Podcast appearances and mentions of dave just

In this episode of The IC-DISC Show, I delve into the journey of Kripke Enterprises from its humble beginnings to its current status as a leader in the scrap metal and recycling industry. Founded by a husband-and-wife team in 1993, the company has grown significantly with the involvement of their son, Matt. They discuss the strategic moves that helped propel their business forward, including key acquisitions like Mid-South Aluminum and a strong focus on aluminum trading. Matt and Scott highlight the importance of relationship building and trust in the scrap metal industry. They share insights into how their reputation and values, like keeping promises and problem-solving, have been instrumental in their success. The episode delves into the symbiotic relationships they have fostered with aluminum suppliers, emphasizing the value of maintaining strong personal connections in business dealings. We also hear about the transformative leadership styles within Kripke Enterprises. The discussion covers how innovative thinking and diverse perspectives, including contributions from those outside the traditional industry, have reshaped the company's culture. Matt and Scott talk about the balance between a hands-off leadership approach and active collaboration with executives to navigate industry changes. Finally, the episode touches on the future of the recycling industry, highlighting the role of technology and innovation. The Kripke team shares stories of employee growth and empowerment, including unique programs aimed at helping employees become homeowners. They reflect on the potential of a younger workforce and the exciting developments in material sorting and AI within the aluminum sector.     SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode, I delve into the inspiring transformation of Kripke Enterprises from a small family venture into a major player in the scrap metal and recycling industry, led by brothers Matt and Scott. I explore the strategic acquisition of Mid-South Aluminum and discuss how building trust and maintaining strong relationships have been key to Kripke's success, emphasizing the unique dynamics of their coil distribution business. We discuss the innovative leadership styles within the company and how they've transformed company culture, with insights into how diverse perspectives, especially from non-traditional industry backgrounds, contribute to their growth. There's a focus on employee empowerment and personal growth stories, such as Eric Phillips' rise from warehouse manager to COO, highlighting Kripke's commitment to fostering leadership and financial education for employees. I cover the positive outcomes from switching to a specialized service provider, which resulted in improved efficiency, response times, and significant tax savings, underscoring the value of expertise in business operations. Advice is shared for younger generations entering the workforce, emphasizing the benefits of starting a career in smaller companies for broader exposure and discussing the impact of technology, especially AI, on the industry. The episode wraps up with a reflection on the excitement surrounding JJ Spahn's US Open victory and the anticipation of future events, providing a light-hearted end to a comprehensive exploration of Kripke Enterprises' journey.   Contact Details LinkedIn - Matthew Kripke (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-kripke-b225969/) LinkedIn - Scott Chaffee (https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-chaffee-63429bb/) LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About Kripke Enterprises Inc GUEST Matthew KripkeAbout Matthew Scott ChaffeeAbout Scott TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dave: Good afternoon, scott and Matt. How are you? Matt: Fantastic. How are you doing? Dave: I am doing great. I get to talk to one of my favorite scrap metal company representatives, so it's always a good day for me. So let's get started. Where are you guys calling in from today? Matt: We are at Crypto Enterprises headquarters in Toledo, Ohio. Dave: Okay, and I believe that's made famous by the Mudhens right. Isn't that Toledo's claim to fame? Matt: That is correct, the Mudhens which Jamie Farr in MASH used to wax poetic about. Dave: Yeah, his character was Slinger, I believe. Matt: Yeah, you're showing all of our age that. That's how we're starting this interview. We're referencing a show from the 1970s and early 80s, agreed, agreed. Dave: Well, hey, matt, why don't you give us some background? What's the history of kripke, what year was it founded, who founded it and kind of how we got to today? Matt: sure, so kripke enterprises was started on january 4th 1993, which that date is important because that was my mom, or is my mom's birthday. Next year, on January 4th, it will be the 30, let's see 33rd anniversary of Kripke Enterprises and at the same time my mom will be turning 80 years old that day. She'll be thrilled that I shouted out her age in the beginning of this podcast. But the company was founded by my mom and dad. They started out with the two of them and one administrative assistant and the goal was to create a non-Ferris brokerage company where my dad could just put food on the table for him and my mom. They had their third kid at the time in college. Two of their kids had already graduated college and really not very grandiose ambitions. It was just going to be a small little trading company to capitalize on what my dad's career had been, which had been in the scrap metal. I know we call it the recycling industry today, but back then we did not. We called it the scrap metal company Sure, but back then we did not. We called it the scrap metal company Sure Industry and that was their goal and plan. I don't think that really in his mind he was ever going to grow it beyond those three people and I joined them in October of 1994. So the company was a year and a half old at the time. I had no intention of ever joining the company but my my dad got very ill and I came in and kind of kept the company going while he was spending 60 days in and out of the hospital and, um, at the end of 60 days we agreed to find a position for me and then he said to me point blank he said I really don't want to grow this company, but if you ever decide you want to grow it, I'll support you. It's just you have to do it. And okay, that was kind of the beginning and it took a while for me to get the confidence to begin to grow the company. But that process started from me being the fourth employee and today we're just under 70 employees and locations in Toledo, Jackson, Tennessee. We have a trading office in Florida and then we have a few people that work remote in different cities around and what's your commodity focus? Our specialty is aluminum, but we do trade in most metals, but still 95% of our volume is aluminum. Maybe even Scott's going to correct me with the numbers, but maybe even 98 percent is aluminum okay, does that sound right, scott? Dave: yeah, actually 99 okay, that sounds, that sounds good, and so you've had quite a bit of growth. Matt: Yeah, I think you know I would attribute a lot of it to just finding good people and then ultimately getting out of the way. You know, as an example, scott, who's in this interview. He came in in 2011 with us and was instrumental in setting up systems so that we could scale our business, and you know, one of the things people take for granted is that you really need to. You really need good systems in place in order to scale. You really need good systems in place in order to scale. You can grow your business a little bit at a time if you're doing it with spreadsheets and duct tape and super glue and you're MacGyvering it together, but you really need a good CFO and you really need a good IT person in today's day and age as well. Scott: Yeah, and to piggyback off of that, I mean the infrastructure is so important, whether it's the IT infrastructure, the bank line of credit, I mean there's a number of different things and once that's in place, I mean it becomes fairly easy. And I would say that you know we've been able to do that several times now. You know we acquired Mid-South Aluminum in 2017. And the single biggest thing that we were able to help out there was the infrastructure, the line of credit, the system, the line of credit, the system. We were able to, you know, bring them onto our system, and you know it took a company and we were able to increase that at quite a multiple so the hopline sales number when we acquired Mid-South in 17 was about what Scott? Call it about 30 million, and we were able to take it after we joined forces. We were able to take it all the way up to like about 150 million. Dave: Wow, in a short period of time. That is amazing. And so, Scott, how did you end up here? Did you grow up with a lifelong desire to be in the scrap metal business? Matt: He did Next question. Scott: No, go ahead, Scott. You know I can still remember the day. Yeah, so I've been here since 2011. You know, I tell people all the time it was the best move I've ever made, Including marrying his wife. Well, yeah, I'd worked for three large corporations, three international corporations, and even did a lot of international travel. For, and you know it, I can remember I had a mutual friend with Matt and Larry and I can still to this day remember going out to breakfast with them and at the restaurant here in Toledo, and from there I knew, you know, it was a good feeling. You could just, you could tell, I mean, it's got a, we got a great culture here that comes from there. I knew, you know it was a good feeling. You could just, you could tell, I mean, it's got a, we got a great culture here that comes from the top and makes all the difference in the world. Sure, yeah, Sure. Dave: So tell me more about this Mid-South acquisition. What was it about it? Acquisition, what was it about it? Because you know, so many times you do acquisitions, mergers, and you have these grand plans of all the synergies and growth and everything, and oftentimes it doesn't come to fruition, but it sounds like it did in your case. Matt: What would? Scott: you say, made that transaction so successful. What do you think, scott? Well, I, you know, I, I think I think there was a lot for both of us to benefit from. You know it was. The company was basically run on Excel spreadsheets at the time and you know we we had, we had access to a large line of credit with the banks, and so we were able to, you know, tap into that. We had the infrastructure, we brought them onto our system. I think that was probably the relationship that we'd had, or I should say the relationship that Larry and Matt had with the Salih family, and that went back many, many years. I don't know Matt how far back? 20 years before that yeah. Matt: Yeah, I think that's where it really started. So I think Scott tapped on what made it work from a logistics point of view logistical point of view. But that relationship piece is, you know, when you get into a negotiation, a lot of times they stall out because you start the conversation and people get a little freaked out about well, wait a minute. I'm just not sure that I want to do this because I don't know that I can fully trust you and we both had this longstanding trust of each other. We had been business partners for a long time. What made it really interesting to us was, you know, if you think about Mid-South Aluminum is a coil. It's an asset light coil distributor, which essentially means coil broker. But where I say coil distributor, our niche is we buy mill finish coil, bare coil, and we have relationships with various paint lines paint lines and we will get it painted to specific colors for our customers and then ship them. You know painted coil that would be used mainly in the bnc market, sometimes into producing signs, and sometimes mill finish that might go into like hurricane shutters or florida rooms or things like that. Where it's interesting for us is if you think about where coil is sourced from. Those are the same people that we're selling recyclable aluminum into. So we become customers of theirs, supplying them on the scrap side of the business. And then we're a customer of theirs on the other side of the business, buying coil from them. Oh wow, full circle. And so there's times in the cycle where they treat us really well because they really need us to supply them with scrap. And then there's times in the cycle where getting scraps easy but they really need us over here to help them out to take out quill. So interesting we've, because, you know, we kind of have a little bit more leverage, um, in those relationships. And that's become, you know, now, when we acquire mid-south, we, oh, this is going to be great, we're just going to do a ton of tolling. Well, that doesn't always work and, as a matter of fact, more often than not the tolling piece doesn't work. But when it does, it's great, for you know, two different parties. Now that's great. Dave: And this is one of the reasons that. Now, that's great and this is one of the reasons that you know I picked up. You probably know my very first scrap metal client, Arnie Gashman. You probably know Arnie. Everybody knows Arnie, Right. I think he was in college, at TCU, when his father or grandfather became ill. It may have been his grandfather, Maybe his father wasn't very interested in the business, and then I believe his grandfather passed somewhat suddenly. So Arnie was kind of thrust in to take him the place over at like 22 years old. So yeah, and same thing, he stuck around. But one of the things I love about the industry and I've I tried telling friends who aren't in the industry that I said I've never seen an industry where your reputation matters more than in this industry. And I said and I tell them, I said I believe my clients will buy and sell a million dollars of scrap metal on a phone call, like no formal contracts. I mean there may or may not even be an email, that that that documents it. But I said, can you, can you believe that they do transactions just on a handshake? And it's one of the things that I find just great about the industry. Matt: That is a hundred percent true. You know, I would say you know we have three core values that we run our business and we run our business on them, and everyone in our organization can recite them, and they also know that every decision they make needs to be filtered through these three things okay, one is. One is we do what we say, which you're referring to. You know your reputation. That's how you build your reputation by following through on what you say. Two is we provide solutions. And you know where we try to differentiate ourselves is people are used to at least in the recycling side of the business. They're used to rejections and downgrades. I mean, things go wrong and my dad's big thing was always don't call up a customer and say, hey, you got a rejection down in Kentucky, because that's what everyone else does. He said let's differentiate ourselves. Instead of saying that, let's call them up and say, hey, we have an issue, a little bit different verbiage, but before you call them already have worked out two to potentially three solutions of this, and they'll keep it. Two is we ran the freight to bring it up to our warehouse in Toledo is blank and we'll go through and clean it for you and evaluate the load. And a third option is we found this other place that is willing to buy it. If you go that direction. We're still going to owe this metal on the original contract, but this gives you an opportunity to. You know, get out of this loop. And that's the second one. The third one is also what you're referring to. The third core value Relationships are the backbone of our business. Backbone of our business and I think, while unique when we discuss other industries, that is not unique in the scrap metal industry. You know that we will put relationships ahead of making money, that we will say to you know, our employees, employees hey, if you have an opportunity to cement a relationship, don't worry about whether you make money on that particular deal, it'll come back to us many times playing the long game, playing the long game well. Dave: And I just find life's more fun when you do business with people you know as a customer or supplier. It's just more fun when you do business with people you like and trust. And, just like my wife and I have a saying we don't do transactions, we only do relationships. And that even means because everybody wants like a customers, right, don't complain, pay your bills right Easy to work with. Like a customers right, don't complain, pay your bills right Easy to work with. But my wife and I's theories we aspire to be a customers for all of our vendors because we just find it's more fun when you have a problem and the vendor calls you back right away because you're one of their better customers. And it's just more fun when you're you have great working relationships with your vendors, rather than them feeling like you're going to beat them up on price every time you talk to them. Scott: Right, but that's another relationship, you know, it goes way back and there is a lot. I mean, it can't emphasize enough how important relationships are. You know, this weekend I listened to a couple of the podcasts that you've done and there was somebody else that mentioned the importance of the relationship, and it is. I mean, that is definitely the case in everything that we do, even with the banks, like, for example, you know, we go through periods where, okay, maybe we're carrying a little bit more inventory than what we typically carry, or maybe the price is a lot higher than what it was six months ago. It's great to know that we can pick up that phone and say, okay, we've got a temporary situation, maybe it doesn't quite work with our reporting, what can we do? And we'll start talking, talking through some, some options, and I think, because we have a relationship like that with our banks and and others, I mean it makes it makes business a lot easier to do too. And the other thing you touched on was, uh, you know the integrity that is so important and we do what we, you know. And that goes back to another one of our three core values that Matt mentioned is we do what we say. I can remember when I started years ago, larry always used to say, okay, pay on time, pay on time, pay on time. Because, that is a really important thing. It builds trust, it builds a relationship, adds to the integrity. I mean it is really important and you know it goes a long way. Matt: That's the other thing, that pay your bills on time. You know it's's. Yes, there's many industries where that is an issue. But when I have friends and in other industries and I'm like, oh yeah, we pay our bills on time, they look at me like why is that unique? You know, everyone pays their bills on time. Dave: I'm like not in our industry. Matt: I mean there's, you know there's, unfortunately, uh, you know the road is littered with um, a lot of people who give you the highest price and then make you chase them for, uh, that last dollar and, um, you know, that's one of the. You know, if you say, what is our secret sauce and why do people like to do business with us? One of those things is they never have to track our CFO down and say why am I not getting paid? I mean they, they can set their clock to when the payment comes. Dave: Sure, well, you talked about the relationships. I remember when I ran into you guys in San Diego last month, you know, I had a chance to introduce you to a professional who might be able to help you all in a way, and then I happened to sit down and have breakfast with you guys and you were, you all were kind enough to introduce me to some, some guys who I didn't know and some others who I hadn't talked to in a long time. So, uh, yeah, in fact I leave tomorrow to go to san antonio for the gulf coast regional event. Matt: Yeah, I do my guess is there'll be some people from our. I don't even know anymore who goes to which event, but my guess is we have some people who are going to that event. Dave: I would suspect. So I also suspect it'll be warm, so that's my other suspicion. So, Matt, I believe that a few years ago you kind of changed your role with the company. Is that correct? Matt: That is correct. So, in trying to think of the year that we named Chad the president, was that three years ago, so 22. So, so for a number. So let me backtrack a little bit further. In 2012, I worked out an agreement with my dad that was going to be a 10-year buyout of his and my mom's shares in the company. As part of that we agreed that I think right before then I took over as president of the company and my dad became the CEO of the company and he maintained that CEO role almost all the way through that buyout, even though I would say the last five years I would call him he was much more of like our lovable founder than he was really leading the company strategy anymore. Everyone would love when he would come back from Florida and come in the office and and spend time here. I took over the CEO role maybe in 2019 or 20 and was president CEO for a few years, and then we identified my cousin, chad Kripke, as president, or that we're developing him to become the president of the company. Chad is really really strong at risk management and a lot of the. I mean he was one of our rainmakers probably towards the end of his trading career, our largest rainmaker and would put together these monster deals and really good at building relationships. He, you know, I say to people all the time I felt like I was a really good president of a company for a long time, but Chad is 14 years younger than me and Chad is so much better than I ever was at that age I mean he's he's probably better than I was towards the end of when I was president, but he's still learning. He's still learning many things, but he's done a great job in really leading the day-to-day of the company. I'm still learning what it means to. You know, I've been really, really careful about not wanting to step on Scott's toes as CFO, not wanting to step on Andy Golding's toes as our chief strategy officer, eric Phillips as our COO and wanting to give Chad the freedom to lead. That I probably have erred too much on, you know, kind of a laissez faire attitude of you guys make all the decisions and some of them, actually, almost every single person has come back to me and said, hey, we see what you're trying to do. We'd like you to maybe stay involved a little bit more than you have been and we'd like you to voice your opinion a little bit more forcefully than you have been, and it's a tough mix to figure that out, so I'm still learning what that means to lead more on the longer-term strategy side and less on the day-to-day side. But it's really been fun and then, also in 2022, I told you January of 2023, these guys that I mentioned, they all came in and wrote a check to buy some equity in the company, and they are now my partners in the company, which has been fun as well, and you know it's. Dave: that's been a learning experience too, because my only partner prior to this was my dad, okay, oh, that's that is great, and, and I believe that andy is on track to be, uh you know, the chair of uh rima in a couple years right, or three years next year, next year, next year, yeah, okay yeah, so so next, next year, uh, andy's reign of terror begins and, yes, you, I think that it will be very exciting for the industry because Andy thinks differently. Matt: The reason that he's so valuable to us is, I think, very black and white. Yeah, chad is pretty creative, eric is very black and white, scott is very black and white, andy thinks in all these different technicolor ways, okay, and he is going to bring that to the entire REMA board and it will be uncomfortable. I can guarantee you this. The board will be uncomfortable for a couple of years because he will push the boundaries and will get them to think of hey, yes, I acknowledge we've done it this way forever, or we've done it this way for a long time. I just think this is a great idea over here and I'm going to challenge everyone and there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be very uncomfortable, but the industry is going to be better off for it and I can tell you our company is certainly better off because of how creative he is and the way that his mind works. Dave: Yeah, because what do you think about that? Matt: although Scott's the CFO, and I will tell you that sometimes those creative types are not the best at details. What do you think, scott? Scott: It's funny, andy and I have have like a long running joke that you know he always jokes. He'll say, well, I'm extremely detailed, I'm not, you know, we laughed about it. So, but, yeah, I, you know, I think, I think Andy's going to be great for rima. I think that, uh, you know he's gonna, he's gonna bring a lot to the organization and uh, uh, they'll probably be looking at a lot of things a whole lot differently when, uh, yeah that's into the chair position so, matt, you know, I I believe that that Andy does not have a traditional scrap metal background. Matt: What was it? Dave: about him that made you think kind of outside the box and bring in somebody from outside the industry. Matt: Well, in 2004, my dad and I so 2001, we hired our first trader who was not family and that was Marvin Finkelstein in Florida, and Marvin is our senior vice president of domestic sales and trading and Marvin's been with us since 2001. And Marvin's been with us since 2001. 