Podcasts about craig it

Marcus is the son of Keri Price and the grandson of Nancy & Glen Price. In this episode you can enjoy: - Marcus's incredible voice - Some favorite holiday traiditons - SO MUCH FOOD - Current life and future plans for Marcus - His most embarrassing moments - Career advice from Cami & Craig (It probably isn't good advice) And a whole lot more! Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/seeyouinthemorning/message

In this week's show, Phil talks to Craig Goodwin, the co-founder of Cyvatar.ai, a game-changing cybersecurity firm that makes cybersecurity simple for businesses by providing fully managed, customer-centric security solutions. He is a Certified Chief Information Security Officer and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, having held the role of Global Chief Security Officer for a number of large public and private sector organisations. Craig talks about why we should go wide instead of deep when it comes to knowledge. He also tells us why it's okay to admit when we don't know the answers.   KEY TAKEAWAYS:   TOP CAREER TIP Always go wider rather than deeper. If you have aspirations in your chosen branch of the industry, try to broaden your knowledge base rather than specializing too much.   WORST CAREER MOMENT During a lull in his personal life, Craig found himself struggling to deliver at his best. His biggest regret was allowing this to continue. As a result, his reputation suffered, but it has led him to realise that honesty is important.   CAREER HIGHLIGHT After enjoying a successful corporate career, Craig was given an incredible chance to grow a security business into a powerful concern, allowing him to utilize his creativity and imagination.   THE FUTURE OF CAREERS IN I.T Technology is changing the face and the operation of every single business type in the world. This means a huge uptick in opportunities available to people.   THE REVEAL What first attracted you to a career in I.T.? – Gaining a background in the defense world and seeing how essential it is. What's the best career advice you received? – You don't know everything. What's the worst career advice you received? – That specializing is crucial. What would you do if you started your career now? – Craig would look for hot industries and look for more experience-related growth. What are your current career objectives? Craig's current objectives are much more business-focussed, including seeing to it that his people are well taken care of. What's your number one non-technical skill? – Communication. How do you keep your own career energized? – Keep moving forward, and always be learning – professionally and personally. What do you do away from technology? – Fitness and healthy pursuits, such as cycling, running and exercising.   FINAL CAREER TIP Stay wide in your knowledge, continually learn and never be afraid to admit you don't know something.   BEST MOMENTS (6:40) – Craig – “It's incredibly important to know a bit about a lot of different things” (12:15) – Craig - “Having an openness with a team, and with a group of people is really powerful” (14:04) – Craig – “The digitalization of everything is growing exponentially” (14:41) – Craig – “Anyone that comes into the tech or IT world now has an opportunity to be in every single sector – to influence and change the very fabric of the way society is being run”   ABOUT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS Phil Burgess is an independent IT consultant who has spent the last 20 years helping organizations to design, develop, and implement software solutions.  Phil has always had an interest in helping others to develop and advance their careers.  And in 2017 Phil started the I.T. Career Energizer podcast to try to help as many people as possible to learn from the career advice and experiences of those that have been, and still are, on that same career journey.   CONTACT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS Phil can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms: Twitter: https://twitter.com/_PhilBurgess LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/philburgess Instagram: https://instagram.com/_philburgess Website: https://itcareerenergizer.com/contact Phil is also reachable by email at phil@itcareerenergizer.com and via the podcast's website, https://itcareerenergizer.com Join the I.T. Career Energizer Community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/ITCareerEnergizer   ABOUT THE GUEST – CRAIG GOODWIN Craig Goodwin is the co-founder of Cyvatar.ai, a game-changing cybersecurity firm that makes cybersecurity simple for businesses by providing fully managed, customer-centric security solutions. He is a Certified Chief Information Security Officer and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, having held the role of Global Chief Security Officer for a number of large public and private sector organisations.   CONTACT THE GUEST – CRAIG GOODWIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/MrCraigGoodwin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craiggoodwin/ Website: https://cyvatar.ai/

Episode Summary Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show, co- founder & co-CEO at Local Bounti, Craig Hurlbert. Local Bounti is an organization that strives to deliver the freshest, locally grown produce in your neighborhood. Local Bounti sustainably grows fresh greens and herbs 365 days a year in their greenhouses, using 90% less water and 90% less land than conventional agriculture. Today, Harry and Craig talk about Craig's extensive background in energy, from his time at General Electric (GE) to the origins of Local Bounti. Craig discusses the recent extreme weather and climate and how it has impacted the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry. Craig shares his views on leadership and why he chooses to lead through a centralized vision and goal. Finally, Craig speaks to the work Local Bounti is doing to support the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and why he's rooting for all of his competitors in the CEA industry. Episode Sponsor CULTIVATD Freight Farms Key Takeaways 01:14 – Harry welcomes to the show Craig Hurlbert, who joins the show to discuss his background in energy and the challenges we're facing with the recent extreme weather and climate 10:12 – Mentors that shaped Craig's career trajectory 14:45 – How Craig met his fellow co-founder, Travis Joyner and how their partnership has evolved 18:21 – Leading through foresight and vision 19:34 – Local Bounti's origin story 25:10 – Key factors in scaling a business 28:53 – Working remotely vs. working in the office 32:12 – Lessons Craig learned throughout his journey at Local Bounti 35:52 – Supporting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 40:20 – Multiple winners in the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry 46:12 – Never too high, never too low 47:33 – Something Craig has changed his mind about recently 50:42 – Harry thanks Craig for joining the show and let's listeners know where they can learn more about Local Bounti and connect with Craig Tweetable Quotes “Our desire to move more rapidly into renewable energy has cut out a bunch of what I would call ‘reliable 24/7/365 power supplies' that are less renewable but more reliable. And that has created some challenges for the different grid systems across the United States.”(05:40) (Craig) “I think when you approach every room you walk into in this manner – park your ego at the door, walk in, roll up your sleeves, we're all peers, let's move things forward – I think things work better.”(18:03) (Craig) “Without unit economics, you don't have a business.”(21:56) (Craig) “I don't like people who dabble. I don't like dabbling. I think dabbling is the enemy of progress.”(24:45) (Craig) “It's important for the listeners to hear, as well, that there will be multiple winners in the CEA space. It's not Local Bounti or nothing. We're rooting for all of our competitors and really rooting for the while industry.”(40:20) (Craig) Links Mentioned Craig's LinkedIn Local Bounti Website Local Bounti LinkedIn Local Bounti YouTube Channel Local Bounti Facebook Local Bounti Pinterest Sponsor Info: Cultivatd Website Cultivatd Instagram Cultivatd's Twitter Cultivatd's Facebook

About CraigCraig McLuckie is a VP of R&D at VMware in the Modern Applications Business Unit.  He joined VMware through the Heptio acquisition where he was CEO and co-founder. Heptio was a startup that supported the enterprise adoption of open source technologies like Kubernetes.  He previously worked at Google where he co-founded the Kubernetes project, was responsible for the formation of CNCF, and was the original product lead for Google Compute Engine.Links: VMware: https://www.vmware.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/cmcluck LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigmcluckie/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at the Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part my Cribl Logstream. Cirbl Logstream is an observability pipeline that lets you collect, reduce, transform, and route machine data from anywhere, to anywhere. Simple right? As a nice bonus it not only helps you improve visibility into what the hell is going on, but also helps you save money almost by accident. Kind of like not putting a whole bunch of vowels and other letters that would be easier to spell in a company name. To learn more visit: cribl.ioCorey: This episode is sponsored in part by Thinkst. This is going to take a minute to explain, so bear with me. I linked against an early version of their tool, canarytokens.org in the very early days of my newsletter, and what it does is relatively simple and straightforward. It winds up embedding credentials, files, that sort of thing in various parts of your environment, wherever you want to; it gives you fake AWS API credentials, for example. And the only thing that these things do is alert you whenever someone attempts to use those things. It's an awesome approach. I've used something similar for years. Check them out. But wait, there's more. They also have an enterprise option that you should be very much aware of canary.tools. You can take a look at this, but what it does is it provides an enterprise approach to drive these things throughout your entire environment. You can get a physical device that hangs out on your network and impersonates whatever you want to. When it gets Nmap scanned, or someone attempts to log into it, or access files on it, you get instant alerts. It's awesome. If you don't do something like this, you're likely to find out that you've gotten breached, the hard way. Take a look at this. It's one of those few things that I look at and say, “Wow, that is an amazing idea. I love it.” That's canarytokens.org and canary.tools. The first one is free. The second one is enterprise-y. Take a look. I'm a big fan of this. More from them in the coming weeks.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. My guest today is Craig McLuckie, who's a VP of R&D at VMware, specifically in their modern applications business unit. Craig, thanks for joining me. VP of R&D sounds almost like it's what's sponsoring a Sesame Street episode. What do you do exactly?Craig: Hey, Corey, it's great to be on with you. So, I'm obviously working within the VMware company, and my charter is really looking at modern applications. So, the modern application platform business unit is really grounded in the work that we're doing to make technologies like Kubernetes and containers, and a lot of developer-centric technologies like Spring, more accessible to developers to make sure that as developers are using those technologies, they shine through on the VMware infrastructure technologies that we are working on.Corey: Before we get into, I guess, the depths of what you're focusing on these days, let's look a little bit backwards into the past. Once upon a time, in the dawn of the modern cloud era—I guess we'll call it—you were the original product lead for Google Compute Engine or GCE. How did you get there? That seems like a very strange thing to be—something that, “Well, what am I going to build? Well, that's right; basically a VM service for a giant company that is just starting down the cloud path,” back when that was not an obvious thing for a company to do.Craig: Yeah, I mean, it was as much luck and serendipity as anything else, if I'm going to be completely honest. I spent a lot of time working at Microsoft, building enterprise technology, and one of the things I was extremely excited about was, obviously, the emergence of cloud. I saw this as being a fascinating disrupter. And I was also highly motivated at a personal level to just make IT simpler and more accessible. I spent a fair amount of time building systems within Microsoft, and then even a very small amount of time running systems within a hedge fund.So, I got, kind of, both of those perspectives. And I just saw this cloud thing as being an extraordinarily exciting way to drive out the cost of operations, to enable organizations to just focus on what really mattered to them which was getting those production systems deployed, getting them updated and maintained, and just having to worry a little bit less about infrastructure. And so when that opportunity arose, I jumped with both feet. Google obviously had a reputation as a company that was born in the cloud, it had a reputation of being extraordinarily strong from a technical perspective, so having a chance to bridge the gap between enterprise technology and that cloud was very exciting to me.Corey: This was back in an era when, in my own technical evolution, I was basically tired of working with Puppet as much as I had been, and I was one of the very early developers behind SaltStack, once upon a time—which since then you folks have purchased, which shows that someone didn't do their due diligence because something like 41 lines of code in the current release version is still assigned to me as per git-blame. So, you know, nothing is perfect. And right around then, then I started hearing about this thing that was at one point leveraging SaltStack, kind of, called Kubernetes, which, “I can't even pronounce that, so I'm just going to ignore it. Surely, this is never going to be something that I'm going to have to hear about once this fad passes.” It turns out that the world moved on a little bit differently.And you were also one of the co-founders of the Kubernetes project, which means that it seems like we have been passing each other in weird ways for the past decade or so. So, you're working on GCE, and then one day you want to, what, sitting up and deciding, “I know, we're going to build a container orchestration system because I want to have something that's going to take me 20 minutes to explain to someone who's never heard of these concepts before.” How did this come to be?Craig: It's really interesting, and a lot of it was driven by necessity, driven by a view that to make a technology like Google Compute Engine successful, we needed to go a little bit further. When you look at a technology like Google Compute Engine, we'd built something that was fabulous and Google's infrastructure is world-class, but there's so much more to building a successful cloud business than just having a great infrastructure technology. There's obviously everything that goes with that in terms of being able to meet enterprises where they are and all the—Corey: Oh, yeah. And everything at Google is designed for Google scale. It's, “We built this thing and we can use it to stand up something that is world-scale and get 10 million customers on the first day that it launches.” And, “That's great. I'm trying to get a Hello World page up and maybe, if I shoot for the moon, it can also run WordPress.” There's a very different scale of problem.Craig: It's just a very different thing. When you look at what an organization needs to use a technology, it's nice that you can take that, sort of, science-fiction data center and carve it up into smaller pieces and offer it as a virtual machine to someone. But you also need to look at the ISV ecosystem, the people that are building the software, making sure that it's qualified. You need to make sure that you have the ability to engage with the enterprise customer and support them through a variety of different functions. And so, as we were looking at what it would take to really succeed, it became clear that we needed a little more; we needed to, kind of, go a little bit further.And around that time, Docker was really coming into its full. You know, Docker solved some of the problems that organizations had always struggled with. Virtual machine is great, but it's difficult to think about. And inside Google, containers we're a thing.Corey: Oh, containers have a long and storied history in different areas. From my perspective, Docker solves the problem of, “Well, it works on my machine,” because before something like Docker, the only answer was, “Well, backup your email because your laptop's about to be in production.”Craig: [laugh]. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, I think when I look at what Docker did, and it was this moment of clarity because a lot of us had been talking about this and thinking about it. I remember turning to Joe while we were building Compute Engine and basically said, “Whoever solves the packaging the way that Google did internally, and makes that accessible to the world is ultimately going to walk away with a game.” And I think Docker put lightning in a bottle.They really just focused on making some of these technologies that underpinned the hyperscalers, that underpinned the way that, like, a Google, or a Facebook, or a Twitter tended to operate, just accessible to developers. And they solved one very specific thing which was that packaging problem. You could take a piece of software and you could now package it up and deploy it as an immutable thing. So, in some ways, back to your own origins with SaltStack and some of the technologies you've worked on, it really was an epoch of DevOps; let's give developers tools so that they can code something up that renders a production system. And now with Docker, you're able to shift that all left. So, what you produced was the actual deployable artifact, but that obviously wasn't enough by itself.Corey: No, there needed to be something else. And according to your biography, not only it says here that, I quote, “You were responsible for the formation of the CNCF, or Cloud Native Computing Foundation,” and I'm trying to understand is that something that you're taking credit for or being blamed for? It really seems like it could go either way, given the very careful wording there.Craig: [laugh]. Yeah, it could go either way. It certainly got away from us a little bit in terms of just the scope and scale of what was going on. But the whole thesis behind Kubernetes, if you just step back a little bit, was we didn't need to own it; Google didn't need to own it. We just needed to move the innovation boundary forwards into an area that we had some very strong advantages.And if you look at the way that Google runs, it kind of felt like when people were working with Docker, and you had technologies like Mesos and all these other things, they were trying to put together a puzzle, and we already had the puzzle box in front of us because we saw how that technology worked. So, we didn't need to control it, we just needed people to embrace it, and we were confident that we could run it better. But for people to embrace it, it couldn't be seen as just a Google thing. It had to be a Google thing, and a Red Hat thing, and an Amazon thing, and a Microsoft thing, and something that was really owned by the community. So, the inspiration behind CNCF was to really put the technology forwards to build a collaborative community around it and to enable and foster this disruption.Corey: At some point after Kubernetes was established, and it was no longer an internal Google project but something that was handed over to a foundation, something new started to become fairly clear in the larger ecosystem. And it's sort of a microcosm of my observation that the things that startups are doing today are what enterprises are going to be doing five years from now. Every enterprise likes to imagine itself a startup; the inverse is not particularly commonly heard. You left Google to go found Heptio, where you were focusing on enterprise adoption of open-source technologies, specifically Kubernetes, but it also felt like it was more of a cultural shift in many respects, which is odd because there aren't that many startups, at least in that era, that were focused on bringing startup technologies to the enterprise, and sneaking in—or at least that's how it felt—the idea of culture change as well.Craig: You know, it's really interesting. Every enterprise has to innovate, and people tend to look at startups as being a source of innovation or a source of incubation. What we were trying to do with Heptio was to go the other way a little bit, which was, when you look at what West Coast tech companies were doing, and you look at a technology like Kubernetes—or any new technology: Kubernetes, or KNative, or there's some of these new observability capabilities that are starting to emerge in this ecosystem—there's this sort of trickle-across effect, where it's starts with the West Coast tech companies that build something, and then it trickles across to a lot of the progressive forward-leaning enterprise organizations that have the scale to consume those technologies. And then over time, it becomes mainstream. And when I looked at a technology like Kubernetes, and certainly through the lens of a company like Google, there was an opportunity to step back a little bit and think about, well, Google's really this West Coast tech company, and it's producing this technology, and it's working to make that more enterprise-centric, but how about going the other way?How about meeting enterprise organizations where they are—enterprise organizations that aspire to adopt some of these practices—and build a startup that's really about just walking the journey with customers, advocating for their needs, through the lens of these open-source communities, making these open-source technologies more accessible. And that was really the thesis around what we were doing with Heptio. And we worked very hard to do exactly as you said which is, it's not just about the tech, it's about how you use it, it's about how you operate it, how you set yourself up to manage it. And that was really the core thesis around what we were pursuing there. And it worked out quite well.Corey: Sitting here in 2021, if I were going to build something from scratch, I would almost certainly not use Kubernetes to do it. I'd probably pick a bunch of serverless primitives and go from there, but what I respect and admire about the Kubernetes approach is companies can't generally do that with existing workloads; you have to meet them where they are, as you said. ‘Legacy' is a condescending engineering phrase for ‘it makes money.' It's, “Oh, what does that piece of crap do?” “Oh, about $4 billion a year.” So yeah, we're going to be a little delicate with what it does.Craig: I love that observation. I always prefer the word ‘heritage' over the word legacy. You got to—Corey: Yeah.Craig: —have a little respect. This is the stuff that's running the world. This is the stuff that every transaction is flowing through.And it's funny, when you start looking at it, often you follow the train along and eventually you'll find a mainframe somewhere, right? It is definitely something that we need to be a little bit more thoughtful about.Corey: Right. And as cloud continues to eat the world well, as of the time of this recording, there is no AWS/400, so there is no direct mainframe option in most cloud providers, so there has to be a migration path; there has to be a path forward, that doesn't include, “Oh, and by the way, take 18 months to rewrite everything that you've built.” And containers, particularly with an orchestration model, solve that problem in a way that serverless primitives, frankly, don't.Craig: I agree with you. And it's really interesting to me as I work with enterprise organizations. I look at that modernization path as a journey. Cloud isn't just a destination: there's a lot of different permutations and steps that need to be taken. And every one of those has a return on investment.If you're an enterprise organization, you don't modernize for modernization's sake, you don't embrace cloud for cloud's sake. You have a specific outcome in mind, “Hey, I want to drive down this cost,” or, “Hey, I want to accelerate my innovation here,” “Hey, I want to be able to set my teams up to scale better this way.” And so a lot of these technologies, whether it's Kubernetes, or even serverless is becoming increasingly important, is a capability that enables a business outcome at the end of the day. And when I think about something like Kubernetes, it really has, in a way, emerged as a Goldilocks abstraction. It's low enough level that you can run pretty much anything, it's high enough level that it hides away the specifics of the environment that you want to deploy it into. And ultimately, it renders up what I think is economies of scope for an organization. I don't know if that makes sense. Like, you have these economies of scale and economies of scope.Corey: Given how down I am on Kubernetes across the board and—at least, as it's presented—and don't take that personally; I'm down on most modern technologies. I'm the person that said the cloud was a passing fad, that virtualization was only going to see limited uptake, that containers were never going to eat the world. And I finally decided to skip ahead of the Kubernetes thing for a minute and now I'm actually going to be positive about serverless. Given how wrong I am on these things, that almost certainly dooms it. But great, I was down on Kubernetes for a long time because I kept seeing these enterprises and other companies talking about their Kubernetes strategy.It always felt like Kubernetes was a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. And I want to be clear, I'm not talking about vendors here because if you are a software provider to a bunch of companies and providing Kubernetes is part and parcel of what you do, yeah, you need a Kubernetes strategy. But the blue-chip manufacturing company that is modernizing its entire IT estate, doesn't need a Kubernetes strategy as such. Am I completely off base with that assessment?Craig: No, I think you're pointing at something which I feel as well. I mean, I'll be honest, I've been talking about [laugh] Kubernetes since day one, and I'm kind of tired of talking about Kubernetes. It should just be something that's there; you shouldn't have to worry about it, you shouldn't have to worry about operationalizing it. It's just an infrastructure abstraction. It's not in and of itself an end, it's simply a means to an end, which is being able to start looking at the destination you're deploying your software into as being more favorable for building distributed systems, not having to worry about the mechanics of what happens if a single node fails? What happens if I have to scale this thing? What happens if I have to update this thing?So, it's really not intended—and it never was intended—to be an end unto itself. It was really just intended to raise the waterline and provide an environment into which distributed applications can be deployed that felt entirely consistent, whether you're building those on-premises, in the public cloud, and increasingly out to the edge.Corey: I wound up making a tweet, couple years back, specifically in 2019, that the nuclear hot take: “Nobody will care about Kubernetes in five years.” And I stand by it, but I also think that's been wildly misinterpreted because I am not suggesting in any way that it's going to go away and no one is going to use it anymore. But I think it's going to matter in the same way as the operating system is starting to, the way that the Linux virtual memory management subsystem does now. Yes, a few people in specific places absolutely care a lot about those things, but most companies don't because they don't have to. It's just the way things are. It's almost an operating system for the data center, or the cloud environment, for lack of a better term. But is that assessment accurate? And if you don't wildly disagree with it, what do you think of the timeline?Craig: I think the assessment is accurate. The way I always think about this is you want to present your engineers, your developers, the people that are actually taking a business problem and solving it with code, you want to deliver to them the highest possible abstraction. The less they have to worry about the infrastructure, the less they have to worry about setting up their environment, the less they have to worry about the DevOps or DevSecOps pipeline, the better off they're going to be. And so if we as an industry do our job right, Kubernetes is just the water in which IT swims. You know, like the fish doesn't see the water; it's just there.We shouldn't be pushing the complexity of the system—because it is a fancy and complex system—directly to developers. They shouldn't necessarily have to think like, “Oh, I need to understand all of the XYZ is about how this thing works to be able to build a system.” There will be some engineers that benefit from it, but there are going to be other engineers that don't. The one thing that I think is going to—you know, is a potential change on what you said is, we're going to see people starting to program Kubernetes more directly, whether they know it or not. I don't know if that makes sense, but things like the ability for Kubernetes to offer up a way for organizations to describe the desired state of something and then using some of the patterns of Kubernetes to make the world into that shape is going to be quite pervasive, and I'm really seeing signs that we're seeing it.So yes, most developers are going to be working with higher abstractions. Yes, technologies like Knative and all of the work that we at VMware are doing within the ecosystem will render those higher abstractions to developers. But there's going to be some really interesting opportunities to take what made Kubernetes great beyond just, “Hey, I can put a Docker container down on a virtual machine,” and start to think about reconciler-driven IT: being able to describe what you want to have happen in the world, and then having a really smart system that just makes the world into that shape.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle HeatWave is a new high-performance accelerator for the Oracle MySQL Database Service. Although I insist on calling it “my squirrel.” While MySQL has long been the worlds most popular open source database, shifting from transacting to analytics required way too much overhead and, ya know, work. With HeatWave you can run your OLTP and OLAP, don't ask me to ever say those acronyms again, workloads directly from your MySQL database and eliminate the time consuming data movement and integration work, while also performing 1100X faster than Amazon Aurora, and 2.5X faster than Amazon Redshift, at a third of the cost. My thanks again to Oracle Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense. Corey: So, you went from driving Kubernetes adoption into the enterprise as the founder and CEO of Heptio, to effectively, acquired by one of the most enterprise-y of enterprise companies, in some respects, VMware, and your world changed. So, I understand what Heptio does because, to my mind, a big company is one that is 200 people. VMware has slightly more than that at last count, and I sort of lose track of all the threads of the different things that VMware does and how it operates. I could understand what Heptio does. What I don't understand is what, I guess, your corner of VMware does. Modern applications means an awful lot of things to an awful lot of people. I prefer to speak it with a condescending accent when making fun of those legacy things that make money—not a popular take, but it's there—how do you define what you do now?Craig: So, for me, when you talk about modern application platform, you can look at it one of two ways. You can say it's a platform for modern applications, and when people have modern applications, they have a whole variety of different ideas in the head: okay, well, it's microservices-based, or it's API-fronted, it's event-driven, it's supporting stream-based processing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's all kinds of fun, cool, hip new patterns that are happening in the segment. The other way you could look at it is it's a modern platform for applications of any kind. So, it's really about how do we make sense of going from where you are today to where you need to be in the future?How do we position the set of tools that you can use, as they make sense, as your organization evolves, as your organization changes? And so I tend to look at my role as being bringing these capabilities to our existing product line, which is, obviously, the vSphere product line, and it's almost a hyperscale unto itself, but it's really about that private cloud experience historically, and making those capabilities accessible in that environment. But there's another part to this as well, which is, it's not just about running technologies on vSphere. It's also about how can we make a lot of different public clouds look and feel consistent without hiding the things that they are particularly great at. So, every public cloud has its own set of capabilities, its own price-performance profile, its own service ecosystem, and richness around that.So, what can we do to make it so that as you're thinking about your journey from taking an existing system, one of those heritage systems, and thinking through the evolution of that system to meet your business requirements, to be able to evolve quickly, to be able to go through that digital transformation journey, and package it up and deliver the right tools at the right time in the right environment, so that we can walk the journey with our customers?Corey: Does this tie into Tanzu, or is that a different VMware initiative slash division? And my apologies on that one, just because it's difficult for me to wrap my head around where Tanzu starts and stops. If I'm being frank.Craig: So, [unintelligible 00:21:49] is the heart of Tanzu. So Tanzu, in a way, is a new branch, a new direction for VMware. It's about bringing this richness of capabilities to developers running in any cloud environment. It's an amalgamation of a lot of great technologies that people aren't even aware of that VMware has been building, or that VMware has gained through acquisition, certainly Heptio and the ability to bring Kubernetes to an enterprise organization is part of that. But we're also responsible for things like Spring.Spring is a critical anchor for Java developers. If you look at the Spring community, we participate in one and a half million new application starts a month. And you wouldn't necessarily associate VMware with that, but we're absolutely driving critical innovation in that space. Things, like full-stack observability, being able to not only deploy these container-packaged applications, but being able to actually deal with the day two operations, and how to deal with the APM considerations, et cetera. So, Tanzu is an all-in push from VMware to bring the technologies like Kubernetes and everything that exists above Kubernetes to our customers, but also to new customers in the public cloud that are really looking for consistency across those environments.Corey: When I look at what you've been doing for the past decade or so, it really tells a story of transitions, where you went from product lead on GCE, to working on Kubernetes. You took Kubernetes from an internal Google reimagining of Borg into an open-source project that has been given over to the CNCF. You went from running Heptio, which was a startup, to working at one of the least startup-y-like companies, by some measures, in the world.s you seem to have gone from transiting from one thing to almost its exact opposite, repeatedly, throughout your career. What's up with that theme?Craig: I think if you look back on the transitions and those key steps, the one thing that I've consistently held in my head, and I think my personal motivation was really grounded in this view that IT is too hard, right? IT is just too challenging. So, the transition from Microsoft, where I was responsible building package software, to Google, which was about cloud, was really marking that transition of, “Hey, we just need to do better for the enterprise organization.” The transition from focusing on a virtual machine-based system, which was the state of the art at the time to unlocking these modern orchestrated container-based system was in service of that need, which was, “Hey, you know, if you can start to just treat a number of virtual machines as a destination that has a distributed operating system on top of it, we're going to be better off.” The need to transition to a community-centric outcome because while Google is amazing in so many ways, being able to benefit from the perspective that traditional enterprise organizations brought to the table was significant to transitioning into a startup where we were really serving enterprise organizations and providing that interface back into the community to ultimately joining VMware because at the end of the day, there's a lot of work to be done here.And when you're selling a startup, it's—you're either selling out or you're buying in, and I'm not big on the idea of selling out. In this case, having access to the breadth of VMware, having access to the place where most of the customers are really cared about were living, and all of those heritage systems that are just running the world's business. So, for me, it's really been about walking that journey on behalf of that individual that's just trying to make ends meet; just trying to make sure that their IT systems stay lit; that are trying to make sure that the debt that they're creating today in the IT environment isn't payday loan debt, it's more like a mortgage. I can get into an environment that's going to serve me and my family well. And so, each of those transitions has really just been marked by need.And I tend to look at the needs of that enterprise organization that's walking this journey as being an anchor for me. And I'm pleased with every transition I've made. Like, at every point we've—sort of, Joe and myself, who's been on this journey for a while, have been able to better serve that individual.Corey: Now, I know that it's always challenging to talk about the future, but do you think you're done with those radical transitions, as you continue to look forward to what's coming? I mean, it's impossible to predict the future, but you're clearly where you are for a reason, and I'm assuming part of that reason is because you see an opportunity; you see a transformation that is currently unfolding. What does that look like from where you sit?Craig: Well, I mean, my work in VMware [laugh] is very far from done. There's just an amazing amount of continued opportunity to deliver value not only to those existing customers where they're running on-prem but to make the public cloud more intrinsically accessible and to increasingly solve the problems as more computational resources fanning back out to the edge. So, I'm extremely excited about the opportunity ahead of us from the VMware perspective. I think we have some incredible advantages because, at the end of the day, we're both a neutral party—you know, we're not a hyperscaler. We're not here to compete with the hyperscalers on the economies of scale that they render.But we're also working to make sure that as the hyperscalers are offering up these new services and everything else, that we can help the enterprise organization make best use of that. We can help them make best use of that infrastructure environment, we can help them navigate the complexities of things like concentration risk, or being able to manage through the luck and potential that some of these things represent. So, I don't want to see the world collapse back into the mainframe era. I think that's the thing that really motivates me, I think, the transition from mainframe to client-server, the work that Wintel did—the Windows-Intel consortium—to unlock that ecosystem just created massive efficiencies and massive benefits from everyone. And I do feel like with the combination of technologies like Kubernetes and everything that's happening on top of that, and the opportunity that an organization like VMware has to be a neutral party, to really bridge the gap between enterprises and those technologies, we're in a situation where we can create just tremendous value in the world: making it so that modernization is a journey rather than a destination, helping customers modernize at a pace that's reasonable to them, and ultimately serving both the cloud providers in terms of bringing some critical workloads to the cloud, but also serving customers so that as they live with the harsh realities of a multi-cloud universe where I don't know one enterprise organization that's just all-in on one cloud, we can provide some really useful capabilities and technologies to make them feel more consistent, more familiar, without hiding what's great about each of them.Corey: Craig, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today about where you sit, how you see the world, where you've been, and little bits of where we're going. If people want to learn more, where can they find you?Craig: Well, I'm on Twitter, @cmcluck, and obviously, on LinkedIn. And we'll continue to invite folks to attend a lot of our events, whether that's the Spring conferences that VMware sponsors, or VMWorld. And I'm really excited to have an opportunity to talk more about what we're doing and some of the great things we're up to.Corey: I will certainly be following up as the year continues to unfold. Thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it.Craig: Thank you so much for your time as well.Corey: Craig McLuckie, Vice President of R&D at VMware in their modern applications business unit. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with a comment that I won't bother to read before designating it legacy or heritage.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need the Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

