Podcasts about dave thanks

In this episode, Brian is joined by Dave Milus, a retired senior hotel executive whose 33 years in the business took him across the country with some of the most iconic brands and properties. Dave was a mentor to Brian at Starwood and Brian credits Dave with a great deal of his own success. Tune in to hear who Dave Thanks for helping him along the way.

EPISODE 41 - Another solo episode with Dave - Jen has left me completely unsupervised yet again so I thought I would dip into our mailbag, emails, DM's and comments and compile some of our more recent questions from listeners and followers on our social platforms!Jen will be back for the next episode! I PROMISE!!Hear more about what is going on in our UpCycled World, our vendors, podcast, guests and community.Thanks for your questions, comments and suggestions!  Our community is so amazing, we appreciate all of you! Yes, even the silent ones!Enjoy episode 41 - all the best from Dave, Jen and Paige!For more about our business please visithttps://upcyclecanada.ca/Podcast created by True Media SolutionsThank you to Jacob Moon for creating our Podcast Soundtrack - please visit www.JacobMoon.com We don't have ads in our podcasts, but it doesn't mean that we don't like making them!Wilbur's Horses R Us is here for you!And don't forget - Don't squat with yer spurs on!Support the show

Dave Pell has been writing online for almost as long as the internet has existed. His popular newsletter, NextDraft, has over 140,000 subscribers. NextDraft covers the day's ten most fascinating news stories, delivered with a fast and pithy wit.Dave has been a syndicated writer on NPR, Gizmodo, Forbes, and Huffington Post. He earned his bachelor's degree in English from U.C. Berkeley, and his master's in education from Harvard.Besides being a prolific writer, Dave is also the Managing Partner at Arba, LLC. For more than a decade, Arba has been angel investing in companies like Open Table, GrubHub, Marin Software, Hotel Tonight, Joyus, and Liftopia.In this episode, you'll learn: How Dave merged his two writing passions into a successful product The key to building a strong relationship with your audience How Dave dramatically increased signups to NextDraft Links & Resources Flicker Unsplash Fareed Zakaria Jim Rome The Skimm Morning Brew The Hustle Spark Loop Sam Spratt Dave Pell's Links Dave Pell on Twitter NextDraft newsletter Dave's new book: Please Scream Inside Your Heart NextDraft app PleaseScream.com Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Dave:If you have something to say in one way or another, the internet is a great place for people to figure out a way to receive it. So, that's pretty powerful and still excites me. I still press publish with the same enthusiasm now than I did when the internet first launched.[00:00:23] Nathan:In this episode I talk to Dave Pell, who has been writing for basically as long as the internet has been around. He's been an investor since the early days. He's been writing since the.com bust, and even before then. He writes his popular newsletter with 140,000 subscribers called Next Draft.We have this really fun conversation about writing. His writing process. How he grew the newsletter. Bunch of other things that he cares about. Even a few things that I was interested in, like he doesn't have his face in photos on the internet very much. He has his avatar instead. So, just getting into why that is.He also has a book coming out soon. It's called Scream Inside Your Heart, which is a fun reference to some memes from 2020. So, enjoy the episode. There's a lot in there.Dave. Welcome to the show.[00:01:12] Dave:Thanks a lot for having me on.[00:01:14] Nathan:Okay. So you've been doing this for a long time. You've been writing on the internet since the .com era. So, I'm curious maybe just to kick things off, what have you seen—I realize this is a giant question.What have you seen change? What are some of those trends that you've seen, that you either really miss from the early days, or some of those things that you've held onto from the early days of the internet, that you're really still enjoying?[00:01:46] Dave:Yeah, that is a pretty huge question, but I'll give it a shot. The thing I miss from the early days of the internet is that our democracy was not being destroyed by the internet in the early days of the internet. So, everything we thought we were building, basically it turned out to be the opposite of what actually happened.The part about the internet that I still feel is there, although a little bit less so because of the big companies have sort of taken over all the platforms and stuff, is just the idea that someone can have a passion or a creative output that they want to share with the world, and they can mold internet tools to fit their skills, and then use the internet to broadcast that out, and still become sort of pretty popular withour the “OK” of some gatekeeper at a publication, or at a television studio, or whatever.The indie spirit of the internet still lives on. It ebbs and flows, and has a lot of different iterations. But that was the thing that excited me the most when I first played with the internet. And that's the thing that continues to excite me the most now.[00:02:57] Nathan:I always think of the newsletter, and your newsletter in particular, is that indie spirit. Is that what you see most commonly in newsletters? Or are you seeing it in other places as well?[00:03:10] Dave:I see it in podcasts. I see it in newsletters. I see it in people sharing their art, sharing their photography on Flicker, and up through the more modern tools. I go to a site called Unsplash all the time to look at images, and it's just basically regular people sharing their images.Some of them are professional photographers, some aren't, and they're getting their work out there, and then some of them probably get jobs out of it and stuff like that. So, just the idea that you can have some kind of creative output and have a place to share it. And try to get an audience for that is really inspiring.It's a lot harder than it used to be because there's a few billion more people trying to get attention also, and because there are more gatekeepers now. So, you have to, hope that your app meets Apple's guidelines, or that different products you might want to share on the internet have to meet certain classifications now, whereas they might not have in the very early days of the internet. But in general, if you have something to say in one way or another, the internet is a great place for people to figure out a way to receive it.So, that's pretty powerful, and, still excites me. I still press published with the same enthusiasm now that I did when the internet first launched.[00:04:32] Nathan:Yeah. So let's talk about the main project that you have right now, which is Next Draft. Give listeners the 30-second pitch on Next Draft, of what it is.[00:04:46] Dave:Sure. Basically I call myself the managing editor of the internet. What I basically do is a personality-driven news newsletter where I cover the day's most fascinating news. I cover 10 stories. A lot of times in each section there's more than one link. I give my take on the day's news, each individual story, and then I link off to the source for the full story.When I first launched it, I called it Dinner Party Prep. I provided enough information for you to sort of get the gist of the story. And if there's topics you want to dig deeper, you just click and, you know, go get the story yourself. So that's sort of the overview of it.[00:05:27] Nathan:Nice. And you said that you're obsessed with the news maybe in a somewhat, even unhealthy way. why, where did that come from?[00:05:36] Dave:Yeah. Well, nothing, nothing about my relationship with the internet is only somewhat unhealthy. it's all extremely unhealthy, but, both my parents are Holocaust survivors and, when I was growing up, news was just a very big part of our daily lives, especially when my three older sisters moved out and it was just the three of us, that was sort of our mode of communication.We talked about the news. We watched the news together. Fareed Zakaria is basically the sun my parents always wanted. but so I got really into the news and being able to connect the news to, our everyday lives, which of course my parents had experienced as children and teens and Europe during world war II.And also reading between the lines about why certain politicians might be saying something, why stories are getting published a certain way. So I just got really into that and I've always been into a and college, you know, I, I majored in English, but if we had minors at Berkeley, I would have minored in journalism.I took a bunch of journalism courses. I've always been really into the media, but not so much as quite an insider where I go to work for a newspaper, but more observing, the news and providing sort of a lit review of what's happening and what has momentum in the news. So I sorta got addicted to it and, Also as a writer.My favorite thing to do is counter punch. I like to have somebody give me a topic and then I like to be able to quickly share my take, or make a joke or create a funny headline about that content. So I sorta took those two passions of the way I like to write. I like to write on deadline. I like to write fast and I like to counter punch and the content that I like, which is news, and I sort of merged those two things and created a product, and a pretty cool suite of internet tools to support that.[00:07:35] Nathan:Yeah. So that makes sense that you've identified the constraints that match your style and made something exactly that fits it. the deadline, like having, he, you know, coming out with something on a daily basis, is more than a lot of creators want to do. so what's your process there?[00:07:55] Dave:Yeah. I mean, I should emphasize that I do it every day. Not because I think it's some incredible draw for readers to get Daily Content. I do it every day because I'm addicted to it. If my newsletter had five stories in it, instead of 10, it would do better. If my newsletter came out three days a week instead of five days a week, I'm sure it would do better.If it came out once a week, it would do even better then you know, also if I had a more marketable or not marketable, but a more, business-oriented topic that was more narrow, it would do better. I used to write a newsletter that was just on tech and it was. Really popular in the internet professional community back in the first boom, I had about 50,000 subscribers and there were probably about 52,000 internet professionals.So I just like writing about what I want to write about and I'm addicted to pressing the publish button and I'm just addicted to the process. So I do it because of that. I'm not sure that would be my general advice to somebody trying to market or promote a newsletter.[00:09:01] Nathan:Yep. Are there other iterations, either ever before or things that you tried that you realized like, oh, that's not a fit for your personality, your writing style?[00:09:09] Dave:Yeah. When I first started it, I actually, I'm an angel investor also and have been since, probably right after Google and Yahoo launched. so a while, and I used to, my passion has always been writing, so I wanted to mix writing into that, process. So I would send out 10. Daily stories, but they were all tech news related to the CEOs of the companies I worked with and a few of their employees, so that they wouldn't have to spend their time reading the news or worrying about competitors or worry about what the latest trends in tech, where I would give it to them.And they could focus on doing their jobs and that sorta got shared and got out. so I did that for a few years. really, that was my iteration. I should've kept the brand. It was called David Netflix. not that it was a great name, but I've shifted brands about 40 times in my life. Cause I love branding and naming.I that's another, maybe this is more of a cautionary tale than a lesson and newsletter marketing. I would stick with a brand if anybody has the possibility of doing that, that was a big mistake I've made over the years is having multiple brands. But when the bus came, the first internet bust, I basically was writing an obituary column every day and about companies that had failed.So I just decided, I wanted to expand it and I knew I was interested in much broader topics than just tech news. So I expanded it to all news, a critical point that, really changed Next Draft and got it to catch on and become more popular was when I decided to focus on making it more personality driven and less, less overwhelmingly, providing an overwhelming level of coverage.I used to think that I had to provide all the news in the day because people would sort of, depend on me to provide their news. I was sort of selling myself as your trusted news source. So I would include a lot of stories that I didn't have anything to say about because they were huge news, you know, an embassy closed in Iran or whatever.That was huge international news, but I didn't necessarily have anything to say about that that day. So after a while I decided, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to limit it to 10 items. And I'm going to focus that on what I think is the most fascinating and think of it less like a curation tool and more like, a, modern day column.I think if the column newspaper column were invented today, it would look a lot like Next Draft people would sort of share their takes and then provide links off for more information. once I did that, it was a big change. People started signing up much more readily and, once I stopped trying to be exhaustive.[00:11:56] Nathan:That makes a lot of sense to me. I think that that's something you see from a lot of creators is that they're, they're trying to find some model. That's like, this is my idea of what people should want, you know, rather than what they end up doing, eventually it's coming to, it's like, okay, forget all of that.This is what I want. And I'm going to make that. And then people like me can find and follow it. And people who don't can, you know, do their thing. Can you go find one of the other million sources on the internet?[00:12:21] Dave:Yeah. When I think of the people that I like to follow or have followed forever on the internet, all of them are that ladder. They just do it their way. They have a design, they want, they stick to their guns. They say what they feel like saying. they decide. what the personality of the product is.And, they move within that. I always find that to be the most interesting thing, especially when it comes to something like newsletters. I really think newsletters are more like a radio talk shows than they are like other internet content, podcasts to a certain degree as well. But I always feel like I listened to are used to listen a lot to this radio, sports caster named Jim Rome.And whenever he would have a new city that he was launching and he would always give the same speech on the Monday that they launched saying, just give me a week. You might not.Get the vibe of what we're doing today. You might think it's okay, but not great, but just give it a week and listen, and then decide if you like it or not.And I sort of feel like that's how newsletters are your relationship with your readers sort of creates this, sort of insider-y voice and communication that, you, it takes a little while to get into the rhythm of getting it. But once you do, then it's like this familiar voice or this familiar friend that you feel like, even if you didn't read it for a few weeks, you can start a conversation with that person right away easily.That's how I think the voice of a newsletter is most effective. So that's why I've always thought of it. More of what I do is sort of a textual talk radio, more so than a blog or some other format[00:14:01] Nathan:What do you think, or what would you say to someone who maybe had 10 or 20,000 subscribers and felt like their newsletter had gone a bit stale and maybe their relationship to it had gotten a bit stale or they're in this, this position of writing things that no longer have their voice, how would you coach them through like bringing their voice and personality back into it?[00:14:22] Dave:I mean, it's definitely hard. it's hard doing something that you do alone and, something that is often hard to really get off the ground or get to grow, especially when you're on a platform like the internet, where every day, somebody does something and 10 seconds later, they're like internet famous and you're trying day after day.So, I mean, the first thing. Is that you really have to be interested in what you you're passionate about. and focus in on that, because that will alleviate a lot of that stress. Like, do I feel like sending it today? I'm a too burnt out. What's the point? I mean, not that those feelings don't happen. I had those feelings as recently as an hour ago, when I press publish, I have those feelings and disappointments constantly, you know, that's part of being a creator of any kind.Maybe that word is sort of, sort of goofy, but anybody who's putting themselves out there and putting content out, you know, you have that feeling all the time. If you're an indie, and you're doing it all day in front of the computer by yourself, then that's even more powerful because, you know, if you work at a big company or everybody's working on the same goal, or even in a small group, you can sort of support each other and, maybe even bullshit each other at some cases where, oh, no, this really matters.You know, where, if you're by yourself, that has to be pretty self-sustaining or self-sustaining. I do have a friend or two that I always share blurbs with who, one of my friends Rob's, he proves almost all of my blurbs, so it's nice to have that virtual office mate. He's not really officially part of Next Draft, but you know, I don't think I would do it as easily or as, for as long if it weren't for him because he's like my virtual friend on the internet that says, oh, come on, let's get it out today or whatever.So I think that's helpful to have a support team or a couple people you can count on to sort of give you a boost when you need it. But the key really is, is that it's gotta be something that you are passionate about, both in terms of the product and in terms of what you're focusing on, because if you feel strongly about it, then it really.I don't want to say it doesn't matter if people enjoy it, you should take cues from your readers. What are they clicking on? What are they reading? What are they responding to? But at the core, it's gotta be you because that's what gets you through those down points? you know, I had a weird thing because I write about news.The general news, world basically benefited dramatically from the Trump era because everybody was habitually turning on their news, 24, 7, and refreshing and Whitey and Washington post and checking Twitter every two seconds to see what crazy thing happened next. And we're all poor sorta,[00:17:01] Nathan:Wreck to watch.[00:17:02] Dave:So everybody was really into it and it created.Unbelievable platform for people to become media stars. You know, Trump was bad for democracy, but he was great for media. Great for creating new voices out there. whether we like it or not. for me, it was different because I wrote about all news. I wouldn't say I was apolitical, but I wasn't heavily political.The Next Draft had plenty of readers from both sides of the aisle. when Trump came around, it was like one story every day, basically. So it really limited. I would get emails from longtime readers all the time that said, Hey, can't you cover something other than Trump every day?And I say, Hey, if you can find the story for me, I'll cover it. This is what every journalist is on. Now, the people who used to cover the secret service around Trump, the people who used to cover sports are not talking about Trump because of a pandemic relation ship to it. The people who aren't entertainment are talking about Trump because they can't believe that anybody voted for him, whatever the issue was, every dinner party was about Trump.So it was really a bummer for my brand and my product. Actually, it became boring in some ways to me to have the same story every day. And it became, I think frustrating to my readers.But during that era, when it was happening, I had to make a decision. Do I become more political and go full on with this?Or do I sort of try to. Do what I would call a falsely unbiased view or a, you know, false equivalence view that we saw in the media where there's both sides to every story. And you have to pretend they're both accurate, including one guy saying to put disinfectant into your veins. And the other person's saying to wear a mask and take a vaccine, but those things get treated as equal somehow because the president said it.And I really decided, you know, more important than keeping readers is that I'm true to my own sort of ethical standards. In a moment that called for it, at least for me. So I became more political. went into it and I said, what I believe and still believe is the truth, you know, about what was happening with Trump and Trumpism and our slide towards authoritarianism.And I know that this is a podcast more about newsletterish than it is about politics or news, but I'm just sharing that because that's the kind of thing that kept me going. and the people who really cared about what I was writing, appreciated it and would email me and say they got something out of that.And most importantly, my mom would say, yeah, you made the right call. Or my dad would say, yeah, you got that. Right. And ultimately, When it became a sort of a bummer period for me, which I would say 2020 was because of all the horrible news. And, I was writing a book about the year. So I was like living, July of 20, 20, well writing about March of 2020, which I don't recommend for anybody's emotional health.And I just had to think like, what's really important to me. Yes. I want to be funny, which I try to be in my newsletter every day. I want to be read my narcissism is as strong as ever, but ultimately I want to be able to look myself in the reflection of the, darken screen on the rare times that it is dark and say like, yeah, you told the truth and that kept me going there.So I think whatever your brand is, you know, it can be a newsletter about guitars, but if you have that sort of passion, And you have something you want to say, and you think is important to say it sort of gets you through those levels and your motivation. And if it's not getting you through the lows and the motivation, there's nothing wrong with saying, Hey man, this is not worth it.I'm going to go try to make something else. You know, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to beat a dead horse.[00:20:51] Nathan:On the political side. Are there specific things that you felt like it costs you opportunities that it lost you? Because I think a lot of creators, whether they talk about, you know, finance or photography or whatever, I'll see these things. And they're like this either directly relates to me and my audience and I feel like I should take a stand on it.Or it's like a broader macro issue that I feel like we should talk about. And when you do, then there's immediately, you know, somewhere between three and 300 responses of like, we didn't follow you for the politics, you know, or like something like that. And your Instagram, DMS, or newsletter replies or whatever.[00:21:24] Dave:Yeah. it costs me a lot. Definitely it costs me readers or subscribers. It costs me, psychic pain because I was locked into a story that was just overwhelmingly, emotionally painful, really, and shocking and difficult to understand all the things that cause you sort of emotional exhaustion. We're in the Trump story, especially in 2020, when it became a story about our own health and our kids' health.And the frustration level just went through the roof. for me, professionalizing that content actually helps create a bit of a barrier to the feelings about it. Some of my good friends were probably more bummed during 2020 than I was because when the latest crazy story or depressing story would happen, I felt I had to. Ingest that content and then come up with, something cogent to say about it. And maybe hopefully funny to make it a little bit of sugar to take the medicine and then get it out to people. So I've always felt that being able to do that, sorta created a barrier between myself and actually feeling something.So that's another thing I like about the newsletter probably at least unconsciously. but yeah, there was a lot of costs in terms of readers, for sure. Hate mail. but there always is, you know, Today. I would say I get much more hate mail from the far left. If that's what you want to call them. People who feel like every joke is like an incredible triggering a front to their existence or any hint that you mentioned somebody as attractive.I've gotten hate mail because I implied that Beyonce is appearance was part of her brand. I mean, it's totally crazy, but, It's those extremes. You have to be able to turn off. You know, a friend of mine used to work at a major, be the editor of a major American newspaper. And he said every Friday they would get together and they would play the craziest, calls to the editor.They had a call line. In addition to, you could send a letter or you could call, leave a voicemail about something you were upset about in the coverage. And they would just gather around and have drinks on Friday. Listen to this because of course the people who are calling this line are almost self-selecting themselves as a little bit wacko and their takes were usually pretty extreme.The internet, Twitter, social media, Provides, greases the wheels for those people to be more prevalent in our lives. But I think it's really important to know that that's a real minority of people, somebody who sent you a hate mail, that your joke was so offensive, or they can't believe you mentioned that people ever watch pornography on the internet or any of these other things, it's this tiny minority of people.And then it's one step crazier that they felt like they had to contact you. So that's a really hard thing. I think about being split, particularly the newsletter game, because anybody can hit reply and you're going to get many more replies from people with crazy complaints, than you are from people with really thoughtful responses.Not that those don't come and those are valuable and I love getting those, but you get many more from people that just have really bizarre. I mean I could list probably for hours to crazy things that people send me that they're mad about, you know,[00:24:50] Nathan:Is there something specific that you do? Like one thing when I get those replies, if they're just like completely off the wall or abusive or something like that, I just scroll down and then click their unsubscribe link because, you know, they're never going to know, and then I just have to show up in their inbox[00:25:07] Dave:Right.[00:25:08] Nathan:There's something that you do.[00:25:09] Dave:That's not a bad strategy. I like that. I do do that occasionally for sure. occasionally I'll just go to Gmail and just, create a filter for that email to automatically go to my trash. if it's like a hardcore right-winger, that's telling me how stupid I am about ivermectin and that, you know, people should be taking horse dewormer and I'm just not getting the truth.And that Trump is awesome and that, Whatever. I usually just delete, honestly, because I don't see a big benefit to replying to somebody, especially if it's like a rabbit email, you know, they're looking for a reply, they want the conflict. A lot of people sleep easy with conflict. That's one of the lessons of the internet that I learned when I was first starting on the internet, you know, David edix sort sorta became popular because somebody that had a blog with a similar name, that I hadn't heard of, complained that I sort of stole his name because his name was also Dave.And I had got like, probably about three or 400 emails saying, you know, with expletive saying what a horrible person I was. And I also got about 3000 subscribers and at the time I had about 30, so. I didn't know how to respond. I felt like, wow. Number one, I didn't know that guys had the product with the same name.Number two. My name was different enough. Number two or three were both named Dave. I mean, who cares? You know, and plus I don't want to be attacked by anybody. So your first reaction is to respond and a slightly older, although not noticeably these days with my gray beard, slightly older friend of mine who had been in tech a little longer, said, don't respond.This guy lives for conflict. You guys are going to fight. There's going to be this public thing. You're going to be up all night and he's going to never sleep so easy. So, I took that to heart and didn't respond. And I, I think about that a lot when I get rabid emails from people, Mike exception, actually probably my weak point really is from, more my side of the political spectrum, where people who are generally liberal, but are just so extreme for me.In terms of being triggered or having a joke, be every joke, be inappropriate. That those people, I actually do feel like I want to respond to because, I, I don't think I can really motivate or move, somebody who was on the opposite end of the spectrum and is sending me hate aggressive, hate mail, but maybe I can move somebody who's just a little bit different than me, or a little bit more extreme.I will respond to those, although I'm usually sorry. The one other thing I always respond to is if people have been reading, they say, oh, I've been reading you for years. And, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about this book that you wrote before ordering it. And I'm like, just order the damn book. that's probably my most common email to people these days. It's actually remarkable how many people says, wow, I I've been reading you for years. I share you with all my friends. something, when my sons come home from college where it's always talking about, Dave said this, Dave said that, before I buy your book, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions to make sure it's going to be for me.I'm like I worked on something for an hour and it's like, your family is talking about it. What, just by the thing I worked on for a year, you know? So those kind of things, personal frustration, I respond.[00:28:37] Nathan:Yeah, that makes sense. okay. I'd love to talk about the book some more, but before we get into that, there's two things I want to talk about. The first one is like, how do you measure success for the newsletter? What's the thing that you'd like to, cause I don't think it's, you're pursuing the monetary side for this.It sounds like the monetary side comes from investing and, and then what's success for the newsletter.