Chuck: Picks! 43:58 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! 30-Day Trial! END – Cache Fly Links: React Angular JavaScript Webpack.js Serverless jQuery Node AJ’s Twitter Chuck’s Twitter Sponsors: Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Picks: A.J. JC Penny! Stafford Shirts Express for Men Chris Ferdinandi’s GOMAKETHINGS. COM Chuck Wordpress – Plugin KingSumo Getdrip.com Softcover.io

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: A.J. O’Neal This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles talks with A.J. O’Neal who is a panelist on My JavaScript Jabber usually, but today he is a guest! The guys talk about AJ’s background and past/current projects. Today’s topics include: JavaScript, Ruby, jQuery, Rails, Node, Python, and more. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 1:23 – Chuck: Introduce yourself, please. 1:27 – AJ: I brief introduction: I am a quirky guy who is ADD and I love to figure out why/how things work. I like self-hosting or owning things in technology. 2:00 – Chuck: Where do you work now? 2:02 – AJ: I work in UTAH at Big Squid! 3:29 – AJ: I have my own company, too! 3:41 – Chuck: Yeah we’ve talked about that before. Where can we go? 3:54: AJ: We have 2 products that are both Node. Greenlock for Node.js is one of them! The other one is Telebit. 5:44 – Chuck: This interview is all about your background. How did you get into programming? 6:04 – AJ: I was in middle school but before that my grandmother was a secretary at the Pentagon. She worked on getting people paid and she wrote a program to assist these paychecks to be printed with fewer errors. Because of that she had a computer at home. I remember playing games on her computer. The guest talks about his background in more detail. 15:21 – Chuck: No it’s interesting! I’ve done a couple hundred interviews and they all say either: I went to school for it OR I did it for my free time. It’s interesting to see the similarities! 16:00 – AJ: Yep that’s pretty much how I got into it! I went on a church service mission to Albania and really didn’t do any computer work during those 2 years. 19:39 – Chuck: You went to BYU and your mission trip. A lot of that stuff I can relate to and identify with b/c I went to BYU and went on missions trip, too! And then you got into Ruby and that’s how we met was through Ruby! 20:25 – AJ: Yep that’s it. Then that’s when I learned about Node, too. There was a guy with a funny hate – do you remember that? (No.) 21:03 – Chuck: Maybe? 21:07 – AJ continues. 27:53 – Chuck: What made you make the transition? People come into and out of different technologies all the time. 28:18 – AJ: Yeah it started with me with jQuery! Rails has layers upon layers upon layers. AJ talks about different technologies their similarities/differences and mentions: JavaScript, Rails, Python, Node, Ruby, and much more. 31:05 – Chuck: Node went out of their way on certain platforms that Rails didn’t prioritize. 31:11 – AJ continues to talk about different technologies and platforms. 33:00 – Chuck: You get into Node and then at what point does this idea of a home-server and Node and everything start to come together? How much of this do you want to talk bout? At one point did they start to gel? 33:33 – AJ: It’s been a very long process and started back in high school. It started with me trying to think: How do I get this picture on my phone to my mom? I thought of uploading it to Flickr or could I do this or that? What about sending it to someone in China? 39:57 – Chuck. 40:01 – AJ continues and talks about libraries and certificate standards. 42:00 – AJ continues with the topic: certificates. 42:44 – Chuck: I am going to go to PICKS! Where can people find you? 42:55 – AJ: Twitter! Blog! GitHub! Anywhere! 43:55 – Chuck: Picks! 43:58 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! 30-Day Trial! END – Cache Fly Links: React Angular JavaScript Webpack.js Serverless jQuery Node AJ’s Twitter Chuck’s Twitter Sponsors: Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Picks: A.J. JC Penny! Stafford Shirts Express for Men Chris Ferdinandi’s GOMAKETHINGS. COM Chuck Wordpress – Plugin KingSumo Getdrip.com Softcover.io

Panel: Charles Max Wood John Papa Aaron Frost Special Guest:  Juan Herrera In this episode, the panelists talk with today’s special guest, Juan Herrera. The guys talk about community and how the Angular community is different than others out there. The following topics are discussed: calls for proposals (CFP), talking at conferences, Meetups, and reaching out to others within the same field as yours. The team emphasizes how meeting and networking not only creates great business connections, but great lasting friendships, too! Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: AngularBootCamp.Com 0:52 – Chuck: Hello! Our panel is Eric, John, and myself. Our special guest today is Juan Herrera! 1:00 – Panel and guest go back-and-forth. 2:28 – Chuck: Let’s discuss how to think about community locally, nationally, and internationally! 2:39 – Guest talks about his background and his work in Columbia. 4:00 – Aaron: I will give my talk in Spanish and it will be epic. I think we should start a hashtag “bonniemademedoit.” Aaron is talking about Bonnie and how she’s inspired Juan and many, many people.  5;18 – Chuck: She is so enthusiastic about this stuff you have a hard time telling her “no.” 5:32 – Guest. 6:00 – Panel: I am proud that she is apart of our community, which is our topic today. 6:26 – Guest: Yes, I think these conferences help make people pumped-up about these sort of things. 6:53 – Chuck: I am curious when talk about community – talking about global communities they are similar to other Meetups and incorporate their own way of doing things. How do you find that your particular area is unique in its own way? 7:32 – Guest: When we start this community I want to see what’s already out there? Once I know that I was trying to mimic what was already out there. In addition to that I went out of my way to figure out how to make people feel welcomed and find our own niche. 10:27: Panel: Hey – let’s create a community! I think sometimes it’s deliberate and other times it just happened. It sounded like you were very intentional. How did you get people involved? How did you get the word out? How did you get people to give talks? 11:10 – Guest: Yes that is a great challenge for us. Great question! I wanted to help people gain exposure and to help them participate at the conference. After giving their talk we give them a special gift. It can be a shirt or sticker or something. It seems enough for people to come and participate. We realized some people were scared to participate b/c imposter syndrome kicked-in. We made sure they felt comfortable and it helped them to participate. 15:00 – Panel: Yeah it sounds like 300 is a very solid conference. Good job! 15:18 – Chuck: Yeah they compare it to the bigger conferences when the local conferences are just as strong and good. Sometimes the smaller conferences are really nice b/c they are more intimate. 16:05 – Panel: I am not a fan of these massive conferences. Great, but you can’t have conversation with 50,000 people. You go to the vendor floor – it’s loud and dark. I go to conferences to talk and listen to them. I like to listen to their challenges and hear stories. 17:01 – Panel: I enjoy the variety. 17:48 – Panel: Just the quality of people that were there was fantastic. NG VIKINGS is a great one to go to! 18:10 – Panel: I saw the conference for New Zealand? And the one that is in Antarctica?! 19:10 – Panel: Some people say: I don’t know how to get involved with X conference? I have a hard time giving advice b/c we all have different backgrounds. Who wants to present on Chrome Frame? Or... 21:07 – Guest: Not everyone is outgoing nor comfortable being in front of an audience. However, just practicing helps! 21:33 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 22:12 – Panel: Chuck, I want to hear about your community! 22:25 – Chuck: I can’t go to a development conference that doesn’t know who I am. I thrive off of people and connecting with them. There are a lot of great opportunities from learning from folks. The email went out this morning and get in the general channel and say: What do you listen to? What are you up to? It’s nice to hear feedback. 25:54 – Panel: I appreciate the work you’ve done within the community, too, Chuck! 26:08 – Panel: My community I’ve been around the block for about 20+ years. I get into one technology and then bounce from one to the other. I’ve had the blessing to be apart of many different communities. I did a lot of JavaScript back in the day and then left when it was a mess. These communities all have something similar: people come together. They want to find others who look/act like them! These experiences change people’s lives! 28:11 – Guest: Through these communities I’ve made a lot of friends and great colleagues. Not just professional but also personal. 28:44 – Panel: Yep the people that I’ve met through Twitter and conferences. 29:00 – Panel. 29:33 – Panel: I was in Poland a few weeks ago and I met some guys – two different Mike’s. I love how down-to-earth these guys are and I think it’s awesome to meet these great people at these conferences! 30:11 – Panel: Go to Angular conferences if you can! 31:25 – Panel: I tell people to do the same thing! 33:17 – Guest: Yeah there are people out there that are introverted, but know that other people are like you, too! Reach out to people before the conference and Tweet at them! Invite people to your group and meet-up at conferences and have a coffee! 34:55 – Panel: I meet a lot of people on Twitter. 35:51 – Panel: I think we are getting to the end and I need to say this. The angular community is a bit different compared to other communities. One thing that this community doesn’t have is the focus of the community. On top of the community are Rob, Steven, Jewels and Naomi and others! I think the Angular team themselves really care! I know they care. 38:09 – Guest: I completely agree with you, Aaron! We appreciate it! 38:25 – Chuck: To wrap-up let’s talk to you, Juan, about where communities should be going to take care of the people 38:45 – Guest: Yeah, what are we going to do next year? Are we going to do Meetups? Do they need something else? What are the needs of our members today and tomorrow? We decided to change the format. We realized that Meetups are great but they are 20-minute talks and they aren’t enough for our members. We do 4 hour Meetup that is called the MEGA MEETUP! 41:00 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly! Links: Vue jQuery Angular JavaScript Python React Cypress Meetup Conference in Antarctica! Guest: Juan Herrera – Twitter Guest: Juan Herrera – GitHub Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Cache Fly Picks: Aaron Harry Potter Play Talk from Angular Connect – Grant Timmerman – Google Team CFP: ngVikings 2019 CFP: ngConf @aaronfrost – Twitter! Chuck DevChat TV transferring from WordPress to a static site. Guest JS – library CFP in Columbia! (2019 conference) @jdjuan – Twitter! John Forbes Article: How to start a conversation...

Panel: Charles Max Wood John Papa Aaron Frost Special Guest:  Juan Herrera In this episode, the panelists talk with today’s special guest, Juan Herrera. The guys talk about community and how the Angular community is different than others out there. The following topics are discussed: calls for proposals (CFP), talking at conferences, Meetups, and reaching out to others within the same field as yours. The team emphasizes how meeting and networking not only creates great business connections, but great lasting friendships, too! Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: AngularBootCamp.Com 0:52 – Chuck: Hello! Our panel is Eric, John, and myself. Our special guest today is Juan Herrera! 1:00 – Panel and guest go back-and-forth. 2:28 – Chuck: Let’s discuss how to think about community locally, nationally, and internationally! 2:39 – Guest talks about his background and his work in Columbia. 4:00 – Aaron: I will give my talk in Spanish and it will be epic. I think we should start a hashtag “bonniemademedoit.” Aaron is talking about Bonnie and how she’s inspired Juan and many, many people.  5;18 – Chuck: She is so enthusiastic about this stuff you have a hard time telling her “no.” 5:32 – Guest. 6:00 – Panel: I am proud that she is apart of our community, which is our topic today. 6:26 – Guest: Yes, I think these conferences help make people pumped-up about these sort of things. 6:53 – Chuck: I am curious when talk about community – talking about global communities they are similar to other Meetups and incorporate their own way of doing things. How do you find that your particular area is unique in its own way? 7:32 – Guest: When we start this community I want to see what’s already out there? Once I know that I was trying to mimic what was already out there. In addition to that I went out of my way to figure out how to make people feel welcomed and find our own niche. 10:27: Panel: Hey – let’s create a community! I think sometimes it’s deliberate and other times it just happened. It sounded like you were very intentional. How did you get people involved? How did you get the word out? How did you get people to give talks? 11:10 – Guest: Yes that is a great challenge for us. Great question! I wanted to help people gain exposure and to help them participate at the conference. After giving their talk we give them a special gift. It can be a shirt or sticker or something. It seems enough for people to come and participate. We realized some people were scared to participate b/c imposter syndrome kicked-in. We made sure they felt comfortable and it helped them to participate. 15:00 – Panel: Yeah it sounds like 300 is a very solid conference. Good job! 15:18 – Chuck: Yeah they compare it to the bigger conferences when the local conferences are just as strong and good. Sometimes the smaller conferences are really nice b/c they are more intimate. 16:05 – Panel: I am not a fan of these massive conferences. Great, but you can’t have conversation with 50,000 people. You go to the vendor floor – it’s loud and dark. I go to conferences to talk and listen to them. I like to listen to their challenges and hear stories. 17:01 – Panel: I enjoy the variety. 17:48 – Panel: Just the quality of people that were there was fantastic. NG VIKINGS is a great one to go to! 18:10 – Panel: I saw the conference for New Zealand? And the one that is in Antarctica?! 19:10 – Panel: Some people say: I don’t know how to get involved with X conference? I have a hard time giving advice b/c we all have different backgrounds. Who wants to present on Chrome Frame? Or... 21:07 – Guest: Not everyone is outgoing nor comfortable being in front of an audience. However, just practicing helps! 21:33 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 22:12 – Panel: Chuck, I want to hear about your community! 22:25 – Chuck: I can’t go to a development conference that doesn’t know who I am. I thrive off of people and connecting with them. There are a lot of great opportunities from learning from folks. The email went out this morning and get in the general channel and say: What do you listen to? What are you up to? It’s nice to hear feedback. 25:54 – Panel: I appreciate the work you’ve done within the community, too, Chuck! 26:08 – Panel: My community I’ve been around the block for about 20+ years. I get into one technology and then bounce from one to the other. I’ve had the blessing to be apart of many different communities. I did a lot of JavaScript back in the day and then left when it was a mess. These communities all have something similar: people come together. They want to find others who look/act like them! These experiences change people’s lives! 28:11 – Guest: Through these communities I’ve made a lot of friends and great colleagues. Not just professional but also personal. 28:44 – Panel: Yep the people that I’ve met through Twitter and conferences. 29:00 – Panel. 29:33 – Panel: I was in Poland a few weeks ago and I met some guys – two different Mike’s. I love how down-to-earth these guys are and I think it’s awesome to meet these great people at these conferences! 30:11 – Panel: Go to Angular conferences if you can! 31:25 – Panel: I tell people to do the same thing! 33:17 – Guest: Yeah there are people out there that are introverted, but know that other people are like you, too! Reach out to people before the conference and Tweet at them! Invite people to your group and meet-up at conferences and have a coffee! 34:55 – Panel: I meet a lot of people on Twitter. 35:51 – Panel: I think we are getting to the end and I need to say this. The angular community is a bit different compared to other communities. One thing that this community doesn’t have is the focus of the community. On top of the community are Rob, Steven, Jewels and Naomi and others! I think the Angular team themselves really care! I know they care. 38:09 – Guest: I completely agree with you, Aaron! We appreciate it! 38:25 – Chuck: To wrap-up let’s talk to you, Juan, about where communities should be going to take care of the people 38:45 – Guest: Yeah, what are we going to do next year? Are we going to do Meetups? Do they need something else? What are the needs of our members today and tomorrow? We decided to change the format. We realized that Meetups are great but they are 20-minute talks and they aren’t enough for our members. We do 4 hour Meetup that is called the MEGA MEETUP! 41:00 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly! Links: Vue jQuery Angular JavaScript Python React Cypress Meetup Conference in Antarctica! Guest: Juan Herrera – Twitter Guest: Juan Herrera – GitHub Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Cache Fly Picks: Aaron Harry Potter Play Talk from Angular Connect – Grant Timmerman – Google Team CFP: ngVikings 2019 CFP: ngConf @aaronfrost – Twitter! Chuck DevChat TV transferring from WordPress to a static site. Guest JS – library CFP in Columbia! (2019 conference) @jdjuan – Twitter! John Forbes Article: How to start a conversation...

