Podcast appearances and mentions of david just

What is it that forms and shapes us the most as human beings? What affects the way that we perceive reality and gives form to the thoughts that we have  throughout the course of a day? Do we have any awareness of an interior life or are we simply drawn along by the flow of external realities; demands, responsibilities or forms of entertainment?  According to the Fathers and Saint Isaac the Syrian, we are in a constant state of receptivity through our senses. Part of being a human being is that we see and perceive everything that is around us; all of which give rise to a multitude of thoughts, images and feelings. Our lack of awareness of reality and of the internal life and the effect that our thoughts have upon us means that we often allow or identity to be shaped by the changing tides of the times or the constant shifting of our emotions.  In so many ways, the Fathers were the first depth psychologists. Their movement to great solitude and the stillness of the desert allowed a greater awareness to emerge of what was going on internally. This of course didn't lead immediately to understanding or transformation. However, the awareness did allow them to begin to discern the source of their thoughts, what thoughts predominate, and where their thoughts were leading them.  Thoughts can be so strong and so deeply rooted that they become habitual - as well as the actions that follow from them. These habitual thoughts and actions the Fathers call “passions” and the passions as a whole are referred to as the “world”.  Our growing capacity to acknowledge the dominant passions and to struggle with them allows two things to begin to emerge: a good transformation of our way of life and a greater capacity to understand the nature of our thoughts. Simply put, one begins to be able to measure one's way of life by what arises from within.   In this Homily, Saint Isaac is setting the stage for guiding us along a path to spiritual healing and transformation in Christ. The fruit of the struggle promises wholeness, freedom, and the joy that our sin often prevents. When we are guided simply by our private judgment or by what satisfies our most basic needs, then our understanding of things becomes very insular and myopic and we lose sight of the dignity and destiny that is ours' in Christ.  The more that we desire the life and freedom that Isaac describes above the more discover that we need to have no fear of anything. One who has tasted the love and mercy of Christ also finds emerging within himself the courage of a lion. The fear of soul that once overshadowed him succumbs before this ever-present love like wax from the heat of a flame. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:08:36 Bob Čihák, AZ: Is this the book? Amazon has: The Secret Seminary: Prayer and the Study of Theology by Fr. Brendan Pelphrey  | Apr 28, 2012 00:16:08 Mary Clare Wax: It has all the bells and whistles! Love it 00:18:29 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 124, paragraph 14 00:19:08 Myles Davidson: Replying to "P. 124, paragraph 14" “Think to yourself…” 00:20:04 Suzanne Romano: Hey Studge! 00:20:29 Stephen Romano: Hey sis  :) 00:20:47 Suzanne Romano: Reacted to Hey sis  :) with "