[00:28:59] Dave:I mean, I have had right now, I I'm just marketing my, my own stuff. And during the pandemic I marketed non-profits, but, that had to do with either the pandemic or, the democracy issues that we were facing. but I have made decent money from selling straight sponsorships. Year-long sponsorships to people, which I highly recommend.I think some of the ads that people put into his letters that go by clicks or whatever, unless you have a massive audience, it's hard to make much money, but if you pitch to some company that is a like-minded brand, Hey, you're going to be my only brand for a year. And anytime you have special events, I'm going to mention it.Then you can say, okay, you have like, you know, 20,000 readers or a hundred thousand readers that can make a difference to a brand to say, yeah, it's like a rounding air show. We'll give you 20 grand or a hundred grand or wherever it comes in there that you can actually make a decent. Living in terms of writing.So that always worked better for me, but no, my, my internet life is really all about narcissism and, clicks, you know, the dopamine, I just want reads. I'd rather you subscribe to my newsletter than pitch me your startup company. I just, that's what I want the most. So more numbers, more opens, more reads, more subscribers.And unfortunately that's probably the hardest thing to get also, especially in a product that is sort of viral. I think newsletters are sort of viral, but it's better if you have a team and some tools to really get it going. That's, you know, sites like the Skimm morning brew and the hustle. They have teams that are really growth hacking and focusing on that and having rewards programs and ambassador programs.The reason you see that is because.Newsletters themselves are not really inherently that viral. Yes. Somebody can forward it to one person or whatever, but it's not as viral as a lot of other forms of content where you can click a button and share it with all of your followers, like a Facebook post or a tweet.So yeah, the thing that matters to me most is probably the hardest to get in the newsletter game, but that's the truth[00:31:10] Nathan:Yeah. Well, I think the, the point on like newsletters don't have a distribution engine. There's no Facebook newsfeed, YouTube algorithm equivalent for newsletters. And so it really relies on either you posting your content somewhere else, whether it's Twitter or YouTube or medium or something that has an algorithm or your readers saying like, oh, I read Next Draft.You should too. There's not really something else in there. Have you looked at, or I guess if you have thoughts on that, you comments on it, but then also have you looked at launching an ambassador program or, or an actual referral program?[00:31:44] Dave:Yeah, I've thought about him. And now over the last year, there's been a few tools that have come out a few. I think X people from sites like morning view Ru, and some other sites that have sort of perfected some of these marketing programs have, sort of come out with these tools. I've messed around with them a little bit.Some of them still require I find, some technical ones. so I, I have like an engineer who works with me on Next Draft, like as a freelance basis every now and then, but it's not always easy for me to launch stuff that requires a lot of a moment to moment technical support, and management, because it's just me using a lot of, they're customized, but they're over the counter tools.So I've thought about a lot of them, but I really haven't tried it that much.I want to though I do want to do that. I would like to do one of those programs, especially where you get credit for referrals. I think that's the best kind of model. So there's one called spark loop.[00:32:51] Nathan:Yeah, we actually, I invested in spark loops, so we[00:32:54] Dave:Okay.[00:32:55] Nathan:Decent portion of that business, so good.[00:32:58] Dave:Oh, nice. Yeah. That one, if it was just slightly easier, I know that it's probably difficult to make it easier because, there's so many pieces. They have to have your subscribers. I have to have my subscribers, but that is, does seem like a good product. And especially if they can, I think expand into like letting a person sell a product or whatever, get credited for sharing products that can be even bigger.But yeah, that kind of stuff is really powerful for sure. And I, I do want to get into that. it's more just inertia that I it's just a matter of sitting there for the, an amount of hours that it requires to get it going.But I do think that's a great thing for newsletter writers to do, and I'm pretty surprised that more newsletter platforms don't build it right in.I think that'll probably change over time too. Maybe you guys will get acquired by.[00:33:48] Nathan:Yep. No, that makes sense. I know for convert kit, we wanted to build it in, it looks at the amount of time that it would take and then said like let's invest in a , you know, and then roll it into our offering.[00:33:59] Dave:Yeah, it's hard. It's hard not to take that stuff personally, too, you know, for people that do newsletters, you think you're going to put a thing on there and say, Hey, you know, it's just me here and you always read my newsletter and click. I know you love me so much. Can you just do this to get a free whatever?And it's, you know, sometimes not that many people click, you know, or other times like they click just as long as there's the free item. So there's a lot of ways to get depressed. Like I had things where I say, Hey, the first a hundred people who do this, get a free t-shirt or whatever next strap t-shirt.And those hundred people will literally do what I asked them to do in like 34 seconds, you know? And then it like stops after that. The next time you ask them, if there's not a t-shirt. But it's not you, you know, if you go to a baseball game or a lawyer game or whatever, you know, people sit there, they don't even cheer as much for the team as they cheer when the guy comes out with the t-shirt gun.So it's like, people love t-shirts more than they're ever going to love you. And you have to go into these things with that in mind. there's no way, even if it's, even if you're XX large and the t-shirt is, you know, petite, it's still worth more than you are. And the average mind of the average person.So you have to go into all of these things thinking, I hope this works like crazy, but if it doesn't tomorrow, I open up the browser and start writing.[00:35:19] Nathan:Yeah. That's very true. I want to talk about the growth of the newsletter. I was reading something, which I realized later was back in 2014, that you were at around 160,000 subscribers. I imagine it's quite a bit larger than that now. And then I'd love to hear some of the inflection points of growth.[00:35:35] Dave:Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure. I might've, I don't know if I lied in 2014, but now I have about,[00:35:41] Nathan:Quoted it wrong.[00:35:42] Dave:No, you might've got it right. I might've exaggerated. Maybe that was a including app downloads and a few other things. Yeah. I have about 140,000 or so now, so that would be making that a pretty horrible seven years now.You're depressing me.Your listeners should just stop, stop writing newsletters. It's not worth the depression[00:36:02] Nathan:Just give up now[00:36:03] Dave:Yeah. And by all means if Nathan goals do not pick up. no, yeah, I probably have it 140,000 on newsletter. Made my newsletter. It's hard to believe in this era of newsletters actually, but when I first launched Next Draft, I noticed that even people who would send in testimonials or that I would ask for testimonials would say, basically something to the extent that even though email is horrible, this is the one newsletter I I'd sign up for whatever.And I kept thinking, man, that's a bummer that I'm starting out at this deficit, that people have a negative feeling about the medium. So I, since then I've always made it my goal to. Have the content available wherever people are. So the newsletter is certainly the main way that people get next job, but there's an app for the iPhone and the iPad there.That's the first thing I launched because I wanted to have an alternative for people who just hate email too much. So now you go to the landing page, it's like, Hey, if you don't like email, here's another version. I have a blog version. I have an apple news version. I have an RSS version. I'm lucky enough to have a really good, WordPress custom WordPress install that I just push one button and it pushes it out to all of those things.But I am, I'm a big proponent of just meeting people where they are. even, as an example, I recently launched a sort of a substance. Version of my newsletter under the radar. but when I redo my site, I'm going to make that more clear because if people already subscribed to like 10 sub stacks and they're using their aggregator and they already have their email saved and they can just click a button, it's like, I don't care.You know, it takes me five extra minutes to paste my content into sub stack. So I just want the reads. I don't really care about how they read it or whether they read it.[00:37:55] Nathan:Yeah. That's fascinating. So then let's shift gears a little bit. I want to hear about the book. first I wanna hear about the title. Would you have it on your shirt?[00:38:03] Dave:Yeah. That's pretty embarrassing. I swear. I didn't know it was video today, but I do have a shirt[00:38:06] Nathan:You're good.[00:38:07] Dave:Otherwise I wouldn't have worn. This would have worn my Nathan Barry's shirt.[00:38:12] Nathan:That's right. It's in the mail actually. It's[00:38:15] Dave:Oh, good, good.[00:38:16] Nathan:Big photo of my face.[00:38:17] Dave:Yeah. Convert kit. My wife converted to Judaism before we got married. So I have my own convert kit.[00:38:23] Nathan:There you go. Exactly. so I want to hear like what the book is about and then particularly where the title came from,[00:38:30] Dave:Sure.[00:38:31] Nathan:It made me laugh a lot when I heard it.[00:38:33] Dave:Oh, cool. That's good. That's a good start then. yeah, the title comes from, in July of the, of 2020 when the pandemic was really setting in and becoming a reality for everybody. this amusement park outside of Tokyo in the shadow of Mount Fuji called the Fuji queue. amusement park reopened.And they found that even though everybody w everybody was wearing masks, people were screaming so much on some of the rides, especially the Fujiyama roller coaster, which was their scariest ride, that they were worried about germs spread. So they sort of put signs around the amusement park saying, no screaming, you can come, you can ride and have fun, but keep your mask on adults scream.And it sort of became a little minor social media thing in Japan, where people were sort of making fun of them like, oh, they're telling us not to scream. How can anybody not scream on the Fujiyama roller coaster? So in response, the, park management had to have their executives with perfectly quaffed hair and tie and colored shirts and masks on ride the roller coaster with a webcam facing them the whole time without moving a muscle.Cracking a smile or grimacing or screaming. And then at the end of the ride, when the rollercoaster stops, it says, please Scream Inside Your Heart.And that was always my favorite meme of, 2020. It went really viral. There was like t-shirts. aside from mine, there were posters memes. It sort of went crazy for about a week or two, which by 2020 standards is a pretty long time for a meme to last.And I just thought that made sense as a title for the book, because that's sort of how we felt, all year that I dunno if we were screaming in our heart, but we were certainly screaming into a void. Like no matter what we sat or yelled on social media or complained to our family members or friends, it just kept getting worse.The year just kept getting worse. And, so the idea is that this book sort of, now you're free to sort of let out the scream. And the book is it's about 2020, certainly, but it's really about the issues that led us to 2020. There's a ton about our relationship to media and including my own relationship to media and how that got us into trouble.Some of the stuff we're talking about today, how, technology has impacted our lives stuff. I've been sort of thinking about it, writing about for the last few decades, and a lot of the political hate that emerged. and, but it's all within this time capsule of the craziest year.[00:41:12] Nathan:Yeah. Yeah. And so that's coming out early in November, November 2nd. so you're, it looks like you're just starting the, you know, mentioning the promotion tour and all of that. is there a big, big push that comes with it or are you kind of, I, I'm always curious with people's book launches, what strategy they take.[00:41:30] Dave:Yeah. I mean, I'm a newbie, so it's, the whole process has been interesting to me working with a publisher, working with others, is not my forte. so I got used to that or I'm getting used to that and they're probably getting used to it also because working with grouchy 50 something in these is probably not ideal, but, yeah, I've just been promoting it so far in Next Draft, but I've been doing, I have a PR company that's helping me and I've been doing a ton of podcasts and I'm marketing it to my own readers.And then as it gets a little bit closer to the November 2nd date, I have a lot more stuff planned rut, a lot of influencers have early copies of the book, and hopefully they'll promote it. And, I'll call out a few favors from bloggers and hopefully newsletter writers. I feel like that should be my in theory.That should be my secret weapon because, in addition to being fun and creative, nothing moves traffic, except maybe Facebook, nothing moves traffic more than newsletters. I know a lot of people who run e-commerce companies and newsletters are always second, if not first, in terms of traffic drivers.So, I really think that, if some of my friends out there at morning brew in the hustle and the scam and all these other sites that sort of, have surpassed my size by quite a bit, put the word out that, one of their fellow warriors is, has a book out. That'll probably move the needle even more. The media, I'm hoping to get stuff like that, but I really don't know. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because, unlike a newsletter, it's not just one day's work, you know, you like worry about one word or one sentence in a book for like three weeks and then you put it out there and people are like, oh yeah, I'll check it out sometime.Thanks. So, you know, that's, you know, whatever that's life as a, you put yourself out there, that's how it goes. So I'm hoping it sells well. And, the more people that get it, I think some people, their first reaction is, oh my God, 2020. I don't want to relive that again. But, hopefully people who know my brand and those that they share it with, know that it's, you know, there's a lot of humor and there's, it's probably 30 pages before we even get into the first event of 2020.So it's, there's a lot more to it and it's sort of fun and crazy and tries to have the pace of a roller coaster. that was the other thing I took from the Fujiyama roller coaster.[00:43:59] Nathan:Yeah. So one thing that I'm always curious about with people who have like a prolific newsletter, you know, in your case of writing every day, and then like, for a lot of people, that would be a lot to handle of staying on top of a daily newsletter. And then you're writing a book on top of that. How did you schedule your time?Were you blocking off like, oh, these afternoons are specifically for book, book writing. Cause you turned it around relatively fast.[00:44:24] Dave:Yeah. the newsletter is sort of like a full-time job. People always ask me, you know, when do you work on, or how many hours do you spend on it? I mean, I'm, I'm always looking for news, whether it's on Twitter or friends, emailing me stuff or texting me stories, or just in conversations with people to see what they're into or what stories are interesting them or what I'm missing.In terms of actual time spent like where I'm dedicating time. I probably do like about an hour every night, because the story has changed so quick. So I'll do an hour of looking for stories every night. And then the next day I sort of lock in from about nine to one, usually, or nine to 12, where I'm finding stories, saving those stories, choosing what stories I want to go with and then actually writing the newsletter.All of that takes about anywhere from like two and a half to four hours, depending on the day I go pretty fast. When it came to the book, that was tricky. It was actually more emotionally tricky because like I said before, I was like, had to go back and write about, you know, Briana Taylor while I'm living another horrible act, you know, or even more so the Trump, you know, one crazy Trump thing and another crazy Trump thing and seeing the pandemic getting worse and worse.So that was stressful. But I found at the beginning I would try to write a lot at night and that was okay. But I found actually if I just kept going, in the day when I was already rolling and had written the newsletter and I was already in the group just to add on an hour or two to that was actually easier and more effective for me than trying to get going.But that's just me. I mean, I just go by my it's almost like my circadian rhythm or something like that, I almost never eat or consume anything before I'm done with next job except for coffee. I would keep that going, you know, once I would like, sort of have a sandwich or whatever, then it's like, oh, let me just take a quick nap and then whatever.So, yeah, I tried to just keep it going. I always find the more consistently busy I am, the less I procrastinate. And if I take a day off or I take a few hours off, even then, between writing, it just, it takes me longer to get going.[00:46:37] Nathan:Yep. That makes sense. The habit that I'm in right now is starting the day with 45 minutes to an hour of writing and that's working much better for me than like slotting it in somewhere else. So I think like w what I hear you saying is like, experiment and find the thing that works well for you.[00:46:54] Dave:Yeah. I mean, if you're going to start experimenting almost every writer, I know not like newsletter writers, but just general writers, all do what you just described. They sort of pick a time in the morning and they get their output done. then the rest of the day, if ideas come to them or whatever, they jot it down, but they're sort of powering in that morning hours.[00:47:13] Nathan:Yeah.[00:47:14] Dave:That's probably a good one to try. Although, you know, some people just do it better at different hours. I'm sure.[00:47:19] Nathan:Yeah. another thing I realized, I've always you for years, and until we got on this video call, I had no idea what you looked like. and which is kind of an interesting,[00:47:28] Dave:Well, I'm sorry.It's by design. I have a face for Panda.[00:47:32] Nathan:Tell me more about, well, I guess two sides, one, has there ever been an interesting interaction? You know, because you're like, Hey, I'm, I'm Dave and people are like, I wouldn't have ever recognized you. Or has there been any other benefits and thought behind, you know, why it have an avatar?[00:47:49] Dave:If by interesting you mean horrible? Yes. There's been many interesting interactions with people. I mean, before, before I had my current, avatar, which is, pretty awesome, actually, a guy named Brian Molko designed it. I had this incredible drawing of a character that looked like me that, had sort of ether net, Machinery and cord going into his head and it was like me, but my head was actually lifted.The top of my head was lifted off and you could see all this machinery and it was an incredible graphic, by this guy named Sam Spratt. Who's now done, album covers and book covers. He's like a super talent. If you want to follow somebody fun on Instagram, he's just incredible. And it was a drawing, even though it looked photo realistic.And I used that for a while and then I would go places and people would be like, you are so much fatter and grayer than I imagined. And so instead of having Sam sort of ruin his artwork, I went back with the more, cartoonish or animated, avatar. So since then I don't get too much of that, but, that was a good move.Although that's the best thing about avatars and the internet is that your avatar never ages. It always looks the same. It stays the same weight. My avatar never overeats he exercises right here. Angie really gets along well with others and doesn't have any kind of social anxiety either. So he's pretty cool.Yeah, it goes a little downhill with me in person. So[00:49:21] Nathan:Yeah. So is it, that's something that like, it gives you some distance between you and readers, or it gives you some anonymity that, you know, you don't want to be recognized in the streets?[00:49:32] Dave:No, no, it's, it's, basically just what I described. It's like, I literally prefer the, the attractiveness of my avatar versus me, but also actually my avatar is really awesome. my logo, so it's also iconic and scalable. so it looks awesome on t-shirts even people who don't know what Next Draft is when they see, by son wearing his t-shirt, whatever, it just looks awesome.So that that's that's as much of it as anything. I thought your response was going to be mad. You seem perfectly attractive to me. I don't know what the issue is, but no, you went with, am I doing that for some other reason? Yeah. So, I get this all the time.Cause my wife is a very attractive person also. So when people meet me, they're always like, whoa, we were once a very famous celebrity came up to me and I said, oh, I'm Gina's husband. And she was like, wow, you did well. Oh, you know? So I'm like, thanks a lot. That helps. So just gave her a picture of my, my icon and walked away.[00:50:31] Nathan:Then that worked. I'm sure that she has it framed in her office, from now on. it's just interesting to me. You're you're sort of at this intersection between personal brand and, like media brand. And I think the avatar helps push you over into the media brand side. and I don't have any real commentary on it other than I find it interesting.[00:50:53] Dave:Yeah, no, I think there probably is some of that. I I've never really been a fan of using my actual face, or my actual person as a logo. I love the process of designing or working with people to design logos and taglines and all that. But yeah, probably at some point there was a, a goal with Next Draft to make it seem bigger than it is.I know a lot of people that are solo operators. They regularly say we, when they're talking about their brand to make it seem bigger, I actually think that's sort of been flipped on its head though. in the last few years where so many people are coming into the space, it's very clear that what they're doing is leaving a big brand, leaving a we and going to an eye.And I think it's actually a selling point in a lot of ways. So, I mean, I, I still get a lot of emails that say, I don't know if anybody at Next Draft is going to read this email, you know, or if you do, can you get this message to Dave? He's an asshole or whatever. And it's like, I'm the only one here, you know, or the other one I always get is when I email back to people that go, oh, I can't believe you actually emailed back.I didn't think this would get to anybody. It's like, you hit reply. And it had my email, like where else would it go? Exactly. You know? But I think actually having people thinking of you as a person, instead of a brand, Is a benefit today. Whereas if you would ask me when I was younger, I probably would have said, make it seem like you have a big company behind you.[00:52:24] Nathan:Yeah. And I think that that indie shift overall, like people are looking for that.[00:52:29] Dave:Yeah,[00:52:29] Nathan:Want to ask about the intersection between your investing and the newsletter. like, are you still actively investing today and doing author.[00:52:38] Dave:Yeah, yeah, no, I, I still invest a ton. I usually follow along with people who are a little more in tune with today's companies than I am. I don't really go out there and brand myself as an investor much, but I've been really lucky. I have very little intersection actually, if any, with my newsletter and my investing and I definitely want people to. To think of me as a writer first, for sure. Not as an investor who has this hobby, because that's definitely not in terms of time or passion, the reality. but I've been really lucky over the years that, I've invested with people or co-invested with them that were cool with me. branding myself as a writer first, but still looking at deals that came through their brands because they were branded as BCS or investors or angels.That's probably a bigger deal now than when I first started. There were like five angel investors, basically. Nobody really did small, early stage seed deals. you know, I mean, we all knew each other that did it and now there's like thousands of them. So you really have to be either a really pretty well-known entrepreneur or you have to. Sort of attach yourself to our organization or two who are really branding themselves well, getting out there and building a stable of companies,[00:53:58] Nathan:Yeah.[00:53:59] Dave:It's pretty different, more, much more has changed about that than the newsletter game, actually, which is pretty much the same as it was the day I started actually.[00:54:07] Nathan:Are there a few of those I'm curious who are a few of those, people that you would tag along with, you know, when they're investing where like, oh, this person puts money into something I'd like to be right there with them.[00:54:19] Dave:I mean, I have some people that are like entrepreneurs and former entrepreneurs that do it, and if they like it I'll do it. but generally I co-invest with, at any given time, a different group of people, used to be a larger group. When I first started out, my whole investing career, I've co-invested with this guy named Bob zip who's much smarter and much wiser than I am about all things business and.Startup world. So that was really great. And he used to work at a company called venture law group in the first boom, and they represented Google, Hotmail. eGroups all the big, huge, early internet companies, and so he really knew the space well. And when he became, I used to get deals from him.That's how you used to get deals actually was by a couple of law firms that focused on startups. I've been co-investing with him all along and he's been generous enough to, he left the law firm a long, long time ago and became an investor primarily. And he had a fund and was well-known guy and well-respected guy.So I got to sit in when he would hear pitches. and we sort of, we weren't investing together out of the same fund, but we would sort of make our decisions together. And we still do that a lot. these days, I almost always follow along with a guy named run-on barn Cohen and a really good friend of mine.He was for many years at WordPress, basically, most of the things that make money at WordPress, he did. and now he's a investor at a VC called resolute. If anybody's looking for a good VC, he's like incredible, like Bob zip much, much smarter than I am about this stuff. Unbelievably ethical, great business sense.Great technical sense. so I mostly just follow him. So if he does something that's usually good enough for me. And if I see something that I think it's good, I'll pass it along to him, but it's mostly that, but I've been really fortunate. I can't express that enough, that I've been able to invest in companies without having to spend all of my time, branding myself as an investor.That's just been unbelievably lucky. So, I've been able to focus a ton of my energy on my six.[00:56:31] Nathan:That's right. I'm writing a newsletter about the news. I guess, as you're looking to grow and continue on, right? Like the next phase of readers and, and all of that, since we can just say directly that we're all narcissists and we do this for the attention. what's what's sort of that next thing that you're looking for, it's going from 140,000 subscribers to say 200,000 and beyond.[00:56:54] Dave:Yeah, well, I'm, I'm hoping that, I'm not just trying to sell my book here. I'm hoping that the book and the newsletter will sort of have, a coexistence with them because the new the book is really an extension of the brand and the brand is that icon to Next Draft. So I'm hoping that the tricky part about writing about marketing a newsletter, like we discussed earlier, there's not really a natural virality to them.So. You Have this piecemeal growth from people telling each other or their friends or forwarding it to somebody or maybe occasionally tweeting or sharing a Facebook link. Oh, you should check this out. But it's all sort of small little blips. If you get a news story or a big blog story about it, or another newsletter recommending you, that's probably the fastest way people grow these days is by, co-sponsoring each other's newsletters or co-promoting them.Those big hits are more rare and they usually require like, I've had a ton of stories written about Next Draft, but most of them a long time ago, because it's basically a similar product to what it was when they wrote about it the first time. So they're like, Hey, I'd love to write about it, but what's the hook.What's the new thing, you know? so I'm hoping that the book provides that emphasis. It's like, we're doing now a ton of people who may by either been on a podcast in the past, or they've wanted to do a podcast with me say, okay, now's a great time. I'd probably want to move your book and, we can set something up.So it's sort of as an impetus. So I'm hoping that that will be the next big newsletter thing that most, most people who write about the book will also write about the newsletter and the two things can sort of grow together.[00:58:35] Nathan:I think that's spot on.[00:58:36] Dave:That's in terms of, you know, marketing and promotion, otherwise, I do want to try, one of these referral programs because people definitely do like products.And, I am lucky that my icon looks really good on shirts so that people actually really want them. And I have a great designer named Brian Bell who makes all of my shirts.[00:58:58] Nathan:There's something like when creators thinking about products, often if you spread yourself too thin, you're like into the newsletter, the book, the podcast, and like the 14 other things that you could make all at once you sort of hinder the growth of each thing, but then if you really build one of them up to a significant level, then at that point it can start to stall out and by shifting to another medium or have it like launching another product in this case, the newsletter to a book, then that book can have a bunch more momentum that feeds back into it.And so there's just sort of this interesting balance of like, no, When to like, keep pushing on the thing that you have versus when to add the next thing that like, then they feed off of each other and go from there. So I think you're doing it with good timing.[00:59:45] Dave:Hopefully it'll work. All that kind of stuff is the tricky part of doing this stuff. Especially stuff like podcasts and newsletters that are—it's really a ton of word of mouth, unless you get lucky and get some press, and word of mouth is just slow.There's some point where you're going to hit a tipping point where you're going to go from five or 10,000 to like 50,000 much quicker, more quickly because instead of three people going home and saying, “Hey, did you ever hear of this newsletter?” there's like 30 people going home and saying that. But, even with that they hit a plateau, and then you figure out what's the next thing. That's why doing something you're into is so important.And I don't think it's bad to try those other mediums or stretch yourself out, because you never know you might've been writing a newsletter three years, and then you do a podcast and it catches on. For some reason, you're like awesome. Less typing, more talking, let's go. So, but it's tricky. I wish I was better and had better advice for people on promotion and marketing.I'm not awesome at it, and it's not in my nature. So, begging for favors or telling people, even in my own newsletter, to buy my own book is very painful for me. I'm very sensitive to criticism about it. So, if people just all bought it and then made everybody else buy it, that would be a huge relief for me.[01:01:13] Nathan:That would be great. Well, along those lines, where should people go to subscribe to the newsletter, and then follow you on your preferred channel, and then ultimately buy the book?[01:01:24] Dave:I don't want like two or 300,000 people taking my site down. So let's go with if your last name starts between A and M you can start by going to NextDraft.com and sign up for the newsletter there. Or, you can also just go to the App Store and search for Next Draft. If you're N through Z, you can start with the book, and that's at: PleaseScream.com.It has links to all the various audio, and Kindle, and hardcover versions.[01:01:50] Nathan:That's good. I liked how you split the traffic, that way there's no hug of death, and we'll do well there.[01:01:57] Dave:I don't want to get fireballed.[01:01:58] Nathan:That's right.Dave. Thanks for coming on. This was really fun.[01:02:01] Dave:Yeah, thanks a lot for having me.