Panel: Chris Fritz Charles Max Wood In this episode, the panel consists of Chris and Charles who talk about developer freedom. Chuck talks about his new show called The DevRev. The guys also talk about time management, answering e-mails, being self-employed, and their goals/hopes/dreams that they want to achieve in life. Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement – Kendo UI 0:30 – Chuck: Hi! Today our panel is Chris and myself. My new show is The DevRev. There is a lot of aspect of our job that boil down to freedom. Figure out what they like to do and eliminate the things that they don’t like to do. I think it will be 5x a week and I will have a guest every week. What does freedom mean to you? What is your ideal coding situation where you don’t starve? 2:10 – Chris: Let me take a step-back. Why I got into coding it was even before that and it was education. I wanted to work with schools and not necessarily tied to only one school. As a programmer I cannot be asked to do things that I don’t agree with. 3:21 – Chuck: A lot of this thought-process came up b/c of my initial steps into my self-employment. I wanted to go to my son’s activities. I saw freelancing as an option and then had to do that b/c I got laid-off. I hate being told what to do. I have an HOA in my neighborhood and I hate it. They tell me when and how to mow my lawn. This is how I operate it. I hate that they tell me to mow my lawn. I want to talk to people who I want to talk to – that’s my idea of freedom. Everyone’s different idea of what “freedom” is will be different. 5:36 – Chris: I want more time to create more free stuff. Chris talks about DEV experience. 6:28 – Chuck: How did you get to that point of figuring out what you want to do? 6:44 – Chris: I still am figuring that out. I do have a lot of opportunities that are really exciting for me. It’s deciding what I like at that moment and choosing what I want to do vs. not what is going to wear me down. I don’t want to die with regret. There is a distinction between bad tired and good tired. You weren’t true to what you thought was right – and so you don’t settle easy. You toss and turn. I want to end with “good tired” both for the end of the day and for the end of my life. 8:00 – Chuck: I agree with that and I really identify with that. 8:44 – Chris: How do you measure yourself? 8:54 – Chuck: It’s hard to quantify it in only one idea. It’s hard to measure. I list out 5 things I need to do to get me closer to my [one] big goal. I have to get those 5 things done. Most of the time I can make it and I keep grinding on it before I can be done. 9:51 – Chris: My bar is pretty low. Is there more joy / more happiness in the world today in the world b/c of what I’ve done today? I know I will make mistakes in code – and that hurts, no day will be perfect. I try to have a net positive affect everyday. 10:53 – Chris: I can fall easily into depression if I have too many bad days back-to-back. 11:03 – Chuck: I agree and I have to take time off if that happens. 11:13 – Chris talks about open source work and he mentions HOPE IN SOURCE, also Babel. 12:23 – Chuck: When I got to church and there is this component of being together and working towards the same goals. It’s more than just community. There is a real – something in common that we have. 12:57 – Chris: Do you think it’s similar to open source? 13:05 – Chuck: You can watch a podcast in-lieu of an actual in-person sermon. In my church community it’s – Building Each Other Up. It’s not the same for when I contribute to open source. 13:43 – Chris: I ask myself: Is it of value? If I were to die would that work help progress the humankind? By the time I die - I will be completely useless b/c everything in my head is out there in other peoples’ heads. 14:35 – Chuck: When I am gone – I want someone to step into my void and continue that. These shows should be able to go on even if I am not around. I want to make sure that these shows can keep going. 15:48 – Chris: How can we build each other up? We want to have opportunities to grow. I try to provide that for members of the team and vice versa. The amount of respect that I have seen in my communities is quite amazing. I admire Thorsten on the Vue team a lot. (Thorsten’s Twitter.) He talked about compassion and how to communicate with each other and code with compassion. That’s better community and better software. You are forced to thin from multiple perspectives. You want to learn from these various perspectives. 17:44 – Chuck: The ideas behind the camaraderie are great. 17:56 – Chris: And Sarah Drasner! 18:38 – Chuck: She probably feels fulfilled when she helps you out (Sarah). 18:54 – Chuck: We all have to look for those opportunities and take them! 19:08 – Chuck: We have been talking about personal fulfillment. For me writing some awesome code in Vue there is Boiler Plate or running the tests. 19:52 – Chuck: What tools light you up? 20:02 – Chris: I am a bit of a weirdo. I feel pretty good when I am hitting myself against a wall for 9 hours. I like feeling obsessed about something and defeating it. I love it. 21:21 – Chuck: The things that make you bang your head against the wall is awful for me. I like writing code that helps someone. (Chris: I like the challenge.) We will be charged up for different things. You like the challenge and it empowers me to help others out. 22:21 – Chris: I like learning more about how something works. I want to save people a lot of work. There has to be a social connection or I will have a hard time even attempting it. 22:52 – Chris: I also play video games where there are no social connections. I played the Witness a few months ago and I loved the puzzles. 23:45 – Chuck: What other tools are you using? 23:57 – Chris: Webpack is the best took for creating the ideal development scenario. 24:47 – Chuck mentions Boiler Plate. 25:00 – Chris: It was built to help large teams and/or large applications.  I built some other projects like: Hello Vue Components & (with John Papa) Vue Monolith Example. 27:07 – Chuck: Anything else that you consider to be “freeing?” 27:13 – Chris: I like working from home. I like having my routines – they make me happy and productive. Having full control over that makes me happy. The only thing I have is my wife and my cat. 28:12 – Chuck: Yeah I don’t miss driving through traffic. 28:44 – Chris: I don’t like to be around people all day. 30:40 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 31:05 – Chris: Online I get a couple dozen people reaching out to me for different things: completely out-of-the-blue. I want to respond to most of those people but... 33:12 – Chuck: If it’s not on my calendar it won’t happen. I will get those e-mails that can be very time consuming. 33:35 – Chris: When they are asking for something “simple” – it’s not always simple. 34:30 – Chuck: I want to help everybody and that can be a problem. 35:02 – Chris: They are reaching out to me and I want to help. 35:56 – Chuck and Chris go back-and-forth. 36:18 – Chris: How do you figure out how to write a short enough response to the email – to only do 30 minutes? 36:44 – Chuck: Can I answer it in one minute? Nope – so it will go into another pile later in the week. I’ve replied saying: Here is my short-answer and for the long-answer see these references. I star those e-mails that will take too long to respond. 37:50 – Chris and Chuck go back-and-forth. 38:06 – Chuck: Your question is so good – here is the link to the blog that I wrote. 38:37 – Chris: I want to document to point people HERE to past blogs that I’ve written or to someone else’s blog. I feel guilty when I have to delegate. 39:35 – Chuck: I don’t have a problem delegating b/c that’s why I’m paying them. Everyone has his or her own role.  40:40 – Chris: Yeah that makes sense when it’s their job. 41:30 – Chuck: I know working together as a team will free me up in my areas of excellence. 41:49 – Chris: I am having a hard time with this right now. 43:36 – Chuck: We are looking for someone to fill this role and this is the job description. This way you can be EXCELLENT at what you do. You aren’t being pulled too thin. 44:19 – Chris: I have been trying to delegate more. 45:04 – Chuck: Yeah I have been trying to do more with my business, too. What do I want to do in the community? What is my focus? What is my mission and values for the business? Then you knock it out of the park! 45:51 – Chris: As a teacher it is really helpful and really not helpful. You are leading and shaping their experiences. You don’t have options to delegate. 46:27 – Chuck: Yeah my mother is a math teacher. 46:37 – Chuck: Yeah she has 10 kids, so she helps to delegate with force. She is the department head for mathematics and she does delegate some things. It’s you to teach the course. 47:18 – Chris: What promoted you to start this podcast? Is it more personal? 47:30 – Chuck talks about why he is starting this new podcast. 48:10 – Chuck: My business coach said to me: write a mission statement. When I did that things started having clarity for me. Chuck talks about the plan for the DevRev! 55:20 – Chris: I am looking forward to it! 55:34 – Chuck: It will be recorded via video through YouTube, too, in addition to iTunes (hopefully). 55:52 – Chris & Chuck: Picks! 55:58 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! DEVCHAT code. 30-day trial. Links: Vue React JavaScript C# C++ C++ Programming / Memory Management Angular Blazor JavaScript DevChat TV VueCLI Boiler Plate Hello Vue Components Vue Monolith Example Thorsten’s Twitter Sarah’s Twitter Ben Hong’s Twitter Jacob Schatz’ Twitter Vue Vixens The DevRev Sponsors: Fresh Books Cache Fly Kendo UI Get A Coder Job! Picks: Chris Vue Vixens Charles repurpose.io MFCEO Project Podcast Game - Test Version

Panel: Charles Max Wood John Papa Aaron Frost Special Guest:  Juan Herrera In this episode, the panelists talk with today’s special guest, Juan Herrera. The guys talk about community and how the Angular community is different than others out there. The following topics are discussed: calls for proposals (CFP), talking at conferences, Meetups, and reaching out to others within the same field as yours. The team emphasizes how meeting and networking not only creates great business connections, but great lasting friendships, too! Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: AngularBootCamp.Com 0:52 – Chuck: Hello! Our panel is Eric, John, and myself. Our special guest today is Juan Herrera! 1:00 – Panel and guest go back-and-forth. 2:28 – Chuck: Let’s discuss how to think about community locally, nationally, and internationally! 2:39 – Guest talks about his background and his work in Columbia. 4:00 – Aaron: I will give my talk in Spanish and it will be epic. I think we should start a hashtag “bonniemademedoit.” Aaron is talking about Bonnie and how she’s inspired Juan and many, many people.  5;18 – Chuck: She is so enthusiastic about this stuff you have a hard time telling her “no.” 5:32 – Guest. 6:00 – Panel: I am proud that she is apart of our community, which is our topic today. 6:26 – Guest: Yes, I think these conferences help make people pumped-up about these sort of things. 6:53 – Chuck: I am curious when talk about community – talking about global communities they are similar to other Meetups and incorporate their own way of doing things. How do you find that your particular area is unique in its own way? 7:32 – Guest: When we start this community I want to see what’s already out there? Once I know that I was trying to mimic what was already out there. In addition to that I went out of my way to figure out how to make people feel welcomed and find our own niche. 10:27: Panel: Hey – let’s create a community! I think sometimes it’s deliberate and other times it just happened. It sounded like you were very intentional. How did you get people involved? How did you get the word out? How did you get people to give talks? 11:10 – Guest: Yes that is a great challenge for us. Great question! I wanted to help people gain exposure and to help them participate at the conference. After giving their talk we give them a special gift. It can be a shirt or sticker or something. It seems enough for people to come and participate. We realized some people were scared to participate b/c imposter syndrome kicked-in. We made sure they felt comfortable and it helped them to participate. 15:00 – Panel: Yeah it sounds like 300 is a very solid conference. Good job! 15:18 – Chuck: Yeah they compare it to the bigger conferences when the local conferences are just as strong and good. Sometimes the smaller conferences are really nice b/c they are more intimate. 16:05 – Panel: I am not a fan of these massive conferences. Great, but you can’t have conversation with 50,000 people. You go to the vendor floor – it’s loud and dark. I go to conferences to talk and listen to them. I like to listen to their challenges and hear stories. 17:01 – Panel: I enjoy the variety. 17:48 – Panel: Just the quality of people that were there was fantastic. NG VIKINGS is a great one to go to! 18:10 – Panel: I saw the conference for New Zealand? And the one that is in Antarctica?! 19:10 – Panel: Some people say: I don’t know how to get involved with X conference? I have a hard time giving advice b/c we all have different backgrounds. Who wants to present on Chrome Frame? Or... 21:07 – Guest: Not everyone is outgoing nor comfortable being in front of an audience. However, just practicing helps! 21:33 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 22:12 – Panel: Chuck, I want to hear about your community! 22:25 – Chuck: I can’t go to a development conference that doesn’t know who I am. I thrive off of people and connecting with them. There are a lot of great opportunities from learning from folks. The email went out this morning and get in the general channel and say: What do you listen to? What are you up to? It’s nice to hear feedback. 25:54 – Panel: I appreciate the work you’ve done within the community, too, Chuck! 26:08 – Panel: My community I’ve been around the block for about 20+ years. I get into one technology and then bounce from one to the other. I’ve had the blessing to be apart of many different communities. I did a lot of JavaScript back in the day and then left when it was a mess. These communities all have something similar: people come together. They want to find others who look/act like them! These experiences change people’s lives! 28:11 – Guest: Through these communities I’ve made a lot of friends and great colleagues. Not just professional but also personal. 28:44 – Panel: Yep the people that I’ve met through Twitter and conferences. 29:00 – Panel. 29:33 – Panel: I was in Poland a few weeks ago and I met some guys – two different Mike’s. I love how down-to-earth these guys are and I think it’s awesome to meet these great people at these conferences! 30:11 – Panel: Go to Angular conferences if you can! 31:25 – Panel: I tell people to do the same thing! 33:17 – Guest: Yeah there are people out there that are introverted, but know that other people are like you, too! Reach out to people before the conference and Tweet at them! Invite people to your group and meet-up at conferences and have a coffee! 34:55 – Panel: I meet a lot of people on Twitter. 35:51 – Panel: I think we are getting to the end and I need to say this. The angular community is a bit different compared to other communities. One thing that this community doesn’t have is the focus of the community. On top of the community are Rob, Steven, Jewels and Naomi and others! I think the Angular team themselves really care! I know they care. 38:09 – Guest: I completely agree with you, Aaron! We appreciate it! 38:25 – Chuck: To wrap-up let’s talk to you, Juan, about where communities should be going to take care of the people 38:45 – Guest: Yeah, what are we going to do next year? Are we going to do Meetups? Do they need something else? What are the needs of our members today and tomorrow? We decided to change the format. We realized that Meetups are great but they are 20-minute talks and they aren’t enough for our members. We do 4 hour Meetup that is called the MEGA MEETUP! 41:00 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly! Links: Vue jQuery Angular JavaScript Python React Cypress Meetup Conference in Antarctica! Guest: Juan Herrera – Twitter Guest: Juan Herrera – GitHub Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Cache Fly Picks: Aaron Harry Potter Play Talk from Angular Connect – Grant Timmerman – Google Team CFP: ngVikings 2019 CFP: ngConf @aaronfrost – Twitter! Chuck DevChat TV transferring from WordPress to a static site. Guest JS – library CFP in Columbia! (2019 conference) @jdjuan – Twitter! John Forbes Article: How to start a conversation...