As the property management industry continues to evolve, it's important to stay up to date on the latest innovations in technology. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with David Normand from Vendoroo to talk about AI's role in the future of property management. You'll Learn [01:29] The AI Revolution [08:47] The Importance of Empathy and Human Touch [22:21] Decreasing the Cost of Maintenance Coordination [32:29] New Features Coming to Vendoroo Quotables “As any property manager believes, we know how to do it the best.” “If you're not reading articles and studying up on this, I think that's going to catch you by surprise pretty quickly.” “Empathy is the magic lubrication that makes everything better.” “Empathetic reflection and empathy is a magical ingredient.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript [00:00:00] David: If you're not building AI tools from working with your partners, from being on the ground floor with them and using the data and building tools based upon the data and their pain points and their failures, buyer beware. If somebody's coming to you and saying, Hey, we figured this all out in the lab. [00:00:14] David: Come use it. Yeah. Right. Buyer beware. [00:00:18] Jason: All right. Welcome property management entrepreneurs to the DoorGrow Show or the Property Management Growth podcast. I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive group coaching mastermind for residential property management entrepreneurs. We've been doing this for over a decade and a half. [00:00:39] Jason: I've brought innovative strategies and optimizations to the property management industry. I have spoken to thousands of property management companies. I've coached over 600 businesses. I've rebranded over 300 companies like Bar Rescue for property managers, cleaning up their businesses, and we would love to help coach you and support you and your growth. [00:01:01] Jason: We have innovative strategies for building out growth engines, for building out your operational challenges, for helping you figure out how to get to the next level in your business and one of the cool tools that I'm excited to showcase today with my guest here, David Norman, is Vendoroo. We've had you on the show before. [00:01:19] Jason: Welcome back David.  [00:01:20] David: Yeah. Thank you for having me. It felt like years ago, it was only about, I think eight months ago since we did this, so much has changed over the time, so it's great to be back. Yeah, it's great to be back.  [00:01:29] Jason: Good to have you. I know you're in the middle of this AI revolution, which AI is just innovating and changing so rapidly. It probably does feel like years ago, so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been crazy. You guys have made a lot of changes too, so, you even changed your brand name from the last time we had you on the show. Yeah. Which was I think Tulu. Yeah. Right. And so, yeah. So why don't you get us caught up on what's going on 'cause, you know, there's been a lot.  [00:01:55] David: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you first of all for having me here today, Jason, and from the entire Vendoroo group of us, which, you know, the team has grown 10 x over the past eight months, which has been awesome. And I just also wanted to start in thanking everybody from what we call our client partners who have jumped in into this great unknown that is AI and is going to be like, how is this going to work in our industry? And so that's really what we've been focusing on the past eight months. You know, it's been a unbelievable journey of both failures, successes learnings and insights. And ultimately we're getting excited here at the NARPM broker owner which is in Denver to unveil Vendoroo. Like this is the coming out party. And so we're super excited if you're going to be there. We have a massive booth that we have set up that we have the ai alliance with other people that are working in the AI space, and I really hope that you guys come over and check it out. I promise this. [00:02:53] David: You'll never see a booth or a display like we have set up. At the NARPM broker owner. So.  [00:02:58] Jason: Now I want to go attend it. Yeah. Just so I can see your booth.  [00:03:01] David: So, let me put it this way. You may see the robot from the Jetsons walking around the booth walking around the NARPM broker owner, so, okay. [00:03:07] David: Yeah. Rosie? Yeah. You may see something like that. So she'll be vacuuming with her apron? Yeah. She'll be doing a little social engagement. It'll be cool. So, okay. Okay.  [00:03:17] Jason: Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, so catch us up on what, like, let's get into the kind of the background and the overview for people that have never heard about Vendoroo and what you guys do and how you got into this. [00:03:29] Jason: Yeah. Give people kind of the backstory. Yeah.  [00:03:31] David: Yeah. Thank you for that. So really the backstory is that, you know, we know of this AI economy that's coming, right? And there was a few of us, you know, I've been in this industry for 18 years. You know, I've managed you know, portfolios of 40,000 doors. [00:03:47] David: I've managed them for governments. You know, I started off with our own property management. Much like you guys. We started off with 80 doors. We grew to 550 doors in four years. So it was exciting to know that technology that was coming that promised duplication because, you know, as any property manager believes, we know how to do it the best, right. [00:04:05] David: And so what we decided to do is to come together and say, Hey, if AI's coming, there's two things that we need to figure out. Number one is how is this going to help us show value in this new industry to this new generation of property owners that is here, that is coming, that has been raised in the technology world too, right? [00:04:25] David: And two, can it actually duplicate our efforts? Can it actually be an employee for us? Right? And I don't care what people are promising about ai, you don't know until you get into what we call like, you know, get into the weeds, you got to get into the trenches. And so that's what we did, right? We went out and we were the guys that grabbed the torch and we said, we are going to take all the risk. [00:04:46] David: We are going to jump into the mix. We're going to ask people to jump onto the bandwagon with us and we're going to figure this out. And oh my gosh, what an unbelievable eight months it has been in learning and insights. And I can't wait to get into all the things that we've learned about the property management industry. [00:05:01] David: But that's really what we've been focusing on here the past eight months, right? So we started off with well hey, can the AI assist the va? Can it turn them into a super va? Is that what it's going to be? And, you know, some people were like, yay. And some people were like nay, you know? And so, and you know, because that human failure still was there, right? [00:05:21] David: And you know, what happens if they left? There was that inconsistency. And then it was like, all right, well what can the AI own? Right? What can it do? What can it perfect? And you know, can AI actually be the last employee that I ever hire? Right. That's really, that's a really cool thing to do. [00:05:39] David: But the property managing community had some really specific demands that they said that if this is going to be the last employee that I've had, it has to do this. And that's what I'm excited about our new technology 'cause it's doing those things. You know? [00:05:52] Jason: Yeah. And now you guys have made some big moves. I know, like I've, I have clients that we've sent over to you and they've shared some incredible stories. Like one client, I think he had 154 units or something like under management, and he said in the first day you're of turning on Vendoroo, like it closed out like 80 something work orders. [00:06:12] Jason: Yeah, like, it was crazy. Another client, they had a little more doors. They said it was like 50 something work orders were closed out in the first day of turning it on. And so, I mean, you're creating some dramatic stuff. Like this is a very different thing than what people are used to in maintenance. [00:06:27] David: Yeah. Yeah. And really what the exciting part about this, Jason, is that maintenance is actually really easy. And I know people laugh when I say that it's managing communications that is extremely difficult. Okay. Okay. Right, because you have, you know what AI told us about our industry over the last eight months is when we dove in with it and it took a step back and it said, whoa, you guys don't have a data problem here. [00:06:51] David: You guys have a emotion problem here. There's very specific categories of emotion that are in this space, right? Like, how do you build a technology that senses something? And I know this relates with property managers, 'cause I know this for myself. A property manager can walk into their office, sit down at their desk, and their spidey senses go off and they know something's wrong. [00:07:15] David: There's no screen that's telling them anything. There's no spreadsheet. They know something's off. Right. And so the AI is like, well, the statuses really don't matter that much to me based upon the feedback that I'm seeing from the property managers. Because the status and the communication all seem to be in order, but there's a disruption somewhere. [00:07:35] David: So I need to know about people's emotions. I need to understand about is the resident happy? Does the owner feel supported? Is the vendor being directed? And does the property manager believe that I can own the outcome for this? And it was really cool to start seeing its learning and understanding and picking up on these cues where, you know, people say that this is a data-driven industry. [00:07:55] David: It's really in an emotion driven industry.  [00:07:57] Jason: Oh yeah. It's a relationship and emotion industry for sure. Yeah. Yeah, big time.  [00:08:01] David: And it's really cool to see, and it's really started happening over this past last 60 days, the amount of residents, I was actually just looking at one before I jumped on here, that are like thanking the system, right? [00:08:15] David: Imagine that, like think of all of us that actually worked with the chat bot at like Verizon. I've never thanked that chatbot at Verizon for being their customer service. Right.  [00:08:25] Jason: And how do I get a representative? Representative. Representative!  [00:08:28] David: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Versus you seeing people, you know, seeing individuals saying to the, you know, saying to the Vendoroo maintenance coordinator, Hey, I really appreciate feeling supported and how fast you acted because you know, there's empathy that's inside of its law and learning. So I don't want to get too much into the details on there. But yeah, these are some of the exciting things that we're working on.  [00:08:47] Jason: I mean, empathy is the magic lubrication that makes everything better. [00:08:52] David: Yeah,  [00:08:52] Jason: I mean they, they've done studies. Teams, even in working in warehouses, are more productive if the team has a higher level of empathy. Yeah. And doctors perform better. Yeah. If there's a higher level of empathy, there's less malpractice suits, like empathetic reflection and empathy is a magical ingredient. [00:09:10] Jason: I coach clients to add that in during sales. Yeah. 'cause their close rate goes up dramatically. Yeah. Right. So yeah. So leveraging and like getting the AI to actually be empathetic in its communication. Yeah. When that's probably not a natural skill for a lot of maintenance coordinators to be empathetic. [00:09:26] David: It's not, it's not a natural skill for a lot of people in the maintenance industry. Right? Yes. Especially when you talk about burnout. People begin developing views of the rental community, right? Like, oh my gosh, they're calling again, and that empathy meter goes lower and lower and lower. [00:09:41] David: Yeah. As people have been in the industry longer. But isn't it great that you have an employee now that knows that, yeah, it's my duty, rain or shine, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 a year to always operate at the highest level of empathy? I never have a bad day. I never take a day off. [00:09:57] David: I'm never upset. I'm never short with somebody on the phone, never tired, never like, oh my gosh, Susan is calling me again. I'm going to let the phone just ring because I'm annoyed of talking to her. And it just is constantly hitting that same level of standard. And this is what's exciting to me, is that there are people that that have played around with this and have been a part of what I call the pain phase, right? [00:10:20] David: The pain phase is that understanding the way that agentic AI works, right? It's input in output. Input, output, right? The more that you're putting into it, the better the results are that you're going to get out of it, okay? Right. It's just like training an employee. So over the last eight months, what we've seen is that the community has trained this to be the level of a person that has now been working in the industry for five years. [00:10:46] David: In eight months. It's got five years of learning in eight months. Okay. Wow. In the next six to 12 months, we're probably looking at somebody that has 10 to 15 years understanding in the next six to 12 months and understand the level of type of tasks that it can do, especially getting into estimates and getting some other work. [00:11:04] David: And again, just you know, having empathy in my own life towards the people that jumped in that are like, what is this all about? Like, how does AI fail? Like, you know, there's still people that are involved and it was like this big like momentous train of like, you know, all these people were jumping on and giving ideas and people are in the loop and now it's weeding everything out and the AI stepping in and saying. [00:11:27] David: Hey, I appreciate all the input that you've given me. Thank you for all your effort. I'm now ready to step up to the plate and to own the outcome. Right. And that's what we're seeing at the NARPM show that's coming out. There's five AI tools. There's a master agent, five AI tools. And you know, I'll give you a couple of pieces here that, you know, we had feedback from our property managers like number one across the board. [00:11:50] David: A property manager said, if I'm hiring AI as my last employee, that has to work in my system. Yeah. Okay. Right. Like I don't want another, I don't want another technology. Yeah.  [00:11:59] Jason: I don't want a new system I got to get every vendor to use or a new system I got to get my team to use or figure out. We don't need another tool to make our lives more difficult. [00:12:08] Jason: No. They've got to use our stuff.  [00:12:09] David: They got to use, we have our existing stack. Yeah. So now the AI is fully integrated into all the most common PMS systems. You know, you have a cool chrome extension that you can download and there's a little yellow kangaroo right right there. And it's actually reading the work order that you're working on, and you can literally just ask it a question now and just being like, Hey, did anybody express frustration or concern on this work order? [00:12:32] David: Right? Because that's the emotion behind the status that you need to know. And it's like, yeah, two days ago Sally said that, you know, she was actually really frustrated about the multiple reschedules by this vendor. And it's like, great, that's a person I should be reaching out to and that's what I should be knowing that a status is never going to tell you. [00:12:47] David: Right? Yeah. It's in your slack, right? So if I have, if I'm on my phone, I'm talking to my employee and I'm laying in bed and I have a panic attack as a property manager, and I'm like, oh my gosh, did we take care of John's refrigerator and the office is closed? I can't get ahold of my employee. Yeah, you can. [00:13:03] David: Your employee works 24 7 now. Hey, can you give me an update on the refrigerator replacement at John's place? Yeah, it was scheduled this day. I contacted John. Everything's good to go. You know, go to sleep. You know, like, like that's the power. Full audit. Full syncing. So it's in your platform. That's really cool. [00:13:21] David: The other thing, it's got to be branded, right? This is a thing that we really learned about, like how important branding is to the community of property managers, right? Yeah. So the communications that go out have to be from your area code that's done. The emails that go out have to have like, you know, your company name and your logo on it. [00:13:39] David: The AI is doing that as well too. So that's being sent out, which is really cool. So people are feeling like, you know, that loyalty to brand is super important. And also do you know now that the AI can ask the residents to give a Google Review and we can link to the Google reviews and give you instant Google reviews to your page through the ai, which is cool, like how it's, it will know that if the success of a Google review is high on the way that the work order was done, that it's probably best to ask this person and it will send them a little thing. [00:14:11] David: Hey, can we get a feedback from you? And we link up to your Google review. And it posts that Google review to generate those 'cause we know those are super, super valuable to property managers. So that's actually going out today. That's kind of a little teaser there. That's the emails out now. [00:14:23] Jason: Nice. We'll have to get you to also connect it to our gather kudos links for clients 'cause then people can pick which review sites. So it diversifies the review profile.  [00:14:32] David: Love it. Love that. I'm going to hook you up with our guy Dotan. He's running that. He's one of our head of product. He's, actually out of Israel. [00:14:39] David: He's a amazing guy. I'd love to get you connected with him. Yeah. Cool. Let's do it. Cool. And then the biggest one too is like, I need a single point of contact. Right. And we knew that before there was a lot of people were still involved. There was a lot of oversight that was going on there, having that confusion and single point of contact. [00:14:56] David: Now it's in your phone, it's in your Slack, it's in your phone extension. It doesn't matter what's going on. You have one point of contact. It's your employee. You ask the question, get the answer, Jason, you can even ask for a change. You can even say, Hey, I want to change a vendor on a job and you'll see that the vendor gets changed for you in the system. [00:15:17] David: You can even say to your ai, and this is the big one: hey how do you triage this work order? And I want you to do this, or I want you to do that. And you just do it right through Slack or right through your PM chat and it makes the change for you. And now you have custom triage and all property managers have the ability to train their own AI for their company. [00:15:36] David: Think how cool that is. A person with 75 doors now, and the product that's being released has their own AI agent customized for their company, right? Yeah. Like, that's what happened over the last eight months, so you can see my excitement. There's been a lot of hard work in this. [00:15:54] David: Yeah, that's amazing. But this has been all the effort and a huge thank you out to everybody who's tried us, you know, even said that this wasn't for them at that point in time because those learnings went into what's going to make this product the best product in the property management space and is going to help people leverage sales and leverage efficiencies and blow their owners' minds away in ways that, that we have never thought about. [00:16:15] David: Oh yeah.  [00:16:16] Jason: Yeah. So I know like initially when you rolled this out, a lot of people were nervous about AI and you guys had kind of a human layer in between the AI and any communication Yeah, initially. Yeah. And so there was like, they had like a reps and a lot of people associated, oh, I've got this rep. [00:16:33] Jason: Yeah. You know, Steven or whatever is my rep or Pedro and I've got Pedro and like, oh no, what if Pedro leaves? And they were associating with that while the AI is really doing the crux of the work. Right. And so you guys have shifted away from even that now the AI is directly communicating with people. [00:16:52] Jason: Correct? Yeah.  [00:16:53] David: Yeah. So let's talk about that. So, definitely, so in the beginning there was like, we all had like lack of trust. We believed what it was going to do, but it was like we had a ton of people still trying, like, you know, using qualified VAs, training them. Like, you know, like, you know, if it fails, like, you know, you have to have a person stepped in and so let's talk about that. [00:17:12] David: So, you know, it was definitely that human layer. And let's talk about where we're at today. It is very clear to us, and the one thing that separates us from everybody is we still believe that humans are super important in this process. Okay? Yeah. And where humans are very important in this process are going to be when the AI says, Hey, I need you to make a phone call to this person for me, right? [00:17:35] David: Hey, I've reached out to this vendor three times and they haven't responded yet. I need you to give a phone call to see what's going on. Right? Hey, I need you to recruit a vendor for me. I need you to reach out and do a recruitment for the vendor. For me. Hey, this owner is asking questions about this estimate. [00:17:51] David: I need you to give a call for me. So the AI is basically able, on a standard work order, the AI can handle 95% of the workflow, no problem. Work order comes in, gets assigned to the resident. It gets out to the vendor. It's under the NTE not to exceed. It's great. The work gets done, the resident uploads its photos, the AI says to the resident, are you happy? [00:18:14] David: Everyone's good. It closes the work order out. Cool. Right. And then if a human...  [00:18:19] Jason: and how is it communicating with the tenant and with the vendor typically? [00:18:24] David: Yep. So, it's very clear that and this isn't a surprise to anybody. Everybody loves text messages, right? Yeah. I mean, that's just, it's just what it is. [00:18:32] David: You literally, like, people will get a phone call and they won't pick up and the text will come back and like text back. Yeah, text me. What do you need? Yeah. Text me here. But, so here's the things that people don't see behind the scenes that we'll talk about. So the complexity that went into. [00:18:51] David: Mapping out how to allow vendors... so a vendor could have like 20 jobs, right? And we don't want to send him like a code that he has to text for every work order so that it links to the right work order. Like what guy wants to do that? Okay. Like that's not how he works. So we figured out how to allow a vendor through AI just to use his regular phone and text anything about this thing. And it's understanding it and it's mapping it, it's routing it to all those work orders because we knew that in order for this to be the last employee somebody would have to handle, it also means that the vendor has to be happy and the same for the resident. [00:19:30] David: They can just text that they have multiple work orders. It understands what work order it's going to. If it's not quite sure, I would ask them, Hey, is this question about this work order? And they say, yeah. And so there's not like, again, codes and links and things that they have to do. It has to be seamless if they're working with a person. [00:19:46] David: So yeah, text message is massive. Email is second, and then phone is third for sure.  [00:19:51] Jason: Got it. So is your AI system calling people yet or you or telling the property manager to make the phone call?  [00:19:58] David: Yeah. People are okay with. If they're calling in like our new front desk agent, which if a person calls in and they want to get information about a listing or if they want to get information about a work order or something like that, or, you know, they're okay with getting that type of information. [00:20:13] David: Yeah. But they are, it is very clear that they are not okay with AI calling them when they're asking for an update on a work order like that. Like that line in the sand very clear. Yeah. And so we have people on on the team. That are constantly monitoring into ai, giving feedback, hitting improvement. [00:20:31] David: I want everybody to know there is not a work order that is taking place that is not touched by a human at least twice.  [00:20:38] Jason: Okay.  [00:20:39] David: Okay. Right.  [00:20:40] Jason: So there's a little, there's some oversight there. There there's, you're watching this, there are humans involved  [00:20:45] David: And then the ai will when it hits certain fail points, right? [00:20:51] David: It then escalates those things up to what we call the human in the loop, right? So there's an AI assistant, we there's people now that we're training a whole new generation of people that are no longer going to be maintenance coordinators. They're AI assistants now, right? And so when the AI says, Hey, this work order is not going down the path that I think it should go to be successful. [00:21:12] David: I'm escalating this up to a human, and so now as a property manager, not only am I getting this AI agent workflow that's standardizing the empathy and the workflows and all the stuff that we talked about in the communications, I also now get a fractional employee that when the AI says, Hey, I need help, I already have an employee that it can reach out to that can make that phone call or call the vendor. [00:21:36] David: But it's also monitoring the AI for me on top of it. So yes, there is, and that's one of the big thing that separates us apart is that the platform comes with what we call a human in the loop, an expert in the loop and so we're training the first generation of AI assistants in the property management industry. [00:21:55] David: Yep.  [00:21:56] Jason: Got it. So the AI maintenance coordinator. Has human assistance. Yep. Underneath it.  [00:22:02] David: And before it was the other way around where Yeah. The AI was assisting the human right. And now the humans are assisting the ai. That's what's happened in the last...  [00:22:11] Jason: that may be the future of all of our roles. [00:22:12] Jason: So,  [00:22:13] David: If you're not reading articles and studying up on this I think that's going to catch you by surprise pretty quickly. Yeah. Learn how to write prompts. I'll tell everybody right now. Yes.  [00:22:21] Jason: Yeah. Interesting. So, now what about this, you know, there's the uncanny, you know, sort of stage where people get a little bit nervous about AI and what do they call it? The uncanny valley or something like this, or right where it gets, it's so close to human that it becomes creepy. And there's some people that have fear about this, that are concerned. You're going to have a lot of late, you know, adopters that are like resistant. "I'll never do ai." [00:22:49] Jason: What would you say to somebody when you get on a sales call and they're like, well, I'm really nervous about this AI stuff, you know, and they just, they don't get it.  [00:22:57] David: Yeah.  [00:22:58] Jason: I'm sure there's people listening right now. They're like, oh man, AI is going to kill us all and it's going to take over the world and it's going to take our jobs. [00:23:05] Jason: And they think it's evil.  [00:23:06] David: Yeah. Yeah. I, and you know, I really want to hear that fear and I want to like, again, have empathy towards that. 'cause I do understand that fear of change causes people to get... Change in general. Yes. Right. It's like, whoa, I like everything the way it's going to be. Right. And we are historically in one of those phases of like, you know, the industrial revolution, the renaissance, like the automobile from horse. [00:23:34] David: Like, this is what is taking place. This is, this will be written down in history. It's massive change. It's a massive change. Massive. So what I would say to them, and not to, not from a way of fear. But to inspire them is there are a lot of hungry entrepreneurs out there that are embracing this head on. [00:23:57] David: Yeah. That are pushing the boundaries and the limits to be able to bring insights and customer service to their clients at a much higher level. And if you want to compete in this new AI economy. I would definitely encourage you to understand and get in and start investing in yourself now. But understand that investing in AI means having some pain threshold. [00:24:21] David: Like you got to get in, like you, you need to be able to give the feedback. You need to understand that if it falls short, do you have to be able to give it the time and the energy and the reward and the payoff of what I'm seeing for property managers who've embraced that when they're sitting there and they're going, I don't touch maintenance at all anymore. Yeah, it's wild. Right? And those are the people that in the beginning of this relationship, and there's a few that come to my head, are the ones that were sending me emails constantly saying, David, this is failing me. I believe in this, but this is failing me. And as my technology partner, I know that you're going to help us get this better. [00:24:58] David: And there is, you know, I have this word down that struggle equals great con conversation, right? Like, and so they had a struggle and that opened up a great conversation and because of that, their technology and the technology is getting better. So yeah, I think that from a personal point of view in this industry, one thing that I want to solve with AI is I think that we can all say that over the past 15 years, we've probably yelled at a lot of vendors or yelled at a lot of VAs or yelled at a lot of people. Let's start yelling at the ai. And then hopefully that the AI will actually eliminate the need for us to ever have to yell at anybody again because it knows us. [00:25:36] David: Yeah. It never fails us.  [00:25:38] Jason: You know? It really is amazing. I mean, your company is creating freedom for the business owner from being involved in maintenance. Yeah. Really?  [00:25:46] David: Yeah.  [00:25:47] Jason: And it just, and they get used to that pretty quickly. Like maintenance is just running and they're like, yeah. It frees up so much head space for them to focus on growth. [00:25:56] Jason: It gives them a whole bunch of like just greater capacity. Yeah. So they feel like, yeah, we could handle adding any number of doors now and we know we can still fulfill and do a good job.  [00:26:07] David: Yeah. Fixed cost scaling. Right? That's a term that we came up with is now that you know that I have a price per door that will cover all my maintenance. So if I went in and brought on 75 doors, I know that I don't have to go out and hire another employee. The system just grows with it and I know exactly what my margin is for all those doors. Right. And as we know previous, before fixed cost scaling a property managers is like, I have enough people. [00:26:32] David: I don't have enough people. Someone quit, someone didn't quit. My profit margins are good. My profit margins are bad. Yeah. And now with these AI tools. You know, you have your front desk employee, you have your maintenance coordinator, you have these fixed cost scales, and now somebody calls you up and says, Hey, I want you to take on 25 doors, and you're like, I have the resource resources for maintenance, which is, we know is 80% of the workload already. I don't have to go out and hire another maintenance coordinator 'cause the system just grows with me, which is cool.  [00:27:00] Jason: So one of the things you shared at DoorGrow Live and you're our top sponsor for the upcoming... Can't wait for DoorGrow Live, can't wait to, so we're really excited to have you back so. [00:27:10] Jason: Everybody make sure you're at DoorGrow Live if you want. Our theme this year is innovating the future of property management. And we're bringing, we're going to be showcasing, innovating pricing structures that are different than how property managers have typically historically priced, that allow you to lower your operational costs and close more deals more easily at a higher price point. [00:27:30] Jason: We're, we'll be showcasing a three tier hybrid pricing model that we've innovated here at DoorGrow, and we've got clients using it. It's been a game changer. We're going to be sharing other cool things about the future hiring systems, et cetera. Right. So you guys will also be there showcasing the future. [00:27:46] Jason: One of the things you shared previously that really kind of struck me as you showed, you did some research and you showed the typical cost. Per unit that most companies had just to cover and deal with maintenance. Yeah. And and then what you were able to get it down to.  [00:28:03] David: Yeah.  [00:28:04] Jason: And that alone was just like a bit of a mind blowing. [00:28:07] Jason: Could you just share a little bit of numbers here?  [00:28:09] David: Yeah. So one of the first things that we had to do when we started way back in the day is figure out well. Like, like what's the impact of AI going to be us from like a cost perspective, right? Is it a huge change? And so we went out on a big survey mission and we were surveying property managers and asking them, what's your cost per door for managing maintenance? [00:28:30] David: How much do you spend every door to manage maintenance? Now the first thing is less than 1% of property managers knew what that cost was. Sure.  [00:28:37] Jason: Oh, sure. Right. Because, but then they got to figure out, oh, we got a maintenance coordinator and we've got these people doing phone calls and they cost this, and yeah, it's complicated. [00:28:45] David: It's complicated. So we built a calculator. Okay. And then people could start adding in that information out into the calculator, and the average person was around $13 and 50 cents a door.  [00:28:56] Jason: Okay. Okay.  [00:28:57] David: Wow. Right, right. So that was where the average person was, somewhere in the low twenties. Yeah. [00:29:01] David: And others were actually pretty good. Like, I'd say like, you know, some of the good ones that we saw were maybe around like, you know, 10, $11 a door or something along that line.  [00:29:09] Jason: They probably had a large portfolio would be my guess.  [00:29:12] David: Yeah. And also I think a lot of it's just like, you know, I don't know if they were still accounting for all their software and everything that they had. [00:29:19] David: Maybe they're not factoring everything. Yeah. No, I think if we really dug in, it'd be different. So now we know that, you know, the base package of what people are getting in. The average cost of what people are paying for 24 7 services that's emergencies around the clock is about $7 and 50 cents a door, right? [00:29:37] David: So right off the bat in AI's first swing, it said we cut the cost in half. Yeah. Okay. Right. So 50% reduction. I mean, to me as an owner, a 50% reduction in cost. That's like. You know, alarms and celebration going off, you know? For sure. And then, yeah.  [00:29:55] Jason: And that's, if everything just stayed the same, like it was still the same level of quality, cutting in half would be a solid win right there. [00:30:03] Jason: Yeah.  [00:30:03] David: Yeah. That's just like status quo stuff. And now what, with the release of the new Vendoroo product that, that's actually being announced here today. The email's going out to all of our existing clients of all the new features that are coming out now, we're starting to see that. You know that quality is now increasing to where if you were to go out and hire that person, you may have to be spending, you know, 55,000 or $65,000 a year. [00:30:29] David: Right? So now it's like saying, okay, if we can get as good as what these people are using for their VAs right, and we know what that cost is, and they're saying that's, you know, that's what their factors is. Well, what happens in the next six to 12 months when this is a seasoned person that you would've to pay $85,000 a year to? [00:30:45] David: Right. Yeah. And right, because they have knowledge of. Estimates and knowledge of vendor routing and knowledge of, you know, it can handle...  [00:30:53] Jason: you've invested so much time into them, so much attention. They know your properties and know your portfolio. They know the vendors. Like you've invested so much into this person that now they sort of have you by the balls so that they're like, Hey, I want 80 k or I walk.  [00:31:06] David: Yeah.  [00:31:06] Jason: You're like, you've got to come up with it.  [00:31:08] David: Yeah.  [00:31:09] Jason: Right. You've got to do it.  [00:31:10] David: Yeah.  [00:31:10] Jason: And you know, because that's not easy to create. And a lot of people, in order to have a good maintenance coordinator, they need a veteran of the industry. Veteran of industry. [00:31:19] Jason: They need somebody that's been doing this a long time.  [00:31:21] David: Yeah.  [00:31:22] Jason: And that's really hard to find.  [00:31:24] David: Yes. It's extremely hard to find as we know. One of the things that I think that we're doing for this industry is we're actually preserving knowledge that I don't think is necessary getting passed down. [00:31:33] David: Yeah. You know, there's a lot less people that I think are as handy as they once were in the Americas and so we have a lot of that knowledge. Like, you know, we know that the average age of an electrician is in the sixties, the average age of a plumber's in the sixties. And these guys, you know, they have wealth of knowledge that it can troubleshoot anything that's going on in a house. [00:31:54] David: And so to be able to try to preserve some of that, so maybe if a person does come in, you know, maybe there's some knowledge sharing along the lines. But let's take it even in another step forward Jason that in the future, you know, the AI is going to know the location of the hot water tank in that house. [00:32:10] David: It's going to then add it automatically to the system, like. It's going to know more knowledge than they will because it's going to have maps of every single property that's all currently sitting inside of, you know, that maintenance coordinator's head, right? And so it's going to, it's going to actually know more than them, you know. [00:32:26] Jason: Yeah. That's wild. Yeah, it is. Absolutely. It's the future. Cool. Well, you're rolling out a bunch of new features. You're announcing these today. You've told me a little bit, but why don't you tell the listeners what's changing, what's new, what innovations have come out? What are you guys launching? [00:32:41] David: Yeah. Exciting. Yeah. So, the biggest one I think is, which is the most exciting is, is Resiroo, which is the first one that actually handles all the communications with the resident and does the triage and troubleshooting. First one of what are you talking about? So we have our products. [00:32:57] David: So you have these AI tools, right? These agents. Right.  [00:33:00] Jason: And so, you know, every, so think of them like different sort of people?  [00:33:04] David: Skill sets. Yeah. Different person. Okay. Exactly. And so that's when you come and see our display at the NARPM conference, you'll actually will see these five agents kind of in their work desk and in their environments, kind of cool. [00:33:15] David: Okay. Able to see them right. So the coolest part about that one is we're doing a major product you know, update on that for not only the knowledge base, but we're actually turning that over to the company. We were talking about this a little bit before, and now they own their own AI agent and they can customize it into how they want it to ask questions or the type of questions and the mindsets when it's triaging stuff. [00:33:41] David: Triaging work orders for their portfolio. Like super cool. So fully customizable to your company, right?  [00:33:49] Jason: So now sometimes the more humans get involved, the more they mess stuff up.  [00:33:54] David: Yes. We make sure they don't mess it up. So everyone's going to learn how to write prompts and they'll submit it into us. [00:33:59] David: And we have a great team of AI engineers that when that knowledge base is written or what they're doing. We will ensure that it is put in so that it actually produces the desire outcome, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's a very exciting one. The second one that I'm that I think is so cool, do you know that only 10% of all estimates get approved by the owner without one or multiple questions? [00:34:23] David: Because owners really struggle with trust when it comes to estimates. Like 10%. Like, that's a really bad number, I felt as the industry that owners only believe us one out of 10 times. Like that's the way I took that. Yeah. Right. And so, Owneroo is what I coined inside, is the estimate of the future. [00:34:41] David: That really was looking in understanding like what was, what questions was the owner asking when they were rejecting a bid that that we could proactively ask the answer for them to help guide them to understanding the value in this estimate that they're looking at in historical context of the property. [00:35:00] David: How many other people have experienced this issue? Like, like there's a whole bunch of factors that should go into an estimate and an estimate should no longer be like, here's a cost from Frank. Right? Like, like that was like, like that was...  [00:35:14] Jason: here's what Frank said it is. Yeah. Like that was like from the 1940s. [00:35:17] Jason: That's good. How do I trust that?  [00:35:18] David: How do I trust that? That was from the forties and we're still...  [00:35:21] Jason: how much went into this decision? Was this just out of the blue, like pulled out of your ass or is this like legit?  [00:35:27] David: Yeah. Yeah. What's the, you know, we live in a data-driven world, so what's the intellect behind this estimate? [00:35:33] David: And so I'm really excited about Owneroo, which is going to be the new standard for the way the estimates are created. We have the front desk agent which is coming out. So, that one is going to handle phone calls that are coming in, be able to talk about available listings, actual general questions about leases route phone calls over to property managers for you. [00:35:54] David: So again. Very human-like interaction, great AI voice. Actually. We feel it's going to be the best in the industry. So a person's calling in, just like they're calling your office able to handle all those front desk things. We, we have the PM chat, which is now the employee which is fully integrated into all of your systems. [00:36:14] David: It's in Slack. That's your employee that you get to talk to. We believe that if you're going to hire somebody, they should be inside of your communication channels. You have the Google Chrome extension that it's on right inside your AppFolio or your buildium or your Rentvine software that you can ask and talk to it. [00:36:31] David: So, yeah, so we have a lot of exciting products that have come out. And then of course the backbone of all of them in the middle is Vendoroo, which handles all the scheduling, all the communications. You know, a resident asks for an update, responds to them, an owner asks for an update, it responds to them. [00:36:48] David: And you know, it handles actually the body of the work order. So you have those five tools, we believe are what the property management industry said. If you are going to give me an employee, this is what the employee has to be. This is what makes up that employee. So we say that these tools, these agents were actually built by the property management industry. [00:37:08] David: And that excites me because if you're not building AI tools from working with your partners, from being on the ground floor with them and using the data and building tools based upon the data and their pain points and their failures, buyer beware. If somebody's coming to you and saying, Hey, we figured this all out in the lab. [00:37:25] David: Come use it. Yeah. Right. Buyer beware.  [00:37:29] Jason: Yeah. So you guys connect with Slack. They can communicate through Slack, but it slack's a paid tool. Have you guys considered Telegram? I love Telegram Messenger.  [00:37:37] Jason: Alright. Could you do that? Write it down. Telegram Messenger is like the iMessage tool that works on every device. [00:37:44] Jason: It's free. It's one of the most secure, it's not owned or controlled by Facebook. Like, WhatsApp, like, yeah. But WhatsApp might be a close second, but we use Telegram internally, so I love Telegram.  [00:37:58] David: We'll definitely take that into, into consideration for sure. Yeah, check it  [00:38:02] Jason: out. Because I, what I love is the voice message feature and I can just listen to my team and others at like high speed, but internal communications and it's free for everybody, which is great. [00:38:12] Jason: So, yeah.  [00:38:13] David: Yeah. I think a lot, for a lot of people it was like you know, who was Vendoroo in the beginning and Vendoroo was like the team of like people that were trying to figure out like how is AI going to work in this industry? [00:38:26] David: How is it going to solve the needs of our property management partners? And this is why I say to everybody, if you thought about Vendoroo, if you came in and the experience wasn't great with Vendoroo, if you're one of our existing clients that has been with us and you're and you're still moving forward, and we thank you so much for your dedication to this, the Vendoroo product, everything that we've done, everything that we worked at is being showcased at the NARPM broker owner. The email's going out today. This is who Vendoroo is. We are a team that is a technology partner for the property management industry that is helping building meaningful AI tools, specifically by demand, by our industry to help us show value and to preserve this great industry. [00:39:09] David: For the future in this new AI economy, right? Like we need to step up. We have clients that are adding doors left and right because they're showing their clients that they use an AI maintenance system and their clients are like, this is what I expect from a property management in this community. [00:39:24] David: Right? And again, Owneroo, that estimate, we believe that in the future. Like, like owners are going to say like, I'm not approving an estimate unless it's like the estimate of the future, right? Like, like that's the new standard. So you got to know what the new standards are and you got to get technology that are going to help you compete with those new standards that will be in your community and are will be in your community in the next week, the next two weeks. [00:39:46] David: And definitely some really cool products in the next six months.  [00:39:49] Jason: All right. Well, yeah, I'm really excited to see what you guys have been able to create so far. So yeah, it's pretty awesome. Yeah. All right. Well David, it's been awesome having you on the show. Sounds like you guys are really innovating the future. Everybody come to DoorGrow Live. David, are you going to be at that one? I will be there. All right, so you can come meet David in person. [00:40:08] Jason: We've got some amazing people that are going to be at this. We've got technology people. There's a gentleman there, one of the vendors they created another really cool tool, but he had a hundred million dollars exit, you know, in a previous business, like there's really amazing entrepreneurs and people at this event, so come to DoorGrow Live, get your tickets, and if you do, we have just decided that we're going to give out to anybody that registers. [00:40:34] Jason: You can pick from one of our free bonuses that are well worth the price of the ticket. Or coming or anything in and of itself, including our pricing secrets training that goes over a three tier hybrid pricing model or our sales secrets training, which goes over how we're helping property managers crush it and closing more deals more easily at a higher price point. [00:40:55] Jason: And reputation secrets, which are helping our clients get way more positive reviews by leveraging the psychology and the law of reciprocity and getting the majority of their tenants in order to give them positive feedback online. Maybe some others. So you'll be able to pick from these bonuses one of these that you might like and that's our free, most incredible free gift ever that we'll give to each person that registers for DoorGrow Live. [00:41:19] Jason: So.  [00:41:20] David: Cool. Awesome man. Always great to see you. Looking forward to seeing you at DoorGrow Live and love that you guys are working on pricing because AI is going to make people think different about pricing. It's going to be way more efficient, so you guys are ahead of the curve on that. Great job, Jason. [00:41:33] Jason: Awesome. All right, so how can they check out Vendoroo, David?  [00:41:36] David: Just visit, Vendoroo.ai, go to the website, request a demo with one of our great sales reps, and yeah they'd love to help you out. See all the new products, see how far it's come. And again, we thank everybody from the bottom of our hearts for all their effort, people who've tried us out. [00:41:52] David: Come back and see what you built and yeah. Come check us out at Vendoroo.  [00:41:57] Jason: Got it. Go check out Vendoroo, it's vendor. If you know how to spell that, V-E-N-D-O-R-O-O dot A-I, go check it out. All right? And if you're a property management entrepreneur, you want to add doors, you want to make your business scalable, you want to get out of the day to day, you want to increase the capacity so your company could easily handle another 200 plus doors without having to make any significant systems changes, reach out to us at DoorGrow. We will help you figure it out. So until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. 