2004, we had a guy hired who was supposed to start like essentially January 1 of 25. And he called us. I think Christmas Eve, called my dad and he said I really appreciate the offer, I really appreciate getting to know you guys even better. I've gotten cold feet and I have this other opportunity and I'm going to take the other opportunity and I think that's the safer way for me to go. And so we knew that we needed to add someone. At the same time, andy was part of a family business that unfortunately ran into some tough times. They were in the auto glass industry and, similar to the way that, like doctor's reimbursement, changes on the whims of the way the insurance companies want to treat different procedures, that industry was having a seismic shift and they were a big enough company. They couldn't move quick enough to get out of the way, and so andy was uh, andy at the time, in september of 2004, had twins, so he then had four kids under four years old and his family business was kind of disintegrating and and I knew andy, we, we had known each other since we were kids and and, um, my dad had known andy probably since close to when he was born and I I pulled my dad aside and I said, hey, this, this thing with this other guy didn't work out. You know, andy is out there looking and he doesn't have any experience in our industry, but this guy is really creative and could be a great sales guy for us. My dad said if you think you can work with him and you don't, and you're not nervous about your friendship getting ruined, then bring him in, let's talk to him. And by February of 2005, we had an agreement worked out. He started and he was was. I mean, he had to learn the metals, he had to learn the industry, but one thing he didn't have to learn was how to be a salesman and how to be creative and okay it. It probably took me maybe three or four years until I started getting comfortable with his crazy ideas. That and they weren't. They weren't crazy, they were crazy to me. But once I got comfortable with, hey, this stuff that he's suggesting it's working. Maybe we should, maybe I should get out of the way and maybe I should get out of the way, and, and you know that success and him being successful encourage us to add Eric Phillips and encourage us to add Chad Kripke. And then we grew to the point that we needed a real CFO and, you know, instead of my dad just coming back from Florida and saying, all right, what do you guys, you know, where are we at, what should I do? And so that, really, you know, starting with Marvin, going to Andy and then adding the others, those were all key moments and, um, a lot of the people we've added did not have, uh, scrap metal or recycling experience prior to joining here, and I think that has actually worked a lot to our advantage to get fresh eyes on things. And instead, instead of someone saying, well, here's the way you do it in your industry, someone coming in and saying, why do you do it this way and can we do this differently? Dave: No, that makes sense. I can appreciate that different perspective that he was able to bring Scott. What do you enjoy the most about your role with Kripke? Scott: Well, I'll tell you what I mean. I think you know I mentioned my background and you know it's just, it is so refreshing to be here compared to, I mean, we're, you know, we got a great culture. I mean we stress that all the time. You know it's so different than you know, what I had previously. I mean we're still, you know, we're still, you know, reasonably small in the grand view of things, so we can change on a dime, you know, we're, we're, we're nimble, we're, you know, and that's the great thing. So we find, we find that if something isn't working, let's, let's do something, try something else. And you know, I I would say between between being able to to quickly change and, you know, I would say, between between being able to to quickly change and, you know, have make a real difference, um, that in just being someplace where the culture is so important, you know and and people feel part of the team. I mean, I, I, you know. I would say that that those are probably two of the biggest things that I enjoy, you know, working here. Dave: So OK, that makes sense. Scott: It goes throughout the entire organization. Dave: So, yeah, I like it. So, Matt, how about you? Same question to you in your current capacity what do you find most enjoyable or satisfying or gratifying in your current role? Matt: I love seeing growth in other people. I love seeing people grab opportunity. Seeing people grab opportunity, and you know I love the stories of someone coming in as a. You know I'll use Eric Phillips as an example. Eric Phillips, in 2008, gets hired to be our warehouse manager. As we decided we were going to move more into. You know, on top of the brokerage, we were going to concentrate also on having a physical operation for reworking and consolidating loads. And he comes in and within probably eight months, my dad pulled me aside and said you know, we really need to bring him up front. He needs to be a trader. He's got everything. He's got all the skills to do that. My dad was really, really good at warehouse manager. You know currently is a COO and a partner in the company, and you know I love seeing that. And then you know we have some other programs that are a little bit unique. We have we want to make people's lives better, not just our customers, but I'm talking about, you know, where Scott references the culture. We put together a program five years ago, I guess, that we put together a new homeowners program and we want to help any of our employees who have never owned a home. We want to help them get a home, and so we put together a six-month financial education course where they do, like these, lunch and learns, and we have a local credit union that comes in and leads these classes, and as long as they go through those courses and as long as they've been with us for one year, then we'll uh, we'll, give them a twenty five hundred dollar uh, at least they have to put up at least twenty five hundred themselves, which, of course, you're gonna have to do that to buy a home, but we'll match up to $2,500 and then we'll give them a hundred dollars a month for three years towards their mortgage. How cool is that? So, you know, keep in mind we're we're pretty small, but we've had five people in the program. We currently have another four that are in classes right now in a series of classes, and of those, I believe that as soon as three of them, as soon as they're done with the course, are going to be ready to buy their first home. So it's, it's exciting and you know, you know, of course, the side benefit of that is it does act a little bit as a golden handcuff. Sure, you know, let's face it, someone's not staying on a job for 100 bucks a month. Yeah, but it does give them something to think about. These guys help me with this and, and if they help me with this, what else are they going to help me with down the road? Dave: Now, that's awesome. So did all five of that first group buy houses then? Matt: We have, we've done. I think this is our fourth different class yeah, so we've had, we haven't had. Sometimes we've had people go through it and say I just want the financial education piece of it because I don't really understand. I hear people talk about credit score, but I don't really understand what it is or how I could affect it. That might be one of them. I hear people talk about what a mortgage is, but what is a mortgage and how does it work? And you know, and then some other people. One of the classes is how do you set up a budget so that you don't, you know, you, you, you don't think getting the house is the finish line. The finish line is making sure you can afford the house. Dave: Yeah, of course, of course. So you have had some people buy houses from the program. Matt: We've had five people. We have five people that we have put in new houses. Dave: Yes, that's awesome. I mean heck, that's almost 10 of your workforce yeah, that's, uh, that's a little under that. Matt: Yeah, a little you know, I would hope you're an account you. You do our icy disc. Your numbers have to be your. Your math skills have to be better than that, david. Well, that was a bit of. It's about seven percent. Well, that's where my that's where my marketing angle came in right. Dave: Just it sounded more appealing to say nearly 10 there you go. But if we look at, but if we look at the percentage of your employees who'd never bought a house before. Now we're talking, you know 20, right? Because some of your employees you know already owned a house before you know they came to work here. I think that is awesome. So, scott, I'd like to just digress just a bit. And so you had another service provider for the IC desk before we came along, and I think I you know, we talked to you for several years. I'd known Matt for a long time, and one of the things we talked about was that I thought we could do a better job from service, kind of turnaround time. And then I also said that we bring a more thorough kind of calculation to the table. And I'm just curious I know this is kind of unscripted, but how and this has been a few years how has that been? Did we live up to the expectation? Is there anything that you were disappointed by? Scott: Yeah, no, for sure, I mean we, we, we can't thank you enough, dave, um, if, if I think back, I think we have. We moved our icdiscs over to you. What three years ago I can remember, we met in nashville yeah, something like two years ago, and I think you'd already had our disc for a year at that point. Does that sound right? Dave: Yeah, I think so. Scott: Yeah, so you know we, I know that you and Matt had been in touch. I think I, you know we, I think you and I had been in touch. You know, before we made that move for for some time move for, uh, for some time, we, you know with, with our previous provider, you know, maybe the response times weren't quite what we had been looking for or expecting and okay, you know we had a couple years of that and uh, and then I can remember matt and I started talking and uh, um, I remember I, uh, I, and I remember I sent you a note at some point and then we started the discussions then and you know we made the move and it's worked out really well for us, not only with the response times and, you know, moving quickly through all the work that needs to be done, because you know it always comes up, the disc always comes up around around the tax deadline date of April 15. So you know it a little bit of a time crunch of the turnaround you know with your firm is is great, but the other, the other important thing here is the additional calculations that that you've been able to do the last couple of years. We've it's it, it. It takes a little bit more detail, but you take it to the next step and you're able to find some additional tax savings with those additional steps that you do Over the years going back, yeah, since 2011, our tax savings with the ICDIS has been anywhere from, say, a few thousand dollars up to the $60,000 to $70,000 range. Okay, and it's been interesting since you took it over, dave, we've been. The last two years have been in the $60,000 to $70,000 range for tax savings. Matt: So I do think it's interesting. I referenced that Scott became a partner in the company right around that time, dave. So I think, now that some of his money, his personal money, is at stake, look at what he's doing. He's really trying to, you know, maximize all these relationships to make sure so it worked. Dave: It worked, matt. It worked exactly like you hoped it would Well. Thank you for your kind words. The team will enjoy hearing that. Your kind words. The team will enjoy hearing that. I know when we were first talking, you'd said that the turnaround time with the prior provider was maybe as long as several months, and I told you that our guaranteed turnaround time is one week from the time we get all the data, and I think you were skeptical One week. Matt: Yeah. Dave: I think the most recent year with some of the more detailed stuff. It may have been a little more back and forth, but kind of from the time we get the final numbers we uh until we turn around the disc return because you know it's kind of like paying your bills on time, right. So we manage over 500 ic discs and whether we take a month to do them all or we take a week to do them all, it's still the same amount of work. The only difference is if we take a week, our clients on average get the work done three weeks sooner than if we take a month. Just like when I was in college I had these friends that were always paying their bills five days late and I'm like you know it costs the same amount of money to pay them five days early Actually less, because you know there's no late payment fees and stuff. So yeah, no we and the other provider, I believe, didn't specialize in just the IC desk. When all you do is one thing, you know, you develop some efficiency. So then anyway, I don't want to make this too much about me. Thank you again for your kind words and your feedback. And you know anything ever not to your satisfaction. You'd be sure to let me know. I can't believe how the time is flying by. I've got a couple other questions as we wrap up, guys, and I'll start, I'm going to start with Scott first. That way you can't steal Matt's answer. So if you could go back in time and give advice to like your 25-year-old self, Scott, what advice might you give yourself, knowing what you know now? Scott: yeah, it's, it's for myself personally. Uh, our, our younger daughter is going to be graduating maybe as soon as a year, and she graduated from college with a finance degree, not not. I have an accounting degree a little bit different, uh-huh. Um, my, my advice to her is probably don't start out with a large corporation I would. Actually I would. I've had a discussion with her a couple of times. I think there's can learn a lot more working at a smaller company whatever, whatever kind of company that is you get. You get a lot more exposure to, uh, to different things. I mean if, if I were to say to do one thing differently, I'd probably say that that would be, uh. Dave: My advice is go to work to my my younger, 25 year old self is to maybe don't over uh, don't over in index on large companies because that's their pitch. Right, you'll be exposed to more stuff you can rotate around, but that you might have considered a smaller operation sooner. Is that about? Scott: something, yeah, exactly. Dave: No, great great advice. Scott: Okay. Dave: Mr Kripke, how about you? What advice might you give to your 25 year old self? Matt: So I would say, I would tell my 25 year old self that in 2025, you should bet the farm on JJ Spahn to win the US Open to when the US opens, no one will have seen it coming. You'll make millions of that. Just mortgage the house, do everything, whatever you can throw at it. The real answer would be don't worry so much. I think we all have a tendency when we're young that everything feels like a big deal and everything feels like the end of the world, and things just have a way of working out. It doesn't mean that life is perfect. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have challenges. You know, kripke Enterprises had its share of challenges over the years that we've had to fight through. My wife and I have had our share of times where we had to band together as a team to get our family through difficult times and those aren't easy. But don't worry so much. Things have a way of working out as long as you put your, you know, as long as you put your nose down and go to work, to work through it. Dave: That's great. I think it was Mark Twain that said I'm an old man and I've known a great number of troubles, most of which never came to be Something to that effect. I've always loved that. Well hey, what did I not ask you guys that you wish I had? Matt: um, I would say I thought you did a really, uh, good job as an interviewer. I think maybe, if we want to talk a little bit about the, the future of the industry, yeah, let's do that. The the other thing that I'm, you know, obviously, obviously technology, you know, not just AI, but AI is going to change every industry, including our industry. People are going to find a way to harness it and put it to work and technology is going to change our industries for the better, which is exciting. Scott: Change our industries for the better, which is exciting which is exciting, but yeah, it's exciting but scary. Matt: The way that we're going to be able to. You know, the dream for years, at least on the aluminum front, has been the ability to really dig deep and really be able to sort material to the nth degree, it back to specific alloys, and it feels like we are almost there. We're really. We're probably 90 to 95 percent of the way there and I think that is going to be really awesome for aluminum. Scary, because any change is scary, and but there's always going in. People say well, you know what does that mean? Does that mean that there's going to be the haves and the have nots? People can afford this new technology and people who can't. My guess is that's what they were saying years and years ago about shredders and years before that about whatever the new equipment was that the industry is constantly evolving. It has to evolve to get better from a technology perspective. What I'm very excited about is, over the last I'd say, six, seven years, scott, we've really added some new traders and most of them are younger than you know. We had an older trading team and most of these people are younger, so good, and so they learn things so quickly and they're interesting and they really the future is bright. And because they're so young, I've gotten to know the people that they meet in the industry who are also younger, and I know a lot of times we're guilty, as I was at one point that young, hungry guy. Now I'm the guy with gray in my beard and no hair in my head and um. And a lot of times we are guilty as old people saying the young people, they don't like to do this or they don't do this sure. I will tell you there may be things that they don't do, but there's so much better and so many other things and I think the future is bright for our industry. We've got really good young people who have entered it and are leading it now. Dave: Oh, that is. That is great. Thank you for for adding that. It was actually on my list and I think I just was sidetracked. Scott, how about you? Anything we should have talked about or that you wish I'd asked you about? Scott: Yeah, I mean you know Matt touched on it briefly I mean, I think the whole AI thing is going to make a huge difference. Maybe five years from now, seven years from now. We're not there yet, but but I mean I see that being a huge, a huge change for us in the not so near future. I mean it's you know, some of the stuff that they're working on right now it's going to get us there. But you know, on the financial administrative side, I think that is going to be the biggest change that we're going to see in the future. Dave: And we see it and we all see it every day. And since we drive the same brand of cars, you know I drove, I drove a,400 mile trip with my wife a couple of weeks ago and this was the first time ever that she sat in the passenger seat the whole time. She didn't need to spell me to give me a break and I people don't believe me I drove about four miles of the 2,400 miles and that was probably a dozen times that I intervened for five to 10 seconds, mostly for convenience and politeness. You know I needed to get over three lanes and the exit was a mile away and I just, you know, wanted to just make it happen. But yeah, we've all seen that AI firsthand, haven't? We Sure have Well, excellent, Well, guys, I really appreciate your time and I also really appreciate the trust that you've shown in us and our team, giving us a chance to demonstrate the value, and just really want to let you know how much we value the relationship. So I really appreciate that right back at you. Matt: We value the relationship with you. Thanks for giving us a chance to talk. Dave: Today was fun yeah, that that sounds great. Well, you guys have a great day. In case the listeners haven't figured it out, so yesterday was the US Open, the JJ Spahn victory that Matt was talking about. What an amazing, amazing win that was. That was exciting, that last after the rain delay was. Matt: I mean it wasn't. I'm sure it wasn't fun for any of them, but boy was that fun to watch. Dave: It was. It was at that, well, hey. Well, thank you guys very much, and if I don't see you sooner, I'll see you in St Louis or in Las Vegas next year, all right, Great Thanks. Dave. Special Guests: Matthew Kripke and Scott Chaffee.