What if I told you that there's a way to keep yourself young? It takes a lot of hard work, and it's a continuing process. However, the payoff is definitely worth it. It also offers a lot of benefits aside from longevity. The secret? It's developing a lifelong passion for learning and growing. In this episode, Craig Harper joins us once again to explain the value of having a growth mindset. We explore how you can keep yourself young and healthy even as you chronologically age. He also emphasises the importance of fun and laughter in our lives. Craig also shares how powerful our minds are and how we can use them to manage our pain.    If you want to know how to develop a growth mindset for a fuller life, then this episode is for you!   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year's time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or are wanting to take your performance to the next level and learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa's Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third-party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third-party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce' Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how to develop a growth mindset to keep yourself young and healthy, regardless of your chronological age. Understand why you need to manage your energy and plan fun and laughter into your life. Discover the ways you can change your mindset around pain.    Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! Listen to other Pushing the Limits Episodes: #60: Ian Walker - Paraplegic Handbiker - Ultra Distance Athlete #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #188: Awareness and Achieve High Performance with Craig Harper  #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova Connect with Craig: Website | Instagram | Linkedin Interested to learn more from Craig? You can check out his books and his podcast, The You Project. T: The Story of Testosterone by Carole Hooven  Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Rankin M.D. Lifespan - Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To  by David A. Sinclair PhD Neuroscience professor Andrew Huberman's Instagram  Dr Rhonda Patrick's website A new program, BoostCamp, is coming this September at Peak Wellness!   Episode Highlights [06:50] A Growth Mindset Keeps Us Young and Healthy It's helpful to take advantage of the availability of high-level research and medical journals online. If you're prepared to do the hard work, you can learn anything.  Learning and exposing ourselves to new things are crucial parts of staying young and healthy.  Age is a self-created story.  With a growth mindset, you can change how your body and mind works so that you feel younger than your real age.  [12:23] Develop a Growth Mindset It's vital to surround yourself with people with the same mindset — people who drag you up, not down.  You can also get a similar experience by exposing yourself to good ideas and stories. Be aware of what you're feeding your mind, on top of what you're feeding your body.  School is not a marker of your intelligence. Your academic failures do not matter.  With a growth mindset, you can keep growing and learning.  [17:40] Let Go and Be Happy People tend to have career and exercise plans, but not a fun plan.  We can't be serious all the time — we also need time to have fun and laugh.  Laughter can impact and improve the immune system. Laughing can change the biochemistry of your brain. Plan for the future, but also learn to live in the now. Having a growth mindset is important, but so is finding joy and enjoyment.  [23:31] Look After Your Energy Having fun and resting can impact your energy and emotional system.  These habits can help you work faster than when you're just working all the time.  Remember, volume and quality of work are different.  [30:24] Work-Life Balance Many people believe that they need to balance work and life. However, when you find your passion, it's just life.  Even doing 20 hours of work for a job you hate is worse than 40 hours of doing something you love. There's no one answer for everyone. Everything is a lot more flexible than before. Find what works for you.  [35:56] Change the Way You Think It's unavoidable that we think a certain way because of our upbringing.  Start to become aware of your lack of awareness and your programming.  Learn why you think of things the way you do. Is it because of other people?  Be influenced by other people, but test their ideas through trial and error. Let curiosity fuel your growth mindset.  Listen to the full podcast to learn how Craig learned how to run his gym without a business background!  [44:18] Sharing Academic Knowledge Academics face many restrictions due to the nature and context of their work.  He encourages the academic community to communicate information to everyone, not just to fellow researchers.  He plans to publish a book about his PhD research to share what he knows with the public. Science is constantly changing. We need to keep up with the latest knowledge.   [50:55] Change Your Relationship with Pain There is no simple fix to chronic pain.  The most you can do is change your relationship and perception of pain.  Our minds are powerful enough to create real pain even without any physical injury. Listen to Craig and Lisa's stories about how our minds affect our pain in the full episode!   7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘My mind is the CEO of my life. So I need to make sure that as much as I can, that I'm managing my mind, and my mental energy optimally.' ‘If you're listening to this, and you didn't succeed in the school system, that means absolutely nothing when you're an adult.' ‘We're literally doing our biology good by laughing.' ‘Living is a present tense verb, you can't living in the future, and you can't live in the future.' ‘Often, more is not better. Sometimes more is worse.  So there's a difference between volume of work and output and quality of work.' ‘It's all about those people just taking one step at a time to move forward... That growth mindset that I think is just absolutely crucial.'   About Craig Craig Harper is one of Australia's leading educators, speakers, and writers in health and self-development. He has been an integral part of the Australian health and fitness industry since 1982. In 1990, he established a successful Harper's Personal Training, which evolved into one of the most successful businesses of its kind.  He currently hosts a successful Podcast called 'The You Project'. He is also completing a neuropsychology PhD, studying the spectrum of human thinking and behaviour. Craig speaks on various radio stations around Australia weekly. He currently fills an on-air role as a presenter on a lifestyle show called 'Get a Life', airing on Foxtel.  Want to know more about Craig and his work? Check out his website, or follow him on Instagram and Linkedin!   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn how to develop a growth mindset. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Well, hi everyone and welcome back to Pushing the Limits with Lisa Tamati. This week I have Craig Harper. He is really well known in Australia. He's a broadcaster, a fitness professional, a PhD scholar, an expert on metacognition, and self-awareness. And we get talking on all those good topics today and also neuro-psycho-immunology, very big word. Really interesting stuff; and we get talking about laughter, we get talking about pain management. We sort of go all over the show in this episode, which I sometimes do on this show. I hope you enjoy this very insightful and deep conversation with Craig Harper.  Before we head over to the show, I just want to let you know that Neil and I at Running Hot Coaching have launched a new program called Boost Camp. Now, this will be starting on the first of September and we're taking registrations now. This is a live eight-week program, where you'll basically boost your life. That's why it's called Boost Camp. not boot camp, Boost Camp. This is all about upgrading your body, learning how to help your body function at its base, learning how your mindset works, and increasing your performance, your health, your well-being and how to energise your mind and your body. In this Boost Camp, we're going to give you the answers you need in a simple, easy-to-follow process using holistic diagnostic tools and looking at the complete picture.  So you're going to go on a personalised health and fitness journey that will have a really life-changing effect on your family and your community. We're going to be talking about things like routine and resilience, mental resilience, which is a big thing that I love to talk about, and how important is in this time of change, in this time of COVID, where everything's upside down, and how we should be all building time and resources around building our resilience and energising our mind and body. We're going to give you a lot of health fundamentals. Because the fundamentals are something simple and easy to do, it means that you probably aren't doing some of the basics right, and we want to help you get there.  We're going to give you the answers you need in a simple, sort of easy, process. So we are now in a position to be able to control and manage all of these stressors and these things that are coming at us all the time, and we want to help you do that in the most optimal manner. So check out what boost camp is all about. Go to www.peakwellness.co.nz/boostcamp. I'll say that again, peakwellness.co.nz/boostcamp, boost with a B-O-O-S-T, boost camp. We hope to see you over there! Right, now over to the show with Craig Harper. Well, hi everyone and welcome to Pushing the Limits! Today, I have someone who is a special treat for you who has been on the show before. He's an absolute legend, and I love him to bits. Craig half and welcome to the show mate, how are you doing?  Craig Harper: Hi Lisa! I'm awesome but you're not.  Lisa: No I'm a bit of a miss, people. I've got shingles, a horrible, horrible virus that I advise nobody to get. Craig: What it— do we know what that's made? What causes it, or is it idiopathic as they say? Lisa: Yeah, no, it is from the chickenpox virus. Although, I've never, ever had that virus. So I'm like heck how, you know, it's related to the cold sore virus and all of that, which I definitely have had often. So it sits on the spinal cord, these little viruses, dormant and then one day when your immune systems are down, it decides to attack and replicate and go hard out. So yeah, that'll be the down for the count now for two and a half weeks. In a lot of pain, but— Craig: What is it like nerve pain or what kind of pain is it?  Lisa: Yes, it's nerve pain. So this one's actually, it hits different nerves in different people, depending on where it decides to pop out. My mum had the femoral nerve, which is one that goes right down from the backbone, quite high up on the backbone, down across the back and then down through the hip flexor and down the leg. I've got all these horrible looking sores, I look like a burn victim all the way down my leg and across my back. And it comes out through the muscles of your like, through the nerves and nerve endings and causes these blisters on top of the skin but it's the nerve pain that's really horrible because there's no comfortable position. There's no easy way to lie or sit and of course, when you're lying at night, it's worse. It's worse at nighttime than in the day. So I learned a lot about shingles. And as usual, we're using these obstacles to be a learning curve. Craig: Why on earth are you doing a bloody podcast? You should be relaxing. Lisa: You're important, you see. I had, you know, I had this appointment with you, and I honour my appointments, and I— Craig: Definitely not important. What's the typical treatment for shingles? Lisa: Well, actually, I wish I'd known this two weeks ago, I didn't know this, but I just had a Zoom call with Dave Asprey, you know, of Bulletproof fame, who is one of my heroes, and he's coming on the show, people, shortly. So that's really exciting. He told me to take something called BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene, which is a synthetic antioxidant. They actually use them in food additives, they said that kills that virus. So I'm like, ‘Right, get me some of that.' But unfortunately, I was already, it's— I only got it just yesterday, because I had to wait for the post. So I'm sort of hoping for a miracle in the next 24 hours.  Also, intravenous vitamin C, I've had three of those on lysine, which also helps. One of the funny things, before we get to the actual topic of the day, is I was taking something called L-Citrulline which helps with nitric oxide production and feeds into the arginine pathway. Apparently, while that's a good thing for most people, the arginine, if you have too much arginine in the body, it can lead to replication of this particular virus, which is really random and I only found that out after the fact. But you know, as a biohacker, who experiments sometimes you get it wrong.  Craig: Sometimes you turn left when you should have turned right.  Lisa: Yes. So that, you know, certainly took a lot of digging in PubMed to find that connection. But I think that's maybe what actually set it off. That combined with a pretty stressful life of like— Craig: It's interesting that you mentioned PubMed because like a lot of people now, you know how people warn people off going Dr Google, you know, whatever, right. But the funny thing is, you can forget Dr Google, I mean, Google's okay. But you can access medical journals, high level— I mean, all of the research journals that I access for my PhD are online. You can literally pretty much access any information you want. We're not talking about anecdotal evidence, and we're not talking about theories and ideas and random kind of junk. We're talking about the highest level research, you literally can find at home now. So if you know how to research and you know what you're looking for, and you can be bothered reading arduous academic papers, you can pretty much learn anything, to any level, if you're prepared to do the work and you know how— and you can be a little bit of a detective, a scientific detective.  Lisa: That is exactly, you know, what I keep saying, and I'm glad you said that because you are a PhD scholar and you are doing this. So you know what you're talking about, and this is exactly what I've done in the last five years, is do deep research and all this sort of stuff. People think that you have to go to university in order to have this education, and that used to be the case. It is no longer the case. We don't have to be actually in medical school to get access to medical texts anymore, which used to be the way. And so we now have the power in our hands to take, to some degree, control over what we're learning and where we're going with this.  It doesn't mean that it's easy. You will know, sifting through PubMed, and all these scholarly Google articles and things in clinical studies is pretty damn confusing sometimes and arduous. But once you get used to that form of learning, you start to be able to sift through relatively fast, and you can really educate yourself. I think having that growth mindset, I mean, you and I never came from an academic background. But thanks to you, I'm actually going to see Prof Schofield next week. Prof Schofield and looking at a PhD, because, I really need to add that to my load. But— Craig: You know, the thing is, I think in general, and I don't know where you're gonna go today, but I think in general, like what one of the things that keeps us young is learning and exposing ourselves, our mind and our emotions and for that matter, our body to new things, whether that's new experiences or new ideas, or new information, or new environments, or new people. This is what floats my boat and it keeps me hungry and it keeps me healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, intellectually, creatively, sociologically. It keeps me healthy. Not only does it keep me in a good place, I'm actually at 57, still getting better. You know, and people might wonder about that sometimes.  Of course, there's an inevitability to chronological aging. Clearly, most people at 80 are not going to be anything like they were at 40. Not that I'm 80. But there's— we know now that there's the unavoidable consistency of time as a construct, as an objective construct. But then there's the way that we behave around and relate to time. Biological aging is not chronological aging. In the middle of the inevitability of time ticking over is, which is an objective thing, there's the subject of human in the middle of it, who can do what he or she wants. So, in other words, a 57-year-old bloke doesn't need to look or feel or function or think like a 57-year-old bloke, right?  When we understand that, in many ways, especially as an experience, age is a self-created story for many people. I mean, you've met, I've met and our listeners have met 45-year-olds that seem 70 and 70-year-olds— and we're not talking about acting young, that's not what we're talking about. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about pretending you're not old or acting young. I'm actually talking about changing the way that your body and your mind and your brain and your emotional system works, literally. So that you are literally in terms of function, similar to somebody or a ‘typical' person who's 20 or 25 years younger than you. We didn't even know that this used to be possible, but not only is it possible, if you do certain things, it's very likely that that's the outcome you'll create. Lisa: Yeah, and if you think about our grandparents, and when I think about my Nana at 45 or 50, they were old. When I think about now I'm 52, you're 57, we're going forward, we're actually reaching the peak of our intellectual, well, hopefully not the peak, we're still going up. Physically, we got a few wrinkles and a few grey hairs coming. But even on that front, there is so much what's happening in the longevity space that my take on it is, if I can keep my shit together for the next 10 years, stuff's gonna come online that's gonna help me keep it on for another 20, 30, 40 years.  For me now it's trying to hold my body together as best I can so that when the technology does come, that we are able to meet— and we're accessing some of the stuff now, I mean, I'm taking some of the latest and greatest bloody supplements and biohacking stuff, and actively working towards that, and having this, I think it's a growth mindset. I had Dr Demartini on the show last week, who I love. I think he's an incredible man. His mindset, I mean, he's what nearly, I think he's nearly 70. It looks like he's 40. He's amazing. And his mind is so sharp and so fast it'll leave you and I in the dust. He's processing books every day, like, you know, more than a book a day and thinking his mind through and he's distilling it and he's remembering, and he's retaining it, and he's giving it to the world. This is sort of— you know, he's nothing exceptional. He had learning disabilities, for goodness sake, he had a speech impediment, he couldn't read until he was an adult. In other words, he made that happen. You and I, you know, we both did you know, where you went to university, at least when you're younger, I sort of mucked around on a bicycle for a few years. Travelling the world to see it. But this is the beauty of the time that we live in, and we have access to all this. So that growth mindset, I think keeps you younger, both physically and mentally. Craig: And this is why I reckon it's really important that we hang around with people who drag us up, not down. And that could be you know, this listening to your podcast, of course, like I feel like when I listen to a podcast with somebody like you that shares good ideas and good information and good energy and is a good person, like if I'm walking around, I've literally got my headphones here because I just walked back from the cafe, listening to Joe Rogan's latest podcast with this lady from Harvard talking about testosterone, you'd find it really interesting, wrote a book called T.  When I'm listening to good conversations with good people, I am, one, I'm fascinated and interested, but I'm stimulating myself and my mind in a good way. I'm dragging myself up by exposing myself to good ideas and good thinking, and good stories. Or it might even be just something that's funny, it might— I'm just exposing myself to a couple of dickheads talking about funny shit, right? And I'd spend an hour laughing, which is also therapeutic.  You know, and I think there's that, I think we forget that we're always feeding our mind and our brain something. It's just having more awareness of what am I actually plugging into that amazing thing? Not only just what am I putting in my body, which, of course, is paramount. But what am I putting in, you know, that thing that sits between my ears that literally drives my life? That's my HQ, that's my, my mind is the CEO of my life. So I need to make sure that as much as I can, that I'm managing my mind and my mental energy                                                                                  optimally. Lisa: Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of people if they didn't do well in the school system, think that, 'Oh, well, I'm not academic therefore I can't learn or continue to learn.' I really encourage people, if you're listening to this, and you didn't succeed in the school system, that means absolutely nothing when you're an adult. The school system has got many flaws, and it didn't cater to everybody. So I just want people to understand that.  You know, just like with Dr Demartini, he taught himself 30 words a day, that's where he started: vocabulary. He taught himself to read and then taught— Albert Einstein was another one, you know, he struggled in school for crying out loud. So school isn't necessarily the marker of whether you're an intelligent human being or not. It's one system and one way of learning that is okay for the average and the masses. But definitely, it leaves a lot of people thinking that they're dumb when they're not dumb.  It's all about those people just taking one step at a time to move forward and becoming, you know, that growth mindset that I think is just absolutely crucial. You talked there about laughter and I wanted to go into that a little bit today too, because I heard you talking on Tiffany, our friend Tiffany's podcast, and you were talking about how important laughter is for the body, for our minds, for our— and if we laugh a lot, we're less likely to fall victim to the whole adult way of being, which is sometimes pretty cynical and miserable. When you think, what is it? Kids laugh something like 70 times a day and adults laugh I think, six times a day or some statistic. Do you want to elaborate on that a little bit? Craig: Well, I used to sit down with you know, I don't do much one-on-one coaching anymore, just because I do other stuff. I would sit with people and go, ‘Alright, tell me about your exercise plan and blah, blah, blah. Tell me about your career plan, blah, blah, blah. Tell me about your financial plan, blah, blah, blah.' Tell me about, you know, whatever. And they have systems and programs and plans for everything.  I would say to them, 'Do you like fun?' And they're like, they look at me like I was a weirdo. 'What do you mean?' I go, 'Well, what do you mean, what do I mean? Like, do you like having fun?' And they're like, very seriously, like, 'Well, of course, everyone likes having fun.' I go, 'Great. What's your fun plan?' And they go, 'What?' I go, 'What's your fun— like, is laughing and having fun important to you?' 'Yeah, yeah.' 'Okay, what's your fun plan?'  They literally, like this idea of just integrating things into my life, which are for no reason other than to laugh and to have fun. Not to be productive and efficient and to tick more boxes and create more income and elevate output and tick fucking boxes and hit KPIs and you know, just to be silly, just to laugh like a dickhead, just to hang out with your mates or your girlfriends, or whatever it is. Just to talk shit, just to, not everything needs to be fucking deep and meaningful and world-changing. Not everything. In fact, it can't, you know?  Our brain and our body and our emotional system and our nervous system and— it can't work like that we can't be elevated all the time. And so, literally when we are laughing, we're changing the biochemistry of our brain. You know, literally when we are having fun, we're impacting our immune system in a real way through that thing I've probably spoken to you about, psychoneuroimmunology, right? We're literally doing our biology good by laughing and there's got to be, for me, there's got to be, because, like you probably, I have a lot of deep and meaningful conversations with people about hard shit. Like, I'm pretty much a specialist at hard conversations. It's what I do. But, you know, and, and I work a lot, and I study a lot. Then there needs to be a valve. You can't be all of that all of the time because you're human, you're not a cyborg, you're not a robot. And this hustle, hustle, hustle, grind, work harder, sleep less, you can, you know, you can sleep when you're dead, it's all bullshit. Because, also, yeah, I want to learn and grow and evolve, and I want to develop new skills. But you know what, I want to also, in the moment, laugh at silly shit. I want to be happy and I want to hang out with people I love and I want to be mentally and emotionally and spiritually nourished.  Like, it's not just about acquiring knowledge and accumulating shit that you're probably not going to use. It's also about the human experience now. This almost sounds contradictory. But because of course, we want a future plan and we want goals and all of those, but we're never going to live in the present because when we get there, it's not the present. It's just another installment of now. So when next Wednesday comes, it's not the future, it's now again, because life is never-ending now, right?  It's like you only like, live— living is a present tense verb. You can't living in the future, and you can't live in the future. You cannot. Yes, I know, this gets a little bit, what's the word existential, but the truth is that, yeah, we need to— well, we don't, we can do whatever we want. But I believe we need to be stimulated so we're learning and growing, and we're doing good stuff for our brain and good stuff for our body. But also that we are giving ourselves a metaphoric hug, and going, 'It's all right to lie on your bed and watch Netflix, as long as it's not 20 hours a day, five days a week,' you know. It's okay to just laugh at silly stuff. It's okay, that there's no purpose to doing this thing other than just joy and enjoyment, you know.  I think that people like you and me who are, maybe we would put ourselves in the kind of driven category, right? You and I are no good at this. Like, at times, having fun and just going, ‘I'm going to do fuck all today.' Because the moment that we do sometimes we start to feel guilty and we start to be like, 'Fuck, I'm not being productive. I've got to be productive.' That, in itself, is a problem for high performance. Like, fuck your high performance, and fuck your productivity today. Be unproductive, be inefficient, and just fucking enjoy it, you know, not— because in a minute, we're going to be dead. We're going to go, 'But fuck, I was productive. But I had no fun, I never laughed, because I was too busy being important.' Fuck all that. Lisa: I think both of us have probably come a long way around finding that out. I mean, I used to love reading fiction novels, and then I went, ‘Oh, I can't be reading fiction novels. I've got so many science books that I have to read.' Here I am, dealing with insomnia at two o'clock in the morning reading texts on nitric oxide, you know. It is this argument that goes on, still in my head if there was an hour where you weren't learning something, you know, I can't. Because I know that if I go for a big drive or something, and I have to travel somewhere, or going for a long run or something, I've probably digested a book on that road trip or three, or 10 podcasts or something and I've actually oh, I get to the end and I'm like, ‘Well, I achieved something.' I've got my little dopamine hits all the way through.  Now I've sort of come to also understand that you need this time out and you need to just have fun. I'm married to this absolute lunatic of a guy called Haisely O'Leary, who I just love, because all day every day, he is just being an idiot. In the best sense of the word. I come out and I'm grumpy and you know, had a hard day and I'm tired, I'm stressed, and I come out and he's doing a little dance, doing some stupid meme or saying some ridiculous thing to me. I'm just like, you know, I crack up at it. That's the best person to have to be around because they keep being—and I'm like, ‘Come on, stop being stupid, you should be doing this and you shouldn't be doing that.' Then I hear myself, and I'm like, ‘No, he's got it right.' Craig: Well, I think he does, in some ways, you know. It's not about all, it's not about one or the other, it's about— and it's recognising that if I look after my energy, and my emotional system, and all of that, I'll get more done in 8 hours than 12 hours when I'm not looking after myself. So more is not better, necessarily. In fact, often, more is not better; sometimes, more is worse. So there's a difference between volume of work and output and quality of work. Also, you know, quality of experience.  I wrote a little thing yesterday, just talking on social media about the fact that I, like all of the things that I do, even study, although it's demanding, but I enjoy it. My job, you know, like, right now you and I do podcasts. I do seven podcasts a week, apart from the ones like this, where I'm being interviewed by someone else, or spoken to by somebody else. My life is somewhat chaotic, but I don't really, in terms of having a ‘job'. Well, one, I don't have a job. I haven't had a job since I was 26. Two, I don't really feel a sense of work, like most people do.  Like the other night, I did a gig. I don't know if you, if I posted a little thing about this on Insta, and I was doing a talk for Hewlett Packard in Spain. Now, how cool is the world? Right? So I'm talking here, right here in my house, you can see, obviously, your listeners can't. But this is not video, is it? Just us? I wish I knew that earlier. Sorry, everyone, I would have brushed my hair. But anyway, you should see my hair by the way. I look like bloody Doc from Back to the Future. Anyway, but I'm sitting in here, I'm sitting in the studio, and I'm about to talk to a few hundred people in Spain, right, which is where, that's where they're all— that's where I was dealing with the people who are organising me to speak.  Just before I'm about to go live at 5:30, the lady who had organised me was texting me. So it's on Zoom. There's already a guy on the screen speaking and then lots of little squares of other humans. I said to her, ‘How many?' and said, ‘You know, like a few 100.' I said, ‘Cool.' I go, ‘Everyone's in Spain,' and she goes, ‘No, no, we're in Spain, but the audience is around the world.' And I go, ‘Really? How many countries?' She goes, ‘38.' I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, I'm wearing a black t-shirt. I'm wearing my camo shorts. I've got bare feet. I'm talking to hundreds of humans from this big organisation in 38 countries, and I'm talking about the stuff that I am passionate about, right? I don't have to do any prep, because it's my default setting. I'm just talking. I had to talk for an hour and a half about high performance. Well, giddy up, that's like an hour and a half of breathing. You know?  I just had such fun, and I had this moment, Lisa, halfway through, I don't know, but about halfway through, where I'm like, I remember growing up in a paradigm where pretty much when I was a kid everyone went and got a job and you went, you became a cop or you sold clothes, or you're a bricky or sparky or you're some kind of tradie. A few of my super smart friends went to university. That was way over my head, I'm like, ‘Fuck university.' But there was literally about 50 jobs in the world. You know, it's like there was only 50 jobs, and everyone or nearly everyone fitted into one of those 50. There was a few other ones but for the most part, nearly everyone fitted into about 50 jobs. I'm sitting there going— I won't say what but I'm earning pretty good money. I'm sitting in bare feet in my house talking to humans around the world about this stuff that I want to tell everyone about anyway.  I do it for free on my podcast and your podcast and I do it anyway. I have this great time, it's a really good experience. Then I finish at 7 pm. Then I walk 15 feet into the kitchen and put the kettle on and check my messages.  Lisa: No commuting, no travelling, no flying. Craig: I'm like, ‘How is this a job?' I'm like, ‘How is this real?' ‘This is a scam. I'm scamming everybody.' Like, how great is 2021? I know there's a lot of shit going on and I'm not trying to be insensitive, and it's smashed my business too. All of my live events for 2020 got kicked in the dick in two weeks, right? I got financially annihilated, but you just go, ‘Oh well, improvise, adapt, overcome and figure shit out.' But, I think when you can have it and a lot of people and it's a very well-worn kind of idea. But when you're, what you love, and what you're curious about, and how you make a few bucks, when that can all collide, then life is a different thing. Then there's not work and life, there's just life.  You know, and so when we talk about this idea of work-life balance, you know, it's like the old days that talk about that a lot. And it's like, almost like there was some seesaw, some metaphoric seesaw with work on one side and life on the other. And when you get balance like that— because what happens, think about this, if we're just basing it on numbers, like all 40 hours of work versus however many hours of non-work or however many hours of recreation and recovery. But if you're doing even 20 hours of a job that you hate, that's going to fuck you up. That's gonna, that's gonna mess with you physically, mentally, and emotionally. That's going to be toxic; that's going to be damaging; that's going to be soul-destroying, versus something else like me studying 40 hours a week, working 40, 50 hours a week doing 90 in total, depending on the week and loving it, and loving it. And going, ‘I feel better than I've ever felt in my life.'  I still train every day, and I still, I live 600-800 metres from the beach, I still walk to the beach every day, you know. And I still hang out with my friends. You know, it's like, it doesn't have to be this cookie-cutter approach. The beauty I think of life, with your food, with your lifestyle, with your career, with your relationships with the way that you learn, like the way that you do business, everything now is so much more flexible, and optional than any time ever before that we can literally create our own blueprint for living. Lisa: Yeah. And then it's not always easy. And sometimes it takes time to get momentum and stuff. Being, both you and I have both said before we're unemployable. Like, I'm definitely not someone you want to employ, because I'm just always going to run my own ship. I've always been like that, and that's the entrepreneurial personality. So not everyone is set up for that personality-wise. So you know, we're a certain type of people that likes to run in a certain type of way. And we need lots of other people when doing the other paths.  There is this ability now to start to change the way you think about things. And this is really important for people who are unhappy in where they're at right now. To think, ‘Hang on a minute. I've been I don't know, policeman, teacher, whatever you've been, I don't want to be there anymore. Is there another me out there? Is there a different future that I can hit?' The answer is yes, if you're prepared to put in the work, and the time, and the effort, the looking at understanding and learning, the change, being adaptable, the risk-taking, all of those aspects of it. Yes, but there is ways now that you can do that where they weren't 30 years ago, when I came out of school I couldn't be, I was going to be an accountant. Can you imagine anything worse than that?  Craig: Hi, hi. Shout out to all our account listeners, we love you and we need you. Lisa: I wasn't that— Academically that's I was good at it. But geez, I hated it. And I did it because of parental pushing direction. Thank goodness, I sort of wake up to that. And you know, after three years. I had Mark Commander Mark Devine on the show. He's a Navy SEAL, man. You have to have him on the show. I'll hook you up. He's just a buck. He became an accountant before he became a Navy SEAL and now he's got the best of both worlds really, you know, but like you couldn't get more non-accountant than Mark Devine. We all go into the things when we leave school that we think we're meant to be doing. And they're not necessarily— and I think you know, the most interesting 50 year-olds still don't know what the hell they want to be when they grow up. Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on air. It's been a public service free for everybody, and we want to keep it that way. But to do that we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on www.patron.lisatamati.com. That's P-A-T-R-O-N dot lisatamati.com. We have two Patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us. Everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much, much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com. And thanks very much for joining us. You know, I'm still in that camp. Craig: You raise a really interesting point too, and that is programming and conditioning. And, you know, because we all grow up being programmed, one way or consciously or not, we grow— if you grow up around people, you're being programmed. So that's not a bad thing. That's an unavoidable human thing. So, situation, circumstance, environment, school, family, friends, media, social media, all of that stuff shapes the way that we see the world and shapes the way that we see ourselves.  When you grow up in a paradigm that says, ‘Okay, Lisa, when you finish school, you have to go to university, or you have to get a job, or you have to join the family business, or you have to work on our farm,' or whatever it is, you grow up in that. You're taught and told and trained. And so you don't question that, you know. And for me, I grew up in the 70s, I finished in the 80s. I finished school in 1981. And I grew up in the country, and most people go to trade or most people worked in logging or on a farm or— and I would say about five in 100 of the kids that I did— by the way, doing year 12 was a pretty big deal in that time. ‘Geez, are you a brainiac?' Definitely wasn't a brainiac. But year 12 is a big thing now. Now, even if you have an undergrad degree that it's almost nothing really enough. It's like, you kind of got to go get honours, or masters or maybe even a PhD down the track. And that landscape has really changed. So it's just changing again to— you know, and I think to become aware— like this is for me, I love it; this is my shit; this is what I love— is starting to become aware of our lack of awareness. And starting to become aware of my own programming and go, ‘Oh, I actually think this. Why not? Because this is how I naturally think about, because this is how I've been trained to think about work. I've been trained to or programmed to think this way about money, or relationships, or marriage, or eating meat, or being a Catholic or being an atheist or voting liberal law,' or whatever it is, right.  Not that any of those things are good or bad, but it's not about how I eat or how I vote or how I worship. It's about how I think. And is this my thinking? Or is this just a reflection of their thinking, right? So when we open the door on metacognition now we start to become aware of our own stories, and where they come from. And this is where I think we really start to take control of our own life, and our own present, and our own future that doesn't exist, by the way, but it will, but it won't be the present.  Then, we start to write our own story with our own voice, not our parents' voice, not our friends', not our peers' voice, you know. And we're always going to be influenced by other people. Of course. Just like people are influenced by you and your podcast, and your stories, and your thinking, and your lessons for them. They're influenced. But I always say to people, ‘Don't believe me because you like me. Listen to me, if you like me and consider what I say. If what I say sounds reasonable for you, maybe a good idea to test drive, take that idea for a test drive, and see if that works for you, because it might not.' Right?  I think, I really encourage people to learn for themselves and to listen to their own internal wisdom that's always talking. So listen to smart people. I don't know if Lisa and I are in that category, Lisa is, listen to her. But at the same time, do your own, learning through exploration and trial and error, and personal kind of curiosity and drive.  For me, I opened my first gym at 26; first personal training centre in Australia, there weren't any. I'd never done a business course, I've never done an admin course, I knew nothing about marketing. I knew nothing about employees. I knew nothing. But I learned more in one year than I would say, most people would learn in five years at university studying business, because I was in the middle of it, and I was going to sink or swim. So in one year, I started a business and I acquired overwhelming knowledge and skill because I had to, because of the situation. But that was all learning through doing.  The way that you've learned, you know you said earlier that, like, a lot of people think that they're not academic; therefore, they're not smart. Some of the smartest people I've ever met, and I don't— and this not being patronising, but like, mind-blowingly brilliant, how they think, live outside of academia. One of the reasons some people are so brilliant outside of academia is because they're not forced into an echo chamber of thought. They're living outside the academic paradigm, where we're not trying to restrict how you think or write or speak. There are no rules out here. So there's no intellectual inhibition.  Lisa: Yeah, I love that. Craig: When you do a PhD, like me, and I can separate the two, thankfully. But there's a way of communicating and writing in PhD land, which is incredibly restrictive because of the scientific process, which is fine, I get that. But it's having an awareness of— this is what I'm often talking to my supervisors about is, yes, I'm studying this thing, which is deep, deep neuropsychology, and everything, the way that you do your research, get your data or interpret your data. The whole process of creating new science, which is what you're doing as a PhD, creating, bringing something new into the world. That's one thing. But you write your journal articles, which is my PhD process, you get them, hopefully, you get them published in academic resources and magazines. But then, I don't want that to be it. I'm going to write a book when I finish about all of my research totally in layman's terms so that people can use the knowledge, so that people can— because that's the value.  For me handing in some papers and going, ‘Oh, Craig Harper is an academically published author.' That's cool, but it's not— and I'm so respectful of people who have had hundreds of things published, but that doesn't blow my socks off. I'm not really— like that's a real, you really hang your hat on that in academia. Oh, how many things he or she had published, publications, which is cool. They're all smarter than me. But I'm not. I'm like, yeah, that that's cool. But I want to connect with the masses, not the few. Also, by the way, people who read academic papers, they raise it— they're reading it generally, just like I am right now, for a specific reason which relates to their own research. There ain't too many people like you. You're one of the rare ones who just thumb through fucking academic journals to make your life better. Lisa: Yeah. And it's just some real goals. So you've got the wisdom of having lived outside of academia and being a pracademic, as Paul Taylor says, and then actually seeing the pre— and this is a discussion that I had when I was talking to someone about doing a PhD and they say, ‘But then you're going to become a part of the establishment, and you're going to be forced into this box.' And I said, ‘No, not necessarily because it's— I can see where you're coming from. But you can take that, because you have that maturity and that life experience and you can fit yourself into the box that you have to fit into in order to get those things done. That research done, but you don't have to stay there.'  That's what you know, one of my things has been, I don't want to spend however many years doing a PhD, and then that's not out on the world. To me that that needs to be taken out of the academic journals, wherever you go to publish, and then put out into a book or something that where it's actually shared, like you say, with the masses, because otherwise, it just collects dust like your MA does, or your whatever, you know, that sits on your bookshelf, and how you got hey, your exam your piece of paper, but you didn't actually do anything with it.  Of course, lots of people do their thing, they're going like they're in research, and they're furthering research and so on. But I— my approach, I think yours is too, is to be able to communicate that information that you've learned, and then share it with everyone, so that they can actually benefit from it, and not just the people that are in academia. The other thing I see after interviewing hundreds of doctors and scientists and people is that they are, actually, the more specialised they are, the more inhibited they are by what they can and can't say.  While they need to be doing that because they need to protect what they are doing in their studies and what they're allowed to and what they're not allowed to do and say, it also is very inhibiting, and they don't get the chance to actually express what they would actually like to say. That's a bit of a shame, really, because you don't get to hear the real truth in the qualifying everything flat stick. Craig: I reckon you're exactly right. But they don't need to be that. And the reason that a lot of academics are like that is because they get their identity and sense of self-worth from being an academic. They're way more worried about three of their peers hearing something that might not be 100% accurate, and then being reprimanded or, rather than just going— look, I always say to my academic, super academic friends, when I talk with them, not everything that comes out of your mouth needs to be research-based. You can have an idea and an opinion. In fact, I want to hear your ideas and opinions. Lisa: You're very educated. Craig: You know, that's the— and as for the idea of you becoming an academic, No, you go, you do your thing you study, you learn the protocol, the operating system, and you do that you go through that process, but you're still you. Right, and there's— you and I both know, there are lots of academics who have overcome that self-created barrier like Andrew Huberman.  Lisa: Yeah, who we love. Craig: Who we love, who, for people listening, he's @hubermanlab on Insta, and there's quite a few academics now, like the one that I spoke on before, on Joe Rogan. She's a Harvard professor, she's a genius, and she's just having a— it's a three-hour conversation with Rogan, about really interesting stuff.  There's been a bit of a shift, and there is a bit of a shift because people are now, the smart academics, I think, are now starting to understand that used the right way, that podcasts and social media more broadly, are unbelievably awesome tools to share your thoughts and ideas and messages. By the way, we know you're a human. If you get something wrong, every now and then, or whatever, it doesn't matter. Lisa: Well, we'll all get, I mean, you watch on social media, Dr Rhonda Patrick, another one that I follow? Do you follow her? Fantastic lady, you know, and you watch some of their feeds on social media, and they get slammed every day by people who pretending to be bloody more academic than her. That just makes me laugh, really. I'm just like, wow, they have to put up with all of that. The bigger your name and the more credibility you have as a scientist, the more you have to lose in a way.  You know, even David Sinclair another you know, brilliant scientists who loves his work. And I love the fact that he shared us with, you know, all his, all his research in real-time, basically, you know, bringing it out in the book Lifespan, which you have to read, in getting that out there in the masses, rather than squirrelling it away for another 20 years before it becomes part of our culture, and part of our clinical usage. We ain't got time for that. We have to, we're getting old now. I want to know what I need to do to stop that now. Thanks to him, you know, I've got some directions to show them. Whether he's 100% there, and he's got all the answers? No. But he's sharing where we're at from the progress. Science by its very nature is never finished. We never have the final answer. Because if someone thinks they do, then they're wrong, because they're not, we are constantly iterating and changing, and that's the whole basis of science. Craig: Well just think about the food pyramid. That was science for a few decades. Lisa: Lots of people still believe that shit. That's the scary thing because now that's filtering still down into the popular culture, that that's what you should be doing, eating your workbooks and God knows what. This is the scary thing, that it takes so long to drip down to people who aren't on that cutting edge and staying up with the latest stuff, because they're basically regurgitating what there was 20 years ago and not what is now.  Now Craig, I know you've got to jump off in a second. But I wanted to just ask one more question, if I may, we're completely different. But I want to go there today because I'm going through this bloody shingles thing. Your mate Johny that you train, and who you've spoken about on the last podcast, who had a horrific accident and amazingly survived, and you've helped him, and he's helped you and you've helped him learn life lessons and recover, but he's in constant chronic pain.  I'm in constant chronic pain now, that's two and a half weeks. For frick's sake, man, I've got a new appreciation of the damage that that does to society. I just said to my husband today, I've been on certain drugs, you know, antivirals, and in pain medication. I can feel my neurotransmitters are out of whack. I can feel that I'm becoming depressed. I have a lot of tools in my toolbox to deal with this stuff, and I am freely sharing this because what I want you to understand is when you, when you're dealing with somebody who is going through chronic pain, who has been on medications and antibiotics, and God knows whatever else, understanding the stuff that they're going through, because I now have a bit of a new appreciation for what this much of an appreciation for someone like Johnny's been through. What's your take on how pain and all this affects the neurotransmitters in the drugs? Craig: Do you know what? Lisa: You got two minutes, mate. Craig: I'm actually gonna give you I'm gonna hook you up with a friend of mine. His name is Dr Cal Friedman. He is super smart, and he specialises in pain management, but he has a very different approach, right? He's a medical doctor, but look, in answer to, I talked to Johnny about the pain a bit, and we have, we use a scale, obviously 10 is 10. 0 is 0. There's never a 0. Every now and then it's a 1 or 2, but he's never pain-free. Because he has massive nerve damage. And sometimes, sometimes he just sits down in the gym, and he'll just, I'll get him to do a set of something, and he'll sit down and I just see this, his whole face just grimaces. He goes, ‘Just give me a sec.' His fist is balled up. He goes, sweat, sweat. I go, ‘What's going on, mate?' He goes, ‘It feels like my leg, my whole leg is on fire.'  Lisa: Yeah. I can so relate to that right now.  Craig: Literally aren't, like, burning, like excruciating. I don't think there's any, I mean, obviously, if there was we'd all be doing it. There is no quick fix. There is no simple answer. But what he has done quite successfully is changed his relationship with pain. There is definitely, 100% definitely, a cognitive element to, of course, the brain is, because the brain is part of the central nervous system. Of course, the brain is involved. But there's another element to it beyond that, right.  I'm going to tell you a quick story that might fuck up a little bit of Dr Cal, if you get him on. He has done a couple of presentations for me at my camps. He's been on my show a little bit. But he told this story about this guy at a construction site that was working and he had a workplace accident. And he, a builder shot a three-inch nails through his boots, through his foot. Right? So the nail went through his foot, through the top of the leather, and out the sole, and he was in agony, right? He fell down, whatever and he's just rolling around in agony and his mates, they didn't want to take anything off because it was through the boot, through his foot.  They waited for the ambos to get there, and they gave him the green whistle. So you know that whatever that is, the morphine didn't do anything, he was still in agony. He was in agony. Anyway, they get him into the back of the ambulance and they cut the boot off. And the nail has gone between his big toe and second toe and didn't even touch his foot.  Lisa: Oh, wow. In other words, psychologically—  Craig: There was no injury. But the guy was literally in excruciating pain, he was wailing. And they gave him treatment, it didn't help. He was still in pain. So what that tells us— Lisa: There is an element of—  Craig: What that tells us is our body can, our mind can create real, not perceived, but real pain in your body. And again, and this is where I think we're going in the future where we start to understand, if you can create extreme pain in your body where there is no biological reason, there is no actual injury, there's no physical injury, but you believe there's an injury, now you're in agony.  I think about, and there's a really good book called Mind Over Medicine by a lady called Lissa Rankin, which we might have spoken about. L-I-S-S-A, Lissa Rankin, Mind Over Medicine. What I love about her is, she's a medical doctor, and she gives case after case after case of healing happening with the mind, where people think placebos and no-cebos, people getting sick, where they think they're getting something that will make them sick, but it's nothing, they actually make themselves sick. And conversely, people getting well, when they're not actually being given a drug. They're being given nothing, but they think it's something. Even this, and this is fascinating, this operation, pseudo-operation I did with people where—  Lisa: Yeah, I read that one. I read that study. Craig: Amazing. Craig: Oh, yeah, it's look, pain is something that even the people who are experts in it, they don't fully understand. Lisa: Well, I just like, if I can interrupt you there real briefly, because I've been studying what the hell nerve pain, and I'm like, my head, my sores are starting to heal up right. So in my head, I'm like ‘Whoa, I should be having this pain, I'm getting more pain from the burning sensation in my legs and my nerves because it's nerve pain.' So I read somewhere that cryotherapy was good. So in the middle of the night, when I'm in really bad pain, instead of lying there and just losing my shit, and have I now have been getting up every night and having two or three cold ice-cold showers a night, which probably not great for my cortisol bloody profile, but it's, I'm just targeting that leg. That interrupts the pain sensation for a few minutes.  What I'm trying to do as I go, I'm trying to go like, can I—am I getting pain because my brain is now used to having pain? Is it sending those messages, even though there's no need, the sores are healing?  Craig: That is possible. Lisa: Am I breaking? And I can break the pain for about 10 minutes, and then it will come back in again. But I'm continuing on with it, that idea that I can interrupt that pain flow. Then of course, during the breathe in, the meditation, the stuff and sometimes you just lose your shit and you lose it, and then you just start crying, ‘Mummy, bring me some chicken soup' type moments. But it's really interesting. I mean, I just like to look at all these shit that we go from and then say, ‘Well, how can I dissect this and make this a learning curve?' Because obviously, there's something wrong, but I just, I feel for people that are going through years of this. Craig: It's, yeah, I'm the same I feel. Sometimes I work with people, where I work with and as do you, I work with a lot of people who have real problems. I don't have any problems. I mean, they have real problems. And I'm, despite my appearance, I'm quite, I'm very compassionate. It's hard for me because I, it upsets me to see people in pain. I feel simultaneously sad and guilty. How do I deserve this? But it just is what it is. But people like John and a lot of the people that I've worked with and you've worked with, you know, people like that inspire me.  I mean, they're— I don't find typical heroes inspirational. They don't really inspire me like the people we normally hold up as, I mean, well done. I think they're great, but they don't inspire me. People who inspire me or people who really, how the fuck are you even here? How do you turn up? He turns up. He's actually in hospital right now because he's got a problem that's being fixed. But, and he's in and out of hospital all of the time. And then he turns up, he hugs me and he goes, ‘How are you?' I go, ‘I'm good.' He goes, ‘Now look at me.' So I look at him. And he goes, ‘How are you really?' And I go, ‘I'm good.' This is the guy who—  Lisa: Who's dealing with so much. I've got a friend, Ian Walker8, who I've had on the show, too, so he got hit by a truck when he was out cycling, I think it was years and years ago. He ended up a paraplegic. And then he recovered, he didn't recover, he's still in a wheelchair, but he was out racing his wheelchair, he did wheelchair racing, and he's part of our club and stuff. And then he got hit by another truck, now he's a quadriplegic.  This guy, just, he is relentless in his attitude, like he is, and I've seen him dragging himself like with his hands because he's got access now to his hands again. After working for the last couple of years, and he kind of, on a walker frame thing, dragging himself two steps and taking a little video of him, dragging his feet, not the feet out, working, they're just being dragged. But the relentless attitude of the guy, I'm just like, ‘You're a fricking hero. You're amazing. Why aren't you on everybody magazine cover? Why aren't you like, super famous?' Those people that really flip my boat. Craig: Yeah. And I

Thing discussed: The university’s report and recommendation that Fielding Yost’s name be removed from Yost Ice Arena, and the history of racism at the University of Michigan. Panel: Mostly fine with renaming the building, think it’s a small gesture and the story is much larger, involving most of those in power at the University of Michigan and other institutions around the country before, during, and after Yost’s life. Seth: Racism is quiet. It’s not about smoking guns and bad actors—it’s a culture that puts the feelings of racists over equality and a system of keep things “pleasant.” The “Moral Map” standard versus the reality that of Michigan’s 103 building names, all but one—the William Trotter Multicultural Center—are named for white people. Trotter’s lesson: You have to agitate. Craig: We should be Seth: 13.5% of my graduating class in 2002 was African-American; the last class was 4.4%. Report issues: Didn’t talk to the experts like John Behee whose information was used. Craig: It read less like a history and more like a legal brief, and he was really bothered that it made Gerald Ford out to be a hero. Willis Ward does not support that story. Seth: Michigan was different from other schools because they had protesters against sitting their Black player. Yost hired Pinkertons, who found three leaders of the protesters whom President Ruthven dismissed. Brian: Doesn’t that disqualify him from having a building named for him? Seth: Sure, but it’s a small part of a much greater system that’s still in force today. Sam: Highlight the student response. Highlight history. Discusses historical events of attacks on Black communities, and their resonance in events today. Seth: Example of Belford Lawson Jr. (read the article here). Same movements we have today. Same reactions we have today. Sam/Seth: History of Ocoee Massacre on Election Day 1920 in response to Black registration to vote, and how these stories are not told, kept quiet, specifically because they resonate with the same issues today. Michigan must teach this part of their history—name of a building is such a small part.You have an opportunity here to apply some function by teaching people, and open up the conversation again to real changes. Do more than being symbolic. Seth: Story doesn’t end with Yost. Crisler’s Quota system is visible in the team photos.