Panel: Chris Fritz Charles Max Wood In this episode, the panel consists of Chris and Charles who talk about developer freedom. Chuck talks about his new show called The DevRev. The guys also talk about time management, answering e-mails, being self-employed, and their goals/hopes/dreams that they want to achieve in life. Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement – Kendo UI 0:30 – Chuck: Hi! Today our panel is Chris and myself. My new show is The DevRev. There is a lot of aspect of our job that boil down to freedom. Figure out what they like to do and eliminate the things that they don’t like to do. I think it will be 5x a week and I will have a guest every week. What does freedom mean to you? What is your ideal coding situation where you don’t starve? 2:10 – Chris: Let me take a step-back. Why I got into coding it was even before that and it was education. I wanted to work with schools and not necessarily tied to only one school. As a programmer I cannot be asked to do things that I don’t agree with. 3:21 – Chuck: A lot of this thought-process came up b/c of my initial steps into my self-employment. I wanted to go to my son’s activities. I saw freelancing as an option and then had to do that b/c I got laid-off. I hate being told what to do. I have an HOA in my neighborhood and I hate it. They tell me when and how to mow my lawn. This is how I operate it. I hate that they tell me to mow my lawn. I want to talk to people who I want to talk to – that’s my idea of freedom. Everyone’s different idea of what “freedom” is will be different. 5:36 – Chris: I want more time to create more free stuff. Chris talks about DEV experience. 6:28 – Chuck: How did you get to that point of figuring out what you want to do? 6:44 – Chris: I still am figuring that out. I do have a lot of opportunities that are really exciting for me. It’s deciding what I like at that moment and choosing what I want to do vs. not what is going to wear me down. I don’t want to die with regret. There is a distinction between bad tired and good tired. You weren’t true to what you thought was right – and so you don’t settle easy. You toss and turn. I want to end with “good tired” both for the end of the day and for the end of my life. 8:00 – Chuck: I agree with that and I really identify with that. 8:44 – Chris: How do you measure yourself? 8:54 – Chuck: It’s hard to quantify it in only one idea. It’s hard to measure. I list out 5 things I need to do to get me closer to my [one] big goal. I have to get those 5 things done. Most of the time I can make it and I keep grinding on it before I can be done. 9:51 – Chris: My bar is pretty low. Is there more joy / more happiness in the world today in the world b/c of what I’ve done today? I know I will make mistakes in code – and that hurts, no day will be perfect. I try to have a net positive affect everyday. 10:53 – Chris: I can fall easily into depression if I have too many bad days back-to-back. 11:03 – Chuck: I agree and I have to take time off if that happens. 11:13 – Chris talks about open source work and he mentions HOPE IN SOURCE, also Babel. 12:23 – Chuck: When I got to church and there is this component of being together and working towards the same goals. It’s more than just community. There is a real – something in common that we have. 12:57 – Chris: Do you think it’s similar to open source? 13:05 – Chuck: You can watch a podcast in-lieu of an actual in-person sermon. In my church community it’s – Building Each Other Up. It’s not the same for when I contribute to open source. 13:43 – Chris: I ask myself: Is it of value? If I were to die would that work help progress the humankind? By the time I die - I will be completely useless b/c everything in my head is out there in other peoples’ heads. 14:35 – Chuck: When I am gone – I want someone to step into my void and continue that. These shows should be able to go on even if I am not around. I want to make sure that these shows can keep going. 15:48 – Chris: How can we build each other up? We want to have opportunities to grow. I try to provide that for members of the team and vice versa. The amount of respect that I have seen in my communities is quite amazing. I admire Thorsten on the Vue team a lot. (Thorsten’s Twitter.) He talked about compassion and how to communicate with each other and code with compassion. That’s better community and better software. You are forced to thin from multiple perspectives. You want to learn from these various perspectives. 17:44 – Chuck: The ideas behind the camaraderie are great. 17:56 – Chris: And Sarah Drasner! 18:38 – Chuck: She probably feels fulfilled when she helps you out (Sarah). 18:54 – Chuck: We all have to look for those opportunities and take them! 19:08 – Chuck: We have been talking about personal fulfillment. For me writing some awesome code in Vue there is Boiler Plate or running the tests. 19:52 – Chuck: What tools light you up? 20:02 – Chris: I am a bit of a weirdo. I feel pretty good when I am hitting myself against a wall for 9 hours. I like feeling obsessed about something and defeating it. I love it. 21:21 – Chuck: The things that make you bang your head against the wall is awful for me. I like writing code that helps someone. (Chris: I like the challenge.) We will be charged up for different things. You like the challenge and it empowers me to help others out. 22:21 – Chris: I like learning more about how something works. I want to save people a lot of work. There has to be a social connection or I will have a hard time even attempting it. 22:52 – Chris: I also play video games where there are no social connections. I played the Witness a few months ago and I loved the puzzles. 23:45 – Chuck: What other tools are you using? 23:57 – Chris: Webpack is the best took for creating the ideal development scenario. 24:47 – Chuck mentions Boiler Plate. 25:00 – Chris: It was built to help large teams and/or large applications.  I built some other projects like: Hello Vue Components & (with John Papa) Vue Monolith Example. 27:07 – Chuck: Anything else that you consider to be “freeing?” 27:13 – Chris: I like working from home. I like having my routines – they make me happy and productive. Having full control over that makes me happy. The only thing I have is my wife and my cat. 28:12 – Chuck: Yeah I don’t miss driving through traffic. 28:44 – Chris: I don’t like to be around people all day. 30:40 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 31:05 – Chris: Online I get a couple dozen people reaching out to me for different things: completely out-of-the-blue. I want to respond to most of those people but... 33:12 – Chuck: If it’s not on my calendar it won’t happen. I will get those e-mails that can be very time consuming. 33:35 – Chris: When they are asking for something “simple” – it’s not always simple. 34:30 – Chuck: I want to help everybody and that can be a problem. 35:02 – Chris: They are reaching out to me and I want to help. 35:56 – Chuck and Chris go back-and-forth. 36:18 – Chris: How do you figure out how to write a short enough response to the email – to only do 30 minutes? 36:44 – Chuck: Can I answer it in one minute? Nope – so it will go into another pile later in the week. I’ve replied saying: Here is my short-answer and for the long-answer see these references. I star those e-mails that will take too long to respond. 37:50 – Chris and Chuck go back-and-forth. 38:06 – Chuck: Your question is so good – here is the link to the blog that I wrote. 38:37 – Chris: I want to document to point people HERE to past blogs that I’ve written or to someone else’s blog. I feel guilty when I have to delegate. 39:35 – Chuck: I don’t have a problem delegating b/c that’s why I’m paying them. Everyone has his or her own role.  40:40 – Chris: Yeah that makes sense when it’s their job. 41:30 – Chuck: I know working together as a team will free me up in my areas of excellence. 41:49 – Chris: I am having a hard time with this right now. 43:36 – Chuck: We are looking for someone to fill this role and this is the job description. This way you can be EXCELLENT at what you do. You aren’t being pulled too thin. 44:19 – Chris: I have been trying to delegate more. 45:04 – Chuck: Yeah I have been trying to do more with my business, too. What do I want to do in the community? What is my focus? What is my mission and values for the business? Then you knock it out of the park! 45:51 – Chris: As a teacher it is really helpful and really not helpful. You are leading and shaping their experiences. You don’t have options to delegate. 46:27 – Chuck: Yeah my mother is a math teacher. 46:37 – Chuck: Yeah she has 10 kids, so she helps to delegate with force. She is the department head for mathematics and she does delegate some things. It’s you to teach the course. 47:18 – Chris: What promoted you to start this podcast? Is it more personal? 47:30 – Chuck talks about why he is starting this new podcast. 48:10 – Chuck: My business coach said to me: write a mission statement. When I did that things started having clarity for me. Chuck talks about the plan for the DevRev! 55:20 – Chris: I am looking forward to it! 55:34 – Chuck: It will be recorded via video through YouTube, too, in addition to iTunes (hopefully). 55:52 – Chris & Chuck: Picks! 55:58 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! DEVCHAT code. 30-day trial. Links: Vue React JavaScript C# C++ C++ Programming / Memory Management Angular Blazor JavaScript DevChat TV VueCLI Boiler Plate Hello Vue Components Vue Monolith Example Thorsten’s Twitter Sarah’s Twitter Ben Hong’s Twitter Jacob Schatz’ Twitter Vue Vixens The DevRev Sponsors: Fresh Books Cache Fly Kendo UI Get A Coder Job! Picks: Chris Vue Vixens Charles repurpose.io MFCEO Project Podcast Game - Test Version

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Joel Tanzi This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with Joel Tanzi who is a software engineer who currently resides in the Kansas City, Missouri metropolis. He has a degree from KU in computer engineering. They discuss how Joel made a career change in his mid-thirties and hasn’t looked back since! Listen to today’s episode to hear more about Joel’s background and current projects!  In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:51 – Chuck: I am talking with Joel – introduce yourself, please! 1:00 – Joel: I am an Angular developer on the front end. I am employed with a company and working on a new app that has to do with security. I am building the front end to that product. I was studying computer engineering at KU, and Angular is my favorite. 2:00 – Chuck: How did you get into programming? 2:04 – Joel: I have always been fascinated with computers. I struggled with mathematics and science in primary school and so I steered away from those topics; therefore my first degree is English literature. Then I fell intro IT support accidentally. Back in 2006 I went through my 2nd layoff in my career. My friend asked whether or not I would go back to school, so I did! I went to get my engineering degree and relocated to KU. It took 9 years to get my 2nd degree, because I was working fulltime. When I was graduating I talked to an instructor; he mentioned JavaScript at that time. It was exploding in the world at that time. Then I got my first job downtown Kansas City. I haven’t looked back ever since. Have you heard about Knockout? I don’t get the impression that Knockout is popular anymore? (Chuck: No it’s not popular anymore.) I learned Angular and what I like the most about it is that I love how flexible and robust it was/is. 6:32 – Chuck: You found JavaScript and then found Angular – first people to get to Ionic from Angular. How did you get to that point? 6:54 – Joel: Good question! I was fairly new to that job. People already had exposure to it throughout the team/team members. 7:57 – Chuck: How was your transition from Angular 1 to Angular 2? 8:04 – Joel: I was never married to it. I do think that Angular 2 was a major step-up for me and was an important change that needed to happen. It was based on the same concepts. 8:39 – Chuck: What work in Angular are you most proud of? 8:42 – Joel: I think the application I am working on now b/c it looks THE best! Among other things, too. I volunteer through an organization that puts together tech projects for local governments. I got involved with them b/c I wanted more real world experience. It revolves around city streetlights. 11:03 – Chuck: Yeah, Code for America I’ve heard before! Sounds neat! 11:18 – Joel: I would recommend it especially if you are trying to break-into the field. I think community outreach is honorable and it shows initiative. 12:06 – Chuck: Yeah I need to put this into my Get A Coder job 12:23 – Joel: I have met coders within this realm and it’s a great networking opportunity! 12:35 – Chuck: What are you working on now? 12:37 – Joel: WordPress development! 13:46 – Joel (continues): Most lawyers don’t have a website b/c they don’t want to dabble with the technology. 13:59 – Chuck: Cool! I think it’s important to note that your 1st degree was literature and you went back to school. For my mom she went back, too. Were you older than the other students? 14:35 – Joel: I have a lot of things that went my way, which I was very blessed. The law firm that I worked for they had a huge support for people getting their degrees. They also gave me the flex hours, too! I am glad that I had that set-up and I know I was extremely blessed to have that support. It’s hard for people to work fulltime and to go to school – it’s definitely a challenge! I am stoked about veterans getting into the coder field and people with diverse backgrounds into this field; it’s very neat! 18:23 – Chuck: How old were you when you made that career change? 18:36 – Joel: In my mid/late thirties! 18:39 – Chuck: People think that they CAN’T go back to school b/c they are too “old” – when that’s not the case! I encourage people to give it a shot.  19:33 – Joel: There is never a better time to get into this work than now. 20:39 – Chuck: Where can people find you online? 20:45 – Joel: At my website – Stringly Typed! My LinkedIn! 21:45 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv Joel’s LinkedIn Stringly Typed Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Joel Tanzi Code America Operation Code RxJS Chuck Max Wood Mastodon HubSpot

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Joel Tanzi This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with Joel Tanzi who is a software engineer who currently resides in the Kansas City, Missouri metropolis. He has a degree from KU in computer engineering. They discuss how Joel made a career change in his mid-thirties and hasn’t looked back since! Listen to today’s episode to hear more about Joel’s background and current projects!  In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:51 – Chuck: I am talking with Joel – introduce yourself, please! 1:00 – Joel: I am an Angular developer on the front end. I am employed with a company and working on a new app that has to do with security. I am building the front end to that product. I was studying computer engineering at KU, and Angular is my favorite. 2:00 – Chuck: How did you get into programming? 2:04 – Joel: I have always been fascinated with computers. I struggled with mathematics and science in primary school and so I steered away from those topics; therefore my first degree is English literature. Then I fell intro IT support accidentally. Back in 2006 I went through my 2nd layoff in my career. My friend asked whether or not I would go back to school, so I did! I went to get my engineering degree and relocated to KU. It took 9 years to get my 2nd degree, because I was working fulltime. When I was graduating I talked to an instructor; he mentioned JavaScript at that time. It was exploding in the world at that time. Then I got my first job downtown Kansas City. I haven’t looked back ever since. Have you heard about Knockout? I don’t get the impression that Knockout is popular anymore? (Chuck: No it’s not popular anymore.) I learned Angular and what I like the most about it is that I love how flexible and robust it was/is. 6:32 – Chuck: You found JavaScript and then found Angular – first people to get to Ionic from Angular. How did you get to that point? 6:54 – Joel: Good question! I was fairly new to that job. People already had exposure to it throughout the team/team members. 7:57 – Chuck: How was your transition from Angular 1 to Angular 2? 8:04 – Joel: I was never married to it. I do think that Angular 2 was a major step-up for me and was an important change that needed to happen. It was based on the same concepts. 8:39 – Chuck: What work in Angular are you most proud of? 8:42 – Joel: I think the application I am working on now b/c it looks THE best! Among other things, too. I volunteer through an organization that puts together tech projects for local governments. I got involved with them b/c I wanted more real world experience. It revolves around city streetlights. 11:03 – Chuck: Yeah, Code for America I’ve heard before! Sounds neat! 11:18 – Joel: I would recommend it especially if you are trying to break-into the field. I think community outreach is honorable and it shows initiative. 12:06 – Chuck: Yeah I need to put this into my Get A Coder job 12:23 – Joel: I have met coders within this realm and it’s a great networking opportunity! 12:35 – Chuck: What are you working on now? 12:37 – Joel: WordPress development! 13:46 – Joel (continues): Most lawyers don’t have a website b/c they don’t want to dabble with the technology. 13:59 – Chuck: Cool! I think it’s important to note that your 1st degree was literature and you went back to school. For my mom she went back, too. Were you older than the other students? 14:35 – Joel: I have a lot of things that went my way, which I was very blessed. The law firm that I worked for they had a huge support for people getting their degrees. They also gave me the flex hours, too! I am glad that I had that set-up and I know I was extremely blessed to have that support. It’s hard for people to work fulltime and to go to school – it’s definitely a challenge! I am stoked about veterans getting into the coder field and people with diverse backgrounds into this field; it’s very neat! 18:23 – Chuck: How old were you when you made that career change? 18:36 – Joel: In my mid/late thirties! 18:39 – Chuck: People think that they CAN’T go back to school b/c they are too “old” – when that’s not the case! I encourage people to give it a shot.  19:33 – Joel: There is never a better time to get into this work than now. 20:39 – Chuck: Where can people find you online? 20:45 – Joel: At my website – Stringly Typed! My LinkedIn! 21:45 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv Joel’s LinkedIn Stringly Typed Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Joel Tanzi Code America Operation Code RxJS Chuck Max Wood Mastodon HubSpot