Enjoy part three of this classic episode series where Andrew Warner from Mixergy interviews Russell on the ClickFunnels startup story! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed episodes 1 and 2 of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry Bar Comedy Club where he was telling the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you are enjoying this interview series so far, and I hope also this motivates you guys to go over to the mixergy podcast and subscribe to everything that Andrew does. Like I said, he is my favorite interviewer and I think that what he does is second to none. So I hope that you guys enjoy him as well, and go subscribe to the mixergy podcast. But with that said, I'm going to queue up the theme song, and when we come back we will start into part 3 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview. Andrew: I actually got, I did see, I don't know, I didn't see the video you mentioned, but I did see what it looked like. Here's one of the first versions. He compared it to Clickfunnels, he said, I mean to Lead Pages. He said, “Look at how Lead Pages has their stuff all the way on the left, all the controls.” Oh you can't see it. Oh, let me try it again, let me see if I can bring up the screen because this is just, it's just too good. Hang on a second. I'm just constantly amazed how you're able to draw people to you. So this is the article from Lead Pages, this is the first landing page from Clickfunnels, this is what he created before, this is what you guys did together. This is your editor and h e said, “Look, if you're on Lead Pages, their controls, their editor is all the way on the left and it's just moving the main content to the right, which is not looking right. And I prefer something that looks like this, with a hundred pixels on the left, a hundred pixels…” I go, who knows a hundred pixels, it's like you, what is this? Russell: Dylan is obsessed with that type of stuff, it's amazing. Andrew: Obsessed. And you draw people like that. You draw people like Dave, who is just phenomenal. Dave, the traffic and conversion event that he was just talking about, is that the one that you went to? Dave: The one after that. Andrew: The one after that. Okay, we'll come back to that in a second then. So this became your next version, you brought on a new partner, and then you did a webinar with this guy. Who is this guy? Russell: It's Mike Filsaime, one of my first friends online. It actually wasn't a webinar, it was a live event. He was doing a live event in San Diego and he was like, “You have to come and sell Clickfunnels.” And I was like, “Nobody's buying Clickfunnels.” We had a free trial and like, we couldn't give it away. It was crazy. And he's like, “Well, you're on this website, you're picture is there, you have to come and sell Clickfunnels, and I need you to sell it for at least $1000.” Because the way it works, if you speak at someone's event, you sell something, you split the money 50/50. So he's like, “It needs to be at least $1000.” And I was all bummed out. I didn't want to do it. And the event actually started, but they were streaming it live online, so I was actually sitting at our office in Boise, watching it as I'm putting together my slides to create Clickfunnels, and then flew out to the event. And then we had a booth, and I don't know if I told you this, we had a booth and Lead Pages had a booth right across the little hallway, skinny hallway. And Todd's wife was manning our booth and then Lead Pages was right there, and it was so funny because she was not shy at all about talking about Lead Pages. She's like, “Yeah, we're like Lead Pages except for way better. We can do this and this.” And the other guy is sitting there like, right in front of her as she's telling them everything. And it was..anyway, I digress. It was pretty funny. Andrew: By the way, she's still at it. I saw a video that you guys created, you were talking to her and she goes, “I will be Clickfunnels.” I go wait a minute, you still had that fire, okay. So you were at that event. Russell: So we're at the event and there's probably, I can't remember, 150-200 people maybe in the room. So I got the slides up and Dylan was there and he was like, when we got to the funnels he was going to demo the editor, so I did the whole thing, showed the presentation and we demo'd Clickfunnels and at the end of the thing I sold. And I've been good onstage, but by far, that was the first time in probably 8 years that I'd seen a table rush, where people are stepping over the things, jumping around, trying to get to the back to buy as fast as they could. Andrew: What did you say to get them to want to do that? Russell: We made a really, I mean we gave the presentation, and gave a really good offer at the end. They get a year of Clickfunnels for free, plus they get training, plus they were going to get all these other things for $1000. Andrew: It was $1000 training and a year of Clickfunnels for free, and then they become long term members. And it was also called, Funnel Hackers? Russell: Funnel Hacks, yeah. Andrew: Funnel Hacks. And that's the thing that became like… Russell: The culture. Andrew: This culture, this tribe. It wasn't just they were signing to learn from you, they were becoming funnel hackers. That's it. Russell: I mean, that wasn't planned though. It was like, I was trying to think about a sexy name for the presentation, so I'm like ah, Funnel Hacks. And somebody owned FunnelHacks.com, and I'm like, I'm still doing the presentation that way. And then later we made t-shirts that said, “Funnel Hackers” and then now we got 4 or 5 people have tattooed that to their bodies, it's really weird. But anyway, that's what happened. We did that and we sold it and I remember going to dinner that night with the guys who were there, and Todd and his wife and everything. And we were all excited because we made some money finally. But I was just like, “You guys don't understand, like I've spoken on a lot of stages, and I haven't seen a table rush like that.” And I remember back, there was a guy, he passed away a couple of years ago, his name was Fred Catona. And he was a radio guy. He was the guy who did the radio commercials for, do you guys remember, it's got the guy from Star Trek, what's his name? Audience member: Priceline. Russell: Priceline. He did the Priceline radio commercials and made that guy a billionaire. And he told me when we were doing the radio ads, “This is what's going to happen. We're going to test your ad and if it works, I'm going to call you on the phone and let you know you're rich. Because if it works, it means you're going to be rich.” So I remember going to dinner that night and I told the guys, “Just so you guys know, we're rich.” And they're like, “What do you mean? We made $150,000.” I'm like, “No, no, no. The way people responded to that, I've never seen that in my life. We're rich.” The response rate from that, I've never seen. Andrew: And then you went to webinar after webinar after webinar. Russell: On the flight home that day I'm texting everybody I've ever met. “I got a hot offer, this webinar crushed it. We just closed whatever percent of the room at Filsaime's event. Who wants to do it?” And we started filling up the calendar. Andrew: And the idea was, and you told me you did 2 to 3 some days. And the idea was, they would sell somebody on a course, and then their members would then hear how your software and your funnel hacking technique would help up what they just bought and then they would sign up. You're still excited, I can see it in your face. And then this thing took off. And then you started doing an event for your culture, your community, and this guy spoke, Tony Robbins. Russell: Oh yeah, there's Tony. Andrew: One of the first ones. Was he at the very first one? Russell: No, he came to the third one, was the first one we had him come to. Andrew: Yeah? Why do an event? Why do your own live event? Russell: So we've done events in the past. I know events are good, but I'd sworn off them because the last event we did, I think we sold 3 or 400 tickets and less than 100 people showed up and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “We'll never do events again.” And as soon as this, as soon as Clickfunnels launched and it was growing, everyone's like, “We want to do a meet up. We should do an event.” All the customers kept asking. And against my, I didn't really want to do it, but at the same time I was launching my book, and I had won a Ferrari in this affiliate contest so I was like, “What if we did an event and we had the Ferrari there and we gave it away and then we're…” we had other ideas for giving away other cars and it became this big, exciting thing that eventually turned into an event. And that was the first Funnel Hacking Live event in Vegas, and we had about 600 people at that one that showed up. And that's where it all kind of, it all started. Andrew: And it built how much, how many people are you up to now? Russell: Last year we had 3500 people and we're on track to have about 5000 at this year's event. Andrew: 5000? Yeah. Russell: Those aren't free tickets. Each ticket's $1000, so it's…. Andrew: So how much is that in total revenue? Russell: From the event? Andrew: Yeah. Russell: So ticket sales, last year was $3 ½ million, this year will be over $5. But at the event we sell coaching so last year we made $13 million in coaching sales at the event as well. Andrew: Wow, would you come up here for a second, Dave? Do you guys know Dave? Yeah, everyone knows Dave. You know what's amazing… {Audience catcalls} Andrew: That's amazing. Dave: I don't know who that is. Andrew: A catcall. I saw a video, you guys have this vlog now, a beautifully show vlog. You guys went to sales force's conference, you're looking at the booths and in the video, do you remember what you did as you saw the different booths? Dave: I think that one I went and asked what the prices for each of the booths were. Andrew: Yes, and then you multiplied. And he's like, you're not enjoying the event, you're calculating ahead, how much. “10,000 that's 100,000….” It's like wow, right. You do this all the time? Dave: Yeah. It's a lot of money in an event like that. Andrew: And you think, and if this was not your event, you would be doing the same calculation trying to figure out how much they brought in today. Wowee. Alright when you went to sales force did you calculate how much money they probably did from their event? Dave: We were doing that the whole time, absolutely. Andrew: You saw the building, you had to know… Dave: Oh my gosh. 61 stories. Andrew: Why? Why do you guys want to know that? Why does, how does that… I want to understand your drive as a company and I feel like this is a part of it. Figuring out how much money other people are making, using that for fuel somehow. Tell me. Dave: I think it actually goes back to Russell and his wrestling days. We had the experience of going to Chicago right after that, and super just exhausted. And it was one of those things where he literally landed, we walked down and we're underneath the tarmac and all the sudden Russell goes from just being totally exhausted to a massive state change. Where he's literally right back where he was with his dad and he and his dad are walking that same path to go to, I think it was Nationals. And I saw Dan Usher, who was doing the filming, capturing that moment and it's that type of a thing for Russell. Where all the sudden it's the dream, where as soon as you see it, it can then happen. And Russell's just been amazing at modeling, and again the whole idea as far as just going at a rapid, rapid speed. I mean it's “Ready, fire, aim.” Andrew: It's not you gawking at the sales force, what's the sales force event called? Dave: Dream Force. Andrew: Dream force. It's not you gawking at how well Sales Force's event, Dream Force is doing, it's not you having envy or just curiosity, it's you saying, it's possible. This is us. That's it. Dave: It's totally possible. Andrew: It's totally possible. We could get there. And when you're sizing up the building, you even found out how much the building cost. Who does that? Most people go, “Where's the bathroom?” How much does the building cost? Dave: There's a number. Andrew: It's you saying, “We could maybe have that.” Dave: We can have that, yeah. Andrew: Got it. And so let's go back a little bit. I asked you about Traffic and Conversion because the very first Traffic and Conversion conference you went to, you guys were nobodies. Nobody came and saw you. Dave: We were put out in North 40 pasture, way, way far away. Andrew: And some people would say, “One day I'll get there.” you told Russell, “Today we're going to get there.” Dave: Well Russell wanted, he was speaking and so whenever you're speaking at an event, it's important that you fill a room, like this. And there's nothing worse than having an event and having no one show up. It's just the worst feeling in the world. And so he's like, “All we need, I gotta find some way of getting people into the event. I wish we had like some girls who could just hand out t-shirts or do something.” And I was like, we're in San Diego, that's like my home town. Russell: Dave's like, “How many do you need?” That's all he said. Dave: It's just a number. It comes down to a number. How many do you want? So we ended up having, within an hour or so we had 5 girls there who were more than happy to dance around and give out t-shirts and fill the room. Andrew: and the room was full? Dave: Packed. Andrew: Packed. And why wouldn't you say, “One day, the next time we come to Traffic and Conversion, the tenth time we're going to do it.” Why did it have to be right there? Dave: It's always now.   Andrew: It's always now. Dave: It's always now. Andrew: It's always now. It's never going to be the next funnel, it's never going to be the next product launch. I'm going to do whatever we can right now, and the next one, and the next one. That's it. That's who you are. Dave: That's how it works. Andrew: And now you're a partner in the business. $83 million so far this year, you got a piece of that. Dave: Yes. Do i? Russell: Yeah. Dave: Just checking. Andrew: Do you get to take profits home now? Dave: We do. Andrew: You do, you personally do? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Are you a millionaire? Dave: Things are really good. Andrew: Millionaire good from Clickfunnels? Dave: yes. Andrew: Really? Dave: Yes. Andrew: Wow. And you're another one. I was driving and I said, “What was it about Russell that made you work for him? What was it?” and you said, “I've never seen anyone implement like him.” Give me an example of early days, something that he implemented…you know what, forget that, let's not go back to Russell. As a team, you guys have gotten really good at implementing. Give me an example of one thing that you're just stunned by, we did it, it came out of nowhere, we could have been distracted by funnel software, we could have distracted by the next book, we did this thing, what is it? Dave: You're here on this stage with JP, and this was what 6 weeks ago? Andrew: and this whole thing just came from an idea I heard. You use Voxer. Why do you use Voxer? Russell: I don't know. Andrew: Because you like to talk into it. Russell: Yeah, and you can fast forward, you can listen at 4x speed, you can forward the messages to people really easily, it's awesome. Andrew: and it's just train of thought, boom, here's what I think we're going to…No, it's not that. I heard it's, “I have a secret project…” Russell: “I'll tell you guys about it later.” And they all start freaking out. “Tell us now.” Andrew: “Secret project. I don't know what it, it's going to be exciting.” They don't know what it is, going to be excited. Russell: Do you know how it started, this one? I was cleaning my wrestling room listening to you, and you were, I don't know whose event it was, but you were at the campfire, it sounded like. And you were doing something like this and I was like, I want my own campfire chat to tell our story. And then I was like, “Dave, we should do it.” And now we're here. So thanks for coming to our campfire…. Dave: That's how it happens. Andrew: And that's exciting to this day. Alright, thank you. Give him a big round, thank you so much. You know what, I didn't mean for this to come onstage, but I'm glad that it is. This made you laugh when you accidentally saw it earlier too. Why is this making you laugh? What is it? Russell: So we're not shy about our competitors, even when they're our friends. So one of the companies we're crossing out is his. That's why it's funny. Andrew: It's one of my companies. That's Bot Academy there. It's also a company I invest in, that octopus is ManyChat, I've been a very big angel investor and supporter of theirs. I'm not at all insulted by that, I'm curious about it. You guys come across as such nice, happy-go-lucky guys. Dave asked me if I want water, I said “Dave I can't have you give me any more things. I feel uncomfortable, I'm a New Yorker. Punch me, please.” So he goes, “Okay, one more thing. I'm going to give you socks.” So he gave me socks. Really, but still, you have murder in your eyes sometimes. You're crossing out everybody. This is part of your culture, why? Russell: It comes back, for me its wrestling. When I was wrestling it was not, I don't know, there's different mentalities right. And I did a podcast on this one time and I think I offended some people, so I apologize in advance, but if you're in a band and everyone gets together and you play together and you harmonize, it's beautiful. When you're a wrestler you don't do that. You know, you walk in everyday and you're like, those are the two guys I have to beat to be varsity. And then after you do that, you walk in and you're like, “Okay who are the people I have to beat to be in the region champ, and then the state champ, and then the national champ?” So for me, my entire 15 years of my life, all my focus was like, who's the next person on the rung that I have to beat? And it's studying and learning about them and figuring their moves and figuring out what they're good at, what they're bad at so we can beat them. Then we beat them and go to the next thing, and next thing, and next thing. So it was never negative for me, it was competition. Half the guys were my friends and they were doing the same thing to me, we were doing the same thing to them. I come from a hyper competitive world where that's everything we do. And I feel bad now, because in business, a lot of people we compete against aren't competitive and I forget that sometimes, and some people don't appreciate it. But that's the drive. It's just like, who do we, if I don't have someone to, if there's not someone we're driving towards, there's not a point for me. Andrew: And even if they're, even if I was hurt, “I accept it, I'm sorry you're hurt, Andrew. I still care and love you. We're going to crush you.” That's still there. Russell: And I had someone, so obviously InfusionSoft was one of our people we were targeting for a long, long time and I had a call with Clayton and someone on his team asked me, “Why do you hate Infusion Soft so much?” I was like, “I don't, you don't understand. I don't hate, I love Infusion Soft. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for Lead Pages, I'm grateful for….” I told them, have you guys seen the Dark Knight, my favorite movie of all time? And it's the part where Batman and the Joker are there and Batman is like, asks the Joker, “Why are you trying to kill me?” And the Joker starts laughing and he's like, “I'm not trying to kill you. The reason I do this is because of you. If I didn't have you, there's no purpose behind it.” So for me it's like, if I don't have someone to compete against, why are we playing the game? So for me, that's why we're always looking… Andrew: It's not enough to say, it's not enough to just say “we're playing the game because we want to help the next entrepreneur, or the next person who's sick and needs to create…” no, it's not. Russell: That's a big part of it, but like, there's something… Andrew: Yeah, but it's not enough, it's gotta be both. Russell: My whole life there's, the competition is what drives me for sure. Andrew: And just like you're wrestling with someone, trying to beat them, but you don't hate them. You're not going to their house and break it down… Russell: Everyone we wrestled, we were friends afterwards. We were on the same Freestyle and Greco teams later in the season, but during, when we're competing, we're competing and everyone's going all at it. Andrew: Everyone's going all at it. That's an interesting way to end it. How much more time do we have? How much more time do we have? I'm going to keep going. Can I get you to come up here John, because I gotta get you to explain something to me? So I told you, I was online the other day, yeah give him a big round. I was online the other day, I don't even know what I clicked, I clicked something and then I saw that Russell's a great webinar person, everyone keeps telling me. Well, alright, I gotta find out how he does it. So I click over, “Alright, just give your email address and you can find out how..” Alright, I'll give my email address to find out how he became such a great webinar presenter. “Just give a credit card. It's only $4.95, so it comes in the mail.” It comes in the mail, that's pretty cool. Nothing comes in the mail anymore. Here's my credit card. It goes, “Alright, it's going to mail it out. Would you also like to learn how to use these slides? $400.” I go, no! I'm done. Russell: Welcome to the funnel. Andrew: Welcome to the funnel. I'm done. But I'm going to put in Evernote a link to this page so I don't lose it so I can come back. I swear. I did it. And this is my receipt for $4.95. Don't you ever feel like, we're beyond this? We're in the software space now, we're competing with Dropbox, we're not competing with Joe Schmoe and his ebook. And you're the guy who sold the, who bought the ad that got me. John: I know. Andrew: I asked you that. Do you ever feel a little embarrassed, “We're still in the info market space.”? John: No, I think it's the essence of what we do, of what Russell does. We love education. We love teaching people. I mean, the software is like the backend, but we're not software people. I mean, we sell software, but we teach people. All these people here and all the people at all of our events, they just want to learn how to do it better. Andrew: I don't believe it. John: Okay. Andrew: I believe in him. I don't believe in you. I believe that for you it's the numbers. Here's why I don't believe it. I'm looking in your eyes and you're like, “I'm giving the script. I'm good, I'm doing the script.” I see it in your eyes, but when I was talking to you earlier, no offense. This is why he does what he does. When I was talking to you earlier, you told me about the numbers, the conversion, how we get you in the sales funnel, how we actually can then modify…That's the exciting part. Don't be insulted by the fact that I said it. Know that we have marketers here, they're going to love you for being open about it. What's going on here? What's going on, keeping you in this space? John: Okay, from my perspective. Okay so, initially it was self liquidation on the front, which is what I was telling you. It was the fact that we were bootstrapped, we didn't have money to just like throw out there. We had to make sure we were earning enough money to cover our ads. And Russell had all the trust in the world in me, I don't know why he did, but he did. And he's just like, “Spend money, and try to make it self-liquidate.” I'm like, “Okay.” So we just had to spend money and hope that we got enough back to keep spending money. Andrew: And self-liquidate means buy an ad today and make sure that we make money from that ad right away and then software. John: Yeah. Andrew: And then you told, and then software's going to pay overtime, that's our legacy, that's our thing. And you told me software sucks for selling. Why? John: Software sucks, yeah. Andrew: Why? Everyone who's in info, everyone's who in education says, “I wish I was a software guy. Software is eating the world, they're getting all the risk back.” I walked through San Francisco; they think anyone who doesn't have software in their veins is a sucker. John: I asked the same thing to myself, you know. I was running ads, I'm like why can't I just run ads straight to the offer? Why do I have go to these info products? I want to get on the soft…. And then I was like, I feel like it's kind of like marriage. Like it's a big thing to say like, “You probably already built websites, but come over, drop everything you're doing and come over here and build websites over here on our thing.” And it's like, that's a hard pull. But “Hey, you want to build webinars? Here's a little thing for $5 to build webinars.” Now you're in our world, now we can talk to you, now you can trust us, now we can get you over there. Andrew: Got it. Okay, and if that's what it takes to get people in your world, you're going to accept it, you're not going to feel too good for that, you're just going to do it and grow it and grow it. John: Yeah. Andrew: What's your ad budget now? See now you're eyes are lighting up. Now I tapped into it. John: We spend about half a million a month. Andrew: half a million a month! John: Yeah. Don't tell the accountant. Andrew: Do you guys pay with a credit card? Do you have a lot of miles? John: Yeah, we do. In fact…. Andrew: You do! How many miles? John: In fact, the accountant came into my office the other day and said, “Next time you buy a ticket, use the miles.” Andrew: Are they with Delta, because I think you guys flew me out with Delta. John: Yeah, American Express is where we're spending all our money. Andrew: Wow. And you're a partner too? John: Yeah. Andrew: Wow, congratulations. John: Thank you. Andrew: I don't know you well enough to ask you if you're a millionaire, I'm just going to say congratulations. Give him a big round. John: Thank you. Andrew: Wow, you know what, I actually was going to ask the videographers to come up here. I wrote their names down, I got the whole thing and I realized I shouldn't interrupt them, because they're shooting video. But I asked them, why are you, they had this career where they were flying all over the world shooting videos for their YouTube channel. I'm sorry, I forgot their name, and I don't want to leave them out. Russell: Dan and Blake. Andrew: They were shooting YouTube videos, they were doing videos for other people. I said, “Why are you now giving it up and just working for Clickfunnels all the time? More importantly, why are you so excited about it?” And they said, “You know, it's the way that we work with Russell.” And I said, do you remember the first time that you invited them out to shoot something? What was it? Russell: It was the very first Funnel Hacking Live we ever had, and probably 2 weeks prior to that, one of our friends had an event and Dan had captured the footage, and he showed me the videos. “Did you check out my Ven Video?” I'm like, “Oh my gosh, that was amazing.” And I said “Who did it?” and he told me. So I emailed Dan and I was like, “Hey, can you come do that for Funnel Hacking Live?” And he's like, “What's Funnel Hacking Live?” So I kind of told him, and he's like, “Sure.” And it was like 2 weeks later and he's like, “What's the direction?” and I was like, “I don't know, just bring the magic man. Whatever you did there, do that here.” And that's kind of been his calling card since. He just comes and does stuff. Andrew: Bring the magic. He wants to have those words painted on the Toronto office you guys are starting. Literally, because he says you say that all the time. And the idea is, I want to understand how you hire. The idea is, “I'm going to find people who do good work, and I'm going to let them do it.” What happens if they wouldn't have done it your way? What happens if it would have gone a different direction? Russell: I see your question, and I'm not perfect. So I'm going to caveat that by, some of the guys on my team know that I'm kind of, especially on the design and funnel stuff, I'm more picky on that, because I'm so into that and I love it. But what I've found is when you hire amazing people like Todd for example, doing Clickfunnels. The times I tried to do Clickfunnels prior, build it was like, me and I'm telling developers, “here's what to do and how to do it.” And like there's always some loss in communication. With Todd, he's like, “I know exactly what I would build because I want this product too.” And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I'm like, “That's a good idea.” And he's like, “I did this too.” And I'm like, “That's a good idea.” And it's so much easier that way. So when you find the right people, it's not you giving them ideas, it's them coming to you with the ideas. And you're like, “that is a good idea. Go do it.” And it just makes, takes all the pressure off your back. So for us, and it's been fun because I look at, man, the last 15 years of all those different websites and the ups and the downs, the best people have always stuck. So we've got 15 years of getting the cream of the crop. It's kind of like, I'm a super hero nerd, but it's like the Avengers, at the end of, when Clickfunnels came about we had this Avenger team of people. And we're like, now we've put in our dues, now it's time to use all of our super powers to do this thing, and it all kind of came together. Andrew: Build it and build it up. And then as you were building it up, you then went to Sales Force. You guys invited me, you said, “Hey Andrew, we're in San Francisco, you're home town. Do you want to come out?” I said, “I'm going to be with the family.” And you said, “Good. Being with the family is better than hanging out with us.” But I still said, “What are you guys doing in San Francisco at Sales Force?” Because sales people don't need landing pages, yet you guys will probably find a way for them to need it. Then I saw this, this is the last video that I've got. There's no audio on it. I want you guys to look at their faces as they're looking up at these buildings, walking through the Sales Force office. Look, they're getting on the motorcycles in the lobby. They're looking all around like, “Oh gee.” Counting the buildings that are Sales Force labeled. Look at that! What are they doing? Not believing that this is even possible. And then just stopping and going, this is dream force. This is your dream. What did you get out of going to sales Force's event and seeing their office? Russell: Honestly, prior to Sales Force, I was kind of going through a weird funk in my business, because it was like, again there was the goals. So it was like, okay, we're going to do a million bucks, and then we did that. And then it's like, let's make 10 million a year. And then 50, and then this year we'll hit a hundred. And like, what's the next goal?  A billion, because a hundred million, 2 hundred million is not that big of a difference. And it was just kind of like, what's the point, what's the purpose? We've grown as big as any company that I know. And then last year, Dave and Ryan had gone out there and they were telling me stories like, “There's 170,000 businesses here.” And they were telling me all these things, and it sounded cool, but I didn't, and they were going crazy. You have to see this so you can believe it. But there's something about the energy about seeing something that makes it real. So this year I was like, I want to go and I want to see Benioff speak. I want to see the thing, the towers, I want to just understand it, because if I understand it, cool. Now we can reverse engineer and figure out how we can do it. So for me it was just like seeing it. I think in anything, any, as entrepreneurs too, if you're people believe that you can do it, you'll do it. If you believe you can lose weight, you'll lose 3eight. If you believe you can grow a company, and I don't feel like I believed that the next level was possible for us until I saw it. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this is not ridiculous. Benioff's not, none of these guys are any smarter than any of us. It's just like, they figured out the path. It was like, okay let's look at the path. And then let's look at it and now we can figure out our path. Andrew: And seeing it in person did that for you? Russell: Oh yeah. It makes it tangible, it makes it like, it's like your physiology feels it, versus reading a book about it or hearing about it. It's like you see it and you experience it, and it's like it's tangible. Andrew: I told you, I asked people before they came in here, “What are you looking for?” and a few of them frustrated me because they said, “I just wanted to see Russell. I just want to see the event.” I go, “Give me something I could ask a question about.” But I think they were looking for the same thing that you got out of there. And I know they got it. I'm going to ask them to come up here and ask some questions, and I want to know about the future of Clickfunnels, but first I've got to just acknowledge that, that we are here to just kind of pick up on that energy. That energy that got you to pick yourself back up when anyone else would have said, “I'm a failure of a husband, I can't do this.” Go back. The tension that came from failing and almost going to jail as you said, from failing and succeeding, and failing again. And still, that is inspiring to see. I want to give the whole Clickfunnels family a big round of applause, please everybody.

Do you ever pay much attention to your feet? Our feet are our first point of contact with the ground, and we walk around on them all day. But most people just wear shoes and call it a day. And if you’re a runner, then all the more reason to maintain good foot health! So how do we take care of our feet? Dave Liow, an exercise physiologist and holistic movement coach, joins me in this episode to discuss feet and how to optimise foot health. We talk about some common foot conditions, and he also shares advice on selecting the right shoes and improving foot mechanics. For runners and everyone else, don’t miss this episode and learn how you can achieve good foot health!   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program 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/. You can also join their 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, 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 3 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: Find out how to take better care of your feet. Discover the benefits of going barefoot. Learn how to select the right shoe for you.   Resources Holistic Movement Coach on YouTube The HMC Footy Show, foot exercises on YouTube How to start looking after your feet on YouTube Exercises for bunions on YouTube Holistic Movement Coach website   Episode Highlights [03:29] Why Feet? When he started looking at movement, Dave noticed that the feet were one of the areas trainers had no idea about. People have 28 bones in the feet and 55 articulations from below the knee. Over a third of the bones here are in the feet, which tells us how important they are. It’s an area largely being neglected by movement experts and professionals. [05:45] What Shoes Do to Our Feet So much space in the brain is devoted to our feet and hands, and if you walk around with sensory deprivation chambers on them, you’ll lose that space. The bottom of the foot (plantar fascia) is extremely precarious, full of reflectors that send information to your brain about how you’re moving and interacting with the ground. By wearing shoes, we break that link. [09:56] Improving Foot Mechanics and Foot Health Keep your feet out of shoes as much as possible. Whenever Dave has the chance to go barefoot, he does. By going barefoot, you are giving as much information to your feet as you possibly can. Shoes provide a lot of support for your feet. Not wearing shoes will improve your feet’s strength. A healthy foot is a mobile foot. If you can’t do a lot with your toes, it shows you need to do some conditioning on your feet to make them smarter and stronger. Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common foot problems runners encounter. Listen to the full episode to learn more about some of the most common foot conditions! [17:21] Bunions and How They Affect Your Foot Health The exact cause of bunions is up for debate, but there is certainly a genetic and environmental component to it. A bunion is when your big toe starts to go in and some calcification forms around the joint. Bunions cause compressions in the foot, leading to problems in the nerves between the bones of your foot. There should be adequate space between your toes, allowing your foot to move and breathe. This also applies to your footwear—your shoe should have a wide toe box to give your toes enough space. You can do foot exercises for bunions to prevent the need for surgical treatment. [24:10] How to Deal with Plantar Fasciitis Typically, people who have plantar fascia issues will feel the bottom of their foot locked up, especially in the morning. Increasing your running distance too quickly and incorrect foot mechanics are common causes of plantar fasciitis. Icing the foot takes some of the pain away. Applying light pressure on the affected area can hydrate the tissues and make them healthier. Adding the right kind of load to it will help line up the fibres and make it strong again. Movement issues can disappear if you keep your body balanced. [29:55] On Running Shoes Dave and Lisa talk about a shoe that reportedly takes 4% of your running time. More track records are broken lately due to the improvement in the technology used to create running shoes. These new shoes are all about sports and performance, not health. There are different types of shoes for different purposes. Being barefoot all time can also cause issues because what goes on your skin can absorb what goes on it. [37:11] The Truth about High Heels When you add an incline to your heel, it lifts you and pushes you forward, breaking your kinetic chain. To avoid falling on their faces, people who wear high heels adjust by pushing their posture forward and arching the lower back more. When you’re in high heels, you’re effectively pointing your toes. This shortens the calf muscles, which can end up reducing the motion in your ankle, pulling you into pronation, and collapsing the arch. Wearing high heels often can change the way your muscles work. [44:21] Supplementation for the Cartilage and Joints Dave reads up on what he thinks is useful and what’s not, and he uses it on an individual basis. A decent multivitamin is a good place to start. Dave is a fan of probiotics and fish oil. However, if you’re sensitive to histamine, do your research first before taking probiotics. He also recommends working fermented food like kimchi and sauerkraut into your diet if it suits you. [51:08] Dave’s Take on Orthotics Dave thinks if you have a foot without a structural issue or a neurological deficit, you can do without orthotics. Orthotics provide support and are often prescribed to block motion. Foot mechanics change when you have your foot on the ground versus in the air. A lot of the mechanics that are put into orthotics aren’t done in a closed chain, which changes the whole way the foot works. If you think you may need an orthotic, consult first with someone who knows how they work and can give you proper advice. Dave takes a holistic approach when it comes to foot health [1:00:06] Dave’s Experience with Reflexology There are different types of reflexology, but it’s often associated with feet. The idea is your body is represented in smaller areas of your body that you can access. Dave has tried reflexology on himself, and it worked well. He particularly had some good results with the sinus points around the toes, which help to clear the sinuses. He finds it relaxing, because looking after your feet is looking after your whole body—it’s all connected. [1:02:52] How to Select the Right Shoe Be careful of the marketing of shoe science. In reality, it isn’t the shoe that makes the difference. Pick a neutral shoe that feels good. Research shows the more comfortable your shoe is, the more efficient you are. Get the lightest and the most minimalist shoe that you are happy with.   7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘I’m constantly dumbfounded by how little care people have taken on their feet’. ‘The foot and the ankle are a huge player in my model and certainly one that I think having a very big impact on how people move well’. ‘Shoe choice doesn’t start and finish when you’re done running—it’s throughout the day’. ‘Be careful where you expose your feet to because it will go in you and then we'll take it into your health. There's time and place for everything’. ‘It’s not about speed and power… It’s keeping everything as best as you can in optimal performance and stopping things before they fall down the cliff and being in that preventative space’. ‘If you think you can get everything out of your diet, even if you’re eating organic, you probably can’t… So certainly, some supplementation is useful’. ‘It’s not the shoe that does the running; it’s the person that does the running. Technique and conditioning and looking after yourself and your health has much more effect than a shoe ever will’.   