We're often told not to care too much about what other people think of us. However, understanding how others perceive us can play to our advantage. Sometimes we fail to see our own mistakes or flaws, and to overcome this, we need to develop self-awareness by looking at ourselves from a different perspective. Once we realise our flaws, we can do better and achieve high performance. Craig Harper joins us in this episode to discuss how self-awareness can lead to high performance. He also explains the importance of external awareness or the ability to understand how others perceive us. We also talk about events that changed our life perspectives and how to live aligned with our values. If you want to increase your self-awareness and achieve high performance, then this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program optimising fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance for your particular genes, go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. You can also join our free live webinar on epigenetics.   Online Coaching for Runners Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Consult with Me If you would like to work with me one to one on anything from your mindset to head injuries, to biohacking your health, to optimal performance or executive coaching, please book a consultation here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/consultations.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again. Still, I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: http://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   My Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Discover what external self-awareness is and how it can help you achieve high performance. Find out why motivation alone doesn't work. Learn how to live in alignment for a healthy and meaningful life.   Resources The You Project Podcast with Craig Harper The You Project #360: Embracing the Suck with Lisa Tamati Check out Craig's books. Connect with Craig: Website | Instagram | Linkedin BrainPark   Episode Highlights [03:44] About Craig Craig used to be the fattest kid in school until he decided to lose weight at 14 years old. Curious about fitness and nutrition, he started working in gyms.  Craig eventually set up his first personal training centre in Australia. At 36 years old, Craig went to university to study Exercise Science. Realising the importance of understanding human behaviour, he's now taking a PhD in neuropsychology. [08:58] External Self-Awareness Being self-aware means understanding how other people perceive, process and experience you. You can make better connections when you know what it's like for people to be around you. Going into a situation assuming others have the same mindset can create problems. Acknowledging your lack of awareness is the first step in overcoming it.  [15:20] On High Performance High performance answers the question of how you can do better.  It applies to all aspects of life.  For Craig, high performance means getting the most out of your potential, resources and time. Listen to the full episode to get a rundown of the principles you need to achieve high performance. [16:14] Recognising Your Programming Humans have the power to recognise and change how they see the world. Because we do the same things daily, we fall into living unconsciously.  When our approach doesn't give us the results we want, it might be time to try something different. It may be not easy, but going out of our comfort zones makes us stronger.  [28:43] Working Around Genetic Predispositions What you're born with doesn't change the fact that your choices have power. Focus on things you can control and own the situation at hand. Be careful that self-awareness doesn't become self-deprecation. From there, focus on how you can attain high performance.  [33:42] Reflecting on Your Relationships Despite his nutrition expertise, Craig faces a constant battle to make good food choices.  Reflect on your relationship with food. Is it good or bad? Healthy or unhealthy? You can apply this to other aspects of your life as well. Doing this opens the door to self-management and self-awareness.  [37:51] Where People Get Their Sense of Self We learn that self-esteem, self-worth and identity is an outside-in process. Craig's theory is that it's an inside-out process.  The external and observable things don't matter as much as the things happening internally. Listen to the full episode to find out how two experiences in Craig's life put his life into perspective. [1:00:38] Motivation Alone Doesn't Work A lot of people rely on their current state of motivation to get things done.  What's important is how willing you are to put in the work despite the inconvenience and discomfort. [1:02:25] Live in Alignment Ask yourself if you're willing to put in the work to achieve your goals.  You can live in alignment with your values by following an operating system based on them.  Listen to the full episode to know the questions you need to ask yourself to create this operating system.   7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘Firstly, I've got as many issues as anyone that I work with. And this is not self-loathing; this is me just going, "Okay, so how do I do better?" And this for me is the process of high performance’. ‘Nobody is totally objective or open-minded because the human experience is subjective’. ‘Real awareness and consciousness is to first be aware of your lack of awareness’. ‘The only person that can ever really get in my way is me, you know. But also, I'm the solution to me’. ‘So we get taught directly or indirectly that self-esteem and self-worth and identity is an outside-in process. My theory is that it is the other way around—it is an inside out journey’. ‘Of course, there's nothing wrong with building a great business... or whatever. That's not bad, but it's not healthy when that's the totality of who we are’. ‘I don't care what you get done when you're motivated; I care what you get done when you're not motivated because everyone's a champion when they're in the zone’.   About Craig Craig Harper is one of Australia's leading presenters, writers and educators in health, high performance, resilience, self-management, leadership, corporate change, communication, stress management, addiction and personal transformation.  Craig has been an integral part of the Australian health and fitness industry since 1982. He has worked as an Exercise Scientist, Corporate Speaker, Consultant, University Lecturer, AFL Conditioning Coach, Radio Host, TV Presenter, Writer and successful Business Owner. In 1990, Craig established Harper's Personal Training, which evolved into one of the most successful businesses of its kind.  Craig currently hosts a successful Podcast called 'The You Project'. He is also partnering with the Neuroscience Team at Monash University, where he's completing a neuropsychology PhD. There, he studies the spectrum of human thinking and behaviour.  Craig speaks on various radio stations around Australia weekly. He also hosted his weekly show on Melbourne radio called 'the Science of Sport' for a decade. Craig currently fills an on-air role as a presenter on a lifestyle show called 'Get a Life', airing on Foxtel.  As an Exercise Scientist, Craig has worked with many professional athletes and teams. While still working with groups and individuals regularly, Craig delivers more than one hundred corporate presentations annually. Want to know more about Craig and his work? Check out his website, or follow him on Instagram and Linkedin!   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so that they can develop their self-awareness and achieve high performance. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Well, hi, everyone and welcome back to Pushing The Limits. This week I have Craig Harper to guest. Now, Craig is a very well-known media personality, exercise scientist, crazy fitness guru, owns some of the biggest personal training gyms in Australia, has a huge track record as a corporate speaker, motivational speaker, worked with Olympians, worked with all sorts of athletes across a number of different sports. And he's absolutely hilarious. I really enjoyed this interview, I was on Craig's show a couple of weeks ago, The You Project, you can go and check that one out as well. A great podcast. And today we sort of did a deep dive into everything around self-awareness and understanding your potential and realising your potential. And just it was a really interesting conversation with a very interesting man. He's doing a PhD in understanding the experience that people have when they meet you. So, understanding how people see you. So it's a really interesting conversation. So, I hope you enjoy that.  Before we go over to the show, please give us a rating and review. We really appreciate any ratings and reviews that you give us. It's really hugely helpful for the show. It is a labour of love. We are about to if we haven't already, by the time this podcast goes live, developing a way that you guys can get involved as audience members of Pushing The Limits if you want to support the show. So stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, if you need help with your running or you need help with your health, then please reach out to us. You can reach us at lisatamati.com. You can check out our programmes on lisatamati.com. We have our epigenetics programme and our running programmes where we do customised run training systems, video analysis, working out a plan customised fully for you and you get a consult with me. We also do health optimisation, coaching. So if you are needing help with a really difficult health journey, then please reach out to us as well. Right, over to the show with Craig Harper.  Lisa Tamati: Well, welcome back everybody to Pushing The Limits. Today I have an hilarious, amazing, crazy, awesome guest for you, Craig Harper. Who doesn't know Craig Harper? If you're in Australia, you definitely know who the heck Craig Harper is. If you're in New Zealand, you probably know who Craig Harper is. And if you don't, you're about to find out. Welcome to the show! Craig, how are you doing? Craig Harper: Now I feel like I've got to live up to some kind of bloody pressure, some expectation. Nobody knows me in New Zealand. Let's start, you do and your mum. That's about it. Lisa: Me and mum, you left quite an impression on my mum. Craig: And my family, and relatives, and a few randoms over here, know who I am. But thank you, Lisa, for having me on. I'm really glad to be here. Lisa: It's awesome. Now, this is gonna be a bit of a hilarious show because Craig is a bit of a character. I was on Craig's show in Australia, The You Project and it was one of the most fun podcast interviews I've had. I mean, I love getting into the science and deep with stuff, but it was really fun to just slip my hair down so to speak and rant and rave a little bit in here, but it’s fun, so today there'll be no doubt a bit of it. Craig, can you tell the ones who don't know about you? You're in Melbourne or just outside Melbourne in Hampton, Victoria in Australia. Can you tell us a little bit of your background, your crazy amazing career that you have had? Craig: Sure. So I'll start with, well, maybe I'll go a little bit before my career because what happened before was a bit of a catalyst. So I had a pretty good childhood, all that stuff. I won't bore the listeners. But one of the things that was part of my growing up was being a fat kid, the fattest kid in my school. So that became a bit of a catalyst for me to explore getting in shape and all that stuff. So when I was 14, I lost a whole lot of weight. I was 90 something kilos, I went down to about 60 and I started training.  Lisa: Wow. Craig: I started running and I started doing bodyweight stuff I lost about—I literally lost a third of my body weight in 15 weeks. And it wasn't like I had a horrible childhood, it was fine. But I was called jumbo all through school. That was my name so the kids called me that, parents, teachers all that but believe it or not, it wasn't really hostile, or horrible, it was I don't know it's because I was this big, fat, pretty happy kid, right? But anyway, so, I got in shape, and that led me into a lot of curiosity, and exploration, and investigation in fitness and nutrition. And so I started working in gyms when I was 18 and had no idea what I was doing. The qualifications and the barriers to entry then were very low. So, I started working in gyms, Lisa, when I was 18, which was 1982. I'm 57 and I ended up in 1989, I think, I set up the first Personal Training Center in Australia.  Lisa: Wow. Craig: So, lots of other things around that. But I owned PT studios for 25 years at the biggest centre in the southern hemisphere in Brighton a few kilometres from where I'm sitting now, which was 10,000 square feet. It was bigger than lots of commercial gyms. But it was just a PT centre. Worked with elite athletes, work with the AFL over here Australian Football League with St Kilda footy club, Melbourne Vixens in the national and the Trans-Tasman League, it was then Netball League, Melbourne Phoenix, Nissan motorsport, a bunch of Olympians, blokes in prison, corporates, people with disability, normal people, abnormal people. I put me in the abnormal category.  Lisa: Yeah, definitely. Craig: And later on when—I didn't go to uni until I was 36 for the first time.  Lisa: Wow.  Craig: Did a degree in exercise science. It was hilarious because I'd already been working with elite people as a conditioning coach and a strength coach. And yeah, lots of stuff. I did radio over here for about 20 years. I started my podcast a few years ago, I did television for a few years, three years on national telly. I wrote for the Herald Sun, which is the main paper in Melbourne for a while. Lots of magazines, I've written a bunch of books. I've written seven, I've written nine books, I think seven or eight of them are published. I'm looking at the books on my table, I should probably know that number. Lisa: Can’t even remember, there's so many. Craig: And, like, but really the thing that I guess where we might go today, but for me was, I realised by the time I was about 19 or 20 working in gyms, I realised that how much I knew about bodies wasn't nearly as important as how much I understood human beings. And so while my understanding of anatomy and physiology and biomechanics and movement and energy systems, and progressive overload, and adaptation and recovery, and all of those things wasn't great, to be honest, like I was 20.  Lisa: Yup. Craig: But it was all right. And it improved over time. But what really mattered was how well I understood human behaviour. Because as you and I know, we can give someone a programme and direction and education and encouragement and support and resources, and not knowledge and awareness. But that doesn't mean they're going to go and do the work. And it definitely doesn't mean they're going to create the result. And it definitely doesn't mean they're going to explore their talent or their potential. And so yeah, it's been from when I was 18...  Lisa: So you've gone in it? Craig: Yeah, from when I was 18 till now, it's just been lots of different roles and lots of different places. And I guess the other main bit before I shut up was I realised when I was about 20, that I didn't like having a boss much. And not that...  Lisa: We got that in common.  Craig: In my back, my boss was a good dude. But I thought I don't want to be, like, I could do this for me. I don't need to do this for you. And so the last time I had a boss was 32 years ago. So I've been working for myself since I was 25. Lisa: Wow, that's freaking awesome. And what an amazing career and so many books, and I know that you're actually doing a PhD at the moment. So what's your PhD? And why did you choose this sort of a subject for your PhD? Craig: Yeah, so my PhD is in neuropsychology/neuroscience. So, I'm at Monash over here, we have a facility called Bryan Park, which is cool. There's lots of cool stuff there. That's where I'm based. And my research is in a thing called external self-awareness, which is understanding the ‘you’ experience for others. So in other words, it's your ability to be able to understand how other people perceive and process and experience ‘you'.  Lisa: Wow, that is a fascinating subject.  Craig: Which is, very little research on it. So I'm, I've created a scale, which is to measure this component of psychology or communication or awareness. And so I'm doing—I'm putting that through the grill at the moment, getting that validated. I’m doing two studies. The first study is being run kind of soon. But yeah, the whole research is around this thing of ‘What's it like being around me and do I know what it's like being around me'? Not from an insecurity point of view, but from an awareness point of view because when I understand, for example, the Craig experience for Lisa or for an audience or in front of all for the person I'm coaching, or the athlete I'm working with, or the drug addict, the person with addictive issues that I'm sitting with, then if I understand what it's like being around me, I can create greater and deeper connection. But one of the mistakes that a lot of leaders, and coaches, and managers, and people in positions of authority make is that they assume that people just understand what they're saying. Or they assume that people think like them. When in reality, the only person who thinks exactly like me in the world is me.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: And the only person who thinks like Lisa Tamati exactly all the time, 24/7 is Lisa, right?  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: So when I go into a conversation, or a situation, or a process, or a negotiation, or an encounter with somebody, and I assume that they think like me or understand like me, or that my intention is their experience, which is rarely the case, I'm more likely to create problems and solutions.  Lisa: Yeah. And you're not going to hit the nail on the head and actually get the results for where that person that you are wanting to get.  Craig: Yeah, and that is... Lisa: This is a real powerful thing because you know what I mean, just maybe as you were talking there, I was like, ‘Well, how do people perceive me?', that's an interesting thought because you just sort of go through your daily interactions with people, and you think you're a compassionate, empathetic person who gets everything in, you’re sort of picking up on different cues and so on. But then to actually think how is that person experiencing me, and I like, as a coach, as I develop as a coach, I've had problems when I'm doing one on one, and that I'm overwhelming people sometimes because I'm so passionate and so full of information. And I've had to, and I'm still learning to fit that to the person that I'm talking to. And because, for me, it's like, I've got so much information, I want to fix you and help you. And I was like, ‘Woohoo', and the person was like, ‘Heh'. Craig: So you and I connect because we're kind of similar, right? And I love that, I love your craziness and your energy, and you're full-onness. But you and I, unless we are aware around some people, we will scare the fuck out of them.  Lisa: Yup. Craig: So, that's why it's important that people like—all of us really not just you and I, but that we have an awareness of what is the leisure experience for this because like, let's say, for example, you've got five athletes, and you want to inspire them and get them in the zone, motivate them, and they're all in front of you. And so you give all of them in the same moment. And let's say they're five similar athletes in a similar, if not the same sport with a similar goal—doesn't matter—but the reality is they are five different human beings, right? They've got five different belief systems and backgrounds and sets of values and prejudices and like and emotional states, and so you're not talking to the same person. But when you deliver the same message to five different humans, and you expect the same connection? We're not thinking it through.  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: So and of course, you can't create optimal connection with everyone all the time. But this is just part of the, ‘What's it like? What's their experience of me like?' And again, it's not about ‘Oh, I'm insecure, and I want them to like me'. No, it's about, ‘I need to understand how they perceive and process me so that I can create connection'. And look, the other really interesting thing about psychology and the human experience, and metacognition, thinking about thinking more broadly, is that all of us think we're open-minded and objective, but none of us are. Nobody is totally objective or open-minded because the human experience is subjective.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: So, even me who understands this and is doing a PhD in it and teaches it. Well, people go back and you objective and I go, ‘No, I wish I was in it. I'd like to say I am because it sounds fucking great, but I'm not'. And the reason that I'm not is because wherever I go, my ego, my issues, my beliefs, my values, my limitations, my biases, go with me.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: And they are the window through which I view and process the world, right?  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: So, our ego wants us to say, ‘Of course, I'm objective. Of course, I'm open-minded'. But the truth is, and with some things, we will be more objective and open-minded because we don't really have a pre-existing idea about it. But on a global or a broad level, our stuff goes with us everywhere, and the beginning of, without getting too deep or philosophical, but awareness—real awareness and consciousness—is to first be aware of your lack of awareness. Lisa: Love it. That is amazing. Yeah. Craig: You can't overcome the thing you won't acknowledge, or you can't get good at the thing you won't do. Right? And so I have to go, 'Firstly, I'm flawed. Firstly, I've got as many issues as anyone that I work with.’ And this is not self-loathing, this is me just going, ‘Okay, so how do I do better?' And this for me, this is the process of performance, high performance, whether it's at sport, at life, at recovery, at relationships, at connection—doesn't matter—high performance is high performance. For me, high performance means getting the most out of you and your potential and your resources and your time.  Lisa: Yup. Craig: And so the principles that work with becoming an elite athlete, most of those principles work with building a great business.  Lisa: Yep, they grow further. Craig: Which is why physicians follow through, get uncomfortable, do the work, show up, don't give up, ask great questions, persevere, roll up your sleeves, pay attention to your results, improvise, adapt, overcome. Like, this is not new stuff.  Lisa: Know that it rolls off your tongue pretty damn well because you've been in this space for a long time. And a lot of us like to go into that whole, our bias and yell at the future that we see the world through the lens, which we look through. We're not aware like, we love the programming. And this is what I had done a lot of work on for myself, the programming that I got as a kid, that I downloaded into my subconscious is running the ship, basically, and I can, as an educated, hopefully, wiser woman now, go ‘Hang on a minute, that little voice that just popped up in my head and told me, ‘I'm not good enough to do that', is not me talking. That's the programme. That's the programme I downloaded when I was, I don't know, seven or eight or something. And it's a product of that conditioning.’ And I can actually go in, and then it's that to change that story. Because that, and I think a lot of us are just running on automatic, we're still playing.  I'll give you an example. So when my mum was a kid, she was up on stage and doing a speech at school when she froze, right? And she got laughed off the stage. And kids can be nasty. And so forever in a day, she was like, ‘I will not ever speak in public again'. Because she'd had this experience as a what, a seven or eight-year-old. And she was telling me the story as a 40-something, 50-something year-old. 'No, I'm not ever getting up in a public space because', and I'm like, 'But that's just—you are not that seven or eight year old now. And you can have a choice to make that changes', and she couldn't make that change until she had the aneurysm. And then she forgot all those memories, some of those memories were gone, and that inhibition was gone. And now she'll get up and talk on stage in front of like 500 doctors. Craig: That's amazing. I love it. And what you just articulated beautifully. The core of a lot of what I do, which is recognising your programming and where does my stories, or my stories finish? And where do I start?  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: So, you think about it, from everyone listening to this from when we could reason anything, or process any data around us or understand anything from when we—I don't know, two, three months, really probably earlier but until listening to this podcast right now, all of us have been trained, and taught, and told, and programmed, and conditioned. And then, now here we are. And it's being aware of that and me to everyone is like, ‘Well, my beliefs', like think about when did you choose your beliefs?  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Pretty much never. They’re just there, and they’re there as a byproduct of your journey. Now that's okay, that's not bad or good. That's normal. Well, the next question is, are all of your beliefs, do they serve you? Well, the answer is no. Do any of them sabotage you? Well, a shitload! Okay, so let's put them under the microscope. So you know that word that I used before metacognition is, in a nutshell, thinking about thinking where and this is where we go, hang on. Let's just step out of the groundhog-dayness of our existence which you also spoke of, like, and let's go hang on. Because what we do, on a level we live consciously that is I've got to think about where I'm driving, and I've got to figure out what I'm giving the kids for dinner or what I'm getting, what time I'm training or, but really, on a real fundamental macro level. We live largely unconsciously...  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: ...because we kind of do the same shit the same way...  Lisa: Everyday. Craig: ...same conversations, even you and I know. Like, I've been training in the gym since I was 14, that's 43 years, I watch people go to the gym who always do the same fucking workout.  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: Same rep, the same set, same treadmill, same speed, same inclines, same boxing, same everything, same intensity, same workload, same machines. And then they say, why isn't my body changing? Well because it doesn't need to.  Lisa: No. Given the status quo, you don’t. Craig: Because you're stimulating it the same way.  Lisa: I was working in that for years. Craig: And we can expand that to life. Whereas we, kind of, I was talking to a lady yesterday about this, and she was telling me about a conversation she has with her son who's got some issues, who's 17. And I will be really honest, ‘How many times have you had a version of that conversation with him?’ She goes, ‘1,000'.  Lisa: Wow.  Craig: I go, ‘And how's that going?’ Now, that might be an exaggeration. But the bottom line is, but nonetheless, despite the fact that it didn't work the first 999 times, she's doing it again.  Lisa: She’ll keep doing it.  Craig: So it's about, and again, it's not about beating ourselves up, it's about gamble, whatever I'm doing, whether or not it's with this relationship, or this training programme, or this habit, or behaviour, or this business, whatever I'm doing isn't working. So let's have a new conversation or no conversation, or let's try a different protocol, or let's change the way I sleep.  Lisa: Isn't that like the circuitry in the brain, when you do something for the first time that’s really hard. Because you're creating a new connection in the brain. And therefore, we go into these old routines and habits, even though we don't want to be doing them anymore, but the groove and the brain is so well-worn, that path is so—those synapses of connected or whatever they do in there, and that path is so well-worn, that it's the path of least resistance for our lazy brains, and our subconscious to do what it does all the time. So, when you're driving a car home, and you can have a conversation and be singing a song, and thinking about what you're cooking for dinner, and then you get to halfway into town, and you realise, ‘Hell, I can't even remember driving there', but you were doing it, and you were doing it safely. Because it was all on that subconscious, automated level. When you were first driving the car, it was a mission. And it was like, ‘Oh my god, I got to change the gears and steer and keep an eye on,' and it was all like overwhelmed, but then it got easier and easier and easier. And then with our rituals and habits that we develop, we make these well-worn grooves, don't we? And then we just follow the same old, same old even though it's not getting the results that we want. And when we try and step out of our comfort zone and start doing a new habit and developing a new way, there's a lot of resistance in the brain for the first few weeks, isn't there? Until you get that groove going. And then it gets easier and easier and easier once you've done it 100 times. Is that what you're sort of saying here? Craig: Yeah. I mean, that's perfect. I mean, you nailed it. Look, the thing is that everything that we do for the first time, for most of us, nearly everything, unless we've done something very similar before, but it's hard.  Lisa: Very. Craig: So I always say everyone starts as a white belt. In the dojo, you start as a white belt.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: When as an ultramarathon, if I went, Lisa, which I wouldn't, but if I went, ‘I'm gonna run an ultramarathon'. Well, if I started training today, metaphorically, today, I'm a white belt.  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: I'm a black belt at other stuff.  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: I'm a green belt. I'm a yellow belt. Depends what I'm doing. Depends what—I'm not bad at talking to audiences that's... I should be pretty good at it. I've done it a million times. But take me to yoga, and I'll hide in the corner because I'm as flexible as a fucking ceramic tile. I’m a white belt. Right? I bet, put me in the gym lifting weights, I go okay, right? And so, again, this is all just about awareness, and development, and ownership. And, but the thing too, is that you're right, everything is very—we do create not only neural grooves, patterns, but also behavioural, and emotional, and cognitive grooves too, where we’re very comfortable in this space. And one of the challenges for us, it's like, it's a dichotomy. Because if everyone listening to this could somehow be involved and put up a show of hands, and we said, ‘All right, everyone. How many of you want to change something about your life or your outcomes or your situation or your body? Or your operating system or your current life experience?’ Nearly everyone's going to put up their hand.  Lisa: Yes. Craig: For something, right? Something. Then if you said, all right, ‘Now, at the same time, be brutally honest with yourself, how many of you like being comfortable?’, everyone's gonna put up their hand. So the problem is, on the one hand, we say I want to be strong, and resilient, and amazing, and produce great results, and do great shit, and grow, and develop my potential and fucking kill it, and but I don't want to get uncomfortable. Well, good luck, princess, that isn't working. It doesn't work. Lisa: The world’s a bitch really, isn't it? I mean, like it is the way it works. You need resistance. Craig: How can you get strong without working against resistance?  Lisa: Yeah, yeah. Craig: Yes. Lisa: This is just the… in my boxing gym, there was a saying on the wall, ‘Strength comes from struggle', and it's just like, ‘Oh damn, that's so right'. Like it's not what we always want. And I wish sometimes that the world was made another way. But we constantly need to be pushing up against what hurts, what is uncomfortable, it's painful just from a biology point of view being in the thermonuclear range, being nice and comfortably warm and cozy is really bad for us. And for you in that all the time, we need to go into an ice bath or cold water or go surfing or something and get cold, we need to be hot, go into a sauna. And when you do these things outside of those comfort zones, we need to lift weights in order to build stronger muscles, we need to do fasting in order to have autophagy, we need—all of these things are those stuff that is outside of pleasant. And you better get used to that idea. It's not because I want to be, like, masochistic in my approach to life. But it's just the way that the world works. If you sit on your ass being comfortable eating chips all day watching Netflix, you're not going to get the results that you're looking for. Craig: That's right. And also there's this—because we only live in the moment. And because we are, and I'm generalising, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners are not what I'm about to describe. But because many of us are very instant gratification based.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Right? It's like, the story is I'll eat this, I'll do this, I'll avoid that. But I'll start tomorrow, or I'll start Monday, or I'll start January 1. And that goes on for 15 years, right?  Lisa: Yep. We’ve all done it. Craig: And now I've backed myself into an emotional, and a psychological, and physiological corner that's hard to get out of because now, I'm 49. And my body's kind of fucked. And I've got high blood pressure. And I've got all these issues because I've been avoiding, and denying, and delaying, and lying to myself for a long time. Again, this is not everyone, so please don't get offended.  Lisa: And It's not a judgment. It's just the way it goes. Craig: No, because, I mean, this is what happens. Like, we live in this world where you can't say the truth.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: And I'm not talking about being insensitive or moral judgments on people. But the thing is, it's like, when I talk about being fat, I talk about myself because then no one could get injured, insulted...  Lisa: Insulted, yup. Craig: ...or offended, right. So when I was fat, I wasn't thick-set, or full-figured or voluptuous or stocky? I was fucking fat. Right?  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: And, but I was fat because of my choices and behaviours.  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: Now, there are lots of variables around that.  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: But at some stage, we have to say, and again, there are people with genetics that make stuff difficult...  Lisa: Absolutely. Craig: ...for medical conditions and all that we fully acknowledge that, but at some stage, we need to go, ‘Alright, well, I'm making decisions and doing things which are actually destroying me'.  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: ‘They're actually hurting me'. And this is just about ownership and awareness and my, like, the biggest challenge in my life is me, the biggest problem in my life is me. Like, the only person that can ever really get in my way is me. But also, I'm the solution to me. Lisa: I think it's a willingness to work on it. And like, I've looked into addictions and things quite a lot too, because I know that I have an addictive personality trait. I have genetics that are predisposed to that, and I do everything obsessively. So whether that's running for like a billion kilometres, or whether that's running five companies, or whether that's whatever I'm doing, I'm doing like an extreme version of that because it's just, like, I have that type of personality and it is genetics. And I find that that's one of the study of genetics for me, it's so interesting, there's a lot of predisposition in there. However, that does not negate the fact that I can still make choices, and I can turn the ship around. And I need to be aware of those predispositions, just like mum's got some predispositions towards cardiovascular disease and putting on weight very easily. That's just a fact of life for her, and it's not pleasant. And compared to other genetic types, it's a bit of a disadvantage. However, it is a fact. And therefore, she can still make the right choices for her body.  And this is why I like working in the genetic space is really, really powerful because then I can say, well, it's not my fault that my genes are like this, but they are what they are, and we can remove some of the judgment on ourselves because I think when we—if we're judging ourselves all the time, that's not helpful either, because that stuff we’re like, ‘Oh, well, I'm just useless. And then I'm never gonna do anything,’ rather than empowering and say, ‘Well, it is what it is, the genes that I've been given are these, the environment that I've exposed to is this, the advertising and all that sort of stuff that's coming at us with McDonald's on every street corner and all of that sort of stuff, I can't influence there. What I can influence is I can educate myself and I can start to make better choices from my particular body and start taking ownership of that process and not just going, well, it's not my fault that I'm bigger boned.’ You may be bigger-boned or bigger, have genetics that are all about conservation. Then you need to be doubly careful. And put in the education, and the time, and the work, and I think it's about taking ownership and not judging yourself by getting on with the job. Like I know, like, I know my own personal and—what did you say to me the first time I met you? Something that was real self-aware anyway, without self-deprecating, and it was self-aware? I can't remember what it was that you said, it is a man who knows his own weakness and is working on it. And I think that's really key. Like, I know what I'm shit at and... Craig: And that’s not self-loathing, that's self-awareness. And here's the thing, we're all about learning and growing. And I love my life, and I'm aware that I've got some skills and gifts. I'm also aware that I've got lots of flaws and shit I need to work on. And for some people, that's part of just the journey for other people, they are in a bit of a groundhog day. I always say if you're in a bit of a groundhog day, but you're happy then stay there. Because don't change because this is how I—don't be like me, for God's sake be like you. But if being like you, if your normal operating system equals anxiety, and sleeplessness and a bit of depression, and a bit of disconnection, and I'm not talking purely about mental health, I'm just talking about that state that we all get in, which is a bit like, ‘Fuck, I don't love my life, this wasn't where I thought I would be.’  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: Then maybe start to work consciously on and acknowledge, there's some things that you can't change, some you can, and literally what you were talking about a minute ago, which is literally, ‘Okay, so there's what I've got, which is I've got these genetics, I've got 24 hours in a day. I'm 57. I've got this, these are the things I have, then there's what I do with it all.’ So I'm an endomorph. I walk past a doughnut, my ass gets bigger. That's my body type, right? So I need to go, ‘Alright, well with these, or with this disposition, how do I manage optimally with 24 hours in a day without them using the least?’  Lisa: You’ve done a lot by the little sea, Craig. Craig: How do I manage my 24 hours optimally?  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: How do I? It's like, I eat two meals a day. I don't recommend anyone else does that.  Lisa: For even the most, it’s great. Craig: But for me, I don't… Lisa: For an endomorph, that’s great. Craig: I’m an 85-kilo dude with a bit of muscle. I don't need much food. Like, I would love to eat all the fucking food because I love food. What happens when I eat what I want versus what I need is I get fat. So I differentiate between: what does my body need to be lean, strong, functional, healthy versus what does Craig the fucking ex-fat kid want to inhale?  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Because, and the other thing too. And this is probably a bit irrelevant. Maybe relevant, though, for a lot of people. Like I would say, of the people that I've worked with closer over the years, which is thousands and thousands.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: I would say most people, including me, have a relationship with food that’s somewhere on the scale between a little bit disordered and an eating disorder, right?  Lisa: Yup. Craig: And a little bit not always...  Lisa: I’ll cook my end up then. It’s always an issue. Craig: At the other end of the scale, I'm a fucking lunatic around food, right? Now, you're educated, I'm educated, but I tell people all the time. So if I was an addict, and by the way, I've never drank, never smoked, never done drugs. But if I have started drugs or alcohol, I would have probably...  Lisa: Done it well. Craig: ...a drunk and used for Australia, right? I probably would have been a champion because I'm like you. I'm addictive. Now my addiction is food. So you know people think, ‘But you're educated. But you're this, you're that.’ It doesn't matter. Like, I need to manage myself. Lisa: Still won’t hit pie. Craig: Yeah, I need to manage myself around food. Lisa: Yeah, daily.  Craig: Because if I open the cheesecake door, get out of the fucking way. Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Right?  Lisa: I hear you.  Craig: If I open certain doors that derails me, so I need to know. And this is the same with everybody. And it's like, we all have a relationship with food. Okay. Is yours good or bad? healthy or unhealthy? Don't overthink it, just be real. We all have a relationship with our body. How’s that going? We all have a relationship with exercise, activity movement. How’s that going? We all have a relationship with money. We all have a relationship with our ego. It's like, this is opening the door on self-awareness and self-management law to a new level. Lisa: Yeah, love it. Yeah, and this is going to be a fascinating PhD. I really—I can't wait to find out more about it. And I think just having that self-awareness, like I will freely say like, I've struggled with my body image, and who I am, and am I acceptable, and I was always trying to be the skinny little modern girl when I was young, and gymnast, and as a kid, and so struggled immensely with body image issues. And people will look at me now and they go, ‘Oh, whatever, you're lean and you're fit obviously and you don't ever—you wouldn't understand.’ Oh, you have no idea how much I understand. And there's still a constant daily battle: even though I'm educated, even though I know exactly what I should be and shouldn't be doing, I don't always succeed against my —that in a sort of drive that sometimes when you get out of balance, and this is why for me like keeping myself, when I say imbalance, I mean like keeping my neurotransmitters under wraps like in a nice, ordered fashion because I have a tendency to dopamine and adrenaline being my dominant hormones, right?  So I'm just like, go, go, go! Do your absolute blow, take a jump and risk, don't think about it, do go and then burn out, crash bang! And so I need to, I need to have constant movement, I need to do the meditation thing regularly. Like before this podcast, I took five minutes to get my brain back into this space because I wanted to do a good interview. And I wasn't going to do that in this stressed-out body, I'd been doing too much admin work for 10 hours. So, I know how to manage those things. And it's the management on an everyday basis that I think and having those tools in your toolkit so that you know how to pull it up, I can feel my adrenaline going, I can feel the anger rising, I better go for a sprint out to the letterbox and back. Whatever it takes. Does it resonate with you? Craig: Yeah, 100%. What's interesting is I've been around—I worked, one of the things I didn't mention, I worked at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre for three years just as their kind of, what’s my title? Buddy health something, manager something, but I would only work there one day a week with them, but work with lots of addicts and alcoholics, and also athletes and all those things. But the thing is, especially with athletes, athletes tend to get their sense of self and their identity from their performances.  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: And not all, but a lot, and which is why I've known many athletes who got retired earlier than I thought. Lisa: Broke down. Craig: And well, they went into straightaway, most of them a depression or form of depression. And so this is a really interesting thing to just talk about briefly is—from a happiness and a wellness and a cognitive function, and a mental health, emotional health point of view, is to think about where you get your identity and sense of self from. Now, one of the challenges for us is, we live in a culture which is very much externally focused.  Lisa: Totally. Craig: So who you are, Lisa, who you are is what you have, and what you own, and what you wear, and what you look like, and what people think of you, and your brand, and your performance, and your outcome. All things, your shit. And I grew up in that because I was an insecure, fucking fat kid who became an insecure, muscle-y bloke. And then I woke up one day, I was 30. And I was huge, and I had muscles on my eyelids and veins everywhere. And all I was was just a bigger, more insecure version of what I used to be. Because I was still a fuckwit just in a bigger body, right? Because I wasn't dealing with the issues. Because my problem wasn't my biceps or deltoids and being my problem is, I'm mentally and emotionally bankrupt, and perhaps spiritually depending on your belief system. And so, we get taught from an early age that who you are essentially is about all things external. So we get taught directly or indirectly that self-esteem and self-worth and identity is an outside-in process.  My theory is that it is the other way around. It is an inside-out journey. It is, it's differentiating between who I am and my stuff, and recognising that everything that I have and own, and earn, and do, and my profile, and my podcast, and my results, and my brand, and my house, and my biceps, and all those physical, external observable things don't matter nearly as much from a mental and emotional health point of view as what is happening internally.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: So, and I'll shut up after this.  Lisa: No, that’s brilliant. Craig: But this is cool not because I'm sharing it, just this idea is cool, is that is the duality of the human experience. And what that means is that we live in two worlds. So where we do life is in this physical external place of situation, circumstance, environment, traffic lights, other humans, government, COVID, weather, runners, running, sport, all that external stuff, which is not bad. It's awesome, but that's where we do life. But where we do our living, where we do living is that inner space of feelings and ideas and creativity and passion and fear, and depression and anxiety and hope and joy, and overthinking and self doubt and self-loathing, and excitement and creativity. Lisa: Wow. Craig: It's trying to understand—because you and I know, at least a few people, maybe many who from the outside looking in their life is fucking amazing. Lisa: Yeah, yeah. Craig: It's the Hollywood life.  Lisa: It’s so nearly like that. Craig: It's a life on the outside of shiny.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: But I've coached many of those people, trained them, worked with them, set with them. And not all, of course, some are great. But there are many people who from the outside looking in, you would go, they're really successful. That would be the label that we use in our culture.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Why are they successful? Oh, look at all of their stuff.  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: All of that stuff. Those outcomes, that house and that equals that money, that equals success. But when you sit in, you talk to that person, you go, ‘Oh, this successful person doesn't sleep much, this person needs to medicate to sleep, and also for anxiety, and also for depression. And also they hate themselves, and also they feel disconnected, and also they're lonely.’ And, or if not all of that, some of that, if not all the time, some of the time, and you got all the outside and the inside don’t match.  Lisa: Don’t unlatch. Yeah.  Craig: And so it's going. And by the way, of course, there's nothing wrong with building a great business and writing five books and being an awesome runner, or whatever, building an empire. That's not bad. But it's not healthy when that's the totality of who we are. Lisa: Yeah, and spending time on the inside, and being okay with who you are. Because I often ask myself this question. What if it was all taken away from me again and I've lost—I went through my 30s, lost everything, hit start back from scratch. We've been there, done that. I've had to go through the wringer a couple of times. If everything was taken off me, my house, my achievements, my business, which could happen tomorrow, who am I? And would I be able to get back up again? And I reckon I would, because I've got tools to rebuild. And I know that resilience is the most important thing.  Craig: Yeah.  Lisa: The question I ask myself sometimes, so, is it whether, like, I lost my father this year, last year, sorry, six months ago, so that knocked the crap out of me...  Craig: 100%. Lisa: ...out of my resilience because that was like, up until that point, it didn't matter. If I lost my job, my car, my career, and anything else, but my family were safe, and they were all alive, then that's all I needed. And then when the chief gets taken out, the cornerstone who'd been a rock, my mum was too, but that was a cornerstone, then it didn't, it was a bit of an existential bloody crisis for me because I was like, ‘And now, life is never going to be the same again.’ And that resilience, I really had to dig deep to stand back up again. And I think, so grief is one of those things. So I asked myself constantly, and one of the reasons I drive myself so hard is to protect my family, and to look after them, make sure I don't miss anything. And this one of the things I study so hard for. Just sharing a personal story there to sort of get people to understand, ‘If you lost everything, could you get back up? What would it take to break you?’ That nearly broke me, to be brutally honest. Craig: Well, I say to people who are in a bit of a—and thanks for sharing that, and sorry about your dad. God bless him.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Like, I say to people, ‘Okay, let's forget all the fucking KPIs and the deck and success mantras and all right, that's good.’ I can stand in front of people and motivate, and inspire, and make them laugh, and tell stories. And that's all good. But I go, ‘I've got three words for you one question three words. And the three words and the one question are, what really matters?’ Now, what really matters is not your fucking tally. It's not your bank balance. It's not your biceps. It's not your hair colour. It's not your fucking lippy, or it's in my case, it's not your abs or and none of those things of themselves are bad. But I've been really lucky that I've worked with people who are in a really bad way, people in prison who got themselves there, of course, but then probably more impact for me was people with really bad injuries.  Lisa: That’s amazing. Craig: I work with a bloke at the moment, a mate of mine who got blown up in an accident. I trained him three days a week, and he was literally given zero chance of living like, or having any function similar to your mum.  Lisa: Wow.  Craig: And he started. He was in, like your mum, he was in a coma. I started, they said he'd be a quadriplegic. If he—firstly, they said he wouldn't live, and he lived in our luck out, mesmerised how that happened.  Lisa: Yeah. Craig: Got through the operations, he got blown up by gas bottles, which were in the back of his unit while he was driving.  Lisa: Oh my god. Craig: That blew the car apart, that blew the roof off, they shattered windows for 800 meters in the houses. And he was given zero chance of living. And he was in a coma for a long time. And I'll go in and talk to him. And when he obviously was not awakened, all the stuff that you did, and I just say to him, that I don't know, like, that'd be gone. I don't know. Like, I don’t be guessing. I don't know, I might just get well enough to get out of here. And I'll start training him. I started training him in a wheelchair, with a broomstick. And so and the broomstick literally weighed, I don't know, maybe 100 grams. And so I would put the broomstick in his hands. And I would pull his hands away. So his arm’s away from his body.  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: And I'd say now try and pull that towards you.  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: And that's where we started.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: With a 100-gram broomstick.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Now it's three and a bit years later, I've trained him for three and a bit years.  Lisa: Wow. Craig: He is now walking with sticks. He drives himself to the gym. His brain function is fucking amazing.  Lisa: Oh my god. Craig: He’s still in constant pain. And he's got a lot of issues. But the bottom line is the dude who they went, you will never ever walk, you will never talk.  Lisa: You’ll never survive. Craig: They'll never be any—you'll never have any function, right?  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: So my two big perspective givers. That's one and the other one is—so...  Lisa: What a dude. Craig: What’s that? Lisa: What a legend. Craig: Yeah, he's amazing. He's amazing. So about 14 months ago, I was at the gym and I was training with my training partner, who's like me and he’s all buffed. He's in good shape. He’s fit. He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, him and I are very similar. Anyway, one of the stupid things that he does is he takes I don't want to get in trouble. But he takes pre-workout, doesn't do drug. Don't do anything. I don't know. But anyway, he took a pre-workout. We're training and he's doing a set of chins. And he did 30 chins, Lisa, and he held his breath for the whole time because that's what he does. He thinks he gets more reps when he holds his breath. By the way, folks, not a great plan. Holds his breath for 30 reps. Lisa: He’s training his chemoreceptors. This for sure. Craig: Yeah, comes down, falls on his face on the floor. And I think he's having a seizure.  Lisa: Oh. Craig: And it had an instant cardiac arrest.  Lisa: Oh my god.  Craig: So, not a heart attack, a cardiac arrest. So, his heart stopped. So it took me kind of 20 seconds to realise it was that, and not... And there was—I won't describe what was going on with him.  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: But as you can imagine, turning all kinds of colours... Lisa: Yep.  Craig: ...stuff coming out of his mouth. It was messy, right?  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: So, he was dead for 17 minutes.  Lisa: Oh, my God.  Craig: I worked on him for 10 until the ambos got there or the paramedics and God bless him. fricking amazing. But what's interesting is in that, firstly, that 17 minutes could have been 17 days. That's how clearly I remember those minutes.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: And I'm on the floor, kneeling down next to one of my best friends in the world.  Lisa: Yep.  Craig: And I'm doing compressions and breathing, and I'm trying to save his life.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: And it's funny how in that moment, everything comes, without even trying, to everything comes screamingly into perspective about, ‘What is bullshit?’ Lisa: Yes.  Craig: What matters?  Lisa: Yes.  Craig: What fucking doesn't matter?  Lisa: Yes.  Craig: What I waste energy and attention on. And literally those seven, eight minutes. I mean, I think I had pretty good awareness but they really changed me.  Lisa: Yeah. I hear you. Craig: Nothing matters except the people I love.  Lisa: Exactly. Craig: I'll figure the rest out.  Lisa: Yep. It's an amazing story. Did he survive? Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's five-to-two here in Melbourne.  Lisa: And he's waiting for you?  Craig: We're training at five. Lisa: Brilliant. Say hi for me. Craig: He’s still an idiot.  Lisa: He’s awesome, he's lucky he got you.  Craig: He’s still an idiot, but at least he prays when he chins. Lisa: Yeah, but like just the experience I went through with my dad. And I haven't done a whole podcast on it, and I tend to, because the two weeks fighting for his life in the hospital and fighting up against a system that wouldn't let me do intravenous vitamin C in that case that I was trying to because he had sepsis, and fighting with every ounce of my body and every ounce of my will, and in knowing that, and for those—it was 15 days that we were there, and they all blend into one because there was hardly any sleep happening in that time, a couple hours here and there and I'd fall over. But they changed me forever, in the fact that because I'm a fixer, I like to fix things and people. And when we're in the fight, I’m the best person you want in your corner of the ring. If we're in a fight for your life, or not as an, like, I'm a paramedic, but if you want someone to fight for you, then I’m the biggest person to have in your corner. But when we lost that battle, man, I was broken. And to actually not to come out the other side and to have that win and to get him back and to save his life, especially knowing I had something that could have saved his life had I been able to give it to him from day one. And you said that about your friend who got blown up and you said, ‘Just get out of here, mate, no, take it from there.’ And that's what I was saying to my dad. And as he had, ‘You just get yourself—you just hang in there, dad, because I will do what I can do here, and I've got all my mates and my doctors and my scientists all lined up ready to go. As soon as I get you the hell out of this place, I will do whatever it takes to get you back.’ But I could not do anything in a critical care situation because I had no control over him, his body, what went into him. And it was a—he was on a ventilator and so on. And so that was out of my control, you know? And that's fricking devastating.  Craig: Yeah.  Lisa: To know that and to feel that. Craig: How did that change you? Like, how did that change you in terms of... Lisa: It's still an evolving process I think, Craig, and there's a burning desire in me to get that changed in our ICU for starters, to get recognition for intravenous vitamin C, which I've done like a five-part series on my podcast for status, but I'm working on other ideas and projects for that because we're talking thousands and thousands of doctors and scientists who have the proof that this helps with things like sepsis, like ADS, like pneumonia, and it's just being ignored. And it's, we’re just 20 years behind this is one of the reasons I do what I do, is because I know that the information, like going through that journey with my mum too, the information that latest in clinical studies, all of what the scientists are doing now and what's actually happening in clinical practice are just worlds apart. And with like a 20-year delay in from there to there, and the scientists are saying this, and the doctors at the cutting edge are saying this. And so things have to change. So that's changed me in a perspective because I've never been a political person. I don't want to really get—I love being in the positive world of change, and it's, do things. But I do feel myself going into this activism space in a little way because I need to get some changes happening and some systematic things and you know you're up against the big fight.  Craig: Yeah.  Lisa: This is a big base to take on. But I'll do what I can in my corner of the world, at least but it has changed. And all that matters to me now is my family and my friends, and then from a legacy perspective, is impacting the world massively with what I do know and the connections that I do have and bringing information like we've been hearing today and these very personal real stories to people's ears because it changes the way people have their own conversations and hence start to think. Craig: Well, I think also, and thanks for sharing that. That's it. Somebody's got to step up, and you're stepping up and quite often the things that we need to do to live our values are not the things we want to do.  Lisa: No, scary.  Craig: Like, Fuck this. Yeah, I'd rather watch Netflix too. But that's not what I'm about. So it's good that you recognise that and you step into that, but I think what's encouraging about this conversation for everyone is that neither of us, well, I was gonna say, particularly special, you're quite special with what you do. But even with what you do, as an elite athlete, really, you've just put in an inordinate amount of work. Like, you've done all of the things required to become elite and to become an exception, but in many other ways, like with me, you've got issues and bullshit and flaws. And that's why I think—I'm not saying this is a great podcast by any means that or this is great conversation because that's very fucking self-indulgent. But what I mean is, I think people connect with podcasts, conversations that are just that.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Where it's not like two people who are... Lisa: Scripted.  Craig: ...just shooting off like experts. It's like, yeah, we're both figuring it out, too.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: And by the way, I'm a dickhead too. By the way, I don't know, I've got a lot of shit wrong. Don't worry about that. It's like, I'm just having my best guess. And I always say, even as a coach, I've never changed anyone. All I've done is influenced people, but I've never done the work for them. They've always done the work. So, everyone that I've coached that succeeded, it's because they did the work. Like I didn't run the race. I didn't lift the weight. I didn't play the sport. I didn't go to the Olympics. I didn't walk out onto the arena. I didn't do anything. I'm just the guy going, ‘Fuck, come on, you can do it.’ And like, here’s a plan and here’s—it's like, I'm just the theory guy. I don't put it into—the only life that I put it into practice in is my own. Lisa: Yeah. And that's powerful. And as a role model, too. I mean the shape that you're in and the stuff that you do, and you walk the talk, and those are the people that I want to listen to. And those are the people I want to learn from. Craig: Well, my dad, my dad used to say to me, a couple of it, my dad's like a cranky philosopher. But he used to say to me a couple of things. This is irrelevant. The first one but it's, ‘You can't go to university and get a personality', right. Which is funny because my dad's like, ‘And university, it's overrated'. I agree, dad.  Lisa: Yeah.  Craig: Second thing.  Lisa: For most things. Craig: Second thing. He used to say, ‘I wouldn't trust accountants or financial planners who weren't rich'. Lisa: Or trainers who are overweight. Craig: It's like, I remember him saying to me, like a friend of his disrespect Toyota, but not a friend, but a dude he knew. He was a financial planner or an accountant. And he used to drive this old beaten up Corolla, and my dad's like, ‘Why would I listen to him?’ Like, look what he drives, like, if he knew anything about making money or maximising whatever.  Lisa:

Welcome to the recruitment hackers podcast. A show about innovations, technology and leaders in the recruitment industry brought to you by Talkpush the leading recruitment automation platform.Max: Hello everybody. And welcome back to the recruitment hackers podcast. I'm Max and I invited today to our podcast, Mr. Craig Sweeney, from WilsonHCG. Welcome Craig. Craig: Hi Max. I'm glad to join you today. Max: Thank you. Thank you for joining and putting yourself in front of the computer on such a beautiful sunny day. I can see the weather is unusually balmy in Manchester.Craig:  It really is. Yes, this is the one day of the year the sun comes out and it's not cloudy and raining, which anybody who's been to Manchester before would know is the usual lab, usual blend of weather we have here. Max: Amazing, amazing. Here in  Hong Kong, we are locked at home, unable to go to work because of a tiger flu. So,  it'll come your way. It should get there in about three months time.Craig:  Stay safe.Max:  So Craig tell us what you do, and what your company does! Craig: Okay. So, we'll say HCG, for those of you who don't know, is an organization. We are a talent consultant firm largely built around RPO solutions, but then more broadly around anything really that links to talent acquisition, from a consulting perspective, from continuing workforce solutions, as well as our kind of core RPO solutions.My role is within the business areas, as part of our executive team, I lead everything around new plan engagements. I've got a global team that stretches from Japan, Singapore, through Europe and then into North America. And within my remit is our new business growth team. We've got our solutions team and then our implementation function. So essentially my group owns everything before a client actually goes live and becomes a client of ours. Max:  Okay. New solutions team, you call it. Right?Craig: Yeah. So we've got a technical solutions team that helped to architect the solutions that we're actually putting in place for clients, both commercially, but also in terms of their structure. When they're complex global solutions, it takes some detailed kind of building out to have the right capability. And particularly when that's encompassing things that aren't just, you know, one type of hiring. It may be that we're hiring for specialist roles, high volume roles, graduate and internships or within the same solutions. Building that out and making sure we've got the right team to deliver for our clients when it's on a kind of medium or large scale, is often quite complex.Max:  I guess, the bigger, the volume, the more technology seeps in. And then the lower the volume, the more an organization like yours will be competing with maybe smaller staffing firms.  Is that a fair statement? Craig: I would say increasing technology is important in most scales of solutions that we build out. Because, I think even for those organizations that are maybe just recruiting in the, you know, in the hundreds, rather than the thousands. Having the right technology in place to help fulfill their critical business impact in roles, through whether or not last through engagement attraction, or building our future talent pipelines is all really important.Creating a great candidate experience and making sure we're out competing some of the other businesses that  are trying to hire the same talent is super important. Max: Well, you may have seen in the news that there's been a little bit of M&A this year in the technology space. Just last week, there was a company called Elio that was acquired by HireVue. There was a Sunroom in the UK that was aquired as well over the summer. It seems to me that video.  I don't know if it's hot or not, because sometimes, I mean, it's definitely being talked about a lot in the age of remote hiring and work from home hiring, as the killer app, you know, 15 or 20 years after its conception. This is a first situation. But at the same time it looks like those companies never really got to the next stage. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking about it because you're talking about, you know, hundred of hires and I guess with these kind of environments, video interviewing, even then, you know, for an executive hire, you don't know if you're going to use video interviewing for an executive level hire, basically, right? It's going to be a little bit awkward to do an asynchronous video interview. Craig: Yeah, I think  it's interesting, you know, video interviewing and as you say, it's been around for many years. I think right now, everybody  in this short space of time with everything that everybody's gone through over the last six months, eight and months, yeah. Video technology has just become part of everybody's life. You know, if I'd ever talked to my parents about doing a video call, you know, a year ago, they would have gone, wow, that's crazy. Or, you know, people actually thinking about doing interviews over video, they would have said that's not possible but actually now.I think it's just crept into society and that's when you really start seeing, I think, change happened very quickly when it just becomes accepted that this is a way that people operate. So it doesn't surprise me that, you know, video is kind of the core of some of those acquisitions right now.Max: But now these companies have to add other things. Right? Because video is so omnipresent and everywhere that it's just not enough to do just video. Right? Craig: I agree. Max: That's the realization. And so, are the big guys, like the big enterprise software companies like SAP and Oracle, do they have a live video native solution? Do you know? Craig: I don't believe so, but whether or not there's products that are in development, possibly, Max: They can always do bargains anyway.Craig: Yeah, exactly.Max: And so, this is a very general question, for an RPO recruitment process outsourcing specialist. You're  asked to deliver a number of hires. Right? A number of hires and then retention after that. Probably those are your two key driving metrics. With that,  do you also get certain targets around? Like we want you to replace. You know, we want you to change this process and we want you to change this piece of technology? Or it's more of a, you know, deliver the heirs at whatever cost you want, and using whatever technology you want we just want the results?Craig: Yeah. I've been in and around RPO since, before it was called RPO. It was, you know, before it even took on that title. And I think if you look at the history of how RPO has evolved and developed. If we were talking 15 years ago, RPO was very much a transactional solution for most organizations where it was around. How do we deliver on a certain volume of hiring and just do that quicker and more effectively and often at lower costs than we're doing it ourselves today? I think over the course of the last five years in particular, maybe slightly longer, the strategic capability of RPO's has just exponentially grown.So I think,  although those measures that you mentioned before are still a component part of what we have when we're delivering for our clients. So it is still around, you have avoidment of firing  and some of those key metrics that we have to operate to and that, but actually it's a much more holistic solution now where we are looking at technology that we're bringing to the table either to provide a better candidate experience, provide better capabilities to be able to pipeline or engage with talent, create the best candidate experience, provide better data, to be able to kind of tell the story around what's happening with hiring, but also process redesign. And the measures that we are now looking at, in terms of the measures that we're measured against. Aren't just on volume they're on things like, DEI. So how we can help drive better, diversity in organizations as well as just actually deliver the candidates, and make the hires. So it's a much more,  sophisticated business impact solution rather than a transactional solution RPO started out many years ago. Max: It sounds like it's getting more complexity. Maybe one area where things are getting a little more simplicity would be that in 2020, there is consolidation, at least on the tech stack and some companies merging into others. And perhaps that'd be a little bit of a relief for professionals in your field, that instead of having a hundred solutions to choose from, now we have 80. Is that a pain in your back? To walk into customers and every time they've got, you know, I don't know how many TA tech solutions they usually come with. What's the typical number that you walk into?Craig: Yeah, well, in terms of, you know, if we've got just the baseline applicant tracking system then yeah, we work with  most of those and have done it at some point. But again, our role is to kind of look at those, make sure they're operating effectively. Clients never liked their applicant tracking systems.Max: Is universal!Craig: Yeah it's universal, but often it's because  they've been installed or implemented. And they no longer kind of build, they no longer fit around the processes that have changed, but the technology has not changed to keep up with it. So they're trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Part of our role is to help actually either reconfigure the technology or redesign the processes or both.But your point on what technology we bring, that's unique to each solution that we're building out. And, you know, I think what we avoid doing is just implementing technology for the sake of technology. There's got to be an output there. There's got to be a reason why technology is put in place. It has got to have a benefit and that's going to be different depending on the type of hiring, the locations, the language and various other things that might impact the type of technology that we're building out. But yeah, fortunately, we've got an internal innovation team that does a lot of the assessments around technology and then advice and guidance around what technologies would fit into a particular tech stack, if there's an existing tech stack, because again, not all technologies fit into every tech stack and integrate well. So I think the challenge is less of a challenge for us. It's actually a benefit for us to have that team to advise our clients. And the reason we have that team is that internal TA factions often don't have the luxury of being able to have people that are technology specialists, and with so many technologies on the market right now doing various different parts of the end to end TA process, choosing the right ones, becomes increasingly difficult. Because they're actually, there are a lot of good technologies out there and the list is growing almost week over week.Max: Yeah, well, maybe not this week, you know, but most weeks for sure. And your role would entail a lot of traveling, you know, pre 2020, I presume.Craig: Absolutely. Yeah. So I probably spent maybe two thirds of my time traveling, or at least 50% of my time traveling over the last four or five years, both to around Europe and North America and Asia as well. And yeah, this year has been very different. No planes, no trains. it's all been, yeah. Working from home and I've enjoyed it. Enjoyed the time because it's just given you time to kind of reflect and think  in a way that when you're traveling so much, it becomes difficult to have that time to do that reflection. And I look forward to the day when I can go and do that again, but I don't wish for that to come too soon. Max: I had the opposite reaction where initially I thought, I don't have any more time to think because I used to think while I'm traveling, when I'm on the plane in the air. But I do have a tremendous amount of time though, that was created by eliminating travel. And in your line of work, I imagine that's been replaced by double the amount of zoom meetings and teams and all that. Craig: Yeah. It has  and that was kind of part and parcel of what I would do in my role every day. Anyway, because we're a global team, we're not kind of spending our days in the same office. We're often in parts of the world, in different time zones. And so Zoom was pretty familiar prior to this year, but certainly became more so over the last few months. Max: I'd like to, to dig a little bit, deeper into the art of sourcing, which is perhaps the area where your clients would, you know, the pain points where your clients would first come to you and say, we're not getting enough quality candidates. Can you bring in the experts? Because our internal talent acquisition team is just not finding the talent. Is that part of the business? I have two questions here. One part is if that part of the business changed in 2020? and how? And then, maybe a word about, you know, how much sourcing can be automated, or rather, what are the limits of automation when it comes to sourcing? What still needs to be done manually? So I blurted out my two questions in a row and you can answer them in whichever order you'd like.Craig: Yeah. So, in terms of where technology and sourcing are kind of crossing and the benefits is I think, you know, technology can be used really effectively to outreach and do the initial engagement, with candidates. And take that through a certain element of the process of actually initial engagement. But I think it's more effective in certain roles than others. I think it's more effective at doing that with high volume rather than more niche skills. Because I think, in the market today, even though we're seeing high levels of unemployment in lots of different places,  I think there's still a higher demand for highly skilled talent.Max: Yeah. Craig: And often it's a human interaction and human contact. I think that helps to make that engagement more effective in the first instance. But certainly engaging candidates through the recruitment life cycle, technology can have a great impact there because I think being able to access and get responses 24/7 at a time that's convenient for the candidate is really helpful. Through whatever platform that might be. But certainly on higher volume hiring where it's maybe, you know, lower skilled, often, like I said, larger scale, candidate pools, there's definitely a greater element of technology being able to manage candidates through that sourcing cycle.But again, I think, where we look at that is not necessarily taking humans out of the process. Is maybe freeing up people's time through technology to have a greater impact, at a further point in the hiring process because quality engagement is still really important. Max: And, the first part of my question about whether the sourcing activities have changed in 2020, you said, that the jobs that are hard to find are still hard to find. So we'll be thinking typically engineers and data scientists and the likes, and then industry specialists. And so that, you know, the nature of your business has not really changed much in that sense from 2020, from the source design. Craig: I think one of the things we've definitely seen in the last quarter is, I think what's happened with COVID and the economic kind of downturn that we saw occured from March, April onwards, is TA functions were heavily reduced. Often down to bare bones or nothing at all. So we found that as the kind of return to work and that bounce in the economy started to happen, those organizations that don't have a capability at all, are looking to kind of give them a sourcing arm that can be very flexible and built around their needs so it can ramp up quickly. It can scale, but it can also scale back. And I think right now that's important for so many businesses, cause they still have uncertainty in the future. Max: And i've read that. You were there maybe, that 2009 - 2010 were good years  for the RPO industry. Craig: They were. Yeah, I think, you know coming out of the economic, the financial crash in 2008, a very similar scenario where, you know, organizations were very uncertain about what was to come. And particularly in places like Europe, where if you're employing people on a permanent basis, it's not easy always to kind of make those adjustments to your business and reduce the workforce if you need to. Because the labor laws don't allow that, but having a partner that can scale up and build around those needs and scale further if needed. But scale back if the hiring ramp slows down.Max: So those cuts have been made and they would typically have been made in the areas where automation was most feasible and according to your reasoning. And I agree with it, most that automation would be more on the high volume side of the business, and there would be more opportunities for RPO vendors and perhaps vendors like us to do more in the high volume space, the high volume of space should be a big opportunity in 2021. Craig: My prediction is that all hiring is going to be at an altitude in 2021. I don't think it will be limited to high volume. I think it will be hiring, right across the board. And certainly, you know, one of the areas we're seeing a huge amount of activity right now is around sales hiring, that's from enterprise sales right away through sales consultants across clients.  And that's because people are trying to call back their losses that they've seen in the early parts of the year. And I think that will kind of drive through, into next year's plans as well. Max: For me some of these recruiters will be able to reconvert themselves into sales people. Craig: Yeah. Quite possibly. Max: Not that hard of a transition if you're good at it. Right? And, okay. Well we've talked about, you know the kind of customers that come to you and which kind of scenario. Would you have any thoughts to spare on the kind of customers that you do not want to work with? And maybe, we don't have to share names, but customers that have broken your heart or broken your spine, and what went wrong there? Craig: Yeah I think we have some really great customers that we've talked with and I used that word really purposefully. They are great customers that partnered with us. And I think when we've historically maybe had relationships that haven't worked out as well as we would've liked. It's where there's an expectation that we are there as a delivery arm to the business, rather than the operator. Max: You're going to blame it on the sales guys! Of course.  Oh, it's their fault. Craig: No, not the sales guys I think it's just about having the right expectations set, you know, for hiring to be successful whether or not it's pure intel or whether or not you're working with a partner like us, there's got to be kind of a skin in the game and there's gotta be, an upside for everybody to want to work together. And that is the way that things kind of land really well. It is when we're operating in that kind of  true partnership, where we have the same goals and outcomes that our clients have.Max: Well, I'm trying to read between the lines here. So the nightmare scenario is you're being kind of pegged against an internal team.Craig: No, not pegged against an internal team. I think it's where we're being asked to deliver on something where we maybe haven't had the ability to shape or build or give input into, to how something should be delivered.  Or when we have stakeholders that don't have an upside  from our success. And the stakeholders need to benefit from us doing well for it to work. With the vast majority of the clients and the partnerships we have in place. That's absolutely the case because we build all our solutions. Max: I have tried to sell automation, sometimes to the wrong HR professionals. So I think I can relate with that kind of scenario. And also the scenario where people don't adapt their process, where we would say, no we are an engagement tool at the front of the funnel. Do not ask the candidates 10 video interview questions on messaging, like it's going to break. And no!  That's what we want. That's what we're going to get. Okay. You know, we wasted so much resources trying to please people sometimes, it's rare, but it does happen. Craig: Yeah. I think like yourselves, you know, where there to be advisors that's our role is to help resolve people's challenges and their problems with better solutions. And I think there's, again, where we do that and it's successful is where the client actually wants to listen and adapt to our guidance and important advice. Max: And, what's the customer you've been working with for the longest time? Or you don't want to say names? Craig:  Oh, wow. Yeah. We've got clients today that were the first clients that we ever started working with. So, you know they've been relationships for, you know, decades.Max: That's nice. Well, I hope they had a decent 2020, and that you're right about what's coming this year, and all of that business coming in. Thank you very much, Craig for participating and sharing your insights on how the RPO industry has shifted or it seems like it has not shifted that much. A little bit less traveling for you, but overall, it's been a good year and things are heating up  at the European market in Q3.Craig: Great. Thank you, Max. Have a good rest of your day!Max: Thank you, Goodbye Craig!That was Craig Sweeney from WilsonHCG, giving us hope for tomorrow and the big rebound of the recruitment at RPO industry. Hope you enjoyed it. Subscribe if you did. And if there's somebody that you'd like me to interview as part of the podcast, you can send me their names too directly to hello@talkpush.com and I'll contact them directly and invite them to tell us their secrets. Thank you for listening and see you soon.

Welcome! Good morning, everybody. I was on WTAG this morning with Steve Fourni who was sitting in for the vacationing Jim Polito.  He had a few questions about computer security especially in light of the 129 Microsoft Vulnerabilities that were addressed on Patch Tuesday, I did get up on my soapbox for a bit, but Here we go with Steve. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Hey, it's political season. I had to get on my soapbox. Okay. Little stump, speech, going on here, Craig Peterson. Of course this morning. I was on in Mass and south-central and Western mass as well as Southern Vermont and also from parts of Connecticut. So yeah, I guess we're expanding. We're talking about serious computer issues. Steve Fourni was sitting in for Jim Pollito this morning and I like the way he was going with this and what he was thinking about. His train of thought is something that frankly, every business person needs to have. So here we go with Steve, his audio is a little bit low and I reported that over to iHeart because apparently it's going out okay on the terrestrial AM and FM stations, but it definitely not working so great on the iHeart stuff. So somebody turned a pot down. I think it's what happened. But anyway, here we go. Steve Fourni: [00:01:00] All right. You know that music it's Craig Peterson our tech talk guru always giving us the information that we need. That is important. Now more than ever. We are all on that stinking computer now, and it is more important now than more than ever. Craig. Good morning. How are you, sir? Hi, I'm doing well. You know If your computer is stinking you can wash it, but be careful. Not with water while it's on I assume. So let's start with Microsoft, who I handed in their term paper and he handed it back with 129 vulnerability mistakes and now it appears that they have corrected their work and turned it back in. Craig Peterson: [00:01:34] Wow. Everybody, Pay attention to this one because this is a very big deal. Yes. We had patch Tuesday, 129 vulnerabilities in 15 Microsoft products is absolutely crazy. But here's the big news, very rarely here does Homeland security issue emergency warnings. On Friday, the Department of Homeland security gave administrators, system administrators within the federal government until Monday to patch Windows. There is amongst all of these patches, the first patch for this came out last month, and another one's coming out. Homeland security saying this is so absolutely critical you've got to get it done over the weekend. So that applies to all of us as well. It's called a zero log-on. This presents what they called an unacceptable risk because you don't even have to log on to the windows server in order to take control of the silly thing. Absolutely terrible. This is a flaw in Microsoft Windows net-log- on-remote protocol. Many of our businesses, and Steve you've heard me talk about this before, we just don't understand how to do this stuff. We've gotten VPNs we are using windows net log on, it is not configured properly. Now it turns out that if you have not applied these most recent patches, you're in serious trouble. Steve Fourni: [00:03:07] Yikes. So we're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. Do you think Craig? It's a generic question, but do you think that most companies, are prepared for where we are in terms of the remote working, because you have, you have like your bosses who have other more important things to. Do you have your IT department who again, probably has more important things to do? Do you think they're in, on the whole, staffed enough to keep tabs on all this stuff? Craig Peterson: [00:03:35] No, I don't. I really don't. This whole security thing is a very big deal, very hard for business businesses to do. When you get down to the raw number, businesses are concerned obviously about these business expenses. I think it can be looked at also as a plus to be able to tell your client, Hey, a big hug time here. We're keeping your data safe. But until you have about 500 employees in your business, you are very unlikely to be able to afford the type of security that you need. So you get these businesses out there, small businesses, which is under 500 employees, considered by the SBA to be a small business. These small businesses who are there -  I've got myself, somebody who used to be that and such, and now do you know, they really like computers and they are our computer expert and darn it, we've got SonicWall and we've got Norton, antivirus installed. We're all set. It is not true. They have to, Steve, let go of those reins a little bit, outsource it to a managed security services provider. I've got another article out there right now. The title is it's time for CEOs to stop enabling China's blatant intellectual property theft. They are absolutely right. We are not doing anywhere near enough.  If you're on my email list, I'm starting these three-minute training, If you will, three-minute emails that are going to be going out, ultimately, here a couple of times a week to help CEOs, business owners, senior managers understand a little bit about what these problems are and if you're a home user, you're going to get stuff out of this as well. But this is a huge deal. Then you get Jeff Bezos. You get the chairman of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai, and Tim Cook, who is the head of Apple. All in front of Congress denying firsthand knowledge of China stealing intellectual property. Mark Zuckerberg admitted that it was well-documented he's right. And I have seen it in the majority. Probably the vast majority. I'm thinking better than 90%. Me personally, 90% of the businesses that have called me and my team in, Steve, to have a look at their systems. Emails weird, something's slow. Can you have a look? They do a scan, do an analysis for us. And we did this for free about two years ago for a bunch of different businesses here, listeners to the radio show subscribers to the email list. Almost every business out there has likely been penetrated by Chinese or Russian hackers. I have a guy, a friend, I know he's an engineer, hardware engineer, and he designed a business. for businesses, a system that took care of all of the HVAC, all of the heating and air conditioning ventilation in the building, pulled it all together into one piece of glass. One user interfaces and saved them a lot of money. And turns out, guess what? It was stolen by China. And now he has all of that. It took them a couple of years to put it all together, tested, and make sure it was working all of that now.  Is being stolen by China being made in China. And he has no way to make any money off of this because he just can't compete. It's happening. We've got to pull up our socks, Steve, and it's political time. So I'm up on my soapbox here about this. It's a very big deal. Yeah, Steve Fourni: [00:07:28] No doubt. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru.  I know, Craig, we have other stuff to talk about, but on what you're talking about and those numbers are staggering.  We're doing the whole TikTok thing back and forth. And I heard a clip yesterday from a guy who said, every time I mentioned the word fried chicken, I get ads for KFC. So they already have my information. I don't really care about TikTok. We talk about all these businesses that, basically, you're already vulnerable. Are there actually businesses out there that are sitting there and saying to themselves, you know what, China's already got all our information they have no interest in Jimmy's pizza shop, whatever we'll just roll with it. Are there companies that think of the same way the kid with the fried chicken thinks? Craig Peterson: [00:08:06] We have a customer right in Worcester, which is a pizza shop and yeah, they do need to be worried about it. Think about your employees. When you're talking about TikTok thinking about your employees coming into your business, using their phones. Yeah. They're on break they're on TikTok on their phones, they're using your Wi-Fi together. Now, all of a sudden, the bad guys have potential access to data that's on your network. Then you were talking earlier, Steve, about ransomware accounting for 41% of all cyber insurance claims. Yeah. That's a lot. How does ransomware work? Most of the time it gets in through phishing attacks. P H I S H I N G. What does to get you to click on the link? Yeah, one more. There's an old reference. What do they need to get into you and get you to click on that link? It needs information about you. how about do they send an email that looks like it from a friend because they now know who your friends are because they have access to your TikTok friends and an email looks like it's from your friend? It says, Hey, you got to this great new video that and so cause they know that you like you clicked on the link, that link. Now you've compromised all of the computers in the business by clicking on that link. That's why it matters. That is absolutely why it matters. You're not wrong in saying that, the bad guys probably have pretty much everything about us. But what they want is really fresh stuff, really new stuff. To get to and trick you into doing something you shouldn't do. When you're talking about ransomware accounting for 41% of all cyber insurance claims less than half of the claims, I've seen number saying as little as 10% are actually paid out because the insurance company comes in and says, are you following industry-standard practices? Let's have a look. And they do have a look. That's what happened with the pizza shop right there in Worcester. They had a look and they found out that they weren't, that's why they called us in. But even if you have insurance, cyber insurance, do you really you think that $10 a month rider is going to cover you for the loss of your business cause it got hacked? No, it will not. This is a big deal that people just aren't paying attention to. Steve Fourni: [00:10:26] Wolf. When it's not one thing, it's something else. It's unbelievable. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. Craig if people want to get to more information and again, the helpful tips and advice. I just think it's, important enough and especially again, to give it to us at a level we can actually absorb. Given it to us at a fourth-grade reading level, which we need sometimes. How can they get more information from you, Craig? Craig Peterson: [00:10:46] Just go to Craig peterson.com/subscribe. That'll get you on my newsletter list. Comes out once a week. That'll start getting you these little three minute emails. That'll help keep you up to date and help you understand this a little bit better. Just Craig peterson.com/subscribe. Steve Fourni: [00:11:05] Good stuff. Craig. Thanks so much for the time. Good to catch up again and we'll talk soon. Craig Peterson: [00:11:11] Bye-bye. Steve Fourni: [00:11:12] Take care. Appreciate it. There goes Craig Peterson and, yeah, even I was yesterday, my wife and I finally decided where we signed up for one of those, delivery meal things. I mean I do most of the cooking. I just go to the grocery store every day and I get what I needed for dinner that night and I can't do that now. So we decided to sign up for one of those things. Which I'd love but, as soon as I signed up, the minute I signed up, all my ads were for other meal delivery places, every single one. Even like I said, this happens all the time. I'll buy concert tickets and then I'll get ad ads, get your tickets. Now, I already did. So there's that kind of stuff that just drives you nuts too. Well, that's enough complaining for today. ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Episode Intro0:18 - Craig - Should science be trusted or is it an agenda-driven narrative1:08 - Holden - How he goes about getting a peer-reviewed study3:29 - Craig - It only takes 8-9 subjects to get a peer-reviewed study — What!4:22 - Holden - Not so fast…. 8 - 9 is The Human Performance area for statistical significance, but it doesn’t always mean it is a practical significance which is what we are challenging.8:11 -  Holden - Example counting calories and looking at the thermic effect of metabolizing food.9:48 - Holden - Effect size statistics - is it of practical and statical significance. Example - To wear a mask or not wear a mask.12:39 - Holden explanation of the Effect Size Statistic and why this should be the ultimate reasoning we should consider when looking at a study14:28 - Craig - How do they control these studies?16:14 - Craig - Doesn’t genetics and other factors affect these outcomes.17:47 - Adam - I never knew I had to question the headline, as I hear you say the data may be different than the significance.20:17 - Holden - a popular study shows150 min of moderate exercise a week would reduce significantly your risk of a heart attack, stroke, developing diabetes - but the real data actually expose that only 1 out of 100 people will fall into this category… but yet the media and health associations push this agenda.21:44 - Craig - peer reviewers and the media have their own agenda and change the narrative on these studies.24:02 - Holden - The American Nutritional guidelines are political27:38 - Holden - CDC - says 42% of Americans are obese today — Before the US Dietary Guidelines were changed this number was only 15-20%31-21 - Adam - Has science and politics always been an issue?

The Great Reset Craig Phifer, PT and Sean Bagbey, PTA are co-owners of Rehabilitation & Performance Institute which puts the person first. They created the Private Practice Rebellion where they teach other business owners their model. Check those out here: · Rehabilitation & Performance Institute https://rehabilitationperformance.com/ · Private Practice Rebellion https://www.privatepracticerebellion.com/ Craig follows Dave Chase’s idea of what healthcare should look like and recommends the book “The CEO’s Guide to Restoring the American Dream.” In this book, Dave Chase discusses this period we are in today is “The Great Reset.” Craig gave us his equation on what the “great reset” is in patient care. Craig emphasizes not all parts of this equation are weighted the same in each patient interaction. · Value = patient experience + emotional experience + physical outcome / effort putting in + price their paying + risk taking. Sean shares a personal story about himself and his treating physical therapist. From his experience, he feels PTs are needed now more than ever as our skills are essential. Craig explains the patient perspective in physical therapy and if patients do value us to pay for our services. He describes this value is developed in the first 3-4 visits with the patient. Craig and Sean demonstrate that PTs need to have an existing relationship to build trust. How to build a relationship with your patient is different now compared to pre-COVID. QUOTES “If this is a reset, what is going to change and how are we going to adapt with it?” – CRAIG “Physical therapy needs to have a better place in our society.” – SEAN “We need to show our worth and this is our chance to start doing that.” – SEAN “It just reinforces to me what we can do in this profession.” – SEAN “If you want to seem interesting, be interested.” – JIMMY “That monster becomes bigger when you think it is under the bed.” – JIMMY “We are not the star of the show when we are treating someone.” – SEAN PARTING SHOT “The profession of physical therapy can be much better then what we currently live in.” – SEAN “We gotta get away from talking and we need to get to doing.” – SEAN “Make healthcare work really well for us.” – CRAIG It has been suggested by Dave Chase that this period of time may be defined "The Great Reset." I believe we're about to see much faster changes in opinion, lifestyle, and behavior then we normally would. What does that mean for the profession of physical therapy? We're doing so much right as a profession, but our service is generally not valued (5th choice for chronic MSK pain by primary care physicians, 6th-ranked choice for people who have LBP). Right now, we have a tremendous opportunity to change that. * Understanding that while clinically, we're doing so much well, that doesn't mean that people value the service we provide on a macro level.* People significantly changed where and how they spent their money in the Great Recession,

It's always great to be able to bring you an interview on ASA, but how about an interview with royalty? Well today you have that privilege as we sit down and chat with the true queen of Australian Survivor Jane Johnson! Just how does Jane feel about being anointed a queen? Why has she been waiting for this opportunity to chat and speak her mind about her time on the show for 18 years? Which player does she manage to do a near perfect impression of? And what is her beef with Craig? It's a fun and entertaining chat that we know you will come out of it feeling incredibly regal, so get to listening and get to worshipping!

Welcome, Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning. We talked about Management using technology to surveil their employees. How meetings over collaboration software may be interfering with employee work, the FBI warns about hacks on critical infrastructure. Here we go with Jack. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Managers are now turning to surveillance software. These always-on webcams, in some cases, webcams and screen captures, capture that kind of capture things often on it. I think this is going to be a little bit of an issue for people. Hi, everybody. Greg Peterson here, of course, that's me with Jack Heath this morning. We're talking about the unintended consequences of monitoring employees while they're working from home. Jack Welcome back. Craig Peterson. Tech Talk guy and Craig. Justin asked a question in the last break. Are you ready for this? Craig? All right. He asked me if you could get sick if you catch a virus through a zoom chat. I said no, Justin stopping once you stop. Craig It's not like the telephone you useable to get them over the phone. But this is a computer, so you're not going to get that kind of a virus over zoom. Yeah, Justin Ask me that with all these zoom chats and Microsoft Teams to get the virus. Jack No Justin. Craig Or you can get some types of computer viruses because you can share files. And we still have the same problem there. Jack Yeah. Well, you know, and I know that speaking of the virus, ironically, you can get sick through the computer because the viruses, people are taking advantage of this virus. Craig Yeah, they are. There are a lot of bad people out there. We've seen increases of 30% to 300% on various types of hack attempts against us. We have some warnings coming out from the federal government through the FBI about attacks on multiple types of critical infrastructure. We're seeing them worldwide. And but you know, there's an exciting trend that's happening Jack too, with managers. So many people are starting to work from home, and some have been very effective, and I've heard business people saying yes, I'm just going to keep this up, at least for these particular classifications of people. But managers are now turning to surveillance software, these always-on webcams, or in some cases, webcams and screen captures, capture that kind of capture things often on it, I think this is going to be a little bit of an issue for people. And we have to remember that, you know, businesses shouldn't be providing the hardware for people to work from home, but on the other side of companies are providing the hardware. They may also be doing some of this monitoring, including continual always-on surveillance. Yeah. Jack Yeah. I've heard some instances about the software of just you know, managers. You know, if you turn your camera off for two minutes, send you an email and what's going on why is your camera not on or send you a text like all cameras on it's, it's a, I think people want to be a little aware that we're different. Home can be a challenge. And B, everybody's a bit stressed out right now. So no one's going to be working, you know, full to full capacity. 10 hours a day. Craig Yeah, exactly. It reminded me of when I was teaching MIS 422 out at Pepperdine. We were talking about the effect that we saw in business when monitoring employees. The other side of this is the psychological side, where your employees now know you are watching them, whether it's always on or maybe it's just a sample here and there. There's a psychological effect. It's very, very negative against people. And although business owners are now thinking that employees aren't going to leave right away, because of most employees, of course, you know, Maslow's hierarchy. Most employees are concerned they don't want to lose the job, lose the income, so they're not going to move, that this type of monitoring is going to drive some employees away. I've said that I think companies are going to study long after this pandemic is said and done. How will they communicate? What portion of the workforce that will be left working from home even after the concerns of the spread, because they found new efficiencies? They will need to consider costs for people in major urban markets, commutes, factor the commercial real estate, rent cost, and leasing costs. There's been a debate about people who are the conference calls and the zoom chats, too many, you know. Are you allowing your employees to sell or do their job if wanting check-ins from eight to seven at night, every hour? Do you have a call? Are you doing your work if you're on the con call? I think they will do studies on the effectiveness of this period. What was too much? What was too little? What worked? What did not work? Jack We'll see how that all shakes out. Craig Peterson, thank you. Craig makes a great Monday, Craig Peterson dot com. Thank you, Craig. Thanks, some tech talks. No, Justin, you cannot get the virus in the zoom chat. Craig Alright, everybody, I hope you are doing better states are opening up more and more stuff. The aftermath will reveal much. I'm going to keep you up with it on top of all of it. We've got some things planned here to help businesses that are turning everything back on because you might also find that your tech people are gone. Now, this has hurt a lot of the smaller tech businesses. Anyhow, we want to keep you up to date, and we need to keep you in the loop, and the only way you're going to be in that loop is if you go to Craig Peterson comm slash subscribe, make sure you do it. And I will be letting you know what's going on because we've got a lot of stuff coming up real soon. Take care, everybody. Craig peterson.com slash subscribe. Transcribed by https://otter.ai ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Message Input: Message #techtalk Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Welcome! Good morning, everybody. I was on with Jim Polito this morning. We discussed some of the problems that the Small Business Administration is having with their computer architecture and why it crashed while trying to process requests for these small business saving loans from the Federal Government.  So, here we go with Jim Polito For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig What ended up happening is that the SBA PPP portal site crashed. Now, you can make these websites so that they run even with the Intel hardware. You tend to have clusters you have the models scale, but they didn't do it. Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito on WTAG also in Springfield, Mass on why and how. Let's get into it with Jim and me in his kitchen. Jim Here is the man with the plan and all the answers. I'm talking about our good friend and tech talk guru, Craig Peterson. Good morning, Craig. Craig Hey, good morning, Jim. I'm doing well today. Jim All right, good. I want to keep hearing that from you. I want to make sure that you are feeling that way. But it seems to me that the Small Business administration's computer system, do you even call them mainframes anymore? Kind of crashed yesterday is that term still relevant? A mainframe for IBM is that part of their business? Craig Yes, but it has been shrinking over the years. But yeah, it's still called big iron or a mainframe. And they are still the most amazing computers made by far. Those things are they just are rock solid are very, very fast. They put these clusters of these cheap computers that are used by Google etc. They put them to shame. It's just I, and I was looking at them recently for my business, you know, kind of a small version of a mainframe. And it was, we ran tests on it, comparing them to some of the biggest Intel servers and clusters of Intel servers and the mainframe still beat them. Jim Wow. I like the "big iron" term. That's a new bit of terminology there that I haven't heard before. Big iron. So what happened to SBAs big iron? The SBA was running big iron. Oh, was it? Or was it a network of these cheap little computers all put together like a blade farm. Craig A lot of businesses are having problems, right now with people. They are having issues with their systems, and the whole point goes back to experience. I know how to program in COBOL. It was like the third computer language I learned way back when. I have to say something, by the way, sorry, Jim I have to insert this we celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary here just a week ago. Yeah, it is incredible. Unknown Speaker 3:06 Wow, if I had known that, I would have opened with it. Unknown Speaker 3:11 Anyway, they're having problems because they can't find these COBOL programmers to make changes to the systems. After all, the systems have been pretty much steady over the years. And with what the federal government passed and some of the states are doing, they had to make some very, very big changes. Well, this whole paycheck Protection Program, of course, got refunded this week, you've been talking about it. And a lot of people are very frustrated because they've been pulling all-nighters trying to process these people have been doing the same thing, both sides of it. But what we saw right now is on the front end, regular old servers, those Intel machines that we've been talking about, that are running the websites Know You can run sites on mainframes, but usually, you don't know when we're not going to know the technical stuff, it gets kind of geeky. But what ended up happening is that the SBA PPP portal site crashed. Now, you can make these websites so that they even with, you know, obviously, with the Intel hardware review, you tend to have clusters, you have the models scale, but they didn't do it because they got a second wave of this small business simulation plan submissions. And they messed up it think back to the whole Obamacare website debacle. And that they might, yeah, oh, it's crazy, right. And I was saying, you know, it's going to take them three years to make this damn thing work. And I was right almost to the day, because it's, again, it's government, its bureaucracy. They move slowly. It had been something that a small company that knew what they were doing, even a big one like Google had put in place, and they would have made sure it could scale, it could have handled all of the tie ins to the back end, which is part of the problem. Every one of these banks has a different system. So, even when the SBA goes and collects the information and gets you approved for this loan or that loan, once the banks get involved, they end up having to enter the data into the SBA into their systems manually. It is it the whole thing is not, so we just weren't ready for it from a tech side. Jim We're talking with our good friend, tech guru Craig Peterson about all this stuff going on. The chances are, the chances are that this will happen again, what do you think? Or are they on top of it? Craig Are you talking about the crashes and stuff? Jim Yeah. Craig No, the odds are outstanding that they will not. It is the government, right. I went to the store the other day, right. And I was there with my wife, and I said, you know, this is what socialism looks like empty shells everywhere. Jim Exactly. It is the look of socialism. Craig It is. So, when we're talking about government, it and these computer systems, if there is another big round of funding, and a lot of people apply, then yes, it's going to happen again, and it's going to take forever. Yeah, and I have a daughter who is a high-up in one of these big banks. They're having problems because they have to enter data manually, and there aren't even ways to transfer it to transfer directly automatically to the SBA and vice versa. So it takes a week sometimes, and The only businesses and I bellyache about how I couldn't get a dime out of the vault any of this money for my business. Yeah. But, you know, small businesses that have applied it's taking weeks or longer. It is a shame. I was supposed to get a check from the SBA within three days of application. I didn't even get a notice from them until two and a half weeks telling me I was not eligible. Jim Wow. Yeah, see that? That's not good. You know, we're talking with our tech talk guru Craig Peterson. Hey, I want to talk to you about this because after the show today, I have to go into a Microsoft team meeting, you know, using that software. Right. And, because that's how we meet now, you know, with the company since I'm doing this from the kitchen, but I read what you sent me Microsoft Teams using artificial intelligence so that if Pops, the dog barks It will filter that out. Everybody in the group likes to hear that because they often asked me to pick him up, which is becoming increasingly difficult to do and put them in my lap so everybody can see him because he's 55 pounds now. You said that it would give Microsoft Teams a competitive advantage over some of these other collaboration platforms, like Zoom and Facebook. Why? Unknown Speaker 8:32 It's true. That's what's going on. We've got Zoom, oh, by the way, never use zoom for business ever, ever, ever. It is so insecure, makes the mind spin. Okay, so that's number one. So a lot of people have Microsoft, which used to be called office 365 and is now called the Microsoft Office 360. Yeah, and then I've got Microsoft 360 and See, the people that were using it said, Oh, wait a minute, Microsoft has got a team's app. And Microsoft is now advertising it as secure. It's much better in that regard than slack, which is not safe, either. Google Hangout not secure. The only two out there that have achieved the highest rankings in security are WebEx teams. But Microsoft is pretty darn good. So yes, for the competitive advantage, you just mentioned. Here's what they're doing. They're trying to program some artificial intelligence to do something never done before. See, if you've got a fan running in the background, that fan makes a consistent sound. It's called a static noise. And that is has become relatively easy now, relatively speaking, to get rid of Because often that noise is in a different frequency band. Since you are in radio professionally, you know about this. When you're talking about some of these dynamic sounds like a dog barking, a door slamming shut any of these types of things, a vacuum cleaner running in the background can be easy enough to block out. How about if all of a sudden they turn it on? How does it recognize it? It is what Microsoft is working on is real-time noise suppression. So while you're in a meeting and you're sitting there eating that bag of chips there, Jim yet that bag of chips rattle is going to be filtered out so they'll have no idea unless they see you with it. Jim I've heard you know, people talking about it. And Kathy and I were talking about how people have become more accepting of distractions like if you're on a conference call before COVID-19, most people will try to you know, quiet and everybody in the house. Be quiet and this and you know, and now everyone seems to be more forgiving of all of these distractions and other noises that they're saying, well that's okay. You know, as I get it. That's okay. I mean, I have told Kathy, the boys, and pops, you know, as long as his bark isn't incessant if he makes a bark, I sometimes work, and into what I'm saying but the background noise I think right now from home as I'm doing this show for just for me, is good. Because it lets people know No, I am doing the show from home. And like you, I'm working amid a functioning household, you know, to kind of bring some realism to it. I can see that. Though if I am on the phone negotiating a multi-billion dollar or multi-million dollar advertising package with an advertising agency, I can see where it might be problematic to hear the dog barking incessantly, while people are going through figures for that size of a deal. I can see that I can see where it would come in handy because none of us live in a secluded monastery if you know what I mean. Craig Yeah, you think your comment there about you know there's a functioning household going on behind. I do agree people are getting much more tolerant of it. It is the norm, even with financial stuff. I might have mentioned before I have a daughter who works as in a call center inbound for a significant financial institution. You know, the dog will make noise, or a cat will jump on their shoulder and purr into her microphone. People are becoming very, very aware of that. But the functioning is the good, the good part, right? If it's a non-functioning now, you still might want to have people be quiet. Jim I like that. Well, this has been great. It has been a great conversation, and it always is with Craig Peterson folks, and he's still there for us. He can be there for you. You see, all the information I told you I was talking about you can get that same information that I received from Craig, every week. Exactly. There's no obligation. There's no charge. He's not going to hound you or pester you. And if there's ever an emergency again, or massive hacking, he's the guy who will be providing timely information. So all you have to do is text My name Jim J-I-M to this number Craig 855-385-5553. So just text Jim to 855 385 5553 Jim Standard data and text rates apply. But I would recommend you do it. Then you tune in every Tuesday at this time to hear Craig and I. Craig, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. We'll talk with you next week. Craig All right, say Hi to Pops for me. Jim Thanks. Bye-bye. All right, when we return a final word, you're listening to the Jim Polito show your safe space. Unknown Speaker 14:43 And of course me@Craig Peterson.com, everybody. Have a great day. We'll be back on the morrow. I don't know if you caught my Facebook Lives this week but a couple of pop-ups here. I'm trying things out. We explained about the job situation in tech and what's happening with jobs. And cybersecurity and, of course, a whole bunch more. And what I'm going to end up doing is I'll send out an email so that if you are on Facebook, I will let you know when I'm doing these lives. All right, everybody, take care. Bye-bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Don't Make The Fridge Your Happy Place With TEAM Bootcamp's Paula WilliamsWelcome to the conquer free podcast with Craig and Paula Williams, where we share tips, tricks, and strategies from the coalface of the weight loss industry in the UK. We're going to help you to think, eat, and move better. Ultimately, we're going to help you finally gain control and come Conquer Food.[00:00:21] Paula: [00:00:21] Yeah. I didn't realize he was starting that quickly. [00:00:39] Craig: [00:00:39] Yeah. So we've got, this is, this is, it's been awhile since we've done a podcast together. Just me and you, I'm looking forward to it. Togetherness, it's what everybody needs right now whilst we're on lockdown and in quarantine. okay. So I've got a particular topic I want to talk about today.[00:00:54] Before that, I want to kind of just set it all up a little bit. So it's obvious the, when Corvid 19. broke out the countries are, went into a bit of disruption and and people became scared. People became a little bit worried and anxious about what their future would hold.[00:01:14] And, and then to top it all off, we then got kind of locked up and our, our freedom, our ability to move around was then hindered. so we've got a load of people that are emotional for lots of different reasons, stuck at home. And I read a great quote yesterday, which is when you're sad or you're bored, don't make your, the fridge your happy place.[00:01:38] And Paula, that's kind of what I want to talk about. First of all. So, can you, can you talk to me a little bit about, has there been a time when the fridge has been your happy place and, and what was the consequences of that? [00:01:49] Paula: [00:01:49] Actually, my fridge has been, my happy place for the last five days. For the last five days without, without a shadow of a doubt.[00:01:57] And, last night I had to do some really strong kind of self-reflection because I've been, I've surrounded myself with really kind of positive things or listening to a lot of, meditations. And, and real. I used that actually. I'm not practising any of the things that I'm learning because as soon as I feel slightly worried, slightly anxious, slightly tense, the first thing I do is walk to our fridge and our fridge.[00:02:22] At the moment it looks like Christmas. It's full. and our fridge is never full. Ever, ever, ever fall. well, I mean, we, we, we felt obliged him because we've got my, we've got two sons who are those, and then we've got a house guest staying with us as well, in isolation. So we felt obliged that we should sort of top it up and fill it open, make sure there's food in.[00:24:52] Type two diabetes, insulin resistant. It just lists a load of stuff. Have you got a book, a recommended book that people can get? Paula: Yeah, dr Macola. what's the one with the big avocado on the front? What's it called for fuel. For fuel. Is that an amazing book? Amazing. Yeah, it's a great starting point for anyone to fat for fuel.Listen to the episode for full details[00:29:15] Just quickly, how much weight in tons is TEAM Bootcamp responsible for burning? Paula: I can't remember now.Craig: It was 49 tonsOkay. So thanks again for listening and join us again in the next episode of the conquer food show.Take care. So goodbye. Both: Bye bye.