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Gareth McCumskey This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles talks with Gareth McCumskey who is a senior web developer for RunwaySale! They talk about Gareth’s background, current projects and his family. Check out today’s episode to hear all about it and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:53 – Chuck: Hey everyone! Welcome! We are talking today with Gareth McCumseky! 1:05 – Gareth: Hi! 1:22 – Chuck: Are you from Cape Town, Africa? (Guest: Yes!) 1:35 – Gareth and Chuck talk about his name, Gareth, and why it’s popular.  1:49 – Chuck: I am in my late 40’s. You were here for JSJ’s Episode 291! It’s still a hot topic and probably should revisit that topic. 2:20 – Guest: Yes! 2:30 – Chuck: It’s interesting. We had a long talk about it and people should go listen to it! 2:45 – Guest: I am a backend developer for the most part. 3:03 – Chuck: Yeah I started off as an ops guy. It probably hurt me. 3:21 – Guest: Yeah, if you poke it a certain way. 3:29 – Chuck: Let’s talk about YOU! How did you get into programming? 3:39 – Guest: South Africa is a different culture to grow-up in vs. U.S. and other places. I remember the computer that my father had back in the day. He led me drive his car about 1km away and I was about 11 years old. We would take home the computer from his office – played around with it during the weekend – and put it back into his office Monday morning. This was way before the Internet. I was fiddling with it for sure. The guest talks about BASIC. 6:20 – Chuck: How did you transfer from building BASIC apps to JavaScript apps? 6:30 – Guest: Yeah that’s a good story. When I was 19 years old...I went to college and studied geology and tried to run an IT business on the side. I started to build things for HTML and CSS and build things for the Web. The guest goes into-detail about his background! 9:26 – Chuck: Yeah, jQuery was so awesome! 9:34 – Guest: Yeah today I am working on an app that uses jQuery! You get used to it, and it’s pretty powerful (jQuery) for what it is/what it does! It has neat tricks. 10:11 – Chuck: I’ve started a site with it b/c it was easy. 10:19 – Guest: Sometimes you don’t need the full out thing. Maybe you just need to load a page here and there, and that’s it. 10:39 – Chuck: It’s a different world – definitely! 10:48 – Guest: Yeah in 2015/2016 is when I picked up JavaScript again. It was b/c around that time we were expecting our first child and that’s where we wanted to be to raise her. Guest: We use webpack.js now. It opened my eyes to see how powerful JavaScript is! 12:10 – Chuck talks about Node.js. 12:21 – Guest: Even today, I got into AWS Cognito! 13:45 – Chuck: You say that your problems are unique – and from the business end I want something that I can resolve quickly. Your solution sounds good. I don’t like messing around with the headaches from Node and others. 14:22 – Guest: Yeah that’s the biggest selling point that I’ve had. 15:47 – Chuck: How did you get into serverless? 15:49 – Guest: Funny experience. I am not the expert and I only write the backend stuff. Guest: At the time, we wanted to improve the reliability of the machine and the site itself. He said to try serverless.com. At the time I wasn’t impressed but then when he suggested it – I took the recommendation more seriously. My company that I work for now... 17:39 – Chuck: What else are you working on? 17:45 – Guest: Some local projects – dining service that refunds you. You pay for a subscription, but find a cheaper way to spend money when you are eating out. It’s called: GOING OUT. Guest: My 3-year-old daughter and my wife is expecting our second child. 18:56 – Chuck and Gareth talk about family and their children. 22:17 – Chuck: Picks! 22:29 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! 30-Day Trial! END – Cache Fly Links: React Angular JavaScript Webpack.js Serverless jQuery Node AWS Cognito Gareth’s Website Gareth’s GitHub Gareth’s Twitter Sponsors: Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Picks: Charles Max Wood Podcasts: MFCEO Project & Gary Vaynerchuk Pokémon Go! Gareth McCumskey Serverless.com Ingress Prime

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Joel Tanzi This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with Joel Tanzi who is a software engineer who currently resides in the Kansas City, Missouri metropolis. He has a degree from KU in computer engineering. They discuss how Joel made a career change in his mid-thirties and hasn’t looked back since! Listen to today’s episode to hear more about Joel’s background and current projects!  In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:51 – Chuck: I am talking with Joel – introduce yourself, please! 1:00 – Joel: I am an Angular developer on the front end. I am employed with a company and working on a new app that has to do with security. I am building the front end to that product. I was studying computer engineering at KU, and Angular is my favorite. 2:00 – Chuck: How did you get into programming? 2:04 – Joel: I have always been fascinated with computers. I struggled with mathematics and science in primary school and so I steered away from those topics; therefore my first degree is English literature. Then I fell intro IT support accidentally. Back in 2006 I went through my 2nd layoff in my career. My friend asked whether or not I would go back to school, so I did! I went to get my engineering degree and relocated to KU. It took 9 years to get my 2nd degree, because I was working fulltime. When I was graduating I talked to an instructor; he mentioned JavaScript at that time. It was exploding in the world at that time. Then I got my first job downtown Kansas City. I haven’t looked back ever since. Have you heard about Knockout? I don’t get the impression that Knockout is popular anymore? (Chuck: No it’s not popular anymore.) I learned Angular and what I like the most about it is that I love how flexible and robust it was/is. 6:32 – Chuck: You found JavaScript and then found Angular – first people to get to Ionic from Angular. How did you get to that point? 6:54 – Joel: Good question! I was fairly new to that job. People already had exposure to it throughout the team/team members. 7:57 – Chuck: How was your transition from Angular 1 to Angular 2? 8:04 – Joel: I was never married to it. I do think that Angular 2 was a major step-up for me and was an important change that needed to happen. It was based on the same concepts. 8:39 – Chuck: What work in Angular are you most proud of? 8:42 – Joel: I think the application I am working on now b/c it looks THE best! Among other things, too. I volunteer through an organization that puts together tech projects for local governments. I got involved with them b/c I wanted more real world experience. It revolves around city streetlights. 11:03 – Chuck: Yeah, Code for America I’ve heard before! Sounds neat! 11:18 – Joel: I would recommend it especially if you are trying to break-into the field. I think community outreach is honorable and it shows initiative. 12:06 – Chuck: Yeah I need to put this into my Get A Coder job 12:23 – Joel: I have met coders within this realm and it’s a great networking opportunity! 12:35 – Chuck: What are you working on now? 12:37 – Joel: WordPress development! 13:46 – Joel (continues): Most lawyers don’t have a website b/c they don’t want to dabble with the technology. 13:59 – Chuck: Cool! I think it’s important to note that your 1st degree was literature and you went back to school. For my mom she went back, too. Were you older than the other students? 14:35 – Joel: I have a lot of things that went my way, which I was very blessed. The law firm that I worked for they had a huge support for people getting their degrees. They also gave me the flex hours, too! I am glad that I had that set-up and I know I was extremely blessed to have that support. It’s hard for people to work fulltime and to go to school – it’s definitely a challenge! I am stoked about veterans getting into the coder field and people with diverse backgrounds into this field; it’s very neat! 18:23 – Chuck: How old were you when you made that career change? 18:36 – Joel: In my mid/late thirties! 18:39 – Chuck: People think that they CAN’T go back to school b/c they are too “old” – when that’s not the case! I encourage people to give it a shot.  19:33 – Joel: There is never a better time to get into this work than now. 20:39 – Chuck: Where can people find you online? 20:45 – Joel: At my website – Stringly Typed! My LinkedIn! 21:45 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv Joel’s LinkedIn Stringly Typed Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Joel Tanzi Code America Operation Code RxJS Chuck Max Wood Mastodon HubSpot

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Gareth McCumskey This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles talks with Gareth McCumskey who is a senior web developer for RunwaySale! They talk about Gareth’s background, current projects and his family. Check out today’s episode to hear all about it and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:53 – Chuck: Hey everyone! Welcome! We are talking today with Gareth McCumseky! 1:05 – Gareth: Hi! 1:22 – Chuck: Are you from Cape Town, Africa? (Guest: Yes!) 1:35 – Gareth and Chuck talk about his name, Gareth, and why it’s popular.  1:49 – Chuck: I am in my late 40’s. You were here for JSJ’s Episode 291! It’s still a hot topic and probably should revisit that topic. 2:20 – Guest: Yes! 2:30 – Chuck: It’s interesting. We had a long talk about it and people should go listen to it! 2:45 – Guest: I am a backend developer for the most part. 3:03 – Chuck: Yeah I started off as an ops guy. It probably hurt me. 3:21 – Guest: Yeah, if you poke it a certain way. 3:29 – Chuck: Let’s talk about YOU! How did you get into programming? 3:39 – Guest: South Africa is a different culture to grow-up in vs. U.S. and other places. I remember the computer that my father had back in the day. He led me drive his car about 1km away and I was about 11 years old. We would take home the computer from his office – played around with it during the weekend – and put it back into his office Monday morning. This was way before the Internet. I was fiddling with it for sure. The guest talks about BASIC. 6:20 – Chuck: How did you transfer from building BASIC apps to JavaScript apps? 6:30 – Guest: Yeah that’s a good story. When I was 19 years old...I went to college and studied geology and tried to run an IT business on the side. I started to build things for HTML and CSS and build things for the Web. The guest goes into-detail about his background! 9:26 – Chuck: Yeah, jQuery was so awesome! 9:34 – Guest: Yeah today I am working on an app that uses jQuery! You get used to it, and it’s pretty powerful (jQuery) for what it is/what it does! It has neat tricks. 10:11 – Chuck: I’ve started a site with it b/c it was easy. 10:19 – Guest: Sometimes you don’t need the full out thing. Maybe you just need to load a page here and there, and that’s it. 10:39 – Chuck: It’s a different world – definitely! 10:48 – Guest: Yeah in 2015/2016 is when I picked up JavaScript again. It was b/c around that time we were expecting our first child and that’s where we wanted to be to raise her. Guest: We use webpack.js now. It opened my eyes to see how powerful JavaScript is! 12:10 – Chuck talks about Node.js. 12:21 – Guest: Even today, I got into AWS Cognito! 13:45 – Chuck: You say that your problems are unique – and from the business end I want something that I can resolve quickly. Your solution sounds good. I don’t like messing around with the headaches from Node and others. 14:22 – Guest: Yeah that’s the biggest selling point that I’ve had. 15:47 – Chuck: How did you get into serverless? 15:49 – Guest: Funny experience. I am not the expert and I only write the backend stuff. Guest: At the time, we wanted to improve the reliability of the machine and the site itself. He said to try serverless.com. At the time I wasn’t impressed but then when he suggested it – I took the recommendation more seriously. My company that I work for now... 17:39 – Chuck: What else are you working on? 17:45 – Guest: Some local projects – dining service that refunds you. You pay for a subscription, but find a cheaper way to spend money when you are eating out. It’s called: GOING OUT. Guest: My 3-year-old daughter and my wife is expecting our second child. 18:56 – Chuck and Gareth talk about family and their children. 22:17 – Chuck: Picks! 22:29 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! 30-Day Trial! END – Cache Fly Links: React Angular JavaScript Webpack.js Serverless jQuery Node AWS Cognito Gareth’s Website Gareth’s GitHub Gareth’s Twitter Sponsors: Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Picks: Charles Max Wood Podcasts: MFCEO Project & Gary Vaynerchuk Pokémon Go! Gareth McCumskey Serverless.com Ingress Prime

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Gareth McCumskey This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles talks with Gareth McCumskey who is a senior web developer for RunwaySale! They talk about Gareth’s background, current projects and his family. Check out today’s episode to hear all about it and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:53 – Chuck: Hey everyone! Welcome! We are talking today with Gareth McCumseky! 1:05 – Gareth: Hi! 1:22 – Chuck: Are you from Cape Town, Africa? (Guest: Yes!) 1:35 – Gareth and Chuck talk about his name, Gareth, and why it’s popular.  1:49 – Chuck: I am in my late 40’s. You were here for JSJ’s Episode 291! It’s still a hot topic and probably should revisit that topic. 2:20 – Guest: Yes! 2:30 – Chuck: It’s interesting. We had a long talk about it and people should go listen to it! 2:45 – Guest: I am a backend developer for the most part. 3:03 – Chuck: Yeah I started off as an ops guy. It probably hurt me. 3:21 – Guest: Yeah, if you poke it a certain way. 3:29 – Chuck: Let’s talk about YOU! How did you get into programming? 3:39 – Guest: South Africa is a different culture to grow-up in vs. U.S. and other places. I remember the computer that my father had back in the day. He led me drive his car about 1km away and I was about 11 years old. We would take home the computer from his office – played around with it during the weekend – and put it back into his office Monday morning. This was way before the Internet. I was fiddling with it for sure. The guest talks about BASIC. 6:20 – Chuck: How did you transfer from building BASIC apps to JavaScript apps? 6:30 – Guest: Yeah that’s a good story. When I was 19 years old...I went to college and studied geology and tried to run an IT business on the side. I started to build things for HTML and CSS and build things for the Web. The guest goes into-detail about his background! 9:26 – Chuck: Yeah, jQuery was so awesome! 9:34 – Guest: Yeah today I am working on an app that uses jQuery! You get used to it, and it’s pretty powerful (jQuery) for what it is/what it does! It has neat tricks. 10:11 – Chuck: I’ve started a site with it b/c it was easy. 10:19 – Guest: Sometimes you don’t need the full out thing. Maybe you just need to load a page here and there, and that’s it. 10:39 – Chuck: It’s a different world – definitely! 10:48 – Guest: Yeah in 2015/2016 is when I picked up JavaScript again. It was b/c around that time we were expecting our first child and that’s where we wanted to be to raise her. Guest: We use webpack.js now. It opened my eyes to see how powerful JavaScript is! 12:10 – Chuck talks about Node.js. 12:21 – Guest: Even today, I got into AWS Cognito! 13:45 – Chuck: You say that your problems are unique – and from the business end I want something that I can resolve quickly. Your solution sounds good. I don’t like messing around with the headaches from Node and others. 14:22 – Guest: Yeah that’s the biggest selling point that I’ve had. 15:47 – Chuck: How did you get into serverless? 15:49 – Guest: Funny experience. I am not the expert and I only write the backend stuff. Guest: At the time, we wanted to improve the reliability of the machine and the site itself. He said to try serverless.com. At the time I wasn’t impressed but then when he suggested it – I took the recommendation more seriously. My company that I work for now... 17:39 – Chuck: What else are you working on? 17:45 – Guest: Some local projects – dining service that refunds you. You pay for a subscription, but find a cheaper way to spend money when you are eating out. It’s called: GOING OUT. Guest: My 3-year-old daughter and my wife is expecting our second child. 18:56 – Chuck and Gareth talk about family and their children. 22:17 – Chuck: Picks! 22:29 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! 30-Day Trial! END – Cache Fly Links: React Angular JavaScript Webpack.js Serverless jQuery Node AWS Cognito Gareth’s Website Gareth’s GitHub Gareth’s Twitter Sponsors: Cache Fly Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Picks: Charles Max Wood Podcasts: MFCEO Project & Gary Vaynerchuk Pokémon Go! Gareth McCumskey Serverless.com Ingress Prime