About Dave Liow Having mentored many coaches and trainers in New Zealand and Australia, Dave Liow is following his passion for sport and health and love for teaching. As a health professional, exercise physiologist and the founder of the Holistic Movement Coach Programme, he is constantly striving to find ways to be healthier and move better. You may connect with Dave on LinkedIn or Facebook. You can also visit his website or watch his YouTube videos to learn how to take better care of your feet.   Enjoy the 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 know how to achieve good foot health. 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: Hi everyone, and welcome back to Pushing The Limits this week. So I have two guests. Dave Liow this time. Now Dave is a repeat offender on the show, and I love having him to guest. He is one of my great mentors. And I hope you're gonna get a lot out of today's session.  Today, it's all about feet or so. This is one for the runners out there for sure. But also for just optimizing your foot health and also the whole kinetic chain, your feet where you connect with the ground obviously, and it affects your whole body. So we go to a deep dive into looking after yourself in regards to your feet. For the runners out there, it's all about playing for charters and bunions and picking the right running shoes. But there's also a whole lot of need for people to just have—want to know about good foot health.  Before we head over to the show, Christmas is coming. So if you want to grab one of my books, or one of my jewellery pieces, I’ll love that. You can head over to lisatamati.com. All the things are on there. And we're gonna be having a little break over the Christmas period. Maybe one, maybe two weeks from the show. I'm not quite sure at the stage, depending on the team's requirements over that period. So I hope you do have a good time of the Christmas. If you're listening to this afterwards, I hope the New Year's starting off really well for you. Before I go over to the show, just a reminder, I do have a couple of places left. We're nearly full on our one-on-one consultations, health optimization coaching. If you have a problem that you'd like to get help with, whether it's a high performance, whether you're a top athlete and wanting to get to the next level, whether you're wanting to work on your mindset, or maybe you've got a really complicated health challenge that you're just not getting any answers for, or you're having trouble sifting through all of the information and getting the right stuff—then please reach out to me, lisa@lisatamati.com. Right. Now over to the show with Dave Liow from the Holistic Movement Coach.  Lisa Tamati: Well, hi everyone. Welcome back. Today I have the amazing, the incredible, awesomest, Dave Liow on the show. Dave, welcome back, repeat offender.  Dave Liow: Hi Lisa. Lisa: I'm super stoked to have you today. Dave Liow: For the podcast you mean, right? Lisa: You’re a repeat offender for the podcast. Coming back to give us more. Not an offender in any other way.  Dave is an expert that I've had on before and he's definitely one of my mentors. And he's been to—Neil, my business partner for many years. And he is a mentor to many of the coaches and top trainers in New Zealand and Australia. So that's Dave's background. And you've got a background in physiology, don’t you Dave? Dave: Yes.  Lisa: You have a company called the Holistic Movement Coach. And will you—we're going to talk today about feet. People are like, ‘Wow, that's really interesting topic to talk about’. But it is. It's really, really exciting. Last time we had you on the show, we talked about the science of life, and that was one of the most popular episodes. So I'm really…  Dave: Great! Lisa: …happy to have you back on and to share some more of your absolute amazing wisdom. So today we've picked feet. What are we gonna to talk about, Dave? What are we going to share about feet and what you need to be aware of? Dave: Well feet’s one of those interesting ones. So from—as a movement professional, which is really my background. Though, being a holistic movement coach, if you just look at movement, you're gonna come unstuck pretty soon. So when I started looking at movement though, one of the things that I noticed that was one of the areas that were neglected were feet.  So we're seeing or looking at people's lumbar spines all the time and come to wideness not losing link from the top of the head. But a lot of trainers and movement professionals weren't even looking at people's feet. They had no idea what was going on, underneath those shoes of theirs. So for those of you who might think about maybe the back, whatever. Imagine if someone was wearing a big potato sack over their whole body, and you couldn't see where the spine was at trying to train them. So trying to work with someone and get them to move well without looking at their feet is to me just crazy.  Lisa: Yes, nonsensical. Dave: Yeah. And we've got 28 bones in the feet. So 28 bones, and we've got 55 articulations from below the knee. Lisa: Wow. Dave: So over a third of the bones are in the feet there. So that tells you about just how important that area is there. We have a look at the muscles that run down below the knee too. We've got 50 muscles. So added it, 276 ortho muscles, I think that's about right muscles. We have 50 below the knee so that shows you just how important there is. And it's an area that I think has been largely neglected by moving professionals. Lisa: Yes, it makes the total amount of sense. And we are on them all day, and we just shove them in a pair of shoes. And sometimes those shoes, you know, like ladies' high-heeled shoes, and tight shoes, and badly shaped shoes and don't do a lot barefoot—going out barefoot. Let’s start there, let’s start like—what does shoes do? When we put a pair of shoes on our feet? What sort of things are we taking away from our brain? Like, I always liken it to going around with a pair of gloves on my hands all day. I'm not going to be able to paint a picture and initiate anything, am I? Because I've just taken away all my proprioception and my ability to coordinate those fine motor controls with my hands. So we get that sort of analogy but actually, we do that to our feet all the time. Dave: And that's a wonderful analogy, Lisa. And so the representation in your brain of your body is called homunculus. So your brain has representations of all your different body parts. And some body parts are represented very, very—have a very large representation in the brain because they may have a lot of sensation and require a lot of fine movement.  So there's a huge representation in your brain of your face because if you look at the number of expressions you can do, and the articulations you can do with your tongue, your lips—there's a lot of area in the brain devoted to the face. Same with the hands as well. So you look at the fine movements you can do in your hands, isn't it? And how pink your hands are say compared to your elbow. It's incredible how much space in the brain is devoted to the hand.  Now one other is the feet. The feet have a massive representation in the brain as well. But with that, though, we know the brain is plastic. It can evolve and it will adapt to whatever environment you're putting it into. If you're walking around with that, the gloves on your hand, or in this case as one of my mentors Phillip Beach would say, ‘With sensory deprivation chambers on your feet’… Lisa: Wow. Dave: ‘…you will lose that representation in your brain’. And the bottom of the feet is extremely propiocept. Isn’t it? So many on that plantar fascia, that part of the foot there, is full of receptors which send information up to your brain. Giving you information about where you are, how you're interacting with the ground, and how you're moving. And without that, and by breaking that link there, there's a price to pay. Lisa: Yes, yes. And we just willy nilly wear shoes from the day we're born, pretty much. And if we're lucky in childhood, we might have run around bare feet a little bit. But most of us have got his feet and shoes all day. So you're saying that the—what did you call it? the munculus? Dave: Homunculus. Lisa: Humunculus? Dave: Homunculus.  Lisa: I never heard one before. I did, like, hear the representations. Like I don't know where I picked this up, some podcasts, some ways, something. If you have two fingers that you tape together for say a month. Dave: Yes. Lisa: When you untape them, you are unable to move them separately because the brain has wired them as being one unit. Another example of this is where people—they lose a limb. The brain still has the representation of that limb, even though the limbs are gone and they feel the pain of that limb. And this is like, the brain is like, ‘Hey, why? Where's my arm gone? Where's my leg gone’? or whatever.  And we're doing this to much lesser degree but when we don't need our toes and our things wiggle and wobble and do the proprioception. Okay, and we can improve our performance. Now, as runners are listening to us, let's talk about a little bit why this is important for runners to be able to sense the grounds and have good proprioception. So what are some of the advantages of having good—taking good care of our feet and maybe going bare feet a little bit. Dave: Oh, massive. One of my buddies, one of the things he has around feet—he has a lot of background in horse training. And he says, ‘No foot, no horse’. If you have a horse which damaged his hoof, then that's pretty much the end of that horse. They can't do a lot. And for you being an ultra-runner, Lisa, I'm sure you understand when your foot goes wrong.  Lisa: Oh, yes. I'm in trouble.  Dave: Yes, you are, you're in a lot of trouble. So I'm constantly dumbfounded by how little care people have take on their feet. I work on my feet every day without fail.  Lisa: Wow.  Dave: I'm certainly not an ultra-runner. I'm not the same class as you guys. But the amount of care that I take on one of my major movement teachers… I know this time when I lift… Lisa: So okay, what are some of the things that you would do to improve your foot mechanics and your proprioception and stuff? I mean, obviously, it's a little bit difficult with our podcasts and we can't show. I’ve got some video but… Dave: So there's that saying, ‘use it or lose it’. If your foot’s in a sensory deprivation chamber, you're gonna lose it pretty quick. So I like my foot to be out of things as much as possible, though... Lisa: Like right now? Dave: Yes. Quite a surprise, no shoe. Yes, I don't really wear shoes much. I wear [10:14 unintelligible] more than other shoes. If I'm running off-road, I'll certainly—and on concrete—I’ll wear some shoes. And we'll kind of talk about the shoe design a bit later on. But whenever I can go barefoot, I will. So if I can give as much information to my feet as possible—that's going to keep them smart, but also gonna keep them strong because shoes add support. That's what they are.  Lisa: Yes. Dave: You will not believe how much support shoes add. And you'll notice when you take them away, if you try and run barefoot, if you've been wearing sickly shoes with a lot of stability that added in there. So by going barefoot a fair amount of time, you get a very strong foot as well. So that doesn't come down to running shoes. And I guess we'll talk about running shoes in a bit.  But if you're wearing running shoes all day, even when you're not running, well, you're adding support there 24/7. I understand that some people might want more support when you're running, when you've got high forces going through your feet, but walking around and running shoes all day or highly-supportive shoes. You're basically walking around with. Lisa: Crutches. Yes, and making yourself lazy. You're making yourself lazy. Yes. Dave: Yes, right. So you're certainly going barefoot as much as possible. Now I do a lot of work at night to make sure that my foot’s mobile. A healthy foot is a mobile foot. So one of the things that they’ll often say is ‘the foot is not a hoof’. A hoof is rock solid and hits the ground and off the coast. So look at what you can do with your hand. Okay, you should do an awful lot with your toes as well and get them moving. So if you've lost the ability to do that, it really shows that you need to do some conditioning work on your feet and get them smarter and stronger.  Lisa: And if you don't, this is where some problems come up. If you can wiggle your toes and all that sort of stuff, you can prevent issues like yes—let's look at a couple of a common running problems that people get. Things like plantar fasciitis is a biggie, or even going up the leg a little bit. Like shin splints, and the problems in the calf, in the Achilles. Are these coming from the feet at all? Dave: Well, they’re coming from running. And there's some sort of mechanics going on there. But think of the foot, that's your first contact with the ground. When that goes wrong, everything in the chain will [12:37 unintelligible]. And if we think about something like a marathon, you've got 30 to 50,000 impact on the ground. That's a lot of race. So something's going wrong. This repetition over and over and over again. That's gonna end up breaking you.  And we're talking about forces, which you can't—two to five times your body weight depending how you're running. Now that’s a hell of force, a hell of a repetition. If something's not working right there, you will pay the price. Will you pay that price? Well, it depends.  But if we look at running injuries, straight off the top. Probably 15% of those will be at the knee. So the knee is normally the one that pays the price. But you know, I often say this in my lectures. Knee’s a dump. I knew that they kind of extracted and they've been—they have a little bit of rotation. But you see that one too much. And they have a little bit of sideways motion, but you don’t want too much of that either. So the knees are dump. So it's not only the knees fault that the knee gets some problems. It's normally the foot and ankle, or it's normally the hip, that's normally where I'll go.  And if you're a runner and you're getting knee pain, I'd be looking at either the foot and ankle. After the foot and ankle I will be looking at their hips straight away. There's something going wrong in those areas there. So about 50% of people will get knee pain more common in females than males by a long shot. Now, we look at kind of around, kind of Achilles as well. That's another area that can get a fair bit of problems as well. That's probably around… Lisa: That's mum, as usual. Ringing in the middle of the podcast. Dave: Calling mum. So around 10% of people get Achilles issues. That's another really common one and that's more a male thing. So that's the case, the 40 plus male is that actually the shoe. But then you'll get your IT band and touch that, which is probably around like 5% of the injuries. [14:32 unintelligible] can be in the foot or your tibia as well. And that's probably around 5% too.  So those are the main injuries. You'll see that getting running back, but knees if I was gonna go after one injury in running, knees are normally the one that pay the price. And there's certainly a big relationship between the foot and the knee. Ginormous. Lisa:  Right. So it's not always go up. Mechanics of the knees is the actual problem is down, or above, or below.  Dave: Yes. Almost always. Unless you've had an impact at the knee? Yes, you can treat the knee and always look at knee because if people come and see you for a knee injury, if you start playing the beat straight away, they'll go, ‘Well, hang on’.  Lisa: ‘What's this going on’? But it does make sense that the kinetic chain and the linking together and trying to find out where the original problem was coming from. Not just where—because like Neil's always said to me, ‘You know, like, if you've got a problem with your ankle, it can affect your shoulder’. And I’m like, ‘How does that work’? You know? Dave: Absolutely. Yes. Where it goes, nobody knows. Lisa: And how do you trace it back? How do you trace up a back problem to the ankle? Or the piriformis? Dave: If you know what it should look like and it doesn't look like what it should look like, well, what happens if you change and make it look more like it should? How does that change things? And that's normally in a nutshell the approach that I'll take. I guess that’s where you need to have a reasonable reference library of saying that, nothing more than my fair share of runners. And I'm sure you have too. I mean, if you feel someone running down the street, now you go, ‘That's not a very experienced runner’, or ‘Oh, boy, that's very experienced runner’. Well, you know that because you've seen so many runners.  So having that, I guess, experience in that database to draw from, and then understand the mechanics, and really add into it what you got. And I know what you gotta do in your Running Hot business. Well, you understand your body and you understand running technique, you can put that together and solve some wonderful problems.  Lisa: Yes, absolutely. But it is like a bit of a counterintuitive thing. I had a guy like, ‘Oh my piriformis’. Like Neil said to me the other day when he saw me, ‘Oh my God. Your bunions are getting really out of control. We got to do something about that’. And I'm like, ‘Oh, is it’? Sometimes you don't notice the things because you're just seeing them every day. You know? So let's talk about—let’s say some specific type of things that we are looking at. So let's look at bunions for that. What are bunions? And what effect can they have on the mechanics of your feet and up the body? Dave: Yes. So bunions—the quarter bunions is up for debate. There is certainly a genetic component to it. So either your mum probably has bunions. I guess. Lisa: Yes. Yes. Yes, you're right on money.  Dave: But that there’s also a big environmental part to it as well. So bunions, when your big toe starts to go in, then you'll end up with normally some calcification around that, well, that first joint—the joint in the big toe—that's probably a better way of saying it, around there as well.  What that does too is compresses the foot. The big toe goes sideways compared to it goes to the next [18:02 unintelligible], that compresses the foot, as well. So we get a lot of compression in that foot. They cause a number of problems. In between those bones in your foot. You've got a lot of nerves that run through there. So when those toes get compressed together, those nerves can get very irritated. Next, become very, very painful.  So and probably just as a little sideline here, if you were to pop your hands just in front of you there—if you're driving a car, listen to this, it's probably not such a good idea. But try this later on, you just put your hand down and look at your hand. So notice the space between your fingers there, that you put your foot down and have a look at your foot, you should also see space between your toes as well. Spacing’s really important to allow that room for the foot to move, to breathe. And also to get those space for all those straps in your foot to go. Lisa: And that’s with you naturally just having the foot there and not trying to spread them but just... Dave: Just naturally you should see space between your toes.  