Good morning everybody! I was on with Ken and Matt and we had a good discussion about how Remote Diagnostics, Remote Work and Coronaviruses, and AI and how this is changing our world.   These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Matt We're back again, and it is 7:38 on the WGAN Morning News with Ken and Matt. We are now talking to Craig Peterson is our tech guru. And he joins us now. Ken Mr. Craig, your timing couldn't be better because I got a new MacBook because my keys kept falling off the butterfly keyboard, which sucked him. I don't know why Apple did it. So I installed on I migrate everything over. And now, when I put on Chrome, and I tried to Google, I get this thing called Rona that comes on air express or something. And I clicked on it to see what it was and at someplace in Tel Aviv, that that says Nitsa. And so what's fascinating to me, by the way, Craig, I'm sure you can't do tech support from the phone right now. But uh, he got a brand new computer and did nothing. I didn't know it was already there. And on my last laptop. I mean, I thought it I identified it as like malware, right. His previous laptop, I sort of found a way around it or whatever, but like he just doesn't do anything and it's there also. Craig Yeah, but it must have happened when you migrated from your old one, hidden deep somewhere, and got installed during migration. Ken Yeah. Oh, that's why you pulled it from the old computer. I thought it was off my old computer. No, it wasn't I hit it. When I did that screen, I hit it so well, should I email Google? Should I email Chrome? Or I throw the computer against the wall? That is another option. I mean, what's this guy? If I email this guy in Tel Aviv, and said, what's this? Craig Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. For the love of God. Don't do that. Matt They did a scan. They didn't find it. I've done so, give me suggestions. Craig Well, it sounds like you got a good tech support guy there locally to figure it out. But it looks like this is coming from Google, isn't it? He's got Chrome. It comes up from Chrome. I didn't know you didn't Google. Ken When I hit a web Chrome, it comes up instead of saying, "Google," it says, "Search." And then it's a smart search. It has this air Express, Facebook, Twitter, and it's just a standard launch page, but it has this Ollie Express thing next to it. Craig It's malware. Yeah, something new, but they got installed a while ago, a month ago and migrated. Well, that sort of thing takes a little bit to fix, and I definitely can do it. I bring it down virtually. Ken I wonder if I find the mouse if my guy can do it. Craig Yeah, usually the migration, it's not a big problem. And it's, there's a lot of these types of things go around. Well, of course, the biggest one is when people install these toolbars on their browsers. There's nothing but spyware in there. It doesn't sound like that. Matt would notice the difference. The toolbar Yeah, Matt The toolbar Yeah. No, I actually, that's the first thought I had too. I tried to get rid of it. I went to see if it was an extension. It was an extension. Yeah, I think I put Malwarebytes on his computer too. It's got Malwarebytes, and I ran it, and it found nothing. So this is probably not nasty, it's just annoying. Craig Yes. Matt It's trying to sell him something. Craig Yeah. Well, hey guys, I've got to bring something up here that I did almost a week ago now. There are millions of people who are working from home currently. Remote workers, many people even trying to figure out how to start a little business at home. I almost didn't wake up for this morning. Because I've been putting on these webinars, there are nine different webinars on topics related to security, not installing these nasty browser extensions. I did two webinars yesterday. These webinars are free. We talked about a browser extension you can put onto Chrome and other browsers, that is going to save your laptop battery, it's going to speed things up. It's just going to do a whole bunch of great stuff for you. I wanted to bring up today that I again, a bunch of people signed up. My next one is on Thursday. I'm going to do two on Thursday, two on Friday, one on Sunday. And then every day next week, I'm going to be doing two of them. And we're covering all kinds of topics, including some extensions that do stop malware on your browsers. We're going to go into VPN, when can you use them? When should you use them that Norton VPN isn't going to help you at all when it's time to get into the office, using a VPN versus remote desktop software. We're going to be covering your firewalls, and What kind of a firewall should you have? The attacks prevalent right now for home users? For a network router slash firewall? How should you be trading at a Wi-Fi? What do you need to know about Wi-Fi? All of this stuff and all free. And unlike that nastiness that you've got to your machine can I'm not sitting there trying to sell you anything. These are free, and we're talking about 10 hours plus worth of some training here. I'm working from home and doing it securely. And what I'd like to do is ask people to take a couple of minutes right now, because whether you are a retiree, or you are running a 500 person company, this information is something you need to have. And we've had a great response. I love the feedback people have been giving. So that's kind of given me a little bit more energy to do this. But if you are interested, You need to be on my email list because that's where I put the announcements out. I am not one of these marketers and new million pieces of emails a day. But if you go to Craig Peterson comm slash subscribe. It is so important right now because I'm getting notifications every day almost from the FBI, about new scans that the bad guys are running against people who are working from home. It is nuts. So these are not just me lecturing, these are two, and as they are LIVE. I'm answering all your questions, live. I'm showing you how to do things. And it's I hate to say this sounds a little self-serving, but it is thousands of dollars worth of training that I'm doing for free This is to help people out. Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe to attend You're going to need you can have a computer you can use your tablet you can use your phone, your smartphone that is and make sure you've got a piece of paper and a pencil ready and handy to do stuff. And anyone who attends gets replays. I have specialized training and special thank you things are people that participate because I know it's a lot of work for you too, but, but I want to get this out right now. It is just it's so important. I don't want you to get nailed or badly by these bad guys. Matt we're talking to Craig Peterson, he's our tech guru, and he joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world of technology. No topic gets discussed without Coronavirus as part of it. Ladies and gentlemen, and so that is no exception for you, Craig, companies are trying to respond to this whole thing, and it's making them turn to what appears to be artificial intelligence. Are we creating Skynet here, in response to the Coronavirus? Should I be worried about this? Unknown Speaker 8:08 I heard that Prince Charles tested positive for Coronavirus this morning. Testing positive looks like the world might be coming to an end. Who knows, right? Yeah, here's the trick. We have a lot of companies who don't have all of the workers, and there was just a new story here at the bottom of the hour talking about the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and some of the ironworkers trying to say, Hey, listen, we this is kind of dangerous for us. Workers are just not showing up, or they're being told not to show up. It depends on the company. The big tech companies are trying to use this artificial intelligence now. I don't like the definition that pins these days are using When it comes to artificial intelligence, that word has changed. We used to think of AI and man you too as kind of a Skynet thing. Right? Right? It the computers making decisions, it's learning, it's advancing that smarter than we are, etc., etc. We don't have that yet. It hasn't happened. And there's a lot of warnings about what might happen if that were to happen. But we don't have it. It's not artificial intelligence, and it's barely even machine learning. What it is, is pattern matching. Companies like Facebook, and many others out there right now YouTube, where you're putting content on the site, and people want to make sure that you're not racist, like saying things like President Trump is excellent, which would be horrific. If someone were to say that on Facebook, for instance, tongue firmly planted in cheek there Unknown Speaker 10:02 Who is going to censor the internet now? While they're turning more heavily to computers, machine language programming is looking for patterns, and those particular patterns are what they're calling AI. It is not artificial intelligence. There's throwing that term around again. So Skynet is not a threat. But if you are trying to start a new ad campaign on Facebook, for instance, all ads are reviewed by Facebook. It is going to take longer to get it approved, and there's going to be many more false positives. That is because AI, as they call it, is a little bit more of a curmudgeon than the people who review some of these ads and articles and posts and everything else. So yeah, it this is going to force some movement forward on this AI type front, but the singularity I think, man it is still many, many years away. Matt It is still coming, though. It is today. Ken You just wish to be here fast. Well, we're talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru joins us every Wednesday at 738. before we let you go, Coronaviruses are the story of the year, or the websites and have that the talk about screening is well you can't go to a website to get screened, but there is useful information on testing. Craig Yeah, it didn't come out, believe it or not, you can go to google.com slash Covid-19 and find information there. The symptoms are listed there. Of course, they're all over the place. The CDC has, among many others, but one of Google's companies that the company they own did launch just a few days after President Trump announced is called Verily, this primary site allows people to go on and answer a few questions. It comes up with a diagnosis of, yeah, you probably got it, which you could have got that same diagnosis from your cousin. It is very, very simple. They're adding in now where you can go to get tested because, of course, as you guys already know, they don't want you just showing up in the emergency room of a hospital, with potentially Coronavirus where you can spread it. We already know hospitals are the worst place to go if you're sick, because you can catch diseases there, you just can't get anywhere else. They don't want to add Covid-19 to that list. So you can check it out. google.com slash subscribe if you want a little more information. Unknown Speaker 12:48 All right. Greg Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us now as he always does on Wednesdays to go over the world of technology. We're going to leave it there, Craig. So we appreciate you joining us as always, and we will talk to you next week. Unknown Speaker 13:00 All right, I'll be on Saturday, of course, at 1 pm cover some more of these topics everyone needs to know. And then again that URL to sign up as Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe in here guys. Thanks a lot, Greg. Unknown Speaker 13:15 Great. Let's go to the break room, ladies and gentlemen. Go to Eric. He's got all the top stories of the day. Transcribed by https://otter.ai --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Welcome! Good morning, everybody. I was on with Steve Fornier who was sitting in for the vacationing Jim Polito this morning. We discussed a some of the new technology being used in the film industry that is coming from the gaming sector and the new LED soundstages and the difference that is making for actors and filmmakers. Then we discussed the Coronavirus and remote work and online education. So, here we go with Steve Fornier. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Allowing them onto the Business Network, which now gives bad guys access to all of the personal information, intellectual property, and everything else that's sitting there on that corporate network. There are so many issues with this. Craig Good morning. Craig Peterson here. Mr. Jim Polito is out touring Ireland right now. He called in to the show this morning, saying that all of the St. Patrick's Day parades in Ireland have been canceled. We know that they canceled our local parade in Boston, which is one of the biggest in the country, and I think New York City, which might be the most prominent St. Patrick's Day parade, as well. He was telling us a little bit about the difference between the Irish marches and the parades here in the US and Boston. Well, of course, the Irish ones tend to be a little bit more Catholic. Ours tend to be a little less religious. Anyhow, I was on Steve Fornier, he's the producer over in Springfield on those iHeart stations. We talked a little about two things. First of all, some very cool new technology for moviemaking and then a bit about working from home with the Coronavirus. That's right. So here we go with Steve. Steve Tech Talk's Craig Peterson in the house, and I don't know if I've ever actually had the pleasure, so this would be great. It's Steve Fornier, how are you doing today? Craig Doing well. How are you doing, Steve? Hey, you are doing a great job, by the way. Steve Hey, thanks I am trying Craig I think we met sideways once or twice, and I think you were on with Jim, and he had you kind of jump in, so yeah, man. I believe we have met. Steve Yeah, that's they usually just like to keep me out on the side. Let me out of my cage, now and again. Let's talk about movies. Because I haven't seen the Mandalorian, but I do remember the day, maybe the PlayStation two time frame where they started putting movies into video games. I thought that was the coolest thing. Now it seems like they're shooting movies with video game technology. Can you tell us a little bit about that process? Craig Yeah, this is cool. I remember the very first movie they shot using almost entirely green screens. That's been the way it's been for quite a while now. So what will happen is, let's say that there's a desk and a chair, maybe some flowers and one or two other things in the room, those will be real. Then the whole rest of the set is green. You know, think of movies like Jack Black's King Kong, right, Steve? So there he's trying to pretend, and he imagines what's all around him, you know, the jungle scene, the King Kong himself, right, all of these other things. They may get to interact with another actor, but for many, that's not necessarily even the case. And that makes it difficult for actors. It makes it difficult for the director, the production staff, there's remember, there's not just even one director, there's somebody who's in charge of the found somebody who's in charge of the lighting of the cameras, the camera angles, etc. Steve Well, Michael Jordan, I always give him credit because he's not an actor. But in Space Jam, he had to act with a bunch of cartoons. I bet Bugs Bunny was not standing there on stage next to Michael Jordan. He's not on set. Craig Yeah, but what they do for Michael Jordan in that movie in Space Jam. They had little puppets on sticks that they move around, so he kind of know where to look what to do. Then they remove them afterward. They're not like full puppets but little green things on a stick, right. The Mandalorian, which is quite a good show. It is slower-paced than many. Think of it like Breaking Bad in a movie. They shoot the Mandalorian using an entirely whole new technology in a soundstage. As we've been talking about with green screens and such. Television screens surround the soundstage. The roof was all screens though all Walls are screens. Everything covered with screens. As you mentioned here, Steve, this is using some of the technology from video games. It is amazing. So there's the actor on an LED set, and he can see all of the backgrounds. Nothing is greenscreen. It is a whole new change and an entirely different way of doing it. Steve I would like to take a vacation in one of these things. Just plop me in that thing with a chair and put on a beautiful Sunset over seascape and let me hang out on that thing for three days. That sounds fantastic. Yeah. Craig Like a holodeck, right on Star Trek. Are you familiar with that? Steve Oh, yeah, of course, of course. But I have to assume from an editing perspective, that it makes it a lot easier to edit because it would reduce the process. The time it takes with the green screens removing puppets inserting the characters. I imagine on the back end of things it's got to make the production faster. Craig What surprised me was looking at an article with pictures of the whole stage, including the cameras. Now, remember, again, the camera director and the film director and everybody can see what's going on, which is enormous. And they are in real-time said you know what? That building there in the background is distracting. Let's move it over as though it's 50 feet to the right. Wow. And they were able to do it right then. Right live. The other thing that surprised me about it was that if you look at it with your regular eyes, it seems severely distorted. I mean, like the straight line isn't necessarily straight, right it can be going off in all kinds of weird angles, some of them are curved, and it's all rendered based on what the camera sees and what the camera is seeing. So the camera sees everything correctly. The actors can see what's around them. They can even see the horizon. They can see the sunrise. They can see the bad guys coming at them. They're not there, but now they have something to act around. It's like a 75-foot long set 21 feet tall, and it is impressive. So expect this to be used more and more in the future. It can be the deck of a ship that can be the middle of a desert. It can be anywhere it can be your vacation with Jim right now over in Italy, right? You go to one of these. Steve Yeah, it could be the next video game at Disney World where you're in one of these things, and you got stormtroopers coming at you, and you can use lightsabers and do all kinds of stuff. It sounds like all kinds of different use. Yeah. Craig Very cool. Steve Yeah, we're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech guru, and you know, let's move on here to the Coronavirus. At the same time, we still have time here, Craig, because everybody's telling their employees just work from home, don't bother coming in, take your work laptop, go home, set it up, connect to the VPN, and we'll do everything remotely. But when everybody's doing that, it is taxing the World Wide Web in general. Craig Yeah, I have training coming up tomorrow. I'm going to repeat this a couple of times because I think it's essential. We're going to do a webinar on working from home because there are so many things people in Businesses just don't understand. And I've been shocked to see what some of them even slightly larger businesses are doing. Working from home is a whole different world. You've got your home computer that might not have patches installed. It probably isn't patched up to date, right? So you have security issues there. Many businesses have people VPN into the office. That can allow that potentially infected home computer or another computer on the network, and it's enabling them onto the Business Network, which now gives bad guys access to all of the personal information and intellectual property and everything else that's sitting there on that corporate network. There are so many issues with this. So I'm going to go through and explain what some of the better ways to do it are. When should you use a VPN? What kind of VPN should you use? And when should you Just try and remote to your desktop that works? What are the pros and cons of that? What kind of people can do that? Or can't do it. I'm going to go through the critical approaches that tactics and tools to get the most from remote work. And if you want to know about this, just go right now to Craig Peterson dot com if you sign up, it comes up on the top of the screen sign up for my mailing list. I'll be sending out an email later today. But this whole trend of working from home, Steve, I think is going to stick because of the aside the myriad of security problems. Yeah. That I think companies are going to have Steve, though. The bottom line is that as a rule, people are more productive working at home. They get more done in the people love it. Right who likes to get stuck in a traffic jam, right? Steve Oh, yeah, I mean, look, I gotta I buzz through. Have concocted a little radio studio in the basement, you know, because I'd rather have to if I'm an emergency do stuff from home than have to, you know, it's a short drive, but have to have it in here and do it, you know? Craig Yeah, it's, I think it's a great environment for most people. And most of the time at work, people are wasting money. Of course, you can make money in the meantime. Of course, you can waste-time at home, right? Get sucked into Facebook or something that you don't want to do. But there are tools for that as well. I use a few. We know we could talk about those. Because these are going to be live webinars. I'll answer everybody's questions. But it is, I think, going to change the economy, this Coronavirus, not not the virus itself, but the panic that's ensued. And so many employers have not tried to have people work at home. They haven't tried to use these digital collaboration systems, which we'll also talk about what they haven't tried to use. We don't things like zoom or WebEx, by the way, zoom, extremely unsafe, very poorly designed versus WebEx. You know, some of these things like, like WebEx has its teams, the same thing people use slack for, etc. We will cover all of those you understand it, and that's the point, Steve, I don't think most businesses have looked into these seriously enough as they grow in popularity. There are businesses, I think, Steve, that we are going to see some significant improvements in productivity, and they're just going to let more and more employees work at home. However, IBM last year pulled back on the whole work at home thing. IBM found for them, anyway, it was more important to have people bump into each other in the hallways and have an impromptu discussion than to have everybody really kind of siloed away. Unknown Speaker 11:57 Real quick, Craig. While I have you on that same topic. Let's talk about college campuses because we're seeing her in Mass colleges sending everybody home and saying work online. Is this the kind of thing that I mean, we've seen a lot of these universities trend online? If there are going to be campuses shutting down for periods, and we know how expensive colleges is, is it something that we could see trending in the college environment? Craig Yeah, it already is. Steve, we're seeing colleges that are now 100% online, and are doing very well. Two of my kids got their MBAs almost entirely remotely, and it's worked out very well for them. So yeah, watch out colleges, with your big fancy campuses and high tuitions. They are getting threatened. Steve, I think it's going to make a big difference. Steve Yeah, Craig, we get it. You have smart kids. Thanks for rubbing it in. I know. If you want to take part in that webinar tomorrow, which btw, sounds fascinating, and I feel like I need to be a part of that. I go home and fire up that VPN, and I don't pay any attention to it, and I probably should. If you want more information like this, from Craig, you can text My name Steve to this number? Craig You can text Steve 855-385-5553, or you can email me anytime with a question. Just meet me at Craig Peterson dot com or text Steve to 855 385 5553. Steve Excellent. Standard data and text rates apply. Again, Craig doesn't bother you or anything, but he does give you the updated stuff. I mean, still, everyone everywhere in all departments and all facets of life is trying to adjust to this Coronavirus. Craig is this staying ahead of it in his line of work. So we appreciate that Craig, thanks for the time as always, and we'll catch up next week. Craig Hey, take care of Steve. Thanks again. Craig It is happening. Keep an eye out on your email Wednesday. I'm planning on having one of these at four, and I may try and do one in the evening as well on Wednesday and then another one Thursday. Watch for my emails today. Take everybody, talk to you tomorrow. Bye-bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Welcome! Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning and we discussed a one-second mistake that can cost millions - Business Email Compromise. So, here we go with Mr. Polito. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Millions transferred electronically. I have a copy of the email in front of me right now I'm looking at it. It seems like it's from a German company. Supposedly, it's for some renovations in the building. It is what scammers do. They look at you, and they look at your business, they looked at what would be a kind of typical ask for your business. In this case, that's what they did. They knew Barbara, and they found out who her executive assistant is and what the executive assistant email address is, who bookkeeper is, and the bookkeeper's email addresses. Craig Good morning, everybody. It is something that really could happen. It happened to Barbara, and I don't want to happen to you. So listen in as we go through some details. I hope again that this is going to help you from becoming a victim. Jim Here he is. He is our tech talk guru, and he is our good friend, and it's great to have him on our side. I'm talking about Craig Peterson. Good morning, sir. Craig Good morning, Mr. James. Jim How are you, buddy? Craig I'm doing great. I'm excited. Today's Super Tuesday. Maybe Finally we can finalize of this stuff today. Well, I don't know. Jim I think we're heading into a brokered convention. But we'll see. We'll see. But I wanted to start with you today with something exciting. My wife is a big fan of Shark Tank. I understand that one of the sharks got tanked out of $400,000 and didn't have any equity in that $400,000 Craig Oh man, I wonder what trades you made. Yeah. It is an example of what, Jim, you and I have talked about for how long now? It is the whole concept of business email compromise. Jim Yeah, you have said, it happens to the smaller businesses too. That is the weak point, the weak link in the chain, and they are more susceptible to the hacks. Craig They are. There tends to be less training for the employees. One of the most significant risks you have, and I've seen people who've analyzed this who stay maybe 80% of a company's risk. One of the most significant risks out there is our employees. It's our not typically lower-paid, but not necessarily, who will click on stuff. Now this story about Barbara is interesting. Barbara Corcoran is one of these investors over there on Shark Tank. She's a big-time real estate investor. That's what she's been doing forever. That's how she made her money. It's interesting to read through what happened, and this one, Jim, it did have a happy ending. We typically don't see this at all. There was an invoice that forwarded to her bookkeeper that supposedly came from her executive assistant. Now, there was one minor difference here. Maybe the bookkeeper should have noticed. There was one character different in the email address that sent it. Jim So, a difference you've taught us about this before? Craig Yeah, exactly. The scammer posing as her executive assistant, forwarded this fake invoice earlier last week, requesting that a payment of $388,700 and 11 cents be transferred electronically. I have a copy of the email in front of me right now I'm looking at it. It seems like it's from a German company. Supposedly, it's for some renovations in the building. It is what scammers do. They look at you, and they look at your business, they looked at what would be a kind of typical ask for your business. In this case, that's what they did. They knew Barbara, and they found out who her executive assistant is and what the executive assistant email address is, who bookkeeper is, and the bookkeeper's email addresses. Now, you know, Jim, it's pretty easy to find most of this stuff out. It was interesting to me that I sat down with the FBI because we had pulled them in on an investigation where we found that some criminal activities going on against a small local company. They have eight employees. I sat down with the FBI. The first thing the FBI did when I did the report was they went to my website, my business website. They just tried to find out the lay of the land? Who are the people that work there? Who are the executives who are the accountants? You know, they were impressed because I didn't have any of it on my website. If you go to @mainstream.net, you'll see that under who works here, who are executives are it says due to security concerns, we don't post any of it. Yeah, exactly. But you know, what people do, right? Look at your website, or Facebook, Jim All that information is right there. Craig Now, what do we give out? Then when talking about Facebook, but you and I mentioned our wives on our Facebook page. Yeah, you and I know, well, I think both of us know not to say, Hey, I'm going to Italy. I'm going to Ireland. Next week, although obviously in your case, yeah, you're tied in with the business. Yeah. Typically, we don't mention anything like that until after the fact, so right here, that means we are relatively safe. In this case, what happened is they invested what probably amounted to 10 or 20 hours doing some research. It was thought that they're probably from Eastern Europe will tell you what happened here specifically. Jim Big surprise, Eastern Europe. What a big surprise. Craig Yeah, exactly. And 400 grand How long will that last? You know, if you're in a country where the average person makes five grand a year, do a little mental math on that. That's going to last you and your family for a long time. For what? Divide that 400,000 by 20 hours, how much an hour? That's a nice payday. It is. Barbara said, Hey, listen, when talking to experts, I'm not counting on getting me this money back. She had an excellent attitude about this whole thing because, indeed, her accountant did wire it. How they found out about this was that when the accountant wired the money, the accountant CC'ed the executive assistant, and using the correct address. Okay, so initially, the bookkeeper just replied to the email from the scammers thinking it was the legitimate executive assistant, and she wires the money. After wiring the money, she copies the real address of executive assistant who says wait a minute, hold-on now, let's stop this. People, when this happens, you don't get your money back. The FBI says it's 90 seconds. It's 90 seconds from the time that they get that wired money that it is out of the country. And pretty much gone. Jim 90 seconds. It just reminds me of like, what was that movie? Craig Gone 90 seconds. Yeah. Like, boom, there it is. You can watch it go by on the computer screen. Jim That's it. I like to think that Steve McQueen's version was better than the remake of Nicolas Cage. Yeah. Craig Yeah, exactly. So here's the good news and the weird news, it never happened. They were able to contact the bank that the bookkeeper had wired the money to, and they responded quickly, right? So the German bank was able to freeze the funds in the account. Before the scammer knew it was in the account and transferred it out. Here's where it was going. In this case, it was going to China. Jim Oh, so it wasn't our friends in Eastern Europe. Craig It wasn't in this case, and it is not common, it was China. It makes you kind of wonder who in China? Much of the criminal activity in China is, of course, sponsored by their socialist government. So here's the bottom line. One hundred fourteen thousand people reported being a victim of this type of scam last year. We're talking 10s of millions of dollars in losses. According to the FBI's internet crime report. It is huge. It is a common way hackers are going after you. If it is in China or Eastern Europe, do you know who the next most person probably knows? Jim Right, it's your roommate. It's someone you know, who's going to hack. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, we're talking with Craig Peterson, Tech Talk guru, and at the end will tell you how you can get more information from him. Craig, you know what, before we run out of time, I want to talk about this because it caught my fancy here, this VHS vault? Pretty, pretty good idea. Why don't you explain it to everyone? Craig Yeah, there's a web service out there that, when started, was called the Wayback Machine. Now it's called archive.org. It is the coolest thing ever. I go on there, and I looked at old versions of my website. One time, I lost my website, and the Wayback Machine had a copy of it. It clones all of the websites, and you can go back to your favorite website and look at it as it evolved over now decades. And they got this cool new thing that you just mentioned, which is what's called the VHS vault. And if you go org, you'll see they have several different types of vaults there are. I use this one all the time where there are these ink drawings. Yeah, the 1800s of patent pictures and other things, and they've got them all there. But the VHS vault as of right now has 20,701 videos in there. And these are old VHS tapes from the years gone by some of them back, not the tapes, but the content in 1922. And wow, you can watch it in its original brilliant 480 lines if you're lucky, worth of resolution right. None of it is the stuff that you can generally find out there. It is such a cool flashback right near the top. The Beatles Let it be, and the original 35 millimeter was you know, put up there, and They're in their collection. It's called the VHS vault. You'll find it and all this other cool stuff at archive.org Jim Sounds pretty cool. All right, Craig, they can find more. And when I mean they I mean our audience, if they text My name to this number Craig 855-385-5553. Text Jim to 855-385-5553 Jim Standard data and text rates apply, Craig Peterson will provide you with updates. There's no charge for this. He won't try to sell you anything, and he won't hack you, Craig, thanks so much. We look forward to talking with you next week. Unknown Speaker 12:41 Take care, Jim. Bye-bye. All right, a final word about Hillary Clinton. When we return, you're listening to the Jim Polito show, your safe space. Transcribed by https://otter.ai ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Welcome! Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning and we discussed Passwords, huge databases, data collection by Big Tech and our schools, COPPA  and Google. So, here we go with Mr. Polito. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Now we've got the New Mexico Attorney General, who I'm sure will be joined by other attorneys general to file suit on this. We've got this children's online Privacy Protection Act, which has been around for quite a while that says any personal data for a child under the age of 13. If you collect that data on a child, you have to have explicit permission from the parents. Craig Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. And that was me chatting with Mr. Jim Polito over in Worcester and Springfield, Mass, two biggest that's the second and third-biggest cities in Mass and we got talking about the new FBI recommendations. Also, a new lawsuit filed against Google. It is going to be the next big thing for governments going after companies like Google and other data aggregators who are collecting data on our kids through programs they sponsor in our schools. I can't believe what the schools are doing to the kids right now when it comes to their privacy. By the way, a bit of a warning. It was kind of scratchy this morning. I'm not sure what was going on. But anyhow, here we go. Jim Popular segment here on the show. It happens every Tuesday. At this time. I'm talking about our good friend and Tech Talk guru, who just happens to be from Canada, originally. Craig Peterson. Good morning, sir. Craig Good morning, Jim. Jim All right, Craig, I want to start with this. You know, we're in the political season now. You know, campaign slogans and phrases and all that but, so maybe that's this is an excellent time to change your password because the FBI is saying, Hey, get rid of that password, and come up with a pass. phrase, you know, like, make America great again, maybe not that one. It might be a little too obvious for some people, but they're saying phrases tell us about this. Craig It goes way back to the password came out oh my gosh, Dec, many, many, many decades ago. And it was a way to restrict access to a computer, and very few people were trying to break into them. Most of them didn't have a, you know, external wire. And what's an easy way to do this? Well, let's just have a password, and it was just simple, and it was enough to keep people out. And then we moved to the point where what happened is people had guys who got onto computers can steal the password files, and they had programs that would run through those password files and try and crack the passwords. You know, and that's when they came up with the idea, hey, listen, you got to have uppercase, lowercase digits, special characters, all of this other stuff. And today, it has changed the game. Today, as a result of all of these breaches is we have these large password data files. I have a copy of one of them, as well. I've been using to research these vast troves of data containing billions of actual people's passwords that they have used on a website, anything from their bank through Facebook or Google. It brings up the big problem, Jim, of using the same password on multiple sites, because what the bad guys are doing is they use that password file, passwords, billions of them, and they basically against you, or a cat online to try to break-in. So instead of trying to do something, that's computation, Generally intensive, they just say, Hey, listen, there really, there's about 10% of the people that use somewhere around the top 5% of all the passwords out there. So let's just go ahead, and we'll try those what the FBI is saying. If you use a string of words, as you had mentioned, you know, those bag of things, which by the way, as you pointed out, is a bad word because all people can use it. But if you use a string of words that are at least 15 characters long, it can take a hacker who's trying to make a brute force attack, and it can take that hacker good 100 years to break into your account. So it's simple advice. Most businesses are still aren't following it. It is something that I've been talking about for a few years now since I read some outstanding studies, not passports, I'm looking at how the hackers are working out there, and it goes back to 2015. So it's been about five years since I read some of those first ones. But the FBI his advice now, is it a longer password? Relying on simple words even and no special characters will take a crack and require more computational resources and, and therefore is much safer? Jim Wow. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our checkout guru, FBI recommending come up with a phrase. Don't use a password. A at the end of this segment will give you a little word that you can use. That word is going to be Jim, and you're going to get more information from Craig Peterson, but we'll tell you about that at the end of the segment. Okay, so I'm feeling safer. There. All right, now, here's where I'm not feeling safe. And it's for the kiddies. Okay, so Google is being sued. For misusing school kids, private data is this again, one of those cases where Google says I use this product, we have our this software for free. For free. Yeah. And then whenever it's free, you're the product, right? Craig Absolutely. It's like the free VPNs out there. You know, they're worse than not using a VPN. In this case, what we're talking about, is Google suite right here in Brockton, Mass. We've got a school tool that's using it. But Google has something called a Chromebook. We've talked about this before on the show. It is a Google Chromebook for the average user is the safest device to use out there. Okay, it is not more reliable than a MacBook but is much safer than a Windows laptop. There's a Chromebook, and the real, real exciting thing for schools is Yeah, they can be very cheap. Yeah. Right. Jim Like instead of buying an iPad for every kid in the school, which is expensive by the Chromebook, Craig 450 bucks, yeah. Cheap. They go only up to 1000 depending on what you want. But it's Google we're talking about here. So even though they are secure from a hacker getting into them standpoint, that doesn't mean that Google isn't tracking what you're doing. Enter the problem here. The cost for access to free tools, as we know, is paid for by Google having our data, right. Google's providing low and no-cost hardware and software tools to students and schools. In addition to just statistics nationwide, and now we've got the New Mexico attorney general who I'm sure will be joined by other attorneys general to file suit on this. We've got this children's online Privacy Protection Act, which has been around for quite a while that says any personal data for a child under the age of 13. If you collect that data on a child, you have to have explicit permission from the parents. It applies to websites, apps, any sort of digital platform, and they collected data from the kids. And the New Mexico Attorney General is saying, Wait a minute. Well, you are collecting the data, and it resides in your cloud. So what are you doing with this? You're violating federal law, in this case, also New Mexico law? Yep. And Sue is alleging that Google deliberately is just stealing school districts and Parents about data collection, and how much better Could it be for Google? Right? They want to ask consumers for life, and then they start with you. Jim Well, how about that commercial that was so popular and useful that aired during the Super Bowl. It was a gentleman who was a widower. He was talking to Google. He was talking about his wife, who passed away, and it showed how it would remember all these things about her and bring up memories and thoughts. And okay, yeah, what better way to start that is when you're a kid. Google knows your whole life so that when you're dying, and your life is flashing before your eyes, Google will do it for you. They'll insert a couple of advertisements probably. For Funeral Directors, they'll put in you know, an ad in for a funeral during Hey, and you're dying now. Why don't you tell you folks about our services Craig Do you want to go to such a funeral home? Google and Apple and Microsoft, etc., all want our private data. They all want to be the repository of all of this information about us over the years. You know you can pick who doesn't go to Dr. Google when they when something goes wrong, right? Or you're trying to figure out what the symptoms mean, what's going on Google does track that, by the way, Google has a flow tracker, on the number of people who are searching for symptoms. Remember now to the federal government is restricted and cannot obtain or gather specific information on illegal under federal law, right? So what is the what are they started to do? Go into these third party companies like the Googles that have the data on us, and the federal government even though they can't track it, also though they can collect it. Our private industry has no restrictions on doing that. And so the federal and state governments they're just bypassing the law and go into these data aggregators to get whatever data they want about it. Jim All right. So look, here's what you need to do you need to arm yourself and know all of these things. And the way that you do it is you get on board with Craig Peterson. Craig Peterson will provide you with this information for free, and you are not the product. He does it as a service to members and listeners of the show. So all you do is Text my name, Jim, to this number 855-385-5553 Texting Jim to 855-385-5553 standard data and text rates apply. Craig Peterson will not rip you off. And Craig, thanks so much. We'll talk to you next week. Craig All right, Jim. Bye-bye. All right. Craig 12:17 I'm sorry, that was terrible audio. I don't know I am debating whether or not I should even share that with you. I'm not sure what happened there. But, you know, say lovey like air. Anyhow, have a great day. And we'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with better audio. And then, of course, we got the show this weekend. And we're still working on our man. These tutorials are going to be amazing. By the time you finish these tutorials, you're going to be able to lock down any Windows or Mac computer yourself, and you're going to be able to lock down your small business network so that you're not going to be a victim of the bad guys. Best of all this is free. And if it was wasn't enough. You're going to know how to test everything yourself to make sure they can't get in. How was that for amazing, you guys, man. We're putting a lot of work into this, but you are going to love it. I think this is going to be the turning point in your security. Anyhow, have a great day. We'll be back tomorrow. Bye-bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Welcome, Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning. We talked about an article that Jack posted on Facebook about a Chinese National working for an American Military Contractor who gave our Military Secrets to China. Here we go with Jack. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Transcript: Craig Taking a laptop, even if you are not a Chinese spy, to China is has a high probability that information on that laptop disappears while you're over there. Craig Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. This morning Jack wrote about an article on Facebook about what's been happening here in New England with Chinese infiltration and spying on military companies and contractors. We got into it this morning. Here we go. Jack Heath On top of the lack of social technology, getting US pictures out of places like you know where the host city you have China, basically muscling technology and stealing it allegedly from us. You look at this 10-year engineer, Chinese born American who was just picked up over the weekend by the FBI for allegedly taking his secure Raytheon laptop to China on a trip last year. It is a federal offense for someone with high-security clearance to take technology capable of accessing things like our weapon system technology out of the country. Then the Harvard story. Last week, which you haven't heard much more about the professor, one or two professors charged with getting $50,000 a month from a bogus Chinese University, from the Chinese government to recruit and steal intellectual capital from Harvard. Those are big stories, and it shows the dichotomy between the people having access and the government using it to get more technology for the government and stealing our intellectual capital. Some interest there, and maybe a comment on that Craig Peterson joins us live in the author listener lines, our Tech Talk guy, Good morning, Craig. Craig Hey, good morning, jack. Yeah, and the last few months we've got this Chinese Harvard affiliated cancer researcher caught in December with 21 vials Cells stolen from a lab at a Boston hospital. We've got a Chinese Professor conducting surveillance Research at the University of Kansas indicted in August on charges for his ties to Chinese University. We've got a Chinese PLA Lieutenant posing as a student here at Boston University. The fact that she was a lieutenant in the Chinese military. She was a spy and a Chinese scholar. Another at the University of California. The list goes on and on. You talked a little bit, and you posted on Facebook about the Raytheon employee taking a laptop to China. The company told him not only was it against company policy to travel with a company computer that might have some proprietary information on it but was against federal law. And we see this a lot. There's a lot of ignorance out there amongst people who do take laptops with them to China. I've been warning about that for the last ten years because taking a portable computer, even if you are not a Chinese spy, to China presents a high probability of exfiltration of that data from that laptop while you're over there. Now the infiltration of soft targets in the last few years, our universities where Chinese students are coming over. As I mentioned earlier, Chinese military Lieutenants are coming over to universities posing as students and being assigned to research projects and stealing stuff. The federal ITAR requirements are ones we are dealing with all the time with some of our clients. We have military sub-subcontractors that are making things as simple as screws, Jack, and their products ultimately get used in some military system. Many of these companies are not being careful with our data, and it gets stolen. They have no clue that they're exposing all of us to these dangers. Jack Craig, I think you may know, I'm not sure, but I had the benefit of some of the knowledge learned when I was the US Army War College. I'll keep that quiet. One of the things I did learn is when you look at the global threats to our security in a lot of different things, and we're seeing differences right now with China. Everything in the last year or two or four years politically speaking has been Russia, Russia, the Russians, Russia, Russia, you know, you know, Vladimir Putin. However, the real threat is China. When you look at Russia, I'm not saying Russia did not try to metal. I'm not saying they won't try and metal, and they will try and battle and mess up in our elections. But China's looks like a real threat. They are from a technology stealing point of view, one of the businesses but penetrating universities. Raytheon is a pretty secure fourth-largest defense giant, the real stuff, real concern. Craig It is a considerable concern, and you know, we were talking about the military and You know, the, obviously the contractors and what China's doing. But you see what jacks are doing this to our regular businesses. I have a client that came to me, became a client who came to me because, as it turns out, something was weird with his email. When we started looking into it, and I had one of my fire jumper certified guys get into it more, we found Chinese backdoors in their systems that were actively exfiltrating data out. His designs, the ones he developed over his whole lifetime, he was getting ready to retire. Now the Chinese had all of his intellectual property, all the research methods used to make the products, his customer lists, his pricing. That means he gets to compete against his very own designs made by Chinese manufacturers and sold worldwide. His business is out of business, and we're not even talking about the military here. Jack All right Craig Peterson on this Monday morning. Appreciate it. Craig All right everybody, hopefully, you've been able to check it out online let me know what you think I've been posting these morning interviews over on YouTube and Facebook, doing them as audiograms. I do have all the camera gear, but it takes so much time, and I haven't had time to do it. Let me know what you think you do like these audiograms. By all means, subscribe to my YouTube channel or follow me over on Facebook and drop me a line - at me at Craig Peterson dot com. Take care of everybody. Be back tomorrow. Transcribed by https://otter.ai ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Message Input: Message #techtalk Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Good morning everybody! I was on with Ken and Matt. We had a good discussion about Business Email Compromise, what it is, who is at risk and what we can do about it. Then it was onto the Jeff Bezos Phone Hack. So here we go with Ken and Matt. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig They scraped every picture on the internet that they could get their hands on. That is against the usage of rules and agreements of all these websites. If you had a picture posted on Facebook that was publicly accessible or on Twitter Craig Good morning, everybody. Of course, this is Craig Peterson on WGAN, up in Maine, on their morning drive show. There is some very concerning stuff going on to news statistics out that we talked about this week about fishing and BEC type email attacks. We are going to get into it right now. Ken We are back ladies and gentlemen it is 738 on the WGAN morning news with Ken and Matt on Wednesday, which means it's time to talk to Craig Peterson, our tech guru, to go over all the things about technology that affect our daily lives here today. Craig, How are you this morning? Craig Good morning, doing well Ken Well, let's start talking about some techniques, shall we? How many organizations last year, got phished, successfully? Craig Yeah, this is a huge trend that's been going on. You know, we keep hearing these warnings FBI has issued an alert out, and we will talk about it here on the show. It is really getting down to the brass tacks because we're, we're all somehow making some money, right? Whether or not you are getting paid because you know nothing about an oil company, or perhaps you are getting paid because you're working hard and getting up at 3 am every day. Those organizations, every one of them, right now got phished. Of course, you know what phishing is those of those types of emails that encourage you to click on something, maybe download something, etc. There are some new statistics out right now. They are kind of a little scary. You know, I'm not even sure these are that accurate because they say that nearly 90% of organizations around the world are targets of this whole business email compromise, type of scam, fear, spear-phishing attacks, which is a very, very big deal. And I think it's probably closer to 100% of organizations. I don't know you guys probably both have gotten those emails, right, supposedly, from your bank, etc. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't see why it's only 90%. But it's, it's very, very bad. It's very high. They're looking at global data from 50 million simulated phishing attacks. They got sent out to the customers of one company by their security firm, Proofpoint. They sent them over the one year but the part that's most alarming to me because you know, 100% that's not news. But unfortunately, more than half of the people that got these simulated phishing attacks opened the email and clicked on a link, and they were convinced to do it. That's the scary part. Another big story this week is telling us a little bit about what the results of that are the cost of it, and it's happening more, we are getting better. Okay. It used to be that it was 90% of people would open these emails. So we are getting better, but the costs are even increasing. Matt We are talking to Craig Peterson, he is our tech guru, and he joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world of technology. I am always fascinated by this evolving facial recognition technology. I'm thinking of a man walking into the Gap or whatever, like in Minority Report, and they scan your eyes, or they just know they know who you are. They say Welcome back to the store. How did you enjoy those jeans that you just bought? Would you like to look at something new, etc.? The real utility of it, at least right now, is in terms of security and things like that. So obviously London is now adopting its facial recognition technology for police to us. Europe is considering a ban on it. Talk to us about where we stand with the use of this technology for law enforcement, and I guess beyond. Craig Last weekend, on my show, of course, Saturdays at 1 pm here on the same station, but and my show last weekend, I went into quite a bit of detail about this one company that had been operating kind of underground. They did something that this is frankly illegal. They scraped every picture available on the internet they could grab. That's against the usage of rules and agreements of all these websites. If you had an image posted on Facebook that was publicly accessible or on Twitter or on these online photo album sites that you can share photos. They have it. They have over 3 billion social media pictures. What they're doing is selling subscriptions to police departments. These police departments pay as little as $10,000 a year, can take a picture from some security cameras somewhere, and run it through this software. It's an app that runs on your phone. And it will tell the police where it has seen you before online. The police have been hindered over the years by only having pictures in their database of people who had interactions with police. You know you get arrested, they take photos and fingerprints. Now they have been able to identify hundreds or thousands of people that were involved in crimes were unsolved crimes, which is kind of interesting. So what London's doing now is they're taking that same type of technique. By the way, there are lawsuits against this company. Right now, it's in use in New York City. A lot of police departments are using it. But London's taking that type of technology because it's one thing to have faces. London has been, it's the most surveilled city in the world outside of China. And that means there's a lot of cameras out there. For years the city of London has been taking all of that information and use it to track people as they moved around London. Now with this newer technology that we're starting to see where it's tying it into social media posts to pictures that can find almost anywhere. They're worried about what they're calling a breakthrough assault on our rights. And we're starting to see this here in the UK is where the US is well, and it's very, very scary in the facial recognition is 80 ish percent accurate in some cases, is in the worst cases it's about 80% inaccurate, which is terrible. I think this is dangerous technology in the wrong hands, and it can easily be misused. The wrong hands don't mean like the guys in the White House. The wrong hands imply someone who has access to this type of database, who wants to find the name and phone number of that person they saw in this coffee shop. So they can call them up and try and get a date. It could be that simple. So I'm getting very concerned about it. Our law enforcement here in the US has relaxed the established rules of evidence that have been around for a long time and retaining things like our photos. When should they be keeping it that many police departments have cameras, video cameras on the cars as they drive around? In some jurisdictions, it means taking pictures of your license plate or photos of all of the occupants. When it finds an active ticket against the owner of the vehicle or the vehicle itself, you will be pulled over all automatically. Frankly, this type of activity concerns me because it's there will be mismatches. There will be people accused that shouldn't be. And honestly, I think we should be secure in it and have that type of privacy. Matt We were talking to Craig Peterson. He is our tech guru. You hear him every Wednesday at 738. You can listen to him on Saturday at one o'clock as well. You can go to Craig Peterson dot com anytime you want, and hear what he has to say. You know, we said it earlier, Craig about Jeff Bezos and the hacking of his phone. What's the latest on that? Should we be concerned? Craig It presents an interesting problem because Jeff Bezos was using a piece of software on his smartphone that many people use has called WhatsApp. It was bought by Facebook some time ago. What happened is that the Saudi Crown Prince was upset with the stories in the Washington Post that were written by Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi had written articles, news stories for The Washington Post. The Saudi crown prince had met Jeff Bezos at a party, and they exchanged WhatsApp phone numbers. That's how you communicate, and WhatsApp, you have a phone number associated with your account. So now, they can talk to each other using WhatsApp, and WhatsApp is an app designed for secure communications that encrypted from end to end. Let's get into a little bit more meat of your question, which is what happened here behind the scenes? Well, it turned out the watch app had a bug in the way it has handled or maybe even still handles access to your photos and videos and other information contacts on your phone. And apparently, someone used the Saudi Crown Princes account WhatsApp account, sent a video to Jeff Bezos. That video had in it some malware that gave them full access to Jeff Bezos, and his phone and everything on it. Well, the phone numbers of probably the contacts, but videos and photographs. And Jeff Bezos notices his phone was slow, which by the way, is the number one reason I get phone calls for security. But the email slows the slow phone computers not working right. Jeff took his phone to one of these places that did some cyber forensic analysis on the phone. They discovered why yes, indeed, the amount of data that's being sent by your phone is 100 6,000,000% higher than usual. It is posting videos, etc. out to the Saudi Crown Prince. Guess what ended up happening? We ended up with the most expensive divorce in history with Jeff Bezos and his wife because those videos and photos leaked. So that's the basics of what happened here. Ken Craig Peterson joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world of technology today being no exception to that, Craig, as always, we appreciate you joining us here, and we will talk to you again next week. Craig Hey, gentlemen, take care. I'm going to talk more about this weekend on my show at one o'clock on Saturday. I want to get into what can you do to prevent this sort of thing? What should you do? So we'll cover that in more detail on Saturday. Ken We'll be looking forward to that. Craig Okay, take care, guys. Craig  Hey, everybody, make sure you are on my email list. So you get all of this and more. Just Go to Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe. I keep pretty much everything up there on the site. Again, Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe. We'll talk to you again on Saturday. Bye-bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553  