In today's episode of the IC-DISC show, I chat with Mark Wade, founder and president of Echelon Virtual Family Office. Mark shares insights into virtual family office services, tailored for those with substantial wealth not needing a standalone family office. We also discuss premium-financed life insurance structures and how they serve individuals with several million dollars in assets. Mark outlines the origins of virtual family offices, tracing back to the Rockefellers. We learn they now cater to those with $10 million or more in assets. Additionally, Mark describes optimizing value when selling a business through pre-sale coordination, marketing strategy, and deploying post-liquidity event assets. We conclude by examining indexed universal life insurance advantages and investing in index funds, real estate, and small businesses. Overall, this informative episode underscores wealth management options and leveraging life insurance through Mark's insights   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode I chat with Mark Wade, the founder and president of Echelon Virtual Family Office, How He provides services to wealthy individuals who need family office services but do not justify having a standalone family office. Mark elaborates on the concept of a virtual family office, highlighting that it originated with the Rockefellers. He explains that these services are typically available to those with a net worth of $10 million or more. We discuss the process of leveraging life insurance through premium financing, with Mark emphasizing that the coordination of various financial professionals and providers is key to unlocking a business's value. Mark and I delve into the process of pre-sale value creation, marketing to potential buyers, and the deployment of assets after a liquidity event. We explore the struggle of successful business owners in transitioning from their roles after a liquidity event, and the satisfaction derived from making a difference in people's lives. We discuss the concept of premium financed life insurance and how Etch-A-Lan uses it strategically. Mark describes the process of bank financing with collateral and contribution, explaining how clients can sign a personal loan and provide collateral. We discuss how despite a higher interest rate environment, the strategy of bank financing remains potent due to policy flexibility. Mark and I examine the benefits of indexed universal life insurance and the advantages of investing in index funds, rental real estate, and small business ownership. Finally, we celebrate the power of self-confidence and the wisdom gleaned from financial experiences. LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About Echelon Wealth Strategies GUEST Mark WadeAbout Mark TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) David: Hi, this is David Spray, and welcome to another episode of the ICDisc Show. My guest today is Mark Wade, the president and founder of Etch-A-Lan Virtual Family Office. They work with families who have a need for family office services but whose net worth does not justify having a standalone family office, so they serve these families and add a lot of value. We had a great interview talking about some of the things they do to add value, and then we also talked about an interesting structure that they are familiar with around leveraging life insurance through premium financing in what he describes as a quote modern structure. I have some familiarity with premium finance life insurance but Mark's approach is really interesting. We also talked about things he wish he had known when he was younger and advice he would have given himself. So this is a great episode for really anybody who has accumulated several million dollars of wealth or more who's interested in learning more about the options available to them to manage their wealth. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Good morning, mark. Welcome to the podcast. Good morning. How are you today? I am great. So where are you calling in from today? What part of the world are you in? Mark: Today we're calling in from sunny Venice, florida, on the Gulf Coast. David: Venice. Okay, what's the nearest large city that Venice is near or larger? Mark:20 miles south of Sarasota Okay. David: Excellent. I love that. That's the largest city. I love that part of Florida. So I'm kind of a sequential learner. I like to kind of start in the beginning. Are you a native Floridian or are you from somewhere else? Mark: I was born and raised in Newark, new Jersey, and lived my childhood in New Jersey and, as I, when I graduated college. Since then I've been all over the country, coast to coast. I've spent part of my corporate career, my earlier corporate career, west of the Mississippi, headquartered out of Florida where, I'm sorry, out of California, where I ran west of Mississippi for one of the major brokerage firms, and then, when I went independent in 1999, relocated back to the East Coast again. So I'm currently a Florida resident. David: Awesome. Yeah, so I'm a Texan and it's like Texas and Florida seem to be like kindred spirits. You know the similar philosophies on a lot of things, and with a fair amount of Gulf Coast Beach front. That's right. So talk to me about echelon virtual family office. What's the history? What made you start it? Who are you set up to serve? Tell me the story. Mark: Yeah, great. So echelon virtual family office really started in 19 as a state and succession planning firm. Okay, business owners have been our focus for many years, though we do serve some at this point quite a few C level corporate executives, upper level corporate executives and retirees from both the business world and the corporate world. So echelon virtual family office is an evolution of that original practice. And you know, as a virtual family office, most people have heard of the Rockefellers and they've heard of the Vanderbilt's and you know the Rockefellers got it right and unfortunately, the Vanderbilt's didn't, and they meaning the Rockefellers really came up with the concept of a virtual family office. You want me to just give a brief run down to what a family office does. Yeah, please do that for those that might not have heard of it or not that familiar with it. So the Rockefellers figured out years ago that instead of sourcing a variety of outside professionals, instead of going to outside attorneys and accountants and real estate people and mortgage people and bankers and so on and so forth, you know, john Rockefeller figured out that he could just go ahead and hire all those people inside, because he created enough wealth in order to do that. Nowadays, by the way to create your own family office. It makes sense when you have about 250 million dollars of net worth, okay, so below that, a family might employ the services of a multi-family office, which is where a variety of people, a multitude of people, who typically have about 50 million and larger, would use the same services of a family office. That is a for-profit family office. So some of the people from the private family office one day said, well, we could do this and earn a living at it as a standalone company. So they created a multi-family office and for the last 10 years, myself and a mastermind group that I belong to there's about 220 of us now we started working on this concept of bringing family office services. So it's really all of those core services that everybody knows accounting, legal real estate, banking, mortgage, investment, so on and so forth. Everyone's familiar with those. But some of the more esoteric ones are some of the more more specialized ones, like personal security, trademark law, international banking. So some of the more sophisticated family services not end to include some of the tax driven ones, but you know specific types of tax strategy. You know we are able now to source those on behalf of our clients and provide a network of national experts that are part of our virtual family office and bring those down to clients. We say typically a business owner or or a retired executive or an existing corporate. We are able to bring that down to where it really starts to make sense for individuals at about the $10 million level. Okay, we figure at about a $10 million level we can really start driving some what we call true and meaningful value to the bottom line. We can start making a huge difference for those families in a variety of different ways and to provide some economies of scale to it, because you know when they're, when these specialists are part of our virtual family office, they're used to deal flow from us and so they give our clients some consideration. So that's the idea from 250 million to 50. Okay, pretty much the same types of services that were offered to the people that 250. David: Okay, no, thank you for that. That makes sense, and so it sounds like you just identified a need in the market in that 10 to $50 million network range where the this virtual family office made more sense for people there who was more attractive than a multifamily office structure. Is that about right? Mark: Yeah, clearly, once, once you. So I should tell you we have clients today that are 5 million because they have specific needs that we can address expeditiously and cost effectively. So we have clients that are smaller than 10 million. Typically your clients are 10 million net worth and larger and we have them all the way up to 165 million. So but you kind of write the way you described it we're able to bring under a family or an individual with with less than 50 million. We're able to bring them those family office services that only you know the private family offices used to be able to source in the past. David: Okay, so I love stories, so could you give us, like, think of the and obviously you don't need to share the name of a client, but, you know, think of a client where your service really a difference. Can you just one come to mind? You can kind of give a little bit of the background, what their pain point was, how you were able to make a substantial improvement in their situation. Mark: Yeah, so you know, but you know so it's relevant to a wider swath of people, instead of talking about the exceptional ones I won't do that I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about what we commonly see. Okay, that sounds good Because it may be more relevant to, like I said, to water swath of people, and so I cannot remember the last time we had somebody show up if they have ever shown up and they have had all their financial work done, all their legal work done, coordinate and I'm talking about their personal and have coordinated that successfully with their business or corporate world, because it's the marriage of the personal and business, financial and legal affairs. That's where the real, that's where the real magic happens, right, okay? And when you think about it, when was the last time, dave, when was the last time somebody sat down and said to you, dave, I just exited a meeting with my accountant and my attorney and my banker and my pension plan manager and our insurance specialist and we just sat down and talk for hours about me. It just doesn't happen. And so it's the coordination and the direction of all that effort from those various providers that's what drives, I like we say, the true and meaningful value for our clients. So I'm going to you know, I'm going to say that in the areas of wanting to unlock the value, I'm going to say that for a, if they're a business owner wanting to unlock the value, the equity they've created in their firm, whether it's for further investment, for personal investment or because they're looking to succeed, they're looking to transfer the ownership, they're looking to take a strategic sale to an outside buyer, whether it's a internal sale to employees or a succession to family members. You know there's a tremendous amount of value that's derived from that process. Okay, so I'm going to say that in the pre sale, value creation and unlocking that value, and then to the in the process, marketing of an entity to the alright. So now I've collected this. Let's just put a number on a 1020 million dollars or whatever the number is. I've gotten my liquidity event. Now what do I do? And it's not just, it's not just the deployment of the assets, it's really now, what do I do? I mean, I can't play golf every day. I can't go around the world vacation all year long every year. What do I do? It's the next step is what's their next, what's the next project for them, because oftentimes that's what it is. Successful business owners find it extremely difficult to just turn off the computer and walk away. David: Sure sure, of course, of course. Okay, well, thank you. Well, that is helpful. What? What do you find the most satisfying about you all with the company? Mark: That's a great question, Wow. Well, you know, Dave, this is the only thing I've done for 44 years. Over 44 years. I've only ever done what I do today. Okay, and as a lot of your associates probably are able to say, we don't do this anymore because we have to do it for the money. We do it for a lot of other reasons too, and part of which is it's kind of in our being and who we are and it's how we self fulfill, right, and a lot of the drive behind doing what I do today is making a difference. That sounds kind of corny, but it really does. After 44 years of doing tax strategy and financial advising and business exit strategy and retirement planning and all the different planning subspecialties that fall into that. We don't do it just for the money, Don't get me wrong. It's nice to be paid well, but it's the impact that we have and the lives that we affect, oftentimes for people we will never meet, because they're people in the future. They're the heirs of people that we'll never meet and lots of times it's the heirs of the clients. They'll never meet them either. So knowing that we have had that kind of impact that's, an intergenerational impact is 100%. What does it for me nowadays? And it's solving oftentimes these complex and comprehensive problems that you really have to have a lot of time in the barrel and a lot of experience and a really deep bench of people to rely on. Those complex and uncomplicated problems oftentimes are the ones that make or break a family's future. So helping to walk clients through that process it's painting a renaissance picture from the standpoint of you have an idea what it's going to end like. You have an idea of where you're going. But the interrelational family dynamics take you left and right and sometimes it backs you up and sometimes it moves you forward. But going through that process it's so rewarding to see the impact you've had on a family. And oftentimes it's problems that some families don't deal with and oftentimes it's issues that a lot of families deal with. Sometimes it's we have to deal with substance abuse issues and helping our clients get the right help there. I mean we've had opportunities where well, just recently this Afghan war, the withdrawal out of Afghanistan we had a corporate client where we shipped a couple million dollars overseas and a couple of talented and rough guys parachuted into Afghanistan to pick up this guy's daughter who was doing a medical mission for the local population somewhere in the hills and this whole thing kind of exploded quicker than they can expect and a couple of guys wanting to rescue this woman from Afghanistan. Right down to helping our clients prepare their children to accept this kind of responsibility themselves in the future. Wealth comes with its own issues. Many of our clients are self-made people. Many of our clients created their wealth or increased family wealth, and so now how do you prepare your children and grandchildren to carry that on? So there's just a variety of things that we get involved with by introducing our clients to the appropriate specialists in those areas. Like I said, we have over 60 in our network now. David: Okay, well, thank you for that color. I'd like to drill down into a subject that I know a little bit about, but your firm seems to have a little different approach to that. I would just like to talk about that's premium financed life insurance. So can you start by, for listeners that aren't familiar with it, what it is and kind of what the purpose of it is, and then kind of get into the strategy that you all take. That's maybe a little different than some others. Mark: Yeah. So you know, people think about life insurance and they say, oh, I don't like life insurance or I don't believe in life insurance. And we get it because, let's face it, the only people that really want to want life insurance are oftentimes the ones who can't have it. Right. Right, they find themselves in a position and they say, oh man, I really should have life insurance because this is a problem. Now, for whatever their reason health or otherwise they don't qualify for it anymore. But in all other cases that I can think of, you know, life insurance is just a tool. Right, it's just another tool. Keeps on mark what's the good life insurance versus the bad life insurance? And we say, well, oftentimes it's not a matter of what's good life insurance or bad life insurance, it's policy. Design is oftentimes a critical factor, but more often than not, if we just say life insurance is a tool, you know it comes down to the mechanic Okay, Okay, do you use the life insurance in the proper way or what it was intended, and do you design the policy correctly, meaning the agent and the tax specialist. Do you design the policy correctly? Do you own it correctly? Do you fund it correctly? And then, later on, do you access the money correctly. So let's go back to that third one, the funding element. If I know that it's a tool and life insurance does many things, it's kind of like a Swiss army knife. What do we need for it to do today? Well, today we need a death benefit or, you know, maybe we're going to need it for a. You know? You know, some of the largest owners of life insurance are their Fortune 500 companies and banking institutions. You know banking institutions and Fortune 500 companies. They own this stuff because it's part of what they call their tier one capital. And in the banking world, the bank's tier one capital is that money that has to be the safest and the most protected. And so what do banks use for that? Oftentimes they use life insurance. They use, boldly, bank owned life insurance. Okay, in the corporate world, they use Koli corporate owned life insurance. So if we know that it's just a tool and we know that how you pay for it is very important and it circles back to your premium financing, you know what are the ways you can do it? You can pay for your life insurance out of assets, you can pay for your life insurance through a corporation and those where that's applicable and that becomes less and less effective nowadays, but nevertheless, there were still great opportunities to do that, or you can have somebody else make the premium payments for you, and that's where premium finance, life insurance, comes in, and oftentimes it involves it involves having arrangement with a banking institution, and the banks love this because, from their perspective, financing your life insurance policy is a guaranteed investment. Yeah, and it's where the obvious reason why none of us is leaving here without passing away Right, you know, at some point we're all going to pass away, so it's a guaranteed investment for them. So banks are typically very interested in financing these life insurance policies. Banks have gotten significantly intelligent. They look for certain types of policies that do certain things with the right provisions and the right protections for them and own the proper way. So premium finance there's a lot of different types of premium finance out there and there have been different scenarios for years. They come and go as the markets shift and the wind shift, along with interest rates and so forth. But one of these purposes that we see life insurance our clients really warming up to the concept of premium finance nowadays is in the wealth creation process. So we know life insurance provides a death benefit, and oftentimes you can get the bank to provide financing so you can buy more death benefit than you might be able to or might want to pay for, or on your own. Sure, but another more popular way nowadays well, maybe equally popular, but certainly has risen in popularity is in the wealth creation process, whereby you can have a bank, add additional premium dollars to your premium dollars and those monies accumulate inside that policy for you on a tax deferred basis. Right, because insurance companies they get treated especially from all other corporations in the world, so that money multiplies inside the policy for the benefit of the owner and eventually the beneficiaries at some day. But as those policy values grow and grow, because part of it's your money and a much larger part is the bank's money in there, you get to earn money on the bank's money and it's really an arbitrage between interest rates, right, it's how much is the bank charging me to borrow the money versus how much can I earn on that money. And so we've been, you know we've been really fortunate. You know, over the last two decades I have tremendous positive arbitrage on the on those premium dollars and our clients have enjoyed tremendous policy cash value increase, which then they have been able to borrow on the back end, which is one of the preferred ways to do it to borrow your own money out and pay yourself back, right, right so. So the various flavors of being able to borrow that money. Some financing scenarios where you sign a personal loan at the bank and you provide collateral and the bank can call you at any time and say, hey, you need to increase that collateral because markets have moved against you and we need more money to shore up our policy, cash value. And then there are those type of policies out there Now the newer designs. The financing scenario says hey, for the first five years you put up half and we'll put up half, so let's use a $50,000 premium. So for the first five years, david, you put up $25,000 a year and we, the bank, will put up $25,000 a year and at the end of five years your commitment is done. You don't have to put any more money into this policy. But for the next five years so from years six to 10, we'll put in the $50,000 on your behalf. We'll add that additional premium dollars on your behalf. So it works out typically between where the bank puts in about just approximate numbers. It depends on age and health. Well, the bank might put in 70% of the premium dollars, you might put in 30. And then at the end of 15 years, so a five year period, a five year. So the first five year period you share in depositing premiums. The second five years the bank puts in the premium dollars, and then the third five years that money just sits there and marinate and percolates and hopefully continues to grow like it has over the last couple of decades. And then at the end of 15 years the bank will say, okay, we're going to take our premium dollars back now with the interest that has accrued. You get everything else left in the policy. So that is an extremely popular scenario that has worked incredibly well for our clients and it's amazing the wealth that can be accumulated inside these policies to access later on, either through withdrawal while the client's alive or typically what's more effective is a policy loan while the client's alive, a loan that the client presumably will never pay back, and when the client passes away it just comes out of the death benefit. So here's the beauty. The beauty is these more, these newer, more effective designs. The client signs no loan for the bank's premium contribution. The client puts up no collateral for the bank's premium contribution. The policy itself is all the bank needs, and the way of collateral Got you. The bank has what's called a collateral assignment against it. Well, it's all sees, all yours. David: Yep, and then so would this be like a 10 pay policy, like there's contractually 10 years of payments. Is that typically what it is, or is that payment duration dependent on market forces? What's? Mark:the tip that 10 year structure is the typical structure. The only reason why it would be different is if the client wanted it to be different. Really couldn't be shorter. David: Because of the modified endowment contract. Mark: Yeah, well said, you can only get so much cash into those things in a short period of time. So that's the whole. Yes, to front load the deposits as quickly as you can. Well, not violating any tax code. Tamar defer, so yeah, so that's exactly right. So it must be 10 years. You could fund it in five years, but then you wouldn't get the other five years of the bank's contribution Exactly Right and you'd likely hit the Mech parameters if you just funded it for five years, right? It's possible. Yeah, it depends on depending on health and age. Yeah, and because these policies are flexible, you can always adjust the death benefit to make it work. Yeah, but the real magic there is in the bank's share of contribution to that policy. Yeah, five years you share. You put money in. The bank puts money in the second five years only. The bank puts money in the third five years. It just continues to grow and at the end of 15 years the bank takes their money out and it's all yours. There's sums that have been accumulated in these policies has been astronomical, really. It's a very effective way to do it without having to commit you know collateral or sign a bank loan. Yeah, the bank uses the policy as the entire collateral required. David: Yeah, no, it's really an interesting approach. You'd mentioned how effective that had been the last 20 years because of that positive arbitrage between interest rates and earnings. So what are the thinking? How's that? Mark: going to change. David: Now that we're in a higher interest rate environment and, at least for the time being, a lower earnings environment, it seems like that arbitrage has flipped the other way. How does that still work then, in that scenario? Mark: Well, here's what we know. We know that some of the smartest people out there in the finance world work for insurance companies and banks. Right, these people? They don't lose money. Insurance companies don't lose money typically, at least not in the life insurance business and to my knowledge, no banks have ever lost money financing any of these policies. So really, that just leaves the policy, the holder, right, the person who's going to benefit from the actual policy itself and their heirs. And I can tell you this the insurance companies they don't underwrite things that are not going to work and the banks will not invest their capital in things that are not going to work. Yes, interest rates have risen precipitously and nobody knows in the near term what will happen, because it's everything's a speculation. Today, you know, the expectation is maybe they're going to bump rates up one or two more times before they start reversing course and hopefully by the end of 2024, they see rates coming down. But it's all speculation, it's all just what we hear from the experts. But long term, I can tell you, over rolling 10 year periods still, what's one of the safest, what's one of the most consistent places that you can have capital. You know great dividend paying stocks. You know the wonderful corporations of America. You're the small business owner who is competent, effective and willing to assume some risk of owning his own business has always been a tremendous way to do it. Rental, real estate, you know, other than those three things, what do you really have? So you have to deploy capital somewhere and, that being the case, having and, by the way, the type of policies that have proven to be most effective or effective today in this area. You know these indexed universal life policies. The underlying investments are tied to an investment index. Most typical ones are the S&P 500 and NASDAQ. You know, even in times of tremendous pressure on these markets, every academic will tell you and everybody who's in the securities business will say, it's just hard to beat the long term returns on America's best companies. They continue to grow for a reason. David: Yeah, well, that's why I think it was Warren Buffett that advised his heirs to just put all the money in index funds, because when you look at the cost and performance, and yeah I mean, it turns out that it's really hard to beat the market over a long period of time. Mark: We did have that thing called the lost decade. You know, just look at where we are today from then. Yeah, look at where the market sits today from where it was in 2008 and 2009. It's just staggering, right. So these type of policies, it's like it's a great marriage because you can participate in the upward climb of the underlying markets, of the S&P 500 or NASDAQ or whatever next, or in these particular policies. You can participate in that, but you don't participate in the loss, and by that I mean the effect of the market can only be positive on your policy. These policies are protected against a loss due to a market value adjustment, due to a down market. Your policy, your policies, are going to earn zero or some positive return and you're not going to lose money because the market went down. Right, hold out a negative market value adjustment, a downward market, a guarantee against a negative market value adjustment and B just to re-go, there's our video back and B. They know you're going to pass away at some point and the worst case scenario is they're going to collect when you pass away. Yeah, if you die in less than 15 years, they'll collect. That's correct. That's correct. So it's a win for the banks and, of course, the insurance companies always make money, sure. So the downside when we look at this is what else would we do with our money? The opportunity costs, yeah. What else would we do with our money if we didn't have it invested into America's greatest companies, if we didn't invest in our own business and our own abilities, or an investment in real estate? And if you remember, in 2008 and 2009, the stock market and real estate plummeted at the same time. Right, it was the first time what we call the uncoupling of those assets. Typically, real estate goes up and the market goes down. Market goes up, real estate Typically, there's some, there's their link in some way shape. Well, this time they were linked. All right, they both went down dramatically. David: Yeah, okay. So I can't believe how the time has flown by. I've got just a couple more questions before we wrap up. What do you wish you knew when you were 25? Wow, I wish. Or if you could go back and here's the way I meant to phrase it If you could go back in time and give advice to your 25 year old self, knowing what you know now what advice? And that you give yourself Confidence. Mark: Okay, what do you mean? Knowledge? Well, have confidence in yourself. Okay, have confidence. Have confidence in your ability to learn. Always learn, continue to learn and expand your mind. Don't draw yourself into this cone of specificity. This world has changed so many times. Have the confidence to be flexible. Have the confidence to step out and do different things. Expand your knowledge. And then the other thing is you oftentimes don't know what you don't know right, and sometimes it only comes with experience and the wisdom comes from the experience that you've been. You know those experiences that you've endured along the way. Don't let that deter you. Dick Vitale has a great new book out called Never Give Up. Yeah, it's kind of. It's kind of his story about persevering. I'm fortunate enough to be in that book. Oh, you are. I have one of the chapters in that book. I co-authored one of the chapters along with Dick Vitale, so it's it's. It's a little bit about my story of never giving up. So have the confidence. I didn't know that I'd be able to do all the things I can do today when I was 20 or 25 years old. Okay. David: Just don't know. Sure, no, that's great. I love it. Well, as we wrap up, is there anything that I didn't ask you, that you wish I had asked you? Mark: Well, I think we covered a couple of extremely important topics. You know, we do have three other entities in addition to Echelon Virtual Family Office, echelon Asset Protection, echelon Resource Teams. So there are a couple other companies that we could talk about at another time, if your audience is interested. David: Okay, well, that sounds great. Well, mark, I really appreciate you taking time out this morning to talk to me. I really love your story. I love the advice you give to yourself. I really enjoyed learning more about this more modern structure of premium finance, where there's maybe not quite as much leverage upside, but there's a lot less downside for the participant in terms of no personal guarantee and no collateral posting required. So thank you for that insight and just for your time and your enthusiasm for what you do. So thank you. Mark: David, thanks so much. It's been a pleasure being your guest today and I wish you well in your podcast, continued success. Thanks, mark. Special Guest: Mark Wade.