Do you need bicycle insurance? As a triathlete or cyclist, your bicycle is one of the most prized possessions. I bought my QR two years ago. It's a bright blue bike with electronic shifters. And the first thing I thought, I need to search the internet to find a great company to cover me. That's how I found Velosurance and I know it's really hard to find a great company to insure your bike. It gives me great pleasure to have Dave Williams, co-founder of Velosurance, a multi-risk bicycle insurance policy provider on today's show. I'm Hilary Topper. And this is Hilary Topper on air. Welcome, Dave, to the show. Dave: Thanks, Hilary. Happy to be here. Hilary: So can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and how Velosurance was born? Dave: Well, back in 2008 with a general insurance agency, we had a client who had a bike stolen out of his garage. It was a $2,000 bike, six years old. We put the insurance claim in and he walked into our office holding a $183 check that the insurance company sent him for his $2,000 bike after they depreciated the value of the bike and took away his deductible. So we decided that it had to be a better way and we looked for it. There was nothing better at that time. That's when we started researching how we could put together our own program for bicycles that took away all of the silly restrictions that home insurance puts on bicycles. Hilary: Right. A lot of people think that the bike is covered under the home insurance policy, but do you need separate bicycle insurance? Is that true or not true? Dave: There might be some coverage there, but it often takes a claim to be disappointed and find out how badly your home insurance does cover you. Um, the biggest downfall of a home insurance policy is that they depreciate the value of the bike 10%, the first year, 5% every year after that. So, if you've got a five-year-old bike and it's a $10,000 bike, they're going to give you a $5,000, then take away a $1,000 deductible, if that's all your home insurance deductible is, and give you a check for $4,000 to go out and replace your $10,000 bike. Hilary: That's crazy. So what exactly is covered under bicycle insurance? Dave: All types of accidental damage, including theft at home and away from home, as well as loss and damage in transit by airline or any other type of transport. If you're looking at a broken bike and that damage was caused by an accident, it is covered. It's covered for theft at home and away from home as well as at the event, it's covered for up to 24 hours in the transition area. Hilary: Now we had a conversation a little bit ago about how a lot of people use tri bike transport to ship out their bikes to different events. Do they need to take that extra insurance if they are insured with Velosurance? Dave: No. In fact, if you use tribike transport four times a year, you'd come very close to paying for a 12-month policy with Velosurance. So we cover the bike at all times in transit, whether it's on your car with tribike transport or with one of the airlines. Hilary: So let's talk about the prices of bikes. I mean, when does it make sense to have bike insurance? Does it make sense to have bike insurance for a $500 bike or a $1,000 bike, or does it have to be one of these, you know, really expensive types of TT bikes or road bikes that are out there? Dave: Well, there's a point where it becomes economically unfeasible to purchase bike insurance. Let's say you've got a $500 bike with a $300 deductible and you're paying $100/year to insure it. The best you can see is $100 back if that bike was lost. So, no, at that point, there has to be risk management. You have to bring risk management into it. And the risk management probably makes sense around $1,000 and up to purchase insurance. Hilary: That's what I was going to ask you because most road bikes start at $1,000. I mean, it's very difficult to get a road bike for under that. At that point, I guess it does make sense to get insurance just to cover it in case it's damaged or stolen. Now, what coverage territory is included in your policy? Dave: The basic policy covers the bike anywhere in the US or Canada. And, of course, the US includes Hawaii. It doesn't include Puerto Rico, if you want to take the bike out of the US or Canada, you would apply for worldwide coverage and that's a 10% uptick on the premium to include worldwide coverage. Hilary: That's great to know because a lot of people do travel to these iron man events that are overseas. Let's talk about different scenarios. There was one scenario where a friend of mine, she had just picked up her bike from the bike store, put it on a bike rack, and was on the parkway, she didn't put it on very well, and the bike went flying off the car. And thank God it didn't hit anybody or hit another car, but it went flying into the side and the bike was ruined. Now, is that covered by your auto insurance? Dave: No. Anything on the outside of your car is not covered by your auto insurance and most auto insurance these days don't cover anything inside of your car. Anything that's not part of the car is called a personal effect. And I don't think you can find personal effects on any auto insurance policy today. So now you go back to your homeowner’s insurance and ask them if it fell off your car. The homeowner’s insurance will tell you no it's covered by your car insurance. So, at that point, you're back at the bike shop with your visa card, looking for a new bike. If you had Velosurance, you'd call us and, seven days later, you'd get a reimbursement check, less your chosen deductible. Hilary: So let me ask you this. You buy a $10,000 TT bike. And you get Velosurance and the first year it's $10,000. I mean, do the premiums go down through the years because of the value of the bike, or does the value of the bike stay at $10,000 throughout the term of the insurance? Dave: The value of the bike remained stable. It does not change. We do not depreciate the value of the bike because of age. My bikes, I've got a 2014 bike that is a little dirty, but it's as good as it was when I bought it seven years ago. If that bike was on my homeowners, $8,000 bike they'd give me about $3,000 for it. With Velosurance with a $300 deductible, Velosurance is gonna give me 7,700 for it. If it went away entirely. Most everyone out there takes care of their bikes so that it's always in peak performance condition. Hilary: That's true. That's true. Um, all right. Well, before we move on, I want to give a shout-out to my sponsors because I really do appreciate having them and their support. Please tell them that you heard about them on Hilary topper on air. Special thanks to the Pegalis Law Group, The Profit Express, Pop International Galleries, The Russo Law group, and Gold Benes, L L P. Now back to you, Dave, we're talking about bike insurance, how are bike insurance claims handled? Dave: There's a bike and there's a claim tab on our website. Top right-hand corner. The short story is you take a damaged bike and get an estimate for the repair. Send us pictures of the damage. Send us the estimate subject to your chosen deductible. We’ll send you the bill. Hilary: And then how long does it take for that settlement to come in? Dave: Checks going out within a week. Today, it'll often take longer to get the estimate for the repair than it will for the check to be mailed. Hilary: So what companies financially back Velosurance policy? Dave: We partnered with Markel American insurance company. And the division that we work with is Markel’s specialty. Markel is a rated US insurance company, founded in the 1930s. It's a family-owned company. I wish I bought stock in them five years ago because they've really done well in the last five years. We had 18 companies in our agency when we had the general insurance agency and the one company that always stood out in an effort to pay a claim. A lot of companies look for ways not to pay a claim. Markel insurance was a company that always looked for a way to pay a claim and they were the company that we partnered with to produce a policy that covers bikes for just about any risk that you can take the bike into, it's covered and they continue to be a standout company and look for ways to pay claims. Hilary: So talk to us about this. Why should someone come to you versus going straight to Markel? And is there a price difference? Dave: Same policy, same premium, you can definitely go direct to Markel. When you call us, you're going to be talking to another rider, somebody who understands you and your bike and speaks the same language. Generally, it just comes down to who would you rather talk to. And because of each quote, you can call us and discuss your quote with us. We can look at the quote that you're looking at on your screen, and we can analyze it to make sure that you've qualified for every possible credit. Often we will find credits that have been missed and apply them. So our premium comes in and just significant, well, I shouldn't say significant, somewhat lower than the Markel premium. Hilary: Yeah, I've been a client now of Velosurance for about, I don't know, three, at least three years now. And what I found about you guys was that you were so easy to work with. The forms were easy to fill out. I was able to get the insurance and the certificate right away. And I know that if I had an issue, you guys would work with me and that's what I love about you guys. I just thought that you were just a great company to deal with. And it was funny because after I did the research and found you guys, my insurance guy asked me if I knew of any company because he had other people who needed bike insurance. So of course I gave your name, but, I just want to say that, just for the record, I've been working with these guys for at least three years now, and they are just an absolute pleasure to work with. So I just, I pray that I never need to use your coverage, but at least I have it. It's a peace of mind. So now, Dave, talk to us about some additional or optional coverage, like roadside assistance that Velosurance offers. Dave: Roadside assistance it's not part of the policy. It is a benefit to the policy at cost 12 bucks a year. It can be used up to five times a year, and it is a free 35 mile ride for you and the bike. If you're ever stranded out on the road and need a ride home. You find a safe place to wait, call for assistance and a company similar to AAA. We'll show up in 35 to 45 minutes, you're on your way home. Hilary: That's great. I guess they help you fix the bike or get it working or they just pick you up? Dave: No, Billy Bob drives the truck. That's what he does, he picks the bike up and drives you home. Hilary: Now one more question. Where do you cover? Could somebody from Texas or California? I mean, I'm in New York. Can anybody call you and buy insurance for their bike? Do you need to be in a specific geographical location? Dave: We're licensed in 48 States and Washington DC. We're not licensed in Hawaii, because the cost to be an insurance agent in Hawaii is prohibitive for the number of bikes that we would be insuring in that state. So there's a, I think one out of the state where there's more sheep than there are people where we don't sell. But when we have prospects who call us from those States where we're not licensed, we send them over to Markel and tell them, buy your policy there. And if you've got questions, call us back and we'll be able to answer the questions for you. Even though we can't sell you the policy, we can certainly answer questions. Hilary: So talk to me about your riding. Dave: I'm a mountain biker. My biggest concerns are trees and rocks. Hilary: Well, those are big concerns. Dave: I don't need roadside assistance because they won't go off the blacktop to come and get me. But, I spend five months of the year in Colorado. We have a licensed office in Denver and in Colorado Springs. So, when it gets miserably hot in Florida, I drive out to Colorado and spend the next five months riding out there. My business partner, who started this company with me, is a triathlete and iron man and he's also a mountain biker, but I've given up trying to keep up with him. Hilary: That's awesome. So tell us, Dave, how could people get in touch with you and learn more about Velosurance or even sign up for Velosurance? Dave: All of our contact information is on the velosurance.com site and our 800 numbers are there. That number will most likely ring on my desk if I'm the licensed agent in that state and I'm licensed in 48 States. So it tries to get me first. If it can't get me, it'll get somebody else. But it doesn't matter who you get a hold of, they're going to be able to help you and understand what you're dealing with. We like to talk to clients when they've had a claim because claims are sometimes emotional and it's time to take a breath, sit back and analyze what's going on. Nobody likes insurance claims, but, there is a procedure that we can walk our clients through that makes an insurance claim a very easy and straightforward process. Hilary: Awesome. Awesome. So that's Velosurance.com. And that is spelled Velosurance.com. Thank you so much, Dave, for being on the show. This was so informative. I learned a lot even by you being on the show. So I appreciate that. And I also want to thank our sponsors again, the Russo Law Group, The Profit Express, Pop International Galleries, Gold Benes, LLP, and the Pegalis Law Group. And last but not least, I want to thank you, our listeners for tuning in each week. If you want more information on this show or any other show, you can visit us at hilarytopperonair.com or you can find us on Spotify, iTunes, Google play, Apple podcasts, you name it. We're out there. Have a great week and we'll see you next time.

Is there a way for property managers to reduce delinquent rent payments by more than 50 percent? How can residents positively or negatively impact their credit score by 20-70 points?  Today, I am talking to President Dave Haldi and CEO Steve Jarvis of CredHub, which helps property managers report on every resident, including those considered a credit risk. It reports the positive and negative, incentivising tenants to make paying on time their top priority.  You’ll Learn... [01:47] CredHub: Name change, funding, continued growth, and creating transparency. [02:06] CredHub’s Competition: Most companies only process and record positive payments, not negative payments on individual's credit score. [02:28] Bolt-on Technology: CredHub connects and bolts onto rental software systems to validate positive and negative payments via rent roll system. [02:52] How it works: Provides property managers access to an individual's credit score information reported to credit bureaus and pass-through revenue opportunity. [03:27] RentCredit Plus includes identity theft resolution services and rental payment reporting to credit bureaus for $3.50 each month. [04:20] Customer Support: Resolution Services as Customer Support: If there is a credit issue, CredHub takes on responsibility to work with credit bureaus.  [05:35] Doing Good Things: CredHub helps people get back their financial health and credit for payments.  [06:42] Recapitalization: Report all data at scale to achieve goal of growing CredHub. [07:58] Lease vs. Mortgage: What’s the difference? Educate managers and residents. [09:13] Audit Proof: Information given to credit bureaus via CreditHub must be correct. [11:25] Collections: CredHub has credentials to create trade line for property managers. [11:54] Implementation Process: After CredHub has signed agreement, implementation takes about six weeks. Tweetables Increase credit score by 20–70 points; make paying rent on time a top priority.  CredHub: Bolt-on, backend, rent roll, data pole cleansing and reporting at scale.  CredHub: Gets property managers out of credit business, and puts them in property management business. CredHub reports the positive and negative, incentivizing tenants to pay on time. Resources CredHub CredHub’s YouTube Channel Yardi RealPage Rent Manager ResMan  TransUnion  Equifax Rogers Payment Fair Credit Reporting Act DoorGrowClub Facebook Group DoorGrowLive DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrow Website Score Quiz Transcript Dave: ...opportunity for property managers to help reduce their delinquency because we figured out a way to report the negative or late payments. The program can then help increase an individual's credit score 20–70 points on a positive perspective but it will also impact their score negatively and help reduce delinquency by over 50% encouraging an individual to pay on time and making rent their priority to pay. It started four years ago, validated the idea, worked with some property management companies locally. We changed the name to CredHub a little about a year ago, got funded, we've had continued growth, and built an automated technology with a dashboard to create transparency of what we had learned from the marketplace. That's what created CredHub and that's where we are today. Jason: Perfect. There's other companies in the space they that do this. Is that correct? Dave: There are a few companies but we're a bolt-on technology. Most of the companies that we have come across are payment processors and they may process payments only allowing to record positive payments on an individual's credit score. Our technology connects and bolts on to the back-end of rental software systems—Yardi, RealPage, Rent Manager, ResMan, et cetera. Therefore, we validate the payment that has been made because it comes out of the back-end of the rent roll system allowing us to report positive and negative. It also gives the property manager, on-site resident manager transparency to see what information was reported to the credit bureaus once it's been uploaded and helps affect the individual's credit score. So, we're different. We also create a pass-through revenue opportunity for the property manager to make some additional revenue for their bottom line through our program. Jason: Okay, explain how that works. Dave: So, we have RentCredit Plus, which also includes an identity theft resolution services because identity theft is such an issue today, especially in larger properties with mail rooms, et cetera. With that, we charge $3.50 for this program that is identity theft resolution services as well as reporting the rental payments to the credit bureaus, both positive and negative, on a monthly basis. It would be our best results or best practices or we make this program mandatory for all residents. We charge $3.50 per person on the lease including the co-signer and most of our clients charge $7. So, they make a 50% increase of what we charge for the product and for the services that we provide.  In addition to that, we also provide the resolution services, making sure that if they do have a credit issue, we take on all the responsibility to work with the credit bureaus to make sure if something was reported incorrectly, we will fix it. So, we provide that customer support from a third party's perspective, not eliminating the burden to the on-site resident manager and getting them out of the credit business because they're in the property management business. Jason: Got it, okay. So, Steve, what's your role at CredHub then? Steve: Yeah. So, I came in to the company about a year ago when we recapitalized the company as Dave said and renamed it to CredHub and that recapitalization was really meant to build this platform so that we could do this back-end, rent roll, data pole cleansing and reporting at scale. My career was always in automation and travel. I worked for the likes of Expedia and built alaskaair.com for Alaska Airlines and had retired from travel, and was looking for an interesting new project that really had an element of doing good things for people that needed it which, I believe, we're doing it at CredHub. The folks that are now going to be able to get credit for their Rogers payment or are young folks that are credit-invisible or folks that need to get back in financial health back on their feet. It feels really good to be working in this market. I'm CEO, so primarily looking at business development and strategy finance. The goal here is to really do this at scale nationally. You mentioned what makes us different and David had mentioned that the element of negative reporting of late and skipped payments and its impact on getting residents to pay on time for property managers. No one's really done that at scale. Like Dave has said, others in the market that are doing reporting are doing almost entirely positive reporting which it's pretty easy. The hard part is this is what we do is getting all of the data reported and doing it at scale. I came in with the recapitalization, with an element to really growing this thing nationally and doing it in a big way. Jason: Perfect. So, what questions do property managers typically want to know about CredHub? Steve: Well, one of the things, for me, especially coming into the property management space having been to trade shows, travel, and technology, the core of what we do is really, really easy to understand, which is really compelling. When we talk to property managers, it's pretty easy to get what we do in 90 seconds. Like really, wow, you can report positive and negative to credit bureaus, reduce my delinquency, I can add a revenue stream, and my residents will like it because I'm helping them. There aren't a lot of questions there. We do get some questions as we roll through closing clients on the legal side. We'll get a legal department and a property management company worrying about disputes from their residents but it's a fairly easy question to answer because the residents have a financial obligation. They have a contract called a lease. It's not that different than a mortgage. Property management companies who aren't being paid by the residents have every right to report that to the credit bureaus. There's an education process that I think we need to go through on that side of the sales process with property managers. Oftentimes, we'll get questions on whether this is optional. Property management company may want to have this be an opt-in for their residents. That's not how we work. We report the entire file to the entire resident population to the credit bureaus which is what they want. Our program really only works for property managers if everybody's being reported including those that are credit risk. Dave, do you have any other? Dave: Yeah. I think a couple of analogies would be and it really creates this carrot with the stick, encouraging people to pay on time and because they require everybody, all of the residents to be reported the messaging is consistent for everyone. It also has helped us because of our platform being so audit-proof because the information that needs to go to the credit bureaus has to be right. We found that we've really helped clean up the data that we're pulling out of the system because it has to be correct. We provide an error submission report and that report can go back so it's something that maybe the on-site resident manager or assistant manager can help clean up as they're going through their lease renewals or new residency. We found errors or mistakes when maybe a check has come in, it got incorrectly posted. Because ours is third party, it helps to create checks and balances and the system is audit-proof. It provided an additional layer but easy for people to log into and make the changes. And we support them seven days a week, 24/7 if they have an issue. I think the other questions that may come up is, "Well, how does this work?" One of the things for a property management firm who works with us, we create a trade line at the credit bureaus. We have credentials and privileges with TransUnion and Equifax so we credential them and create a trade line with the bureaus. Therefore, if we are working with somebody and we pick a date that we report on the 10th of the month, rent is late at 30 days because we pay rent in advance. If an individual is delinquent or pays late after the 10th or they don't pay, Fair Credit Reporting Act says, "It can't be turned to collections until 90 days." If we report on the 10th, we're going to be 50 days ahead when that person can go to collections affecting their credit score, encouraging them to pay the property manager in full and not having to lose that income that could be the cost of going through collections. That's a piece that becomes critical in what we do and a lot of questions get surrounded about that but we have all the credentials to create the trade line necessary for the property manager. Jason: How difficult is this for a property management business owner to implement? Maybe you could talk a little bit about the process. Dave: The process is we meet with them, we work with them on the pricing, and figure out when it would work for them to implement. Once we have a signed agreement, we try to implement it within six weeks if that works for them.  Once we've got credentials with the bureaus, then our data team connects with somebody in their office. It usually takes an hour, but once we pull the data to get it out of the system, then we go through some testing on our end making sure that the data is correct. Once we've confirmed that, we give them four weeks or a month. Let's just say, we signed a contract in August. We would give them the month of September, lay out a timeline that we work with them to educate their on-site resident managers, create a lease addendum because we know that our best practices if they sign, if they put the addendum in the lease, it gets explained to them helping that education of why it's important to pay your rent on time. Then, they sign the leases with the addendum. We have a template, but we can make changes to the addendum depending on how they want to implement it. And then we would begin reporting on the 10th of the following month or on a mutually-agreed date they want to pull it. In some states like Washington, with just changing the 3-day evict or 14-day evict, we used to report some property management firms on the 15th but because of that change, they have asked us to report on the 5th. So, we can change the pull date and the report date helping encourage the protection of the property management company for these individuals who are playing the system or gaming the system and not paying their rent on time. Jason: Okay. Cool. It sounds pretty simple, sounds like a really good idea, really good service. Now, can landlords listen to this, besides property managers, also implement this, or homeowner? Dave: Yes. We work with any property type or size. If they don't have a rent roll system, we just create a spreadsheet for them, collect the necessary information, and then they can upload the spreadsheet themselves through our portal. We have a variety of ways we can connect and help very managed. Jason: Very cool. All right. The CredHub sounds like a brilliant idea. It reports the positive, it also reports the negative, incentivizing the tenants to make sure they're paying on time. It gives them the benefit of building some credits so there's a carrot and a stick connected to this. You also have identity theft resolution they can be tied to this that can be a profit center. Ultimately, how much does this cost the homeowner or property manager? Or do they just make money doing this?  Steve: Pass-through revenue model, they make money doing this. We bolt onto their existing system, we help them do the lease addendum with the residents and they actually make money. We like to think of it as a win-win-win. It's good for the residents, it’s great for the property manager, and obviously, we're in business for profit as well. Jason: Win, win, win. All right. Anything else that anybody should know? How can they get in touch with CredHub if somebody's listening to this and they wanted to get started, they wanted to check you guys out? How can they connect? Steve: credhub.com would be the best place to go. We have a YouTube channel that has some really simple videos on it, you can link to those from the CredHub website. In fact, our animated “what we do” video is in the hero image right on the homepage. We have a Contact Us section and a there's a form there that property managers can sign up with the number of units they have and we'll follow-up. That's probably the best way to do it is just to come visit us at credhub.com. Jason: Perfect. Sounds like a no-brainer, it makes sense. I think what you guys are doing is going to help out a lot of people which I resonate with and I appreciate you guys coming out on the DoorGrow Show. Dave: Thanks for having us. Jason: All right, we'll let you guys go. So, checkout CredHub at credhub.com. For those that are new to watching or listening to the DoorGrow Show, be sure to like and subscribe. Leave us a review somewhere that would really make a difference and check us out at doorgrow.com. If you're wanting to grow your property management business, or you're in need of a new website, or you're just wanting to make sure that your business is growing as effectively as it could, reach out. We'd love to talk to you. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.