Good morning everybody! I was on with Ken and Matt. We talked about StarTrek and then we got into Tech and what is going on with our Cable Modems.  Then we discussed the big vulnerability with Firefox and why you must update it NOW! Also Smishing. So here we go with Ken and Matt. Microsoft is out with some Critical updates that must be applied.    These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: One of the most significant vulnerabilities in Windows ever was disposed at noon yesterday by the NSA. Craig Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson, here. I had a great little chat this morning with Ken and Matt about some of the things that are affecting us right now security-wise, including your cable modem, it is probably vulnerable. I gave some tips on what to do as I always try to do. We had a little bit of fun teasing each other about William Shatner. So here we go. Ken All right, we're back at 738 on the WGAN morning news with Ken and Matt. Happy Wednesday to you and Wednesdays at 738 means Craig Peterson joins us now, Craig. Craig Peterson Hey, good morning. Why would you guys insult my favorite over actor this morning? Matt Vince Vaughn Ken Are you referring to are you must be referring to Shattner Craig Yeah, I call him Bill. Yeah. Matt I'm sorry, but I believe the mystic name took us here because I have, for one, complimented his acting in the Wrath of Khan. I did not, yes I did in Star Trek Five. Although I mean, I liked Return Home. That's the fourth one with a little nuclear Wessels. Craig I don't know if you guys know it, but in upstate New York, a guy who is an Elvis impersonator, I forget his name. He bought all of these old Desi-Lu sets, and he rebuilt all the original sets from Star Trek, the whole thing. They examined the footage to see what they looked like, as some of the sets were destroyed or lost. But the entire thing is there, and I went on a tour. I've been there twice. They have these guided tours of the sets, and they talk about things, but it is the entire set. They reuse Kirk's tricorders for this, that and the other thing. There is cork running up and down the hallways. Now when I look at that original series, I tend to notice things like they run some of the footage backward, and that is because the entire enterprise, you know, where he's running between decks and up and down is maybe 50-75 feet long. There's one core door. And so you'll see, the names on some of the doorways are backward because they reversed it to make it look like he was running in a circle around the deck. Ken That is a great deal of detail that you're paying attention to Craig. Craig It is Yeah. I did notice that I watched Star Trek six a little while ago, and they used the warp core from Star Trek The Next Generation. Matt Anyway. While this is quite interesting, you are here to talk about tech topics, not Star Trek topics. So well kind of Craig So well kind of a lot of techs. I mean, let's face it Star Trek introduced a lot of tech issues. For example, the Motorola flip phone, right Matt from Motorola. Exactly right. Directly inspired. Yes. Dave. That's how we got came from going to the moon. So let's talk about technology, shall we? Many people use Firefox today. Now be worried about using Firefox? Craig You know, we've got a few major government warnings out right now. The biggest one is Microsoft Windows. Huge, huge, huge, one of the most significant vulnerabilities in Windows ever was disclosed at noon yesterday by the NSA. And so trick number one, although there's no evidence it's being used in the wild right now. What Microsoft There is a specific type of encryption that you can use in Windows. If you present Windows as an application saying, here's a file encrypted for me or decrypted for me, there is no validation at all of the key involved, it is a huge security problem. Now, why not something massive here, the difference between the Trump administration and prior administrations, and that is that previously, the NSA would find out about this and use it against people. They would use it against foreign governments, etc., who are using Windows and they'd say, Isn't this great? We have a way into computers, or we have a way to break encryption or to do whatever we want to make significant differences. Now, the NSA is telling us about some of these substantial security vulnerabilities. So tip one this morning patch Windows early and often patch it right now. Number two, we've also got the government warning. And this is Homeland Security about Firefox. Firefox is one of my favorite browsers. It is one of these privacy browsers made by Mozilla. It's very, very good, mainly if you are a Facebook user, because it has some special lockdown features and when it comes to Facebook. Still, Firefox also has critical security warning out, so make sure that gets updated with Firefox. All you have to do is exit Firefox started up again. And it will go ahead and patch itself all automatically but a vast and critical security warning for Firefox. Matt All right, we're talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us for our tech update on what's happening in tech around the world. Now, Craig, I must admit, I've never heard of the word smishing. Could you educate me a little bit about it? Exactly what are some examples of this that people should understand? I guess as they continue to run around paranoid about all things in the world coming to get them. Craig It's like Australia, right? Everything's trying to kill you. Exactly. The Outback. Exactly. So here's what submission is you you've known what fishing is P-H-I-S-h-I-N-G where bad guys are trying to trick you into doing something. Some of the earliest examples of phishing is the Nigerian scams, where a poor Nigerian prince needed your help? Well, they have continued to evolve. And smishing is fishing on mobile devices when we're talking about texting messages. SMS messages, that's where it gets the name smishing. Right now, we're seeing an increase in messages being sent that looked like they are from a bank. In particular, right now, the US Bank is the biggest at a smishing message. I don't even know I should have looked this up if there is a bank called US Bank, but they're they come through is urgent messages. They pretend they are your bank or Amex or Visa or MasterCard. And they have a link that you can, and you can click on. So, for example, American Express dash message.com, which is not a legitimate domain. What will happen is once you get reported, and you can report almost anything to their email addresses. It is typically abuse at American Express, for instance, or abuse at the bank name. You can notify them once reported and the banks, etc. Find out about them. These sites like American Express dash message dot com get shut down. But be very careful nowadays, you unless the text is coming from me, click on mine, right. But unless a text is from someone you really know and trust, be careful, because they are sending out the text messages and you want to pry this is from your bank. And we're going to see a lot of this more and more. The new head of the FCC has been working very closely with the various telephone companies to try and put an end to this. However, because of the design of the systems, and that is without security in mind, it's going to take a while before they're ever going to be able to stop all of this. was speaking to Craig Pixar Ken We are speaking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us every Wednesday, 738. You can also catch him on WGAN on Saturday at 1 pm. What is this thing about cable modems and the attacks on them? I would think not true. One would be right. I would think so. Matt You would, right because of those cable modems? Craig Yeah, that's what I was. Yeah, it's a cable company, you might have the phone company depending on where you live providing your internet. And what's been happening historically, initially, we had cable modems, and we just hooked the cable modem up directly to a little switcher or a hub in our house right and used the internet from there. And then they got fancier, and the cable modem started having built into them little firewalls. They did this actually for the benefit of the cable companies because we're we are still running out of internet addresses. So they did a little trick called Nadeem gets kind of complicated, but right now, there are over 200 million affected modems over in Europe alone. There are estimated to be at least that many here in the United States. Here's the big problem. If you're using these cable modem firewalls in your homes, a lot of them are not up to date. Some of the ones that you bought yourself and those supplied by cable companies with names like Sagemcom, Netgear, Technicolor, and Compal models shipping to broadband subscribers, those are just some of the infected ones. We've got to be careful with all our equipment, just like we mentioned this morning, right already, we've got the NSA warning us about Windows and Firefox. It has issues our cable modems do too. So if you own your end device there, make sure it stays patched up. It's up to date. Don't buy the $80 router firewalls, and you have to spend at least 200 nowadays, to get a router firewall cable modem for your home. That is going to auto-update. However, we have pay attention to this as they are gaining direct access to our security cameras, our computers, all of our Internet of Things devices, in our homes, in our small businesses. So my general advice is to go and buy a suitable cable modem yourself put it in. And when I say I didn't have a modem, my main one that is has a built-in firewall and is going to update it shelf automatically for at least a few years. So that means get them from some of the more prominent manufacturers that are out there. And if you're interested, you can just email me at Craig Peterson calm. I'll send you a little list of the current ones out there that I've been recommending people just drop an email to me at Craig Peterson calm. Be glad to let you know. Matt All right, ladies, gentlemen, that is Craig Peterson. He's our tech guru. He joins us at this time every single Wednesday, and this Wednesday is, of course. I appreciate it as always, Craig, and we'll talk again next week. Craig Gentlemen, take care. Bye. Thanks a lot. All right. Craig 12:05 Hey everybody, I'm going to be sending out an email because I am working on a fantastic course right now. I would love your input. I want to make sure I cover everything. It is going to be the definitive course, and I am sure of it when it comes to protecting your computers. So keep an eye out for the email that's going to bet coming. If you're an office manager, if you're someone who has the responsibility of securing computers in a small company, this is for you. So keep an eye out. I'm more excited about this than anything I've done before. I've done these DIY or Do It Yourself cybersecurity courses before and several other courses. However, this is the course of courses when it comes to securing your computer but also administering your computers. I'm going to get some bonuses because I'm working on it thinking, you know, what else can I do that's going to help them understand the depth of maybe how far they need to go. There's a couple of times where I was doing this saying, and you know what they need to understand this too. So putting all of that in, this is going to be amazing. But I do want to make sure I'm covering everything you guys want to have included. So I don't hear I'm rambling on, but keep an eye on your email, because I'm going to be sending something out probably early next week about this as we're finishing up these modules, and then we'll use your input to polish it up. So thanks again, everybody, and we'll be back this weekend. Bye-bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning. And I don't know how much you know about the Amazon Alexa and the whole environment. There were some big announcements announced by Amazon in the last little while. We spent a little bit of time talking about them. And some of the things you can do with this new smart home assistant software, and some of the things you might want to do and maybe some of the things you don't want to do. So here we go with Jim. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Related articles: Alexa, Now A Truly Useful Smart Assistant ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Good morning, everybody. Craig Peters on here. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning. And I don't know how much you know about the Amazon Alexa and the whole environment depending on how you want to pronounce it. But there is some big announcements coming out of Amazon just a couple of weeks ago. So we spent a little bit of time talking about them. And some of the things you can do with this new smart home assistant software, and some of the things you might want to do and maybe some of the things you don't want to do. So here we go with Jim. Jim  If you have an Amazon electric you may want to just, you know, get ready for her to go crazy. Yeah, she's she's gonna go a little crazy because we're going to sing her name over and over again. But there's a lot of things she can do for you, not the bad stuff. There's a lot of things she can do for you. That a great that you don't even know about but you know who knows about it. The genius, Our Tech Talk Guru Craig Peterson. Good morning, sir. Craig  Hey, good morning, Jim. Jim  So I've been teasing this all morning. And I know every time I say Alexa know, everybody's which isn't good, because people who are listening through a smart speaker which you can listen to this show through someone's finger, every time I say that, it stops playing and she starts listening. So maybe we should come up with a different name for her while we talk about her behind her back. Craig  You could do that. Yeah, absolutely. Can I actually use my Alexa to listen to you in the morning? Yeah. Which is great. I do. I'm fascinated. Every day. I get people send me emails. They say Jim, I've got one in the bathroom. And one in the kitchen. Michael, what? Right? And you know why I don't even have one. Talk about being in the Yeah, I mean, a large portion of this audience listens to the show. Jim   Through Alexa or through another smart speaker and and the guy doing the show doesn't even own one. Craig  Well, first off, if you're if you have one of these Amazon echo's, these Alexa devices, the first thing to do if you're listening to Jim is change its name. So, here's the trick, Alexa will actually respond to either you can say Alexa and it will wake up, or you can go into your app that you have for your Alexa and you can change its name now it will respond to one of three names. You can either call it Alexa, you can call it Echo, or you can be like john Luc Picard and call it computer and it will respond. Jim  Yeah, that was the Star Star Trek. Little reference there. For those of us who are geeks Craig  Yeah, exactly. It's although there's a couple of things that I have it do, by the way, it has these, these little apps, if you will, that you can run on the echo devices on these Amazon devices. And you can actually program them quite simply my wife who is anything but a programmer has done this as well. And one of them is red alert. So if I, if I tell it that there's a red alert, I'm not going to say the name in front of it, because I don't want them all going on, right. But it can, it can learn to do things. So it starts playing the whole Red Alert thing from Star Trek and lights flashing. So that ties that ties into one of the things you had been talking about a little bit earlier. And that is that they had a big announcement, a whole set of them. Amazon has their big yearly announcements about a week or two after Apple has theirs. And so they were up on the stage one of their big announcements is that they're going to be able to allow you to have some some names, kind a ounds like, we're going to have a committee to study whether or not we are going to have a committee that's going to investigate sensuality of impeaching President Trump. Yeah. So Samuel Jackson's voice is going to be available on the Alexa. But they're going to do something interesting with this. Jim, we've talked so many times about this new deep fake stuff. They're going to deep fake Samuel Jackson's voice. Jim  Oh, so that we talked about this, how dangerous this can be that they could take my image and have me saying something or doing something illegal or whatever, and that that technology is going to be available to the average person, but it's already available to the high tech people. So so they're going to take the tone of Samuel L. Jackson's voice and they're going to say things even though he's not saying it to say those things exactly. So you can boys that's gotta be I'll tell you what I'll bet that's a big payday for Samuel L Jackson. Craig  It is because they brought him in studio when he recorded a bunch of stuff but historically what happened with Sherry and and many of these others over the years is a record someone singing almost everything that anyone has ever said. So they've given us a minimum of 5000 word vocabulary typically, oh Samuel L. Jackson is going to be way too expensive to have them have them say every word in the English language that is likely to want to do so Jim  Yeah Craig  Deep fakes to go into abound on your Alexa. So that's number two. He's number one, he's going to be the first one. Another thing that I am using that I get I just found out about myself because Amazon upgraded it is something called Alexa guard. Now we all know that the Alexa sits there listening. Okay all of the time. Jim   That's why she's not in the house right now, cuz she'd be listening all the time. But go ahead. Craig  Yeah. And that's a little bit unnerving, frankly. So Amazon has some technology in it to make it so that if even if it's hacked, you'll notice the light will come on if it's starting to record. So there's a difference between listening and recording. But with Alexa guard, what's going to happen or what happens right now is it listens for Windows breaking or alarms, like carbon dioxide, alarms, fire alarms, any kind of alarm that you have, and it also ties into some of the Home Alarm Systems. So if you have the ring, if you have a couple of others, it'll tie into that so here's what happened. It hears someone walking around. Yeah, that's that's fine, right? Craig   Probably going to learn about footsteps is probably going to be able to learn that there's a dog barking or something else is going on. But right now it's just alarms and window breaks. And what it'll do is it will basically call you up. Jim Oh. Craig It calls you. You have the app on your smartphone, and it says, Hey, I heard something and then it'll play the recording of what it heard to you. That's pretty good. That's really cool. Jim Yeah, so broke broken glass. It hears that it records it and then it calls me up. Now that's, that's a didn't know that's without having to pay for an additional alarm system for your home. Craig  It comes with it. And right now you can get some of the older models of the Alexa for as little as 20 bucks. Jim Wow. Craig So there you go. Now you've got a basic alarm system. It's also by the way, got an auto delete now. Cuz I know that you've been concerned you don't have one of a does record they do go to the cloud. Everybody does this, Microsoft does it with Cortana. And Apple does it, but it goes and then they're reviewed to see how accurate was their understanding of what you said. They now have an auto delete feature in the Amazon Echo universe. And it allows you to have your voice automatically your recordings automatically deleted every three months or every 18 months. You can also tell Alexa to delete what I just said or delete everything I've said today. So it's got a lot of nice little features in it. It also has Food Network features and if you have the echo show which is the one that has the screen on it, you probably notice this because it keeps adjusting recipes for you but this is going to tie in to book a cooking classes from Bobby Flay, which is really kind of cool, you can ask a question it'll tie into your shopping list that I Amazon will take for you that you can use in the grocery store other places, you can ask it So, okay, so let's show me that chicken recipe. And then later on you can go back to it and say how many chicken sighs or what I supposed to use or buy, right? You can tell to save the recipe. It's got new stuff for kids as well and read them stories and have some simple games and other activities. Alex her back is available on your Alexa Wow, you can have your own little game yeah, you're a little game and answer the question within question answer. I don't know how he does it. In the form of a question answer in the form of Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so you answer the question with a question. Wi Fi controller. It has hunches. And that feature is going to be a nap or not announced, but I'm going to come in very, very soon. So the can perform different actions together. So, for instance, we talked a minute ago about the Alexa guard, so you can have it so as Alexa detects something that thinks might be a smashed window and alarm going off. You can have it automatically turn on lights and under your house, you can say hey, Alexa, I'm leaving now. And with hunches, it'll mimic you the way you normally use your lights and and your radio and listening to Jim Polito in the morning. It will mimic all of that as though you are at home. So a lot of really cool features. We have three or four of them in the house these Alexa everything from the dot through the show. Yeah, the kids have them. And I've kind of fallen in love. These things are very, very handy. Jim Well, look, we can find out more. I mean, Craig just scratched the surface. Plus he's got a lot of other information. And all you have to do to get it is text my name, Jim to this number Craig   855-385-5553. So just text a Jim to 855-385-5553 Jim  Standard data and tax rates apply. But you'll get all this great information and you'll get much more Craig will not bother you. He will not pester you. He will not hack you, Craig. Thanks so much, buddy. We'll talk with you next week. Craig  All right. Take care, Jim. Bye-bye. Jim  All right, a very important final word. When we return you're listening to the Transcribed by https://otter.ai   ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson  

Craig was on with Jim Polito. Today, they discussed the latest goings on with autonomous vehicles These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Related Articles: Autonomous Cars - Are they ready for prime time ---  Transcript: Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors. Airing date: 06/11/2019 Autonomous Vehicles Craig Hey, good morning, everybody. A little update on Ortiz, he got flown into Boston, the Red Sox flew him in. He's a Boston general, I guess he had like a five-hour operation. And they did more to help with his gunshot wound. It's just crazy. Anyhow, Mr. Technology got pumped off this morning. If this happens, sometimes I'm on a phone call. I am, you know, calling in on the phone to the radio station. I'm talking to them. I got knocked off, and I don't notice that I got knocked off, right. Well, it happened this morning. We will go into some detail about autonomous cars and what that all means including automatic lane change features and those types of things. That's what we talked about this morning with Jim Polito. I thought it was interesting. In fact, that's all we talked about. There are some implications to all this autonomous technology that I don't think many people have really thought about Jim Here is our friend, one of the most popular guests on the show. And all around great guy Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. Good morning to you Craig Craig Hey, good morning, Jim. Jim Craig we've been spending the morning, the gentleman and I talking back and forth about autonomous cars or self-driving cars. We even get into discussing that adult film that was shot in the front seat of a self-driving Tesla while it was going down the road. We don't need to get into that here. What we want to get into is the question, are these cars ready to hit the road? Are they really prepared to hit the road? Craig It's an excellent question. The answer is, and I love this, this explanation that the Wall Street Journal had here about a month or two ago. They were saying driverless cars are 90% here. There's only another 90% left to go. Jim See you get it. You get the Tech Talk stuff. And then you get a little bit of comedy. Don't forget to tip your server. So yeah, it does seem that way. Oh, yeah, we're there. But don't try to take a left turn. Craig Yeah, exactly. There is a long way to go. There's a lot of acceptance problems still. In fact, I don't know if you're aware of this. But right now human drivers are quote, unquote, these so-called driverless cars. You probably haven't seen one of these. Jim Oh, you know what I see it the social justice warriors coming out now. Does the car has feelings? I don't know. Craig Here's what's been going on. Several companies have been trying to figure out how people will respond to driverless cars. So what they've done is that they've modified these vehicles, so that they change the driver's seat. So the person is actually sitting there. But they're sitting inside the driver's seat, and they eat. Unless you look very closely, you can't tell there's a person there. And then they have the driver drive the car around. So from just a casual observers point of view, it's just a car driving. You know, it's kind of like those, those body suits. I don't know if you've seen them, and you know, they're completely covered head to toe, yet you can see outright, yeah, the same sort of thing, except they're covered with the fabric of the seat. So they drive these things around. And they've been doing experiments trying to figure out what are we going to do, how we're going to do it? And how people are going to respond things like, you know, do we put a cow catcher on the front or pedestrian capture, right? Do we need to have lights indicating, hey, pedestrians, I'm going to start moving forward now, or I'm going to make a left turn all of these types of things? They've been finding people bullying the cars, knocking them on the hood, stepping into the way of them. Jim Oh, my God, you can't do that. These cars have feelings. Craig Let's make it even worse. Here's what happened here. When these pretend autonomous cars are driving in traffic, and people notice the car, other vehicles will do stupid things to mess with the autonomous vehicle. They will pull right in front of it, they'll break hard. And the quality of the studies is saying that people are trying to confound these cars, overrule them exploit the driverless vehicles. It has the automakers and tech firms really concerned. Obviously, there's one thing to have technology that works great in a lab, or maybe it works great on the streets of Phoenix, which is where a lot of these tests are going on right now. However when you've got a greedy human driver, and we've all seen them, and of course, it's not on the other guy. Jim Of course, it's never the guy in the other cars, always. Jim The connection is gone bad. He can't hear me. I'm going to drop the call and have him call back. Because we've lost him. Basically, to recap, where Craig was right now is that Yeah, you've got people out there seeing an autonomous car thinking oh, let me see what will happen if I drive in front of it. Or if I do this, it'll mess things up. That is not good. That is not good. And you know what that is? That's going to be an issue. When you have 50%, autonomous cars on the road, and then 50% of people just driving, because you know this is not going to happen overnight, everybody's going to have a self-driving car. It's just not going to work that way. The way it's going to work is some people are going to have them only like right now very few a tiny percentage of people have a car that will self-drive right now. And that's, that's what worries me. Oh, and by the way, if I can just add here a little personal thing. And I think Steve, you'll get a kick out of this is that, I do know that a substantial portion of the people listening to us right now are in cars. So, what if they could be in the car and be watching a video? You know, or listening to you and me? Jim Yeah, well, I mean, the two hours of the show is simulcast if you have charter TV three, channel 193. In general, they're sitting there watching Game of Thrones rather than looking at the road. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, but what I mean is I'm talking job security. I'm being very selfish about this concern. Oh, well, we're fine. Were you sure? Jim Oh, yeah. These things? Oh, yeah. I mean, I got I just, I understand what Craig is saying, but I don't I just I don't see how and he sort of touched on it. I don't under I don't see how the autonomous vehicles and humans are supposed to interact together. I just I don't really trust either of them. I don't trust humans behind the wheel. And I don't really trust robots behind the wheel, and you couldn't put the two of them together. I think it's a disaster. Know, people. Look, you will talk about looking for insurance claims gamble, throwing themselves in front of cars, people. Yeah, it's one thing to mess with them. It's another thing to be able to sue Tesla and then get rid of your you know, Geo Prism and gets yourself a nice little upgrade. Jim Yeah, well, we'll wait a minute. Hold on think I think about this. Okay. Not to be all science fiction here. But you know, with the, you know, with the artificial intelligence, the whole like the matrix, that movie, like the Terminator, that movie. What if all of a sudden, you know, the car gets mad at you for smacking it on the hood? And speaking of slapping it on the hood. Here is Craig back. I'm sorry, Craig, that connection just went south. You couldn't hear us. And you're, you were like in a tunnel. And again, I think it's the phone. I don't think it's anything other than that. I know, the machines are trying to shut you down. But yeah, Craig, I see you smack the car in the hood. And once we have artificial intelligence, it wants to get even with you. And then it's like, the movie Stephen King the book, Christine. And it's, it's running over your car? Craig Yeah. Well, here's another aspect of this. And then Sorry, I lost you there I was going on the spin and then nobody. But let's look at, for instance, people's driving culture. And there's a great article that just came out in Fast Company about a week ago, as well. It was talking about people's preference to drive versus flying. What they found is that people today, if it's a five-hour drive, no matter how long the flight is, if it's a five-hour drive, and if they're going to rent a car, on the other side, two-thirds of people prefer to drive. Yeah, and the numbers changed dramatically. If you've got a 10-hour drive, obviously, the vast majority of people want to fly. However, if it's in the tournament vehicle, a truly autonomous where they can have a nap, they can be there reading, they can be working, having meetings, that number goes way up. And what they found is even in the longest drive that they were looking at, which is a 45-hour drive, right now only one in 10 people would prefer to drive themselves. It's a handful. Think about driving to the airport, right all the crap you have to go through. But with an autonomous vehicle that changes to one in six people would prefer to drive themselves on a 45-hour drive, which means a quarter these stats of the airline industry would lose at least 10% of its travelers. And we're also looking at this change, it's also going to make it so that we don't have to expand our roads. They're thinking we could get, you know, 10 years more on the roadways that we're building or expanding than we would otherwise because the vehicles are going to be moving more progressively. You're not going to have somebody who hits the brakes and causes a major slow down and accidents and things. We're not there yet. There are a lot of companies working on it. Remember Fiat-Chrysler, they just broke off their talks with Reneau, yeah. And they turned around. And they got an agreement with his self-driving technology company in California called Brora. We've got another company out now with what's called LIDAR tech. They just got 170 million dollar funding round for self-driving cars. And this is just fantastic technology. And I've talked with the inventors before. This is the this is going to happen. But as we talked about with the Wall Street Journal, we're 90% there, and we only have 90% to go. Because part of the problem, Jim is we don't really even know what problems we're going to. We're going to have just as we talked about, people believe in these autonomous vehicles. Yeah, we're going to be taking small steps and even Elon Musk is aiming towards the small step category now and is stepping back slightly from as a tundras vehicle stuff, but-but they're coming and they're going to be I think they're going to be a godsend, especially when we're our 80s. Right. Well, Jim For the elderly, I think, and for people who may have some type of mobility issue. I think they are going to be helpful. Craig Peterson is our tech talk guru. Now we went off on this topic. He's got many more like, Can you still trust Google? So, if you want to get this information, text My name to this number 855-385-5563. So text Jim, or any questions you have 855-385-5553 Alright, standard data and text rates apply, and you'll get a lot of information, and Craig Peterson will not annoy you and not try to sell you something and not sell your name Craig thanks so much for that. We really appreciate the time. Craig Hey, thanks. Take care. Jim. Take care Jim When we return a final word. You're listening to the Jim Polito show, your safe space. --- Don't miss any episode from Craig. Visit http://CraigPeterson.com/itunes. Subscribe and give us a rating! Thanks, everyone, for listening and sharing our podcasts. We're really hitting it out of the park. This will be a great year!  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Craig is in the WGAN Morning News with Ken and Matt. This morning,  we got into a whole bunch here about some lawsuits that are in the works on your behalf against Intel. A little bit more about Huawei, but we went into some details on this whole idea of China owning and providing some 97% of precious metals. And those are now getting pulled into this entire trade battle. And some serious time talking about the wake-up call that new grads are going to get when they report for their first job after Graduation. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Related Articles: Intel Has A Problem and So Do You  Colleges Graduates Are Up For Rude Awakening When They Show Up For That New Job The U.S. Has Had Enough of Huawei and China!   --- Transcript: Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors. Airing date: 05/29/2019 Intel Vulnerability and Inevitable Lawsuits, Huawei, China and Precious Metals and College Graduates Get A Surprise. --- Craig This morning I was on with, of course, Ken and Matt and we spent some time talking about some of the issues of the day. We got into a whole bunch here about some lawsuits that are in the works on your behalf against Intel. A little bit more about Huawei, but we went into some details on this whole idea of China owning and providing some 97% of precious metals. And those are now getting pulled into this entire trade battle. And some serious time talking about a wake-up call for grads. So a lot this morning, and here we go.   Matt 738 on a Wednesday means Craig Peterson joins us as he does now Craig How are you this morning?   Craig   Hey, good morning doing well, I hear you getting chickens.   Matt No, I'm not getting chickens. But my wife says she wants chickens. I think that this is a fad. But, hey, it's possible, you never know.   Craig Well, we have chickens. I've had them for years. They're easy to take care of, and they do keep the bugs down. If you want to get rid of the ticks, which are nasty this year, then chickens can help, but Guinea hens are supposed to be the best, but they are loud and obnoxious.   Matt Yeah, no, I'm not going be doing that.   Ken Neighbors would love that, of course, a better than the rock concert and whisper.   Ken So, Mr. Peterson, who you, by the way, you can go to Craigpeterson.com any time and get his newsletter and find out all about tech stuff. Doesn't every computer have Intel in it? Everything has Intel Inside. So, are we all screwed here?   Craig Yeah, this is a really, big deal here. And I just don't get it. They seem to be getting a pass. You know, Ken if you if someone came to you, I know you deal primarily with marital laws,   Ken I do.   Craig But if someone came to you says, Hey, I bought this device to do this job. It's advertised to do it. And it's only doing it about half as well as advertised. Would they have a case? Would there be a class action to suit?   Ken Yeah   Craig It doesn't seem to be happening here. Here's what's happened. Pretty much every Intel chip made back to 2011 has a significant security flaw. The industry is putting it in 9.5 out of 10 as far as vulnerabilities go. As far as how bad this is, some Intel chips going back afar as 2007 have these flaws well.  Intel has come out and said okay, well, here's what we're going to do, and we're going to release a patch that you can apply for our chips. If you want to be safe, you have to apply this patch. And you have to turn off hyperthreading. Well, Apple, who uses Intel chips in its desktops and their laptops, has said that doing what Intel tells you to do will force you to lose about 40% of the performance on your computer. That is amazing. It's appalling. And Intel is even said Listen, you know if what we'll do, we'll do some patches for the chips going back to 2011. But 2007 forget about it, you guys must buy a new generation of chips if you have a computer with chips made during those five years, that are vulnerable to what's called ZombieLoad, which is the latest nasty piece of hardware problems from Intel. If you have chips made in those five years, Intel isn't going to do anything for you. It is amazing. Now it depends on your circumstance, you know, you may not be fully exposed to this. But this is the second time that there's been a significant flaw discovered in Intel chip security flaw in the last six months. And this one's even worse than the last one. So Intel saying, "Well, is only classifying it as a medium threat." And frankly, if you have a stack of software protecting your computer, and you have a firewall and next generation one that's inspecting everything coming in, including the JavaScript, etc., etc., then, then you might not be very vulnerable.   Craig But the people that are going to be really, really, really ticked off about this are people who run cloud companies. If you are running your stuff in the cloud, think of it like a salesforce.com, Amazon or Microsoft Azure, which have massive clouds of computers, they have to turn on all of the patches and fixes which means turn off hyperthreading, applying the microcode fixes, etc. They are instantly losing up to 40% of the capability of their server speeds. It is going to result in a huge and more likely a massive lawsuit, I'm sure. We're also going to see I would put money on this gentleman. By the end of this year, Apple will say Adios to Intel, and for their lower end laptops and maybe even some lower end desktops, they will no longer use Intel. But will switch over to a proprietary chip design that they've been using for their iPhones and iPads for a while. More and more companies will be doing that. It was just this week, Intel's most significant competitor AMD released stats on how they don't have these vulnerabilities, right.  There's always something. AMD has some new chips using processes that Intel has not even been able to get close to perfecting yet. So AMD is going to be rising dramatically, Intel's going to be falling sharply. I am not giving any investment advice. Okay. I'm not an investment advisor at all. But I'm talking about their presence in the industry. It is an industry game changer. I think in this case, that whole Intel Inside advertisement they used for so many years is going to bite them. Many people in the IT biz are angry with Intel right now.   Ken Talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us now, as he usually does on Wednesdays. And this is a Wednesday ladies, gentlemen, not a Tuesday, it's the second day of the week for us, but it is the third day of the week. Today Craig, when you graduate from college these days, let's say the class of 2019, for instance,  and you head off into the job market. And you know, for years you've had kind of certain types of prospects and certain expectations about what you have to do after you leave college and go into the quote "real world" end quote. Things are changing in that respect. Do you think that kids are going to be having to deal with a little bit more of a higher expectation as they are entering the workforce?   Craig   Yeah, this is an excellent article from the Wall Street Journal, and I put it up as well for some more information. There Wall Street Journal's call this a wake up call for grads. Entry-level jobs that are out there and of course, there are many of them are, is anything but any more. In business, and we could talk about this for a long time, but these jobs have been at the low-end jobs are saying well forget it, we're not going to pay these minimum wages, it's not worth it to us. We'll automate, right. Case in point, being a McDonald's. Many people had their first job at McDonald's. However, now what we're finding that automation and outsourcing, have taken away so many of the lower end jobs. Even when you look at a business like journalism, you used to have people combing other people's newspapers doing clipping, clipping services to get some ideas, beating the streets reading the letters to the editor. Now, that's entirely automated. So graduates now are expected to operate at a much higher level than they ever have had to perform before. And when you're looking at skills, these technical skills required in jobs, the turnover is just so fast and new skills, that your future employers are going to be expecting you to be productive almost on day one. Gone are the days where an employer will say in reality, we don't expect anything out of an employee for the first three months. And then it'll be six months before we get anything truly productive. We have employers out there right now who are looking for people to start making sales calls. For instance, on day one great example, so much. The Wall Street Journal article had quotes in here from IBM, who has 330,000 people who are saying we need people who can adapt. So, if you are graduating from college, and it's anytime soon, you are going to have to adjust and fast. Gone are the days like with my father, who at how old is he? I think he said he was 18 years old, and he started working for the Royal Bank of Canada retiring at 65, from the Royal Bank of Canada. And then he took a contract doing some third-party work for about five years at the Royal Bank of Canada. Now we're going to be switching jobs quickly. We have some industry leaders who are saying the best advice they can give to the younger kids is switch jobs and change careers be very flexible. And that is an entire shift from the generation before mine. We baby boomers even had, on average three to five careers. So things are changing guys in a massive way.   Matt We have on Craig Peterson. He joins us every Wednesday at 738 even though we have Memorial Day Monday and so this is Tuesday for us. Great, I can't pronounce the company. I keep messing it up who-who the one in China. How do you pronounce that? It comes up with bad we're not buying things from anymore.   Craig   Huawei, Huawei,   Matt Huawei, sort of a salad age.   Ken So, explain to us what that's all about. I mean, are they evil?   Ken  10:52   Is it that bad?   Craig The question is, are they evil? Some companies claim that they are and others that claim that they're not. You might remember this scare a few months back where servers and Amazon and elsewhere were found to have some hardware on the motherboard that was not part of the schematics designed by major manufacturers like Supermicro.  They said to Huawei. We want you to manufacture this product, China, and we want this done this way. Here's a schematics make it and ship it back to us. There have been a lot of scares, some of them turned out to be, pretty much, correct. There was a bit firmware put on the boards, maybe a little hardware that shouldn't have been there. And then we announced a trade ban with Huawei and of course, we're in a big fight with them. The Canadians arrested their CFO just a lot about three or four months ago for the United States, who has a warrant out on their CFO.   Craig The problem is that we getting going here is the installation of 5g hardware, made by Huawei. So there was a ban put in place where we could not make a trade with Huawei anymore. Google said, "okay, we're going to honor that, and we will not sell them Android OS anymore." Other hardware manufacturers that were licensing their technology to them, also pulled it back. And the government realized that Huawei is the number two smartphone maker in the world, now that they have passed Apple.  So, they are going to be hurting people here in the US. Now, military bases have stopped selling Huawei, all of what, almost two years ago, because of some of the questions around them. Here's where we stand right now, if you have a Huawei handset, the US Commerce Department has given them a 90-day reprieve on all of their hardware patches, and software and licenses. So, for 90 days, they can send updates, patch phones that people have purchased and can get everything they need, but when that window closes, Huawei won't be able to get any more updates from Google Android for security and other things.  Huawei is scrambling, maybe to have their little version of Android because it's open source, but it gets very complicated. Intel, Qualcomm Broadcom, they all make chips, they have all pulled out of Huawei. If you have a Huawei phone, you have 90 days to get all your stuff together get patches and maybe to a new operating system. I would recommend if you have Huawei, it might be time to consider moving to a different hardware platform, seriously. As ride with Huawei is not going to be a fun ride.   Matt We're talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us at this time every Wednesday. Craig, ordinarily I'd let you go. But I do have one question for you that I would like to get your perspective on if possible. On Drudge right now, the headline is about rare earth materials. This one isn't on your list of stuff. However, I know that you know that rare-earth materials make up most of our circuits and cell phones.  There's a lot of elements that are necessary for the production of smartphones, electronics in general, right. And virtually all of them come from China. It is not essential because there are places in America where we could do it. There's a, you know, a couple of great places in California, which would be fantastic if they allowed us to use them and we could and dig into the earth. But we don't do that, and we get them mostly from China. And now China due to the trade of dispute between the United States and China,  China is now threatening to slap either tariff or restrict our use rare-earth materials as leverage in the trade war against the United States. Since we're so dependent on it. So, thoughts on that? I mean, you have an entire country, addicted to technology and their smartphones and all these things. And you have a single country, which is a current trade adversary that controlling all of the elements necessary for the production of those things. It seems like a recipe for disaster. Don't you think?   Craig It sounds like it. The last numbers, I saw, show that China has been providing something like 97 percent.   Matt Yep   Craig Yeah of some of these rare earth materials that are used in the manufacturing these electronics. Here's how I've been looking at this because I have been following it. We've got, obviously a bit of a trade war going on. There been a lot of people for years who've been concerned about China, buying up some of these rare-earth plants around the world. We're not that worried in the electronics industry about it, because as you pointed out, we have our own,   Matt Really?   Craig Well, in the short term, there is going to be a hit, no question. But we have our own. Also, on top of that remember much of it, look at the uranium one deal, that uranium is coming from the United States. And ultimately, if we need to gain access to some of the rare-earth materials that are here in the US or, or are in the ground and mined by some of our partners worldwide, all we have to do is call China and say get lost. We don't care if you own it on paper, we are grabbing control of it. And that's what the talk in the industry is right now. That we will use eminent domain to grab back resources in our country and friendly countries to gain access to it because it is critical for both military and civilian use, like our cell phones and computers and the manufacturing of them. Also, there are alternative ways to do some of this manufacturing. And the big one. Number one is it it's so cheap to buy these rare-earth materials from China, we don't even bother recycling most of our gear. And much of the rarer stuff that we need can be recovered from existing electronics. So, that's another angle that we can use to protect ourselves.   Ken Craig Peterson, our tech guru joins us every Wednesday 730. Craig will talk to you next Wednesday. Craig Hey, take care, gentlemen.   Matt   Bye-bye. All right. Thanks a lot,   Craig So, with that, hey, I am going to be making some changes to this podcast. And I hope they're going to be what you guys want to hear. It's going to be a little bit more security focused and a little less of the interviews because I've found that, you know, often I end up talking about the same essential topics on all three different radio stations. So, I'm at the very least,  think I'll do cut it up so that we have the best of the three on the individual topics. I haven't decided yet, and we might have me going through each of the issues individually and not even include a whole bunch from these different radio stations. Anyways, as always let me know what you think text me@craigpeterson.com. I've got to throw this out. My heart goes out to everybody in the Midwest and elsewhere. Tornadoes or other natural disasters have hit them. It's been quite a week, two weeks. I blame it on the Canadians. Okay, Canadians listening. Sorry about that. But anyhow, it is the cold air that's a problem. We have so much cold air that's hitting this warm, moist air that's come up from the Gulf from the south. And that is responsible for causing these storms this year, according to the meteorologists and that makes sense, right? That's what you need for a storm, a cold front hitting a warm front. And the fact that we have such cooling going none from some of this cold air coming from the north and hitting this hot and moist Southern air. It's creating a lot of tornadoes this year. So my heart and prayer go out to everybody impacted. Take care of everybody, and we will be back on Saturday. Bye-bye. --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553  