In this episode, Dan connects with retired Navy officer, legendary communicator, speaker, leadership strategist, and coach David Albritton. The founder and CEO of Nineteen88 Strategies, David cut his PR and communications chops at the Pentagon and followed a career track that led to his role as Chief Communications Officer at Exelis. That would have been the career-high mark for most communicators, but not for David. From the pinnacle of the comms world, he made that rare, perhaps unique, jump to running an entire enterprise, ultimately becoming the President of General Motors Defense. Through it all, he saw the value of coaching and mentoring in his life and decided to dedicate his third - and current - career to helping others realize the same.  How did he (and how does he) do it? How do you make the journey from being the PR guy to running a multi-billion-dollar business? Maybe it's how he fostered a learning mindset. Perhaps it's how he recognized when it's important to embrace change. Or it could be that a "Learn-or-Die" mantra is a prerequisite for success. He and Dan explore these and many more lessons from David's career to find some answers.  Listen in and learn … Why communications professionals need to develop business acumen The dynamic nature of communications professionals' role and the significance of continuous learning and growth.  The value of mentorship from a personal and professional perspective. The difference between a small “m” mentor and a large “M” mentor. How the universe recognizes your mentoring efforts and will reward you accordingly. The role of your worst day and how it can be used to push you forward.  The importance of respecting the expertise of others.  The Hole in Your Swing Philosophy and why it's important to address it. Why leaders understand the value of surrounding themselves with smart people.  That sometimes people can see the leader in you before you can see the leader in yourself.  Coaching is a safe place and there is a difference between coaching and mentoring.  The game-changing aspects of coaching on a personal and corporate level.  Some of the amazing resources David used to fuel his growth including, “Business Acumen for Strategic Communicators” by Ron Culp and Matthew W. Ragas.  Notable Quotes: “There have been so many people who have mentored me and didn't even know it.” (4:56) – David “I'm truly one that believes you can get through this life journey alone.” – (5:43) – David “Believing in others and their ability to help you and your ability to help them is what makes us human.” – (7:30) “There's a whole lot of goodness in this country that we don't get to see through the media all the time.” (10:06) – David “What is the story of David Albritton?” – (12:55) – Dan “You can't be a good leader until you've learned how to be a good follower.” – (14:33) – David “A soldier is trained to carry a rifle to fight wars and all those types of things. They're not trained to move a family with a baby that needs diapers and blankets.” – (34:14) – David “I never believed that by myself I was smart enough to do anything.” – (39:48) – David “PR isn't an exact science.” – (40:23) – David “I realized that I couldn't just be a communications person. I had to become more of a business partner.” – (40:54) – David “Just because you have title does not mean you know.” – (44:24) – David “Communications gives us (communicators) license to try and learn everything.” (47:31) -Dan “Then I had a huge left hook thrown at me that knocked me on my butt.” – (56:00) – David “I realized that if I could become a coach and get paid to be a coach, I never have to retire.” – (1:00:22) – David “We all deal with change differently.” – (1:03:40) – David “The job of a coach is to look into your future.” – (1:08:22) – David “It's not so much about who you know but who knows you.” (1:13:07) – David “Go into every situation as prepared as you can be.” (1:14:22) – David “Ask smart questions to people when you don't know things.” – (1:18:32) – David “You have to be known because you are contributing.” – (1:20:27) – Dan “People will stay with you if they feel like they have the opportunity to grow.” – (1:26:39) -David About David J. Albritton, ACC David Albritton, Founder and CEO of Nineteen88 Strategies, is an accomplished ICF-certified executive coach and business leader with over 30 years of diverse leadership experience spanning corporate, nonprofit, and military sectors. From his unique transition as a Chief Communications Officer to a business division chief executive of a Fortune 25 company, to his current role on the board of NASDAQ-listed Embecta Corp., Albritton exemplifies career versatility. His extensive roles, including President at General Motors Defense and VP Communications roles at Amazon Web Services, Exelis, ITT Defense, and United Way of America, reflect his expertise. As a seasoned executive coach, Albritton employs a holistic and authentic coaching framework to empower high-performing executives. His passion lies in enhancing leadership presence, personal branding, and emotional intelligence among others. He is also a Service-Disabled Veteran with degrees from the U.S. Naval Academy, Naval Postgraduate School, and executive education from top universities including Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. Nineteen88 Strategies David Albritton | Linkedin David Albritton - Instagram  David Albritton - Twitter Four Forces Executive Group Dan Nestle Links The Dan Nestle Show (libsyn.com) Daniel Nestle | LinkedIn The Dan Nestle Show | Facebook Dan Nestle on Twitter Timestamped Summary Introduction to today's guest. 0:00 David's introduction. 1:49 Putting positivity out into the universe. 6:22 How did you get to the mindset you have? 11:49 The mindset of a public relations professional. 17:57 Learning to be a media communicator. 25:09 Rising through the ranks of the military. 29:38 Dealing with the perceptions of the military. 37:22 The common theme of leaders who are not the smartest. 44:48 Becoming a CCO at Exelis. 48:52 The importance of having the right talent. 53:09 Understanding your why and your purpose. 57:40 Being directive as a mentor. 1:02:06 Coaching is about helping people. 1:07:04 The importance of being prepared for every meeting. 1:11:49 The crux of it all. 1:18:56 David's advice for leaders. 1:23:48 David's work with veterans and charitable orgs. 1:27:52 *Notes were created by humans, with some help from Capsho and Otter.ai. 

We know from recent conversations the path out of the addiction trap and other unhealthy habitual patterns leads to a life of better balance between the head and the heart, and closer natural alignment with the ways, energies and rhythms of the planet. But it's really just a start; the jo urney can go much deeper.Imagine a two - way conscious living exchange between the human being and the planet for the continual enhancement and benefit of both. It's part of what we could describe as the planet's operating system or program. The human (alon g with other organic life) is an integral player in a process and consciousness that are sometimes called reciprocal maintenance.A simple example is a tree. The roots pull in nourishment from the soil, while the leaves and photosynthesis absorb and conver t cosmic energy from the sun into other types of nourishment that support the tree's continued growth. The tree in turn cleans and balances the ecosystem in which it lives, to the benefit of organic life.For the human, aligning to the natural speeds, cycl es, and energies of the planet allows us to better sense our own finer inner systems and technology that, by design, connect to universal systems and intelligence, which we flow in mutual exchange with our host, the planet.Fortunately, we get more insight and understanding of this amazing process in this conversation between Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis, the latest in the series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet.”When one life form takes over an ecology and breaks the equilibrium that allows for reciprocity, we have an ecosystem that is heading to collapse.Technology is the gift that keeps on giving, but it's also the thief that keeps on robbing. It's the agony and the ecstasy.The human ability to choose and superimpose life-affirming programs onto destructive programs may be the offramp technology to avoid a self-eliminating trajectory.It's mostly positive-thinking people who are doing damage on our planet right now. Positive thinking isn't enough; what are you positive thinking about?What is the precious currency of life in the universe? It's energy; we need energy to move things and facilitate change. We can say the universe is energy and energy is the universe.The brain, becoming programmed to run on toxic processes, shows how the same program that enables life is also what enables us to develop harmful habits and addictions.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES“I realized something the other day, when I was out for a walk and there were cars coming by. And it dawned on me: I'm telling myself that I love the trees, and I'm looking at the trees. And then I realized in my life, in terms of the actual programming by what's visible, I have seen more cars than trees. So, although I might tell myself trees are the priority in my life, the reality of what I've seen and witnessed is that cars are much more populous in their numbers than trees.” (David)“Personally, I see astronomy and astrology as a mutual science. It's simply the physical and the energetic. So, when I go out to get a suntan that's astrology because I'm experiencing the energy of the sun. When I look out and I see the moon drawing the oceans, well, that's astronomy and astrology because you can see the effect of the moon pulling the ocean, it's amazing. That magnet is so powerful it pulls the entire Atlantic and Pacific Ocean toward itself. It also affects us when we get to the human. So, the tree is working with a planetary energy, and that planetary energy creates a program to receive other cosmic energies, including the energy from the sun.” (David)“Just like in organic life, the programs are already running. And then it seems that there's this leading edge of creation, and you're exemplifying right there, in which creation is trying to unders tand and talk about itself, and work out how it does things. And that makes me think about the human side of things. The human program by which we have got this two-stage program where we're on the one hand fully responsive, our body is fully responsive to the planetary program.” (David)“If we were like squirrels, cats, dogs, birds, trees, we would not have a predicament, we would simply be part of the planet's organic life. And we wouldn't have the extra ingredient of conscious choice. So what I'm getting at is we have a planetary program. And then our human predicament is, we can also run our own programs. So that's our extra ability, that's our super ability, that's our specialness.” (David)“A key feature and it's exactly what you say a key feature is that esoteric knowledge what makes it esoteric knowledge is that it's not intellectual, it's connected to energy vibration. So when someone is able to get closer to the truth of their experience, like in that moment, he experienced the truth, very facing truth. And it came through with an energy that caused him, it was literally a life changing moment. And certain truths connect to these energies that can suddenly send a surge.” (David)RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings SeriesDavid Price Francis Energy Worlds

The ongoing interaction of temperament, character, and environment shapes one's personality. However, is it true that possessing certain facial features has a significant impact in determining which qualities are prominent? Join Dr. David Snyder as he reveals everything you need to know about reading people's personalities by looking at their faces. Standout Quotes: “When people are happy and the body is healthy, they're doing the things that are on their building path, there's a glow that emanates from under their skin, there's a vitality and a radiance that streams from the eyes.” [David] “There is a reason why human beings are biased towards physical appearance, it's just that we don't consciously know all the things that go into it.” [David] “Anytime you see eyes that should be big but are held super close like that. You have got somebody who's got a big ball of secretiveness in there he is evaluating everything you say he is paying he is rehearsing his words and running them backward and forwards to make sure that you get exactly what he wants to send.” [David] “Just because somebody has a bulgy eye doesn't make them possessed by an evil spirit or a ghost. You have to evaluate based on the kinds of behaviors they engage in.” [David] Key Takeaways: When people are in pain, their Shin does not want to enter the body as much as it should. So, the eyes get flatter, and they get a flatter and flatter endeavor, with less and less light emanating from the eyes until they become entirely disconnected from their body, which we call Shin doubt. It can be seen in those who have been through a lot of trauma. The lights are turned on, but no one is at home. They've avoided each other and separated themselves. When you establish a baseline with someone, you will notice that the Shen dims, and the light behind their eyes darkens slightly. That's one of the things we watch for when we're talking to someone, and they start to feel uncomfortable or start lying to you, and the Shin leaves the body. Deep-set eyes have a more incredible elemental energy to them. Eyes protrude out in a beedi sort of way simultaneously, but the effect is relatively flat—someone who is dealing with some mental issues. A double shin is a sign that someone is dealing with some internal issues. Whether you call it multiple personalities, dissociative identity, or schizophrenia, the fundamental truth is that they act as if they had an additional person in their head.

Rob chats to 365 Football Management ltd. Director David Lavelle and asks him about his role as an experienced football agent working with successful footballers and  football clubs. He asks him about how he entered the industry, his first experiences in the industry, what he does day to day, how his role has evolved over the years, the journey of young players, the attitude of managed players and their family, the reputation and changing culture of agents and how trust is utilised in management.    KEY TAKEAWAYS After seeing a football agent on TV and enquiring after the qualifications required, David studied during his time in the decompression chamber in his previous job as a saturation diver on an oil rig.  People imagine a football agents job to be glamorous but it requires a lot of administration and client upkeep. It involves travelling and is quite pressed and high powered. When David started his career there were roughly 500-550 agents available. Then the criteria for becoming an agent became much easier and that number grew to over 5000. Currently harder qualifications are being discussed. Managing younger players involves managing the player and their parents expectations. Its requires hard work and social media confuses the issue and makes a signed young player think they have already made it. Sometimes family can involve themselves in contract negotiations and confuse issues due to lack of experience and the urge to protect their youngster.  365 Football Management Ltd does much more than function as football agents. They look after the interests and well being of their clients on a personal level and treat them as more than commodities. BEST MOMENTS ‘It wasn't a career I set out to do, if I'm quite honest. Believe it or not I was a saturation diver on the oil rigs.' – David  ‘It's got to the stage where we had to make a decision either we run with it and I stick with the football or I take the easy route, or the steady route, and stay in the oil industry.' - David ‘I'm a massive believer that even though social media presents people as successful, behind all that is normally years and years of hard work.' – Rob ‘When the transfer window opens it's what I call “silly season” because it's not just necessarily sitting in the office 8-5 or 9-5 or whatever. There's days where, especially towards the end of the window, there are 16 or 17 hour days.' – David ‘Just because you're at a certain club that doesn't mean you've made it. You're a long, long way from making it as an academy player.' – David ‘I think now the games evolved that much, there's that much money involved and that you need to nail the contracts. Contract isn't just what you get paid per day or per week or per month or per year.' – David ‘If we can help in any way, if we can alleviate any problems or any issues that's first and foremost. And then with day to day living we have contracts throughout Europe in relation to car deals, house insurance, mortgages, financial advisors, all of which we trust 100%.' - David    GUEST RESOURCES David is an experienced football agent working with some of the biggest names in today's game in England, Scotland and Europe. As a director at 365 Football Management Ltd he is focussed on global client satisfaction and works with a carefully selected team of the finest professionals to offer clients amongst many other things:   • Club Sourcing • Contract Negotiation • Asset Management • Legal Counsel • Brand Management & Media Relations • Lifestyle Management   David can be contacted on any of the following:   Linkedin linkedin.com/in/david-lavelle-243438156 Website www.365-football.com   E mail david@365-football.com   VALUABLE RESOURCES Leader Manager Coach Podcast      ABOUT THE HOST Rob Ryles is a UEFA A licensed coach with a League Managers Association qualification and a science and medicine background. He has worked in the football industry in Europe, USA and Africa; at International, Premiership, League, Non-League and grassroots levels with both World Cup and European Championship experience Rob Ryles prides himself on having a forward thinking and progressive approach to the game built through his own experience as well as lessons learned from a number of highly successful managers and coaches. The Leader Manager Coach Podcast is where we take a deep dive examining knowledge, philosophies, wisdom and insight to help you lead, manage and coach in football, sport and life. CONTACT METHOD https://www.robryles.co.uk/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMPYDVzZVnA https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertryles/?originalSubdomain=uk Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/robryles See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tim Surr, a personal change expert and motivational speaker, invites Dr. David Snyder for his podcast in this episode. Today, Dr. David and Tim discuss hypnosis, the state of hypnotherapy training personal change and the science of success, conversational hypnosis, human persuasion, and influence systems of CPI. Standout Quotes: “The reason that hypnosis may not seem mainstream is because of hypnotists.” [Tim] “The biggest challenge is we're trying to insulate ourselves from liability. But we're teaching these people techniques that are designed for behavioral change and resolution of trauma.” [David] “When people come in you, they're hungry, and they want to come away feeling like they're fed.” [David] “Just learning the basics, you can have a huge impact.” [Tim] “You can take to the bank in every conceivable form of communication there are human beings never resist themselves.” [David] “Positive or negative is in response to a feeling. It's either a feeling they want more of or feeling they want a whole lot less of.” [David] “You will never install certainty and other people by being uncertain yourself.” [David] Key Takeaways: The AB reaction drill first, the progress through the curriculum was three times faster. The best perfect training for CEOs and entrepreneurs would be CPI systems, which are conversational persuasion and influence. Avoiding the adrenaline rush from whatever's triggering is not something that you can inoculate against. But what you can do is reframe it right from the get-go. Everything a human being does is based on emotional drives within us. Primal drives, then emotional drives, every experience we have, and every thought that we think has a structure. The echo technique is the most satisfying and fulfilling method to communicate with human beings. It gives them the exact feelings they want to have that lets them know you've heard and gives them everything they're looking for in communication with you. Episode Timeline: Pre-Interview Talk [1:54] Are you still teaching? [4:15] The Irony of Hypnotists [8:58] AB Reactions [10:15] Stage Hypnosis Course [12:50] Best Training for CEO's and Entrepreneur Start of Podcast [17:30] About Dr. David Snyder [19:58] What Dr. David is passionate about [25:49] People past their own resistance [29:43] Neurological Experience [31:19] Body Feeling [35:34] Increase your persuasion or ability to influence others [39:09] Absorbing Techniques [41:32] Echo Technique [44:32] Feeling the Emotions [45:16] Difference between a Body Feeling and Irregular Feeling [50:30] Memories [56:43] Uncertainty [1:00:28] Story of his patients [1:06:46] Best Advice