In the United States, millions of residential properties are owned and rented out by individual landlords, not professional property managers. Why not protect yourself from painful experiences with tenants, have peace of mind, and leave it to the professionals? Today, I am talking to Dave Holt of SureVestor, which provides Scheer Landlord Protection. This insurance plan financially protects landlords and property managers from tenant-related risks. SureVestor is at the forefront of leading a trend that can significantly help grow the industry. You’ll Learn... [01:45] Passion for Property Management: Dave joined NARPM nearly 30 years ago and has gone through its entire chain of command. [02:51] Reasons why Scheer Landlord Protection was brought to America: Significant growth impact on property management industry in Australia Way to make, but not lose money Opportunity to turn self-managed landlords into professional property managers [05:22] Is the United States ready for similar level of growth? Whether companies grow exponentially, or at their own pace, insurance can help them get there. [07:06] Can't control what happens in people's lives; when bad things happen to good tenants, property managers experience frustration and stress. [08:05] Who’s to blame? Things happen that create a financial burden; Scheer Landlord Protection covers income loss for landlords and property managers. [09:32] Malicious Damage by Tenants: Insurance covers holes in walls, cabinets ripped off walls, sand poured down drains, etc. [09:47] Blanket of Coverage: Indirect and direct benefits create safety for all parties. [13:45] Property manager requirement helps insurance company mitigate risk. [16:33] Competition: Focusing on criteria of quantity over quality. Most property managers don’t have an insurance license; be compliant and legal to protect industry. [22:40] Tiered Pricing: Clients know the cost to be protected. [24:58] FAQs: How do I market this to my owners? How can I implement it? Follow SureVestor’s steps to success. Tweetables Scheer Landlord Protection: Grow exponentially, or at your own pace. When bad things happen to good tenants, property managers get stressed out. For most landlords, rental property is their most expensive investment. Scheer Landlord Protection: Covers malicious damage, eviction costs, and loss of rent. Resources SureVestor Dave Holt’s Email Dave Holt’s Phone Number: 612-465-0421 SureVestor’s Blog National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) California NARPM Terri Scheer Lloyd's of London The Iceberg Report U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) DoorGrowClub Facebook Group DoorGrowLive DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrow Website Score Quiz   Transcript Jason: Welcome, DoorGrow hackers to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you’re crazy for doing it, you think they’re crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I’m your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let’s get into the show. I have a guest today named Dave Holt. Dave is here talking with me about landlord protection insurance from SureVestor. Dave, welcome to the show. Dave: Thanks, Jason. I appreciate it. Jason: I just got to see you at CALNARPM in your British soldier outfit that you had there. I want to connect with you a little bit here. Give us a little bit about background on how you got into this industry and into this space. Dave: Yeah, you bet. I've been in property management, that's really my industry. I've been in the business for over 30 years. I started managing for HUD back in the mid-80s, got introduced to property management in single-family homes, and started my fee management company in the late ‘80s. That's where I ran into a fledgling organization that was just starting out called NARPM. I got involved with NARPM early on. I actually started in 1990. I've been a member ever since and gone through the whole chain of command there. Property management is my passion. Throughout that whole process, I've met with thousands of property managers throughout the years. Like you, Jason, always looking to see how we can improve the industry and came across an opportunity. We're actually teaching over Australia. Both my partners, Kevin Knight and Todd Breen, had taught over there. We came across a product that was over Australia and had been there for 25 years. We're wondering, "Why isn't that here in the US?" Actually, long story short, joint ventured with the creator of the product from Australia, Terri Scheer, it still sells under her name over there, Terri Scheer insurance. She has since sold her business over there. Now, has joined forces with us to bring the product here to the US. Jason: Awesome. My understanding of that is that this product has significant impact on the growth of industry as a whole in Australia. Dave: Yeah, that's very true, that's one of the reasons why we wanted to bring it here, it's not just something, "Hey, here's something that we can make money doing," that really wasn't the crux of what we bought it here for, and you hit it on the head. What we look at in our industry here in the US, it's 15 times the size of Australia. When you look at the number of properties that are owned here by individual landlords, it's over 15 million single-family homes that are actually owned and rented out, a small fraction of those is handled professionally by us professional property managers. If we have an opportunity to bring a product here that can help drawing those self-managed landlords to us as professional property managers, that's what we're looking to do. Over in Australia, that actually happened. About 15%, increased in the business for professional property managers because the beauty of this product is that it's only available for landlords that are professionally managed and we did that intentionally, we did that over in Australia as well. Those self-managed landlords have to come to us as professionals in order to get this product. Hence, we're looking to be increasing the number of properties that are managed by us, professionals. Jason: Now, I have heard stats thrown around like the property management industry in Australia grew about 25% in a single decade. I don't know if that's accurate, but that sounds pretty incredible. I also have heard that they have about 80% of single-family residential is professionally managed. Dave: That's right. Jason: Here in the US, according to the [...] report, we're at about 30%. If the industry here could grow in a decade to maybe about 25%, that would mean that we would pretty much double in size. I don't think there are enough management companies in the US right now that can handle that level of growth. That would mean we either need to double the amount of companies that exist now—that's a lot—or each company would need to double in size. I think that would be incredibly painful for most business owners. Dave: Maybe, maybe not. Obviously, your DoorGrow hackers are looking to be growing that's why they're part of your endeavor. It's not that they have to grow exponentially, but they can grow at their own pace. Certainly, it's something that, if they can use the insurance to help them get there, that's what we're all about, and looking to help them do. Yes, we saw it happen over Australia, we don't see why we can't replicate that here. Jason: Let's break this down, and help people understand. Maybe we start from the point of, how do you sell this product, but let's first talk clearly of what is it. What is SureVestor? What is this insurance product? Then I would love to get into basically talking about what's in it for the homeowner? How do you sell this to them? We get into those two things, and then I think the light bulbs will start to go on, and they can start to see how this can be a facilitator of growth here in the US. Dave: You bet. It's probably better to start from my experience as a property manager. Obviously, we're all property managers. Really, the frustrations that we've experienced, as property managers over the years, is when bad things happen to our good tenants is really the situation. It's very stressful. We know that we do a professional job of screening our tenants and getting the best quality tenants for our landlords, but we can't control what happens in people's lives, whether it's a job loss, a divorce, a death in the family—things that can happen in someone's lives that create a situation of financial burden. Now, all of a sudden, if they're renting a property, they may be more inclined to skip or stay there, and not pay the rent, and now, we have to evict them as professionals. It's very painful. For a lot of us in the single-family space, those owners owned one property. If something bad happens to their tenants, and now all of a sudden they're out of three months of rent because of it, that's a lot of their income. A lot of them say, "You know what, this isn't for me." They decide to sell or worst, they blame us as the property manager because we're the ones who screen the tenants, and they say, "It's your fault that this happened. I'm going to somebody else." In either case, we've lost the business. If we had a product, which we do now, through SureVestor and sure landlord protection insurance, that covers the loss of rent for those type of things; a tenant skips, they have to be evicted, they are victims of violence—we've had that happen as well—or there's a death of a sole tenant, or murder, or suicide. I've experienced all of those over the 30 plus years of business. That rent then is not paid, and our landlord is out of money. Us, as property managers, most of us are charging our management fee based on the rents collected, and if that rent isn't collected, we're not getting paid either. This insurance covers all that. It covers it for the landlord. It covers it for the property managers as well. Then, there are some additional benefits. Malicious damage caused by the tenants, that's something that we've experienced as well. They punched holes in the walls, ripped cabinets off the walls, they pour sand on the drains, things that are malicious, there's coverage for that. There's coverage for theft and damage due to theft. There's the eviction fees and legal offense if the tenant brings it to trial. There's the covering of the sheriff cost if you have to get a writ and go through that whole process. We even have lockbox coverage for a digital lockbox. For property managers who are now doing self-showings, many times, they get some pushback from their landlord clients about doing that because of, "Well, what happens if." Now, there's some coverage for that as well and then, rekeying of the locks after those covered events happen. It's a way where we can, with the insurance, make that landlord whole and also make us whole as property managers. One other thing too, a lot of us as property managers are guaranteeing our tenants for some period of time. If something does happen to that tenant and they breach the lease, we will re-lease the property for nothing, for no charge, for our landlord. Now, when you have insurance that covers the loss of rent, the malicious damage, the eviction cost, and those types of things, you now have the security deposit available to cover your re-leasing fees among other things. Jason: There could be divorce, job loss, death of a family, violence, malicious damage, malicious damage theft. Then things like, eviction fees, legal fees, writ fees, lockbox coverage, rekeying after theft. It really creates this safety for all parties involved. Dave: Absolutely. When you think about it, for most of our landlord clients, their rental property is the most expensive investment they have. They get dwelling coverage because that's all they know. They get dwelling coverage to cover the catastrophe-type of damage, the fires, and things that can happen to the property. The things that happen more frequently are the things that we're covering—the loss of rent because a tenant skips, they maliciously damage the property and the other things that we went through. Why wouldn’t they get coverage to give them that peace of mind, so when those things happen to their tenant, now, they're protected as well? It gives them an overall blanket of coverage, that gives them that peace of mind so now, they can rent their property with confidence, and hopefully, stay with us as property managers longer because they don't have to have that fear of, "What if?" Because now they're going to have coverage for that. Hopefully, draw in more landlord clients that might have that fear. Some of them decide, they just want to sell to begin with because they go, "You know what? I can't afford a loss. I can't afford one of those situations that happen, and now I'm out of rent, and I've got a mortgage to pay." It's a way where we can keep new owners and a way where we can attract new owners as well to us. Jason: Yeah. Creating this blanket of coverage sounds really significant and important. If it's not there, then even having a rental property investment can be a risk. Maybe it's a risk that a lot of property owners are either ignoring or aren't aware of if they're actually involved in real estate investing. There's a lot of self-managing homeowners that are like, "Oh, it's easy. I just need a tenant." Famous last words. Then they start running into problems, but even for property management business owners, you don't want to be the fall guy or gal for those problems when they happen, you want your business to be healthy. Since this is so important, to have this blanket of coverage, as you call it, and it has such an impact in Australia, is this something that only property managers have access to, why don't people just go and get these policies directly and self-manage, how's this driving people towards property managers? Dave: We have purposely set it up where individual landlords have to go through a professional property manager to get this coverage. If a landlord goes on to our page and looks at the, "For landlords," it actually, guides them through the process and says, "Do you have a professional property manager?" If they don't, we actually find one for them. One of our property managers at SureVestor and we refer them to them and get them new business that way, as well. Jason: The requirement of them to have a property manager probably also helps the insurance company mitigate their own risk. Dave: You got it. Absolutely. Over in Australia, it's been around for 25 plus years. Now, it's open to individual landlords over there now because it's a more mature product. Starting out, our underwriters wanted to kind of mimic the initial process that Australia took, which was making it available only for landlords that were professionally managed, that's something that really resonated with us, not just because of the underwriting of it, but more so, to help bring in the self-managed landlords to us, as professionals, and help us grow our businesses. Jason: Alright. I'm going to give you an opportunity to throw stones at the competition a little bit. The competition is anything that people might perceive as something similar or reason not to use something like SureVestor. Are there competitors that just go direct or don't have that sort of stipulation that you have to use a property manager, and have some sort of insurance-like product? Dave: Yeah. I'm not aware of it. There are some startups that are happening now. Obviously, when something’s out in the cosmos, we're not the only ones thinking about it, there are certainly other companies out there that are starting, I know a couple of them. I'm not necessarily sure that they're going direct to the landlord or not, one might be, but that's just because my thinking would be, "They don't see the risk." But we know our business, and we’re property managers-first, and so we want to be helping our colleagues grow. One of the ways to do it is to make it only available for landlords that are professionally managed. We know that we do things professionally. A lot of self-managed landlords, they don't follow the same criteria. Some of them do, but a lot of them just do the, "You look good," the feel test. Say, "Oh, yeah. He seemed like a really nice person. Go ahead and rent my property." Then they find out it's not so safe after all. We decided not to do that. We wanted to have it available just for the landlords that are professionally managed. I can't comment on any competition that's doing it, why they do that, other than, they just want to try to get as many as they can, they're focused on the numbers. That's not our intent. Our intent first is to provide a great product to our property management colleagues that can help them retain landlord clients, and help them bring out new ones. Jason: Right. I would imagine that since you've got these different parties involved, you've got property manager, you've got renter, you've got homeowner, and then anybody else could get into the mix in any of the drama that ensues with all of these—this really reduces the risk for all parties. I imagine there's products out there that look similar on the surface, but somebody's getting the short end of the stick, I think that would be dangerous. Regardless of who that is, it's going to end up as a problem for everybody. It makes sense that you guys are doing it right, focusing on making sure that this, really is, the best option for everybody involved and that a professional manager is involved in this process. That's exactly right. We have vetted this thing over three-and-a-half years. It started from the foundation and make sure that we had everything in place to make sure that our industry is covered, and we're providing the best quality to our landlord clients. That takes a lot of work getting that together that's why we have the world-renowned, Terri Scheer, started this. This whole thing. I mean, every single company has mimicked what she's doing, if there are any copycats around because she was the first. We have Lloyd's of London as our underwriters. The first and the largest insuring entity syndicates in the world covering this type of thing. It gives us more security and backing for our landlord clients and our property managers. The thing that property managers, when they're looking out what other competition there is out there, they've got to be really careful when people are saying, "Hey, you can monetize this, you can make money as a new revenue stream," and so forth. Most property managers are not licensed in insurance. In insurance, similar to our property management industry, is very heavily regulated. If you're doing things that look and sound like insurance, for example, you have certain programs whether it's guarantees or other types of protection programs that you're making money off of, that can be construed as selling insurance. If you don't have a license that can be an issue. Everything that we're putting together is legal. The ways that we're making this available for landlord clients, and for property managers, and even starting to create processes where they can benefit better from it, that's what we're all about—to make sure we're protecting our industry. Jason: Yeah. This is a common thing. A lot of property managers, especially the more entrepreneurial ones, get really creative, and they're thinking, "Man, I got this great idea for this new gimmick or this new thing. I can sell this guarantee, this warranty, this protection." It's almost like insurance. It works almost like insurance. There are some significant red flags that they could be putting themselves into some serious legal liability. Dave: That's exactly right. Jason: They're basically, doing insurance without a license. You need to be careful. You guys help them do it the right way. Now, you had mentioned, they're doing it to generate revenue. Now with your service, property managers can make some money too, right, they're not just lowering risk? Dave: When we're saying making money, the benefits are more indirect than direct. For example, as I mentioned, when the rent isn't paid, the management isn't getting their management fee. When the insurance is covering the rent, now the rent is paid because of the insurance, the property manager collects their management fee. Yes, that's a direct benefit, that's income to them. Most of the property managers have some sort of guarantee for the tenants, as I mentioned. When something bad happens, and they have to re-lease the property, that's a lot of out of pocket for them. Now, when the insurance is covering that loss of rent, that deposit doesn't have to go those things which it typically, does. Now, you have that deposit available to pay the re-leasing fee that the tenant would otherwise owe you as a property manager. You're making money indirectly through that. Here's another idea, Jason, that a lot of property managers, including myself, we'd gone to tiered pricing. What tiered pricing is that you have different levels of pricing for your landlord clients. Usually, your first tier is leasing-only, your middle tier is your traditional management, so it's an a la carte, you're paying for whatever service you get, your management fees, your lease fees, your inspection, your evictions—all that stuff is an additional cost. Then you have your top tier and the top tier is an all-inclusive or mostly inclusive, type of tier. You can charge more for that tier. What property managers are doing is they're paying for the insurance in their top tier, and so it makes that top tier more valuable in the eyes of, obviously, of the landlord client. That landlord goes, "Well, I mean, I can pay this amount and know what all of my costs are. I can get the insurance to cover in the event of a bad thing happening to my tenant." That's a more predictable result for an investor. They know that cost, they know that they have the protection, and that gives them that peace of mind. That's a process that a lot of property managers are going to. In the top tier, even though you can't upcharge the insurance, you can charge higher to be including all of your charges, all of your fees, into one. Jason: Got it. They fold it into that. Makes sense. In that situation then it becomes an additional value add that allows them to sell their services at a higher price point. Dave: You bet. The insurance help do that and they make more money, you bet. Jason: There you go. Alright, awesome. Dave: Lastly, we are in the process of creating a way where we can legally compensate the property managers. It's something that they're not prepared at this point, to go through in detail, but I would welcome property managers to contact me. I'm more than happy to go through that process with them. Jason: Cool. Okay, great. What are some of the most common questions that you're getting from people that are maybe skeptical or concerned? What are some of the initial questions that property managers might ask about this? Dave: The first is, “How do I market this to my owners? What do I do?” Obviously, we got two parts of that: we have our current owners, and then we have new owners. What we have done is put together the steps to help them with their current owners, for one, and help them bring in new owners. As property managers ourselves, we know we're very busy. We have a hard time implementing things because we are very busy. We get sucked into the day-to-day grind of property management. It's probably what's happening right now. It's the last day of the month. Most property managers are out there doing their move out inspections, move-ins, and doing all that kind of stuff, they're busy. Trying to implement a new thing is always a challenge. We know that because we're property managers too. We've created those steps to help them do it. We've done it for them. We have all the email templates that they send to their current clients, for example. We have the schedule all laid out so that they can just send them out. We have what's called an opt-in, opt-out form. The beauty of that is it gives them a tool—a risk management tool—to use where they can send that out in the email. Just like here, "I'm opting in," and this is for the owner, their landlord client. "I'm opting into this coverage, and this is what I want." It's directing to the property manager, or it's saying, "No. I'm not interested at this time." Now, the property manager has a form. Six months later, when their tenant has to be evicted, and they've opted out with that coverage, if that landlord is coming to the property manager complaining about it, they can say, "We did our duty of care. We told you about this insurance. You opted out of it, don't blame me." We have that. We also have the disclosures and opt-ins that they use in their management agreement. Personally, even if my BDM, my Business Development Manager, who's talking to brand-new owners hasn't mentioned anything about the insurance, they see it in my management agreement. It's already laid out, and we have that addendum of it available for them and their management agreements. That's part of it. The next part is the whole part of bringing on and using it as a point of difference for their new clients. We have scripts that they can use to help in that initial conversation. Again, we have the information that they can use in their property management agreement both—if they're just doing regular pricing, and if they're doing tiered pricing—so we have both. Then we have the marketing information that they can embed, and put on their website with video clips and so forth. We've done all of that for them, so they don't have to recreate it. Our last step is on all implementation. We walk them through the steps of implementing it all. It's really quite simple. A lot of the marketing too, we have what we call a WDIFY, we-do-it-for-you process, and we can even help them do a lot of that marketing as well. Many of your DoorGrow hackers may recall Darren Hunter and Deniz Yusuf because they were at your event just last year. They have put together, since they know this insurance intimately, both of them being from Australia, they have helped put together a whole orientation for BDMs on how to be better at utilizing, not just the insurance, but utilizing tools to help draw new accounts to them. We have that on our site, on our blog site. It's a whole 45 minutes of them going through with their best practices and how to utilize the insurance as that point of difference to draw in new business for them. Jason: Cool. Dave: There are just a lot of tools that we have to make it simple for the property managers because again, we know it's challenging for them to get things implemented. Jason: The number one challenge in any new software, or any new system, or any new tool, is adoption. It sounds like you guys really helped lubricate that process, make it smooth, and make it easy. That's one of the biggest challenges, or complaints when people get into some new system or some new tool or service is, they just don't have the level of support that they need. That's one of the biggest challenges. It sounds like you guys really put a lot of energy and effort into making sure that they have what they need in order to succeed. I mean, the first challenge, making sure they've got the right vehicle, it sounds like—with the backing of Lloyd’s as an underwriter and everything—this is like the premier vehicle for this. Then the next question that a business owner would have is, "Well, can I do it? Is this possible?" It sounds like you've got the support, the tools, and the resources that they need. The last concern that people might have is what about external factors? What about the market? Could this go away? Could the government impact us? These sort of things. Are there any potential challenges there? It sounds like you guys have dealt with this stuff to make sure everything's compliant and legal. Dave: There's really no concern there. We just expect that to become more commonplace like it has been over in Australia. For those in your group that aren't familiar with Australia, we consider it almost advanced in property management. I say that because they are even more heavily regulated than we are, it just draws to making them more professional, and so they've got to do things to protect themselves and protect their owners. They're always thinking of new ways. Hence, why this insurance started 25 years ago or so. In a government, in a country that is very highly regulated, it's done nothing but expand. Over here, I don't see it going away. I see it expanding. I see it becoming more commonplace, especially as we're seeing after the global financial crisis, more and more, not just individual investors, but huge hedge funds coming in and buying real estate. Rental property, compared to homeownership, is increasing. As that continues to be the trend, more and more investors and landlords, in general, are going to want to protect themselves, and protect their investment because as I mentioned, it's the most expensive investment that a lot of them have, they want that peace of mind, they want more consistency, and predictability. When you have an insurance product like this, that they can get for as little as $1 a day, I mean, come on, it's a no brainer. We really think that this will become more commonplace. It's already in the insurance industry that's very highly regulated. The things that we go through as far as auditing and making sure that everything's done right is a continual process. We have vetted this to make sure that it is done right and protecting our landlords and protecting our property management colleagues. Jason: Love it. Most of the vendors that we handed out awards to for our DoorGrow Awards for 2018 were because they were the best in class, they were the leaders in a competitive space, that they'd gotten the most attention inside of our DoorGrow Club Facebook Group, they consistently were seen as a leader. We gave SureVestor an award, and it was for this reason because I do see this could be a game changer for the industry. We gave SureVestor, for 2018, the Game Changer Award, was what we called that award. I think, really, SureVestor's at the forefront leading a trend and a movement that I think is going to be happening here in the US, that I think can significantly help the industry, and help grow it, and help lower the risk of investors, and help bring people to the property management space. Property managers lower risk and SureVestor helps lower risk, I think combined, it really can give the property management a much better name here in the US, where people, having managed their biggest asset or investment ever—or whatever you want to call it—that they might ever be dealing with, and keep that risk low. Dave, great to have you on the show. I appreciate you coming on and sharing this. How can people get in touch with SureVestor? What's the next step for people that are listening or watching this later that are interested in finding it out more? Dave: You bet. Thank you. They can go to our website, real simple, surevestor.com. They can contact me as well, daveholt@surevestor.com or they can call me 612-465-0421. Happy to walk them through, happy to guide them through the process, and answer any questions they have. We're just looking to provide a great product to our industry. We really appreciate what you're doing as well, Jason. We think DoorGrow is really on the number. We're happy to support it anyway we can. Jason: Awesome. I appreciate it. Always fun for me to connect with other vendors and other people in the space that have a similar vision and mission for the industry, of helping it grow. Let's change it together. I appreciate you coming on, Dave. Thank you so much. I will let you go. Dave: Alright. Thanks again. Jason: That was surevestor.com. They don't pay me anything. I just think it's exciting. People probably wonder sometimes. Anyway, check them out. If you are not inside of our Facebook group, you're probably missing out on the best tools and the vendors. You're probably missing out on some great fee ideas. You're probably also not super connected to DoorGrow. We would love to help facilitate the growth in your business. I would love to be your coach. I would love to be your consultant to help you do what I've helped lots and lots of clients do which is, add easily, 100 extra doors to your business. If that sounds interesting to you, make sure you reach out to us at doorgrow.com and get inside our community, our Facebook group, community connected to this. Become a DoorGrow hacker. That is by going to doorgrowclub.com and you can join us there. Until next time, everybody, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone. You just listened to the DoorGrow Show. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet, in the DoorGrow Club. Join your fellow DoorGrow hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead, content, social, direct mail, and they still struggle to grow. At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today’s episode on our blog at doorgrow.com. To get notified of future events and news, subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn, and start DoorGrow hacking your business and your life.