Panel: Charles Max Wood Joe Eames John Papa Alyssa Nicoll Special Guest:  Michael Giambalvo In this episode, Chuck talks with special guest Michael Giambalvo who is an author of the book titled, “Testing Angular Applications.” This book can be purchased through Amazon, Manning Publications, among other sites, too. The panelists and the guest talk about different types of tests, such as end-to-end testing and unit testing. They also talk about Angular, Java, Mocha, Test Café, and much more! Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: AngularBootCamp.Com 0:53 – Chuck: Our panel is John Papa, Joe Eames, Alyssa Nicoll, and myself. My new show is the DevRev – check it out, please! 1:26 – Guest: I am a contributing author to our new book, which is about Angular. 1:56 – Chuck: How is it like to write with multiple people? 2:04 – Guest: Yep it’s hard b/c we are in different areas. Back in the 2.0 days, Jesse was writing a book. He was talking about typescript and components. Craig made friends with Jesse and they were talking about the book he was writing. Then we all jumped in to get in finished. We all had areas that we were specialists in! 3:21 – Alyssa: If you break it up that makes sense. 3:31 – Guest. 3:40 – Panel: Pick different words and go around the room. 3:51 – Panel: You write the first ½ of a sentence and then you write the other ½ of the sentence! 4:10 – Guest: You have these big word documents and go back-and-forth. 4:36 – Alyssa: Editing and then pass it back-and-forth – how does that work? 4:46 – Guest: It’s like 8 pass backs-and-forth. 5:35 – Guest: The editing was the main issue – it took forever! 5:50 – Chuck: We were going to co-author a book and we didn’t. Chuck: If you could break down the book in 4 core topics what would they be? Elevator pitch? What is the starting knowledge? 6:18 – Guest: We expect you to know Angular Intro and that’s it! 6:43 – Chuck: What are the principles? 6:50 – Guest: We talk about the testing component. We highlight the benefits of using Angular vs. Angular.js. That shows up in the book a lot. It’s very example driven. 7:28 – Chuck: We have been talking about testing quite a bit on the show lately. 8:22 – Chuck: Do you see people using the testing in regards to the pyramid? 8:33 – Guest: I am not a huge fan of the pyramid. Some questions I ask are: Does it run quickly? Is it reliable? To give you some background I work on Google Club Platform. 10:21 – The guest talks about “Page Level Integration Tests.” 11:31 – Alyssa. 11:50 – Chuck: After your explanation after writing your book I’m sure it’s a breeze now. Knowing these tests and having the confidence is great. 12:13 – Guest: Tools like Cypress is very helpful. Web Driver Testing, too. 12:43 – Chuck: Where do people start? What do you recommend? Do they start at Protractor or do they come down to unit tests? 13:02 – Guest: Finding the balance is important. 14:30 – Chuck: Check out a past episode that we’ve done. 14:40 – Panel asks a question about tools such as Test Café and Cypress. 14:50 – Guest: I really don’t know Test Café. There is a long story in how all of these fit together. The guest talks about Selenium, Cypress, Safari, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Puppeteer! 19:24 – Chuck: Does it work in Electron as well, too? 19:26 – Guest: Good question but I don’t know the answer. 19:39 – Chuck: Maybe a listener could write a comment and tell us. 19:43 – Panel: I’ve used Protractor for many years. I like the explanation that you just gave. The great thing about Protractor is that you can... 20:29 – Guest: We wanted to explain the difficulty of Protractor in this book. Guest: You have this test running in Node but then you have your app running in the browser. You have these 2 different run times. You might have to run them separately and there is tons of complexity. 21:15 – Panel: As I am coding you have this visual browser on one side, and then on the other side you have... 22:22 – Guest asks the panelists a question. 22:32 – Panel: I have only used it for a few months and a few several apps but haven’t had those issues, yet. 22:55 – Guest: I haven’t heard of Test Café at all. 23:05 – Alyssa: Is the book online? 23:13 – Guest: It’s available through Manning Publications and Amazon. I think we have some codes to giveaway! 23:34 – Chuck: Yeah, we are working on those codes and giveaways. We have mentioned about 5 or 6 tools – are you worried about your book going out of date? 24:05 – Guest: Sure that is something we are worried about. When editing took a long time to get through that was one of my thoughts. The guest talks about Selenium, control flow, Protractor, 25:45 – Guest (continues): These new features were coming out while the book was coming out – so there’s that. What’s this thing about control flow and why this matters to you, etc. We were able to add that into the book, which is good. We were able to get those instructions out there. Books have a delay to them. 26:47 – Chuck: We talked about this in JavaScript Jabber. This guest talked about this and he is from Big Nerd Ranch. At what point do you have this breaking point: This isn’t a good fit for Test Café or Selenium BUT a good fit for Mocha or Jest? 27:27 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 28:04 – Guest: Do you have a reason why you would switch testing tools? 28:12 – Chuck. 28:41 – Guest: That’s the tradeoff as you move down the ladder. 29:43 – Panel: If you want to trigger an action that isn’t triggerable? 29:50 – Guest answers the question. 30:07 – Panel. 30:20 – Chuck. 30:33 – Guest: You can access code. Usually something in a workflow will make it happen. You have to fall back on some type of UI sort of thing. It’s almost like doing Tetris! I’ve never had to directly call something. I am not the best one to answer that. 31:16 – Panel: It’s like a weird mix of tests. 31:29 – Panelist is talking about unit testing and other tests. 31:55 – Chuck asks a question. 32:02 – Guest: It depends on the scale of your project. 32:28 – Chuck: Do you guys use a test coverage tool or on the side of: everything should run and then test if there is a bug. 32:43 – Guest: Coverage isn’t the full story. 33:26 – Panel: You said you weren’t a fan of the testing pyramid – can you explain why? 33:43 – Guest: I think it turns too much prescriptive. Guest: I think there are bigger concerns out there and the test pyramid is an over-simplification. 35:22 – Panel: What’s the difference between fast and slow testing? 35:28 – Guest: It really depends on your level of knowledge. If your test suite runs more than twenty minutes to an hour that is probably too slow! 36:03 – Alyssa. 36:09 – Chuck. 36:16 – Alyssa: There is no way that 20 minutes equals that! 36:26 – Guest: 20 minutes is the extreme limit.  36:51 – Chuck. 37:11 – Panel: Any new Twitter news on Trump? 37:21 – Panelist talks about test suites! 37:40 – Panelists and guests go back-and-forth. 38:11 – Chuck: Do you have any recommendations for the unit testing? Keeping it small or not so much? 38:29 – Guest: Think: What is this test asking? Don’t write tests that won’t fail if some other tests could have caught them. 39:04 – Alyssa: That’s smart! 39:09 – Guest continues. 39:28 – Chuck: What else to jump on? Chuck: Do you write your tests in typescript or in Java? 39:48 – Guest answers the question. He mentions Python, typescript, and more! 40:17 – Alyssa. 40:22 – Guest continues. 40:46 – Alyssa: How many people worked on that project? 40:50 – Guest: 2 or 3 framework engineers who did the tooling. About 20 people total for tooling to make sure everything worked. 41:18 – Panelist asks a question. 41:22 – Guest: About 20 minutes! 42:35 – Guest wants to talk about the topic: end-to-end testing! 44:59 – Chuck: Let’s do picks! 45:09 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly! Links: Vue jQuery Angular JavaScript Python React Cypress Puppeteer – GitHub Protractor Test Mocha.js Selenium C# GitHub: testcafe Istanbul “Protractor: A New Hope” – YouTube Video – Michael Giambalvo & Craig Nishina Book: “Testing Angular Applications” – Manning Publications Michael’s GitHub Michael’s Twitter Sponsors: Angular Boot Camp Cache Fly Picks: Alyssa Fantastic Beasts Joe Skyward War of the Spider Queen Luxur - board game Testing Angular with Cypress.io Space Cadets Sonar Family Charles The DevRev Podcast Gary Vee Audio Experience Michael Scale Captain Sonar

Panel: Eric Berry Charles Max Wood Nate Hopkins Special Guest: Paul Smith and Andrew Mason In this episode of Ruby Rogues, the panelists talk with Paul Smith and Andrew Mason! They discuss the platforms Lucky and Crystal. Other topics include: Ruby, Phoenix, Laravel Mix, Thoughtbot, Webpack, compilers, and much more! Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: Sentry.io 1:02 – Chuck: Welcome!! Eric Berry, Nate Hopkins, and myself are the panel - and our special guests are Paul Smith and Andrew Mason. Introduce yourself! 1:41 – Andrew / Guest: I have messed with every type of language, so there’s that! 1:55 – Paul / Guest: I have been here at my current company for 5 years and it’s a consultancy firm. I have been working on Crystal. 2:14 – Chuck: We are lucky to have you! Give people the elevator pitch for Lucky and Crystal? 2:33 – Guest: Let’s talk about Crystal and looks very similar to Ruby! It’s faster and it’s a compound language. It catches a fair amount of things at compile time. The other special features are... 4:17 – Guest mentions compilers. 4:23 – Chuck: Yeah we see this in the typescript. Is it language service – is that what it’s called? Pile and compile and all of this checking are a nice stage for it to run-through. Although the flipside is coding and to not worry about that – that’s nice! 4:56 – Guest: It has changed my approach for sure. 5:43 – Panel: How much slower are you? 5:54 – Guest: I am a lot faster in Crystal than I am in Ruby. 6:51 – Panel: Yeah you have to figure out where you want to save the time. 7:00 – Guest: Someone wrote a blog post and it said...the Rails service is like bolting a shelf on a wall and hoping to hit a stud and it’s not solid. But using Lucky it’s sold although it took a little longer. I think it can be true. You can do bad things with compilers, though. It depends on how you use it. 7:43 – Panelist asks a question. 7:53 – Guest: Every Friday is an investment day. Lucky is my “whatever I want thing.” I am technically getting paid to work on it. 8:33 – Panel: have you had to battle with the framework? 8:51 – Guest: Yes, even though Crystal looks like Ruby (at a high level) if you want to do it well you have to approach it in the Crystal-way. When I came to Crystal I came to it like Rails. The problem with that is I wanted to have type-saved parameters – you can’t do that in Crystal b/c...it doesn’t know when to have a parameter with... 10:48 – Panel: I have heard you talk about Crystal before on another podcast. You talked about templating and I am curious to hear about that. I have used Slim and others and now stick to ERB. 11:25 – Guest: Yes definitely. Let’s back up and talk about WHAT Lucky does! The guest talks about Rails, escaping, and more! 14:37 – Panel: So I imagine Rails partials are slow and expensive to render. I would imagine that this approach with Lucky... 15:00 – Guest: Yes exactly. It’s extremely fast! 15:20 – Panel: How is this for designers? 15:30 – Guest: Yes that was a concern of mine. With Lucky I tried to make it close to a regular HTML structure would look like! 16:32 – Panel: I spun up a Lucky app the other day. It looks like you are using... 16:50 – Guest: I have played around with a bunch of stuff. I landed on Laravel Mix. 18:27 – Panel: Yes webpack is a pain to set up and it’s hard to get it to working the way you want it to work. 18:47 – Guest: Yeah if you want React or whatever it will generate the configuration you need. I don’t like it b/c if you want to... 19:28 – Panel. 19:45 – Guest: I don’t want to maintain it. 19:54 – Panel: There is a Crystal community in Utah. I want to know – are you competing with Amber? Explain the difference between Lucky and Amber? 20:20 – Guest: Yes I did look at Amber but they are approaching it differently than us. The guest talks about the differences between Amber and Lucky. 21:54 – Guest (continues): With Lucky you will have to learn a little bit more but you get more of a pack! 23:23 – Panel: It sounds like Lucky is inspired by Elm – right? 23:32 – Guest: Yeah, I think so. The guest dives into this topic of Elm and Lucky! 24:35 – Panel: How much does the types feel like it’s getting in your way? How explicit is it? When I came to Ruby it was a breath of fresh air. I am a bit reluctant to go back to those days. 25:25 – Guest: I think Lucky does a happy medium. It doesn’t infer instant variables. I like the... 26:28 – Panel: I learned Java very early on in my computer science career. 27:00 – Guest. 27:10 – Panel: “Crystal...it’s not Java!” That should be your slogan! 27:20 – Fresh Books! 28:25 – Panel: A lot of people are moving to Elixir community. Do you see people moving from Ruby to Lucky and Crystal? How does Lucky compare to Phoenix? 28:55 – Guest: Good question! 29:10 – The guest talks about bamboo – see links below!! 29: 29 – Guest: Sure Ruby is fast but sometimes you spend more time on it then you would want to. 31:08 – Guest: Blessing and curse that Crystal looks so much like Ruby. That’s what I thought at first: why would I want to learn this if it’s so similar to Ruby. BUT there are so many benefits to Crystal vs. Ruby. 31:48 – Guest talks about Lucky catching the bugs. 32:00 – Panel: I wonder if that happened with Groovy and Rails? 32:21 – They go back-and-forth. 32:28 – Panel: Thoughtbot has always been on the forefront of Ruby. Can you talk about Thoughbot please? (See links below for Thoughtbot!) 33:15 – Guest: Great question. It’s hard to tell b/c there are different offices. I would say Ruby is our main thing. Ruby is the most mature thing that we use in-terms of web development. Guest: Actually – Rails is pretty nice! 34:54 – Panel: We went through the same thing with CodeFund! I wrote it initially in Python and then I wrote it in Elixir and it became so complex. Now we are moving everything back to Ruby and it’s been a fantastic decision.  36:30 – Chuck: You are talking about the sustainability of open source but there are benefits throughout the company right? There are tons of tangible benefits of doing it, especially when it’s your Friday schedule. You can level-up on things that could help you. I know a lot of companies cannot afford it if they are trying to hustle. 37:42 – Guest: It’s totally not charity through Thoughtbot. It’s a huge help for hiring new people. I know they are okay with letting me work on Lucky b/c it’s bringing on new developers and a good marketing tool, and finally recruiting! 39:07 – Chuck: Yeah, I have been talking about developer freedom and that’s what I am addressing through the DevRev show! It’s my new podcast show. We talk with Chris on Elixir Mix. It lends that credibility if they need to save our bacon. 40:02 – Panel: What’s your goal with Lucky? 40:11 – Guest: I would love to get it to the point where Thoughtbot could start a project and default to Lucky! Start a project and not resting every gem and be confident with launching it. 41:36 – Panelist asks a question. 41:45 – Guest: It’s not 1.0 and that means that the API will break with every release. I think that’s good to tweak stuff but that turns companies off, though. 42:40 – Chuck: Another thing that helps with adoption is Twitter used Rails to build their initial version. This blah, blah company uses important stuff and they are using Crystal and whatnot then that’s good! It sounds like you are waiting for social proof. 43:23 – Guest: Is the next Twitter going to even know about Crystal? 43:40 – Chuck: It literally only takes one enthusiast! 43:52 – Guest. 44:11 – Demo of Flickr Search is mentioned here! 45:13 – Panel: Is there something out there that you could POINT someone to? 45:27 – Guest: Not, yet. I built a small site with it! It is opensource and you can look at it. I want to show people a good example of what Lucky can do! 45:57 – Panel: You have very good docs and I am a visual learner. When I learned Rails I learned on my own and not through school. 46:20 – Panelist asks a question. 46:48 – Guest: What a huge advantage Lucky has through the Thoughtbot platform! Now that platform is kind of dried up. In terms of getting people excited it needs that killer app and they can see that it’s fast and killer! I think it takes a lot of time and finding time to do it so that’s tricky. It’s changing a lot when there is so much change. Getting Lucky to a 1.0 state so people can do videos and make apps. The hard part thing is that Lucky has to be 1.0 when Crystal is 1.0. The Lucky community is great b/c it’s encouraging and to respond in a very kind way. When you are starting something that’s new can be scary. We try to help out as much as we can and we are open and kind about it. 49:13 – Panel: “Paul is nice so Lucky is nice!” 49:19 – Guest: Everyone is super kind. It had to be short and simple. We in the dev community are very lucky – usually great pay/benefits and more w/o a college degree. What another field can you do that?! 51:00 – Panel: Great message and you need to push that! 51:10 – Panel: You were on a past podcast and you talked about how you are donating each month! Panel: Opensource maintainers are getting burned out and you want to support that. 51:40 – Guest: I think opensource sustainability what others need to do to make it sustainable. If you have the means to give we can be apart of that, too. It would be nice if companies did that. If it helps Crystal I am happy. 52:17 – Panel: I have a question about Crystal. 52:52 – Guest: Ruby right now you can do C sections right now. 53:01 – Panel. 53:10 – Guest: I don’t think so – it may but I would guess that you could do it but I don’t know how easy it would be. Note: Rust and C are mentioned. 53:37 – Panel comments. 53:46 – Guest: One thing I would say is to check-out the Lucky docs. We are happy to help! 54:10 – Panel: This is a favorite episode of mine! Both of today’s guests have been my favorite! 54:23 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! End – Cache Fly! Links: Get a Coder Job Course The DevRev Podcast Show DevChat TV Ruby Elixir Ruby on Rails Angular Cypress Vue React Jest.io Mocha.js Webpacker-Cli Amber Lucky The Lucky Philosophy The Bike Shed Thoughtbot CodeFund Lucky: Ruby on Rails to Lucky on Crystal... “Crystal is not Ruby Part 1” GitHub: Bamboo Ex_Machina Dialyxir Crystal Mastery Samsung T5 Carbon Copy Cloner iMazing Awesome-Lucky Paul Smith GitHub Sponsors: Sentry CacheFly Fresh Books Picks: Nate Samsung SSD Carbon Copy Cloner Application Eric iMazing HEIC Converter Charles Mastodon Andrew Upcase by Thoughtbot Awesome Lucky Paul Tailwind CSS Phoenix Live HTML Chris McCord Elixir Mix Episodes with Chris McCord