Lisa: Oh, wow. Dave: That you see a nice wide foot there. I love it. I love a good wide foot. Yes, so compression in those toes. And that can be a footwear choice thing too. So if you have shoes, and we've talked about toe box, that's the front part of a shoe. So we go out the toe box, this area through here. So the step front pair of shoes give a wide toe box in a shoe design that lets the foot spread out versus one that narrow and pushes the toes together. Lisa: Gosh. I should know about that. Yes. A lot of the shows that I get, I get sponsored by some brand or whatever. And then like I couldn't wear them.  Dave: Yes, the kiwi foot. Yes, and also this is a column that does this as well.  Lisa: Yes.  Dave: And with me, I've got a nice wide foot. I will not wish you for the narrow toe. It caused me nothing but problems. So footwear choice can be one of the things they also drive a bunion.  Now the other part too is that, when you've got that big toe and that big toes moving sideways, rather than going through the foot, you will often go inside the foot and fall into it. You get more pronation than what you normally have. So we lose the arch of the foot because the way the foot’s designed to move is your desire to move through and move through the big toe.  So, when we talk about the cycle of walking and running, we even have a phase of that called toe off. Because that's a really important part with a big toe pushes off. So if your big toe is going sideways, it's going to be—when you can't go through the toe, we’ll have to go around the toe. And that will cause a lot of wear and tear that can, after a while, that will start to break that foot down.  Now that may require you to drink, unless you do some exercises. In Sydney, we have some real bunion experts and my team, some of my guys love working with bunions. And you can certainly bring that foot back if you have surgery to repair bunions. So if you don't do the work, well the same thing is going to happen again. You just go straight across and they'll end up having to cut your foot open. Lisa: Yes, yes. Dave: My mum had bunions. But I gave her a little exercise program, and I'm pretty sure that's on my—that may be on my YouTube channel.  Lisa: Okay, we might get the link off here.  Dave: And yes, if not, I'll put it on there. And yes, she had some exercise to do for bunions. Her bunions pain disappeared and my mum's in her 70s. So you can certainly reverse that and have her feet are straighter. I’ve had some people come back from their podiatrist and I go to say, ‘What the hell have you been doing? What have you been doing? Keep doing it. Because your toes are straightening, and your foot in better condition’. Lisa: So you can sometimes avoid surgery. Wow, that's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing. Dave: Well, and even if you have surgery, if you don't do the follow up, you're gonna end up having it again. It’s a huge amount of work with a huge amount of things you can do to help out your bunions. Lisa: Okay, that's really good because I have—got a very neglected bunion. I've always like, ‘Oh, it’s not causing me major troubles yet’. You know? Now I'm thinking, ‘Shoot. I need to address it’, because it's getting, like, Neil noticed that last time I was with him, it's getting worse. And I'm, ‘Oh, this is it? I thought it was the same old, same old’. Neil exclaimed no. And I've got troubles with piriformis. And I'm like, ‘I've been looking at piriformis trying in working on that’. And that could be, could be, could be, might not be, could be a knock on the feet there. Dave: So thinking about how that could relay. If you've got that bunion here, and your foot’s falling into pronation and it’ll take the knee with it, and it will take that whole hip and will rotate in and everything will rotate in there. What stops it? Well piriformis can stop that. So if piriformis is having to make up for a foot function issue there, well, that's worth working.  If you release piriformis, and get that guy—well, now you've got nothing holding your foot together. So where's that guy next to the public often deal on the spine? That's probably where we're going next. And then it could be somewhere else too, or it could travel to the knee. Lisa: Yes.  Dave: So, you know, we talked before about finding the source. Fixing the foot would be a really useful one. And if you're still on your feet, a fair amount, which knowing who you are, you certainly want that contact with the ground. Lisa: Yes. Yes. Yes. Dave: Sort it out. Lisa: Like paying attention to the little changes that are happening in your body because sometimes you think, ‘Oh, no, you know, it's all the same’. And then you don't see changes in your own body when you don't, when you see yourself every day, or your loved ones. Or sometimes you just like got your own little blind spots. Okay, so if we can dig that video out, we'll put that in the show notes for sure.  Let's talk about plantar fasciitis because this is a major problem. One of the most common running problems, especially the people who have up the distance very quickly or done some things here, what is plantar fasciitis and what can we do to deal with it one? Dave: So the left part of fascia is a layer of fat or connective tissue that goes right along the bottom of the foot. And as I mentioned before, that has a lot of receptors on it. So it's very rich in receptors, though can get extremely painful. And typically people who have plantar fascia issues will get out of bed and they'll try to put their foot down, and take a snack, or walk, and start walking, and the whole bottom their foot will be locked up. It'll take a while for that to loosen up so they can use that foot.  More often, you'll get that around the front of the heel, so none of them pointed the heel back in towards the centre of the foot. And sometimes that'll run up in bands as well. Now, the change in volume too quickly is your number one culprit which you mentioned. And that centre area. But certainly some foot mechanics can also have an issue there as well. So the plantar fascia is—in your foot, you've got well, definition you got 50 muscles that run below their knee—all could help control that foot. Your plantar fascia is there, it winds up, and plucky when you bend your big toe. It helps wind up that panic factor to help make the foot rigid to make it to leave so you can push off it.  That's one of the—there’s sort of two main functions of a foot. The first one is to allow the foot to splat is my technical term. Hits the ground and conforms to the surface that it goes to, number one function. Second one is it becomes a rigid lever so you can repel off it. Well, that's pretty much what a foot does. If you have kind of with a narrow down.  So we've got an issue there with that timing between backing and becoming a rigid lever. And the plantar fascia is wearing it somewhere there. Now there's—we can look at the plantar fascia, and you can try and treat the plantar fascia. But there's a lot of layers of muscles and a lot of timing that happened before that plantar fascia that’s been beaten up. So there's something gone wrong with the timing of how you're going from flat to rigid lever that's causing that.  And particularly if you overload into that. So if you've increased your volume too much, that's often the last well, kilometre, or 1000 footsteps that broke the camel's back. So I want to look at what's happening with the ankle and the foot, and I'm always interested in the big toe when it comes to plantar fascia. Lisa: Right, so that's your big lever. Point, really big toes when you push off and you get that elasticity sort of wound up. Dave: Massively important part that big toes. The amount of bones you have in that big toe, and for those of you with bunions, or pinchy injuries in that big toe joint as well. That's a really important one to get looked at. That can have a massive effect on everything up the chain.  Lisa: Wow. Yes. And what can you do about it? Are there some exercises that you recommend? Like, you might have fascia release, you make your ball rolling, that type of thing for the actual plantar fasciitis itself, the stretching and icing, and all that jazz? Dave: Icing can be nice, and that takes some of the pain away because it’s very painful. Having some light pressure in those areas too can help hydrate the tissues and get them healthier again. Because during—if you have some sore spots in their plantar fascia, often they won't have the hydration and the movement, because it's still layers and layers of tissue. Now, if you can get those moving better and hydrated, that will heal better.  Adding some load to it can be useful too, you just need to be careful where you are in their injury spectrum. But it actually does require some loading because the loading will help actually line up the fibres and get that strong again. But it needs to be the right type of loading starting slowly and building up. That sort of mechanics. In big toe, you'd be wanting to have a look at and also what's happening with the ankle. Check that you've got enough dorsiflexion to get into more. How much can you bring your ankle? If you've got a restriction on the ankle and a restricted big toe, your plantar fascia—well, everything in the foot but the plantar fascia, may end up wearing that one. Lisa: Yes, yes. And there's a couple of tricks to do with the dorsiflexion that I can link to another video there that Neil's done. Where you can push that—I’ve forgotten it—talus bone. Where you pushing it back into—because sometimes there’s some sort of a line. Yes, this one,  this one. Trying to find the words. Dave: Restoring their ankle dorsiflexion will be critical. I think that the foot and ankle, I'll look at three main zones in the body. In terms of my model for looking at movement. If you get the torso moving really well, that's very important for rotation. If you're running, you get the pelvis and hips moving really well, that would be my second zone. And the third zone would be the foot and ankle. So if you can get those three zones working well, normally I take 85% of the movement issues will just disappear. Right? And so the foot and ankle are a huge player in my model, and certainly one that I see having a very big impact on how people move well or done don’t move well. Lisa: Yes. Now, that's really good. So the torso, the pelvis, and the feet. So working on those areas in trying to get things balanced.  Dave: Yes, well, the big thing on that that's where I missed them.  Lisa: And those are the three areas—the key areas—and obviously it's the score a lot of work Dave but yes. It's everything from drills and exercises and it's what we do, what you do.  Let's look at now, for runners, talking about running shoes, and buying running shoes, and picking a shoe that's good for you and what you're doing. You were showing me some running shoes before and for people on the podcast, you can't see, but says Kipchoge ones, what do you call them? What are those shoes? Dave: So these are Nike's Zoom Fly shoes. So for those of you who are listening to this, rather than watching it, so this is the shoe that Kipchoge wore to get his sub-2-hour marathon. And they have fibre placement, which have an awful lot of recoil. And also, it is over four centimeters of foam here, but the foam has incredible amount of recoil.  Lisa: Wow.  Dave: So the theory is these will take 4% of your running time.  Lisa: Wow, that’s messed up.  Dave: There’s actually a spreadsheet, which I got hold up to. We can actually look at your running times and calculate how much of a difference it would make to your running performance. And yes, I mean, who wouldn't pay for 4%?  Lisa: Yes. Dave: Mostly runners, my straight line runners, will compete in these. And you'd be a magnet to, if you want to run fast on straight lines. These are extremely high and extremely unstable. If you wouldn’t run on trail with these, no way.  Lisa: Like the HokaOnes, you know, like really deep into the thing that a big sole...  Dave: No, these are high. And they're incredible amount of recoil. They do push you very much, your forefoot style. So what I’ve noticed for days, I totally didn't want to like these. Lisa: Cause you want more people to go bare feet. Dave: I ran in them last week. This is ridiculous.  Lisa: Ridiculously good.  Dave: The speed and ease is something else. And certainly most of my runners who run straight liner, competing in these and certainly in the meantime and now, unless athletes have sponsors, those are the shoes they are picking up. And why wouldn't you if you can—I mean getting 4% improvement in performance is there's something else, even with training. If you can get that by paying for it, why wouldn't you? Lisa: So basically, it's elasticity that they're using. It’s the spring, it's the coil, it's the ability to bounce you off the ground, it's like being on a trampoline. So you're gonna get more force.  Dave: Right.  Lisa: Taking your foot. Dave: Well, yes. The energy is returned a lot more efficiently. So you'll notice that there's a whole host of track records been broken lately, and then closed the marathon. And yes, the technology had a big part in playing it. I think that the next Olympics, the shoe feature extremely heavy. And a lot of a lot of other manufacturers are using this technology now. And they have a lot stricter with the technology they can use in those events now. So there's the level playing field.  Lisa: If you want to level the playing field, it's a thing—if we start having an unlevel playing field, and that's where it becomes a bit problematic.  Dave: And they're recouping broken now. And there'll be more broken with this sort of new technology coming through. Lisa: And from a foot health perspective, are they okay, in that respect, or you just didn't want to like them?  Dave: No, it's not about—it’s sports. Sports is not about health. Lisa: Performance is not about health. No Dave: No. Lisa: It should be but it depends… It’s not always the case. Dave: That's the point, though. I mean, if you wear these around all throughout the day, why would you do that? And having four centimeters of foam between you and the ground can  be put to sleep. So look, I would—if I'm wanting to do a fast run and I don't really do much of that anymore—but if I was doing a faster training run with them, with a buddy of mine who runs pretty quick, I would definitely wear these.  I'm walking all day barefoot. I'm doing full exercises throughout my day. I'm waking up my feet all the time to look after my feet in-between. So you know, this foot choice, shoe choice doesn't stand finished when you're running. It's throughout the day. And that way, you'll choose a different type of shoe. If I was wearing a shoe during the day, my normal shoe would be something that's very minimal, which allows my foot to feel the ground and do things, if I need to wear footwear. Lisa: Yes. And sometimes you don't, you know?  Dave: Yes. And I think that's an important thing too. We've always—there's always extremes. Yes. So I'll see the odd person is taken to the extreme, and they'll go barefoot all the time. And I think you need to be careful of that too. So from a health point of view, yes. So where I live, you wouldn't run—I have run some trails barefoot but there are sharp rocks around there. But also we have snakes there which is a bit of a problem. So I've done the odd barefoot run, but it makes you pretty nervous. The other part too, is what goes on your skin, goes in you. Lisa: Yes, me too. You talked about that on—what was it on? Something you were talking about the other day. You were talking the skin and your feet.  When your lectures that I was learning from you, right? And you were saying how your daughter was barefoot, which was great, but you went to get some picture with the car.  Dave: Yes.  Lisa: And she wanted to run across the full court bare feet and you said, ‘No, put your shoes on’. Dave: Yes. Gotta have shoes. If you go into public toilets, or you're going on a forecourt of a petrol station, if you're walking barefoot on those, those chemicals are getting into your thing.  Lisa: Yes. So also, if you're walking barefoot too, and certainly in Asia and I have an Asian background, you bringing into your house when you go in there too. So be careful where you expose your feet to, because it will go in you, and then we'll take it into your house. Lisa: Yes. Dave: So yes, there's time and place for everything. Lisa: Yes, yes, that's so true. And this is where some other minimalist shoes come in. So and like, social etiquette and stuff, you don't—you can't go to the gym without some sort of footwear on. Most places will tell you off. Well, gym maybe. Dave: My gym, we actually have a gym shoes off policy, right? If we want people to move well, we need all the sensors working well. So we want as much information from those shoes from those feet as possible. So people understand where they are on the ground. Then we have covered where people put their shoes in.  And now not everyone is trying to barefoot. And we have some people who have some structural foot issues who do require some footwear, as well tend to move well. So, if you drop a dumbbell on your foot, having a shoe isn't really going to help you. But as one of my main etiquette contains the meat. Lisa: And most gyms prescribe that you have to have shoes on when you go to them. They do. And these social situations, you can't go to the opera with bare feet. It's not cool. And that brings me to ladies in high heels. What are we doing to our bodies when we wear… Dave: Oh boy. Lisa: …lovely, elegant? We look very elegant in high heels. What the hell are we doing to ourselves? Dave: Okay, so yes, you mentioned that word kinetic chain before. And the idea there is when you change one part, it will change something else with. That's what a kinetic chain does. Okay, a closed kinetic chain. So when you add an incline to your heel, and lift yourself up there, that pushes you forward. So if you have a stiletto on or something very high, you’ll fall on your face unless you adjusted. So where will you adjust? You'll normally do that by pushing your pose forward, by arching your lower back more. So often, the problem that you'll see with high heels will be it changes up the chain.  As well as that when you're in high heels, you're effectively pointing your toes. So if you're in a flat shoe, you'd have been in your ankles. In a high heel, your toes are pointed more. So what that does is that will shorten the calf muscles. And that’s why, if you look at a woman in high heels, she has more definition in the calves because those calf muscles are shortened up. But if you're wearing high heels an awful lot there, what that will do is shorten up that calf, it may make it harder for you to bend that ankle again, which will cause you some different issues, and for those of you who are a bit more technical minded too, peroneus longus, okay, will be one of the muscles which is a part of the action which will be shortened. The peroneus longus comes around a riff underneath the foot and a wrench into the base of that big toe. So it pulls you down into pronation so it collapses the arch. So if you've been wearing high heels an awful lot, that peroneus longus can shorten, which can end up reducing your amount of bend in your ankle and also will pull you into more pronation. Apparently, the good thing that allows you to splat, but remember we also want to make the foot rigid after that so it can repel often.  But if you end up mucking around with muscles, and changing the way they work, and certainly by placing a high heel, and you're certainly going to do that, that will do that. And it will change the way the peroneus longus works and wears out the muscles, which will change that timing, that intricate timing that we need to have in the foot. Lisa: Wow. And so ladies, keep your high heels for special occasions and not everyday use if you can. And I mean I—working with mum and she was in the bed for a long time, bedridden. Drop foot, you know, same thing basically. But just on a horizontal because she couldn't stand so she couldn't get that dorsiflexion happening, and then I was not aware of it at the time that this was a problem when it was happening, and I caught it quite late. And then we had to have her in a boot to try and straighten that out and now she's got a rigid ankle pretty much. So she's got no dorsiflexion, therefore she can't roll over the front of your foot and off nicely. So her whole gait is more flat footed. And these things knock on very early. And then it happens quite quickly that you start to get dropped foot.  