Hosts can talk faster than they can type. Followers can listen while doing any number of other tasks. A business that comes with a podcast following of 15,000 is more valuable than one that comes with a 35,000-person email list. Podcasts are pretty hard to get wrong. They can diminish the laborious reading and writing aspects of emails and blogs by automatically offering content within the conversations with guests. Today we are talking with podcasting expert Craig Hewitt about ways that adding a podcast to your business can be beneficial both for a recent acquisition and a potential sale. Craig is the owner of Podcast Motor, a company that handles the end to end podcast production process for businesses. He's an entrepreneur in the podcast space, running two service companies and producing 35 podcasts. He believes, and we here at Quiet Light agree, that a good podcast is a great tool for building your business. Episode Highlights: How podcasts differ from blogs. Where podcasters should get started. Whether they need all the “stuff” to get up and running. Why podcasters use external services to create their episodes. Craig's solution for launching a podcast quickly and easily. Challenges hosts face in getting started and putting themselves out there. Why it's important to find the right guests and create relevant conversations for your business. How podcasting can be a fit for different types of businesses. Ways starting a podcast with a newly acquired business can help promote ownership. Why businesses need fewer followers for a podcast than for a blog. How a podcast can create repurposable content. Ways a podcast can benefit a business you are getting ready to sell. Whether podcasts are transferable. The basic technical tools you need to get started. How long you should test for success. Transcription: Joe: So Mark today's episode we're going to talk about why someone should start a podcast. Stutter, stutter, stutter, Chris edit that. Mark: Chris don't edit that just keep that in there. Joe: Yes let's keep it in because folks this is about podcasting and I was going to ask Mark a question … oh, man, did somebody put something in my coffee this morning [inaudible 00:01:34.2] in my coffee … it's a Northern thing. Do you have to be well spoken, intelligent, and an expert on the subject matter to start a podcast? Of course, the key is to have a successful podcast to build an audience and a brand and a reputation but what do you think? Do you have to have all of that to really begin? Mark: No absolutely not. And look at the risk of narrowcasting and just talking about what we're doing here which is running a podcast, I thought it would be interesting to have Craig Hewitt on the podcast here. Craig owns PodcastMotor. They do the editing for all of the Quiet Light Podcast episodes. He also has a podcast hosting service Castos.com which he's recently started. He's an entrepreneur cut of the same cloth that all of us are made of. He likes to start, he likes to buy, he likes to grow businesses and living in France actually. He's an expat living in France so a pretty cool backstory there which unfortunately we didn't have time to get into. But I wanted to talk to him about why anyone who's out there looking to buy or even grow your business and create something really unique and special might want to consider adding podcasting to the mix. And look I get it we're looking a little bit at our own experience here and how beneficial a podcast … the Quiet Light podcast has been at Quiet Light brokerage, but I asked Craig this question. Joe, I'm going to ask you and put you on the spot here again like I do on a third of these intros I try and ask you a question that we didn't prep for. If you're looking at a business for sale and it's got 30,000 e-mail subscribers, okay and that's one option and then there's another business in exact same niche but they have 15,000 podcast downloads per month, where do you put more value in your opinion? Joe: Oh without a doubt on the 15,000 because those people are listening. They're hearing your voice and they feel like they know you already. We've gone to events where people have come up and said hello and they joke and they say I feel like I know yo. I've heard Mike Jackness talk about that as well. But I think the number one thing that this podcast has done for us … and John Corcoran was a guest on the podcast as well where we talked about networking and how important it is to a business. And I think if you're a business owner, if you're launching your own products, if you're a SaaS product owner, you just look to prior examples of huge podcast success like Michael Jackness or Scott Voelker for instance. Scott has got a quarter of a million people that listen to him every month. You network and learn things from the people that you network with to grow your business and grow your brand and I think it's invaluable and it blows away the e-mail. Although the e-mail is something specific and different because you're probably trying to sell a product right then and there, I think on a podcast you're talking about the bigger picture and your brand. If you're a SaaS business owner I think it's a great idea because you can talk about what updates you've got to your product and the market in general. But I love the podcasting and obviously, I'm not very well spoken or eloquent so if we can do it anybody can. Mark: That's right. So this is a bit of an advertisement for starting a podcast and I feel confident in doing this because I know a lot of people out there probably will listen to this and won't start a podcast. You'll think about the technical challenges, you'll think about the fact that your voice has to be out there and Craig and I go over this. There is an element of fear because you're a little bit more intimate with your audience when you have a podcast. There's a third dimension that gets added, right? When you are just writing a blog post it's very two dimensional, you're words are out there, you can go back and edit it whenever you want, people don't hear your tone … your voice, they don't hear you screw up because you get to go and edit it. And of course you can edit a podcast but there's still … it's still you, a little bit more real and raw. So I know a lot of people are going to listen to this and not start podcast but I'm going to make a pitch to just say look if you're trying to build something unique, if you're trying to build something valuable, if you're trying to grow your existing business with the [inaudible 00:05:24.7] towards selling it down the road, there is some value to starting up a podcast which is going to make it different if you are able to grow a good sizable audience. And I think in the 11 years we've done Quiet Light Brokerage I can't think of a single business that we have sold that actually came with a podcast attached to it. Joe: I don't think I've ever had one. And as far as return on investment I would think that the podcast and the cost associated with it, the ROI would be huge and probably not measurable; an invaluable. But one other thing look this is we've got Craig from the podcast company that manages ours but we've talked to lots of people like Taz from the Amazon Entrepreneur. He launched his podcast, does two a week and he does it all himself. So it's possible to do it for very little or nothing at all if that's … if it's a budgetary problem and you still want to get started. Mark: All right let's hear it directly from somebody who's been in the podcasting niche for a long time. He knows all … a ton of what he's talking about, Craig Hewitt. Let's get to it and cover this topic and I'll hopefully inspire maybe one or two of you guys out there to go ahead and start a podcast with your business. Mark: Hello Craig welcome to the Quiet Light podcast. Thank you so much for agreeing to come on. Craig: Hey Mark thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Mark: All right you and I know each other from a ways back at Rhodium; do you remember the … I don't remember when we met each other at Rhodium, do you? Craig: Gosh yeah. Like I'm optimistic with my time projections these days I want to say it's three years but it might be four years ago. It will be four years in April probably yeah. Mark: All right my wife does this thing I call it Megan math where she'll … something would be 2 months away and she'll somehow compress that down to like just two weeks away. Craig: Yeah [inaudible 00:07:06.4] great exactly. Mark: Again full disclosure and I'm sure I probably said this in the intro. We always do the intros after … we record the intros after we record the interviews themselves but I'm sure I will say this just out of full disclosure I do pay you professionally. You have been doing the editing … probably it's your group that has been doing the editing for the Quiet Light podcast so thank you for that. Craig: No it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure, yup. Mark: Awesome, all right so we're going to talk about podcasting today and whether or not somebody should consider adding it to a business. And I obviously with Quiet Light I want to focus a little bit on does it make sense to add on to an acquisition like if you buy a business, does it make sense to add that on? What's involved in starting up a podcast? What are the impacts that you might see? And I also want to … if there's time allowing probably talk about the personalized aspect of podcasts and how that's going to affect the buying and selling of businesses as well. We can all just talk a little bit about SaaS. I know you have some SaaS work as well which could be an interesting thing to get into as well. But let's start off real quick with your background and your history and kind of how you came into doing what you're doing. Craig: Yeah so we know each other through kind of why my first successful online business and really the way I escaped the rat race of the professional kind of corporate world which is called PodcastMotor. So PodcastMotor is a product tied service that does podcast editing and production, really kind of like end to end everything from Mark records an episode, sticks it in Dropbox and an episode shows up in iTunes a week later. We really try to take care of every aspect of that whole process for our customers. And that business has been going since … it just turned four this year so a couple of months ago. So we've been doing it a long time in the podcasting world. And we have about 35 customers that we service on a regular basis. So weekly or every other week that they have a podcast come out. About two years ago I acquired a WordPress plugin also in the podcasting space called seriously simple podcasting. And on top of that, we built a podcast hosting platform that we now call Castos. So I run two different businesses in the podcasting space and it all happened just by chance. To be honest I started a podcast … jeez, four and a half years ago I guess and saw it really quickly like a lot of people that podcasting is really difficult. There's a lot of nuts and bolts and technical stuff and gear and all this junk that you need to start a podcast as opposed to like a blog where you just get a WordPress site and a keyboard or your iPhone and you could start blogging as good as anybody else. Podcasting there's a technique and gear and equipment and all this stuff that you have to have to be decent. And then to be really good is a whole other level. So we started offering the PodcastMotor service based on me seeing that pain I guess. Mark: Yeah and I don't want to scare people right at the gate but let's get into that kind of a scary different world of podcasting because it is a little bit different. Let's start with just the hosting side and you talk about Castos your podcast hosting service. Isn't it enough to just have a regular website? I mean I think one of the things that was confusing to me with podcasting when we got into it before we started the Quiet Light podcast was well why do I need all this stuff? Why do I need Libsyn? Why do I need all these other things? Why are we … why do podcasters use these extra services? And what are some of things that if somebody is thinking about podcasting what do they need to consider from a technological standpoint outside of the equipment just from the webhosting setup, the technical setup? Craig: Yeah so the logic around having a dedicated media hosting platform with you know hear, Libsyn, and SoundCloud, and Castos or whatever, the idea there is so you have a hopefully a very popular podcast and you have thousands of people downloading your podcast every Tuesday morning when it comes out right? Mark: Just like the Quiet Light podcast, thousands and— Craig: Yeah okay so thousands of people listening to your podcast and downloading this 60, 80 megabyte file every Tuesday morning. If you're a business like all of your customers are and a lot of ours the last thing you want is this enormous strain on your web server on Tuesday morning when customers are coming to your site and trying to buy your stuff or schedule a meeting or something like that because both the streaming and download of the podcast will be bad. And your website will at least be very slow if not crash. So you separate the resource strain from podcasting and serving up your website and have a dedicated hosting platform just for those audio files and let your website run on you know WP engine or flywheel or wherever it's running so that the two aren't using the same resource. That's kind of the logic around why you needed a dedicated media hosting platform. It's just like you don't put your video files under use Wistia or something like that. It's the same kind of idea. Mark: All right exactly. Okay so there's this whole other technological world with podcasting and then there's also the equipment side of it. And then there's the editing side of podcasting as well. Craig: Yeah. Mark: And then there's the distribution to the different podcast networks. And we're kind of jumping on the deep end or I guess we'll swim to the shallow end because I'm going to talk about listing the praises of podcasting here in a little bit. And specifically as kind of a leading tease here for anyone listening why I think it's a really, really good idea for any acquisition that you do, any business that you're looking at to potentially acquire to consider adding a podcast and potentially even on the sell side as well. But let's talk about the setup here a little bit as well and the equipment. Now I've got as you can probably see from the video that you can see and we do these podcast over video is just a little more personal. Craig: Yeah. Mark: I got the road podcaster and I got like three other mics back there as well. [inaudible 00:12:52.1] and everything else. And you, you got I see a pop screen of yours, there's pop screens, there's mics, there's the Vulcan power stuff, it's a whole different world, isn't it? Craig: Yeah I mean so it is totally a different world and this is the bad scary thing about podcasting is that there's more opinions and resources out there than are necessary honestly. And there's so much information that so many people get scared and they go and read five or six different articles just about the best podcasting mic and what web … what podcast hosting platform to use and there's everyone has an opinion about that and you know how long should you're episodes be and blah, blah, blah. Do you need a pop filter? Do you need a boom mount? Do you need all this stuff and so actually we created a resource to kind of counteract this and we call it launch in a week. And the idea is we're going to give you like one or two options not like all these million things out there that all these other resources give you is like they create the analysis or paralysis by analysis. So we … so castos.com/launch takes you to launch in a week and we give you like in a week seven day, seven e-mails and videos exactly what you need to launch a podcast to dispel a lot of that over information and misinformation that's out there a little bit. Like microphones I only recommend two microphones you know it's like this one that I'm using Audio Technica ATR2100 and another one is called the Shure SM7B. That's a really really really good mic. This one is $65 that one is about $500. And so it's like kind of whatever you feel like you want or need. We try to do a lot of that like you can do this or this and don't overthink any of it because you can get in way over your head. And the unfortunate thing is a lot of people never get started because they just think so much about all this stuff. Mark: All right let's talk about that point because I think this is the biggest obstacle to podcasting right? With writing a blog you can put it out there and you can get it up and going. Everybody knows how to write something even if it's not very good but there doesn't seem to be as much of a barrier to getting started. Maybe it's because of the technical challenge but I think there's also a mental challenge of getting out there. And I know for a podcast standpoint we toss around the idea forever. I actually had a false start at starting the Quiet Light podcast and I think I recorded three episodes, launched two, and then stopped because I didn't record enough episodes. I think one of the challenges people have is the idea of being out there and trying to get this audio presentation perfect from the get go. But like you said just get out there and start. You have to actually start doing it. Craig: Yeah I mean I think part of it is with writing you can write a blog post and save it come back two days later and edit it and tweak it and you haven't even be published by someone else on your team if you want maybe it's your name it's not associated with it. But like right now you and I are seeing and talking to each other and like covering a lot of the senses all at one time. And when you're podcasting your literally in someone's ear for 45 minutes every week or whatever it is. So I think it's just the senses that you're covering and the emotional connection you crave with somebody which is why it's so great if you can do it and get it right. But it's also why it's so scary to just get started and overcome some of this fear of putting yourself out there. You know I think about … I've done a little bit of video work and it's a lot harder because then you have to get the voice and the physical kind of presentation right the first time and there's no editing. You can't just edit out a flub in a video it looks horrible. And so I think in a way if you're already doing video podcasting is so easy because you can just cut it up a million ways from Sunday and it's no big deal. But it is so much harder than writing. Mark: Yeah and I think one of the other obstacles that we run into is written content can be repurposed in so many ways right? Craig: Yeah. Mark: And there's different focuses that we can really measure written content from an SEO standpoint. So you can definitely say hey I'm going to optimize for this keyword. And I know I'm going to get this keyword density out there and then I can actually turn this into a downloadable white paper. And I can go out and I can maybe use the same sort of topic and write you know 10 different guest posts and get involvings. So there's that other benefit as well but you actually lead into one of the benefits and maybe this way you could [inaudible 00:17:18.0] to segue into that. And probably the number one reason that we started the Quiet Light podcast and the number one benefit that we've received from it is that personal touch that having a podcast creates. I'll tell you a funny story. You'll actually like this because you listen to our podcast by default from doing some editing. Craig: Of course. Mark: And I know you're not doing all the editing yourself but- Craig: No I do listen to the show though, yeah. Mark: Okay well here we go … thank you for that. That makes me feel better. So obviously Joe and I host the podcast and we were at Brand Builder's Summit. And somebody came up to our table at Brand Builder's Summit and said “hey it's Joe here” I'm like “ah no Joe is [inaudible 00:17:54.7] right now” and they go “oh man I really wanted to meet Joe, I absolutely love his podcast” I'm thinking “wow that's great you love Joe's podcast, I'm so glad that you love Joe's podcast” and he goes “yeah I know I was really hoping to meet Joe”. And Walker was staying right next to me and goes “no this is Mark over here he also does the podcast” he goes “ah is Joe going to be back soon?” I'm like “yeah Joe will be back soon”. Craig: That's wonderful, that's wonderful. Mark: But you know one of the things that this podcast has been able to do is it gets us in people's cars. It gets us in people's ears for a certain amount of time and it really breaks down some of that barrier that I think can happen when you're writing. Like you said it's very two dimensional. Craig: Oh yeah. Mark: It's the words on a page, you don't have the voice of the person in your head. This is … it's not as full-on as video but it's a little more personal. And I'm sure you've seen that a ton with what you're doing because I know you work mainly with businesses right? Craig: Oh yeah I mean for PodcastMotor all of our customers are businesses like yourselves. You know like small, medium size business and entrepreneurs, startups. And I think that the medium of podcasting is unique in two ways. One like we're having right now it's a conversation. It's not you on a video and your YouTube channel talking and everyone else is listening. That's not so helpful. And it's not so helpful in a very particular way when it comes to businesses and that is rapport building and networking. And this is like the secret sauce I think when it comes to like B2B podcasting is you have this podcast to reach a broader audience of buyers and sellers … of buyers maybe but really probably to get sellers in the door right? And so like for PodcastMotor we have a podcast. If we're going to go kind of strategically and think about who we're having on the podcast it's thought leaders in the podcasting like B2B podcasting space. So they can say wow you know I had this podcast with Craig last week, we talked for like an hour and he really knows his stuff. Dean my friend over here who runs a coaching business who wants to start a podcast should really talk to Craig because he really knows what he's doing. He can help him be successful. Like that really like micro networking opportunity that you have in interviewing a thought leader in your space on a podcast is not something you can measure by like download statistics or something like that. But for a lot of people should be the reason they do a podcast. It's not your listeners that you do the show for it selfishly a little bit is yourself and the networking ability that the podcasting medium allows for. Mark: Yeah I would agree 100%. And this is one of the main ancillary benefits that we received from the Quiet Light podcast. One of the biggest benefits is that it just keeps us in touch with people in a very personal way. And in some ways it's a little bit weird when people do come up to you and [inaudible 00:20:44.9]. Craig: Yeah. Mark: But I shouldn't listen to my voice that's weird but kind of cool at the same time. But that secondary benefit of that micro networking that you talk about I know we've had this happen actually recently we had Ezra Firestone on the podcast. And sure enough I had opened up my e-mail the other day and there's an e-mail from Ezra promoting his podcast episode with Joe, Joe's podcast. And I mean just think about that, I mean he's just one of the biggest Internet marketers out there right now promoting this one episode. And how many extra people are going to be exposed to the business, to us in general just because of that one episode. So this is definitely a benefit and might not be my number one goal but it's definitely one of those goals of the podcast is to be out there spreading our network for referrals. I think any referral based business that's out there this is a fantastic medium and probably a must that you should do is having some sort of a podcast if for nothing else to be able to bring in that network and grow that small network. Craig: So just to pile on there a little bit for folks who might be a little bit outside of the agency or consulting world so like starting from really high dollar and down to more transactional type businesses the other thing I think that podcasting does is it allows you to showcase publicly your knowledge and expertise. So if somebody sees you on another person's podcast they're going to say “wow Mark really knows what he's talking about when it comes to buying and selling businesses”. It automatically boosts your credibility with that person if they're looking to do this thing down the road. Yeah, I think that's massive. It's kind of like your little online CV that you build along with your social media and YouTube and all this kind of stuff but podcasting should be a part of that for a lot of people. Mark: Well and that actually leads to my next question really well and that is what do you think about podcasting on the more just B2C side as somebody selling baby shoes online. Craig: Yeah. Mark: I mean how can podcasting fit into that fold … with that type of business? Craig: Yeah I mean there's really two … in my mind there's two ways to go and admittedly this is a bit outside of the wheel house of what we do at PodcastMotor but there's really two kind of schools of thought or areas that you would run into there. One is just hobbyists, right? And so like you're a hobbyist you like the Pittsburgh Penguins, you want to have a podcast about that. That's just a hobby and that's great but it also does the thing about like building your social proof in the world. And so you want to go do something with that later on. You have this bank of 200 episodes that you want to do something with. If you're thinking about like a B2C area I think that you can either provide useful content to … you have a show about being a parent, provide useful content to other parents about how to be a good parent, organic parenting and all this kind of stuff. Or you have what's called like sponsored content and this is where a company would pay a creative agency like I believe it's Pacific Media is the real big one in this to create a show like Serial. So Serial is the Gimlet Media podcast from a few years ago. They would create a podcast like that and it would just be you know this podcast is brought to you by Huggies Diapers or something like that. And it's this totally awesome show about parenting and motherhood or whatever but it's just sponsored by this B2C company. And you see more and more sponsored content out there these days where a business is saying look this is a massive branding opportunity for us. We're going to create this piece of content that we know our audience will love. It probably doesn't have a lot of like direct business impact, people are not going to go buy our diapers because of this podcast but they're going to know our name really well because every week the show they love the most has our name all over it. Mark: Yeah that makes complete sense. I also think of the episode we did with Mike Jackness from colorit.com and the show is on email marketing. So it had nothing to do with podcasting but we were talking about how often he was sending emails. They were sending emails to their subscribers every single day but the vast majority of what they're sending is ridiculously useful content that is not selling their clients in any way, their customers in any way. And the result of this is that people end up looking forward to communications from them. So I can imagine that impact as well if you have a B2C company and you're in this hobby, this niche, or you really have a very unified sort of product that you're selling. Or it can even be a type of service as well. You're growing an audience that is kind of a group of raving fans for what you're doing. And you're offering so much value that when you do offer that sale when you do go out there and promote something you have this group out there that's just super excited to hear from you. And that's a nice problem to have, right? Craig: Yup. Mark: Yeah all right let's talk a little bit about this from an acquisition standpoint. Obviously, we should bring this back into this and I want to talk about from an acquisition standpoint and also selling and we'll end with the selling question because I think there is a pretty significant question there. But on the acquisition side the one struggle I can see … I did an acquisition recently my guess and that's almost two years ago now and – Craig: It's not funny, math coming back in there. Mark: Yeah [inaudible 00:25:57.8] absolutely, time flies too. And you and I have actually talked about the starting up a podcast on this acquisition. It's a little bit weird though you know like Quiet Light Brokerage has started … I own, I've kind of grown with it so I feel like I own it. It is a little bit weird to start a podcast with something that you don't own. But I wonder if there is almost a sense of growing ownership if you start building something on top of that like a podcast with an acquisition. Craig: Hmm. Mark: Kind of an open ended thought but I don't know if you've had any experience with that or any thoughts on that. Craig: Yeah I mean I think that … so I had not run into this personally like with some of our customers having acquired businesses that they didn't want to start a podcast around. But having acquired several businesses the one thing that I think is really important and often times really difficult is for an acquirer to really know the business model and the types of people that kind of live and breathe this product or space that you're in. And there is nothing better than to say I want to go interview the 50 best people in Instagram for kids whatever … whatever niche it is you know than a podcast. Mark: Instagram for kids sounds like it should have some predatory laws about it I'm just saying. Craig: Yeah sure whatever it is right … it's underwater basket weaving. I mean you interview the 50 best people on underwater basket weaving. You're going to know basically everything there is to know about the influencers and the things that really matter to people in that business. So for me it's like someone who is always looking to acquire businesses and kind of dabbling as like a serial entrepreneur if I was going to get into a business I didn't know a lot about lot about starting a blog or really continuing a blog would be really daunting because I … there's a lot of opportunity to waste a bunch of time and money there. You can write a bunch of articles about things people don't care about but it's really hard to have a podcast that's bad if you will in a space you don't know a lot about because you just go interview people and ask them interesting questions. And what they have to say is the content it's not what you have to say, it's what the people you have coming on the show. So I'd say for people looking to … who have acquired a business that might be a little out of their wheel house just start a podcast, interview the thought leaders in that space and you have like the nexus of all the really interesting content for your audience. And you as the new owner know exactly what's so important to everybody in that space. Mark: Yeah and I'm going to compare this actually to the blogging world because I went from the blogging world pretty heavily into the podcasting world almost exclusively now. Libby has been writing blog posts on every one of our podcast episodes so we can keep up with some blog content. But in the blogging world, you would have to sit down. You would have to come up with your own idea for a blog topic. You would have to research that topic. And then you would have to write on that topic. And the way blogs are going you have to write more and more and more. I was writing 1,500 to 2,500 word blog posts. I was doing four of those per month plus four outside of Quiet Light blog posts per month. So I was doing eight blog posts on average 2,000 words a piece. And then best practices after you publish that blog post you should go out and you should do outreach. So you should reach out to the influencers and say hey take a look at this and how easy is it for an influencer to ignore your e-mail or give it a cursory look. I'd flip this around for this I'm doing my research right now on this interview with you I'm reaching out to you and you're an influencer on the podcasting world so I already got my influencer locked in as well. We're getting great content at the same time. It kind of brings all of this into one hopefully easily digestible format. So that's a huge benefit I think as well. And when you're looking at getting into a space like you said trying to network and get to know the influencers in a space that you don't know is one of the biggest challenges. And having a podcast I'll tell you what when I ask people to be on the podcast I'd get one of two reactions. One is no I'm super shy I don't want to do it. And two is yeah that sounds great because who doesn't want to be in front of a big audience and get heard. People like to be on podcasts. They'd like to think that they're important enough to be interviewed. Craig: They want to take their Joe Rogan. Mark: Exactly even though … you know I'm not going to tell them that there's like three people that listen to the Quiet Light podcast but they're still excited. Craig: So you brought up two things I really want to touch on quickly. One is three people listening to the Quiet Light podcast, one is not true right? But in a B2B sense and even a B2C sense in your niche, the number of people listening to your show doesn't matter at all. So if you have a hundred people listening to your podcast that is great. Those are a hundred really passionate people about what you have to say. As opposed to a hundred people reading a blog post that has almost no impact whatever. You need tens of thousands of people reading a blog post for it to really be impactful in the in the greater sense. But 100 people in your niche listening about your podcast is fantastic. So they're really high intent people for whatever your business purpose is. The other thing is talking about repurposing content. I think podcasting has the ability to repurpose content really easily right? We're doing audio, we're doing video, it will be created in to show notes for a blog post, you have it transcribed, you can syndicate the video to YouTube. Like you can do all of these things with one … what we're going to talk for 45 minutes today piece of investment and your time and you have a team or someone do all of the extra work to produce all that for you and you have two or three or four pieces of content you can syndicate to everywhere that people consume this media. As opposed to writing a blog post it can ever only ever be in your blog. You can't go create a podcast out of a blog [inaudible 00:31:29.4] could but that's just kind of silly. Mark: Right and you're absolutely right as far as the repurposing content. Again if people haven't checked out in a quick plug in the Quiet Light brokerage blog, I think it was last fall we brought on [inaudible 00:31:41.3] and she listens to every one of these podcasts. Hi, Libby thanks for all the work you're doing. And she's putting together awesome blog posts like I've been reading these myself and she's taking the information that we're picking up in the podcasts and then she's going out and supplementing it with outside research as well by putting together a full on blog post with quotes from the blog post as well but bringing out a slightly different narrative than what we cover in this this conversation. It's a great way to be able to repurpose this content and give it just a little extra layer and a little extra dimension. And so that is one way to repurpose the content. And again I can't emphasize this enough the amount of time it takes to do a podcast significantly less time than it takes to do the blogging side. Let's address the question of a podcast in a business that you hope to sell someday. And I think this is a question that is a little bit more difficult to answer here because we talk a lot … let me ask you this have you seen the Princess Bride? Craig: Yeah of course. I have an eight year old daughter, yup. Mark: Well I always like to say that getting a business prepared to sell is you have to follow the Dread Pirate Roberts rule right? You don't want to be actual Dread Pirate Roberts. It's the name that counts right? That's the quote from the movie; it's the name that counts. The actual Dread Pirate Roberts has been retired and living like a king in Patagonia. That's what we want to be able to do. We want to pass on the name of our business. We don't want to actually have to be tied to the business. Well, we just talked about podcasting, it's being in somebodies ear and being that personality in somebodies ear. And so from a standpoint of selling maybe, it's a little bit of a disadvantage on that when you go to sell. But I don't think it has to be a disadvantage but I'm going to put you in the uncomfortable spot here and see first have you thought about this much and what are your thoughts on it? Craig: Yeah so I guess two things; one, I know that podcast themselves have definitely been bought and sold more and more right? We're recording this in beginning of 2019, you hear more and more about people selling and buying podcast especially in a space. It's like buying and selling a blog in a space. If you're a business and you acquired this blog redirect it and then pour your content into your domain and you already have this audience that's seeing your brand. The same can be said for podcasting so people want to come in and buy a podcast in a space because it has a built in audience. I think it's a really good kind of audience and customer acquisition strategy for a business that already kind of exists and has their own podcast to look at selling the business and transferring the podcast to the new owner. I think that a lot of the standard knowledge and business process transfer things apply there. Like if you have a process around Mark how you identify the guests that you want to have and how you invite them and you send them a [inaudible 00:34:23.3] like an as a zoom thing in it and you have an outline you send them three days before and all this kind of stuff and you have a team behind it to edit and produce the podcast. Then someone buying your business that has a podcast in it is not nearly as daunting as just saying like I wing it every week. And the new owner is saying holy crap I can't imagine doing that. So I think that … I mean the truth is a podcast is not really hard. Like once you do a couple of them it's not really that hard. So giving the buyer of the business that would acquire this asset but kind of responsibility of a podcast, give them the tools to be successful and I think it's definitely a net win. The worst thing I can see though is you have a podcast and you have an audience and people that really enjoy and want to connect with you through the podcast and the acquirer comes in and drops the ball, obviously, a big negative. So if people have podcasts and they're going to be selling their business or business with podcasts I would definitely make sure like the rest of the business like you said with the Dread Pirate Roberts thing it's like make sure that it's totally transferable and that the person's going to be successful. That intimate nature of the podcast I think can transfer from one person to another pretty easily. You know the new person is going to have some level of domain expertise and you'll love a different spin on the podcast and that's cool. Yeah, I think it's definitely a net win as long as the person is set up to be successful. Mark: Yeah and I would agree. And the other thing I would point to is that when talking about an exit strategy when looking at what you need to do to prepare a business for sale there's going to be this push and this pull on various factors of the business. And when you're looking at this, when you're looking at the business holistically it's always going to be better for you to build a strong, loyal, happy, faithful audience right? Craig: Yeah. Mark: That's way, way more valuable than anything else. And is there maybe a little bit of a demerit when it comes to having something like a podcast which may be tied to your voice. Yeah, okay there's … I think just being honest yeah I think there's going to be a little bit of concern about the transferability. But that can be addressed right? That can be addressed pretty easily. You can agree to do the podcast and co-host with the new owner for six months and have a very warm hand off that way. That would be a very natural way to do it. I think the benefits that a podcast adds in building an audience, let's think about this real quick here what is the value of an online business when we actually look at it and when we do all the tax returns and everything else on it we allocate most of the purchase price towards goodwill. The sort of nebulous who knows what it is that makes this business successful. Successful and having a podcast is really a big part of building that good will. So if you take the time and build a lot of good will through a podcast and that's a good source and driving avenue for customer acquisition within your business that's going to be a net plus in the grand scheme of the things. So I think people that are out there thinking about podcasting thinking well I don't want to start that because it's going to hurt the transferability of the business. I wouldn't necessarily say that. I wouldn't necessarily say don't do in fact I'll probably say the opposite especially if you have enough time. If you're looking at a year, two or three years before selling and you're able to build that audience I think it actually makes more sense because it's really hard to replicate that. Craig: Yeah the value you can get in those two years is so much more than the potential drawback of the new owner flubbing it and your audience being upset which is basically the worst thing that could happen right? Mark: You're totally biased in this but I'm going to ask you this question right now. If I could give you a business with 30,000 e-mail subscribers or a business with 15,000 podcast listeners what would you take? Craig: Yeah I mean the podcast listeners are going to engage with your message a lot more. You probably also would get all of them on an email list so you're already halfway there to having both. I mean you're literally … and we say it all the time, you're literally in someone's ear creating like some kind of like different neural connection with those people. I get your e-mail; I read your e-mails fine. I hear you on the podcast; I hear you talking about your kids and the Dread Pirate Roberts and all these kind of stuff that like has a different level of meaning. And it is that personal stuff that in a situation where you're going to be transferring it to a new owner is a little different. But for the time that you have the business or you're looking in acquiring a business that has a podcast it is a huge benefit. Because a lot of people are scared, right? You didn't start the podcast for some period of time probably because you're like … I don't know this is an onerous task I don't know if I'm up for it right? I mean maybe I did sure like I didn't start a podcast because I was like I'm not going to talk into a microphone and then put it out on the Internet for anyone who wants to hear it to hear because I sound like an idiot right? Like a lot of people don't like the sound of their voice and you just have to get over that stuff because the net is such a huge win. Mark: Yeah. Craig: Think about like you're at a conference now and like you know Mark I heard you on the podcast right? Mark: Right well it was that conference question that actually led us to do the podcast because we've been going to so many conferences and conferences are expensive. You have to fly out there for sponsoring and now that the sponsorship fees are ridiculously high and … but the benefit of being there in front of somebody and having those little jokes here and there or just playing… we'll play it a game. Well, we've done golf, we've done jenga, we've done darts … or something like darts it was actually sharp objects that we're throwing out our booth but that'd be dangerous they wouldn't let us do that. But that actual physical presence being there it really relaxed people so much more and allowed us to connect on more of a one on one basis. And that's why we started the podcast and sure enough, I think that happened. Given that choice between e-mail list and podcast, I would take the podcast audience as well. I think you can mobilize a podcast audience much faster. I think they're more engaged. I think they're more likely to quite literally listen to you but be more attentive to what you're saying. I think there's … that's just different [inaudible 00:40:07.3]. Craig: Yeah I would say like that one look at guys like you know Gary Vaynerchuk right or Pat Flynn or whoever that you look up to in the business and marketing world they all have podcasts right? So like that says something I think. The other thing is the volume of information that we are relaying in this episode is massive. Like … you know we transcribe episodes for customers a podcast and a typical you know 45 minute conversation is about 15 pages in a Google doc. Mark: Wow. Craig: So you're like how are you going to relay 15 pages of content to anybody ever? That's impossible, right? No one is ever going to read that blog post or email but they'll listen to that podcast every week. Mark: Yeah absolutely, in fact, I have our director of content marketing now Chris Moore who also listens to the podcast, hey Chris how are you doing? He's been going back through every one of our podcasts and pulling up quotes. And he was telling me just earlier this week about how much volume is there that we put together in what feels like a very short amount of time of doing this podcast. It is a ton of information. Craig: Something … a bit of a carrot I think for both the buy and sell side you know of your audience is you can bet your bottom that Google will be indexing audio very soon. Mark: That's a really nice tease. Craig: Oh you know the SEO impact of podcasting ya-da-da-da-da, you're going to create like show notes that are like 700 words or whatever for an hour long conversation. 100% guarantee that there will be an audio tab in Google whatever soon in the next couple of years. Mark: Yeah all right so let's go to this. We're almost up with our time I want to end up with what does somebody need at a bare minimum if they want to test a podcast for their business? How long … we don't have to get in the details of the equipment like we don't … I mean you want to give a couple of recommendations there and what are the basic things they should think about if they want to get and test it out for say two or three months and how long should they test it? Craig: Yeah so I think that the basics you need a microphone. I mentioned the two microphones before. If you really just want to test use the Apple ear buds they're actually quite good. Mark: They are actually. Yes, I'll second that actually, yeah. Craig: Get in a quiet place; don't have your kids running around or the train going by with the window open or something like that. Do some kind of environmental safety measures for the sound quality. You need something to record and edit the audio with. A tool that does both of those is called Audacity. It's open sourced and free in cross-platform so Windows or Mac. So you can record and edit with Audacity. Something to record with select a microphone or the Apple ear buds perfectly good and then you probably want something to store the files on so like a podcast hosting platform like a Castos or Libsyn, or SoundCloud and then you need to create what's called an RSS feed. And that is the thing that places like iTunes and Stitcher and Spotify read. And then share information about your podcast like as a whole like the title and description and image and all likely stuff and about each episode. That's kind of how podcasting works is you submit this RSS feed to these directories and the directories read the meta information about your show as well as information about each episode as it's published. So that's kind of a 20,000 foot view of podcasting. How many episodes? I think if you can't come up with 20 good guest interview or topics to cover or something like that then you have a couple of problems. But you probably shouldn't get into content generally but you really, really, really need to think about at least having a couple of episodes to launch with. Two, three, four something like that and but you really should have a general idea of what the first 20 episodes is going to look like. Mark: Yeah and I recommend actually recording probably about two months' worth just to start. If you're running a business as well I know like the recent first … my first go with Quiet Light podcast didn't really happen as I recorded three episodes and then I got busy and three weeks goes by really, really fast. And we do this here at Quiet Light we will get like a nice buffer of about two months but next you know we're staring down an empty set again of episodes. So get a nice buffer set up for that first trial and see what happens. It's a great medium and I'm going to do a plug for you just like you don't have to come across self-promotion. Honestly, your service makes this whole thing dead simple. Like I don't think about it at all, I don't think about what I'm doing. The only thing I thought about was what sort of graphic are we going to use for the podcast. Outside of that everything was set up, everything was done, the introduction was done. It makes it really, really simple. And so if you are looking to go this direction don't add a bunch more to your plate. Go out talk to PodcastMotor I recommend your guys service highly enough. Craig: Cool. Thanks so much that's great to hear. Mark: Hey thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. If you guys have questions feel free to reach out to Craig@podcastmotor. We'll put contact information in the show notes and yeah if you have any other questions or suggestions for podcast episodes send me an email mark@quietlightbrokerage.com. Thanks, Craig. Craig: Thanks, Mark. Links and Resources: Podcast Motor Castos Contact Podcast Motor