Panel: Lucas Reis Charles Max Wood Justin Bennett Special Guest: Soumyajit Pathak In this episode, the panelists talk with Soumyajit Pathak (India) who is a full-stack developer and cybersecurity enthusiast. The panel and the guest talk about design patterns and designing simpler code for clarity and less confusion. Check out today’s episode! Show Topics: 0:00 – Kendo UI 0:31 – Chuck: Our panelists are and our guest is Soumyajit! Introduce yourself please! Are you doing React on the side? 1:02 – Guest: I am a master’s student and I am doing freelancing. 1:42 – Panel. 1:49 – Guest. 2:10 – Chuck: I am feeling very up-to-date. Woo! Universities are teaching this and that and they are focused on theory. The flipside is that they are going to write real code for real systems. 3:10 – Panel: I like your well-written blog posts. You talk about design patterns. 3:50 – Guest: The design patterns at the university had to do with real JavaScript applications. 4:09 – Chuck: I am curious you are talking about the design patterns – how can people from React find/use it? 4:45 – Panel: It depends on your definition of design patterns. 5:35 – Lucas: Maybe you are using one or two here and reading through the design patterns is like going through your toolbox. You only need a screwdriver but you bought the whole toolbox. Get familiar with it and from time to time solve problems and thing: what tool can help me here? It’s clear to me with this toolbox analogy. I understand now – that tool I saw 2 months ago could help me. 7:00 – Guest: I have an interesting story with this about design patterns. Let me share! 7:36 – Justin: It was a similar thing but I wasn’t in JavaScript at the time. I’ve used a lot of C++ code. Design patterns became very useful. I saw it the same way Lucas! 9:23 – Justin continues: How and why to use a certain tool. That’s important. 10:28 – Chuck: Okay this is the default pattern and that’s where we can go for the fallback. Here is the fallback if this doesn’t work here or there. 10:49 – Lucas: This is important to remember. It’s not how to use the tool but it’s why am I using this tool here or there? 11:57 – Justin: It’s so much information in general. People get information overload and they have to just start! One of the challenges we do is that we over-engineer things. Do what you need to know. Look it up but play with it. 12:40 – Lucas: It’s interesting by another blog post that you wrote Soumyajit – and you are using a render prop. You showed a problem and showed the solution. 13:30 – Guest: Yeah I’ve written a lot of blog posts about this topic. 13:48 – Panel: Often times – it’s hard for people just to dive-in. People need to see you solving a problem and it really helps with the learning process. 15:03 – Chuck: What patterns do you find most useful? 15:11 – Panel: Functional components have changed my world! 16:23 – Guest: Around these functional components... 17:17 – Panel: I will go with the patterns that are not useful. Don’t make your code pattern-oriented. This is my favorite pattern now and going back to basics. 18:53 – Panelists go back-and-forth. 19:01 – Lucas. 19:41 – Chuck: You talk about over-engineering things and that’s what I found myself doing sometimes with my new project. When I figure out how to make it simpler I get excited and it’s easy to follow. 20:15 – Panel: We celebrate the person who deleted the most lines of code. 20:28 – Panel: I am going to steal that idea. 21:04 – Guest: I have an interesting story of over-engineering something – let me share! 21:53 – FreshBooks! 22:59 – Panel: Building too much is b/c I don’t have a clear understanding of what I am doing. I get excited about problems. What’s the more simple way / most naïve way possible! 24:36 – Lucas: If you are going to change something you will be changing it in several different places. 25:50 – Chuck: When I heard the concept, all the codes that change together should be together. 26:08 – Lucas comments. 26:53 – Panel: Keeping things contained in one place. We have our presentational component and higher-level component, so you can see it all. 28:28 – Lucas: Different people working on different technologies. 29:15 – Panel: Can I break this down to smaller parts, which makes sense to me? 29:48 – Guest: Looking for keywords will cause a distraction. Finding a balance is good. 30:04 – Chuck: If you have a large rile there could be a smaller component that is there own concern. That feels like the real answer to me. It has a lot less than the length of the file versus... Chuck: If I cannot follow it then I need to keep the concept simple. 30:51 – Lucas: The quantity of lines and the line count – I think it’s better how many indentations you have. 32:43 – Guest. 32:48 – Lucas: Yes, so in the horizontal scrolling you have to keep things in your mind. 33:41 – Panel: There are so many different metrics that you can use and the different line count or different characters. There are more scientific terms that we could plugin here. If you have a lot of these abstract relations that can...write it  34:23 – Chuck: So true. 34:52 – Chuck: I want to move onto a different problem so it’s an attention thing for me too. 35:06 – Panel: We have to get okay with not always writing the best code in that it just needs to do what it needs to do. 35:30 – Chuck. 35:57 – Panel: We write it once – then it falls apart and then we write it again and learn from the process. Learning is the key here – you see where it works and where it doesn’t work well. 36:31 – Panel. 36:47 – Chuck mentions service-side rendering. Chuck: Should we schedule another episode? 37:11 – Panel: I think it’s own episode b/c it’s a complex problem overall. 39:33 – Lucas: Try to find memory leaks in the file components and server-side rendering. Where we have lost a lot of sleep and a higher level of complication. Sometimes it’s necessary. 41:42 – Chuck: Yeah let’s do another episode on this topic. Sounds like there is a lot to dive into this topic. Soumyajit, how do people find you? 42:10 – Guest: Twitter and GitHub! 42:28 – Picks! 42:30 – Advertisement – Get A Coder Job! End – Cache Fly Links: Ruby on Rails Angular JavaScript Elm Phoenix GitHub Get A Coder Job React Patterns on GitHub Calibre Book: Engineering a Safer World Designers’ Secret Source Monster Hunter Guest’s GitHub Guest’s Twitter Sponsors: Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Fresh Books Kendo UI Picks: Justin https://reactpatterns.com/ Calibre App Lucas Engineering a Safer World Soumyajit Blog Muzli - Chrome Extension Charles Monster Hunters International Series Metabase Stripe Work for DevChat TV

Panel: Charles Max Wood Aimee Knight Chris Ferdinandi AJ O’Neal Special Guest: Andy Bell In this episode, the panel talks with Andy Bell who is an independent designer and developer who uses React, Vue, and Node. Today, the panelists and the guest talk about the power of progressive enhancements. Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI 0:34 – Chuck: Hi! Our panel is AJ, Aimee, Chris, myself and my new show is coming out in a few weeks, which is called the DevRev! It helps you with developer’s freedom! I am super excited. Our guest is Andy Bell. Introduce yourself, please. 2:00 – Guest: I am an independent designer and developer out in the U.K. 2:17 – Chuck: You wrote things about Vanilla.js. I am foreshadowing a few things and let’s talk about the power and progressive enhancement. 2:43 – The guest gives us definitions of power and progressive enhancements. He describes how it works. 3:10 – Chuck: I’ve heard that people would turn off JavaScript b/c it was security concern and then your progressive enhancement would make it work w/o JavaScript. I am sure there’s more than that? 3:28 – The guest talks about JavaScript, dependencies, among other things. 4:40 – Chuck: Your post did make that very clear I think. I am thinking I don’t even know where to start with this. Are people using the 6th version? How far back or what are we talking about here? 5:09 – Guest: You can go really far back and make it work w/o CSS. 5:49 – Chris: I am a big advocate of progressive enhancement – the pushback I get these days is that there is a divide; between the broadband era and AOL dialup. Are there compelling reasons why progressive enhancements even matter? 6:48 – Guest. 8:05 – Panel: My family lives out in the boonies. I am aware of 50% of American don’t have fast Internet. People don’t have access to fast browsers but I don’t think they are key metric users. 8:47 – Guest: It totally depends on what you need it for. It doesn’t matter if these people are paying or not. 9:31 – Chris: Assuming I have a commute on the trail and it goes through a spotty section. In a scenario that it’s dependent on the JS...are we talking about 2 different things here? 10:14 – Panelist chimes-in. 10:36 – Chris: I can take advantage of it even if I cannot afford a new machine. 10:55 – Panel: Where would this really matter to you? 11:05 – Chris: I do have a nice new laptop. 11:12 – Chuck: I had to hike up to the hill (near the house) to make a call and the connection was really poor (in OK). It’s not the norm but it can happen. 11:37 – Chris: Or how about the All Trails app when I am on the trail. 11:52 – Guest. 12:40 – Chris: I can remember at the time that the desktop sites it was popular to have... Chris: Most of those sites were inaccessible to me. 13:17 – Guest. 13:51 – Chuck: First-world countries will have a good connection and it’s not a big deal. If you are thinking though about your customers and where they live? Is that fair? I am thinking that my customers need to be able to access the podcast – what would you suggest? What are the things that you’d make sure is accessible to them. 14:31 – Guest: I like to pick on the minimum viable experience? I think to read the transcript is important than the audio (MP3). 15:47 – Chuck. 15:52 – Guest: It’s a lot easier with Vue b/c you don’t’ have to set aside rendering. 17:13 – AJ: I am thinking: that there is a way to start developing progressively and probably cheaper and easier to the person who is developing. If it saves us a buck and helps then we take action. 17:49 – Guest: It’s much easier if you start that way and if you enhance the feature itself. 18:38 – AJ: Let me ask: what are the situations where I wouldn’t / shouldn’t worry about progressive enhancements? 18:57 – Guest answers the question. 19:42 – AJ: I want people to feel motivated in a place WHERE to start. Something like a blog needs Java for comments. Hamburger menu is mentioned, too. 20:20 – Guest. 21:05 – Chris: Can we talk about code? 21:16 – Aimee: This is the direction I wanted to go. What do you mean by that – building your applications progressively? Aimee refers to his blog. 21:44 – Guest. 22:13 – Chuck: I use stock overflow! 22:20 – Guest. 22:24 – Chuck: I mean that’s what Chris uses! 22:33 – Guest (continues). 23:42 – Aimee. 23:54 – Chris. 24:09 – Chris 24:16 – Chris: Andy what do you think about that? 24:22 – Guest: Yes, that’s good. 24:35 – Chris: Where it falls apart is the resistance to progressive enhancements that it means that your approach has to be boring? 25:03 – Guest answers the question. The guest mentions modern CSS and modern JavaScript are mentioned along with tooling. 25:50 – Chuck: My issue is that when we talk about this (progressive enhancement) lowest common denominator and some user at some level (slow network) and then they can access it. Then the next level (better access) can access it. I start at the bottom and then go up. Then when they say progressive enhancement I get lost. Should I scrap it and then start over or what? 26:57 – Guest: If it’s feasible do it and then set a timeline up. 27:42 – Chuck: You are saying yes do it a layer at a time – but my question is HOW? What parts can I pair back? Are there guidelines to say: do this first and then how to test? 28:18 – Advertisement – Sentry.io 29:20 – Guest: Think about the user flow. What does the user want to do at THIS point? Do you need to work out the actual dependencies? 30:31 – Chuck: Is there a list of those capabilities somewhere? So these users can use it this way and these users can use it that way? 30:50 – Guest answers the question. 31:03 – Guest: You can pick out the big things. 31:30 – Chuck: I am using this feature in the browser... 31:41 – Guest. 31:46 – Chris: I think this differently than you Andy – I’ve stopped caring if a browser supports something new. I am fine using CSS grid and if your browser doesn’t support it then I don’t have a problem with that. I get hung up on, though if this fails can they still get the content? If they have no access to these – what should they be able to do? Note: “Cutting the Mustard Test” is mentioned. 33:37 – Guest. 33:44 – Chuck: Knowing your users and if it becomes a problem then I will figure it out. 34:00 – Chris: I couldn’t spare the time to make it happen right now b/c I am a one-man shop. 34:20 – Chuck and Chris go back-and-forth. 34:36 –Chris: Check out links below for my product. 34:54 – AJ: A lot of these things are in the name: progressive. 36:20 – Guest. 38:51 – Chris: Say that they haven’t looked at it all before. Do you mind talking about these things and what the heck is a web component? 39:14 – The guest gives us his definition of what a web component is. 40:02 – Chuck: Most recent episode in Angular about web components, but that was a few years ago. See links below for that episode. 40:25 – Aimee. 40:31 – Guest: Yes, it’s a lot like working in Vue and web components. The concepts are very similar. 41:22 – Chris: Can someone please give us an example? A literal slideshow example? 41:45 – Guest answers the question. 45:07 – Chris. 45:12 – Guest: It’s a framework that just happens to use web components and stuff to help. 45:54 – Chuck: Yeah they make it easier (Palmer). Yeah there is a crossover with Palmer team and other teams. I can say that b/c I have talked with people from both teams. Anything else? 46:39 – Chuck: Where do they go to learn more? 46:49 – Guest: Check out the Club! And my Twitter! (See links below.) 47:33 – Chuck: I want to shout-out about DevLifts that has $19 a month to help you with physical goals. Or you can get the premium slot! It’s terrific stuff. Sign-up with DEVCHAT code but there is a limited number of slots and there is a deadline, too. Just try it! They have a podcast, too! 49:16 – Aimee: Yeah, I’m on their podcast soon! 49:30 – Chuck: Picks! END – Advertisement: CacheFly! Links: JavaScript React Elixir Ember.js Vue GO jQuery Node.js Puppeteer Cypress Past episode: AiA 115 Past episode: JSJ 120 Vue.js – Slots Using templates and slots – Article Web Components Club GitHub: Pwa – Starter – Kit Progressively Enhanced Toggle Panel Time Ago in under 50 lines of JavaScript GitHub: ebook-boilerplate Chris Ferdinandi’s Go Make Things Site Game Chops CNBC – Trump Article New in Node v10.12 Quotes Archive My Amazon Interview Horror Story DevPal.io Honest Work Relative Paths DevLifts Andy Bell’s Twitter Andy’s Website Sponsors: DevLifts Kendo UI Sentry CacheFly Picks: Aimee Hacker News  -  Programming Quotes My Amazon Interview Horror Story Chris Time Ago in Under 50 Lines of JavaScript E-Book Boiler Plate JSJABBER at gomakethings.com AJ Experimental Drugs Bill My Browers FYI New In Node,10.12 Arcade Attack Charles Getacoderjob.com Self-Publishing School MF CEO podcast Andy Devpay.io Honest.work Relativepath.uk