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT When news broke back in March that the live events and publishing firm Questex had bought the assets of Digital Signage Expo, there was, understandably, a lot of interest and speculation about whether that might mean the defunct trade show and conference would be revived. It will be, likely around the same timeframe as the past, and back in Las Vegas. It is also likely it will have the same name - though it might just be called DSE.  What's also clear is that it will not be a simple re-boot of the old show - which makes perfect sense, since the Digital Signage Expo that ran for 15+ years would politely be described as spinning its wheels - with attendance flatlined and exhibitor counts shrinking. I contacted Questex when news first broke of the DSE assets being acquired at auction, and have had a few conversations since then with the company, including its CEO Paul Miller. I wasn't sure how much he could tell me, but we had a terrific, very open chat about what went down, and his company's thinking around a new and different DSE in 2022.  Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT David: Paul. Thank you for joining me. Who is Questex?  Paul Miller: Hi, Dave, thanks for having me first and foremost. Questex is a media and information services business that produces events alongside its media sites. We have been in existence as a company for about 15 years, just over. We are a company that focuses on really five or six markets, that is the life sciences and healthcare markets, the technology markets, and then we also focus on the areas of travel hospitality & wellness, and all of that is wrapped up around a focus on the experience economy. That's who we are and we do events, we do media websites, we do all kinds of connecting of buyers and sellers in those areas.  David: So of those properties that you have in the context of the Pro AV world, what would people who are listening to this most likely know, LDI or the Nightclub & Bar Show?  Paul Miller: Yeah. They would probably know our Nightclub & Bar Show in Las Vegas, mainly because that would have been in history. Some cases would collaborate with DSE and in some cases would just sit alongside so they would know that.  They probably would know the Lighting Dimension Show, the LDI show that you mentioned. Yeah, that's also one that is quite well known in this space. I would say outside of that, there are events that I think are relevant in the hotel area, in the spa area, in the gym area where we're connecting owners of hotels & operators of hotels and gyms and spas with various people that want to sell into those spaces. So of course digital signage is a huge area for all of those end users. So they may not know those, but certainly, I think they're areas that we think are very relevant.  David: We'll get into acquiring assets of DSE, but I was curious when that happened, so I looked up Questex to see who they are and how they work and I get a sense that your typical approach is you have publishing wing as a foundational thing that kind of sets the content for that particular vertical market, and then you grow and market the live event off of that. Is that a fair assessment?  Paul Miller: Yeah, I think that's a good assessment, Dave. We believe that we should be engaged with communities 365 days through the year because people don't always wait for an event before they make their decision. So we want to help them through that buying process through content that attracts them to our websites. As they interact with that content, we like to use that data to produce what we would consider a very relevant show. So when you come to the show, it's content that's been popular throughout the year, probably speakers that have been writing content that you can come and meet live. So we see a full connection between how people in the B2B world look for content, and how they go through that buying process, and the event is part of that.  In many cases, it's an exciting part of it, because people come to actually buy. In some cases, they come to network. In some cases, they come to get educated, and in some cases, all three. So, that idea that we would just do an event, and then see you next year is not really in our DNA. We're more, “Hey, we want to serve you throughout the year, and we'd love to see you live at the event if relevant.”  David: And I also get a sense that that the events look different depending on the vertical. So you don't necessarily do a full trade show with exhibits for a certain vertical because it really doesn't fit, whereas, for other verticals, it may.  Paul Miller: That actually is a really astute comment. I think sometimes in our world, not the digital signage world. This is our world at Questex. We sometimes talk about events a little bit like somebody saying, “I'm going on vacation to Africa,” and your first question is what country you're going to because you're going to have a different experience depending on where you're going.  In the events world too, there are various flavors. In some events, it truly is sort of a cash and carry. You bring in your goods, you set up your store and people come in and they buy your goods, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. By the way, I do not think that applies to digital signage, certainly on the whole, but that there is a flavor of event that we do that sort of emulates that, that is very much you come in to buy stuff and the exhibitors are there to sell stuff and success is how much did I sell, frankly? And then there are the educational type events which sort of surround large conferences. I think you'd be familiar with these: great speakers, good education, and some really good networking off-piece at the hotel bar afterward, et cetera, and then you can get into some really specific events which are matchmaking buyers with sellers. This particular buyer is looking for this solution and we're going to put you in a room with this seller. They tend to be more intimate, very VIP, in some cases, we will host those buyers. So we tend to be, and I think your comment is right on. We tend to look for what fits what element of the market at the right time. I think where it gets exciting, Dave, and this probably leads us into sort of our thoughts around the Digital Signage Expo is that in many cases you can do all three. You can have a great conference, you can have a great show, trade show floor, and you can do great matchmaking, and it doesn't work all the time. We have a feeling that it is relevant to DSE from what we've been hearing from the market, but you're absolutely right on the money. We don't really have a one size fits all approach as a company, and I think given the communities we serve, that would be very difficult for us to shoehorn in certain templates if you will.  David: Right. So back in, I think you said it was April, but you acquired the assets of Exponation. What did you actually acquire?  Paul Miller: We acquired the assets of Digital Signage Expo which would have included the trademarks, the websites, the database, the customer database. I think that was about it. A few other URLs, websites that sort of surrounded the industry a little bit. But everything that Exponation had that was DSE-related is what we acquired.  David: And how did that happen? Was there like a Broker who came to you and said, “Hey, we have this”, or do you have people who just pay attention to this sort of thing?  Paul Miller: No, it was strange, to be honest. The last year has been strange in many ways. Firstly, we're very aware at Questex of DSC. We had, as mentioned at the start, we had seen the show, we had visited the show. I wandered over to the show while at our Nightclub & Bar event. David: Just to sober up? (Laughter) Paul Miller: Yeah, actually, just to see what it's like at a B2B show that isn't serving alcohol, which is a different field, and actually we had been impressed for many years with the show. We certainly didn't really know the understories and what was really going on, but from a very shallow view, I would say, the show looked very professional. There were great companies, and there was good buzz, and we always said to each other that, that looks like a great event, and that was about it, just for the record.  Then I forget the actual timing, but sometime in the fall of last year, we obviously saw the story that Exponation had filed for Chapter 7, and that sort of alerted us about that a lot of us that are in the events business, the pandemic has been devastating. It wasn't that it was a surprise, but to be honest as having that sort of very narrow and shallow knowledge of the show, we were like, wow that's a shame that, that was a good looking event and we're probably going to see more of this was our initial reaction. Then what happened, Dave is that we got a notice from, I think it was the bankruptcy court. I can't remember who it was, but anyway, we got a notice that the assets were going to be auctioned to help raise funds, for those people that the debt was owed to if you will. So we said, okay we like these assets and we've got some things that we could bring to the event, or this was before we knew, by the way, that might be relevant. So we entered into an auction process and it was the first time in my career that I've ever been through such a process and it truly was a person on the phone, basically banging the gavel and saying, “Yep,  sold to the people at the back,” and that ended up being us. We obviously then did a lot of homework before we went into the auction. We got our hands around a little bit. What was the size of the show? What was the target audience for the show? What do we think we could bring to the show? And it checked a lot of boxes for us. Yeah, we went into the auction seriously and we won that auction, and then, of course, you find what actually have we acquired? And that was a fascinating sort of few weeks of research.  David: I've spoken with you in the past, I've spoken with someone else from your company and a consultant, Brent Gleason, who you've engaged to help out with this.  I'm curious, as you've done your kind of due diligence and exploration of the industry, what have you been hearing about the industry, your impressions on that, but also, we can go from there to what are you going to do?  Paul Miller: Sure. So firstly I have to say, and I think you know this that there wasn't a lot of ho-hum type of commentary in the research when we went to the industry. People were very passionate about space, very passionate about this product. Not all of it positive. I think there've been some negative experiences for certain people, but what we did find, Dave, was that this is an industry that is going through terrific growth and that growth looks to be sustainable, certainly, through the next half a decade if not beyond in our opinion, so great sort of 7.5% CAGR growth rates, touches a lot of verticals, and I know that people listening and yourself would know this, but this was our learning, touching verticals as diverse as healthcare, through to retail, through to hotels, houses of worship, hotels. So that was really interesting for us. We also found and heard that the industry actually wanted a place to gather. They do see this as an industry that has its unique personality. It's not all about one thing or another thing, and there are definitely some trends that are coming in, the digital out of home space for instance, that in my opinion, is akin to what happened between print and the internet, back in the late nineties, a lot of data starts to be kicked off and a lot of backend technology starts to get into play. With digital signage becoming the forefront of that, it's where people first interact. So we got very excited very quickly. Some of the comments frankly, were hard to swallow or people saying, “Hey, the event was not what it used to be.” “It was starting to lose a little bit of its luster.”  Obviously when the show was canceled last year. Some people were really quite upset about the lack of refunds and what went on there, and I fully understand that. We had to cancel a lot of events last year as well. It was a very tough scenario for everybody, but the industry we felt as we got into it had an opinion, and it was a strong opinion and people wanted to talk. We had incoming people calling us saying, “I want to talk to you about what you've bought here and let you know what you've got.” And actually Brad was one of those, by the way, Brad said, look, I have a lot of history with the show, and I'd love to help reinvent it along the lines that I feel, and I think what the industry feels it should have been going in any way. So look, we have the ability to “start again” in many ways. I don't think the Exponation had that ability. They had a product, they had to try to grow that product. We've acquired a set of assets, but we have a real strong ability to listen to the community and try to create a new experience for the community that they're telling us they want. And that's unique. So, we purposely were have been extremely patient. We just said, let's listen, and the more we listen, the more we're finding that the industry wants an event, it wants a place to gather, but it doesn't really want your grandmother's DSC.  I think the event has reached its limit, if you will, in terms of value and people wanted to do something else going forward, without losing some of the great things about the event, seems like it was a fantastic place for the industry to network and meet once a year. We don't want to lose that. That's a super reason for having an event. So, it's been a real experience. I mean, this is a very good acquisition from my experience, acquired through auction had gone into Chapter 7 through the pandemic and it has a set of stakeholders that really want to have a say. I mean, nobody said, sorry, I don't want to talk about it, or, I don't really have a comment. Everybody had something to say and I think that's great. That shows some passion. It shows some engagement. It's just that not all of the comments were positive, I have to be honest. David: Oh, for sure. When we chatted in the past, I said, I don't think there's enough to do at a trade show with a whole bunch of exhibit stands and everything, the way it was done in the past. There's a diminishing number of companies that want to spend those kinds of dollars, and I just didn't see it. Is that what you're hearing more broadly?  Paul Miller: Not really, no. I get your point, and we actually gave people the ability to tell us what they really want. Now, I will say that the number one thing that's coming back is that we want to meet people that are going to buy our product. So we want to meet, we don't really want to just get together and talk to each other. But it's a very expensive meeting to just talk to other people in the industry. So there's been a lot of questions to us like, do you reach people in the hotel industry? Do you reach people in the restaurant space? Do you reach people in other areas where digital signage is needed and can be engaged with?  And when we've explained, as I did up top, that these are the markets we're in, people have gone, if you can get those folks to attend an event, we absolutely will bring a booth and we absolutely will exhibit, but you gotta bring buyers. You're not going to get away with putting up an exhibit and meeting without competitors across the aisle, that's not enough.  David: Right. I know with Exponation, they worked their butts off trying to get brands to show up, to a level that they were putting them on advisory boards and things like that, just to make them feel like they should be there.  Paul Miller: Yeah. Look, I've been in the events space for sort of 25 years. It is not easy, particularly when, and this is where it comes back to the strategy of Questex, I think compared with Exponation, we're a huge believer in content. I think I've said this to you before content is still king or queen, but the kingdom is data. Once you have people and you've attracted them, around content, it's really about understanding what their needs are, what they're looking for, engaging with them, and I think if you're a pure-play event company, what you do is you put on an event once a year, you're sort of reliant on a lot of partners to produce that content for you, and not in your environment. So you don't get the data as much, and I think that makes it very difficult in complete deference to what Exponation was trying to do.  I think they were trying to do the right thing, but when you don't have that daily engagement with the community, it's quite hard to hit it out of the park on every single thing. You're going to find your content probably gets a bit tired, sometimes the loudest voice gets to be the speaker, as opposed to the one that everybody wants to hear. There are certain things that data takes out of the room. It takes that emotion out of the room and it says like this audience is engaging with this type of content, that's what they want to see live. That I think gives you a little bit more data-driven decision-making around what the industry wants, as opposed to my gut feel or what somebody just told me at the bar last week at the show.  David: So, based on everything you've been hearing, everything your team has been doing, do you have the bones of an idea of what we're going to see? Paul Miller: Yeah we do. I think that's a good description. I'm not sure we're fully fleshed out, but I can certainly tell you a few things that we're going to do.  Number one, we are going to relaunch the show. Just to be clear from the top, we are going to relaunch the show. We do think that the show has to be repositioned somewhat to be a broader show to bring in those customers, as I mentioned, We're looking at experiences around a broad-based agenda of life and business and mid the re-emergence of society and the global economy. So this is more about where does digital signage fit in the “roaring 20S”? So we are looking to bring back the event. We're looking at next Spring and we are looking at Las Vegas. I can't go much further than that at this point in time, because we are obviously trying to secure venues and we're trying to secure dates, and that by the way, is easier said than done in a post-pandemic environment and everybody wants dates. But we do have our Nightclub & Bar rebranded as our Bar & Restaurant event in Las Vegas next spring. There's the possibility of bringing that together again if you will. We will have an exhibit floor but also adding things like show floor experiences, very inclusive. You know, “let's demonstrate some applications, do some showcases, have some themed presentation stages.” So a lot of buzz on the show floor, but at the same time, a really engaging conference program, lots of curated presentations, tracks based on innovative applications, why do this, what are the outcomes, what you should be looking for? And last but not least we are hoping to have multiple layers of networking at the event. That's one thing that this community told us is, “Please don't lose the networking!”  As I think, you know more than I know, great parties, great places for the industry to come together and celebrate, learn to buy, to sell. So yeah, we were even looking at guides around Las Vegas itself, tours of installations so people can learn, form real-life applications, not just what somebody might tell you what could happen. Let's curate some tours, and we do that by the way, for our Bar & Restaurant event, we take people behind the scenes at a Nightclub behind the scenes of a Vegas restaurant, so they can see everything from point of sale applications through to what's going on in the kitchen, and how does the food come out? We think that the audience, the community is telling us it wants more, hands-on more, show me what works, more education, more demos and bring it all together as an event that is an experience beyond just, ”I walk the show floor and I meet a couple of friends at the bar.” David: Yeah. I've certainly heard many times and when I did a little survey asking about, where should a trade show go? The comment that's stuck in my head was, I know when I go to something like DSE, I'm landing, and that's what I'm doing that week, or for the next two, three days, that's my subject matter versus an ISE or an InfoComm, which are great shows, but they're Omni shows covering a whole bunch of different vertical industries and technologies and everything else and you don't have this aggregate of people who are just there for digital signage. Now you could go to a party and talk to 20 people, and they're all doing things that have nothing to do with digital signage, but they're in AV.  Paul Miller: Yeah, by the way, I think both are relevant. A lot of respect for ISE and InfoComm and the AVIXA Association in general, I think they do great stuff by the way. And I think there is relevance in attending a show that is broader than just the sort of industry that you're in. I think that's where you do see adjacencies and ideas that might be applicable. But what was loud and clear from this community was we wanted our own place. There's enough going on in the digital signage space for us to need to focus on our industry, our solutions, our ecosystem for us to want our own place, and that, by the way, was one of the key learnings over the last 8 to 10 weeks of listening to people.  There wasn't one person who said, I don't think the industry needs its own place. There are a few people who said can I afford the time to go to all of these events? And I think that's a relevant comment and that's all about saying, well, we have to win your respect to get your time, and we have to have a program that you walk away after two or three days or a week, and you go, “Wow, I'm going to recommend this to my friends because these guys really put something on that it creates a fear of missing out if I'm not there, and I think more importantly than all of that actually creates business interactions. People actually do write orders and they do write RFPs at the event.” That's what we're here for at the end of the day.  So yeah, I think the need for an event that's focused on this particular community is clear: that's actually a box that was checked very clearly. it wasn't a 50-50 decision. David: There will be people who listen to this and think that's great that you're doing a show, but spring in Las Vegas or just spring in general in the trade show industry is very crowded. There's a lot going on and you're putting this in between ISC and InfoComm, which are AV shows, there's NAB, all these other ones that happening around then there, I've heard many people say it would be lovely if an event like this was in the fall instead. Paul Miller: Yeah. Unfortunately, the fall is also busy. It's got its own interesting issues and particularly around the pandemic where shows have been moved around, and they're off cycles. The feedback that we got, Dave, was again, you're right, “It's crowded. Please don't put it over the top of another show because we don't want to be forced into a decision. Do we go to this or this?”  The feedback we got was, “We liked where it was before,” which was, around that April timeframe, spring timeframe. So we've taken that into account and we didn't have any huge set of people saying, “Hey, move it to November or get it out of the way.” The other option we had by the way was to think about, do we put it alongside our lighting show, which is in the fall, October, November.  The more we get into it, the more it becomes clear to us that actually, the lighting show is not as relevant as an audience, they tend to be lighting designers, people that are doing the rigging of lighting, et cetera. A better audience would be people that are buying stuff for their restaurant for us. So yeah, we're never going to get a date that's going to satisfy everybody, unfortunately. Our feeling is we have the best chance to bring the right set of buyers to this event in the spring of next year.  David: And if you do it somewhat in tandem with an existing show like your Bar & Restaurant show, I imagine there's some efficiency around Ops people, like, you don't have to bring double the staff. You may bring more than you would for one show, but not of double compliment.  Paul Miller: Yeah, the efficiencies come with, obviously the show place itself. So if we do go to the Las Vegas convention center, obviously you get efficiency. If you do two in one, if you will.  From our team perspective, maybe Dave, in terms of we could send seven people rather than two sets of five, for instance, which is where I think you're going. But I'm not sure, I think what we're looking at for this event is and also by the way, for the Bar & Restaurant event, as you can imagine, the experiences there are pretty high end. You've got people launching new dreams. You've got people launching new bar and restaurant concepts. So I think that it would be the same as at a reinvigorated DSE. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not looking for cost efficiencies, let me put it that way. That wouldn't be the reason for doing it.  David: When do you think you'll have a launch or an announcement saying we're going to do this?  Paul Miller: We're in the midst of recruiting an advisory board. We're getting some great traction there, by the way. I can give you a few names if that helps. I would say we are a matter of weeks away from a full announcement and maybe not many weeks.  David: Yeah, and I guess you really have to be because planning cycles are long, right? People are already budgeting for 2022.  Paul Miller: We gotta get moving, yeah. It's not just the budgeting aspect of this. It's the sales team that has to be implemented. You've got to have your content team in place. Your advisory board needs to meet so we can start to get around the sort of flavor of the show. So no, we gotta get our skates on, no doubt about it. David: So who are some of your advisors that you can say?  Paul Miller: Some that I can say, and by the way, there are a number of others that we think are going to be really exciting for the community to hear about, but we've got Rich Ventura, B2B Business line manager at Sony, I think previously the chairman of the DSF. We've got Rick Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer for Billups, leading voice in the out-of-home industry, and by the way, a play on the advisory board, just for the record is these four quadrants, there's the industry veterans, those people that really know this space, the new voices, and the new faces. We said we're going to reinvigorate, let's get some new voices. So Jackie Walker, digital signage subject matter expert at Publicis Sapient is one of those.  We've got a number of others. Laura Davis Taylor retail & reality, we've got some people here that I think are going to bring some really great new voices and faces alongside the veterans, also strategic partners that we're looking at, and of course, people like yourself in the media. We'd like to have a balance of all of the above and if we're going to deliver on our promise of a reinvigorated show, I think the definition of insanity is doing something the same way and then expecting a different outcome, so we've got to make some changes here and reinvigorate the advisory board, get new names and voices and faces involved, but don't throw away the baby with the bathwater either, make sure you've still got the people that know what they're talking about.  David: The last question I suppose is will it be called Digital Signage Expo or it'd be something else, or is that TBD? Paul Miller: Yeah, that's a great question. We have, interestingly, sometimes for how things happen without doing more sort of fundamental research, but internally we're using the DSE acronym quite a lot. I don't know is it Digital Signage Expo? Is it Digital Signage Experience? Is it DSE? At the moment where we're sticking with brand equity. Words and all that come with digital signage expo, but it's interesting internally, and we do refer a lot to it as DSE, and sometimes that just turned into the experience as opposed to the expo. So a little bit more about the industry, a little bit less about the product itself. I would say a personal front, from what I've heard from customers, Digital Signage Expo is fine. People are calling it DSE anyway, and I don't know if I want to go through a massive rebranding exercise at the same time we're doing a relaunch of the event.  David: Yeah. It's more of the communications and the people you bring on board and everything else.  Paul Miller: I think so, yeah. At the end of the day, I think it is: have we delivered a product that people go to and say you know what, these guys are on the path to creating a must-go-to event, we did some business, it was great to meet the community again, and I learned a lot. If we can check those boxes, I think we can then start to think about, okay, what now? And at the moment, we're just fully focused on producing something that people walk away from Vegas going, “These guys nailed it, they listened and we've got an event that's a must go for our industry, and they want to listen to some more on how we can make improvements from stage one.” So I think at the end of the day, that's what really matters. Yes, people have a lot of opinions. Yes, there's a lot of baggage. Yes, there's a lot of words that we're using right now that I hope resonate with the industry. But at the end of the day, it's did we deliver?  David: All right, Paul, thank you. I appreciate your time.  Paul Miller: Dave, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.  

Audio source: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-iTranscriptI think maybe in part because of this mindset of like I'm going to stay true to do what I'm good at, he makes the biggest missed opportunity ever maybe in history. I was teasing Ben, over the last couple days texting him saying, I've got something in this episode that I don't know if you know but is just the most unbelievable thing that you will never imagine.Ben: Lay it on me.David: In 1967, he writes his partners saying that he's introducing a new ground rule to the partnership. This one is quite literally the opposite of Don Valentine. He says, “We will not go into businesses where technology, which is way over my head, is crucial to the investment decision. I know about as much about semiconductors or integrated circuits as I do about the mating habits of this chrząszcz.” It a Polish word. It means beetle in Polish. Typical Warren way with words here. “This is very unfortunate.”Ben: What was the company?David: “Very unfortunate decision to make.”Ben: Let's see, 1967. It predates Microsoft by seven years, predates Apple. It's way after IBM. What's around this time, DEC? No, it's post-DEC.David: No, you'll get it if you think about it enough. Silicon Valley, or just as we talked about it a lot on the show.Ben: Is it an early Sequoia investment?David: Just pre-Sequoia. Sequoia was started in 1972, but this is all the crew that Don Valentine—Ben: Is it an Arthur Rock investment?David: It is an Arthur Rock investment.Ben: Is it Intel?David: We're talking about Intel here.Ben: No way.David: Get this. Buffett, at this point, is on the board of Grinnell College in Iowa. He's a trustee of Grinnell College, which by the way, he was introduced to by Susie. Susie became an incredible civil rights activist and Grinnell College was involved in the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King spoke at Grinnell College six months before he was killed. Susie brings Warren to the college to listen to King speak. Warren is like incredibly moved by Dr. King.He decides after that to join the board. They were trying to recruit him to join the board, so he does. Do you know who else was on the board? One of Grinnell College's most famous alumni, alongside Warren Buffett?Ben: Noyce or Moore.David: Yes, bingo. Robert Noyce.Ben: Wow.David: Alumni of Grinnell College, inventor of the integrated circuit, part of the traitorous eight, who left Shockley Semiconductor to start Fairchild, and then co-founder of Intel with Gordon Moore and Andy Grove is on the board of Grinnell with Warren. Not only has that, but Warren chairs the endowment investment committee at Grinnell. Of course, that would make sense. When Noyce leaves to start Intel and Arthur Rock is putting the deal together to finance Intel, Noyce brings it to the investment committee at Grinnell College and says, there's $100,000 piece. I think Grinnell should invest in this company. I think this is really going to be big. I know what I'm doing.Ben: He saw the deal.David: Warren approves the investment and Grinnell does invest $100,000 in the Intel seed round effectively. But Warren never goes near it for the partnership, for himself. In fact says, I will never invest in technology companies. Unreal.Ben: Basically held to that for another 45+ years.David: Totally. Not until Apple and I think—I haven't done the research yet—Apple bubbles up within Berkshire from Todd Combs, not from Warren. Talk about sins of omission. This is before Sequoia. Imagine if Warren had financed Intel, Warren Buffett could have been Warren Buffet plus Sequoia Capital.Ben: Wow. Realistically, what would he have done with it if he did invest in it? First of all, he's never invested in technology business to this point. He's never invested in something that early. Everything he's bought has been pieces of public companies.David: Yup. Established on-going cash flow businesses.