Randall Jacobs, Co-Founder of THESIS Bike drops in to talk about the development process and vision for the OB1 bicycle. THESIS Bike Online THESIS OB1 Specifications CRAIG: All right. Hello everyone. Today we've got Randall Jacobs from THESIS Bike here, live in person. We're going to talk to him about the THESIS Bike Company and what his inspiration was. We actually just got back from a sample ride here in Marin county riding the new OB1 bike and I'm really excited to introduce everybody to Randall. So thanks for joining us.   RANDALL: Thanks for having me.   CRAIG: I always like to start by finding out a little bit about your background as a rider. Did you start more on the mountain bike side or on the road side?   RANDALL: So I started racing mountain bikes as an undergraduate. I was playing football and broke my foot. Cycling was the first thing I could do and I took to the bicycle on the mountain bike side and did the collegiate series, found that I was reasonably good at it and stuck with it. It's become a real lifestyle ever since.   CRAIG: And did that lead you into other elements of the sport?   RANDALL: I went on to move overseas for a period and rode on and off. When I was 25, I had a life event where my father became sick. I was looking at where he was. He had a brain tumor at the time, so pretty bad prognosis. I said, what are the things I'd like to have accomplished in his position? Being a pro athlete was one of those things. So I started training full time. I was lucky to win a couple of national championships as an amateur shortly after he passed and then spent the subsequent couple of years living out of my Honda Element traveling around the country with a fleet of bicycles that was worth probably 5X what the car was worth.   CRAIG: So you're racing on the national mountain bike scene at that point?   RANDALL: Yeah. I was, you could say, pack fodder on the US Cup circuit, and then I'd have a few good results in the local circuits.   CRAIG: What a great journey. Spending that much time doing it. I think it's something that a lot of people aspire to just following their dreams of bike racing and going out there and doing it and it's certainly not without its sacrifices.   RANDALL: It's certainly is.  I was fortunate in my case in that I had started a career in international trade and supply chain architecture where I could work remotely anywhere in the world. So in that regard it didn't cost too much, but you definitely put certain other things on hold being on the road all the time.   CRAIG: So when you hung up your racing cleats, what was next for you professionally?   RANDALL: From there I started a product development company where we were working with the same set of Chinese manufacturers that I had cultivated during my period running product and market development for the Chinese trading and manufacturing company. I then sold that company to one of our partners and went to work for Specialized in 2013. At Specialized, the Diverge project was in its early days. I actually ended up naming that bike and was the product developer for the project, so doing all the bike builds and negotiating all the deals with the vendors and so on, and coordinating the product and supply chain sides.   CRAIG: So you were helping sort of spec out the supply chain and the specifications for the original Diverge bike while you were there?   RANDALL: Correct. And doing a lot of the field testing and component compatibility testing to make sure everything was fully dialed, which is where you see my obsessive attention to detail come in.   CRAIG: The Diverge bike, it was really one of the first production, quote unquote gravel bikes to hit the market from a big manufacturers that right?   RANDALL: For sure. The first bike that was called a gravel bike. I mean, there had been people riding such bikes for quite some time. When that bike came out, it was the early days of drop bar disc brakes, which really opened up a lot not just for braking power and modulation, but also for tire clearance. That was a key enabling technology that allows you to have the sort of bikes we have today, the other one being tubeless tires. And in today's world, tubeless tires with really wide rims allows you to have a bicycle, a drop bar bike, that is fast like a road bike on the road and as capable or more so than what a mountain bike would have been not too long ago.   CRAIG: Gotcha. So the Diverge, was it the end all be all?  Was it everything you wanted to make in a gravel bike?   RANDALL: No. Of course, there are constraints on what we were able to do at that time for a variety of reasons. When you work for a big company, there's always going to be product decisions that are more due to a cost structure or needing to support a certain margin and marketing story. So with the OB1 it was really something I had been incubating for quite some time and it's my opportunity to take an unfettered approach to product from the ground up. I've had to compromise on nothing: not tire clearance, not stick-on or bolt-on magic elastomers attached to the frame, nothing. I just went ground up with pure evidenced-based curation of the components and the setup.   CRAIG: Interesting. So we're here to talk about your new company that you cofounded, THESIS Bike, and you just referenced your first model, the OB1. Some of the motivation has already come out in the conversation about why you wanted to start this company, but why now? What are the trends you're seeing? You're doing some unique stuff at THESIS that we'll get into as far as the bike itself and the business model, but why now and why are you guys the people to do it?   RANDALL: If you look at what we're doing, the primary innovation here is this business model. But the product itself is really cool and one I've been thinking about for awhile, so let's start with the product itself. So you saw bikes like the Open UP come online, which really brought an almost monster cross capability in a form factor that is more akin to an endurance road bike that's slacked out a little bit.   We wanted to go a step further. So if you look, we don't do a frame set. We do a complete bike for the cost of a frameset from the companies were competing with, and that's enabled by the business model innovation.   On the product side of things, [we have] a flat top handle bar with a shallow drop and a 10 degree flare so you’re narrow and relatively aero on the hoods, but in the drops you have that additional control which has benefits not just in gravel but also when you're just doing a road descent. You just had that much more leverage. Or even like in a sprint. You see this on ENVE’s road handle bars. They have a model that has a four degree flair, a little subtle thing. And I think you'll see flare bars start to catch on across disciplines, even with roadies or at least the more progressive roadies who aren't so traditional in their equipment choices.   On the wheels, we do 650B and 700C wheel pack package options. In our case both wheel packages use a high end carbon rim. With the 650B we go really wide, 27.3 internal width, so 33.3 external. And what that does is it takes your tire, like the WTB Byway we have as standard, and it brings it out from 47 to almost 50 millimeters and changes the profile such that the side knobs engage a bit sooner and you can drop the pressure down and not have the tire flopping around. So I'll ride out to the trail chasing down roadies at 45 psi and then I'll drop it down to 30 and the rear in 27 in the front and ride it like a full on cross country bike. And I'm passing people on dualies. So that's another kind of small detail along with the flare bar.   The other thing is the dropper post, which you experienced today, which really transforms the bike. Anyone who's coming from the mountain scene knows that you'd probably rather give up a couple inches of suspension rather than your dropper. On the gravel bike gets that much more game changing because you're starting with no suspension.   CRAIG: It was certainly an interesting moment for me. Randall generously let me take the dropper post on all the descents today. So I had a good time doing that and it was interesting because I've obviously I've ridden the dropper posts on my mountain bike quite regularly for the last half dozen years or so. And I was quite familiar with the benefits to that with the gravel bike. It was interesting creating that sort of pocket of space underneath me because I simply wasn't familiar with it ever doing that on a drop bar bike. And I definitely appreciated the tight integration with the lever so that on the SRAM shifter, Randall has hacked it so that it controls the dropper post for you. So instead of having a front chain ring, a shifter, I can shift the dropper posts down right from the handlebars.   RANDALL: Yeah. And that's a pretty simple hack that we will be documenting with a video real soon. But essentially with SRAM’s modern hydraulic front shifters, there's a one minute hack that's fully reversible to remove the ratchet mechanism and allow that shift lever to swing freely and thus actuate the dropper post, which is really slick. I use it more than I ever used the front derailleur.   CRAIG: So that was interesting. As most people who listened to his podcast know, I tend to ride my gravel bike on more mountain biking style terrain than the kind of flow and fire roads that are often known in other parts of the country for gravel. So for me, this is something I've been thinking about for awhile, checking out a dropper post. So it was a lot of fun. And I definitely will say that if you're on the type of steep terrain that sort of characterizes the terrain in Marin County, it's definitely a value add. And there's a small weight penalty but not a dramatic weight penalty given that sort of benefits of speed going down.   RANDALL: Yeah. There is this common misconception I'll describe where you pick up a bike and you say, “Oh, that's really light. It must be fast”. But really there's a lot of ways in which you can make a bike heavier and faster. So as an example, with a dropper post, you're able to descend that much faster, not just on the super steep terrain that we were riding today, but even on less steep but really fast terrain with loose sweepers where you don't drop it all the way down. You drop it down just enough so that you have a little bit more control and you can shift your weight back and so on, and you go through with more confidence. The other thing is you can brake that much harder. So you're braking vastly more with the rear brake versus the front brake. And you can break with both of them in a “holy crap” sort of situation and have more traction and not be ready to go over the handlebars like you would be if you were sitting on top of a fully extended post.   CRAIG: Yeah, I think it's one of those things that we will definitely start to see more and more of. I think there is a somewhat of a sentiment in gravel to be respectful of our road brethren and then the changes maybe are slower to be adopted for more aesthetic reasons than anything else, but I can definitely vouch for the, the sort of performance benefits of the dropper post from what I've evidenced today in today's short ride. I do want to talk about a little bit more about the frame set too. It's a carbon frame set, correct?   RANDALL” Yup. Full carbon frame set.   CRAIG: And you've got a lot of mounts spec’ed down there, which I think is interesting. So let's talk about the mounts and some of the other things that make this bike essentially a quiver killer. Something that you can replace your road bike. And many other bikes in your garage.   RANDALL: The frameset [features] a full carbon frame and fork. I'm using the same Toray carbon fiber that everybody else uses. In our case it's T700 to T800 other people give it some fancy acronym for the same thing. It's all mostly coming from the same place.   We've done a few things that are common and few things that are unique. So on the common side, we have a full suite of bosses: cage mounts inside the frame, third cage on the down tube, a bento up top. But we've [added] to the fork blades more bottle cage bosses that are also sturdy enough to handle a front rack. We have rear rack mounts as well. So you could set this up as a full touring setup and put 10 kilos or more on the front and 15 on the back, plus a frame bag, and be on your way for your next epic adventure.   Some other smaller details that I think are really important are on the fork. Steerer tube failure has always been a big concern of mine or you've seen a bunch of recalls in the industry, some of them associated with improper manufacturing but some of them associated with the clamping force of the stem actually crushing the carbon. And so if anyone in the audience has built a carbon frame of the carbon steer before they'll see that you have this expansion plug that goes in. And we looked at all of them and none that can be found on the open market did a good job of fully supporting the steerer. So we actually bonded an aluminum tube with a built in star nut into our forks, which you can then cut and shorten. And that's a safety feature. You really have no way to install it improperly because you don't install it. It's already there. And if you're traveling a lot and you're removing your stem and reinstalling it, you can over-torque it, but it's still not going to crush the carbon. Carbon is a brilliant material in tension, but it's terrible in compression. So that was another small detail where we really paid a lot of attention.   The other thing that you noticed is we decided to forego the drop stay which you see on a bike like the Open or the new Ibis Hakka. Those bikes accommodate a slightly larger tire. I think they can go up to like a 2.2. Our bicycle is optimized around a 700C x 40 or 650b x 47, which has the same radius as a 700C x 30. And that [the 700C x 30) is actually what we use on the road.   For our [650B] wheelset, we went with a wide rim that expands the tire to almost 50 millimeters. And what we found is that’s kind of the sweet spot for maintaining a road geometry, look and feel while still giving you all the capabilities of a borderline monster cross or light XC bike.   CRAIG: Gotcha. And you're offering both a single chain ring and a double chain ring. Correct?   RANDALL: Yeah. If you're considering going with the 1x, go for it. I’m all in on 1x myself. We’re offering the double because there's a lot of people who want to go that route. We can talk about pluses and minuses here. With the 1x you get the clutch so the chain’s not slapping around. It also frees up the left shift lever for the dropper, which I think, once you've experienced it, you won't want to ride without it. I think it's really a game changer as much as anything else you can do. But yeah, we'll do a 2x as well.   In both cases you have a few different gearing options so you can really dial it in. If you're not super fit and you live in a really hilly area, go with a 38 or 40 in the front. If you're super fit and live in a flatter area, go with a 46 with a 10-42 in the rear to give you plenty of high end. Same with the double. We're working on 46/30 or 48/32 options. We're just doing the compatibility testing right now before we offer it.   CRAIG: In addition to designing the frame, you've also designed the wheel set and some of the other components. Is that right?   RANDALL: Well, so this word designed. We started with a frame set that had all of the characteristics that we wanted. The same is true for the rims. And that's true in wheels in particular. Almost nobody is designing their own rems or if they do, they just spec a profile and they say to an engineer at the factory, please do the layup for me. So we started with a frame that met the vast majority of our criteria and then worked with the factory on over 100 different line item changes to bring it up to where we thought it needed to be. So simple things from additional chainring clearance, to adding 3K carbon reinforcement under every single boss and cut out in the frame to give it that much more strength and fray resistance, to adding fiberglass at all the interfaces with metal so you don't get galvanic corrosion. All these little granular things that you don't think about until it's a year down the road and you're trying to remove your seat post and it won't come out because it's bonded to the carbon. We did all of those things.   CRAIG: Presumably you were traveling overseas to work directly with the factory.   RANDALL: Oh yeah. Yeah. So I've spent a couple of weeks in the factories and then quite a bit of time late at night on calls. That gives us a big advantage.   I've been working in supply chain since I started working. This was back when I was 21. I'm approaching 36 now. I'm a fluent mandarin speaker, so that allows a degree of relationship and interaction that's just not possible if you're an English speaker. So I go into a factory and I don't just speak English with the boss, I am speaking Mandarin with a line worker to understand the process that they're going through as they're making that part, what are the common failure modes as they're doing that so we can then work the engineers to design around it. And this is something that's really important to me and that I enjoy doing tremendously.   CRAIG: For those of our listeners who aren't that familiar with the bike industry, how different is that process from what a major manufacturer goes through? Are you dealing with the same types of factories, the same types of materials that you would be at a Specialized or a Trek?   RANDALL: Everyone's using from the same subset of factories, using the same materials, the same manufacturing techniques. There's almost nothing new in our industry. It’s rare that you come across something new, which is why you see quite a bit of odd looking “innovation”. It's really just a way of trying to stand out in some way. So part of our thesis is that we innovate only where that innovation provides a genuine benefit to the customer. So as an example, on our wheelset, we didn't design a custom profile. We went and found one of the best manufacturers in China, who's manufacturing rims for all the big players. They had an off the shelf rim. We worked with them to modify the layup slightly to make it optimized for a gravel application. So in our case, that meant taking a mountain bike rim with a mountain bike width that gives you that tire stability on the 650B set, and lightening the layup because it doesn't need quite as much of a burly build as it would for, say, the enduro application for which it was designed.   CRAIG: Gotcha. So in addition to the sort of manufacturing processes of the bike, you're reinventing how you're going to sell to customers. Obviously selling direct is not something totally new, but for the bike industry and customers purchasing a bike, it is a relatively new experience to go direct to a smaller brand and buy online. Can you just talk a little bit about that decision and the type of relationship you want to foster with the customers and why you thought it was important to direct?   RANDALL: Sure. From a product standpoint, it allows us to offer a very granular degree of customization. When you buy a traditional bike, you're buying a complete bike. If the handlebar width isn't right, the crank length isn't right, the gearing isn't right, you're then spending money after the fact to swap that out or you're just dealing with it. And that's unfortunate given how many times that bike has been marked up and what you're paying for it.   The other thing is, our price point is $2999, and for what we offer, that is, I mean, there's nothing else that approaches that. You can buy competing frame sets that cost that much or even slightly more. The way that we're able to accomplish that is by being as close to factory direct as you can get.   And it's actually better than factory direct because when you go factory direct, first off, no factory is going to sell you one handlebar, right? So you need a certain amount of buying volume to get that pricing. Additionally, component compatibility.  You'd have to deal with “how do I high spec my bike with all these components that I've curated”. You don't have the same access to information and resources that say somebody on the inside like myself is fortunate to have.   We took a model where we work directly with the same factories who are supplying all the big brands. We work with the top of the line, open components. So we have a hollow forged crank from Samox that is lighter than Rival and comes with a spindly chain ring, and it's a really stiff and bomb proof package that can take a rock strike.   That’s one example. It’s the same with our frame set, same with our wheel packages and so on. We do assembly of the wheels and bundling of certain components in China and ship those out. And then we bundle all the components from Taiwan and we ship those out from there. So you receive two boxes of components that have been validated to work really well with each other and that you've been able to customize to your particular body, your use case, and even to your style if you want to. If you had a baby blue car with little metallic flecks in the paint when you were in high school or something like that, and you want to replicate it, send us a Pantone number and for a small up-charge we’ll get you exactly the color that you want.   CRAIG: Wow. So you mentioned two boxes are going to get shipped. The bike is not assembled correctly when it arrives. That's a little bit different than some of the other direct to consumer brands who are touting [that] all you need is an allen wrench and we'll be ready to go in five minutes. Let's talk a little bit about that.   RANDALL: So there are some brands that I've heard do a pretty good job there. Canyon is one that stands out, they do a pretty good quality build is what I've heard from mechanics, but that is not the general standard. So if you talk to many who work in shops, the really good ones tend to disassemble a factory built bike and then reassemble it to make sure it's done right. It's just hard to get that attention to detail on a mass assembly line and furthermore, they're not fit to the rider. And so you're still having to do a bunch of tweaking and so on.   So going back to why we named the company THESIS, we saw a way to both have the net cost to the rider be lower and get them a product that fits them and their riding style much better. A frame up assembly at Sports Basement [a Bay Area retailer] is 280 bucks. And now you have a local mechanic who did that build to your standard, helped you tweak it and fit it and so on. Obviously a full on custom fit is going to be a little bit more money, but that's the case with all of these bikes. Nobody's bundling in a fit, and furthermore, it would cost us more to ship everything to a single facility, have it assembled poorly or not as well as it could be done locally, and then put it in a big box with yet another bit of packaging, and put everything in a big box and then ship it with higher tariff codes to some location where you receive it and still have to finish putting it together. And it's probably not dialed in and tuned properly. Right? So we looked at the experience and quality of product and the net cost to consumer all having a big advantage with this type of model.   CRAIG: Interesting. So the bike, the OB1 really can be quite a versatile chassis, if you will. It can be almost a platform for every type of riding that you want to do. As we've talked over the day that we've talked about road riding. So talk about the OB1 as a road bike.   RANDALL: Gravel bikes in general are just the road bikes that the industry should have been selling regular people all along. So you look road bikes and generally they’re race replicas. The head tubes are short. The steering is more aggressive. The tires are really skinny. People are still riding 23mm tires at 130 PSI, which not only is not comfortable, it's actually slower than a higher volume tire. Not to mention the braking on carbon rims in the wet and all these other issues. The OB1 we designed to be...the one bike for every road.   So as a road bike it's got an endurance road type geometry and the road wheel package that’s a 44 depth, 22 internal, a 30 external rim that we pair with a supple 30 millimeter tubeless tire from WTB that rides super smooth and super fast. So I'll take that bike and go out and hammer with the local hammerheads on Scotty's ride or do some of the longer road rides that we see out here and keep up just fine. There's no deficit., and actually with the dropper, I'm descending faster than they are because I can do it more confidently and more aero because I can get into that crazy tuck.   You get a lot of questions on the gravel side. We spoke about the advantages of the flare bar and the dropper and swapping in the 650B wheelset. In my case, on my road we'll set I run an 10-42 [cassette] to give me a little bit taller gearing on the high end. And then on the gravel set I run an 11-46, which gives me a little bit more low end so I can climb up all the dirt walls here in Marin. For touring. the geometry is long and stable enough where you can do light touring, which with today's gear makes it entirely capable. It’'ll take 10 plus kilos in the front and the rear. It has all the bosses for that. If you’re bike packing, it has plenty of room in the front triangle and again, has all the mounting points for anything you'd want to take.   If you look at the actual differences between these types of bikes, it's mostly tire clearance, mounting points, and marketing. Those are the primary differences between a road bike and gravel bike and a cross bike and all these other bikes. Some might add geometry, but that's more at the extremes. With the OB1, we have a geometry that is at the overlapping point in the Venn diagram of all these different sub-niches. So you really can have one bike for everything. And with this bike, we wanted to demonstrate that the myth of N+1, which is used to sell more bike, is false… At most, you need one bike with two wheel sets.   CRAIG: Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going to think that's a realization that many cyclists will come to in time. And it's, it's fascinating to me. And for those of my listeners who have listened for a long time, they know my journey to gravel riding came from this notion of bike packing that I never truly realized. But having a bike in the closet that enabled me to ride on the road, ride on gravel, which is my primary pursuit, and occasionally get out there and do some light touring or bike packing really was a revelation. And the realization that one bike really could do it all. And frankly when I'm in a group road ride, it's not my bike that's the limiting factor. It's generally my legs which goes to show [it’s not] the bike I'm riding. And I think your bike...can do it all. When you're really honest about the type of rider that you are and can be like, neither one of us are on the pro tour, so we're not looking for marginal gains that on the extremes.   RANDALL: And those marginal gains are very marginal. 80% of aerodynamic drag is your body. A good chunk of what remains is the wheels, and we have an aerodynamic wheelset that's paired with the wide tires so you really can get very close to the bleeding edge and still not have a machine that is compromised for every other application. If you're gonna go out and do the local crits, you might want to get a road bike. For all the rest of us, get one really good bike that you'll have a much better time on. You'll probably be faster with that one good bike versus spreading those same resources over several mediocre ones.   CRAIG: Yeah. Well it's a really interesting bike. It's a beautiful bike. I encourage everybody to go to the website. I'll put that in the podcast notes. So people can check it out and I think it's a bike that begs to be looked at. I think you show a lot of the different ways in which the bike can be used on the website, which is great. I think it gives our listeners a lot to think about. So what's next for THESIS bike? When can we order one? How can people find you? How can they learn more about the philosophy and just get to understand the brand and you as a designer?   RANDALL: By the time you broadcast this podcast, we will probably have sales live or be approaching it. We have a waitlist currently that is getting increasingly long. We've done a few sales with friends and family at this point just to run them through the buying process and work out all the kinks before we open it up to a general audience. But yeah, we're expecting within the next couple of weeks, so by the time this podcast goes out.   As far as what's next for THESIS, we mentioned that the bike comes 90 percent unassembled. We have some very interesting partnerships in the works for local assembly and are hoping to have that as a checkbox option at checkout when you buy your OB1.   A part of the vision here, in addition to wanting to make a great product and an innovative business model, is to really provide an opportunity for the unsung heroes of the bike industry, your mechanics and fitters as well as the factories that are actually producing and increasingly engineering things...for them to have new and better opportunities to be compensated for the work they do. Having a model where a mechanic can get paid for their expertise in helping you with your curation and fit, and then make money on the assembly experience as well. And have, instead of an oppositional relationship between mechanic and customer where the customer doesn't know if the mechanic is just trying to sell them something, to have a relationship. We work with those parties to provide the rider with the best experience possible, whether it be with equipment or maintaining that equipment.   The single best return on investment that you can get in cycling is not equipment. It may be diet, but after diet and training it is definitely a professional build and fit. You'll be more comfortable. Your equipment will last far longer. And we want to have a model that provides the right incentive structure where people take advantage.   CRAIG: Interesting. Well we definitely look forward to learning more about that. If people have questions for you are there social channels they can connect with you on, or an email address, website and the like?   RANDALL: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You can contact me at randall@thesis.bike. or if you just have general questions, hello@thesis.bike.   CRAIG: Okay, great. Well best of luck with the brand. I look forward to riding with you again and continuing to spend a little bit more time on the bike. As I said, my initial ride shows it's a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to that and I wish you guys all the best. For my listeners, definitely check out the website. I'll put it in the notes, put that in the media podcast notes so people can find you easily. And yeah, I hope you have a great summer with this.   RANDALL: Yeah, thanks a lot. Looking forward to that next ride.   CRAIG: Awesome.

  La primera conversación. - Isaac se nos unió a la sesión de International Podcast Day. Podéis ver esta sesión bilingue aquí: https://firetalk.com/podcastday/episodes/SJRTXCsp  - Cómo empezó Podcast Pro y por qué Isaac se ha unido al equipo de organización de las JPod. - Las JPOD: Si todavía no sabeis lo que son: http://jpod16mlg.es/  - Craig pregunta: ¿Cómo puede ser que las JPod sean gratis?!!! ¿Habría que cobrar? - El curso de Isaac. - La diferencia entre la radio y el podcast. "La información es recuperable en el podcast. En la radio no." - Los audio libros.  "La penetración de la radio en España es de menos de un 50%." (Por eso vamos tan lentos con los podcasts. Ed.) - ¿Qué fue de aquellos LPs con cuentos? - La longitud del podcast. - Cómo crea Isaac sus podcasts. - La alternativa a Skype: http://source-elements.com/    y https://ipdtl.com/   Isaac Recomienda:  - Super hábitos. - Escuela de periodismo. (Acaba de empezar.) - Radio Lab (en English) y Lime Town (también en English).   Podeis encontrar a Isaac aquí: https://podcastpro.audio/  http://isaacbaltanas.com/  Post-interview Discussion: Pilar: Ironically, Isaac’s podcasts run for about 5 minutes, but his was the longest interview we’ve had with a single guest. Craig: Isaac rightly says that it’s crucially important to be constantly improving delivery on the mic in areas like phrasing, projection, intonation, engagement, the use of silence, etc. The Real Brian has also been emphasising this on his Profitcast podcast (which has now finished): http://www.profitcastuniverse.com/podcast-episodes/  Pilar: Podcasters should focus on mic technique, structured communication and understanding the medium in which you are operating. Isaac follows a concise script for his podcasts and maximises communication with his audience. A podcaster needs to find his/her voice and decide what kind of message and connection he/she wants to deliver. How intimate do you want to be with your audience? How much of your (personal) life do you want to talk about? How much of my opinion do I want to share with others? How many podcasting ‘rules’ do you want to break? Craig: Before you break the rules (in podcasting, music, art etc) you have to learn them and know what they are. Podcasting with co-hosts has helped improve delivery and find a voice. Pilar: When you podcast with a co-host, you start to find out what kind of podcaster you are. Craig: The length of podcast episodes is a subjective thing. Longer podcasts can be paused and continued later. A podcast can’t be too long, but it can be too boring. One of the most downloaded podcasts on the libsyn platform is Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History which can be 3 or 4 hours long. His podcast once received over 350,000 downloads in a 24-hour period on May 6, 2015: http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/  Pilar: Length is part of format and length depends of what you are trying to communicate to your audience. Craig: It’s wonderful that JPod is still a free conference that promotes podcasting and education in and around the podcasting field. As Isaac said, this will probably change in the coming years and money will become more of a focus for podcasters. Pilar: Hopefully, there will be a wide spectrum and not two separate camps of monetize or not monetize. Craig: There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make a living from podcasting. Pilar: We don’t all have to be entrepreneurs. If you’re going to do anything for free, let people know! Free also has value and this shouldn’t be understated. Craig: It’s wonderful that Jpod is free for podcasters. Pilar: If JPod stops being free, it probably will lose attendees who are podcast listeners/fans. Blog: https://enclavedepodcast.com/   Twitter: @clavepod      

En este episodio, conocemos a María Santonja, podcaster y especialista en online marketing. Forma parte del duo que presenta Fans Fiction. Lo puedes escuchar aquí: http://www.fansfiction.es/ La primera conversación, con María - Hablamos con ella de cómo y por qué empezó a hacer podcasting y de como ha evolucionado el mundillo. - Nos cuenta cómo nación FanFiction y por qué se realiza en temporadas, por qué decidió hacer un podcast sobre gatos y cómo, casi sin darse cuenta, está produciendo un podcast sobre educación Educación respetuosa. -  María nos cuenta cómo se está preparando lanzar una red de podcasts y nos comenta cómo se están empezando a usar los podcasts como herramienta de marketing y sus propias estrategias para ganar de audiencia. - Si quieres escuchar a o conectar con María: Fans Fiction, podcast de humor, cine y series - con Richie Fintano Gaturris, el podcast sobre gatos María en Twitter María recomienda: - Nación podcaster (of course!) (Episodio con Sunne de Nación podcaster) - No es asunto vuestro - El gran apagón - Perros, gatos y bichos raros - Muchos morros   Post-interview Discussion Pilar: Despite the fact that the level of podcast branding, sponsorship and marketing is not at the level of the US yet, there is a wonderful community of podcasters in Spain that is very active and enthusiastic. In many cases, podcasting is becoming a marketing tool in the UK and podcasters are not hanging out together as much as they seem to be in Spain. There is a lot of information on in the internet in English, and perhaps there isn’t so much need for such a tightly-knit podcasting community that gives support in the UK. Podcasting as an art form and hobby lends itself to building a stronger community. Craig: The strong sense of community and friends ‘doing things together’ in Spain helps build a close relationship between podcasters. It’s a very special time for Spanish podcasting at the moment, but that may change in the near future when companies begin using podcasts for promotion, advertising and monetization. When money becomes more prevalent in podcasting in the future, it may cause it to fragment and lose some of the close community feel it has now. Pilar: There is a such a wide variety of podcasts in Spanish. Craig: Twitter is the main social media platform used by podcasters in Spain. It’s interesting that Maria said that advertisers in Spain are more likely to invest money in a physical leaflet or some other form of advertising rather than pay for podcast ads. A reason potential advertisers often give for not buying podcast ads is the fact that it’s difficult to measure their effectiveness, however it’s also extremely difficult to measure the results of advertising in traditional media such as print, TV and radio. Pilar: Podcast advertising is more long term than traditional advertising. Podcast listeners have a very close relationship with the host, therefore podcast ads are more effective than TV ads, for example. Craig: People don’t notice TV and radio ads and banner advertising anymore. Podcast ads are a lot more effective. Pilar: Could podcasting perhaps go down the premium route? Extra material could be offered as extra, paid, content. Craig: I thought our Patreon campaign wasn’t working because of the Spanish mindset of not wanting to donate money for something that may or may not happen. In the US people do donate money to support content creators. It’s good to see that in Spain Patreon is working for podcasters like Maria who create bonus content and connect with the audience on a personal level. Pilar: Patreon is more effective when you work out what the audience actually wants. This obviously varies from podcast to podcast. Patreon gives the audience an opportunity to do something for you. Craig: It seems that there is money to be made in producing podcasts for people who do not have the technical knowledge, or do not have the time to deal with the ‘back end’ of podcasting. Pilar: In the UK, podcast producers are not necessary podcasters themselves. Craig: You need to me more than a sound engineer to produce a podcast for someone. You also need to know about marketing, social media, content structure etc. Pilar: I like to do my own editing because it brings me back in touch with the content. Craig: Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be many female podcasters in Spain. In the US the number of female podcasters is growing. escaleta = a step outline. A list of scenes that make up a story. mecenas = patrons Si os ha gustado, if you liked this, déjanos una reseña en itunes o tu podcatcher preferido. Listen to Pilar talking about working in virtual teams at http://virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/ Improve your English with Craig at http://www.inglespodcast.com/

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

We are having our day with Craig early this week. Join us this Monday for our week in political talk with Craig Rozniecki! More about Craig: It is our weekly politics and news talk!!  Tomorrow at 2:30 CST.Author Craig Rozniecki was born six weeks early, at a robust 3.5 lbs., on February 28th of 1981 in Omaha, Nebraska. He now resides in Columbus, Ohio and has grown to be 5'9'', 170 lbs. of pure muscle, jelly beans, and Chicken Vindaloo. Not only that, but he sports hair wavier than the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Hemsworth, eyes greener than Willie Nelson's garden, and a single chest hair. He's written twelve books in the past ten years, including five in the LOL at the GOP series. The moment he realized he was wired a bit differently than most, and therefore wanted to become a writer, was when he wrote the story The Talking Pencil in 4th grade. Other accomplishments of his include: Winning a school spelling bee and math competition, memorizing the state capitals at the age of 9, bowling a 270, and tripping over a blade of grass while completely sober and trying to impress a girl. Outside of writing, his other interests include: Long walks on the beach, impersonating mimes while speed dating, moonwalk hurdling, Beethoven karaoke bashes, and speaking jive at old folks homes. You can follow Craig on Twitter at: @CraigRozniecki Craig's famous blog can be found at this site:.http://thekind-heartedsmartaleck.blogspot.com. We will be posting how to find Craig's book and posting those.  We will take your questions at 215-383-3795 during the live broadcast.  This will also be available for replay. Remember to follow us at @tracyfortshow, like us on Facebook at The Tracy Fort Show, and you can always e-mail the show at thetracyfortshow@gmail.com.  Thank you for listening and supporting us!

Episode 116: The Working Actor - Children's Theatre It's a little known fact that Theatrefolk's own Craig Mason spent 15 years as a working actor. He has done it all from comedy, drama, musicals, commercials, TV and children's theatre. We're going to talk about his time touring Franklin the Turtle where he played Bear for the pre-school set. We're also going to talk about why he left acting and has never looked back. Show Notes The Tempest Join our email list Theatrefolk Blog Episode Transcript Welcome to TFP – The Theatrefolk Podcast – the place to be for Drama teachers, Drama students, and theatre educators everywhere. I'm Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello, I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. Welcome to Episode 116! You can find all the links for this episode at theatrefolk.com/episode116. Today, we continue our Working Actor series on the podcast. What is it like to be a working actor? How did their choice of school help? What is it like to tour? What should you definitely not do? And I am thrilled as always to welcome Theatrefolk's own Craig Mason to the podcast. Hello! Craig: Hello everybody! Lindsay: So, it is a little known Theatrefolk fact that Craig actually spent fifteen years as a professional actor, a working actor, so that's why you're here. Craig: I think that was a little known fact to the theatre community – not just the Theatrefolk podcast audience. Lindsay: Okay. Well, that's an interesting thing. We'll get into that in a little bit. But, first, let's talk about how you got started. What school did you go to? Craig: I went to the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It's not a place that's known for its theatre program. I went there for math and computer science because that's where I thought my calling was and I was in the coop program there. I ended up taking a few electives in the theatre department. In my very first semester and my very first year, I got cast in one of the theatre department shows and had a blast – I wasn't having a blast in math and computer science – and gradually, halfway through, I did about two years, I guess? I guess two school years. It took me three years to get through those because, like, I took a year off doing math and computer science stuff and then I transferred into the drama department and that's where I got my degree. Lindsay: What kinds of things did you study? Like, in terms of what kind of school was in for drama? Was it a lot of theory? A lot of practical? What was the focus? Craig: It's a liberal arts school which means that you're going to be taking a lot of academic courses, too. So, I had to take electives. I took electives in economics, in history, in French. I took an elective in Cold War relations between the US and Russia. Lindsay: Oh, boy! Craig: Yeah. Actually, that one was kind of fun. Lindsay: Okay. And then, what about your theatre classes stood out to you? Craig: Well, the cool thing that happened actually in my department while I was there is they were trying to transform the department into something more than what it was. And so, they had brought in an outside director by the name of Joel Greenberg and he was coming from more of a professional background so it was really cool because he taught our acting classes and he would take one thing per semester and really focus on it. So, in terms of acting, I got a semester on Commedia dell'arte, a semester on farce, a semester on auditions. So, it was really valuable theatre training even though that's not what it set out to be. Lindsay: So, you left school and you were like, “I'm going to try and be a professional actor.” What was your thought process at the end of your university degree? Craig: At the end of my university degree, I thought I was kind of set because, before I finished university, I already had my first job lined up for once university was over – an actual acting ...

Episode 65: Theatrefolk Q & A: You ask, We answer Lindsay and Craig sit down to answer questions and address comments that came up from our recent customer survey. Topics include: Can students directly contact us? What social issues do we cover? And do we sell plays?   Show Notes Free Resources from Theatrefolk NCTAE North Carolina Theatre Arts Educators Magic Fairy in the Microwave Camel Dung and Cloves Hamlet, Zombie Killer of Denmark Tuna Fish Eulogy Royalty Exemptions for Competitions The Drama Notebook Practical Technical Theater DVD Series Theatrefolk on Facebook Subscribe to The Theatrefolk Podcast On iTunes. On Stitcher. Episode Transcript Lindsay: Welcome to TFP, the Theatrefolk podcast. I am Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello, I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. So today is an extra-special edition of TFP, but as I say that, I mean I shouldn't say that since I think every episode is special, but what I really mean is that today I'm not alone, I have my partner in crime sitting beside me, Craig Mason. Craig: Hello, Lindsay. Lindsay: Hello. And I guess what I mean is that Craig and I were going to do something a little special today, aren't we? Craig: Yeah. We did this little survey where we asked two guys just four questions. What were the four questions, Lindsay? Lindsay: They are… Craig: How did you hear about Theatrefolk? Why do you buy our plays, and if you don't, why not? What do you like about us? And what else would you like us to offer? Now, that was just intended to be like an internal thing for us to get like a measurement of who's out there and what they want from us, because we've just been soaring with people on Facebook. Lindsay: Yeah, and we've never done that before, first of all, because it's kind of hard for us. We're sensitive folk, a little bit… Craig: Yeah. Lindsay: …and it's hard for us to ask that question, “If you don't buy from us, why not?” except that it's really, really helpful and useful. Like how can we get better if we don't get feedback? Craig: And the good news is we've got a couple of hundred responses and they were just fantastic. I'm not saying it was all positive, but I thought that the stuff that was negative was stuff that we really could embrace and do things with. Lindsay: And learn from. Craig: Yeah. I was so concerned… Lindsay: [Laughs] Craig: …and those concerns were completely unfounded. Lindsay: You know what? We're always concerned. Craig and I have I would say…well, I can only speak for myself, but I have an imagination which helps me write a lot of plays. People ask me all the time how is it that I write so much and my inner answer is because my brain is whacked out. [Laughs] It goes places. But then the other side of that is that I always think something hugely negative is going to happen every time we put ourselves out there… Craig: Mm-hmm. Lindsay: …but that doesn't happen, and let's get down to it. Let's go, let's go, let's really go! Craig: Okay, so what I did—now, you have not read any of these responses yet, right? Lindsay: No… Craig: Okay. Lindsay: …so that I can give a very honest and… Craig: Okay, cool. And I only really just look at them… Lindsay: …fresh answer. Craig: I look at them quickly at the beginning just to make sure that the form was working, and then I haven't really touched it since then. But what I did just before we started recording is I went through, I just grabbed—and oh, I should say this too: The survey was just completely anonymous. The only data we have are the four answers that people gave. We don't have any other… Lindsay: Where they're from or who they're from, so… Craig: A couple of people left their names, but they're people that we know. [Laughs] Lindsay: Oh, that's nice. Craig: It was very sweet. One person said, “There's no need for anonymity here, I love you guys,

Episode 22: Les Miserables YouTube Fireside Chat The movie for Les Miz is coming out in a couple of days. In this last episode of the year, Lindsay and Craig talk about the musical, their favourite songs and the emotional impact of them when sung in another language. I Dreamed a Dream - Lea Salonga http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=356YjN91Oe8 I Dreamed a Dream - Ruthie Henshall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBg2-oZClS0 I Dreamed a Dream - Anne Hathaway http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk5UStefYmE Patti Lupone I Dreamed a Dream http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNNPWvUqB-U Un Dia Mas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKrqo6at_X8 Sal el Sol http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=6o5JeLsvkPs&NR=1 Alfie Boe - Prologue http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=G1RuIYMFpgM#t=544s Subscribe to The Theatrefolk Podcast On iTunes. On Stitcher. Episode Transcript Lindsay: Welcome to TFP, The Theatrefolk Podcast. I'm Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello. I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. Today, it's a YouTube Fireside Chat with myself and Craig Mason, and we're talking Les Miz. But first, some Theatrefolk news. Okay, we're still on December, so there's not a lot of news except there is something very, very exciting that's coming up at the end of the month. Just because it's December, that should not mean that we stop Free Play Sunday. So even though it is before Christmas, we're going to give you a little present after Christmas. Last Sunday in December, tune in to our Facebook page and our Twitter page, and we will be giving away PDFs of some of our plays. We don't know what they are yet, but they're going to be, of course, exciting, wonderful, a good read. And lastly, where, oh where can you find this podcast? We post new episodes every Wednesday on our blog, Theatrefolk.com. You can also find us through the Stitcher app on our Facebook page, and you can subscribe to TFP on iTunes. All you have to do is search on the word “Theatrefolk.” Okay, so it is just before Christmas and there is something very, very exciting for some people that is coming out just before Christmas, and that is the movie version of Les Miz. Craig, can you feel the excitement in the air? Craig: I can hear the people sing. Lindsay: Can you…? [Laughs] Are they singing the songs of angry men? Craig: They might be. Lindsay: [Laughs] And so we thought a perfect way to end our podcasts for the year before we take a little break would be to do a YouTube Fireside Chat on Les Miz, because there are a million squillion jillion different versions out there and concerts. There was lots to find on YouTube, wasn't there? Craig: It's all on YouTube. You can find just about anything on there. You could just sit there all day watching different Les Miz clips. So we kind of had to organize this a little bit. Lindsay: Yes. So what we thought would be a really good thing to do, to take a look at one song and look at different versions of it. And I think there are…you know, I say this is the most iconic song that I… No, I think there are a couple of... Oh, you know, there's a lot of… It's a very iconic large Greek theatre kind of musical anyway, so it's really hard to pinpoint one iconic song. But I really like this one, and that's I Dreamed a Dream. And of course, it is sung by Fantine right after she gets kicked out of her job. And I like this song because I've read the book, and it's literally like 10 chapters like [makes slurping sound] all into one song, and I just think that's good writing. And it's got a nice beat, you can dance to it. Craig: Well, it is a fantastic song. I mean, it's a great song for a singer. It follows this Sondheim thing about every song should be a one-act play. And I mean, this is actually a five-act play, this song… Lindsay: Yeah. Craig: …which covers the whole journey of her life and everything that like led to the lowness that it ha...

Episode 20: Bradley Walton Interview   Craig spoke with playwright Bradley Walton at the Virginia Theatre Association Conference. Bradley talks about how he started out as cartoonist and transformed into a writer. Show Notes Bradley Walton The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair The Baloney, the Pickle, the Zombies, and Other Things I Hide From My Mother Storied Subscribe to The Theatrefolk Podcast On iTunes. On Stitcher. Episode Transcript Lindsay Price: Welcome to TFP. The Theatrefolk podcast. I am Lindsay Price. Resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello. I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. We've got another playwright interview today. This time with Bradley Walton. But first lets do some Theatrefolk news. Okay. There is no news, it's December. But what I will say, as I do every podcast, is where can you can find us. We post new episodes of TFP every Wednesday at theatrefolk.com and on our Facebook page and Twitter. You can find us on the Stitcher app, and of course you can subscribe to TFP on iTunes. All you have to do is search on the word Theatrefolk. Episode 20. Bradley Walton. Bradley Walton has three plays in the Theatrefolk catalog. And two of them, may well indeed, win the longest and catchiest title award. We have the "Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair" and we have "The Baloney, The Pickle, The Zombie and Other Things I Hide From My Mother." And, then the third play, which while has a short title, is I believe a play of epic proportions. A wonderful exploration on the nature of story and creativity. And frankly, a catchy title is all well and good. And a catchy title is sometimes what gets people in the door. But as far as we're concerned, a catchy title has to be backed up by a play of good quality. A play that's got something interesting going on behind it. The catchy title is really only the tablecloth over the really good play. And Bradley Walton really has that in spades with the plays that he's got with us. So he's from Virginia and Craig had a chance to speak with Bradley when we were at the Virgina Theatre association conference. So lets get right to it. Craig: Hello, Craig here. I just wanted to put this in front of my interview with Bradley Walton. Normally, when we do interviews they're 20-25 minutes long and this one went a little long. It went 35 minutes long. And when we're on the road, we record things with our camera. And what I didn't know until today was that our camera stops recording after 30 minutes. So here are the first 30 minutes of my conversation with Bradley Walton. Craig: I know you started writing comic books. How did that start? Bradley: Well, I read comic books for as long as I can remember. I got into them very very heavily around about seventh grade when I was about 12-13 years old. Craig: Uh-huh Bradley: I had gotten into Dungeons and Dragons at that time. Craig: Oh yeah, I did too. In high school. Bradley: And TSR, the company that made Dungeons and Dragons had another role playing game that was based on the Marvel comics superheros. Craig: Okay. Bradley: And they had a module for the X-Men, which I had heard of the X-Men but had never read the X-Men comic books. So I got this X-Men module for the Marvel game and started reading all these character descriptions and histories and backgrounds. It was really interesting. So I got really really heavily into the X-Men. And that, I guess, really propelled me into wanting to write comic books. And my dad, who was a banker, got into comic books as well. He could appreciate the investment value in old comic books. Craig: Oh, Okay. Bradley: And he was on a business trip... Craig: It's great when you can sell an angle to your parents, you know, I can make money off of this. Bradley: Well, he would go on business trips and would bring home X-Men comic books for me. Craig: Mm-hmm.