Even if you think about life, wake up in the morning and that first time the foot hits the floor, and you've got like, ‘Oh yes, stuff. Stuff on the calf muscles feeling scuffles within the Achilles. And this is a—getting onto the Achilles toe’. If you're getting that initial stiffness when you get up in the morning, there's something brewing and maybe start to look at it. Achilles is a good—that's a good indicator that so step in the morning. How are you feeling? If you're bouncing out of bed and you can get out of bed and run down the hallway and you find you've got nothing, then you probably, not too bad. Dave: I think that's a great point here. You should wake up feeling reasonably good. I mean it’s not a margarine commercial. You shouldn't jump out of bed, ‘Hey. Hello world’. That's probably the only thing you'd be happy about if you're eating that stuff. But that's a whole other conversation.  I had a professional athlete who I was working with, and we were talking one morning and was actually helping, deciding—standing up, deciding we were gonna go with him. And he said, ‘Yes. So how things young is young? What’s your story? I didn't have a car stand up. And then I go, ‘Sharon district’. About 40 minutes later, I'm ready to move. That's normal, right? ‘No, no, that's not normal. Your body normal is not being in pain and struggling to move. That's not normal..  Lisa: Oh but it's age, Dave. That's the next thing, he’ll tell you. It’s just normal aging. Dave: So now I think too, you know. Let’s you've got a—sorry for those of you who are in different hemispheres. But a classic car in the southern hemisphere was a Ford Cortina. Now imagine you've got a 1984 Cortina in your garage, and it's chrome. It's beautiful. And you've looked after it wonderfully. That car drives fantastically in your own town, you think this is the best car ever. But if you take a 1980 Ford Cortina, and you don't maintain it, and you just drive it hard, you won't have it here today.  Lisa: Yes.  Dave: Okay. So if you've got a classic car, it can run really well. But you need to put some extra care and maintenance into it.  Lisa: Absolutely. Dave: That's all it is. So, but you can have a young—you can have a new sports car. You can trash it's probably gonna be a little bit better. But yes, so the older you are, the more keen you’re taking care of your classic car. Lisa: We fit into the classic category now.  Dave: That's another spin on that too. You know, ages is one thing.  But I kind of look at these young athletes, I think you're—you can you can keep up with me. You haven't got the experience I've got. Play that card. It's not there's not just physical is a lot more that goes on to it. And take a look at the outer world. And know that certainly, the more of a mental game that's required, the better it suits your experience.  Lisa: Yes, in Roman times, like, it's not about speed and power after a 100k, it sort of starts to come down to… Dave: Yes. Lisa: So yes, it is. It's an attitude for life. There's a number of rounds on the clock, but it's keeping everything as best as you can in optimal performance and stopping things before they fall down the cliff, and being in that preventative space. And that's what we're both all about. And that's why you’re taking good care of your joints, and your muscles, and your hydration, and all of those exercises is really, really key. Let's talk a little bit now around, what's your take, I'd like to hear just on general and for joints and cartilage and stuff? Things like sulfur, MSM, conjugated salt, and so Glucosamine, that sort of supplementation for cartilage and joints you know anything about this? If it’s a cool thing or not? Dave: It's really cool at one of my key areas. Look, supplements are strange one. And certainly my take on that really changed over the last few years. And now if you think you can get everything out of your diet, even if you're eating organic, you probably can't. So there's certainly some supplementation useful. I'm very big on getting an evidence base on that though.  So there's this push where we've almost seen our science as lying now. We need to be able to do our supplementation, to what you want to choose. But what I found now is basically you become a victim to marketing now. So there's a fine line between the two. So I read up on what I think is useful, and what's not, and I use it on an individual basis. But I'd like to cover the basics first, and often think that we're thinking they're tasting things like curcumin. Another problem with curcumin by the way, as well some other some other supplements here when you're not even looking at the basics. So do the big rocks first. Lisa: Yes, I'm big on those pretty you know those ABCD. Selenium, zinc, magnesium-type base. Not sexy, but very essential for genetic functions. Yes. Dave: A decent multivitamin is probably a bloody good place to start, and then you can start fine tuning from there. Sure. I take a few other things, as well. I'm a big fan of a decent probiotic, and veering those probiotics around. I think that's really important. And I use that as a food source as a supplement. I do like my fish oils. I think there is a part to play in that.  Lisa: Yes. Those are wild. Dave: Wild, wild, wild small fish is the way you want to go and watch out for the processing on those as well, they can get... Lisa: Very very important to get the right fish source, you get right fish source ,and you'll be doing the opposite to what you need to kick the company out especially... In our next conversation. I know we're getting a bit off topic but probiotics, I've done quite a lot of study around the probiotics, and some of the problems of probiotics, and has domains, and causing inflammation and allergic reactions. Have you found any one in particular that you'd say, ‘Yes, that one's been really good for a lot of people’. This got a good clinical base to it? Dave: Yes. There's a few brands that I tend to like. These… Lisa: Deep in here without any proof on that question, but I was interested for myself because I'm looking at our probiotics. Dave: Syntol is a brand I quite like. Syntol, S-Y-N-T-O-L iis a brand that I've used for probably the last decade. That's an industrial strength one which works really well. Also Bio-Heal is another one, which I think is a pretty decent one. And the reason I like those brands is that they don't need refrigeration. And the Syntol is more spore one so it can be a bit bitter as well. Lisa: Yes. Because it's got to get through the digestive, the stomach, the action, into the lower. And I know like the science in this area is still a very much an evolving space. And a lot of this, I have had a couple of clients been on probiotics that you get out of off the shelf or supermarket type thing. They ended up with histamine reactions and things like that because they do have often—so if you're sensitive to histamine and you might want to check it out a little bit more, and just be toe in the water and find out. So it's a little bit hard to know because I think the jury's still out in some regards. But I think but the spore based ones… Dave: Yes, there seems to be built in there. I feel like most fermented foods, they won't suit everyone, for sure. They served me really well. So I make my own kimchi. I make my kombucha. I make my own sauerkraut. Do some water kefir as well. I often use a little bit of fermented foods to help my gut work. And every culture and everywhere in the world has some form of fermented food. And we realize as developing communities that we need to look after our gut health needs, and we didn't have refrigeration was probably the other thing as well. Then those are very health giving. And it still exists in most cultures today, and it's certainly something that I'd recommend if it suits you to work into your diet. Lisa: Yes, and that is where I know—working with the PH-316 epigenetics programme that we do that there are certain biotypes. And one of them that can miss to watch the amount of fermented foods because it can again—cause histamine problems in inflammation in the body—so that is a bit of a bit more a personal genetic thing too, as rather than across the board.  But to be fair, I think that's everything needs to be personalized nowadays. And we've got a lot I wouldn't say we've got an all sass but there is a lot of science around what type of thing for what person and which genes, for which foods, and I don't think it's by any means perfect yet. The science behind it, but we can get a bit of an idea on some of these things. So just because it's healthy for Dave doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be healthy for Lisa, you know? So a little bit of experiment, and I'm a big experimenter, versus showing one of my athletes into my pantry. And it looks more like a cumulus isn't well supplement shop rather than a...  And I don't take on things all the time but I'm always experimenting on my own body, and trying to optimize, and to see what sort of things are having which effect and then trying to take note of it, and keep track of it, and trying to work out. A little bit hard when you keep chucking 100 variations at things. It's not exactly a clinical study where you do one variation. But… Dave: Eating is one.  Lisa: Eating is one. Yes, exactly. And keeping testing. But back to the whole foot scenario talking that—I mean, you and I can end up in bloody all sorts of areas. What's your take on orthotics? I wanted to ask that again. Jury's out of my mind on orthotics and I'm not sure. Dave: That’s a real polarizing one. I'm gonna make myself unpopular with some people here, but here's my take on it. I'm not—I'm not a [51:17 unintelligible]. If you have a foot that hasn't got a structural issue, or a neurological deficit, you can work without orthotics. Okay, so orthotics add support, and they will normally block motion. Okay, that's what they're pretty much designed to do.  So normally, when they describe orthotics, they'll look at, ‘Okay, there's too much motion. We will block that motion so that the foot can do its thing’. You block motion, some way though. What we know is that motion will be taken up somewhere else. And in that closed chain, where that motion goes will often have problems.  So let's have a look, if you've got a foot that doesn't dorsiflex well, so the ankle doesn't bend well. Now what will happen is the only way you can bend their ankle now is to roll inside or to over pronate. That's the only way you can go there. But rather than go through the foot, you go around the foot now. So what may happen is, if you have no thoughts to stop that pronation, go, ‘What's happened now’? Okay? Now you can't pronate the foot, you can't work at the ankle, what's going to go next? You may end up taking up a knee. But now you'll end up with a knee issue, when you may come in with a foot issue. You may end up with a knee issue, or it may end up going into the hip or the lumbar spine, or as far as into the neck, which is a common thing or even to the head.  I've seen from people who've had a foot issue and they get hit out when they start hitting the pavement because it goes right through the chain. And that's it ends up tearing them up. So when you enter [52:53 unintelligible], if you've got a painful foot, it can be very useful temporarily to change what's going on, or a structure or neurological deficit. Otherwise, think of a crutch.  Okay, if I break my leg, ‘Oh, I want to break around my knee without smashing my knee to smithereens. I want to break around my knee and I want to wear crutches to start with’.  Now, oh boy that feels so good having extra support in there. And I've restricted that range around my knee because it's too painful to move. But 10 years later, I wouldn't want to be still be wearing that same brace on my knee with a crutch. And I wouldn't want to go in there each year and get that brace changed a little bit and realtered. So I look at some of your thoughts that come into me and I look at that foot and I look at your foot and I go, ‘I have no idea’. I kind of—foot mechanics is tricky stuff. But I've put a fair bit of work into it. Like I understand how feet generally work, I think. I look at that foot and I look at that person, and I think, ‘I can’t see what’s that relating to at all’. I don’t know what you’re seeing, but that's not what I see.  And there’s a few things around some of the theory of orthotics which are a little bit tricky around foot mechanics change when you have your foot on the ground versus when you—whether your foot in the air.  Lisa: Of course.  Dave: A lot of the mechanics that are put into orthotics aren't done in a closed chain, which changes the whole way the foot works. Though, there is some stuff there. I've had piles of orthotics thrown away over the year. I have products come into me and I go, ‘What?’ And I'll test them. It'll take people with them, without them, and they'll go better without them. I had some people that do need them though, because they had some neurological issues for their head structural foot issues, where their foot is broken beyond repair, where it does need some help.  And making good orthotics, definitely—for those of you who maybe have a diabetic foot or have had some issues around there. Some of the orthotics I've seen that have come and have been worked about and are amazing, though there is some there are some amazing work on orthotics. And that's probably my outtake on this one. So finding someone who's very good at that, and looking after a foot in trouble is a real skill. Lisa: It is. I've got a friend, Lisa Whiteman, who owns a China podiatry clinics, right, throughout New Zealand, and their stuff is next level. But the science and technology that they have in order to get the right things for that. So if you're thinking of doing it, make sure you go to somebody who really knows this stuff, and not just any sort of orthotic. And test it, and try it, and see whether you're getting something through up the train, fix that. And question with the immediate, long term—I've never had any benefit out of an orthotic. And I've only got, again, one anecdotal in me.  But we're not—like dealing with someone like my mum with a neurological problem, and limited dorsiflexion. I am considering the next opportunity I get to take down to Wellington to go and see my friend and go into her clinic and get her an assist, that might be, for example, a situation where something like that could be called for, because she's lost that motion and the ankle, so we haven't got it to work with. Dave: So we do have problems from the bottom up. So the foot can cause a problem going up, but also it can probably be going

After a difficult break away, Days of Thunder is back to give you all the WCW a body could need: *Dave's family are clearly keen listeners *Among the more tragic lacklustre debuts *Mean Gene and Brain feel their oats *Some occasional wrestling [Note from Dave: Just dropping a content warning for the first 9/10 minutes of the show, as in the fallout of recent events we discuss mental health and refer to acts of assault and harassment] We’ll be back in two weeks talking Thunder ep. 29, and encourage people to watch the shows along with us and send us any thoughts or memories. You can drop us an email at either daysofthunderpod@gmail.com or wcwthunderpod@gmail.com. Please feel free to follow us on Twitter twitter.com/wcwthunderpod and continue the Thunder chat, or in our podcast thread on PWO Our newly launched blog 'Beyond The Thunder Road' is at wcwthunderpod.wordpress.com where you can expect new content soon, and we are now on Instagram at instagram.com/wcwthunderpod You can also follow Dave twitter.com/thedaytodave or Lee twitter.com/malone_713 Special thanks to Keith Broni for the podcast art

After a difficult break away, Days of Thunder is back to give you all the WCW a body could need: *Dave's family are clearly keen listeners *Among the more tragic lacklustre debuts *Mean Gene and Brain feel their oats *Some occasional wrestling [Note from Dave: Just dropping a content warning for the first 9/10 minutes of the show, as in the fallout of recent events we discuss mental health and refer to acts of assault and harassment] We’ll be back in two weeks talking Thunder ep. 29, and encourage people to watch the shows along with us and send us any thoughts or memories. You can drop us an email at either daysofthunderpod@gmail.com or wcwthunderpod@gmail.com. Please feel free to follow us on Twitter twitter.com/wcwthunderpod and continue the Thunder chat, or in our podcast thread on PWO Our newly launched blog 'Beyond The Thunder Road' is at wcwthunderpod.wordpress.com where you can expect new content soon, and we are now on Instagram at instagram.com/wcwthunderpod You can also follow Dave twitter.com/thedaytodave or Lee twitter.com/malone_713 Special thanks to Keith Broni for the podcast art

Our brand new podcast serves up an even bigger Breakfast, on the go right throughout the Summer. It’s the best of Breakfast, and never-heard-before bits that didn’t go to air. Wish Leanne would dish the dirt on Dave? Want the low-down on Leanne from Dave? Just ask! Life hacks. Opinions. Loves and hates - Nothing’s off limits, and they could answer your question in the next podcast. Want more breakfast? TLAD it’s Friday!

Our brand new podcast serves up an even bigger Breakfast, on the go right throughout the Summer. It’s the best of Breakfast, and never-heard-before bits that didn’t go to air. Wish Leanne would dish the dirt on Dave? Want the low-down on Leanne from Dave? Just ask! Life hacks. Opinions. Loves and hates - Nothing’s off limits, and they could answer your question in the next podcast. Want more breakfast? TLAD it’s Friday!

Our brand new podcast serves up an even bigger Breakfast, on the go right throughout the Summer. It’s the best of Breakfast, and never-heard-before bits that didn’t go to air. Wish Leanne would dish the dirt on Dave? Want the low-down on Leanne from Dave? Just ask! Life hacks. Opinions. Loves and hates - Nothing’s off limits, and they could answer your question in the next podcast. Want more breakfast? TLAD it’s Friday!

Our brand new podcast serves up an even bigger Breakfast, on the go right throughout the Summer. It's the best of Breakfast, and never-heard-before bits that didn't go to air. Wish Leanne would dish the dirt on Dave? Want the low-down on Leanne from Dave? Just ask! Life hacks. Opinions. Loves and hates - Nothing's off limits, and they could answer your question in the next podcast. Want more breakfast? TLAD it's Friday!

Our brand new podcast serves up an even bigger Breakfast, on the go right throughout the Summer. It’s the best of Breakfast, and never-heard-before bits that didn’t go to air. Wish Leanne would dish the dirt on Dave? Want the low-down on Leanne from Dave? Just ask! Life hacks. Opinions. Loves and hates - Nothing’s off limits, and they could answer your question in the next podcast. Want more breakfast? TLAD it’s Friday!

Our brand new podcast serves up an even bigger Breakfast, on the go right throughout the Summer. It’s the best of Breakfast, and never-heard-before bits that didn’t go to air. Wish Leanne would dish the dirt on Dave? Want the low-down on Leanne from Dave? Just ask! Life hacks. Opinions. Loves and hates - Nothing’s off limits, and they could answer your question in the next podcast. Want more breakfast? TLAD it’s Friday!

Our brand new podcast serves up an even bigger Breakfast, on the go right throughout the Summer. It’s the best of Breakfast, and never-heard-before bits that didn’t go to air. Wish Leanne would dish the dirt on Dave? Want the low-down on Leanne from Dave? Just ask! Life hacks. Opinions. Loves and hates - Nothing’s off limits, and they could answer your question in the next podcast. Want more breakfast? TLAD it’s Friday!