Find Lesson Planning for Language TeachersPrinciples of Task Design (With Dave Weller) - TranscriptionRoss Thorburn: Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Today, our favorite guest is with us, Dave Weller.Dave Weller: Hurrah!Ross: [laughs] Today, Dave and I are going to talk a bit about Task Design. Before we jump into that, why is Task Design useful or important, or worth thinking about?Dave: Good question. Mainly because when we first become teachers or, at least, I know when I did, I just ran with whatever activities were suggested to me, or games that other teachers have worked very well to get the students engaged and motivated.It was only later [laughs] that I started to question, "Hang on, are my students actually learning anything?" Then shamefully, I didn't think about that soon enough.Dave: That's when you start to realize that, is what I'm doing actually helping the learners, or is it just using time. That's where Task Design pops up, and I think, "OK, the way I run my activity, the way I've structured my activity, it can make a huge difference to what students think about, the language they use, and the practice they get."Ross: There's also maybe something about evaluating what you're already doing there, isn't there? That first step that you mentioned maybe is looking at, "What am I doing now? How good is it?" Maybe before I start designing anything else.Today, we're going to run through Dave's six top tips for ways to design tasks. We're going to look at aims, gaps, load, materials, thinking, and rehearsal. Tell us the first tip tasks should support aims.Dave: When you think about the task, think about what language is it likely to get students to produce. Is that the same as your target language? Often, especially if you're just looking for an activity or a game to fill time, you start running that activity, and the language that comes out of the student's mouth is very different.I'm using different grammar, different lexis, different from maybe that you were expecting. Sure, that is practice, but it might be something they already know really well. They default to something that they are confident using. It's not pushing to use things they're not comfortable with. Therefore, growing or getting better at the language doesn't really happen.Ross: I think as well this, it's maybe when you're lesson planning, it can also be worth thinking about changing your aim to reflect the task as opposed to just changing the task to reflect the aim. A lot of people maybe tend to start off with the aim and work forward from that. It's like forward planning, whereas, something I sometimes encourage people to do is reverse planning.Starting at the end of the class, what's a great task that you think is going to be useful for the students, and then trying to make sure that your aim, and everything you teach matches the task.Dave: If you have the luxury of doing that, that's almost the best way to do, but it depends where you're working and the context you're in. Some schools are quite strict about the syllabus they're using, or the course book you have to follow. You have to tick off certain grammar points or sets of vocabulary.If you would just let me free a context where maybe a class works, just like an English corner, then, sure, coming up with an activity you know will work well for that group and working backwards from that is freer.Ross: Again, maybe as well with that aim, it's easier practically to add things to it than to take things away from it. You're probably less likely to get a complaint if you've taught an extra few things that have gone beyond what's in the syllabus. The issue is usually when you cut things from it.Dave: Yes, totally.Ross: The next step is tasks need a gap. What's a gap, for those unfamiliar?Dave: [laughs] It doesn't mean you just stop half‑way through, and you freeze.[laughter]Dave: If there's no input for five minutes at all, you just have to take your little nap.[laughter]Ross: It's the same as a break.Dave: Yeah, I wish. Now, surprisingly, I don't see much written about this. There's an author, Prabhu, and he mentioned that in any type of communication, there are gaps. The three are the information gaps, where perhaps you and I have different information about subjects.Maybe, I want to get to the train station, and you know the way, and I don't. Then, there might be a reasoning gap. Perhaps we all have the same information, but we're trying how to use that information to achieve an objective.For example, planning a night out or choosing where to go on holiday. We're using our logic and our reason to pick the best option, and we can do that collaboratively.The last gap is an opinion gap, where students would agree or disagree with each other based on their personal preferences. Debates are a good example.Ross: I choose a new picture for the classroom or something like that, and here's a choice, which ones do you like, and justify it, why, that kind of thing.Dave: Yes. Exactly.Ross: I've also seen people add to this experience gaps or getting people to talk about what they personally have experienced in their own lives, and how that might be different between students and [inaudible 4:39] to that.Dave: For me, a lot of that could fall under the information gap because you're just talking about life experience, and I have that, and you don't. That's really good in more adult classes if you have a nice mix of students with different experience in the classroom.Ross: Do you want to talk about this for young learners for a second? Because I think with these, it's easier to think of examples for adults than for kids. For kids, we're talking about, for example, what might be a reasoning gap for young learners that would work?Dave: Sure. I'll start with the information gap. That could be, you give pairs different pictures. Student A has a picture of a toy or a character, and person B has a blank piece of paper. They're taking turns to describe that character to them, and then they got to draw it. Then I'll [inaudible 5:26] get, "Sky" and they've got a big head, they've got small eyes, or whatever it might be.Ross: [inaudible 5:31].[laughter]Dave: Yes. No hair.[laughter]Ross: It is something that is worth talking about is this classroom management aspect. When I see this going wrong, a lot of the time, someone's had this idea that student A will have this information, student B will not, and they have to talk, but what just ends up happening...Say, if it's a running dictation that the student whose gone outside to look at the picture, we detect just ends up writing the answer, or are going to find someone who activity...I've got my sheet with...Find someone who can speak more than two languages, and then I just give you the pen. Tell you to write your name in there.I've also seen one where students have to find a way from A to B on a map, but these students show each other the map, so there's no gap there. With that, it's really worth thinking about how it's actually going to play out in the reality of the classroom. How, as a teacher, are you going to make sure that students don't just take the short‑cut of showing the other person the information?Dave: Oh, absolutely. An example, just stay with the A and B describing pictures to each other, I might line mapping roads. We'll have them get one road to [inaudible 6:36] and face the other road, and fixed seats somewhere. They will have to visibly hold up their paper in front of them.As a teacher, you can immediately see if someone's not doing what you've asked them to do, and it's a point of frown on them, whatever your behavior management system is.Ross: Sure.Dave: Or even making a favorite toy, or you're going to have to design a new character when you've watched a very short clip of a monster movie, a cartoon monster, and they have to make you a monster. You give them a certain set of features.Like, you can choose from these body parts. There's a selection of ears and eyes, your legs and arms, and body types, and then they have to put them together to create the scariest monster they can.Ross: I love those. One of the problems you often get with that is that teachers assume that, because I've taught, say, body parts, that that type of task is going to work really well. What I think the actual language you get in a task like that is like, "No, I disagree. I want this one. This is better. I don't like that."I think often with those, that's something that's really worth thinking about. Like what is the language that's going to come up? Because, really probably a lot of time what you're doing is just pointing to something and say, "I want this one," or "I like that one."Dave: Sure. The trick is, again, that's just shouldn't be the main task. That should be the pre‑task almost. Actually, it's really nice. It's another one of the criteria for task design, which is, think about or consider what students are going to think about.Cognitive psychology does show us that what students think about, they will remember. There's a really nice quote that memories erases your thought. You probably heard that on here before.Ross: No, actually I think that will be the first time, but Daniel Willingham, right?Dave: Yes, from his book, "Why Don't Students Like School?" If students are over‑excited, if the task is too stimulating, I always revert to the first language, especially young learners, and start using first language to complete the task.Ross: Because almost with kids there's this maybe lack of being able to self‑regulate in both your own behavior, but I guess, also in what language you're going to use. If you've got them dialed up to 11 on the excitements scale, then the chance that you're going to be able to decide to use your second language to do this thing is pretty unlikely.Dave: Exactly. Yes.Ross: Taking that also links back to what you're saying at the very beginning, that, as a new teacher or as new teachers, I think a lot of us assume that if the students are smiling and having fun and they're excited, then it's a great class, but maybe sometimes dialing that back a bit is actually beneficial.Dave: Absolutely. The opposite is entirely true, as well. If they're bored, I'll be talking in the first language but probably off topic.Ross: It's some sweet spot in the middle [laughs] between utter boredom and complete excitement.Dave: Yeah, exactly. That thing, that example you gave of, if they are making or creating something, maybe drawing or making something out of Play‑Doh, or whatever they're doing, they won't be using the language to do that. They'd taken a product of that task and then using it to use the language that you want to. That's where the learning's going to happen.Ross: Sorry to start jumping around there, but I think this relates to your last point of mentally rehearsing the tasks and thinking about like, what is actually physically going to happen here? I think that's one example.Another one is maybe, we took the farm animals and then for the last hour people are going to make their own farm, but, of course, what language are you using there? You're probably saying things like, "Can I have a red pencil, please?" Or, "Please, pass me the scissors," which is completely unrelated to the farm animals. The students won't be thinking about that at all.Dave: Exactly. It's so simple to avoid that by very quickly putting yourself in the student's shoes and thinking, what language do I need to use to complete this task?Ross: To take us back maybe to a minute if we're teaching adults. I think if it's a very high stakes class, if you're being observed for something that's really, really important, and you've got a task. You can always just find maybe two or three students wandering around the school and trying to do the task within 15 minutes.Not the students that will be in your class later, but just to see how actually it pans out, or just turn around to the person next to you in the teacher's room and go, "Can you do this with me for two minutes?"Dave: Jump out from behind and photocopy it.[laughter]Dave: I need your help with a task.Ross: Yes, covering this farm.[laughter]Ross: How about going back to number three then, cognitive load? That's a term that certainly I was not familiar with until relatively recently. What's cognitive load?Dave: Cognitive load is the challenge of the task itself. How difficult will learners find it? If you are expecting to use language that is far above what they can do, they'll look at the task or start to think about, realize it's well beyond what they can do, and you'll see engagement just drop like a stone.Again, the idea of picking a sweet spot between something that they're able to do with help, and this is almost like scaffolding of all the idea of what they can do. [inaudible 11:20] what I can do with help today, they'll be able to do without help tomorrow.Ross: I guess, here, as well, we're not just talking about necessarily how difficult the language is, but we might be thinking about how cognitively tough the task is. Earlier, for example, we were talking about information gaps, reasoning gaps, and opinion gaps.Maybe a reasoning gap where you've got this much money, these are some different options, these are some different preferences of people in the groups. That sounds like there's going to be a lot more thinking going on there from the students than an information gap where you described...[crosstalk]Ross: Right. When that happens, maybe it's worth thinking about how the processing power and the student's brain is going to be used to be maybe more thinking about the problem rather than for producing language.You might get less accuracy and less fluency. Just like me on this podcast, I stumble over words when I'm trying to explain a difficult concept.[crosstalk]Dave: That happens to all of us, right? You can see when someone's very familiar with the topic because they're fluent, they're calm, they're confident. They're not using discourse markers like, "um," "uh," and so on. When we're trying to think about how best to explain it, we slow down, we stumble over our words.Another thing that is very worth mentioning is that this level of challenge can also apply to the incidental language in class, like teachers giving instructions. I've observed classes where the students are frazzled by the time they get to the task, because the teacher speaks very quickly, they're not creating their language appropriately for the level.The students are leaning forward, trying to follow the thread of the teacher, and then they finish, they have to clarify with their friends next to them. "Did she say this?" "Did she say that?" Then by the time they get to the task, "I've just spent five minutes of intensive listening practice," and now you can get a listening to do that.Ross: It's almost like what students will think about. It sounds like in your example there they were thinking about what on earth could the instructions be rather than what was in the lesson.[laughter]Ross: Well, Dave, thanks for joining us. All of those tips were from just one tiny part of one chapter in "Lesson Planning for Language Teachers ‑‑ Evidence‑Based Techniques for Busy Teachers" by our very own, Dave Weller. Dave, where can people get a hold of it?Dave: Thanks to the plug, Ross. This is a brand new book for me. You can find it on Amazon as an e‑book or a paperback. Planning should support learning. It should use evidence‑based best practices, and it shouldn't take long.[laughter]Dave: Yeah. I think that's the key point. With those principles in mind, I've created 9 or 10 chapters in the book using current research, tested techniques so teachers can end up planning better, faster, and with less stress.Ross: Great. All right. Dave, thanks for joining us.Dave: It's been a pleasure.

We discuss the differences between theory and practice in teacher development and the most effective was to learn from theory and learn from practice.Ross Thorburn: Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast. No Tracy today, but instead we have Mr. Dave Weller.Dave Weller: Hurrah! I have to say hurrah. It's become my tradition.Ross: Great to see you again. Thanks for coming on the podcast. What do you want to talk about today?Dave: One thing I've been thinking of a lot recently is the difference between theory versus practice in teacher development. There's that classic quote from that baseball dude, Yogi Berra, saying that, "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice."In practice there is...[laughter]Dave: ... which is really nice. It got me thinking about have I used theory or practice? Which one have I used more to develop myself over the years? What is the difference? Why are they different? Is there a better one or is there a worse one? What are the best methods of learning theory or the best methods of learning through practice?Ross: Awesome. The three questions we're going to try and answer today are, what's the difference between theory and practice in teacher development?Dave: How teachers can learn from theory?Ross: And three, how can teachers learn from practice?What's the Difference Between Theory and Practice in Teacher Development?Ross: Again, I remember when I was doing my diploma a few years ago and reading about what teacher development should be, like reflection, team teaching, peer observations and all this kind of bottom‑up stuff. What I found in the place that I was working was it was a complete opposite. It was just top‑down observations and teacher workshops.Largely, pretty much everywhere I've worked, pretty much everywhere I've heard about, there is that huge difference between the theory and practice in teacher development. Why do you think that happens?Dave: It's just the different management style. Again, essentially, they're doing the same thing. They're recognizing patterns in what they've seen work before in teacher development. That's been quite charitable. It could just be that's the way they've always done it. No one's actually bothered to put in the thought or the time to test that out, to see if it actually is true.Ross: Another thing with those things is it's probably what is easiest to implement. I've found before, a previous company trying to implement much more bottom‑up ideas for teacher training. It just seemed to be too abstract for senior managers to understand.For them, it was like bums on seats in the training. They could see that. They could understand what it was, but if it was a teacher peer observing someone else or doing an online teacher training course, those senior managers couldn't see that and couldn't understand what it was.Dave: My personal belief is that if you have a bunch of newer teachers, say, first and second‑year teachers, normally top‑down is more effective because they don't know what they need to develop so they need that quite directive input. Go and read a chapter on this, teaching listening, or teach how to do an error correction.OK, great. Then they can try that again, that side that we talked about earlier. Once you get to those teachers, the majority of teachers in your school, they've been there a while, they're very self‑directive. They end up resenting that top‑down approach. They want to take things new directions.Their passions or their interests in teaching naturally develop from their time in the classroom. In which case, those are the guys you give free rein to go, "You develop, however, you like. Just come in to chat with me once a month about what you've been doing. We can bounce ideas off of each other. Of course, in the meantime, I'm here for input and ideas."Ross: That's interesting because you're almost dividing their quality control and development as two separate things. That's often one of the problems that we have with observations in teacher development. We lump these two different things into the same category.From a business point of view as a school, you have your students and you've promised them a minimum level of service from these teachers. If you're the manager and you're responsible for quality control, then your job is to get teachers to be able to deliver that quality of service. That's not optional.If you work there, your job is to get to that level. My job as a manager is to make sure that you get to that level. Once you're beyond that, it's a lot more open‑ended, isn't it? That's when it can open up.Dave: Exactly.Ross: Who knows where that could lead to? It could lead to you doing a podcast regularly. What have you learned from doing this one, in your development? Has it been helpful for you?Dave: Yes, absolutely. Incredibly.Ross: In some ways it means I have more conversations like this one. Maybe, you and I would normally talk about this in a bar, but I don't think we go down the rabbit hole quite as much as we do when there's a microphone recording. You're right. You wouldn't put this in someone's action plan, would you? Record it and make a podcast.Dave: [laughs] As iTunes gets flooded with podcasts in the next year.[laughter]How can teachers learn from theory?Ross: Let's talk about then how teachers can learn from theory.Dave: Sure. There's not as many ways as [inaudible 05:17] . I do think that some of these will overlap when we talk about how people learn from practice, as well. Again, it's normally seen as a slightly more buoyant one. It's typical, pick up a book, or read this, read that.I also think learning from theories is something as simple as talking to your colleagues after work, when you go for dinner with them after a long day or you find out what they worked. Find out if there's an idea behind it, or it was just something they were trying.It doesn't need to be an established theory. It can be, "Oh, I tried this." "Why did you try that?" "I don't really know." For engagement purposes, I think that the delivery channel is really important.Oftentimes, authors can be quite dry. That's a bit of a barrier to people, to picking up a book and reading through it. Whereas, if you have a YouTube channel, like a short snippet video or a podcast even, where you can multitask while you're doing that almost. You commute to work, you can get three good ideas to try in class that day.Ross: There's something very interesting about how so much of our profession is about grading your language, so that you can have people who are learning a language understand you.There seems to be a massive disconnect between our ability to do that as teachers and authors' abilities to put across ideas about teaching in language that's simple and accessible to all the English teachers in the world. Especially, when you take into the fact that most of the English teachers out there in the world are not native speakers.To quote or paraphrase Charles Bukowski, he says, "An academic is someone who takes a simple idea and makes it complicated. An artist is someone who takes a complicated idea and makes it simple." We need to be a lot better in this industry of becoming artists, as opposed to academics.Dave: I would fully agree, absolutely. I've read those same books, and guilty of reading through a page and stopping. I have no idea what I've just read.Ross: Yes, what did that say? [laughs]Dave: That's actually something I try and do on my website, barefootteflteacher.com. When I sat down to write it, I thought, "Well, who am I writing all this for?" I thought, I'm going to write this for first or third‑year teachers. Therefore, I'll keep the language simpler.I'm not going to name‑drop every single concept or idea. I'm going to try and break it down, and, basically, explain it like I'm five, using simple words, diagrams, visual aids. It's something I hope you're doing very well with this podcast as well, actually, opening these ideas, concepts, and theories to a wider world as well.Ross: What do you do running the Diploma in TESOL to help teachers apply theories more easily?Dave: Well, that's something that, hopefully, the tutorials will take care of because I always ask the students on the course to not think of it in modules. We have 10 modules. I say, "Don't think of it like a module." You start learning and then finish, then start something else and finish it. I say, "Try and think of as layers or threads running throughout."As I mentioned, we do a teacher test to start with. We do a video lesson which is observed. We pull out several points to work on based on the examination criteria, "That's OK. Pick one lesson a week. That's your experimental class. Try one of these. Do a bit of research on that aspect."Say it's error correction, learn all the different types, where the pros and cons to using that, and test it out. That will carry on throughout the rest of the course with all the other criteria.Ross: Of course, with that Dave, anyone could do that, right? You don't have to be on a teacher training course to do that.Dave: Shhh! [laughs]Ross: You could even film your own class, observe it, and figure out what things you're bad at, and you could do all those things yourself. I love that idea, by the way, of having an experimental class. I think that's such a cool idea. What do you think?Dave: The learners aren't quite so happy about that. [laughs]Ross: What are the ethics of it? Actually, I listened to a podcast the other day. They were talking about how, in Finland, they wanted to run an experiment on universal basic income.They had to change the Constitution because the Constitution says everyone gets treated equally. As soon as you run an experiment, you're no longer treating people equally. We can play that quote for you.Man 1: All the constitutions of democratic countries in the world, they say that you have to treat people equally.Man 2: By definition, if you're running experiments, you're not treating people equally...Ross: ...because they, the people who are part of the experiments, are not being treated equally.Dave: The ethics of it, as long as you're not doing something completely bonkers, doing something where it doesn't have much value, it's, in the long‑term, benefit for those learners in your class.Otherwise, every time you get a new teacher you're doing the ethic...You shouldn't let them teach until they're a wonderful teacher, because every teacher is constantly learning.How can teachers learn from practice?Ross: Let's talk about learning from practice.Dave: Sure. This is the one that everyone naturally does [laughs] because you have no choice. When you're a new teacher, it's survival mode. You end up, hopefully, just responding to the learners. You try and carry out your lesson plan.When the class finishes and the adrenaline [laughs] gets out of your system, you can hopefully reflect and go, "What went well and what didn't go well?" You do a little bit more of what did go well and a little bit less of what didn't. Over time, you learn from practice.After that survival period of, maybe, three to six months, you can start thinking a little bit more objectivity about what you're doing and spot the patterns. In the meantime, I'm sure most people have sympathetic colleagues that you can rush into the classroom at break time and go, "Ahh! Help."[laughter]Dave: They go, "Try this, try that." You get lots of useful suggestions, but I think there's no substitute from practice except to keep practicing, keep trying new things.Ross: There's a huge danger with that, though. I'll give you an example. I did this as well, in my first year. A colleague was recently telling me about this idea that you start off teaching and everyone has problems with managing students' behavior.For a lot of people, the thing that they do is they go, "OK, I'm going to be angry. I'm going to be there's going to be really strong discipline. There's going to be lots of punishment in my class." Their practice leads them down this road, which for me is really going in completely the wrong direction from what the theory would actually tell you to do.There is obviously a danger or you could learn, for example, I don't know. I tried giving instructions in English. I find that the students couldn't understand. What I learned from that is I'm going to give all instructions for all activities in the students' first language. Have you seen that?Dave: I have, and I would argue, that's just a growing stage. Hopefully, people don't become fossilized in that theory. If you continue to develop, you will discover that that does not work for a long time, or there are better ways to approach it. As a developmental stage, we've got no problem with that.Obviously, if that works better than something they were doing previously, where they had simply no control in the classroom, it was a riot. They went in a little bit too strict, but the students were able to sit down and learn something as a result. That's still better than the first thing.We can't expect people to become perfect immediately. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to learn bad theories. I remember giving a workshop on learning styles.[laughter]Dave: Along the way, you will make mistakes. You will learn incorrect theories or theories that have become outdated. They do stick in your mind.Talking the talk and walking the walkDave: I still think there's this idea about theoretical knowledge, which you have in your head. It's not being applied. Then you have this huge body of tacit knowledge, or the knowledge you gained through experience in the classroom. I really feel that's more valuable, that idea of when you speak to someone, they can talk the talk, but they can't walk the walk.Ross: I almost think it's surprising that we find that surprising, like if you take a different context...Dave: I'm surprised you think that way.Ross: [laughs] Say, you talk about football. You could be an expert on football and know so much about it. You could have watched thousands and thousands of games. You could be a commentator. You could be very, very respected. You could even be a manager, but you might not actually be able to kick a football.We, for some reason, assume in teaching the crossover between knowledge and skill is very, very small. Just by reading about something or being able to talk about something, you'll be able to apply that skill.Dave: In some cases, that's fine. The best boxers in the world have coaches who aren't the best boxers in the world, but they have the knack.Ross: The same as football, all these things.Dave: They have a knack of being able to pass on knowledge and break down technique and do that, which is fine, but they still, again, have a minimum level of that ability, as well.Ross: Dave, thanks very much for coming on. For anyone that's interested, where can they find you online?Dave: Thanks for having me, Ross. It's a pleasure as always. If you want to find out more, you can visit my blog at www.barefootteflteacher.com.Ross: Wonderful. Thanks again.Dave: Welcome.