This is episode 50 of the main podcast series! In this podcast we talk once more with researcher David Juste on his latest research on medieval astrological charts accompanied by their judgement. We discuss several aspects of the existing corpus of medieval charts. David Just has specialised in the study and cataloguing of astrological manuscripts and has published three volumes of the Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Latinorum. For more information on his work and publications see: https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/team/4 David has collected a vast list of bibliography on the history of astrology that can be found at: https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/astrobibl/start

* This episode was meant to be part of the launch of the podcast, but it had some sound problems. However, because we did not want to lose such an interesting conversation we decided to enhance the sound and subtitles as much as possible and share it. Enjoy! * In this episode we have with us David Just, research leader at the Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus project and a leading historian of astrology. David Just has specialised in the study and cataloguing of astrological manuscripts and has published three volumes of the Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Latinorum. For more information on his work and publications see: https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/team/4 He has collected a vast list of bibliography on the history of astrology that can be found at: https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/astrobibl/start

David gets into Blair's head to get his 10 basic negotiating tips that he has worked with clients on over the years.   LINKS “10 Negotiating Tips” (with 5 bonus tips) “Selling in One Lesson,” 2Bobs episode 49 Buying Less for Less: How to avoid the Marketing Procurement dilemma, by Gerry Preece Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value, by Reed K. Holden   TRANSCRIPT DAVID C. BAKER: Blair, today we are going to talk about 10 really interesting ways you can get your spouse to go ... Wait, I haven't, quit laughing. I haven't - BLAIR ENNS: I'm out. DAVID: How to get your spouse to go to the place for dinner that you want to go to. BLAIR: Okay. DAVID: How's that? BLAIR: Sure. What kind of trouble could we possibly get into? DAVID: Yeah, that would be a really stupid pod ... No. What we're talking about are some negotiating tips that you've thought about over many years. You've polled, you've tested, you've researched. You've worked with clients on. You've consolidated them into this one place. We may get to some bonus tips. I don't know if we'll have the time, but we definitely want to talk about the 10 basic tips around negotiating. Can you get me inside your head for a minute before I start pulling these out from you one by one? BLAIR: Well it's pretty crowded in there. What is it that you wanted access to? I gave you my password to everything the other day. What else do you want? DAVID: Is this going to be this difficult today? Are we going to do that? Or are we going to be cooperative? BLAIR: I'm feeling a little punchy. DAVID: Yeah, I see. I see you are. BLAIR: I'm in another hotel room. This is day 31 of a 36 day road trip. I tweeted today, "Okay. I've answered the question, how much travel is too much?". DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: Getting into my head, I think these tips, I considered it kind of a beginner's guide to negotiating. I don't consider myself to be an expert on negotiating. But you can't advise people on the subject of selling and pricing without knowing something about negotiating, so a while ago I took a bunch of the best practices that I've encountered on the subject of negotiating, and kind of put it into one place. That's I think what we're going to talk about today. I'll call it a beginner's guide to negotiating, and we're referencing to these 10 tips that I've published previously. DAVID: Hopefully it will be more than a beginner's guide. But we'll just set people's expectations low. BLAIR: Yeah, right. DAVID: Then we'll exceed them. BLAIR: That's exactly what I was doing. DAVID: There are 10 in here. But there are two of them that we've actually had the chance to talk about in previous episodes. I will reference all 10 of them. But then with two of them I'm going to point people to a previous episode if they want to really bone up on all that stuff. DAVID: The first one is, avoid over-investing. This is one that we have talked about. It was in a recent episode. It was called Selling In One Lesson. The idea is that the more somebody wants it, the more at a disadvantage they are, right? Just summarize that for us and then we'll move on to the number two one. Over-investing is the first one. BLAIR: Yeah, so you can, a good metaphor for negotiating would be a poker game where there's times when you're bluffing, when you're playing certain hands. But in particular the idea of bluffing. Or calling somebody else's bluff. You can apply some of the tips that we'll talk about here. If it's very clear to the client that you want this so bad, and it's clear to the client not just from what you say, but from all of the free work that you have done, all of the costs that you've incurred. If you are clearly over-invested in the sale then you do not have much of a bargaining position. Because you are demonstrating through your behavior that you want it more than the client does. Therefor the client is the one with the power in the relationship. BLAIR: It's a big broad rule. Avoid over-investing in the sale. As you pointed out, we covered this in detail in the podcast, Selling In One Lesson. DAVID: Okay. Even if you do desperately need it, don't act like it. BLAIR: Right. DAVID: Second, and here we want to start diving in in more detail. The second principle for negotiating is, ask the question, "Have we already won?". As I read that, I wasn't sure exactly what you meant. That led me to dive a little bit deeper into this, and I found it really interesting. "Have we already won?". Are you really asking that specific question? Or is it more just framing the negotiating in your head? BLAIR: This is a negotiating point specific to the topic of negotiating with procurement. This comes up a lot, I wrote about this in my book, Pricing Creativity: A Guide To Profit Beyond the Billable Hour. In the last month in the various places I've been, and the talks that I've done, and the training I've done, procurement has come up a lot. Where I'll talk about a principle and somebody says, "Yeah, but you don't understand. That doesn't work with procurement". BLAIR: The role of procurement, and I learned the most from this listening to a talk by a guy named Tom Kinnaird. Tom was head of procurement at WPP. Gerry Preece is another great resource on negotiating with procurement people. Gerry is an ex P&G global design procurement person who has a consulting practice, and he's written a great book on dealing with procurement. It's called Buying Less For Less. I think the subtitle is The Marketing Procurement Problem. BLAIR: When I was listening to Tom Kinnaird, who was former head of procurement at WPP and is now a consultant, he was giving away at a conference in London I was also speaking at, he was giving away some insider procurement tips. One of the tips he gave away was, you need to know that procurement often lies. When procurement shows up at the end of a negotiation, when you feel like you are the ordained firm, you've either won the business or you're in the pole position, and then procurement shows up to negotiate the final deal. In that situation, almost greater than nine out of 10 times, you have won. You've already won, and the concessions that procurement is demanding that you make, it's not mandatory that you make them. BLAIR: Procurement's going to communicate to you that, in order for you to win the business, that it's still a competitive situation, they're still considering other firms. In order for you to win the business you have to cut price. The general rule of thumb is, if procurement shows up late and starts using that language on you, they're lying. I talk about this in my next article. I'm actually quite heated about it in the next article. So far I'm only at the unedited version of it. DAVID: Still very angry. BLAIR: Yeah. It will be published by the time this podcast goes to air. Hopefully it's a little bit more measured. But in it I make the point that procurement is the only profession in the world that I know of where they're taught that it's okay to lie. It's okay to outright lie in the course of everyday business. When they show up late and say, "You need to sharpen your pencil. We've got three bids. You're the highest bidder. You need to get your price to X or you're not getting the business", they're almost always lying. BLAIR: Now when procurement shows up at the beginning and they navigate the entire purchase process, you have another problem. They're not lying. It's an even bigger problem. They're seeing what it is that they're buying as a commodity, so you have to ask yourself, should you be even participating in a process where the client clearly does not value what you do, and it's seen as an expense to be minimized rather than an investment to be made? But the lesson is, so the tip is, ask the question, "Have you already won?". BLAIR: When you're in a situation where it feels like you've won, and then procurement comes in and says, "You haven't won yet. You've got to get past us. You have to give us all of these concessions", don't believe them. In fact I would go further and say, "We have this idea that we've got to throw procurement a bone in a situation like this. We'll give them this one win and then they'll go away". That's not how they work. They're trained to keep asking until you say no, so you want to start with no. BLAIR: We could go deeper into that. We could do a whole podcast on negotiating with procurement. But that's the tip. You ask yourself before you start giving concessions away, ask yourself, "Wait a minute. Have I already won here? Is it really necessary for me to make these concessions?". Because in a lot of situations you have already won, and it is not in your interest to make any concessions whatsoever. DAVID: The main clue is found in when procurement comes. At the beginning or the end. BLAIR: Yes. DAVID: That's the second one, okay. The third tip here takes this further, and it's around the idea that procurement lies regularly. Not just about this one thing that we're talking about that relates to how to decipher the timing and whether you've actually won. BLAIR: Yeah, so it is a recurring theme here. You might think, I always say, "Attack ideas. Don't attack people and organizations". But I always make an exception for procurement. Reid Holden, who's written a couple of great books on pricing and also on negotiating, and he infiltrated the world of procurement. He has this great line, and I repeat it often. "80 percent of procurement people give the other 20 percent a bad name". DAVID: As opposed to 20-80, yeah. You're flipping that around, right? BLAIR: Yeah. In the story I'm writing, I'm writing two different examples of two different agencies pitching two different pieces of business and then having to deal with procurement. One hold their ground and the other one doesn't hold their ground. The example where the agency holds their ground, they're told in the beginning, "The account is a $500,000 a year retainer", and so they do a little pilot project for free. They prove validation. Then they're handed off to procurement and procurement says, "The fees are not $500,000. They're $300,000. Take it or leave it". The firm walked away, and in the end the client came back and said, "Oh, no no. We want you to work with us. You can have the original $500,000". BLAIR: As I was talking to the agency president who was telling me this story, I said to him, "If I were you in that situation. If I'd heard that from the procurement person, I would want to get the client and the procurement person in the room together. I would want to look them both in the eyes and say, 'I want to know which one of you lied to me. You said it was $500,000 in fees. You said it's not $500,000, it's $300,000. One of you lied. Which one was it?'". BLAIR: We know who the liar is. The liar is always procurement, right? Because they're taught that it's okay to lie. But I just imagine, and I'm ranting in this article, and you can feel me getting emotional now. Because I can't believe that we continue to give this egregious behavior a free pass. We need to call out irresponsible practices and outright lies when we hear them from our clients and our clients' procurement department. I hope I've addressed the issue of three procurement lies. I feel like we should probably get off the subject of procurement. DAVID: Well I turned the recorder off a long time ago, and what people are going to hear instead of you ranting is me providing a very reasonable response to all of these things. BLAIR: Instead of my therapy while I lie on your couch. I'm going to a marketing procurement conference in London. I think it's in June. I'm really looking forward to being in the room with these people, and having an open conversation about what I think of their business practices. DAVID: The third point is, beware of procurement lies. Let me just read some of these and then we'll go to the next point. "It's down to you and one other". That's one lie. Another one is, "Yours is the highest bid". Another is, "You have to cut your price to remain in contention", or all these other things that you might hear. BLAIR: Or, "Take it or leave it. There's no negotiating. There's no middle ground. Here's my offer. Take it or leave it". That's another one. DAVID: Right, yeah. Then a concession, you say, is an invitation to ask for more. All right. Let's get you back down to happy land, and we'll move off of procurement. BLAIR: Well we're still going to talk about procurement a little bit here in the next one. Go ahead. DAVID: The fourth point is, outwait the waiter. Outwait the waiter is the fourth point. Talk about that. BLAIR: Yeah. I forget where I heard this idea from first, because I really would like to attribute to the various sources that I've pulled all of these things from. It might be Chris Voss who wrote, "Never split the difference. Negotiate like your life depends on it". Or it might be Jim Camp. Or it might be Tom Kinnaird. I don't remember who. But the idea is, when you're in the final negotiations with people, and again it's almost always procurement. Because it's procurement who's trained in negotiating. That's another point. We really need to be trained in negotiating to counteract those on the client side who are trained in negotiating. BLAIR: One of the tactics that they do is, after you've won, or you think you've won, they slow everything down. Procurement will say, "I'll get back to you in this time period", and then they'll take longer. You'll reach out to them and leave a message, and they'll just kind of stretch things out to make you sweat and to make you more nervous. That's the way they can extract more concessions from you. BLAIR: Again, if you think back to the formula that we talked about in Selling In One Lesson, P equals DB over D. Your power in the sale is a function of your desirability, is your desirability greater than your own desire? Because if it's not, if you're communicating that your desire for the client and the engagement is higher than the client's desire, then you have the least power in the relationship. The tactic when procurement is trying to slow things down to make you sweat is, you slow things down even more. If they take 24 hours to get back to you, you take 48 hours. You communicate to them that, "Yeah, that's fine. We're in no rush. I mean, if this is going to happen it's going to happen. If it isn't, that's fine too". BLAIR: It's almost a game of, and there are times when negotiating really is a game and it really should be fun. It's never fun if you're over-invested in the sale, right? DAVID: Yeah, right. BLAIR: But it should be fun, and you should play this game. Instead of being anxious you just play it out and outwait them. If they delay, you delay longer. If they say they can't speak for 48 hours, you say you can't speak for 96 hours, etc. DAVID: Just multiply by two. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: They're saying, "We need to slow this down in some way", and they're expecting you to indicate some investment in the sale. Like minor panic or whatever. Instead you're flipping this around and saying, "Ah, no problem at all. Do you need more time?". BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: "That's fine. We're not in any hurry, okay". BLAIR: You got it. DAVID: Got it, so that's the fourth point. The fifth point here is to beware the white knight. I don't think we need to talk too much about this one, because in a slightly different context we did talk about this in an episode called How To Drive Your Employees Batshit Crazy. Here we were talking more about management and so on. But the principle is the same. It's this idea that we are going to bring in the big white knight to save the day. Just give us a few sentences on this one. BLAIR: Yeah, the white knight is usually the senior person on your team. There's some negotiating going back and forth. Everything's proceeding, maybe well but slowly. Maybe it doesn't feel like it's proceeding well. But the principle or the senior person swoops in and says, "You know what? I'm going to fix, I'm going to get this deal done in one fell swoop". They show up and make a concession, thinking, "Okay. I'll just make the one concession and close on this". What they don't understand is, they've just undone a lot of work being done by other good people. BLAIR: Sometimes it makes sense, if you think of the previous tip about outwait the waiter. Sometimes it makes sense to just, it's part of the negotiation. To slow things down. When the principle shows up to speed things up and says, "I'm going to make this one concession and close the deal", then they realize, that one concession is really just the beginning. They have just created a whole new set of problems, and the likelihood that the agency is going to close this business at a profitable position has just diminished significantly. BLAIR: The idea is, be careful about allowing the senior person, usually the principle, to swoop in at the last minute and make a concession that they think is going to just close the deal. Because it usually doesn't work that way. DAVID: Yeah. On the other side of the table, they've discovered where the weakness is and how they can get even more concessions. Because you've tipped your hand. That's a good one. DAVID: All right, number six. Decide your give and gets in advance. Decide your give and gets in advance. Which is opposite of what you just talked about, where somebody else swoops in without much consultation. We might make a concession, but we're going to do it very intentionally. We're not going to be willy nilly here. Decide your give and gets in advance. Who's doing this? The team as whole? Anybody that's in a position of power? How does this work? BLAIR: That's a good question. It's not just the person who's on the front lines. It's the people ultimately who have to live with the decision. It's a senior member. It's probably a team decision or the decision in the principle. The idea here is similar to going into an auction, right? We go to an auction, we think, "I'm not going to do anything stupid", and we end up bidding these crazy high prices. Because in part, loss aversion bias kicks in. We make a bid, we mentally own it, and then somebody outbids us and now we've lost something that we just a second ago emotionally owned. BLAIR: What the science shows is, we value losing something about two times as much as we value gaining it. In an auction that causes us to do crazy things. The way you combat that going into an auction is, you have an honest conversation with yourself about what your absolute maximum price is, and you do not deviate from that maximum price whatsoever. You do not allow yourself to get swept up in the moment. You hold the line by making the decision in advance. BLAIR: The principle here of, "Decide your give gets in advance", is the same thing. You decide, what are you willing to give up in advance in the negotiation? What are you not willing to give up? What is it that you absolutely need to get from the client, and what are you willing to take a pass on? You make those decisions in advance so that you do not find yourself in the middle of a negotiation, while at the table or in the conversation, giving away something that you are going to regret later. You just draw the boundaries in advance of the negotiation.   DAVID: I want to take a slight detour here and ask you a question. Because we're assuming that this is occurring at the outset of a new relationship in many cases. If you do this right, do you have to play these same games in subsequent negotiations with the same client? Or do they get and sort of figure out your style and where the lines are, so that it's a little bit more efficient later? BLAIR: Yeah. There's two different camps here, and we may be opening a big can of worms. I mean, it's a legitimate question. There's the negotiating with procurement camp, where if you really are using these principles and you're getting into these protracted things and you have these standoffs, you win. You've won the first round. That does not mean that procurement's not coming back for you even harder. When you're going into a relationship with that type of organization, you're going to win some battles. Ultimately you will lose the war. Ultimately everybody loses the war. BLAIR: The idea is that you get to a point where, "All right. This relationship is no longer fruitful. They've kind of beaten all of the margin out of us over the long term". You know, hopefully it was a good run. BLAIR: Then on the other camp would be good clients where you're not dealing with procurement, or they're more of a value buyer where you just have to use one or two of these techniques, and you're not setting up a long term war where you're constantly battling each other. It really could be one or the other, where you're constantly in a negotiation. Always defending what you know is an onslaught that you're ultimately going to lose in the end, but it still might be worth it. It might be a three, four year good run and it's worth fighting the battle. Or other situations where you just find yourself using one or two of these techniques and that's it. Then you find yourself in a good relationship with a value buyer who really values what it is that you do. DAVID: Yeah. I find that when I talk with my clients, and we share some clients, it's dispiriting enough when they have to enter these negotiations with a new client. But when they've worked with a client for years and then this gets turned on them again, when they want to review the relationship. They almost are just intentionally forgetting everything that happened over the last four years, and you have to prove yourself again. There isn't much in business that can pull the rug out from under your confidence and slap you in the face than something like that. I don't even know why I'm saying this. It just hits me at the moment that it's very discouraging for people to have to do that over and over again. BLAIR: I agree. DAVID: All right. Number seven. Neuter the final negotiators. Neuter ... It's like we're watching a Game of Thrones episode here. What kind of a serial killer are you in disguise? Neuter the final negotiators. Okay. What kind of knife do we use here? BLAIR: Maybe there's a better word for neuter. What I'm talking about is, the moment that you have the greatest amount of power in the relationship is the moment when the client, not the procurement person, but the client says, "You're hired". DAVID: Mm-hmm (affirmative). BLAIR: When that happens, and often you go from the client saying you're hired to, then you get handed off to procurement or legal or finance or whomever. That other department will kind of, you've got to fight another war over there. But if you know the war is coming, if you know, if you're used to dealing with the same types of clients and you know there's a battle with procurement coming, use your power at its height. The moment you're hired. BLAIR: I had a client once who called me and said, "We're doing great. We're closing all of these really big deals. Seven figures. We've got all the senior decision makers in the room. But I have the same problem. It's like every time I get a call from procurement, 'You've got to knock 200 grand off of this', etc". BLAIR: I said, "Okay. Next time it happens, next time you close a deal, in the room you have the senior decision makers. You say to the client, 'Okay. We've got a problem here'. Everybody's in agreement. We're going to do this. Here's the price. Here's the scope. Everybody's in agreement. Everybody's excited about moving forward and really looking for the engagement. Then you stop and say, 'Okay. We've got a problem. We've just agreed on this. The price is the price. We've talked about the value that we're going to create. BLAIR: I'm going to get a call from your procurement person, and that procurement person is going to tell me that if I don't knock $200,000 or $300,000 off this price we're not going to do business together. The price is the price. We've just agreed on what we all agree is fair for the value that we're going to create. The price is the price. There's no economies of scale here for us to make the price cheaper. Can we agree, when procurement calls me', and then you look over at the client side and say, 'When procurement calls me, who can I get them to call?'". BLAIR: Now you're in this little, it's a little bit like a power play move but not as bad as it sounds. In that the senior client on the client side of the table generally will take responsibility and say, "No. Have that person call me". That's what I mean by neuter the final negotiators. Leverage the fact that you have the most power to combat procurement in the moment when the client says, "You're hired". BLAIR: Now the higher up you're dealing in a client organization, the more power you have. In this example my client, the agency, was dealing with senior people on the client side. Presidents of divisions. They weren't dealing with brand managers. Bu even some brand managers might be willing to lend some weight to helping you get around procurement. But again, you ask in that moment. The moment when the client says, "I want to do this", or, "We want to hire you". That's when you have the most power to neuter the final negotiators. DAVID: Well I think this would be fun to do. Because I can see saying it with kind of a twinkle in your eye, and they just smile and look at each other. Because they know that that is coming, and they kind of chuckle and say, "Yeah yeah. Here's who it'll be. This is what they'll say. We'll take care of it". I love this one. DAVID: All right. We're on the way to 10, and we're at number eight. This one is an A B thing. What you say here is that you should either be ruthless, or you should be collaborative. One place is going to take you somewhere. The other place is going to take you somewhere else. Which is which here? Be ruthless or be collaborative? BLAIR: Yeah, so it's both but you pick your spot. You be ruthless with other professional negotiators, and you be collaborative with clients. With good clients. Because you have to work with the clients. You don't want to get into ... If you're setting the tone of the relationship moving forward where you're in this somewhat ruthless battle, you have to be aware of creating the conditions, if we're just not a very fruitful relationship moving forward. But you really should be ruthless with professionals. Again, you could hear me getting a little bit emotional as I talk about procurement people. You don't want to do that. BLAIR: One of the advantages procurement people have is, they are not emotionally invested in the sale. They don't give a shit at all, right? DAVID: They aren't even people. They don't even have emotions. BLAIR: "They're bureaucrats, Morty. Shoot them". Or, "They're robots". It's a Rick and Morty line. We're going to get into trouble with the 20 percent of the procurement people who are out there. Again, I just say to my friends in procurement, I don't actually have any friends in procurement, but it's possible that one day I might have a friend in procurement. I would just say that, the problem isn't just in the procurement profession. It's actually in the organizations above procurement who give license to procurement to procure creative and marketing service as though they were widgets. They think that they can drive cost down without affecting the quality or the value to be created. You can't really do that. The responsibility isn't just with procurement. BLAIR: But back to, these people aren't emotionally invested. We, especially if you're the creative person coming up with the concept, we tend to be emotionally invested in the results. You be ruthless with them. You hold the line. As I've already said, they're going to ask until they hear no, so you start with no. There's no need to build rapport or kindness or to ever negotiate out of emotion. If you find yourself being emotional, see if you can't retreat, regroup, let go of whatever it is that you're emotionally attached to. Then re-engage again when you're emotionally detached. But it's like, be ruthless. Hold the line. Don't fall into the trap of this ridiculous idea that you're going to befriend a procurement or a professional negotiator and you're going to, somehow through the strength of your personality, you're going to get to a solution. BLAIR: As you've pointed out, they're robots, or they're bureaucrats. I use that term in this moment out of a little bit of a respect. What I mean by that is, they're not clouded by emotions. They've got a job to do. They've got an objective. They're marching steadily toward that objective and not letting their emotions cloud their judgment, so you should be able to operate at that same unemotional ruthless level. DAVID: All right. Number nine is, use a positive no. Use a positive no. Can you explain that? I presume you can. BLAIR: Let's hope I can. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: There are so many different ways that you can say no. I think so many of us have a hard time delivering the word no, because in so many of our businesses, what we do is we find a creative solution to every problem. We don't accept that the answer has to be no to something, so therefore we have a hard time saying no. BLAIR: There are all kinds of different techniques on how to deliver a positive no. I'll just give you a couple of them here. First you just kind of, if there's an objection, you just make sure that you restate the objection. "Okay, I'm hearing that affordability is an issue for you". Then you deliver your no. You start with kind of a yes. "Yes, I hear that affordability is an issue for you". Then you deliver your no. "Listen, I can't give you that price in this specific situation". Then you layer in another yes. "But what I can do is stretch out the payment terms a little bit", or something else. Or throw in some other forms of value. Throughout the entire time, your attitude is always positive. It's not, "Oh, you know, I don't think we can do this". It's not, "There's no way we can do this". BLAIR: There's a time for, "No way". But there's a time when you want to use a positive no. You're nodding your head saying, "Yeah, I'm absolutely hearing you that affordability is an issue for you on this. I can't give you that price in this situation that you're looking for. But here's what I can do for you". Then deliver what it is you can. "I can throw in some extra value. I can stretch out the payment terms a little bit for you". It's all about delivering no with a positive attitude. BLAIR: I'm not saying that's always the approach. I think there are times when it's just a hard line, "No. Take it or leave it", walk away. But in many situations it makes sense to deliver a positive no. DAVID: You're also demonstrating that you've listened. That you care. You may make a decision that's not one they would prefer, but you're not just simply closing up and not listening to them. That's part of restating this to them. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: All right. The final one is to use alternatives to no, and you've got a few examples here. Are these used with clients or with pros? I think I probably should have asked that question many times here, because it's been interesting to hear the distinction. Using alternatives to no. Who do you use these with, primarily? BLAIR: Yeah, I would put most of these, like use a positive no or use an alternative to no, I would put most of them under the collaborate column. That means with clients. Where I find myself tending to want to be more ruthless and just deliver hard nos to procurement. Now that's me a little bit worked up emotionally, violating what I said earlier. The truth is, a really good negotiator will use positive nos and alternatives to nos with procurement from time to time. It's not just all hard lines. Although I really believe that you begin with a super hard line with procurement. BLAIR: I think generally speaking, for sure you should use these approaches with clients. The people that you want to have a fruitful working relationship with that. A great alternative to no, and I think this one comes from Chris Voss. If it's not Chris it's somebody else. I'll also, I'm recalling that some of the other techniques I probably got from Reid Holden in his book, Negotiating With Backbone. It's a small book. It's a really good book. Both of those books are great books on negotiating. BLAIR: His line, and again I think it's Chris Voss. Instead of saying no just ask, "Well how would I do that?". If procurement is saying, "Listen, the fees in your proposal, we're not giving you that. We're giving you 60 percent of what you've asked for. You can take it or leave it". Then you essentially turn the problem back onto, instead of saying no you just turn the problem back onto the client. "Okay, 60 percent of the fee. How would I do that? How would I deliver the services that you're looking for at just 60 percent?". DAVID: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and a pause, right? At that point? BLAIR: Right. Always a pause, and we're not talking about that here, but I've talked about the power of pause before. When you pause after you deliver a no or an objection or an obstacle for the client to overcome, you want to pause because whatever you hear next gives you so much information about how much power you have in the buy sell relationship. BLAIR: You could also use a, "Yes, but", instead of asking, "How would I do that?". The client might say, "I don't know. That's your problem. How you do it is your problem". You might say, "Well do you think we have 40 percent profit margin built into this?". "I don't know, that's your problem". You could say, "Yes, but". You could say, "Well you know, I suppose I could deliver on 60 percent of that. I mean, if that's your bottom line. I guess we'll just put the interns on it and remove access to senior people. Access to principles. We'll take our creative director off of it, and yeah, we can meet your price that way". DAVID: They're starting to get a warm feeling. BLAIR: Yeah. I mean, this is where we're having fun now, right? I think when the client asks you to do something ridiculous, you could ask the client, "Well okay. How would I do that?". Or if the client's not going to participate in that question you can offer a solution. Again, this speaks to the title of Gerry Preece's book, Buying Less For Less. The idea that when procurement is buying marketing services, they drive the cost down. What they don't appreciate is, they're driving the quality down. Because in a people based business, the way you get your costs down is, you get less expensive people on the job. BLAIR: Just communicate that to the client. "Okay, we can give you that price. But here are all of the things that we have to strip out". What you're almost certainly going to hear is, "No, we want those deliverables or value drivers at the price you quoted". That's where you can laugh and say, "Yeah, well let me tell you about the things that I want in my life too, that I'm not going to get either". DAVID: One of the things that I've been thinking about my own situation over the years, and something that's hit me. It's given me this kind of warm feeling. I know that sounds weird. But it's when I find myself getting a little bit angry, and that's because I feel like I'm being taken advantage of, or not appreciated to the level I should be. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: I can relax and tell myself, "I don't need this that badly. Why don't I just smile and make this more of an interesting exercise?". Not so much a contest, but an exercise to see what I can learn. As long as I'm willing to walk away from it, I don't understand why I'm getting angry. I need to treat this more as a business conversation. It frees up my mind to think in these categories and not get all wrapped up in myself at some point. BLAIR: Yeah. I call that smile and defy. You smile to yourself for a minute. Remind yourself, "Let's not get carried away here. This is just a game". Then you defy what it is that's been asked of you. Then you just see what happens next. You have that ability to do that. I have that ability to do that. Because we're not over-invested in the sale. We're not allocating significant resources from our businesses to close any one particular deal. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: When you don't over-invest, and I know and work with lots of agencies who have learned to not over-invest in the sale, everything changes when you're not over-invested. It's easier for you to smile. It's easier for you to use some of these techniques. It's easier for you to walk away from poor fits, knowing that if it really is a good fit, it will come back on your terms. DAVID: Care a lot, but don't care too early. That should be the title of this. BLAIR: That's great advice, yeah. DAVID: All right. We will put some bonus ideas in the show notes. Marcus will help us with that. These are 10, and we'll throw some more in there. This was really fun to talk about, Blair. Let's hope that none of these procurement folks listen to this before you meet them in London, or we will have some real life neutering taking place. BLAIR: I would prefer they did listen, and we had some frank and fruitful discussions. DAVID: Okay. Thank-you, Blair. BLAIR: Thanks David.