Panel: Charles Max Wood Aimee Knight Chris Ferdinandi AJ O’Neal Special Guest: Andy Bell In this episode, the panel talks with Andy Bell who is an independent designer and developer who uses React, Vue, and Node. Today, the panelists and the guest talk about the power of progressive enhancements. Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI 0:34 – Chuck: Hi! Our panel is AJ, Aimee, Chris, myself and my new show is coming out in a few weeks, which is called the DevRev! It helps you with developer’s freedom! I am super excited. Our guest is Andy Bell. Introduce yourself, please. 2:00 – Guest: I am an independent designer and developer out in the U.K. 2:17 – Chuck: You wrote things about Vanilla.js. I am foreshadowing a few things and let’s talk about the power and progressive enhancement. 2:43 – The guest gives us definitions of power and progressive enhancements. He describes how it works. 3:10 – Chuck: I’ve heard that people would turn off JavaScript b/c it was security concern and then your progressive enhancement would make it work w/o JavaScript. I am sure there’s more than that? 3:28 – The guest talks about JavaScript, dependencies, among other things. 4:40 – Chuck: Your post did make that very clear I think. I am thinking I don’t even know where to start with this. Are people using the 6th version? How far back or what are we talking about here? 5:09 – Guest: You can go really far back and make it work w/o CSS. 5:49 – Chris: I am a big advocate of progressive enhancement – the pushback I get these days is that there is a divide; between the broadband era and AOL dialup. Are there compelling reasons why progressive enhancements even matter? 6:48 – Guest. 8:05 – Panel: My family lives out in the boonies. I am aware of 50% of American don’t have fast Internet. People don’t have access to fast browsers but I don’t think they are key metric users. 8:47 – Guest: It totally depends on what you need it for. It doesn’t matter if these people are paying or not. 9:31 – Chris: Assuming I have a commute on the trail and it goes through a spotty section. In a scenario that it’s dependent on the JS...are we talking about 2 different things here? 10:14 – Panelist chimes-in. 10:36 – Chris: I can take advantage of it even if I cannot afford a new machine. 10:55 – Panel: Where would this really matter to you? 11:05 – Chris: I do have a nice new laptop. 11:12 – Chuck: I had to hike up to the hill (near the house) to make a call and the connection was really poor (in OK). It’s not the norm but it can happen. 11:37 – Chris: Or how about the All Trails app when I am on the trail. 11:52 – Guest. 12:40 – Chris: I can remember at the time that the desktop sites it was popular to have... Chris: Most of those sites were inaccessible to me. 13:17 – Guest. 13:51 – Chuck: First-world countries will have a good connection and it’s not a big deal. If you are thinking though about your customers and where they live? Is that fair? I am thinking that my customers need to be able to access the podcast – what would you suggest? What are the things that you’d make sure is accessible to them. 14:31 – Guest: I like to pick on the minimum viable experience? I think to read the transcript is important than the audio (MP3). 15:47 – Chuck. 15:52 – Guest: It’s a lot easier with Vue b/c you don’t’ have to set aside rendering. 17:13 – AJ: I am thinking: that there is a way to start developing progressively and probably cheaper and easier to the person who is developing. If it saves us a buck and helps then we take action. 17:49 – Guest: It’s much easier if you start that way and if you enhance the feature itself. 18:38 – AJ: Let me ask: what are the situations where I wouldn’t / shouldn’t worry about progressive enhancements? 18:57 – Guest answers the question. 19:42 – AJ: I want people to feel motivated in a place WHERE to start. Something like a blog needs Java for comments. Hamburger menu is mentioned, too. 20:20 – Guest. 21:05 – Chris: Can we talk about code? 21:16 – Aimee: This is the direction I wanted to go. What do you mean by that – building your applications progressively? Aimee refers to his blog. 21:44 – Guest. 22:13 – Chuck: I use stock overflow! 22:20 – Guest. 22:24 – Chuck: I mean that’s what Chris uses! 22:33 – Guest (continues). 23:42 – Aimee. 23:54 – Chris. 24:09 – Chris 24:16 – Chris: Andy what do you think about that? 24:22 – Guest: Yes, that’s good. 24:35 – Chris: Where it falls apart is the resistance to progressive enhancements that it means that your approach has to be boring? 25:03 – Guest answers the question. The guest mentions modern CSS and modern JavaScript are mentioned along with tooling. 25:50 – Chuck: My issue is that when we talk about this (progressive enhancement) lowest common denominator and some user at some level (slow network) and then they can access it. Then the next level (better access) can access it. I start at the bottom and then go up. Then when they say progressive enhancement I get lost. Should I scrap it and then start over or what? 26:57 – Guest: If it’s feasible do it and then set a timeline up. 27:42 – Chuck: You are saying yes do it a layer at a time – but my question is HOW? What parts can I pair back? Are there guidelines to say: do this first and then how to test? 28:18 – Advertisement – Sentry.io 29:20 – Guest: Think about the user flow. What does the user want to do at THIS point? Do you need to work out the actual dependencies? 30:31 – Chuck: Is there a list of those capabilities somewhere? So these users can use it this way and these users can use it that way? 30:50 – Guest answers the question. 31:03 – Guest: You can pick out the big things. 31:30 – Chuck: I am using this feature in the browser... 31:41 – Guest. 31:46 – Chris: I think this differently than you Andy – I’ve stopped caring if a browser supports something new. I am fine using CSS grid and if your browser doesn’t support it then I don’t have a problem with that. I get hung up on, though if this fails can they still get the content? If they have no access to these – what should they be able to do? Note: “Cutting the Mustard Test” is mentioned. 33:37 – Guest. 33:44 – Chuck: Knowing your users and if it becomes a problem then I will figure it out. 34:00 – Chris: I couldn’t spare the time to make it happen right now b/c I am a one-man shop. 34:20 – Chuck and Chris go back-and-forth. 34:36 –Chris: Check out links below for my product. 34:54 – AJ: A lot of these things are in the name: progressive. 36:20 – Guest. 38:51 – Chris: Say that they haven’t looked at it all before. Do you mind talking about these things and what the heck is a web component? 39:14 – The guest gives us his definition of what a web component is. 40:02 – Chuck: Most recent episode in Angular about web components, but that was a few years ago. See links below for that episode. 40:25 – Aimee. 40:31 – Guest: Yes, it’s a lot like working in Vue and web components. The concepts are very similar. 41:22 – Chris: Can someone please give us an example? A literal slideshow example? 41:45 – Guest answers the question. 45:07 – Chris. 45:12 – Guest: It’s a framework that just happens to use web components and stuff to help. 45:54 – Chuck: Yeah they make it easier (Palmer). Yeah there is a crossover with Palmer team and other teams. I can say that b/c I have talked with people from both teams. Anything else? 46:39 – Chuck: Where do they go to learn more? 46:49 – Guest: Check out the Club! And my Twitter! (See links below.) 47:33 – Chuck: I want to shout-out about DevLifts that has $19 a month to help you with physical goals. Or you can get the premium slot! It’s terrific stuff. Sign-up with DEVCHAT code but there is a limited number of slots and there is a deadline, too. Just try it! They have a podcast, too! 49:16 – Aimee: Yeah, I’m on their podcast soon! 49:30 – Chuck: Picks! END – Advertisement: CacheFly! Links: JavaScript React Elixir Ember.js Vue GO jQuery Node.js Puppeteer Cypress Past episode: AiA 115 Past episode: JSJ 120 Vue.js – Slots Using templates and slots – Article Web Components Club GitHub: Pwa – Starter – Kit Progressively Enhanced Toggle Panel Time Ago in under 50 lines of JavaScript GitHub: ebook-boilerplate Chris Ferdinandi’s Go Make Things Site Game Chops CNBC – Trump Article New in Node v10.12 Quotes Archive My Amazon Interview Horror Story DevPal.io Honest Work Relative Paths DevLifts Andy Bell’s Twitter Andy’s Website Sponsors: DevLifts Kendo UI Sentry CacheFly Picks: Aimee Hacker News  -  Programming Quotes My Amazon Interview Horror Story Chris Time Ago in Under 50 Lines of JavaScript E-Book Boiler Plate JSJABBER at gomakethings.com AJ Experimental Drugs Bill My Browers FYI New In Node,10.12 Arcade Attack Charles Getacoderjob.com Self-Publishing School MF CEO podcast Andy Devpay.io Honest.work Relativepath.uk

Panel: Eric Berry Charles Max Wood Nate Hopkins Special Guest: Paul Smith and Andrew Mason In this episode of Ruby Rogues, the panelists talk with Paul Smith and Andrew Mason! They discuss the platforms Lucky and Crystal. Other topics include: Ruby, Phoenix, Laravel Mix, Thoughtbot, Webpack, compilers, and much more! Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: Sentry.io 1:02 – Chuck: Welcome!! Eric Berry, Nate Hopkins, and myself are the panel - and our special guests are Paul Smith and Andrew Mason. Introduce yourself! 1:41 – Andrew / Guest: I have messed with every type of language, so there’s that! 1:55 – Paul / Guest: I have been here at my current company for 5 years and it’s a consultancy firm. I have been working on Crystal. 2:14 – Chuck: We are lucky to have you! Give people the elevator pitch for Lucky and Crystal? 2:33 – Guest: Let’s talk about Crystal and looks very similar to Ruby! It’s faster and it’s a compound language. It catches a fair amount of things at compile time. The other special features are... 4:17 – Guest mentions compilers. 4:23 – Chuck: Yeah we see this in the typescript. Is it language service – is that what it’s called? Pile and compile and all of this checking are a nice stage for it to run-through. Although the flipside is coding and to not worry about that – that’s nice! 4:56 – Guest: It has changed my approach for sure. 5:43 – Panel: How much slower are you? 5:54 – Guest: I am a lot faster in Crystal than I am in Ruby. 6:51 – Panel: Yeah you have to figure out where you want to save the time. 7:00 – Guest: Someone wrote a blog post and it said...the Rails service is like bolting a shelf on a wall and hoping to hit a stud and it’s not solid. But using Lucky it’s sold although it took a little longer. I think it can be true. You can do bad things with compilers, though. It depends on how you use it. 7:43 – Panelist asks a question. 7:53 – Guest: Every Friday is an investment day. Lucky is my “whatever I want thing.” I am technically getting paid to work on it. 8:33 – Panel: have you had to battle with the framework? 8:51 – Guest: Yes, even though Crystal looks like Ruby (at a high level) if you want to do it well you have to approach it in the Crystal-way. When I came to Crystal I came to it like Rails. The problem with that is I wanted to have type-saved parameters – you can’t do that in Crystal b/c...it doesn’t know when to have a parameter with... 10:48 – Panel: I have heard you talk about Crystal before on another podcast. You talked about templating and I am curious to hear about that. I have used Slim and others and now stick to ERB. 11:25 – Guest: Yes definitely. Let’s back up and talk about WHAT Lucky does! The guest talks about Rails, escaping, and more! 14:37 – Panel: So I imagine Rails partials are slow and expensive to render. I would imagine that this approach with Lucky... 15:00 – Guest: Yes exactly. It’s extremely fast! 15:20 – Panel: How is this for designers? 15:30 – Guest: Yes that was a concern of mine. With Lucky I tried to make it close to a regular HTML structure would look like! 16:32 – Panel: I spun up a Lucky app the other day. It looks like you are using... 16:50 – Guest: I have played around with a bunch of stuff. I landed on Laravel Mix. 18:27 – Panel: Yes webpack is a pain to set up and it’s hard to get it to working the way you want it to work. 18:47 – Guest: Yeah if you want React or whatever it will generate the configuration you need. I don’t like it b/c if you want to... 19:28 – Panel. 19:45 – Guest: I don’t want to maintain it. 19:54 – Panel: There is a Crystal community in Utah. I want to know – are you competing with Amber? Explain the difference between Lucky and Amber? 20:20 – Guest: Yes I did look at Amber but they are approaching it differently than us. The guest talks about the differences between Amber and Lucky. 21:54 – Guest (continues): With Lucky you will have to learn a little bit more but you get more of a pack! 23:23 – Panel: It sounds like Lucky is inspired by Elm – right? 23:32 – Guest: Yeah, I think so. The guest dives into this topic of Elm and Lucky! 24:35 – Panel: How much does the types feel like it’s getting in your way? How explicit is it? When I came to Ruby it was a breath of fresh air. I am a bit reluctant to go back to those days. 25:25 – Guest: I think Lucky does a happy medium. It doesn’t infer instant variables. I like the... 26:28 – Panel: I learned Java very early on in my computer science career. 27:00 – Guest. 27:10 – Panel: “Crystal...it’s not Java!” That should be your slogan! 27:20 – Fresh Books! 28:25 – Panel: A lot of people are moving to Elixir community. Do you see people moving from Ruby to Lucky and Crystal? How does Lucky compare to Phoenix? 28:55 – Guest: Good question! 29:10 – The guest talks about bamboo – see links below!! 29: 29 – Guest: Sure Ruby is fast but sometimes you spend more time on it then you would want to. 31:08 – Guest: Blessing and curse that Crystal looks so much like Ruby. That’s what I thought at first: why would I want to learn this if it’s so similar to Ruby. BUT there are so many benefits to Crystal vs. Ruby. 31:48 – Guest talks about Lucky catching the bugs. 32:00 – Panel: I wonder if that happened with Groovy and Rails? 32:21 – They go back-and-forth. 32:28 – Panel: Thoughtbot has always been on the forefront of Ruby. Can you talk about Thoughbot please? (See links below for Thoughtbot!) 33:15 – Guest: Great question. It’s hard to tell b/c there are different offices. I would say Ruby is our main thing. Ruby is the most mature thing that we use in-terms of web development. Guest: Actually – Rails is pretty nice! 34:54 – Panel: We went through the same thing with CodeFund! I wrote it initially in Python and then I wrote it in Elixir and it became so complex. Now we are moving everything back to Ruby and it’s been a fantastic decision.  36:30 – Chuck: You are talking about the sustainability of open source but there are benefits throughout the company right? There are tons of tangible benefits of doing it, especially when it’s your Friday schedule. You can level-up on things that could help you. I know a lot of companies cannot afford it if they are trying to hustle. 37:42 – Guest: It’s totally not charity through Thoughtbot. It’s a huge help for hiring new people. I know they are okay with letting me work on Lucky b/c it’s bringing on new developers and a good marketing tool, and finally recruiting! 39:07 – Chuck: Yeah, I have been talking about developer freedom and that’s what I am addressing through the DevRev show! It’s my new podcast show. We talk with Chris on Elixir Mix. It lends that credibility if they need to save our bacon. 40:02 – Panel: What’s your goal with Lucky? 40:11 – Guest: I would love to get it to the point where Thoughtbot could start a project and default to Lucky! Start a project and not resting every gem and be confident with launching it. 41:36 – Panelist asks a question. 41:45 – Guest: It’s not 1.0 and that means that the API will break with every release. I think that’s good to tweak stuff but that turns companies off, though. 42:40 – Chuck: Another thing that helps with adoption is Twitter used Rails to build their initial version. This blah, blah company uses important stuff and they are using Crystal and whatnot then that’s good! It sounds like you are waiting for social proof. 43:23 – Guest: Is the next Twitter going to even know about Crystal? 43:40 – Chuck: It literally only takes one enthusiast! 43:52 – Guest. 44:11 – Demo of Flickr Search is mentioned here! 45:13 – Panel: Is there something out there that you could POINT someone to? 45:27 – Guest: Not, yet. I built a small site with it! It is opensource and you can look at it. I want to show people a good example of what Lucky can do! 45:57 – Panel: You have very good docs and I am a visual learner. When I learned Rails I learned on my own and not through school. 46:20 – Panelist asks a question. 46:48 – Guest: What a huge advantage Lucky has through the Thoughtbot platform! Now that platform is kind of dried up. In terms of getting people excited it needs that killer app and they can see that it’s fast and killer! I think it takes a lot of time and finding time to do it so that’s tricky. It’s changing a lot when there is so much change. Getting Lucky to a 1.0 state so people can do videos and make apps. The hard part thing is that Lucky has to be 1.0 when Crystal is 1.0. The Lucky community is great b/c it’s encouraging and to respond in a very kind way. When you are starting something that’s new can be scary. We try to help out as much as we can and we are open and kind about it. 49:13 – Panel: “Paul is nice so Lucky is nice!” 49:19 – Guest: Everyone is super kind. It had to be short and simple. We in the dev community are very lucky – usually great pay/benefits and more w/o a college degree. What another field can you do that?! 51:00 – Panel: Great message and you need to push that! 51:10 – Panel: You were on a past podcast and you talked about how you are donating each month! Panel: Opensource maintainers are getting burned out and you want to support that. 51:40 – Guest: I think opensource sustainability what others need to do to make it sustainable. If you have the means to give we can be apart of that, too. It would be nice if companies did that. If it helps Crystal I am happy. 52:17 – Panel: I have a question about Crystal. 52:52 – Guest: Ruby right now you can do C sections right now. 53:01 – Panel. 53:10 – Guest: I don’t think so – it may but I would guess that you could do it but I don’t know how easy it would be. Note: Rust and C are mentioned. 53:37 – Panel comments. 53:46 – Guest: One thing I would say is to check-out the Lucky docs. We are happy to help! 54:10 – Panel: This is a favorite episode of mine! Both of today’s guests have been my favorite! 54:23 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! End – Cache Fly! Links: Get a Coder Job Course The DevRev Podcast Show DevChat TV Ruby Elixir Ruby on Rails Angular Cypress Vue React Jest.io Mocha.js Webpacker-Cli Amber Lucky The Lucky Philosophy The Bike Shed Thoughtbot CodeFund Lucky: Ruby on Rails to Lucky on Crystal... “Crystal is not Ruby Part 1” GitHub: Bamboo Ex_Machina Dialyxir Crystal Mastery Samsung T5 Carbon Copy Cloner iMazing Awesome-Lucky Paul Smith GitHub Sponsors: Sentry CacheFly Fresh Books Picks: Nate Samsung SSD Carbon Copy Cloner Application Eric iMazing HEIC Converter Charles Mastodon Andrew Upcase by Thoughtbot Awesome Lucky Paul Tailwind CSS Phoenix Live HTML Chris McCord Elixir Mix Episodes with Chris McCord