Mark Wellman is a nationally acclaimed author, filmmaker and motivational speaker. Despite being paralyzed in a mountain climbing accident, Mark has inspired millions to meet their problems head-on and reach for their full potential. A two-time Paralympian and former Yosemite Park Ranger, Mark's NO LIMITS philosophy encourages individuals to adventure into new horizons; to go beyond the seeming unreachable. Mark is used to being on the road since he travels throughout the year, bringing his adaptive climbing wall to companies, organizations, and schools. We caught him during one of his road trips and he agreed to swing by Golden, Colorado to the No Barriers podcast studio and catch up with his old friends, Jeff, Dave, and Erik. Mark is unbelievably accomplished but also reserved and humble. He talks about his legendary, groundbreaking athletic achievements with the same tone most use to describe what they had for lunch. But there was a time in Mark's life where he was unsure, depressed, and hopeless with no clear path ahead. Mark discusses his near-death injury that he sustained on a climb that left his paralyzed from the waist down. He spent months in the hospital unsure of how to go forward and lost. That was, until he received some wisdom. I had this one physical trainer, she was from Germany, and she said: “You need to train like your training for the Olympics!” And I just really took that to heart.” Mark first was determined to find employment where he could stay connected to the outdoors. So, he went back to school and got his degree in Park Management. He worked as a Park Ranger in various capacities, already shattering people's ideas of what he was capable of, but that was just the beginning. He soon discovered the world of adaptive sports and threw himself into learning more and designing his own adaptive equipment to get back out into the field. It was then he came up with the crazy idea of climbing the sheer granite face of El Capitan. He found a partner, built an ascending rope pulley system, and started to train. Now, folks of many different abilities have climbed El Cap, but until Mark, this was unthinkable. He pulled it off and became the first paraplegic to make the ascent. “Are you crazy to take this paraplegic guy up El Cap? Seems like a really stupid idea. Something could go wrong,’ but fortunately we didn’t really listen to that.” Mark went on to gain tons of media attention, made national and international news, met the President, lit the flaming torch up a 120-foot rope at the Paralympic games in Atlanta; a fun story he shared with us, and continued on to break even more records of athletic achievement, like being the first paraplegic to sit-ski unassisted across the Sierra Nevadas. Listening to Mark describe his epic achievements it's easy to forget he has a disability or about all the struggle that led him to this point in his life. But for Mark, it's about mindset. “I learned my disability wasn’t a death sentence - let’s get on with life, dude!” But Mark wanted to share what he learned with others. He details the spark of an idea he had with a friend that led to the formation of the nonprofit, No Barriers, and the humble beginnings of an organization that is now becoming a movement. He uses his time to speak to groups and offer inspiration, as well as lead hands-on adaptive activities that get people out of their comfort zones. “Let’s get out and enjoy life.” Read Mark's Autobiography Here Visit Mark's website: No Limits Learn more about No Barriers autobiography Climbing Back. The first paraplegic to sit-ski unassisted across the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, --------------- EPISODE TRANSCRIPT ------------------------- Dave: Well welcome to our No Barriers podcast. We are thrilled today to have Mark Wellman with us, who's one of the founders of No Barriers. Can't wait to hear some of his stories about what this organization was founded upon. He's really the heart and soul behind why many of us are here at the organization. Before we get into that conversation, Erik, you just came back from a really interesting experience, why don't share with our listeners a little bit about it? Erik: [00:00:30] Yeah, I was at a conference with all these authors. There were four of us, and the first was a lady, she was the author of Hidden Figures, this great book that was made into a movie, these African American women who were behind getting us to the moon, didn't get any credit at first, but then their stories were really illuminated by her book. And this guy who is falsely sent to death row for 30 years. He was incarcerated- Dave: Wow. Erik: In a five by [00:01:00] seven room, had to kind of go into his mind and think about how to expand his mind. He said in his mind he married Halle Berry. They were married for 25 happy years. Dave: When was this set? Erik: Recently. Literally just got out of ... he got out of jail, no apology from Alabama. But he wrote this amazing book, so ... And then a lady who wrote a book called Beauty Sick, mostly [00:01:30] about girls who struggle with body image, and how much productivity is lost in the world because girls are having to pay attention to makeup, and weight, and all the things that they worry about. Guys too, but mostly the focus was on girls, and I have a daughter, so I was sitting there just hanging on every word, thinking about my daughter and her struggle, so it was really book because it was four very No Barriers... Dave: That's a lot of No Barriers. Erik: ...authors right there. [00:02:00] Maybe we'll get them on the podcast at some point. Dave: That sounds like perfect fit for the kinds of topics we explore. Erik: Yeah. And I am totally thrilled... this is great. I'm so psyched to have my friend, all our friends, Mark Wellman on the podcast today. Dave: The legend. Erik: The legend, the dirt bag... is that okay to say? Mark: Yeah, yeah. Dave: You embrace it, right? Mark: It's great to be here. I embrace everything. Erik: Mark almost doesn't need an introduction, but Mark is [00:02:30] a world class adventurer, and an innovator, and is the key founder of No Barriers. Has done amazing things that blow your mind as an adventurer. Has skied across the Ruth Gorge. Has traversed the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Has mountain biked the White Rim Trail. Has climbed El Capitan, Half Dome. We were just talking this morning, your Half [00:03:00] Dome ascent was 13 days? Mark: Yeah, it was. Erik: On the wall. Just, Mark, a hero of mine for sure. You're a few years older than me. When I was a teenager and you were just a little bit older climbing El Capitan and doing all these amazing adventures, you were a huge part of my motivation, so I'm psyched right now. Mark: It's great to be here, thanks a lot Erik. Yeah I guess I could [00:03:30] start off with... 35 years ago I was an able bodied climber and we were climbing a peak called Seven Gables, which is pretty close to the Mount Whitney area. We had a 20 mile backpack to get into the base, and this is back in 1982, I was 22 years old. My good friend Peter Enzinger and I were back there to do this climb. [00:04:00] We set up a base camp about 10,000 feet, and the next morning we got up pretty early, grabbed our technical rock climbing equipment and left most of our provisions at the base camp, our sleeping bags. Sure would have been nice to have that sleeping bag with us but didn't have it. And we climbed Seven Gables. It was sort of technical, kind of a mixed route. There was a little bit of ice, a little bit of rock, and made [00:04:30] the ascent. By the time we topped of it was a little bit late in the afternoon, about five o'clock. We just embraced this beautiful view from the summit. American Alpine Club places sometimes these cairns, or climbing registers, at the top of the mountain. It was kind of cool to see this. In this case it was just a pile of rocks with a Folgers coffee can. And I opened up the Folgers coffee can and dumped out the little pieces of paper, and there's my [00:05:00] hero Royal Robbins had climbed it. "Cool man, I'm gonna put my name next to Royal." Did that, and then we decided we're gonna go down a class four descent on the backside, just scrambling, not roped. We were just kind of walking down a tail of slope. I'll be the first to kind of admit my guard was down. My partner said, "Hey, maybe we should put a rope on [00:05:30] this one section here." I go, "No, no. I wanna get down to base camp, I'm really hungry. There's some really good freeze-dried food I wanna eat." You know that wonderful Mountain House stuff. Erik: And 35 years ago. Dave: Delicious. [crosstalk 00:05:44] Mark: So next thing I knew, I slipped on some scree, and I pitched forward and I started rolling. I made a couple of somersaults and I rolled off about a 100 foot cliff. When I landed I broke my lower back at T 11, T 12. Of course at the time I didn't know it. [00:06:00] I was 22, I didn't even know what a wheelchair was. That happened, and my partner thought I possibly could have been killed. But he heard me yell back at him. He got down to where I was... he said he spent a couple hours with me stopping some bleeding on my legs, and some other stuff. Jeff: What's your recollection of that period of time... Mark: He said he was with me for two hours, it felt like ten minutes. Erik: Right. Mark: And then he left. [00:06:30] He left an orange, an extra jacket, and some trail mix and said "Man, I gotta get out and get some help." So after 30 hours, the best sound I've ever heard in my whole life was the sound of this... [helicopter sounds] ...coming up the canyon. Erik: You almost froze to death. Mark: It was cold that night. Yeah it was real cold. I was laying on some ice. That probably helped because it kept the swelling down in my back. So I'm an incomplete [00:07:00] para. I have a little bit of movement in my legs. They said that might have helped me, the swelling. But the helicopter got up there, it was actually a ship from the Forest Service. They were gonna just go up and see if it was more of a body recovery, but fortunately I waved to them and the helicopter disappeared. About an hour later, a second helicopter came up and this time was from Lemoore Navy Base, and they did [00:07:30] a technical rescue. Flew in, brought the rotors within several feet of the cliff surface, lowered a navy medic, got me in a stokes litter, got me back up into the ship. I was down at a trauma center, they were cutting my clothes off, and a nurse said, "Who's your insurance company?" And fortunately I did have insurance, I had Kaiser. I went through stabilization of my back with Harrington rods. I was in the hospital in 1982 for seven months. Dave: [00:08:00] Wow. Erik: Including rehab? Mark: Including rehab and the whole nine yards. And nowadays, a paraplegic if you go to Craig Hospital, it's kind of the factory up here in the west. A paraplegic will be in the hospital for about six weeks. It's pretty dramatic... in those days, it was a much longer hospitalization. Learning how to take care of yourself. And then... Erik: More time is better, right? I mean, [00:08:30] would make sense right? You can develop more time? Mark: Yeah, a little bit. I think seven months was a little excessive. Erik: Right. Mark: But you know, there's a lot to learn. Your life has really changed. Your spinal cord runs your body, and you're paralyzed from your waist down. You have bowel and bladder issues. You have skin issues you have to be careful about. So all those things were really important, and I had this one [00:09:00] physical therapist who was from Germany and she goes, "You need to train like you're training for the Olympics." I just really took that to heart and started lifting weights. Was ambulating with long leg braces. This was sort of the beginning of the wheelchair revolution where wheelchairs weren't a stale piece of medical equipment, they were a lightweight piece of aluminum that was more of an extension of your body. And the wheelchair [00:09:30] could take you from point A to point B. Fortunately, in 1982 was really when these wheelchairs... they started making lightweight chairs. And I was a part of that. Erik: Not the clunky Vietnam-era things, right? Mark: Exactly. The old Everest and Jennings chairs were more obsolete, and they were using... well there was a woman who started Quickie wheelchairs, Marilyn Hamilton, she got hurt in a hang gliding accident. They took hang gliding technology, clevis pins, aluminum, powder coat. [00:10:00] And they kind of messier of manufacturing these wheelchairs sort of like... taking the technology from hang gliders and applying it to wheelchairs. Erik: We're still less than ten podcasts in here, but we've already heard a lot of stories of people... these No Barrier stories of people who go down deep into these dark places. I don't want to bring you down, but you have a lot of experience right now and so you can look back. You went to a dark [00:10:30] place, obviously. Mark: Yeah. It was close to saying goodbye to this Earth. Fortunately I made it through. I remember getting back into rehab, then I met a state rehab counselor who said, "You know Mark, you have this great love, this great passion for the outdoors, why don't you become a park ranger?" And I'm thinking, "How's somebody in a wheelchair gonna be a park ranger?" I'm thinking [00:11:00] law enforcement, search and rescue, and she goes "No, there's many hats in the National Park Service, or many different jobs." She took me down to Fort Funston where I met a ranger who kind of showed me the ropes and said "Hey, you could maybe do a job, this would be an entry level position, but you could help us plant dune grass and work in the nursery, or you could go to the entrance gate and help out there." [00:11:30] So I did that for a summer and then I went back to school and went to West Valley College and studied park management. Erik: Cool. Mark: And became a ranger at Yosemite. I remember my first job wasn't exactly my idea being a ranger. There I was sitting in this little kiosk, this little booth, at Big Oak Flat, the entrance to Yosemite. In those days it was a three dollar entrance fee and I'd collect the money and be breathing in auto fumes all day long. That really wasn't [00:12:00] my idea of being a ranger. But it was entry level. The next summer I went down to Yosemite Valley and started working at the visitor's center doing interpretation. Interpreting the natural processes of the park, the public. Bear management, geology, climbing was a big subject too. I'd give programs on climbing, talk about A climbing versus free climbing. Jeff: Were you transparent with people that would come through the park, with how your injury took place? [00:12:30] When you'd talk about the [crosstalk 00:12:31] Mark: I was, I was. I would start my climbing program off with my accident, actually. And bring that in, because I think that was a big part of it. They might say, "Well who's this guy in a wheelchair, what does he know about climbing?" I'd kind of bring that in. That was before I climbed El Cap, I was doing those things. Jeff: Were you percolating on doing something like that when you were there? Mark: I was. It's kind of an interesting story. There was a magazine called Sports And Spokes, it was a wheelchair [00:13:00] athletic magazine. On the front cover on that magazine was a DSUSA chapter, a woman who was being lowered down a cliff in a wheelchair on a river rafting trip. The river went over a waterfall, and then you did portage all the equipment around the waterfall. They had a swami belt and a climbing rope and they had a helmet, I guess they wanted to put a helmet on her for safety, sounded like a good idea. And they lowered her down this cliff in this wheelchair, [00:13:30] and it was on the front cover of this magazine, Sports And Spokes. I got the magazine at my little cabin in Yosemite and I had it on my lap. I was wheeling over to the visitor center to open it up in the morning, and I bumped into my future climbing partner Mike Corbet. And Mike's nickname was Mr. El Cap back in the 80s, he had climbed El Cap more than anybody else in the world, over 50 times. And Mike had never really talked about climbing to me because he knew that's how I got hurt. But when [00:14:00] I showed him this picture, Mike's eyes got really big, and he got really excited. He goes, "You know what Mark, I wanna start climbing with you, but what I really wanna do is climb El Cap." And we had no idea how we were gonna do it. Dave: That's great. Mark: That evening, we were sitting at the mountain room bar, we might have had a beer or two. Dave: Or three. Jeff: That's where all good decisions are made. Mark: Where all good decisions are made. So we had a little beer napkin and we started writing down notes. We said, "Okay, [00:14:30] we're gonna take a jumar..." A jumar is a rope ascender, this was back in the day, kind of like what Kleenex is to tissue. So we took a jumar, and we mounted a pull up bar and a jumar, and then we had a second ascender on a chest harness. And we put a rope up right by the Ahwahnee Hotel. Church ball tree. It was an oak tree. We had this rope and we started ascending up into the tree and then he'd lower me back down. So we go, "Okay, [00:15:00] so a paraplegic can ascend a rope using their upper body strength. Now to get on El Capitan, we got to actually protect your lower extremities from the granitic rock." We knew we were gonna be up there at least a week. I don't have feeling in my legs, so I really needed to protect my legs from any kind of abrasion or any kind of sore that could have occurred up there. We went down to this hardware store in Fresno, California outside [00:15:30] of the park. We bought some leather, a speedy stitcher, some closed cell insulation foam, and we just started making these rock chaps and they sort of evolved over a course of six months. We were climbing Jam Crack, Warner's... Erik: Weren't they... what was the material of those? I've felt your chaps before. That sound's weird... Dave: The truth comes out. Jeff: Hey, we're all friends here. Mark: The original [00:16:00] rock chaps were made out of leather and canvas. But the pair of rock chaps you felt were actually made out of some kind of silky material. No, no... Dave: Oh that was lingerie? Not chaps. Jeff: This was the first No Barriers improv meeting, what you're talking about, with your buddy Mike. Mark: Absolutely. Jeff: That was it, that was the genesis of what... fast forward to today, that was the beginning. What [00:16:30] year was that? 1980... Mark: That was 1988. Jeff: 88. There you go. Mark: Yeah 88. I was 28 years old. Erik: So if you think about it that way, No Barriers began in the Ahwahnee bar. Jeff: Yeah, on a bar stool. On a bar napkin. Dave: I know you guys are all dirt bag climbers. I'm not a dirt bag climber. For our listeners who are not dirt bag climbers, someone paint a picture, because we're getting to the El Cap story. Which is a phenomenal story. Paint a picture of El Cap for us, because not everyone knows what that is. Jeff: Yeah, well. El Cap [00:17:00] is probably the most revered, iconic, monolith in North America if not the world. Uninterrupted, over 3000 feet of granite. It is... when you're in Yosemite, you look up at it and it's got this perfectly symmetrical flank apron on both sides that comes out into this promontory called the nose. And [00:17:30] you can't take your eyes off it. If you look away for a minute, you have to look back at it just cause it's so magnificent and powerful. And it represents so much too. If you want to call yourself a climber, you kind of have to climb El Cap at some point. Erik: When you stand in the meadows below, which is just clogged with tourists just all driving by gawking. What I've heard, is you have to look up and up and up, way higher than [00:18:00] you think you have to. Dave: And if you see a person climbing, as a person who's not a technical climber speaking, you think "Those people are crazy. They're insane. What are they doing up there?" Jeff: Erik and I climbed El Cap. And his dad, Erik's dad, and future wife were down there in the meadow with telescopes watching us. We had one of those little lighty things, little sticks, and we were shining our headlamps down at everybody. It's [00:18:30] a magnificent thing, but it's also very intimidating. It can be very cool when you stand up and look at it, but then the idea of going and climbing it I think is a whole different story. Erik: And as a quote on quote gimp, and that's a word by the way that Mark taught me. I never even heard that word before. It's one of those words I guess you somehow have the license to use if you are... Mark: If you are. Erik: If you are in a chair or you are blind. So what did, when you talked about this out loud, what did people [00:19:00] think? Are people like, "You're nuts." Mark: Yeah, we had kind of a mixture of both. People that knew us, were "Oh yeah you guys should go do this." Mark's been training, he's always skiing, always riding his bike, hand bike around... well in those days it was more of a row cycle. And then we had people say, mainly not to me so much but more to Mike, "Are you crazy? Take this paraplegic guy up El Cap? Seems like a really stupid [00:19:30] idea. Something could go wrong." But fortunately, we didn't really listen to that. We just started training, we made these rock chaps. Like I said, they kind of just evolved over about a six month period. We kind of have a little circuit in Yosemite Valley that we climbed together. We did Jam Crack, the Prude, Warner's Crack, The Rostrum, we went over there. Erik: Oh, wow. Mark: So we did some stuff in the Valley [00:20:00] just to really warm up. And then I actually went up and spent a night on El Cap. Because we wanted to feel what that was like. Jeff: Up at sickle? Mark: We actually went to Heart Ledge. Erik: Wow. Jeff: Over on the south. Mark: Yeah, over on the south. The route we were gonna climb was a shield. So... Jeff: Cause it's overhanging. Mark: It was overhanging... once you get over the shield roof it's overhanging. The beginning of it's not. It's pretty low angle. Jeff: Were you scared at all before you did this or [00:20:30] were you just super fired up and kind of naïve? Mark: I was scared the night before. Jeff: You were. Mark: Yeah. Jeff: Like really scared? Mark: Yeah I was... couldn't sleep. This kind of what happened was... really Mike, about two weeks before we're gonna blast off, Mike goes, "Man we've trained so hard for this, I'm gonna write a letter to Tom Brokaw..." who is the national NBC News guy, who is a climber too, a little bit. And, I'm going, "Okay... " so basically [00:21:00] Corbet just wrote out a note with a pencil. He was a janitor at the Yosemite Medical Clinic to support his addiction to climbing. He just wrote a little note to Tom Brokaw, and I think three or four days later he's talking to... Tom Brokaw called the medical clinic and talked to Mike, and said "We want to come out and do this story." Erik: Gosh. Mark: And all of a sudden the pressure was on. That's when I really was thinking, "Wow you're telling national news, this is gonna add [00:21:30] a lot more pressure for myself." But as soon as we got to the base of El Cap and I touched that granite, all that training and preparation really got into par, and I got relaxed. I started doing pull up after pull up, dragging myself up the largest unbroken granite cliff in North America, El Capitan, and the first night... we do something called, we fix pitches. So we were fixed [00:22:00] up about 800 feet. So we had... Mike used to say, "It's always nice to kind of have a jumpstart." Erik: Right. Mark: You know, fix those lines, get all your water, we had 250 pounds... Erik: It's like a trail of ropes that go up 800 feet so you can just... Mark: The next morning... Erik: Start on the ground and zip up 800 feet and have like a jumpstart on this gigantic monolith. Mark: Exactly. And have all your water, all your gear up there. So he had to work three or four days to make that happen prior to us [00:22:30] leaving. Once we left Mammoth Terrace, we were on our own. We went through the Gray Ledges, and we went over... the roof was really tremendous. Because Mike is basically climbing upside down, and then gets up onto the pitch above it and fixes a rope. Then I kind of untied myself and I swing underneath that roof, and you can hear the cheers of the people down below. It's like [00:23:00] what Jeff was saying, It's quite a scene at the El Cap meadow. You really have to have binoculars. It's hard to see climbers up there, because they're so tiny, they're like little ants up there. If you don't know what to look for, it's hard to see these people. The crowd was yelling, and the green dragon would come by. It's a tour vehicle that has it's open air shuttle. Erik: "If you look upright you will see a nutcase [00:23:30] climbing El Capitan." Mark: We could actually hear them talking about "Mike Corbet, Mark Wellman, first paraplegic..." So that was kind of interesting. Finally when we topped out, it was seven nights, eight days of climbing. This was before digital technology on El Cap, when national news came out. They had a mule train, they brought out a satellite dish that was like five feet wide, and we were live on top of El [00:24:00] Cap talking to Tom Brokaw. Jeff: Sick. Mark: And we've got... between the Today Show and NBC News, and in a week we were on TV for like several hours if you took all the time that they played this. There wasn't really much going on in the news, so they really kind of played this story up in a big way. As soon as we got off that climb, about a week later, we're sitting in the Oval [00:24:30] Office talking to President Bush. It was myself, Mike Corbet, "Writtenaur" who was Secretary of the Interior, and Jack Morehead, superintendent of Yosemite. The four of us are in the White House, in the Oval Office, talking about bone fishing because President Bush loved to bone fish and we presented him with a flag that we took with us on the climb, and it changed my life. Erik: Mark, so you're not that old, but I see [00:25:00] you sort of as the father of adventur e sports for people with disabilities. I want people to understand that the idea to climb El Cap back in the 80s... nowadays, I think... how many people have climbed El Cap in chairs, paras? Mark: Oh the chairs? Erik: Dozens, right? Mark: Yeah, dozens. Erik: But you sort of unleashed that. You opened up this door. And now, quote on quote gimps are doing everything, right? Mark: Every summer there's [00:25:30] a paraplegic. Erik: But you opened that door for all of us. So, it's sort of a crazy thought to me. Mark: It is. You can't take the first ascent of El Cap, you can't take that away from me. That's something I'll always remember. It was a huge accomplishment for both Mike and I, and there's been different paraplegics who have gone up it. A gentleman with cerebral palsy, Steve Wampler, was probably the most [00:26:00] disabled person that's been up there. Lots of amputees. I call them amputees, hardly disabled. Paraplegics wanna be amputees. Erik: Those will be our first complaint letters. Dave: Exactly. [crosstalk 00:26:15] Mark: Quadriplegics wanna be paraplegics. Everybody has their differences. There's been a quadriplegic, incomplete quadriplegic, climbed El Cap with Tommy Thompson, good climber. [00:26:30] Steve Muse. Erik: There's that kid who climbed The Chief, he was inspired by you. Mark: Yep. Erik: He was a quad, and he climbed The Chief. He invented kind of this, almost like a contraption with wheels if I remember right, that kind of rolled up the face. Mark: Yeah it was... the premise was taking the Dolt cart. A climber by name of Dolt had this cart and he used to use it for a hauling system on El Cap. Brad "Szinski", the Canadian guy you're talking about, he came up with this [00:27:00] cart. His hands didn't really work as well as a paraplegic, he lost some muscle mass in his hands and fingers. So he had a different type of system where he could ascend a rope using a crank, and developed that. So there's been all kinds of different adaptations that allow people that are wheelchair users to go rock climbing. Jeff: This sort of set you [00:27:30] on this course to being an improvisational pioneer, those are my words. Were you like that always or do you feel like your accident cued you up for this opportunity to then over the past thirty years... Mark: Thirty five. Jeff: Yeah thirty five years. Now you've continued this trajectory of being this pioneer when it comes to just making it work. You make it work, right? Mark: I was so young. When I got hurt [00:28:00] I was 22. I wasn't climbing big walls, I hadn't got to that point yet of climbing El Cap. Finally, when I did have my accident it kind of made sense. The steeper the climb for somebody in a chair the better. Mountaineering is gonna be really tough. There are ways of doing mountaineering. We got four paraplegics on top of Mount Shasta. Erik: Yep. Mark: And there was a guy named