Dr. David Just studies human behavior and how psychology ties in with economic decisions.  His work at Cornell examines the interesting overlays that cause consumers to behave how they do.  In this podcast we examine [...]

Have you ever wondered why most grocery stores – despite the chain – more or less have the same floor plan? Or why candy bars are always available at the cash register? The layout of stores and strategic placement of certain items is the result of a purposeful decision-making progress designed to encourage people to buy more of one thing or another. Often, the items offered for sale tend to have a lower nutritional value – helping to fuel high levels of obesity and diet related disease prevalent in our society today. But what if these strategies and subtle cues that influence all of our decision-making processes were used to promote healthy items instead? Joining the show today to discuss the possibility of using behavioral economic based interventions to lead food consumers of all ages to healthier diets is Dr. David Just, whose recent paper, titled “Influencing the food choices of SNAP consumers: Lessons from economics, psychology and marketing” was just published in the Journal of Food Policy. Dr. Just is currently a professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. He serves as co-director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs. David’s work uses the tools of psychology and economics to examine important ways in which misperception and emotion can drive economic decisions. Eating Matters is powered by Simplecast

We are joined by Professor Dan Connors of University of Colorado Denver to discuss his research on leveraging technology to increase efficiency in the healthcare system specifically in regards to fighting the opioid epidemic in the US. He also talks with us about using internet of things technology to promote better personal health. Hosted by Ceren Karacasu, Yudong Rao, Elaine Qiu and David Just.

We are joined by Professor Dan Connors of University of Colorado Denver to discuss his research on leveraging technology to increase efficiency in the healthcare system specifically in regards to fighting the opioid epidemic in the US. He also talks with us about using internet of things technology to promote better personal health. Hosted by Ceren Karacasu, Yudong Rao, Elaine Qiu and David Just.

Today we are joined by Professor Scott Yonker to talk about his research on CEOs impact on corporate decisions. We go into many factors about how CEOs personal background and private decision making can steer the habits of a whole corporation. Hosted by Ceren Karacasu, Yudong Rao, Elaine Qiu and David Just.

Today we are joined by Professor Scott Yonker to talk about his research on CEOs impact on corporate decisions. We go into many factors about how CEOs personal background and private decision making can steer the habits of a whole corporation. Hosted by Ceren Karacasu, Yudong Rao, Elaine Qiu and David Just.

In this episode we are joined by MBA Student Cruise Chen to talk about bitcoin and some of the rationales as to why people invest in it. We also talk about economic bubbles and the history of how and why they form. Hosted by Ceren Karacasu, Yudong Rao and David Just.

In this episode we are joined by MBA Student Cruise Chen to talk about bitcoin and some of the rationales as to why people invest in it. We also talk about economic bubbles and the history of how and why they form. Hosted by Ceren Karacasu, Yudong Rao and David Just.

What’s the worst fishing advice you’ve been given? Fish in the News! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gwyneth-paltrow-brings-up-a-good-point-about-not-eating-octopus_us_58d295fee4b0f838c62e7765? NH has some of the most restrictive lead bans in the country, but some say it’s too much! Here is what some folks are saying on facebook… Names have been altered! So when are WE fishermen going to push back against this lead law? I mean, maybe not get rid of it totally but have it rewritten... Shouldn’t be all lead... Should only be lead sinkers... Painted jigs, with hooks should be excluded! So many types of lures that aren't made without lead... Not to mention the price... Of the bird people can make the law, no reason why we can't get it rewritten to not COMPLETELY screw us... Mike Its the ones with the hooks that are the worse. Lead is bad for the environment and all health. Period. Yeah, its kind of annoying, but it would be better for the market in general to move away from lead. The last part is the real problem Ray The law should be like Maine's lead law... NH needs to stop trying to be so different from Maine and start looking toward them for guidance... Lol Steve Loons don't eat lead shot larger than #4 shot. Lead split sinkers are mostly bigger than that. Too many anti, loon lovers in NH F&G. Raymond Everything that is made of lead they make in tungsten or bismuth . Bismuth I'd the same price as lead .Lead free bass jigs.Com . And ray to your thoughts on getting it changed never ever going to happen . I don't care if you got every fisherman in the state it still isn't going to change. Now go check out ken's site and replace your equipment like I've had to do and everyone else has had to. I've easily got a $300 worth of lead I just use it when I go to fla. Only one I disagree with is spinnerbaits . Ain't no way in the world a loon is going to swallow a spinnerbaits . Besides a pelican there isn't a bird big enough to swallow one of those . Rich I get pissy too when I look at my lead tackle but think of the time and money spent on lead poisoning and pollution. It's an inconvenience but filling our waters regularly with a known toxin is just plain irresponsible. I fully support a lead ban, as does the research, so I am happy to see our New England states making smart decisions not moving backwards Raynor U say states... Only NH is so strict that it over does it... For example... Maine has a lead law. But it's directed toward lead sinkers... But painted jigs are ok... NH doesn't care that paint creates a border so if a bird were to eat it the fact of it Rich That's a fun argument but lead is dangerous when mixed with water, period. Might I remind you of this. And yes, I know, that was not caused by fishing tackle, but why should we fill our environment with a highly toxic substance if we don't have to? If we all chose to voluntarily reduce lead use, the nanny laws wouldn't exist. https://www.google.com/.../toxic-water-soaring-lead.../ |Chris Completely agree sucks cause tungsten jigs or tinget expensive but in the long run its a better decision Tim It's not about lead or loons. It's about the leftists showing they can push their agenda. Watermelons, green on the outside red on the inside. Steve . I have gone to tungsten, but this law was nothing more than an effort pushed thru by the loon preservation society. It's funny to me that 35 years ago if I saw a loon it was a real event something to talk about. My guess is that had something to do with DDT. Now they are in every waterbody in the state, and guess what? They made that comeback over the last 35 years with all of us using lead tackle! It's not like we stopped using lead last year and the loons all showed up. I think there could be some adjustments to the law that might be a good compromise Steve And don't tell me the costs are not a real difference. When I owned Upper Valley Outfitters, I could buy jigs for walleye fishing wholesale at about.35 cents each. Tungsten was .92 cents. That sounds trivial, but the Connecticut River tends to eat tackle so it got too expensive for some fishermen. That's just what I observed Travis The law is so stupid. I completely agree. I'm not paying 4 dollars more for jigs that are not lead. And the jigs I've trusted and used for years are lead. How about drop shot weights? They are so expensive if they aren't lead and you tend to lose them. So there's 14 bucks Every time you go out when they lead ones are a quarter of the cost. In the long run it will cost hundreds if not thousands more for gear. Which I simply cannot afford. Ted Williams I've fished in NH since the lead ban and have not suffered even a little. Good for NH for leading the way. No one's "screwing" anyone. Here's piece I did for TNC explaining what some anglers need to learn: http://blog.nature.org/science/2016/11/28/recovery-saving-common-loon-lead-fishing-tackle-poisoning-birds/ Denise Having managed a marina on Squam, I can tell you in just one summer on Little Squam we had 3 loons in our harbor that ingested lead we were able to capture because they were sick and 2 died. All were x-rayed and they had lead in their stomachs Kyle Loins is funny! David Just use tungsten Ted Williams Non-toxic metals including steel, bismuth, copper and tin are cheap and readily available. Tungsten is relatively expensive but weighs more than lead. Non-toxics hold up better than lead, don’t snag as easily, keep tackle boxes cleaner and are safe for humans. Now there are even ceramic and natural rock sinkers. Speak Up for the FN Blue with Andrew Lewin Promo Mystery Tackle Box code FISHNERDS to save 5 bucks

What’s the worst fishing advice you’ve been given? Fish in the News! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gwyneth-paltrow-brings-up-a-good-point-about-not-eating-octopus_us_58d295fee4b0f838c62e7765? NH has some of the most restrictive lead bans in the country, but some say it’s too much! Here is what some folks are saying on facebook… Names have been altered! So when are WE fishermen going to push back against this lead law? I mean, maybe not get rid of it totally but have it rewritten... Shouldn’t be all lead... Should only be lead sinkers... Painted jigs, with hooks should be excluded! So many types of lures that aren't made without lead... Not to mention the price... Of the bird people can make the law, no reason why we can't get it rewritten to not COMPLETELY screw us... Mike Its the ones with the hooks that are the worse. Lead is bad for the environment and all health. Period. Yeah, its kind of annoying, but it would be better for the market in general to move away from lead. The last part is the real problem Ray The law should be like Maine's lead law... NH needs to stop trying to be so different from Maine and start looking toward them for guidance... Lol Steve Loons don't eat lead shot larger than #4 shot. Lead split sinkers are mostly bigger than that. Too many anti, loon lovers in NH F&G. Raymond Everything that is made of lead they make in tungsten or bismuth . Bismuth I'd the same price as lead .Lead free bass jigs.Com . And ray to your thoughts on getting it changed never ever going to happen . I don't care if you got every fisherman in the state it still isn't going to change. Now go check out ken's site and replace your equipment like I've had to do and everyone else has had to. I've easily got a $300 worth of lead I just use it when I go to fla. Only one I disagree with is spinnerbaits . Ain't no way in the world a loon is going to swallow a spinnerbaits . Besides a pelican there isn't a bird big enough to swallow one of those . Rich I get pissy too when I look at my lead tackle but think of the time and money spent on lead poisoning and pollution. It's an inconvenience but filling our waters regularly with a known toxin is just plain irresponsible. I fully support a lead ban, as does the research, so I am happy to see our New England states making smart decisions not moving backwards Raynor U say states... Only NH is so strict that it over does it... For example... Maine has a lead law. But it's directed toward lead sinkers... But painted jigs are ok... NH doesn't care that paint creates a border so if a bird were to eat it the fact of it Rich That's a fun argument but lead is dangerous when mixed with water, period. Might I remind you of this. And yes, I know, that was not caused by fishing tackle, but why should we fill our environment with a highly toxic substance if we don't have to? If we all chose to voluntarily reduce lead use, the nanny laws wouldn't exist. https://www.google.com/.../toxic-water-soaring-lead.../ |Chris Completely agree sucks cause tungsten jigs or tinget expensive but in the long run its a better decision Tim It's not about lead or loons. It's about the leftists showing they can push their agenda. Watermelons, green on the outside red on the inside. Steve . I have gone to tungsten, but this law was nothing more than an effort pushed thru by the loon preservation society. It's funny to me that 35 years ago if I saw a loon it was a real event something to talk about. My guess is that had something to do with DDT. Now they are in every waterbody in the state, and guess what? They made that comeback over the last 35 years with all of us using lead tackle! It's not like we stopped using lead last year and the loons all showed up. I think there could be some adjustments to the law that might be a good compromise Steve And don't tell me the costs are not a real difference. When I owned Upper Valley Outfitters, I could buy jigs for walleye fishing wholesale at about.35 cents each. Tungsten was .92 cents. That sounds trivial, but the Connecticut River tends to eat tackle so it got too expensive for some fishermen. That's just what I observed Travis The law is so stupid. I completely agree. I'm not paying 4 dollars more for jigs that are not lead. And the jigs I've trusted and used for years are lead. How about drop shot weights? They are so expensive if they aren't lead and you tend to lose them. So there's 14 bucks Every time you go out when they lead ones are a quarter of the cost. In the long run it will cost hundreds if not thousands more for gear. Which I simply cannot afford. Ted Williams I've fished in NH since the lead ban and have not suffered even a little. Good for NH for leading the way. No one's "screwing" anyone. Here's piece I did for TNC explaining what some anglers need to learn: http://blog.nature.org/science/2016/11/28/recovery-saving-common-loon-lead-fishing-tackle-poisoning-birds/ Denise Having managed a marina on Squam, I can tell you in just one summer on Little Squam we had 3 loons in our harbor that ingested lead we were able to capture because they were sick and 2 died. All were x-rayed and they had lead in their stomachs Kyle Loins is funny! David Just use tungsten Ted Williams Non-toxic metals including steel, bismuth, copper and tin are cheap and readily available. Tungsten is relatively expensive but weighs more than lead. Non-toxics hold up better than lead, don’t snag as easily, keep tackle boxes cleaner and are safe for humans. Now there are even ceramic and natural rock sinkers. Speak Up for the FN Blue with Andrew Lewin Promo Mystery Tackle Box code FISHNERDS to save 5 bucks

In this episode grad students Jackie Stein, Liz Bell and Ceren Karacasu and professor David Just revisit the study done previously about the gift giving habits of people at Valentines Day and what results the expanded pool of participants reveals. Tweet us @MadHatEconomics Email us madhatecon@gmail.com

In this episode grad students Jackie Stein, Liz Bell and Ceren Karacasu and professor David Just revisit the study done previously about the gift giving habits of people at Valentines Day and what results the expanded pool of participants reveals. Tweet us @MadHatEconomics Email us madhatecon@gmail.com

In this episode grad student Jackie Stein, post-doc Gnel Gabrielyan and professor David Just discuss shopping in the holiday season, black Friday "deals" and the makeup of sales this holiday season. Tweet us @MadHatEconomics Email us madhatecon@gmail.com

In this episode grad student Jackie Stein, post-doc Gnel Gabrielyan and professor David Just discuss shopping in the holiday season, black Friday "deals" and the makeup of sales this holiday season. Tweet us @MadHatEconomics Email us madhatecon@gmail.com

In this episode grad student Jackie Stein, Prof. David Just and visiting scholars Raquel Diaz and Ben Missbach discuss Thanksgiving and similar holidays that inspire increased eating of high calorie foods across the world and how to possibly adjust to a holiday diet. Tweet us @MadHatEconomics Email us madhatecon@gmail.com

In this episode grad student Jackie Stein, Prof. David Just and visiting scholars Raquel Diaz and Ben Missbach discuss Thanksgiving and similar holidays that inspire increased eating of high calorie foods across the world and how to possibly adjust to a holiday diet. Tweet us @MadHatEconomics Email us madhatecon@gmail.com