What Have You Changed Your Mind About? With Carol Lethaby, Dave Weller, Karin Xie, Matt Courtois, Paul Nation Simon Galloway - TranscriptTracy Yu: Hi, everyone.Ross Thorburn: Welcome to the podcast. This, as you probably noticed, is our third‑anniversary episode. To celebrate, we're doing a special long podcast, the longest one we've ever done. We've got six special guests for you, and all of them are going to answer the same question. That question is, "What have you changed your mind about?"Tracy: First, we've got Dave Weller and Simon Galloway. Dave currently works as an online diploma and TESOL tutor and blogs at barefootteflteacher.com. Simon runs his distance learning courses for teachers and managers. Both of them have been on our podcast multiple times before.Ross: The second up is Paul Nation, emeritus professor in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Paul's one of the most influential writers and researchers in vocabulary acquisition in the world. You'll have heard him before in our second‑anniversary episode about reading last year.Tracy: The third is Matt Courtois, who currently works as an academic director in a young learner language school, and Karin Xie, who works as an academic manager at Trinity College London in China. You might remember Karin from our previous episode about applying learning, and Matt from episodes about observations, minimalism, and also teaching writing.Ross: In the fourth segment, we'll hear from Carol Lethaby, who's a teacher, a teacher trainer, and materials writer based in the US and Mexico. You might remember Carol from our episode about neuroscience. You can learn more from her on her website, www.clethaby.com.Tracy: Finally, Ross and myself will talk about what we have changed our minds about over the years.Ross: Great. Enjoy the podcast, the longest one ever.David Weller & Simon GallowayRoss: Dave Weller, Simon Galloway, you've both been involved in English education for what, 12, 15 years?Dave Weller: It's 15 years for me.Simon Galloway: Same, pretty much.Ross: What have you changed your mind about? There must be one thing, Dave.[laughter]Dave: You're talking about since the beginning of my teaching?Ross: It could be at any point at all.Dave: The biggest thing I've changed my mind about since I began ‑‑ for myself, and for students, trainees, and everything ‑‑ is I used to think in quite a fixed mindset. I used to think, "Well, some teachers are good, some teachers aren't. And some students are smart and some students are not."The more I do this the more I realize what it's really about. Attitude and effort are going to be the things that make the difference. It's a bit of a cliché because I know everyone starts to think that way these days. Is it a bit of a...Ross: I don't know. I think that's still true to an extent, isn't it? I'm not sure. I ultimately do think in those terms that, for trainees for example. You find some at the beginning of the course, and you probably think these guys are the stars, the A‑People, the B‑People, and the C‑People.I almost think that fixed mindset, growth mindset is one of those things that I know as a fact but I'm not sure the extent to which I'd genuinely apply it or really believe in it deep down. Have you seen courses where people who you thought they were the weakest people at the beginning, ended up becoming the strongest at the end?Dave: I don't think the courses long enough for that, but there are definitely teachers that start at about that level and end about that level because they're not really trying to grow. There are other people that actually use the effort.I can see that through my distance learning courses, too. There are some people that start with a pretty bad first assignment and by the end, they're way up here. There are other people that just...Ross: I think of people on diplomas that we run. We, for example, observe them at the beginning before they got on the course. Some people that we thought, "They're not good enough to get on the course." There was a big kerfuffle. Eventually, they got on the course and they did really well.I've also seen the opposite of people that we said, "Yep you'll have no problems on this course," and the people go on to fail.Dave: Yeah, and I wonder if actually what we're saying to them is even affecting that. If we tell them, "You're going to do great," then that actually fosters a fixed mindset in them.Simon: It goes back to what we were saying earlier about praising the effort. If you tell someone, "You'll have no problem in this course" you, in a way, set them up to fail. Maybe they won't put the effort in as much because they think they're intrinsically or naturally intelligent enough or they're already at that skill level ‑‑ they won't need to put as much effort ‑‑ and they struggle.Dave: It certainly happens with some people.Ross: It's almost like there's an unspoken assumption that these people are going to put in X amount of effort. That's the bit that doesn't get said. "You'll be fine. You're going to do really well in this course."Dave: Assuming that you spend 10 hours a week?Ross: Yeah, but a lot of people don't know. Dave, let me guess. You didn't used to believe in learning styles but now you do?[laughter]Dave: No, actually. I think that when I was a new teacher, perhaps one year or two years in, I was always so certain of everything. On my original course, I took everything as gospel. I held my opinions so strongly, and I was so sure about everything. I knew I had a lot to learn, but what I did already know, I was certain that this is just the way things are.Since then, I've changed my mind and been exposed to new ideas, new evidence. I've changed everything so many times over the years. I can't remember who said it, it was something like, "You have strong ideas, held lightly," something like that. The longer I'm in this industry, the more I fully agree with that.I fully believe in what I do and how I do it, but if you show me some evidence or a compelling study, or show me a different way of doing things, I'll willingly change and try something new. That willingness to change, I guess that's [inaudible 06:13] . My willingness to change and to be shown to be wrong, I actually welcome now.Ross: That sounds like a perfect description of the Dunning‑Kruger effect. After your cert course, you believed a hundred percent in everything, like it was the gospel. The more you learned, the less confident you've become in those things.Do you think there's a problem then in how we present information to trainees on cert courses? I always find that maybe it's at diploma level that we maybe encourage people to think critically about the things that are being shown to them. The emphasis on introductory courses is, "Here's what you need to just be OK in the classroom and survive your first year."Maybe we're giving people false confidence. Maybe the more effective learner autonomy, long‑term strategy to teach people is, "I'm going to show you these things, these principles, but you also need to be able to question them."Simon: That goes back to something I've said before. You can take it to the wider education industry as a whole. In the language class, should we even be teaching language? Should we just be teaching skills and applying motivation? If you give someone the motivation to learn and the skills to be able to do so independently, then they're inevitably going to be able to learn a language.It's the same with any course, almost. I think the days of the tutor being gatekeeper to information are long gone with the advent of the Internet. Sure, a curated course is much easier to work through step‑by‑step because you can trust the authority of the source. It's broken down and spoon‑fed to you in a certain way.I do think that, in most courses that we run, there is that lack of teaching meta‑skills at the beginning or teaching to think critically. I think every course assumes that a course before has done that, even going back to initial education from 5 to 18. It's something, I think, missing in that, but that's a much larger issue.Dave: Yeah, we assume that everyone's got a degree or whatever, so they must know this. Then the university course, "They must have learned it before."[laughter]Dave: At secondary school, "They must have learned this at primary school."Simon: They thought, "Oh, parents must have...Dave: "The parents must have taught them that."[laughter]Simon: It might make a flip‑side argument. We're saying this from a position of 10, 15 years in the industry. As a new teacher, I can still vividly remember going, "Just tell me what to do next. I just want to get through my next lesson. I want to survive."I think it is a responsibility for initial teacher training courses to be able to provide that to teachers, so they can go into the class with the confidence that the learners will probably learn something. If you just give them a bunch of meta‑skills to work with, and then throw them into a highly pressured environment, they're going to fall to pieces. They need to have something to fall back on.Ross: Maybe there's an advantage of the Dunning‑Kruger effect. If you know almost nothing and you're really confident in it, that will overcome your lack of skill. If you're a new teacher and you said, "I'm telling you all these things, but maybe they're true. Maybe they're not."You maybe go into the classroom, and you wouldn't have the confidence to make up for your lack of skills. Maybe that Dunning‑Kruger effect, maybe there is some benefit to having that and believing in something even when you don't know much about it ‑‑ as a new teacher.Dave: It is to some extent, but every time, just keep on reminding the trainees that they can make their own...Simon: "This is the best way to do something. Or is it?[laughter]Dave: Just keep on pushing for deeper questions, like, "Was that effective in your lesson today? How do you know that? What real evidence were you going on? I saw the student do this. Why do you think that was? Do you think the same thing would work in another class?"Simon: What's the point of life? Why are you here?[laughter]Simon: Yes. Is anything even worth it?Ross: It's interesting. There must be a point where it would become counter‑productive and you just end up with...[crosstalk]Dave: Yeah, there's in so much doubt.Simon: No, it's true. Again, as a good trainer or a good manager, you should be able to spot when your teachers are ready, if they're not been challenged. When I was at [inaudible 10:14] you could see teachers that are ready to be pushed to the next level. People reach plateaus, and you could see when somebody goes, "Well I know everything now."Ross: That's a good point.Simon: "Actually, you don't. [laughs] Let me introduce you to some new ideas, like differentiation in the classroom or some of the higher‑level teaching skills." They go, "Oh wow! I had no idea you could do this." When their ability to implement what they know reaches what they know, then that's the time to give them more knowledge so they then turn that knowledge into skill.Dave: I like this idea of that plateau. If someone's already on like a slope, you don't want to stick them on a much steeper slope just for the sake of it.[crosstalk]Dave: ...just pick a Sisyphean boulder something. But if you're on a plateau already, you've got to get them on the slope.Ross: If you've had a trainee at the beginning of the course who's really struggling to give instructions, and you're like, "OK, here's a three‑step way of doing it," tell them in simple language, model it, and then ask questions.Dave: Show them, tell them, ask them, give them, Ross.Ross: Right, but then you wouldn't want to do afterward, "Well, when would that not be effective?" Do you know what I mean? You're just trying to get that person to that basic level.Simon: When you're observing them, you wouldn't want to sidle up to them and, "Sorry, um, you know that, according to Vygotsky, that's actually [inaudible 11:27] what you shouldn't have really done that there. This kid's ZPD is way off.[laughter]Ross: That might be too much.Paul Nation Ross: Hi, Paul. Welcome back. You published your first paper on language teaching in about 1970. You've had a very long career as well as a fascinating one. Can you tell us what's one thing that you've changed your mind about during your time from being a teacher all the way up to the present?Paul Nation: First of all, I like to think I always got it right from the beginning, [laughs] but I guess the main change that has occurred to me is the idea of the roles of the teacher and how the role of the teacher as a teacher becomes an important role but not the major role of the teacher.I say there's four or five roles of the teacher, and I always forget one of them. You know the number one role is the planner. The number two role is the organizer of activities and opportunities to learn. The third role's something like the trainer who trains the learners in strategies to learn, vocabulary and strategies to deal with the language learning.The fourth role would be the teacher as the tester who's giving learners feedback about their progress and showing them how much vocab they know and so on. The fifth role is the teacher as the teacher who actually gets up in front of the class or guides them through an intensive reading passage or something like that.I think that those roles are sort of ranked in the order of planner, organizer, trainer, tester, and teacher. That probably would be the major change I've come to during my reading of research, doing research, and so on. On the other hand, I also have to say that just about every PhD student I've had, and I've had a lot, have proved me wrong about the topic that they were working with.That's virtually without exception, sometimes proved me spectacularly wrong. I remember, for example, Teresa Chung doing research on technical vocabulary. I'd said in the first edition of "Learning Vocabulary in Another Language" that technical vocabulary probably made up about 5 percent of the running words in text.When she did her research, she found it made between 20 and 30 percent of the running words in the text, which is quite a bit different, one word out three compared to one word out of twenty. [laughs] That was sort of major changes, once people have done the research, to say, "Wow! I think I'm going to step back and change my ideas about that."I would say that the biggest one is the idea of you need a balanced approach to vocabulary learning and you need to see that teaching is a part of that, but only a part of it. You've got to make sure that the others are there. I would've given a much greater role to teaching very early on in my career.Matt Courtois Ross: Matt, what's something that you have changed your mind about, and why did you change your mind?Matt Courtois: What haven't I changed my mind about?[laughter]Matt: Looking back to my first year in Korea compared to now, I don't think there's a single belief that I still have that I had then. The biggest underlying thing that has changed in me was, at first when I was a teacher, I kind of thought the more knowledge I had about the language I could acquire, the better teacher I would become.I actually don't think that's really necessary. Being able to discuss any grammar point at the drop of the hat to me is not what makes a good teacher anymore. Having some of the skills to draw that from people, to run a good activity, and to facilitate improvement is much more essential to being a teacher than just knowing the subject matter.Ross: Can you remember when you changed your mind about that? Was it a long process?[crosstalk]Matt: It was a really long process. I taught in Korea and Russia, and probably my first year within China, I looked at teaching language in this way. Within my first year of teaching at my last company, there's a job opening for a content developer, content writer, something like that.I remember I took one of my favorite grammar skills lessons ‑‑ I think it was about the passive voice ‑‑ and I submitted it to the manager of this department. He sent me back an email that was three pages full of criticisms. The most positive things he said were basically about some of the animations that I had in my PPT...[laughter]Matt: ...not about the content of this deep analysis of the passive voice. He was just saying, "The method in what you're doing it, it's not about the grammar itself. It's how you present it," and stuff like this. I think I improved so much when that manager sent me such a critical feedback.I started approaching teaching grammar from, "What context am I going to use?" rather than having this giant scope of understanding the passive voice, every tense in English, rather than looking at myself as somebody who analyzes language. That's not my job.So many English teachers talk about how being prescriptive is so bad, but they're teachers. That's what they're doing. They're not writing dictionaries. They're not contributing to the corpus. We're not describing the language here. We're taking what those guys have and then presenting it to students in a way that they can practice it.Once I got over that mindset that, "I'm holding the key to the language, and I'm the person who's defining the language," and said, "No, I'm coming up with situations and facilitating situations in which they can use it," I think I improved a lot as a teacher and a trainer.Karin XieKarin: Teachers used to just think, "Well, my English is good, so I can teach English," or "I'm not confident in teaching English because I'm not confident in my English." Language awareness, like your knowledge in phonology, lexis, and grammar, they are important and are very helpful. It's just the teaching skills, they are very important, and they should be emphasized more.Ross: You need both, don't you?Karin: Yeah.Ross: If you don't know any English and you're the best teacher in the world, you can't teach English. Equally, if you're amazing in English and you can't teach at all, that's not going to work, either. You need a bit of both. At some point, especially for lower levels, the knowledge of English becomes less important than the skill to put it across.Karin: Because I was trained in the CertTESOL, DipTESOL way, I always believed that I need to build the classes around the learners, and I need to train teachers a reflective coaching way. I believed that was more effective than any other ways.Recently, I just come to realize that not necessarily, and use that as good challenge or good chance for me to try out different things, or give people different options and see how things goes. It's not one way better than the others. It's just there are different ways of doing things.Ross: This is one of the dangers of just working in one environment for a very long time. You're often only exposed to one way of doing things. You get transposed to another place, and you automatically just assume, "Well this isn't the right way to do things. This is wrong. This isn't the most effective." But is that true? Is there any evidence?Karin: Exactly. I think all the things that I've tried out shaped how I do training and classes now. They're definitely not the same as when I was in the old environment for such a long time.Carol Lethaby Tracy: Hi CarolRoss: Hi Carol. I think you're very well known for integrating ideas from research into your practice. We'd love to hear from you about what was one of the most important or the most interesting things that you've changed your mind about over the years.Carol Lethaby: I think the example that came to mind here certainly was not using the mother tongue in the classroom. I did my PGCE in the UK in learning to teach French and German. This was mid‑'80s, and the communicative approach in foreign language teaching then had a big hold on the profession.We were explicitly taught not to use English at all when we were teaching French or teaching German. Of course, I carried this on when I started teaching English. I did my Delta and the same thing, it came up all along the way. I remember it seemed to go against my intuition, but as I know now, don't always rely on your intuitions, because they might not be right.I actually did some research into this as a part of my master's degree here in Mexico and found out that, when you ask learners, one of the things I asked them in a piece of research I did, was, "Do you want your teacher to have English as their first language? Do you want your teacher to be a native speaker of English?" a list of pedigrees.The one that came out top at all levels, especially at beginner level, was they don't care if their teacher is a native speaker. They want a teacher who can speak their first language, who knows their first language.It made me think about, "Why then are we telling people you don't need to speak the learners' first language, you don't need to know the learners' first language, and you don't use the learners' first language. It's better not to"? Obviously, I was reading the history of English language teaching, Phillipson's Linguistic Imperialism.You realize how this happened and how this idea was transmitted and perpetuated. Now, knowing more about the brain and how we learn, I really don't believe that. I am convinced that we need to use the learner's first language in order to teach them another language.Ross: How would that look like in the classroom then, Carol? Do you have any examples of what that might look like with a group of students?Carol: I remember trying to teach the difference between first and second conditionals when I was teaching the younger Mexicans in Guadalajara here. There was this explanation that I was trying to work with them with levels of probability. It depended if you were an optimist or a pessimist whether you would use the first conditional or the second conditional.How confusing that was and how unsatisfactory that was for a learner, I'm sure. Now I would just tell those learners, "This is how you say it. The first conditional corresponds to this in Spanish and the second conditional corresponds to this in Spanish."Spending ages trying to define a word or an expression when just a quick translation could really help in that case, using the learners' language for effective reasons.I remember I didn't speak a word of Spanish when I first arrived here. I was given beginner's classes precisely because it was the idea that this would be a genuine communication situation, etc. I couldn't get to know my students.It means I couldn't ask them, "How are things going? How are you getting on in these certain situations?" Or, "What things are worrying you about learning English? Don't worry about this [inaudible 23:43] . It just means this. I can help you with this later."All these kinds of things that really enhanced language learning, I wasn't able to do because the idea was that we couldn't speak each other's language and only think in monolingual situations. It's just ridiculous not to take into account and use the learner's mother tongue.Ross Thorburn & Tracy Yu Ross: We heard there from a bunch of our favorite guests over the last couple of years about things that they have changed their minds about. Tracy, to finish the podcast, what have you changed your mind about?Tracy: There are a lot of things I have changed over the last few years. One thing is how I can connect on education‑related either theories or practice and into what I'm doing, my work in context. In the past, I remember when I started being a trainer, I read a lot of books about teaching, training, and theories in ESL, TESL, exactly related to this industry.Then, I realized maybe I just focused too specific to this industry, to this area. When I listened to podcasts and watch TV, or read other books, magazines, or journals, sometimes I realize that actually something that relates to this industry could really help what I'm doing. I need to give you an example, right?Ross: Give us an example, yeah.Tracy: I read a book about how marriage works. The book is "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work." When I started reading this book, I didn't expect any connection to work, but the more I read about it, I realize actually there were a lot of principles [laughs] can apply to work, to manage a team.For example, there's one thing mentioned about criticism versus complaint. You can see the difference between these two. You can say...Ross: What's the difference? Do you want to give us an example of each?Tracy: A complaint, you can say, "Oh, you didn't do this very well," or "You didn't complete this on time," for example, at work. Criticism, it's like, "Oh, you always did this this way. You're not able to do this," something like that.Ross: It sounds like more you're talking about the person rather than the actions that they've taken or not taken.Tracy: Yeah. Of course, people can complain. You can give constructive feedback to the other person. You can talk about the facts, you can talk about the behavior, but you don't jump into conclusion and say, "Oh, this person is not able to," or "This is always like this." You're not giving the person another chance to reflect and then to make things better.When you're working with colleagues or you're managing a team, it's really important to distinguish the difference between a complaint and a criticism. Another thing is super, super useful, when I had a difficult conversation or tried to give feedback to our staff, just try not to have a harsh start‑up when you're having a conversation.Even though before you start a conversation, you knew it's probably towards some kind of a conflict or uncomfortable situation, still try to avoid a harsh start‑up in a conversation. Maybe you want to ask this person how they feel, what's going on, and what happened, and find out more information.Then provide more specific information to the person. Then give the feedback and then action plan, rather than at the beginning is said something very negative. It's difficult for the person to receive your feedback.For you, Ross, you work in different roles for the last 12, 13 years. You were a civil engineer, and then you work in education. Anything that you've changed over the last few years?Ross: Something I'm in the process of changing my mind about is a lot of the things that we talk about here and we do on teacher training courses in materials design and management is we concentrate so much on what goes on in the classroom as that's where the learning and everything takes place. That's fundamentally the most important thing.I used to believe that, but I'm coming to believe more that what happens in the classroom might not be the most important part of their learning process. What might actually be more important is what happens before the class and what happens after the class.I found a nice quote yesterday from someone called Ausubel, hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. He says, "If I were to block out and reduce all of education's psychology to just one principle, I would say this. The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach them accordingly."That was really cool. How much time do we ever spend actually finding out what students already know? I would guess, generally, not very much time or not a lot of time. Certainly, on this podcast, we don't talk about that very much.I think the same thing for what happens after class. We tend to assume that things finish once the students walk out the door. We know from memory curves and things, if students don't revise what they've already learned, then they forget the vast majority of things that happen in classroom.That's something I've changed my mind about. I think we need to spend more time focusing on what happens outside the classroom every bit as much, if not more, compared to what happens inside the classroom.Tracy: How can you do that then, to find out more information before the class about the students?Ross: I don't have all the answers to it, but I think it's more important that we think, like ascertaining what students already know before lessons, finding out what problems do they have, and designing our lessons to try and solve specific issues that students have.What normally what happens is students get placed in a certain level. Then they just work through a course book, which roughly approximates what they know and what they don't know.We don't go into enough effort to find out what are the holes and the gaps, or the peaks and the troughs, in students' current ability and knowledge, and try and smooth over the troughs, to make sure what we're doing in class fills those in.Tracy: Have you ever seen any examples or some teachers who were able to focus on what happened before the class or after the class?Ross: Some things, like the whole flipped classroom principle, goes towards that. Some educational technology works towards aiming to find out what students know before the class. It has them answering questions and makes sure that they reach a level of mastery before they move on to the next topic.I don't think that's the norm in most scenarios. It's something that we don't talk about enough, and I think those things are every bit is important probably as what goes on in the classroom and deserve our attention a lot.Everyone, I hope that was interesting. I presume for a lot of people that the reason that you're listening to this podcast in the first place is so that we can change your minds about some issues that are important. Hopefully, it was useful hearing how some of our favorite guests have changed their minds about different things over the years.Tracy: Thanks very much for listening.Ross: For the last three years, thank you. Good‑bye.Tracy: Bye.

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