Panel: Eric Berry Charles Max Wood Nate Hopkins Special Guest: Paul Smith and Andrew Mason In this episode of Ruby Rogues, the panelists talk with Paul Smith and Andrew Mason! They discuss the platforms Lucky and Crystal. Other topics include: Ruby, Phoenix, Laravel Mix, Thoughtbot, Webpack, compilers, and much more! Check it out! Show Topics: 0:00 – Advertisement: Sentry.io 1:02 – Chuck: Welcome!! Eric Berry, Nate Hopkins, and myself are the panel - and our special guests are Paul Smith and Andrew Mason. Introduce yourself! 1:41 – Andrew / Guest: I have messed with every type of language, so there’s that! 1:55 – Paul / Guest: I have been here at my current company for 5 years and it’s a consultancy firm. I have been working on Crystal. 2:14 – Chuck: We are lucky to have you! Give people the elevator pitch for Lucky and Crystal? 2:33 – Guest: Let’s talk about Crystal and looks very similar to Ruby! It’s faster and it’s a compound language. It catches a fair amount of things at compile time. The other special features are... 4:17 – Guest mentions compilers. 4:23 – Chuck: Yeah we see this in the typescript. Is it language service – is that what it’s called? Pile and compile and all of this checking are a nice stage for it to run-through. Although the flipside is coding and to not worry about that – that’s nice! 4:56 – Guest: It has changed my approach for sure. 5:43 – Panel: How much slower are you? 5:54 – Guest: I am a lot faster in Crystal than I am in Ruby. 6:51 – Panel: Yeah you have to figure out where you want to save the time. 7:00 – Guest: Someone wrote a blog post and it said...the Rails service is like bolting a shelf on a wall and hoping to hit a stud and it’s not solid. But using Lucky it’s sold although it took a little longer. I think it can be true. You can do bad things with compilers, though. It depends on how you use it. 7:43 – Panelist asks a question. 7:53 – Guest: Every Friday is an investment day. Lucky is my “whatever I want thing.” I am technically getting paid to work on it. 8:33 – Panel: have you had to battle with the framework? 8:51 – Guest: Yes, even though Crystal looks like Ruby (at a high level) if you want to do it well you have to approach it in the Crystal-way. When I came to Crystal I came to it like Rails. The problem with that is I wanted to have type-saved parameters – you can’t do that in Crystal b/c...it doesn’t know when to have a parameter with... 10:48 – Panel: I have heard you talk about Crystal before on another podcast. You talked about templating and I am curious to hear about that. I have used Slim and others and now stick to ERB. 11:25 – Guest: Yes definitely. Let’s back up and talk about WHAT Lucky does! The guest talks about Rails, escaping, and more! 14:37 – Panel: So I imagine Rails partials are slow and expensive to render. I would imagine that this approach with Lucky... 15:00 – Guest: Yes exactly. It’s extremely fast! 15:20 – Panel: How is this for designers? 15:30 – Guest: Yes that was a concern of mine. With Lucky I tried to make it close to a regular HTML structure would look like! 16:32 – Panel: I spun up a Lucky app the other day. It looks like you are using... 16:50 – Guest: I have played around with a bunch of stuff. I landed on Laravel Mix. 18:27 – Panel: Yes webpack is a pain to set up and it’s hard to get it to working the way you want it to work. 18:47 – Guest: Yeah if you want React or whatever it will generate the configuration you need. I don’t like it b/c if you want to... 19:28 – Panel. 19:45 – Guest: I don’t want to maintain it. 19:54 – Panel: There is a Crystal community in Utah. I want to know – are you competing with Amber? Explain the difference between Lucky and Amber? 20:20 – Guest: Yes I did look at Amber but they are approaching it differently than us. The guest talks about the differences between Amber and Lucky. 21:54 – Guest (continues): With Lucky you will have to learn a little bit more but you get more of a pack! 23:23 – Panel: It sounds like Lucky is inspired by Elm – right? 23:32 – Guest: Yeah, I think so. The guest dives into this topic of Elm and Lucky! 24:35 – Panel: How much does the types feel like it’s getting in your way? How explicit is it? When I came to Ruby it was a breath of fresh air. I am a bit reluctant to go back to those days. 25:25 – Guest: I think Lucky does a happy medium. It doesn’t infer instant variables. I like the... 26:28 – Panel: I learned Java very early on in my computer science career. 27:00 – Guest. 27:10 – Panel: “Crystal...it’s not Java!” That should be your slogan! 27:20 – Fresh Books! 28:25 – Panel: A lot of people are moving to Elixir community. Do you see people moving from Ruby to Lucky and Crystal? How does Lucky compare to Phoenix? 28:55 – Guest: Good question! 29:10 – The guest talks about bamboo – see links below!! 29: 29 – Guest: Sure Ruby is fast but sometimes you spend more time on it then you would want to. 31:08 – Guest: Blessing and curse that Crystal looks so much like Ruby. That’s what I thought at first: why would I want to learn this if it’s so similar to Ruby. BUT there are so many benefits to Crystal vs. Ruby. 31:48 – Guest talks about Lucky catching the bugs. 32:00 – Panel: I wonder if that happened with Groovy and Rails? 32:21 – They go back-and-forth. 32:28 – Panel: Thoughtbot has always been on the forefront of Ruby. Can you talk about Thoughbot please? (See links below for Thoughtbot!) 33:15 – Guest: Great question. It’s hard to tell b/c there are different offices. I would say Ruby is our main thing. Ruby is the most mature thing that we use in-terms of web development. Guest: Actually – Rails is pretty nice! 34:54 – Panel: We went through the same thing with CodeFund! I wrote it initially in Python and then I wrote it in Elixir and it became so complex. Now we are moving everything back to Ruby and it’s been a fantastic decision.  36:30 – Chuck: You are talking about the sustainability of open source but there are benefits throughout the company right? There are tons of tangible benefits of doing it, especially when it’s your Friday schedule. You can level-up on things that could help you. I know a lot of companies cannot afford it if they are trying to hustle. 37:42 – Guest: It’s totally not charity through Thoughtbot. It’s a huge help for hiring new people. I know they are okay with letting me work on Lucky b/c it’s bringing on new developers and a good marketing tool, and finally recruiting! 39:07 – Chuck: Yeah, I have been talking about developer freedom and that’s what I am addressing through the DevRev show! It’s my new podcast show. We talk with Chris on Elixir Mix. It lends that credibility if they need to save our bacon. 40:02 – Panel: What’s your goal with Lucky? 40:11 – Guest: I would love to get it to the point where Thoughtbot could start a project and default to Lucky! Start a project and not resting every gem and be confident with launching it. 41:36 – Panelist asks a question. 41:45 – Guest: It’s not 1.0 and that means that the API will break with every release. I think that’s good to tweak stuff but that turns companies off, though. 42:40 – Chuck: Another thing that helps with adoption is Twitter used Rails to build their initial version. This blah, blah company uses important stuff and they are using Crystal and whatnot then that’s good! It sounds like you are waiting for social proof. 43:23 – Guest: Is the next Twitter going to even know about Crystal? 43:40 – Chuck: It literally only takes one enthusiast! 43:52 – Guest. 44:11 – Demo of Flickr Search is mentioned here! 45:13 – Panel: Is there something out there that you could POINT someone to? 45:27 – Guest: Not, yet. I built a small site with it! It is opensource and you can look at it. I want to show people a good example of what Lucky can do! 45:57 – Panel: You have very good docs and I am a visual learner. When I learned Rails I learned on my own and not through school. 46:20 – Panelist asks a question. 46:48 – Guest: What a huge advantage Lucky has through the Thoughtbot platform! Now that platform is kind of dried up. In terms of getting people excited it needs that killer app and they can see that it’s fast and killer! I think it takes a lot of time and finding time to do it so that’s tricky. It’s changing a lot when there is so much change. Getting Lucky to a 1.0 state so people can do videos and make apps. The hard part thing is that Lucky has to be 1.0 when Crystal is 1.0. The Lucky community is great b/c it’s encouraging and to respond in a very kind way. When you are starting something that’s new can be scary. We try to help out as much as we can and we are open and kind about it. 49:13 – Panel: “Paul is nice so Lucky is nice!” 49:19 – Guest: Everyone is super kind. It had to be short and simple. We in the dev community are very lucky – usually great pay/benefits and more w/o a college degree. What another field can you do that?! 51:00 – Panel: Great message and you need to push that! 51:10 – Panel: You were on a past podcast and you talked about how you are donating each month! Panel: Opensource maintainers are getting burned out and you want to support that. 51:40 – Guest: I think opensource sustainability what others need to do to make it sustainable. If you have the means to give we can be apart of that, too. It would be nice if companies did that. If it helps Crystal I am happy. 52:17 – Panel: I have a question about Crystal. 52:52 – Guest: Ruby right now you can do C sections right now. 53:01 – Panel. 53:10 – Guest: I don’t think so – it may but I would guess that you could do it but I don’t know how easy it would be. Note: Rust and C are mentioned. 53:37 – Panel comments. 53:46 – Guest: One thing I would say is to check-out the Lucky docs. We are happy to help! 54:10 – Panel: This is a favorite episode of mine! Both of today’s guests have been my favorite! 54:23 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! End – Cache Fly! Links: Get a Coder Job Course The DevRev Podcast Show DevChat TV Ruby Elixir Ruby on Rails Angular Cypress Vue React Jest.io Mocha.js Webpacker-Cli Amber Lucky The Lucky Philosophy The Bike Shed Thoughtbot CodeFund Lucky: Ruby on Rails to Lucky on Crystal... “Crystal is not Ruby Part 1” GitHub: Bamboo Ex_Machina Dialyxir Crystal Mastery Samsung T5 Carbon Copy Cloner iMazing Awesome-Lucky Paul Smith GitHub Sponsors: Sentry CacheFly Fresh Books Picks: Nate Samsung SSD Carbon Copy Cloner Application Eric iMazing HEIC Converter Charles Mastodon Andrew Upcase by Thoughtbot Awesome Lucky Paul Tailwind CSS Phoenix Live HTML Chris McCord Elixir Mix Episodes with Chris McCord

Panel: Lucas Reis Charles Max Wood Justin Bennett Special Guest: Soumyajit Pathak In this episode, the panelists talk with Soumyajit Pathak (India) who is a full-stack developer and cybersecurity enthusiast. The panel and the guest talk about design patterns and designing simpler code for clarity and less confusion. Check out today’s episode! Show Topics: 0:00 – Kendo UI 0:31 – Chuck: Our panelists are and our guest is Soumyajit! Introduce yourself please! Are you doing React on the side? 1:02 – Guest: I am a master’s student and I am doing freelancing. 1:42 – Panel. 1:49 – Guest. 2:10 – Chuck: I am feeling very up-to-date. Woo! Universities are teaching this and that and they are focused on theory. The flipside is that they are going to write real code for real systems. 3:10 – Panel: I like your well-written blog posts. You talk about design patterns. 3:50 – Guest: The design patterns at the university had to do with real JavaScript applications. 4:09 – Chuck: I am curious you are talking about the design patterns – how can people from React find/use it? 4:45 – Panel: It depends on your definition of design patterns. 5:35 – Lucas: Maybe you are using one or two here and reading through the design patterns is like going through your toolbox. You only need a screwdriver but you bought the whole toolbox. Get familiar with it and from time to time solve problems and thing: what tool can help me here? It’s clear to me with this toolbox analogy. I understand now – that tool I saw 2 months ago could help me. 7:00 – Guest: I have an interesting story with this about design patterns. Let me share! 7:36 – Justin: It was a similar thing but I wasn’t in JavaScript at the time. I’ve used a lot of C++ code. Design patterns became very useful. I saw it the same way Lucas! 9:23 – Justin continues: How and why to use a certain tool. That’s important. 10:28 – Chuck: Okay this is the default pattern and that’s where we can go for the fallback. Here is the fallback if this doesn’t work here or there. 10:49 – Lucas: This is important to remember. It’s not how to use the tool but it’s why am I using this tool here or there? 11:57 – Justin: It’s so much information in general. People get information overload and they have to just start! One of the challenges we do is that we over-engineer things. Do what you need to know. Look it up but play with it. 12:40 – Lucas: It’s interesting by another blog post that you wrote Soumyajit – and you are using a render prop. You showed a problem and showed the solution. 13:30 – Guest: Yeah I’ve written a lot of blog posts about this topic. 13:48 – Panel: Often times – it’s hard for people just to dive-in. People need to see you solving a problem and it really helps with the learning process. 15:03 – Chuck: What patterns do you find most useful? 15:11 – Panel: Functional components have changed my world! 16:23 – Guest: Around these functional components... 17:17 – Panel: I will go with the patterns that are not useful. Don’t make your code pattern-oriented. This is my favorite pattern now and going back to basics. 18:53 – Panelists go back-and-forth. 19:01 – Lucas. 19:41 – Chuck: You talk about over-engineering things and that’s what I found myself doing sometimes with my new project. When I figure out how to make it simpler I get excited and it’s easy to follow. 20:15 – Panel: We celebrate the person who deleted the most lines of code. 20:28 – Panel: I am going to steal that idea. 21:04 – Guest: I have an interesting story of over-engineering something – let me share! 21:53 – FreshBooks! 22:59 – Panel: Building too much is b/c I don’t have a clear understanding of what I am doing. I get excited about problems. What’s the more simple way / most naïve way possible! 24:36 – Lucas: If you are going to change something you will be changing it in several different places. 25:50 – Chuck: When I heard the concept, all the codes that change together should be together. 26:08 – Lucas comments. 26:53 – Panel: Keeping things contained in one place. We have our presentational component and higher-level component, so you can see it all. 28:28 – Lucas: Different people working on different technologies. 29:15 – Panel: Can I break this down to smaller parts, which makes sense to me? 29:48 – Guest: Looking for keywords will cause a distraction. Finding a balance is good. 30:04 – Chuck: If you have a large rile there could be a smaller component that is there own concern. That feels like the real answer to me. It has a lot less than the length of the file versus... Chuck: If I cannot follow it then I need to keep the concept simple. 30:51 – Lucas: The quantity of lines and the line count – I think it’s better how many indentations you have. 32:43 – Guest. 32:48 – Lucas: Yes, so in the horizontal scrolling you have to keep things in your mind. 33:41 – Panel: There are so many different metrics that you can use and the different line count or different characters. There are more scientific terms that we could plugin here. If you have a lot of these abstract relations that can...write it  34:23 – Chuck: So true. 34:52 – Chuck: I want to move onto a different problem so it’s an attention thing for me too. 35:06 – Panel: We have to get okay with not always writing the best code in that it just needs to do what it needs to do. 35:30 – Chuck. 35:57 – Panel: We write it once – then it falls apart and then we write it again and learn from the process. Learning is the key here – you see where it works and where it doesn’t work well. 36:31 – Panel. 36:47 – Chuck mentions service-side rendering. Chuck: Should we schedule another episode? 37:11 – Panel: I think it’s own episode b/c it’s a complex problem overall. 39:33 – Lucas: Try to find memory leaks in the file components and server-side rendering. Where we have lost a lot of sleep and a higher level of complication. Sometimes it’s necessary. 41:42 – Chuck: Yeah let’s do another episode on this topic. Sounds like there is a lot to dive into this topic. Soumyajit, how do people find you? 42:10 – Guest: Twitter and GitHub! 42:28 – Picks! 42:30 – Advertisement – Get A Coder Job! End – Cache Fly Links: Ruby on Rails Angular JavaScript Elm Phoenix GitHub Get A Coder Job React Patterns on GitHub Calibre Book: Engineering a Safer World Designers’ Secret Source Monster Hunter Guest’s GitHub Guest’s Twitter Sponsors: Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Fresh Books Kendo UI Picks: Justin https://reactpatterns.com/ Calibre App Lucas Engineering a Safer World Soumyajit Blog Muzli - Chrome Extension Charles Monster Hunters International Series Metabase Stripe Work for DevChat TV