Pete "Rikee". It's funny... people [00:28:30] come to me if they've got an idea, a lot of times they'll want me to be a part of the project. Least... Erik: That was a pod that they were in, that had almost like tractor wheels, right? Mark: Exactly. What we did is we took a snowmobile and cut the snowmobile track in half and made a tractor stance. So you have two tracks and a seat with a bicycle crank, and we actually crank our way up Mount Shasta. We had to get special permit from the Forest [00:29:00] Service. You can only be on Shasta for three days, and we knew we were gonna be up there for a week. So I had to drive up... I was trying to explain to this district ranger on the telephone, he really wasn't getting it. Erik: Sometimes they don't get it. Mark: And he wasn't getting it at all. He was thinking mechanical device... Jeff: Motorized... Mark: Right. He knew who I was, so he said "Come up and bring the machine with you so I can take a look at it." So I brought one of the snow pods up there and I met with the district ranger [00:29:30] and a couple of his back country rangers, and they got it. They said, "This is cool man, we'd like to let you guys do this." They gave us a special use permit. The big thing about the Forest Service and wilderness, or National Park Service wilderness, you cannot take... supposedly mechanized devices cannot go into the wilderness. But if you have a disability, your bicycle could almost be considered a wheelchair, or your snow pod can be considered [00:30:00] a wheelchair. Long as it doesn't have a Briggs and Stratton engine on it. That was the big thing, it has to be a manual piece of a gear that's human powered. So we got that, and we got four paraplegics on top of Mount Shasta. Erik: And El Cap really launched you into being able to do all these amazing things, right? You pretty much became a professional climber, adventurer, doing these things around the world. I know you lit the torch for the Paralympics, right? Mark: I did, I lit the Paralympic torch in Atlanta in 1996. [00:30:30] Muhammad Ali lit it for the able bodied Olympics. They had this torch, and the night before we're training for it... it's a big surprise, they don't want to see the person light the torch the night before, no media, so we're out there. I was gonna climb an 80 foot rope doing rope ascension, doing pull up after pull up. And North Face made me a little, kind of a... we envisioned this Robin Hood thing with... behind [00:31:00] my shoulders, this arrow quiver where I put the actual torch in. I didn't wanna burn my hair, what's left of it, so... Erik: You had a lot more hair... Mark: So I said, "Let's make this torch holder so it comes off your legs." So they made that for me. That night we're training, I get up the 80 foot rope, and I lit the fuse and the fuse blew out. Erik: Oh no. Mark: And the pyrotechnics guy goes, it was windy, and the [00:31:30] next day it was gonna be windy too. So the pyrotechnics guy guys... "Okay Mark, I'll make sure this fuse doesn't go out the night you do it." And I go, "Great." So I get up there in front of 80,000 people, I'm climbing up this rope. Liza Minnelli is singing this song and she's going "Go Mark, Go Mark." The whole stadium of 80,000 people is going nuts. So I lit this fuse, and literally the thing blew up. There was fire all over me. And I'm leaning back, hoping I'm not gonna catch [00:32:00] on fire. Then the fuse went up and lit the actual cauldron, and that was the start of the 1996 Summer Olympics. Jeff: You did not combust. Mark: I did not combust. I had the best seat in the house. Erik: You'd be like a Motley Crue drummer. Mark: Exactly. So that was fun. Erik: Takes us on a little tour of what you did. All those amazing adventures that you did after that. Takes us on a little tour around the world. Mark: What a lot of people don't realize, which I think is harder than climbing [00:32:30] El Cap, or spending 13 days on Half Dome was another big ascent we did years ago... but was doing the Trans Sierra ski crossing. I've done it twice now. I did it in 1993, it was a big winner, and I did it in 2011. So we took a cross country Nordic sit ski. You sit low to the ground, you have two skis mounted underneath a frame with a seat, and you're sitting maybe a foot off the snow. And you have two [00:33:00] poles, and you actually double pole. So you're double poling to make this device go down the trail. I was on the US Disabled Nordic Ski Team. Competed in two Paralympics, in France and in Norway. Got beat up by the Finns, the Norwegians, they're so passionate about that sport. Jeff: And they're vikings. Mark: And they're vikings, man. They're so tough. My best finish out of 30 guys was of fifth place, that was in France. [00:33:30] In Norway, I got even more beat up. I wanted to actually get into Nordic ski racing because I had other things I wanted to do. I wanted to try to get into the back country in a Nordic ski. Back in 93 a guy named Jeff Pegles and myself was also on the US disabled Nordic team. We took sleds, little polks, behind our rigs. We had our bivy gear. And we skied 55 miles from Snowline [00:34:00] on the east side of the Sierra on Tioga road, we got someone to open up the gate. Guy that worked for the power company opened up the gate. We got up to Snowline and we skied from Snowline to Crane Flat, which is 55 miles. Jeff: Wow. Mark: Following the Tioga road. Jeff: Just the two of you? Mark: Well we also had Pearlman with us too. Erik: Filming. Mark: He was filming, yeah. Erik: And, you gotta tell the story about the White Rim. So you biked the White Rim, I think you were on one off mountain bikes? Mark: [00:34:30] Yep. Erik: Or some kind of devices, hand crank mountain bikes. And it was so sandy, the story I heard, you had to get out and you had to pretty much pull yourself on your arms and pull your chair, did you pull the other guys chairs too? Or were the other guys' bikes... Mark: It was an epic, groveling adventure. Seems like everything I do turns into that. Jeff: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:34:50] Mark: If you're not suffering, you're not having a good time. That's kind of how it is out there. We had these one off mountain bikes and [00:35:00] we actually did a Jeep tour to kind of check it out a couple years prior. We did have it a little easier, we didn't carry all our water and food with us, we had a swag wagon out there. Suburban, follow the four paraplegics. Myself, Bob Vogel, and Steve Ackerman. We rode this, 52 miles is the full circumnav of the White Rim. There was times, [00:35:30] yeah, it was an interesting experience out there because some of these washes were like moon dust. We couldn't get our bikes through it. So I had a pair of rock chaps with me and I threw the rock chaps on and did some crawling. Had an 11 mil static rope and dragged the guys behind me. Did a few epic things like that. Jeff: I mean, If I'm riding my mountain bike and I come up on that scene in the middle of the White Rim, who knows what to make of that? Mark: [00:36:00] You can walk man, so best thing to do is just walk your bike. Jeff: Like, "You guys are good right?" and they'll be like "Yep, we're good man." Erik: Leave us alone. Jeff: Leave us alone. Mark: Don't touch me. Jeff: There's nothing to see here. Yeah. Erik: Yeah. Jeff: Wow, that's rad. Mark: And then recently, just a couple of years ago... in the winter we had a drought in California and Tahoe, so I circumnaved Lake Tahoe in a kayak in winter. And that was a really amazing adventure. It was 72 [00:36:30] miles, two nights of camping. But the cool thing was, and it was cool at night, it was really cold at night. There was no power boats. In the winter you don't have any power boats on Lake Tahoe, it was kind of like being out there in the 1800s. Seeing bald eagles, none of the tourists were on the water, it was really a fantastic trip. Dave: So Mark, you are someone who really embodies the spirit of No Barriers and you helped [00:37:00] start the organization. So tell us, all these adventures, all these things you've done to challenge what's possible, what people think is possible. Why No Barriers? Tell us that story. Mark: You know, No Barriers... I did a movie called No Barriers, and I got a poster out called No Barriers. It was a word that really meant a lot to me. My wife and I, we were down in San Francisco at a fundraiser... in those days it was called Yosemite Fund, now it's called Yosemite [00:37:30] Conservancy. We were at this dinner, and I met this kind of wild old character named Jim Goldsmith. And Jim came up to me, knew who I was... we started talking. He had a cabin in the subdivision I live in called Tahoe Dawner. So Jim and I, and Carol, and his wife Connie would get together, we had a couple of dinners together. And then Jim started talking about the Dolomites, and his [00:38:00] son-in-law and daughter. And he said, "Man, it would be really neat to kind of do something for disabled people and able bodied people if we did something in the Dolomites." And I go, "Man, I know a couple of guys who I've done some stuff with, a guy named Hugh Herr, double amputee who's done some rock climbing with him, and Erik Weihenmayer." This was probably after your Everest... Erik: Yeah, after. Mark: This was after your Everest climb. And I said "Hey, these [00:38:30] guys..." we did a climb out in Moab Utah, the three of us, it was kind of gimp helping gimp, it was this real magical event out there. Which was really cool... Erik: Climbing the Fisher Tower. Mark: Yeah. The Fisher Tower. Ancient Ark. Erik: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mark: And it was this really fantastic climb. I'd like to get these two guys involved with what we're talking about. SO I called Erik, I called Hugh, and we ended up putting our first [00:39:00] little... in those days, it was more of a festival, we called it, instead of a summit. We did it in the Dolomites. It was a very obscure little place up in the mountains, this real beautiful location, but nothing was really accessible. The hotels weren't that accessible, everything was kind of difficult to put this together. But it was this real magical place in the mountains... Erik: I remember the chair operators didn't even know how to get people with disabilities on the chairs. Mark: They didn't have [00:39:30] an idea. They didn't... yeah. Erik: On the ski lifts. Thank you. Yeah. Mark: They weren't doing adaptive skiing in those days in that little village. It was actually the home of the 1956 Olympics. SO that was kind of my envision was to start this, and who knew it was gonna get into what it is today. It's just amazing what you guys have done, and all the different things No Barriers has to offer people. Erik: What do you think about when you think about the evolution? You had this little germ [00:40:00] of an idea to go to this town and start talking about accessibility and innovation, and some of your lessons about how you've broken through barriers, or how the three of us had broken through barriers. And now, when you look at it today... Mark: [sighs] It's kind of mind boggling how it's grown so big and how many different people it affects, it's not just the disabled community, it's able bodied community bringing everyone together. Trying new experiences. The youth programs [00:40:30] that you guys have been doing is tremendous over the years. Soldiers to the summit. We're having all these guys coming back doing ten tours, they're not adjusting back into society very well, and taking them out into the outdoors with Jeff and different mountain guides, it just changes their lives. Brings them more back into a reality where they can really kind of adjust back into society. And then the summit is just... I love [00:41:00] coming to the summits. I've been to every one now, I haven't missed one since the beginning. It's gonna be fantastic in New York, I'm really looking forward to that. Erik: And you bring your climbing wall, your portable climbing wall. Mark: I'll have... Erik: Almost to every summit. So that's your mission now, right? To go around and use your climbing wall as a No Barriers tool to help people break through barriers. Tell us about that. Mark: Absolutely. Climbing has been such a big part of my life, that I just like to introduce different [00:41:30] people to the sport. A lot of times, somebody that's... we don't say electric chair, electric chair is something you die in. Power chair. A power chair takes you from point A to point B. A power chair user, a lot of times doesn't have all the... there's not as many things out there for a power chair user to participate in. Climbing on my wall, they can. We have these harnessing systems [00:42:00] that support your core. It's almost like a Bosen's chair, pulley system. If you have the desire to get on the climbing wall, we can facilitate that. We don't turn anybody away. We've had people that weigh 500 pounds on my wall before. Very obese wheelchair users... it doesn't matter. I had a gentleman that had spina bifida and he was unfortunately caught up in the American society of drinking a lot of soda, [00:42:30] and became really big. We got him on the wall, it was really difficult for him. We would talk to him and he wouldn't really look at you eye to eye as we were talking. I saw him a year later, he dropped 150 pounds, quit the soda, got into a training, cut his hair in a mohawk, and it just changed his life. Got out of the power chair and was in a manual chair. So climbing was kind of the responsibility of really changing this guys life, and now I see [00:43:00] him down in Los Angeles. I probably take the wall to Southern California maybe seven or eight times a year, San Francisco, Bay Area. I sort of have different groups hire me year after year, once they experience the wall they really want to have it be part of their event. We bring in, mini El Cap I call it, and we get people on it and we have a great time. Erik: And you're traveling around with your wall, full time. People bring you in to create this experience for their [00:43:30] rehab hospital or organization or team, right? Mark: Exactly. All those venues... I do adaptive climbing seminars. So a gym might call me and wanna know, "how do we get an adaptive climbing program going?" So I do that. And a lot of times I'll do not only a seminar on adaptive climbing, but then maybe that evening do a show and tell about adventure sports and where adventure sports have taken the disabled in the last 35 [00:44:00] years. Erik: And you are like Kleenex now, because... you talk about the pulley system, it's not a pulley system, pull up system, a lot of people say, "Oh yeah, Mark Wellman system." Mark: Yeah, it's... yeah it's kind of getting that way. Jeff: You're like Beyonce now. Mark: I'm like Beyonce. It's just kind of neat that my passions over the years... everybody should have a passion. And my passion has always been [00:44:30] to be out camping, doing something in the outdoors, coming up with new ideas, new technologies... and some of these technologies are more like a backyard technology. It's not that fancy. Sometimes some of the most simplest things can change something. Like mountain bike tires on a wheelchair can change a chairs getting into the back country tremendously. Mounting a pull up bar in a sender can allow a paraplegic [00:45:00] to do 7000 pull ups in eight days to go up El Cap. Just simple little technologies can really change peoples' lives, and you can take that backyard technology, garage technology, put something together that works for you that can help a whole bunch of people. Dave: I'd like to go back to that... You've told us a story, sort of the arc of your life, and when I look at you Mark and think about what you've accomplished I think "God, this is incredible. [00:45:30] This is an incredible human being that very few people who had what happened to you would ever have chosen the path that you have chosen." And I think, when I think about our No Barriers community, every so often you get folks who will say "Yeah, that's Mark Wellman but that couldn't have been me. You're putting someone in front of me that's so incredible, how could I possibly do this?" Erik: Yeah, you're de motivational. Mark: Right, right. I know, I get it. Dave: I'd love to hear, what do you think we can... 'cause this is what we do at No Barriers. We... If you're [00:46:00] listening to this, it's not like we take everyone up mountains, but we try to remind them about something in their spiri t... Mark: Yeah. Dave: ...that teaches them anything is possible. So talk to us a little bit about, Mark, how did you get to that point? Is it just sort of who you were from the beginning, was it an evolution? It just seems like everything you encountered, you are like, "I can do more." Mark: I think it's really important for people to get out of their comfort zone. Nowadays, it's so easy for young people to get... they get into gaming. And they [00:46:30] just, you know... it's stagnant. You're not getting out of your comfort zone. And the outdoors has a way of getting you out of your comfort zone. And you can make it safe... you don't need to think about what I do, it's more about finding, maybe getting some different experiences. And that's what's so cool about the summit. You have all these different activities going on where you just get a little taste of it. And hopefully [00:47:00] that little taste will inspire your imagination to want to try it again. And that's where I think it's really important if you're facilitating skiing or climbing, or whatever you're facilitating, you have to make sure that these people, their first experience is a good one. If they don't have a good experience, most likely they're not gonna go back to it. And, it's really important that the very first time... One of our board members, Sasha. [00:47:30] He was an academia guy, a professor. He came to the No Barriers event in Squaw Valley, the first one. Never had tried climbing before, and we took him to Donner Summit and got him up on this road cut climb that's 80 feet with big exposure, and it changed the guys life. It was something he was real nervous about, but it was getting him out of his comfort zone, and him [00:48:00] really having, you know... it was exciting for him, it was thrilling, it was challenging not only physically but mentally challenging at the same time. All those things combined. Kind of changed his life. And he became a board member of No Barriers because of that. Dave: Yeah. Mark: And there's stories like that all the time. Or Mandy, I remember her... wonderful singer. She got on my wall, it was 25 feet, and she [00:48:30] was really scared. It was a really scary moment for her where she had this big fear of heights. It wasn't like she was on a 1000 foot rope, she was on a 24 foot wall. But she might have well have been. Jeff: Relative for her. Mark: Could have been a 1000 foot climb. But she made it through. And came down... I got a guy that helps me, Wes, he's a search and rescue guy, kind of a big guy. He's just magical with [00:49:00] people, and really helped her a lot. So, you have all these different experiences... Erik: And I think that experience, by the way, gave her the courage to go out and do something completely non-climbing related, which was to write music and to go on to America's Got Talent, and... Mark: Exactly. Erik: Get into the finals, and now skyrocket into stardom. Mark: To fame. Absolutely. Making a better quality life for herself. [00:49:30] A lot of times when you say, somebody that's a wheelchair user... what is it, like 90 percent of the people in wheelchairs don't have jobs. And it's always kind of bummed me out, I'm thinking, "Wow." Why would you wanna be caught in a system like with Social Security and be basically poor your whole life, because "Oh I have Medicare, I have my Social Security disability," So you're trying to live on six to eight hundred dollars a month. And you're caught [00:50:00] in this kind of vicious circle. You've got to get away from that somehow, and get into the workforce, be productive. You're gonna feel better, you're gonna be a more productive citizen in this country, and you're not gonna be wrapped up in this vicious circle of never getting ahead and always having the government thumb you down, so to speak. Erik: Last question for [00:50:30] you from my end, this is Erik, and I wanna know, I've made it kind of clear that I look up to you. Tell me, who are the people that you look up to? Tell us about that guy Larry, tell us about some people who influenced your life. Mark: Oh man. There's been a lot for sure. There was a guy named... actually I think you're thinking of a guy named Mark Sutherland. When I first got hurt, Mark was a quadriplegic ten [00:51:00] years post to my injury. And he was back in the hospital. He had a bone spur, the spur was touching his spinal cord, and he was losing some of his action. Some quadriplegic can move their arms and they can push manual chairs, and he was one of those. But he was losing some of his arm strength, so he was in the hospital, and my room was next to his. We would talk at night. 'Cause I was really bummed out when I was first injured. To me, being a paraplegic was a fate [00:51:30] worse than death. I was on the sixth floor, if I could have crawled over to the window and jumped out I would have cause that's how bad I felt. I was just thinking, "Not having the use of my legs, I'm not gonna ski again, I'm not gonna climb." I was 22, I was just like, "Why didn't the mountain just take me." Those were the kind of thoughts I was having. But then I would go into this guys room, Mark Sutherland, and he would talk about, "Oh I had this milk truck that I converted, and I had a stool. One time I was driving it with my hand controls [00:52:00] and I fell off the stool, and I was on the ground and I had to throw my hand on the brake to stop it so I didn't kill anybody." Jeff: And you were like, "That's the greatest story ever." Mark: Yeah. I wanna do that. So I was just hearing this stuff from this guy, and he was talking about girlfriends, and how he was running around doing this and doing that, and I'm going, "Man, this guy has a life." And it was really inspiring to be... so where I was really depressed and laying in the hospital bed, and couldn't feel [00:52:30] my lower extremities, and "What's a catheter?" And I'm just like, "Man, this is horrible, what did I get myself into." And this guy was really upbeat and uplifting... Jeff: Showed you it wasn't a death sentence. Mark: Yeah. Showed me it wasn't a death sentence, and let's get on with life, dude. And it was like, boom. That just changed me. Then we went into rehab together, we were more in a hospital setting and then we both went into our physical rehab. That's [00:53:00] when it just started clicking for me, and that was it. Dave: Well, just to wrap up this excellent conversation that we're having about the history of No Barriers and all that you've done as well just individually, you've seen No Barriers be this thing that started in the Dolomites in 2003, we're 15 years into this. What's your dream for what it becomes? Mark: Wow. I would just consider it to be... I'd like to see maybe a couple summits a year, possible. [00:53:30] More, smaller clinics would be really cool too. I think you guys are really on a good, good path. But maybe some smaller events too. Just keep growing it. Keep doing more of these kinds of things. More technology. Bringing in more people, better speakers. Better people that are... or people that are doing more things that inspire others that give the ideas [00:54:00] to do more things. I'm amazed in 15 years where it's come to. Who knows where it's gonna go. Another 15 years from now, man this could be a huge, huge organization that could affect a lot of people and bring a lot of people together. This whole family, bringing the tribe together. It's always fun at the summits, and seeing people I haven't seen for a year, [00:54:30] spending time with them. I love getting people out climbing, so that's my passion. Erik: What if people want to learn how to get in touch with you, how to work with you, how to bring your wall to their organization? Mark: Yeah. Google Mark Wellman or just go to my website, No Limits Tahoe dot com. Give me a call. Erik: Although they won't talk to you, 'cause you're never home. You're always out [crosstalk 00:54:55] or something. Dave: Always on the road, right. Mark: Well, no, yeah I'm easy to get a hold of. Talk to my wife, Carol, [00:55:00] and I can get back to you. Erik: Right. Mark: Send me an email. I'm better on the phone, I don't like to email tons. Love to talk to you, if you have ideas lets talk about, lets see you at the summit. Lets get out and enjoy life. Erik: Cool. Well thank you so much Mark. Jeff: Listen Mark, I know you well enough to know you don't need to hear what I'm about to tell you, but, I think it's important for you and the listeners to know [00:55:30] in conversations like this, it becomes so clear how you are sort of the upside down pyramid. And you're the point on the upside down pyramid. And it all sort of funnels up from you, really. And I know there's others, but you're the man. And I know it's important for you, it is important for me to know that you know how many thousands of lives you've impacted. Erik: Tens of thousands. Jeff: Thousands of lives dude. You have been the kick starter [00:56:00] and the imputes. And you're just one of the most wonderful pioneers. I know you know it, but you need to hear it more, because you're the man. Mark: I appreciate it man, it's humbling. And, to take a passion that I had and a dream... and like I said, just simple adaptations, a pull up bar on a jumar. Man, how that changed other people to go climb up El Cap, or do Castleton, or whatever [00:56:30] mountain you want to get up, it's been a pretty cool experience. It's been fun to work with other companies. We're making more adaptive climbing equipment now. It's really kind of evolved from just handmade rock chaps to a real sophisticated pair of rock chaps that allows people to get out there and do a lot of cool stuff. Dave: Well it's been an honor to have you here Mark, I know many of our listeners are part of that No Barriers tribe. Many of them will know you, but a [00:57:00] lot of them won't. The movement has grown so big that it's well beyond you. But per what Jeff was saying, it's so important I think for the people of our community to know where this began. Mark: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Dave: And you are the point that Jeff mentioned where it began, and so, thank you so much for joining us, we appreciate having you. Mark: My pleasure. Erik: What did you guys take away from that? Might take us a while. Dave: Yeah. Exactly. Jeff: Might be a lengthy debrief on that one. Dave: I guess for me, as someone who's helping to build [00:57:30] this movement, like I was ending with there, just to remember the roots of where No Barriers began which is individuals coming together in small communities around creative ideas to do stuff that people didn't think was possible. And as we start to move to tens of thousands, maybe millions over the next ten years of people that we impact, that there's something in that special sauce that's still about the [00:58:00] individuals getting together having a fun, creative idea and going out and pushing their comfort zone. Erik: Yeah. I think that, No Barriers recipe is sort of hidden right in the story of El Capitan, which is... Mark's a smart guy, but he's not a scientist or anything, he's not Hugh Herr, who's inventing stuff where you go, "I could never do that." What he said is a pull up bar and a jumar. These are commercially available things. I think he had to adapt a few things, but [00:58:30] not all that crazy technology. Pretty simple. You combine that series, that innovation with the human spirit and a great friend or great support system, a great rope team, you do this amazing thing that opens up the door for a lot of people. It's a pretty simple recipe. Dave: It is. Jeff: All the big things that have happened with regards to our species all started with this small [00:59:00] germination of somebody sitting in their theoretical garage just being like, "How do I do this? Hmm?" And head scratch, and start piecing these things together, and then, boom, the movement begins. I think Mark embodies that, and what a great cornerstone for this organization. Dave: Well, and the movement continues. So if you're sitting there listening saying, "I wanna be a part of this organization, I wanna be a [00:59:30] part of No Barriers," please go to our website, No Barriers USA dot org. You can join us at the summit that Mark mentioned that's coming up in October in New York. There are many more ways you can join us but please, No Barriers USA dot org is our website. You can also share our podcast with your friends and colleagues and families, and follow us on our Facebook page. Thank you so much for listening. Erik: Live No Barriers. Dave: Thanks.

Hugh Ballou Interviews Dave Lucas about his Misfit Entrepreneur concepts and systems. The Interview Transcript Ep 53, Interview with Dave Lukas Hugh Ballou: Dave Lukas has this podcast called the Misfit Entrepreneur. Dave, you and I met virtually, and we are getting acquainted. What I have seen so far is quite impressive. Say a little bit about your background and your business, and then about this podcast, this Misfit Entrepreneur. Talk about yourself and your background and what the inspiration was for launching this great podcast you have. Dave Lukas: Thanks, all good stuff. Thanks for having me, and thanks everyone for tuning in. A little bit about my background just so you guys know. I have always ben an entrepreneur, ever since I was a kid. Like most people, I did the lawn thing, but I did a direct sales business at my college and took it to another business after college that I brought to Columbus, Ohio, where I live now. I split time between Columbus and San Diego. I am in the health and wellness arena. I did that for a year. Then I had this crazy idea. I either wanted to run or own a Fortune 500 someday. So early 20s, right? Everything you can accomplish. I got to get up from the ground floor with one of these and really understand it. One of the best places to do that is on the sales side of things. If you look at a lot of CEOs, a lot of them are salespeople. Sales is a skill that no matter who you are in life and no matter what you do, you really need to understand and utilize. One of the things I talk about when I do speeches is that sales is one of the most innate, natural abilities we all have. If you have a spouse or a significant other, you sold yourself to them, and they sold themselves to you. It’s something that we do naturally. We don’t think of it to be more deliberate at it. I went to school essentially. I worked for a top 50 training program, Fortune 500. Spent a number of years there. Had a lot of success. I was Rep of the Year and all that in my early days. Then I became a turnaround manager and a trainer nationally for all of their rookies. During that time, I continued my entrepreneurial efforts. I continued to invest. I continued to build up other businesses. When you are successful in sales, that gives you autonomy, which allowed me to do that. One of those companies I invested in and helped to guide and mentor in my free time was a company called Grass Technologies. It was a very unique company in the data intelligence space in the travel industry. Anything can be learned. That is one thing I learned. Going from where I was and going to the travel sector is a completely different world. We grew that business from basically nothing to- Nowadays I spend a lot of time there, and it is my largest business. Inc 5000 multi-year winner. We do business in over 100 countries. It’s been a lot of fun. We have that. I do some other things, where I teach and speak and train. I work in the investment side of things, and I am part of a small hedge fund. Then I started this podcast. It’s called the Misfit Entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur, that makes sense. People are like, “Oh yeah, you’re an entrepreneur. You started a podcast to learn the unique traits of entrepreneurs.” The reason I did it is not what most people think. The reason I did it came about three years ago when my wife and I went to China to adopt our daughter. We adopted our daughter, and we get home, and she is 18 months old at that time. In my youth, I spent a lot of my extra time, weekends and evenings, learning. I trained with Zig Ziglar, God rest his soul; Brian Tracy, who wrote the cover quote for my bestselling book; and Tony Robbins, all of these guys, billionaires and millionaires. I spent about five years spending every waking moment that I had learning from these people. That is how that book came about. Fast forward multiple years later, and I have this 18-month-old. I am a dad now. As we are starting to become a family, all of these things are bubbling up that I forgot that I had learned throughout time. I learned from this person or that person. I’m going, Oh my gosh. How much of this stuff have I forgotten over the years? The idea for the Misfit Entrepreneur came about because at that point I said, “I have to have a way where I can immortalize these lessons and this amazing advice from people like you and others throughout the world for her to have even after I am dead and gone.” That is how it started. Do I do a blog? Do I do a video blog? Do I do an email address that she get when she’s older that there is all this stuff in there for her? I am a big listener of podcasts; I know a lot of people are. They are pretty mainstream nowadays. I love the medium because you can take it anywhere. You can take it to the car, to the gym, while you work. You can have it anywhere, which is different than a video or a blog where you have to be present in viewing and reading. You can’t take it to all these places. So that is why we settled on a podcast. We launched in September of last year. It’s been a blessing. Now we are in over 50 countries, and we have had amazing guests. It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s helped to bring this amazing information that these people have, these secrets, their misfit trades that set them apart and helped other people learn and put to use in their lives. That is a brief background on all that fun stuff. Hugh: That’s a very different paradigm than a lot of people I talk to, as you might imagine. I love that. We had a conversation before we went live today and discovered that we have a lot more synergies. I am glad to have you today as a guest. My audience I would classify as social entrepreneurs. They are running a business, or they are running a church, synagogue, or local community foundation. The commonality is that we all are establishing good, sound business principles in the organizations that we run. I want to probe some of that with you because the things that make us independent as entrepreneurs also cripple us so we don’t fit. Some of the things we need to learn are things we don’t yet know we need to learn. I love what you talked about in keeping track of all the things we have been exposed to. We have learned so many things we have forgotten a lot of them. I love the podcast. Like you mentioned, I love keeping current on my skills. You may know that I spent 40 years as a musical conductor. The composer/conductor Ralph Vaughan Williams said that music did not reveal all of its secrets to just one person. I get tidbits from a lot of other people, which is great. As entrepreneurs, we tend to go to the shiny object when we need to stay focused. I think podcasts are a focus for me. I am an entrepreneur. I am guilty. Seems like you have this bestselling book. What is the book about? What’s the title of it? Dave: The book is called The Ten-Year Career. It came out in 2012/2013. The idea behind that book was, Okay, I spent all this time learning all this stuff. How do I condense it down so it’s useful? It came about because I had this giant binder of all these lessons, notes that I have learned along the way. When I was working on one of my businesses or with someone else or just in general, I would pull this thing out and go, “Hey, I learned that from Tony. Check this out. Here is what we can do here with this.” Eventually, enough people said that I should distill it down and put it in a book. The biggest challenge for a lot of people is where to start. Where do I start, and how do I get that momentum? The book was written as a way to help people, whether you are just starting out, or maybe you have lost your way and are looking for that road map or path to help guide you to get yourself to higher levels of achievement. The book title, The Ten-Year Career, is based upon the fact that my goal was always to be at a position to where if I wanted to, I didn’t have to work within ten years. I am happy to say that I achieved that two years ago. To me, that was my goal. But it was the principles that had to be put into place consistently done over time to do that. One thing I found about success in very high achieving and high-performing people that consistently win, it’s not that they do one thing extremely better than anyone else—sometimes you have those cases—but really it’s they do a lot of things just incrementally better than the others. And they do that consistently. That is what’s in here. It starts off with: Who are you? How can you find clarity and purpose in who you are? Then it goes to helping you set goals for yourself so that you have something to go after and achieve. A lot of people don’t write down what they want. They don’t know what they want. You have to have that clarity to find it. Then we go into helping you get the skills you need along the journey. I talk about sales earlier. There is a chapter on that in there. There is a chapter on managing your finances. Productivity and time. Structure = freedom. I know that sounds weird, but the more structure you put into your life, the more freedom you will gain by it. That is something that is important. A lot of people don’t plan anything. They don’t plan their days or weeks, and they don’t plan for their success. We have all heard that cliché that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That is really true because being structured, understanding where you are going and how you are going to get there, makes it so much easier. That’s all in there. Then we have traits of highly sucessful people I have met along the way that are really stand-out things like what it means to be tenacious and what that looks like and examples of that, what it means to be committed. We go through all that. At the end, we share some unique ways—even from 2012 or 2013, they are still relevant today–that you can start a business before, if you have never started or created a business before, here are some unique things you can be doing. Ways of looking at things that are different to help you get ahead. Hugh: I am laughing because you were so in sync with these messages. We have talked very little. It’s like in James Allen’s book A Man Thinketh, he says, “We don’t attract what we need. We attract what we are.” The reason failing to plan is a cliché is because it’s true. I want to make sure people know. Is it ten number or ten word? Dave: Word. Hugh: The Ten-Year Career. Is it Dave Lukas? Dave: It’s D. M. Lukas. Hugh: D. M. Lukas. Dave: I am the weird guy that spells it with a K. I am the one guy out there still, I think. Hugh: I misspelled you. How did I do that? Dave: No worries. It’s very common. Hugh: I’m sure they can find it on Amazon. It’s been a bestseller. What is a link to find you online? Dave: You can type in Dave Lukas in Google and find a lot of things. I am on all the social media as themisfitentrepreneur. Misfitentrepreneur.com. You will find everything if you go there. Hugh: People ask me how to find you. Did you try to Google me? I’m all over, as are you. A couple of interesting things. Thank you for explaining about the book. I got to get me one. There is a journey in writing a book of self-discovery. It’s self-empowering when you are trying to share with other people. Did you find that true? Dave: It’s my first book. It took me two years. Advice for writing a book if you are going to write a book: Ready, fire, aim is okay. You can always revise it. I really wanted it to be perfect in every way, so I went around and around and around. My wife knew me pretty well. In the beginning, I would dabble in it a little bit and go away from it. She knew me pretty well and said, “When you are truly committed to it, you’ll do it.” On those words, that was literally about a year. A little less than a year later, it was done, published, out. It is a journey. You discover things about yourself and who you are. You learn about things that you didn’t even think about. Especially when you are learning to write, most people aren’t professional authors. I’m not either. But you start to study how to get a message across succinctly. That transfers into other areas of your life. When you are on a meeting like this, don’t say too many words; only a few will do to get a message across. It’s interesting going through that process. You learn a lot, you grow a lot, and you discover some things in yourself you never knew you had. Hugh: Those are good words. That book seems like it would be valuable. As soon as I hang up, I’m getting it. In that explanation, there is something that came to my mind. A month ago, I had on a colleague of mine, Dr. David Gruder, organizational and developmental psychologist. We were talking about the shadow, that part of us that holds us back. You and I talked a little bit about mindset. This whole thing about sales, it requires a different mindset because we have the wrong idea about sales. I do work with lots of different kinds of entrepreneurs, including those who are clergy. They don’t believe in sales. What is evangelism if it’s not selling something you believe in? You have a need, you find value, and you connect people with that value. One of the people I want to have on here who is a friend of mine is Bob Circosta, who sold over $11 billion worth of stuff on the home shopping channels. He hates to sell, but he teaches people how to sell, and he is brilliant at it. It’s about the transfer of feelings, but it’s also offering people value. Would you speak to this? How do we reframe our thinking? The book that I referred to As a Man Thinketh has a lot of really meaty stuff. What does Dave Lukas have to say on how we need to reposition our thinking no matter what kind of entrepreneur we are and what kind of organization? I think it starts with us reframing our thinking. Would you agree? Dave: It is. This is one of my favorite topics to talk about because it’s where most people struggle the most. They actually don’t realize a lot of things about the way that they think. It’s funny you just mentioned a pastor or priest having trouble selling. What are you doing giving a sermon? When you are giving a sermon and doing the verse of the day and explaining that and trying to connect that with people’s lives so they take it and make a difference with it, that’s what you’re doing. You’re selling them on understanding that sermon. You don’t look at it that way, but that’s what you’re doing. We’ll take a step back from that and a step back even from sales. Here is the thing that a lot of people don’t realize about the way that they think. I’ll ask you: When the baby comes out of the womb, is their success and path in life already predetermined? When they get out of the womb, do they say, “Beautiful baby. Too bad they will never make more than $35,000.” Hugh: We tend to do that as irresponsible adults. We put limits on others, which sometimes they accept and sometimes they don’t. Dave: What you just said makes a lot of sense. If you guys think about that, you really come out with a clean slate, but we actually are conditioned to be who we are in life. A lot of that conditioning is great. Sources: parents, friends, media, culture, school, religion, everything has an impact on who we are. The thing that people don’t realize is that we have two minds. We have our subconscious mind and our conscious mind. Our conscious mind is what you use when you think to give an answer, like I am thinking it through now. That is your conscious mind. But your subconscious mind is actually the most powerful part of the brain. It is the animal part of the brain. It is the part that runs you without you even knowing it. How else do you think to drive a car or throw a ball? In a lot of situations, you just react. What you say is a reaction. You don’t really think. You say it, you do it. That is your subconscious. What the subconscious gets its information from is all that conditioning over the years. Basically it files that away in your brain, and when scenarios or instances come up, it takes that reaction or that way of thinking and applies it. You at home, how many things do you say because that is what you learned from your parents, or maybe things you do because that is what my parents did. That is all conditioning. The cool thing is there are a lot of cool things that come from that, cultural things, traditions, etc. But there are things that come into our lives that if you stopped and thought about it, you may not actually accept about yourself. You may think that $50,000 is a lot of money, or you say that, but when you step back and think about it, you say, “That is actually not a lot of money. I think $500,000 is a lot of money.” Or so on. The trick that people have to learn is what I call really the awareness factor. Awareness is the catalyst to change. Once you understand that you have been conditioned to be certain ways, then you have the choice to keep them and keep using them in your life or recondition yourself for what you want. I’ll give you a great example as to how the mind can quickly be reconditioned. Have you ever wanted or saw a car that you really like? Maybe a cherry red whatever. It’s amazing how after you put that to memory and say, “I really like that car. I want that car in that color,” how much you see them on the roads. I don’t know if you’ve ever had that experience before or seen that, but it happens. I remember when I first saw an Aston Martin on the roads here, I said, “That’s the car.” It’s the Vanquish. I went home and looked it up. That is on the goal board. That is the car. I had never seen an Aston Martin before that. But the next week, I saw four of them on the roads. That is your subconscious. Once you give it something, for all the credit we give it, it’s actually pretty dumb. It’s the animal part of the brain. It filed it away and started looking for it and pointing it out to me. It’s the same in all aspects of your life, from your financials to your relationships to everything. This is where once you are aware of this, you can start to do a few things. The first thing that I talk about with people is you have to develop what I call your inner coach. This is that little voice inside of your head that catches you when you go to start saying something or you go to start doing something that you don’t agree with in your life. It could be something that you learned from somewhere else or you have done over and over again but you realize that it’s not you. That’s not who I want to be. And you start to realize it. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a lifelong skillset that you have to do with this to start to change the way you think. What you do is you do what I call stop, ask, and choose. You stop yourself in the moment, ask yourself, “Is this the thought or reaction I want to have?” and choose the path forward that you feel is best for you. When you start to do that, you recondition that brain. When it comes to finances, if your success and wealth path is set to a certain number, you can start to retrain your brain to set it to a higher number. Ask yourself how you will get there. That activates the side of the creative brain and allows you to start growing and learning and taking the steps you need to go to those higher levels. It’s not easy for anybody. But you look at a lot of the most successful people in the history of the world. You will see that this trait runs common with them. Whether they figured it out or were just naturally gifted at it, this is something that they truly understand. They truly understand how to have true choice and gain control over their thoughts and the way they do things. I have a couple more points to that, but I will stop there if you have any questions. Hugh: Well, I do. I do. Or some observations. I am still in sync with all of that. Three weeks ago, on an interview like this, I was at the Napoleon Hill Foundation, which is a two-hour drive from me, speaking to the executive director, who used all of Napoleon Hill’s philosophies, running a bank or other businesses. He is now the executive director for the legacy of Napoleon Hill with his foundation. What you are talking about, the things that Napoleon Hill discovered when he interviewed all of these famous people, I never thought about whether they were aware of it or not, but they all had this trait as positive image failure was not an option. It was the subconscious that you program with your conscious. Bob Proctor speaks about that a lot. You are sort of springboarding on Napoleon Hill’s writings and philosophies, aren’t you? Dave: None of this stuff is new. In fact, it was around way before Napoleon Hill. Aristotle was talking about this stuff. Hugh: Amen. Dave: It’s been packaged in different ways over the years that at the time made the most sense for people to understand it based on where they were in life. Napoleon Hill was a wake-up call to a generation essentially. When he wrote that, he packaged it in a way that really helped people to grasp it and be in sync with it and become aware so they really could put it into effect in their lives. We have seen it in other ways. We have seen The Secret and other things that have been packaged around this concept. But at the very root core of it, it comes down to a very simple process: your beliefs lead to the way you think. The way you think leads to the way you feel, the way you feel leads to your actions, and ultimately your actions lead to your results. Now if you take out the middle of that, you get beliefs lead to your results. What you truly believe ultimately becomes your results. What you focus on in life becomes your life. This is where the clarity is so important to understand what you truly believe. How many people take the time to stop and ask themselves what they truly believe? What do I truly believe about my life? What do I truly believe about my finances, my relationships, my family, my spirituality? What do I truly believe? We live in such a fast-paced society nowadays. We stop the microwave with three seconds left, I often joke. We can’t wait those three seconds anymore. Ding on the phone and we are automatically trained. Talk about subconscious conditioning. The phone dings and we are automatically on it. When do we have time? Or does it not feel like we don’t have time to stop and ask ourselves what we truly believe in life? Take two hours and put pen to paper on what you truly believe. It will change your life. What you truly believe will turn to actions in your life. You have to constantly remind yourself of this stuff. You can’t just do it once and be done with it. Again, what happened in the news yesterday? Anybody remember? It moves that fast. A great thing for you to do is remind yourself of these things. I will give you a simple one. I know it sounds goofy, but I have been doing it almost every day for a decade now. I have a white board in my office. When I walk in every single day, it says, “What type of attitude will I choose to have today? Great, fair, or poor.” Every morning, I have to come in and take a marker and circle which one of those I am going to have. I know it sounds rudimentary, but remember the subconscious is the animal, rudimentary part of our brain. Every day, I come in and not once in ten years have I circled fair or poor. It’s always great. When something doesn’t go right or I feel myself starting to react, that bubbling up inside you that we have, I look up there and saw that I circled I am going to have a great attitude today. I stop myself, ask myself how I want to go forward, and then choose the way that I want to do it. I can’t count how many times how having a simple board in front of me has made a difference and saved a deal or relationship or allowed me to better coach someone or make the right decision at the right times because just like everybody else, it’s a work in progress in life. I still react to things. I am not perfect; ask my wife. Little things like that make such a huge difference. Remember we started this by talking about the high-performing and successful people, they do little things incrementally better consistently. That is an example of one little one that works really well for me. Hugh: Consistently. I love that word you just slid in there. You’re talking about the structure. I laughed when you were talking early on in the conversation about having a structure in place. I am a musician. It’s a very ridged discipline. It’s mathematical and exacting. We have a structure. But because we have the structure, now we can be creative within that structure. Now we can spend our energy letting it happen. We are not spending energy trying to figure out what happens next. You’re hitting a lot of universal truths. What Napoleon Hill did was understand the laws of nature that have always existed, but he did what I would call original research by interviewing people who actually employed it. Like you said, he put it into a system that people could replicate that goes back to Aristotle and Biblical writers and other points in history. It is very consistent with all of that. He lists the attributes of true wealth. Money is the last one because it is the least important, but it is the result of all the value. The law of attraction came out of that. We are talking about that. We are also talking about programming your subconscious. That was a big part of that. Bob Proctor speaks about a lot. I don’t know if you understand or know the work of Murray Bowen. It is leadership methodology, understanding ourselves from our family of origins. We have this DNA that is imprinted into us, like software that is loaded into our computer. Unfortunately, a lot of people just use the defaults with the software and haven’t learned to program it appropriately. A whole lot of the things you are saying really ring true, no matter where we are working. I call my audience social entrepreneurs because we are not doing the corporate things. We are doing something independent. However, we have lots of liabilities. Our assets are our liabilities. The things that make us independent also penalize us. The mindset difference. You also talk about consistency. That is a huge one in my book. You also talked about having a structure in place so you know what you’re supposed to do. Your white board thing is brilliant. Napoleon Hill talks about that. Read your goal and set your attitude. He found that all these people could not hold a positive and negative idea simultaneously. You’re hitting a lot of the strong points. These are all in your book, are they? Dave: Yeah, a lot of this is discussed. I have expanded upon it since then, but much of what I just said is in there. Even the structures side of it, you mention the structure. Once you understand this stuff, you have to have a way to systematically input it in your life. That is how you plan things and how you do little things. Every morning, Tony Robbins does something similar like this. I have my own spin on this. I do what I call my 10-minute prime. It’s ten minutes to center yourself before the day starts, especially in today’s age. We are getting hit from all sides of all kinds of things throughout the day. It moves so much faster than it did in Napoleon Hill’s time or even ten years ago. It’s funny. A lot of people don’t even think about this, but the iPhone is 10 years old just this year. Doesn’t it seem like it’s been a lot longer than that? It’s amazing where we have come and even more amazing where we are going to be a few years from now, let alone ten years from now. Having the ability to put that consistent structure in your life, that is what I do with my ten-minute prime. I do three things I’m grateful for for the day. I center myself around gratitude and start my day with gratitude. That makes such a huge difference. If you have ever had a day where you start off late and it snowballs from there, and everything seems like nothing goes right throughout the day, it’s because that negative start has compounded in your subconscious and continues into everything else throughout the day. Having a process like a ten-minute prime where you stop and say I’m thankful for this or that, I believe in this, and this is a great thing for those in the world today, that gets your mind in a whole different way. It stops that negative thinking and stops things from happening like that. Hugh: That’s huge. You are slipping in some gems. I want to highlight that. You begin with a position of gratitude. There is abundance we are not grateful for, and it’s there for us to claim. I want to highlight that. Sorry to interrupt you. But that is so key. Dave: No, not a problem. I fly a lot. I am in the travel industry. I do everything from speaking. I split time between here and San Diego or my biggest office is for Grass. I am back and forth. I do a lot of flying. I am still amazed at how annoyed people get flying. You are in a seat going 550 miles an hour through the air on your laptop working or watching a movie or whatever. Come on! 100 years ago, you were on horseback trying to cross the Rocky Mountains. Come on! It’s just amazing what we have at our disposal that we take for granted. Hugh: It’s amazing. You have a lot of nuggets in this. We will transcribe this so there will be places for us to underline all of this great stuff. Dave, I knew you were great. I didn’t know you were this great. This is awesome. I could talk to you all day, but I don’t think people are going to listen to us all day. So I try to keep these interviews to a manageable length. We are on the downside of an hour here. As we wrap this up, think about what are some of the key points you want to leave people with? We are serious about changing the world. We got great stuff. We are entrepreneurs, but we are compromised by all of these things you have highlighted. What are some thoughts you’d like to leave people with so they can continue thinking? What are some things you’d like to leave people with as final thoughts? Dave: The first thing is be deliberate about your success. Take some time to plan and write down what you want. Get clear on what you want. Be deliberate about it. If you have ever had a day where you feel you have worked really hard and at the end of the day have nothing to show for it, that is pretty common. That happens because we don’t plan for it. We don’t sit there and say, “What do we need to accomplish today?” The other half of my ten-minute prime is I do the three things I need to thrive for the day. These are the three things that are going to make the biggest impacts on my world, my businesses, family, relationships, whatever it may be for that day. I take the time to think through the three most important things I can do today to further our mission and what we are doing. If you do nothing else but that, it will make such a huge difference. Be deliberate about your success. The second thing is you can never stop learning. I always say your education begins after school, whether that’s high school or college. Whatever it is, your education begins when you decide that it really begins. Take that time. I knew in today’s fast-paced world, get on a regular regiment. Read, listen to podcasts, seek out things. Anything can be learned. Whatever you don’t know, you can learn. Seek out those that have done it. The beautiful thing about today’s world is you can access all of it. Whatever you want to learn is at your fingertips, and it’s probably free. Get yourself into a mode where you are consistently learning and growing. If you are not growing, you are dying. If you are not growing yourself and your knowledge and your capabilities, then you are kind of dying. You are not reaching your true potential. Those are two things that I think are really important to anybody in success, no matter what you do, whether you are a nonprofit or in business, whether you are an athlete or in school, whatever it is. The last thing is look for those little things. Look for those little things that you can do just a little bit better than anybody else. Think about it. The 100-meter dash in the Olympics is won by 1/100/100 of a second. That makes the difference. You take inventory of your strengths, understand what you are really good at, and be deliberate there. Look for those ways to get incrementally better so it translates to a big difference for you. You will be amazed at how fast you can grow if you do that. Hugh: Wow. I loved everything that you have said in this interview, Dave. Dave Lukas, D. M. Lukas, author of The Ten-Year Career, thank you for sharing your brilliance with my audience today. Dave: Thanks for having me on. It’s been a pleasure to be with you. Any questions anybody has, I am always open. I respond to all emails that are sent to me. www.misfitentrepreneur.com. Any way that we can help, let us know. Hugh: Here we are. I sent an inquiry. Thank you so much, Dave.