Into the Nth Dimensionby David D. LevineThe fence around Dr. Diabolus's lair is twenty feet tall, electrified and topped with razor wire.  I'd expected no less.  From one of the many pouches at my belt I pull a pair of acorns and toss them at the base of the fence. I exert my special power.  Each acorn immediately sprouts, roots digging through asphalt as the leafy stem reaches skyward.  Wood fibers KRACKLE as the stems extend, lengthen, thicken, green skin changing to grayish bark in a moment.  Leaves SSHHH into existence; branches reach out to the neighbor tree, twining themselves into rungs. Before the twin oaks have reached their full height I spring into action, clambering up the living ladder as it grows, creeping along a limb even as it extends over the razor wire.  It's a dramatic, foolhardy move, but I can't delay -- Sprout is in peril!  The branch sags under my weight, lowering me to within ten feet of the ground, and I leap down with practiced ease. Full transcript after the cut:----more----Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 22 for February ... 20th, oops. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you!Our story today is "Into the Nth Dimension" by David D. Levine, read by... David D. Levine.David is the author of novel Arabella of Mars, which will be out from Tor Books in July 2016, and over fifty science fiction and fantasy stories. His story “Tk’Tk’Tk” won the Hugo Award in 2006, and he has been shortlisted for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. Stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, numerous Year’s Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection Space Magic.Oh, just one more thing! While I was putting this episode together the SFWA Nebula award nominations came out, and David JUST, as in, literally minutes ago, received a Nebula nomination for his story "Damage," which was released on Tor.com. Congratulations!GlitterShip would also like to congratulate some of the authors whose stories appeared in previous episodes: Ken Liu (Episode 15), was nominated for best Novel for his book "The Grace of Kings", Rose Lemberg (Episode 7) was nominated for her novelette "Grandmother-nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds", and Sarah Pinsker (Episode 2) was also nominated for a novelette, "Our Lady of the Open Road."Ok. NOW you can listen to the story.Into the Nth Dimensionby David D. LevineThe fence around Dr. Diabolus's lair is twenty feet tall, electrified and topped with razor wire.  I'd expected no less.  From one of the many pouches at my belt I pull a pair of acorns and toss them at the base of the fence. I exert my special power.  Each acorn immediately sprouts, roots digging through asphalt as the leafy stem reaches skyward.  Wood fibers KRACKLE as the stems extend, lengthen, thicken, green skin changing to grayish bark in a moment.  Leaves SSHHH into existence; branches reach out to the neighbor tree, twining themselves into rungs. Before the twin oaks have reached their full height I spring into action, clambering up the living ladder as it grows, creeping along a limb even as it extends over the razor wire.  It's a dramatic, foolhardy move, but I can't delay -- Sprout is in peril!  The branch sags under my weight, lowering me to within ten feet of the ground, and I leap down with practiced ease. Again I concentrate, and the two trees wither away behind me, a gnawed patch of asphalt and a few stray leaves the only sign they'd ever existed.  I feel their pain as they wilt and die, but I don't want my intrusion discovered sooner than necessary.  The loss of their green and growing lives is just the latest of the many sacrifices I've made.  I press onward.Slippery elm makes short work of the side door lock; mushrooms blind security cameras and heat sensors.  These bright corridors, humming with electricity and weirder energies, are cold places of steel and concrete, offering me no plants or plant matter to leverage my powers.  I've faced worse.  I prowl quickly, silently, keeping my head down, all senses alert to any trace of the kidnapped Sprout.Voices!  I duck into an alcove as two of Dr. Diabolus's goons round the corner.  As soon as they've passed I spring out behind them, tossing seeds at their feet.  Fast-twining English ivy ensnares one before he can cry out, but the other evades its tendrils.  "Phyto-Man!" he gasps.POW! my fist responds.  He drops cold beside his still-struggling comrade, whose eyes glare with hatred above his smothered mouth.  I direct the ivy to bind the unconscious goon as well, so he'll raise no alarm when he awakes.Even their underwear is synthetic fiber.  Dr. Diabolus is thorough, I'll grant him that.Deeper and deeper into the cavernous lair I probe, keeping an eye on the pipes and conduits that line the ceiling, smaller leading to larger, following the branch to find the trunk.  I know Dr. Diabolus; wherever he's holding my sidekick it will be near his latest contrivance, and all his inventions require massive amounts of power. If only he'd gone solar instead of stealing plutonium, we might have been allies.At last I come to a massive, vault-like door, all steel and chrome, set in a concrete wall into which many thick conduits vanish.  But nothing is more persistent than a plant.  I tuck dozens of tiny dandelion seeds into the crack between door and jamb.  Their indomitable roots reach deep, swelling and prying, until with a WHANGG of tearing metal the door bursts from its frame. With my own muscles I wrench the shattered door aside and burst into the chamber.  Dr. Diabolus turns to me, cape swirling.  "You disappoint me, Phyto-Man," he sneers, his artificial eye glowing red.  "I expected you here half an hour ago.""Traffic was terrible," I quip.  The chamber is dominated by a complex machine, seething with arcane energies that make my head swim, but there's no sign of Sprout.  "What have you done with my sidekick, you fiend?""I sent him to... the Nth Dimension!"  He pulls a lever on the control panel before him.  A ten-foot iris of blue steel in the center of the machine SNICKs open, revealing...Looking into the opening makes my eyes feel like they're being pulled out of my head.  It's as though all the colors of the palette have somehow been smeared together with... others... forming impossible combinations of hue and tone that swirl sickeningly.  But worse than that, the weird amalgam of color seems to bend... around a corner that isn't there.  It's painful to see, even harder to look away.CHANGG!  Something hard and cold fastens onto my bicep, breaking the spell.  "What?" I cry.  Before I can move, a second steel claw CHANGGs onto my other arm.  CHANGG!  CHANGG!  CHANGG!  I'm caught like a fly, steel bracelets ringing my arms, legs, and neck.  Jointed metal arms haul me off the floor, suspend me in the air before the gloating Dr. Diabolus. "HAHAHAHAHA!" he laughs as I struggle in vain.  "You've foiled my plans for the last time, Phyto-Man!""If you've harmed Sprout--!" I growl through clenched teeth, straining against the imprisoning metal."My dear Phyto-Man, I must confess... I don't know!"  He works the controls and the arms propel me, none too gently, toward the yawning portal.  The uncanny colors swirl crazily, filling my vision, seeming to tug at every fiber of my being.  "But whatever has become of your Sprout, you will shortly be joining him there.  Bon voyage, Emerald Avenger!"The arms thrust me forward.  With a SPRANK! the five claws open simultaneously, flinging me into the swirling abyss.A hard, gritty surface presses against my side.  I'm cold, my head is spinning, and everything hurts.  There's a thin, rushing sound off in the distance.  Traffic?I sit up and open my eyes.  And immediately I wish I hadn't.There's nothing to see but a cracked and filthy concrete floor and my own hands, but they're all wrong... seriously wrong.  The floor curves away from me in every direction -- the same impossible curvature I'd seen in Dr. Diabolus's portal -- despite the fact that it looks and feels flat.  And the surface looks like... like concrete multiplied by itself.  Cracks are crackier.  Grit is grittier.  It's all realer than real; it pounds on my eyes as though I were staring into the sun, though there's barely any light.  And the color is not just gray, but a weird amalgam of thousands of different grays blended smoothly together.  A whole shining rainbow of grays.My heart is pounding.   I've faced death many times, fought monsters, escaped from traps, but I've never experienced anything this disturbing.  Always before the threat came from outside, but now it's me -- my own perceptions -- that have changed.My hands, too, are a disconcerting, amplified version of themselves.  I turn them before my eyes, and as they rotate I seem to see both sides at the same time as the front.  In color they are... kind of an ultra-pink, not the plain pink I've seen every day of my life but an eye-hurting blend of unnatural shades.  Pinks that don't exist, have never existed.  And as I look more closely I see disturbing swirls of texture in my skin, spiraling like microscopic galaxies, like nothing I've ever seen before.I swallow and rip my attention away from my own fingers.  Have I been drugged?  I shake my head hard, but that just makes the headache and dizziness worse.  I pound my fists on the ground, but though I feel the impact and the pain there's no comforting THUD, just a muffled thump so faint and distant I might as well be imagining it. "Hello?" I call.  No, nothing wrong with my hearing; my voice bounces back to me from the darkness, echoing off the distant, unseen walls.To my surprise there's an immediate reply.  "Michael?"  The voice is heartbreakingly familiar.  I feel a twinge of hope."Sprout?"  I peer into the darkness, hoping for a glimpse of green tights and pointed shoes.  It's a ridiculous outfit.  Why have we never changed it?And why have I never wondered that before?"It's me, Michael.  Richard."A familiar figure appears in the dim distance, but with everything so strange here I can't afford to relax.  "Is this a secure area?  We should stick to code names...""No need.  There's no Sprout here, and no Phyto-Man either."Worries spring up in my mind -- impostors, hypnosis, possession, brainwashing -- but I decide to bluff it out in case there are unseen observers.  "Well, I'm here now, Sprout." "This all seems very strange, I know, but don't worry.  Everything will be all right."Despite his reassurances, there's a strangeness about Sprout as he approaches.  He's wearing street clothes, in colors and textures as hallucinogenic as everything else here, and his face combines familiarity with an alien super-reality exactly as my own hands do, but the really disturbing thing is the way he moves.  Each step flows into the next with a weird gliding motion that propels him forward seamlessly, without transitions.  It's like he's rolling toward me on a treadmill, constantly cresting a hill that isn't there.  I push down feelings of nausea and... and fear.  Never in all my adventures have I faced anything as disquieting as this place.  "Where am I?""Dr. Diabolus called it the Nth Dimension, but the people here just call it the world."  He's reached me now, and the mingled concern and relief in his face match the conflicting emotions in my own heart.  "I'm so glad you're finally here."He bends down and helps me to my feet, a disturbing reversal, and I find that I move with the same unnatural glide that he does.  Even more disturbing, I find I'm naked.  "My costume!"  I cover myself with my hands as best I can, but the loss of my belt pouches, my carefully nurtured collection of seeds, leaves me feeling not just nude but defenseless.I reach out with my powers.  Perhaps a seed from a discarded Fig Newton lies in a crack on the floor, a seed I can grow into leaves to cover my nakedness.  But there's nothing; my powers are dulled almost to nonexistence.  I can feel wood beams supporting the ceiling high above, but I can't warp them to my will. I'm helpless.  For the first time in... I can't remember when."Don't worry," Sprout says, "no one here wears costumes.  I brought you some clothes."  He turns, the motion revealing sides and back, width and depth and thickness, all at once.  I groan and nearly lose my balance.  "Oh!" he says.  "I'm sorry.  Try closing one eye.  It helps."I do, and it does -- the colors are still wrong but the disorienting sense of everything being too far away and too close at the same time is greatly reduced.  Sprout -- Richard -- reaches into a rustling paper bag and hands me a folded bundle. Putting the clothes on is a challenge.  Each trouser leg recedes like a portal to another world; buttons and zippers feel much larger, more detailed than they should.  I close my eyes completely and let my instincts take over.  It makes a big difference.  How many times in my life have I dressed myself?  But this still feels like the first time.I sit on the filthy floor to tie the unfamiliar shoes.  "That's better," I say.  "Now let's get to work."  Maybe action will still the trembling dread in my heart.  "There's no time to lose -- we need to get back to our own dimension and defeat Dr. Diabolus before it's too late!"Richard smiles and shakes his head.  I'm starting to get used to the weird multi-dimensional effect.  "Don't worry, there's plenty of time."  He puts out a hand.  "Come on.  I'll explain over coffee."Sprout's lack of concern raises anew the questions I'd had about drugs, hypnosis, imposters.  But, lost in a strange, incomprehensible world, I have no better alternative to offer.  I take his hand. His hand is warm and soft in mine.  When was the last time I'd grasped it without gloves, without haste, without danger all around? He leads me across the floor -- now that my eyes have adapted a bit to the darkness and strangeness I see that the space is a cavernous, disused warehouse -- to a corroded metal door.  It opens with a muted squeak of rusty hinges, not the SKREEK I would have expected, but once we pass through it to the street I'm assaulted by a cacophony of sounds, visions, and smells more intense than New Year's Eve in Metro City.  Cars in an astonishing variety of designs and colors careen by, with the same seamless motion as Sprout's walk but a hundred times faster.  Each one seems to zoom in from the horizon and vanish away to infinity all in a moment, but even as they speed by I can't help but notice their scratches and dents and chips in the paint and a hundred other details.  It's a dizzying kaleidoscope of color and detail."Whoa!" I cry out as Sprout hauls me back from the curb."Careful, big guy."  He pats my shoulder.  "You're not invulnerable here.""Well, I've never been in Dynamic Man's league...""No, I mean you can really get hurt easily.  It doesn't take much, and it takes a long time to heal.  Look at this."  He pulls up his sleeve, revealing a hideous scab on his elbow.  "I scraped this on a brick wall when I first got here.  Just a little scrape, nothing I'd even have noticed if I were in a fist fight with the Demolisher, but it hurt like a son of a bitch --"I've never heard such language.  "Sprout!""-- and a month later it's still not all the way better."A month?  Immediately I'm on high alert again.  Has the imposter slipped up?  Sprout only disappeared the day before yesterday.But he notices the change in my expression -- faces here seem more subtle, more expressive -- and puts up a hand.  "Sorry.  We're on a monthly schedule.  One or two of our days, more or less, is a month here.  I should have told you right away."  His eyes dip to the sidewalk.  "There's a lot I should have told you, before."My suspicions are only slightly allayed, but I still have little alternative but to stick with this person, whether or not he's the Sprout I know.  Whoever he is, he just saved my life.We walk to a coffee shop.  Safe from the chaos of the street, I can begin to appreciate the wonder of this world -- the colors and textures, the tears in the vinyl seat's upholstery, the individual grains of spilled sugar on the laminate tabletop.  My spoon makes a tiny tink, tink noise as I stir my coffee.  The flavor is astonishing -- rich and sweet and dark.  "So you've been here a whole month?" He nods.  "I showed up in the same place you did.  It's the closest analog in this world to Dr. Diabolus's lair.  It took me quite a while to figure this place out, but I finally did.""You always were the brains of this partnership."  Before Sprout, there had been no Phyto-Computer, no chemical lab, no advanced cross-breeding program in the Hidden Greenhouse.  I'd really been little more than a thug with a green thumb."This world... it's like a layer above our world.  Everything here is... bigger.  More complex.  More detailed.  Even the color spectrum... there's an infinity of different colors here, Michael."I think back on the time I fell into the Hollow Earth, and how I had to help the downtrodden people there throw off the tyrannical overlord Karg before I could return to the surface.  "Then they must have even bigger problems than we do.  More villainous villains!  More despotic despots!  More disastrous natural disasters!"  I find myself grinning with anticipation.  "This could be our greatest adventure!""You might think so, but I haven't seen any sign of it.  There aren't any villains here.""It's some kind of Utopia, then?""Not really."  His face squinches up the way it does when he's thinking hard.  "There are people who do bad things.  But every time someone does something that seems entirely villainous to me, a whole bunch of other people come along and say it was really the right thing to do.  I'm kind of confused, really."  He shakes his head.  "Even bank robbers have their defenders here.  And there are tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes, but they're... diffuse.  I mean, yeah, people get hurt, but you never see the President's daughter trapped under a collapsed building or someone racing to get the secret plans to the hidden base before the whole Eastern Seaboard becomes uninhabitable.""Sounds... boring.""Oh, it's not!"  His eyes brighten and he grabs my hands across the table.  "It's the most wonderful place, Michael.  There's art and culture and nature like nothing you've ever seen.  Not just stuffy charity balls where the only exciting thing is when The Rutabaga tries to steal the debutante's diamond necklace.  I can't wait to show you Turandot."I pull my hands from his.  "Whoa, whoa, whoa, kiddo.  We're not here to be tourists.  We're here for a reason.  And once our job is done here, we'll go back where we came from.  That's the way the world works.""Not this world.  In this world you can do whatever you want, make the best of what you've got, succeed or fail or just muddle along... you're not limited to playing the role you were born into, fighting the same villains and foiling the same plots over and over again.  Not like our world."  He reaches into his hoodie's front pocket, pulls out a slim colorful magazine.  "To the people here, we're fictional!"The title of the magazine is The Amazing Phyto-Man, issue 157.  On the cover, a hulking over-muscled brute with a ridiculous green outfit and a caricature of my own face smacks a tentacled monstrosity in the beak.  The pages inside are divided into squares and rectangles, each bearing a picture and some text...It shows the whole story of how I got here.  Over the fence, down the corridors, the confrontation with Dr. Diabolus, the metal arms flinging me into the portal.I feel as though the world has been jerked out from under my feet.  "This is impossible.  Absurd.  Some kind of hoax.""It's no hoax.  There were ten copies of this one on the rack I bought it from.  All our friends have their own publications too."  He taps the final panel, showing me screaming as I fall into the swirling colors... but the colors on the page are the flat, limited palette of the world I came from.  "This is how I knew you'd be arriving here."I stare at the page.  It's wood pulp with vegetable inks.  My powers are weak here, almost nonexistent, but I can feel the minuscule thread of green life in it.  In some ways this stupid little magazine is the only thing in the whole chromium-and-vinyl coffee shop that's real. The only thing that's real...I turn back a page.  It's one large panel, with Dr. Diabolus laughing "HAHAHAHAHA!" as I struggle in the grip of the metal arms.  I stare at his flat, cartoonish face.I exert my power. It's not easy.  What I'm trying to do is unlike anything I've ever done before.  My teeth grind together; my pulse pounds in my temples. This is as hard and as strange as the very first time I ever made a seed sprout. It had been an apple seed, a discarded pip from my lunch, that happened to be lying on the floor the day that eerie green-glowing meteorite had crashed into the experimental greenhouse with its stocks of Growth Serum X.  That tiny seed, and the potential apple tree within, had been all that stood between me and certain death as the heavy beam had come crashing down toward me.  As though in a dream I'd sensed its potential, I'd reached out, I'd pulled harder than I'd ever pulled on anything before... and the tree burst into being, root and branch and leaf cushioning the beam's fall and saving my life.That had been the first time I'd felt that green power flowing through me.  Now I feel it again, a thin green thread of life pulsing in the dead, flattened wood pulp before me.  But this time it's different somehow, pulling at me even as I pull at it.Sweat stings my eyes and runs down my nose.  I keep straining...And then Dr. Diabolus blinks. The caricature face turns fractionally toward me, its look of triumph beginning to change into one of astonishment...It's more than I can sustain.  I collapse, my breath rushing out in a whoosh as I fall back into the padded seat.  The page before me reverts to its previous form, but I feel a sense of triumph. Sprout snatches the magazine away.  "What did you do?" "I used my powers.  I touched our world.  I made a change." "So what?""We can use this!"  I pound the table.  "I don't know how, but somehow we can use this magazine to get back to our own world!""Hush!" Sprout pats the air with his hands; I notice that the server and the other patrons are staring.  I sit down, noticing as I do that I'd surged to my feet.  "Michael... I don't want to go back to the world we came from.""We have to!"He looks at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. And then he bolts from the table. I stare stupidly at the door as the little bell over it tinkles, then take off after him.Sprout's fast, but ever since that day in the experimental greenhouse I've been stronger and tougher and faster than most people, and at least some of that seems to have come through the portal with me.  I manage to make it through the door before his heels vanish around the corner.Running in this world is a kaleidoscopic, hallucinogenic experience.  Walls seem to rush at me, a riot of color and texture; cars veer and swerve, horns blaring.  But I keep my eyes fixed on Sprout's blue hoodie as he dashes across streets, pushes through crowds of protesting civilians, runs down alleys. Block after block, I'm gaining.  Sprout was always the smart one in our partnership, but I'm the one who battled The Piledriver to a standstill.  Soon I'm only a few feet behind.We're racing down an alley, dodging around dumpsters and piles of newspaper, when I get almost close enough to touch him.  He looks over his shoulder... and trips on a bundle of magazines.  He tumbles on the concrete with an "oomph" that sounds almost like something from our original world.I catch up to him just as he's sitting up.  Bright red blood runs from his nose; there's a rusty smell.  "Guh?" he says.I bend down, put an arm around his shoulder.  "Are you all right, old buddy?"He stares into my eyes for a moment, blood painting his nose and mouth.And then he kisses me.I taste blood.  I feel his warm lips soft under mine. I kiss him back.Then, horrified, I push him away.  "What are we doing, Sprout?""Kissing.  And you liked it as much as I did."  His bloody lips twist into an ironic smile.  "If you couldn't figure that much out, I guess I really am the brains of this partnership.""But... but you're just a kid!"He glares at me.  "I'm twenty-two, Michael."Twenty-two?  It's strange to realize that he's right.  He was fifteen when I adopted him after Maniac killed his parents, but that was... seven years ago.  Where did the time go?  How had I failed to notice he'd grown into a lithe, attractive young man?  "Even so... it's... it's wrong.""Maybe where we came from.  Not here."  He pulls a bandana from his pocket, wipes his mouth.  Blood still trickles from his nose but it's slowing.  "This world is better than ours, Michael.  It's complex and it's mundane and it's sometimes tedious, but it's not just the same round of villains and fights and secret identities over and over again.  It's... it's real, Michael.  And here I can be what I've always wanted to be, instead of just playing a role."  He holds out the bandana.  "And so can you."Sprout keeps holding out the bandana. After a while I take it, and wipe my own mouth.Then I stand up. "I'm a hero, Richard.  It may be a role, but it's the only role I know."Sprout just looks at me.  The expression on his blood-spattered face is a sick compound of longing, sadness, disappointment.  Perhaps I'm learning how to understand what I see in this world.I wonder what the expression on my own face tells him."Give me the magazine, Sprout.  We'll take it to the warehouse where we came in.  I figure that's the best place to try going back to our world.""No."Sprout lies at my feet, looking so small and weak, the front of his blue hoodie stained black with his blood.  I could take the magazine from him easily.  "I'll find another copy.""You don't have any money to buy one.""I'll steal it."He gives a weak little laugh.  "Liar."I have to smile myself.  "Okay, maybe not."  I sit back down.  "Come back with me, Sprout.  You know it's where we belong."He sits up, leans against me.  His shoulder is warm, the only warm thing in this cold, garbage-strewn alley, and I let it rest on my chest.  "Give this world a chance, Michael.  You've only just arrived.  I've already found a job at a nursery.  You could work there too."  He looks up at me.  His nose has stopped bleeding.  "We could share the apartment."I consider the idea.  I put my arm around my sidekick, lean back against the filthy brick wall, and think very hard about it.  This world is amazing, with its details and colors and motions and flavors.  And to share it with Sprout would be... something I hadn't even realized I desired. But in the end, it's duty that wins out.  "I'm sorry, Sprout.  Even if I wanted to -- and there's a part of me that does, believe me -- it's more than just you and me.  There are people depending on us back home.  If we don't go back there, who'll keep the Scimitar Sisters in check?"  I give him one last squeeze, disentangle myself, and stand up.  "Coming?""You're sure I can't change your mind?"I'm so, so tempted.  "I'm sure.""Then I'm coming too."  He stands, brushes himself off.  "I'd rather be a cartoon hero with you than alone here."We walk hand-in-hand back to the warehouse.  As we pass the coffee shop, I pause.  Sprout looks up at me, expectant.  "I, uh... I still have some of my powers here."  I clear my throat.  "I wonder if there's.... if there's any way we can bring... some of this world, back to ours?""I don't think so."  He points to a small shield printed in the corner of the magazine's cover.  "There are rules against it."Finally we find ourselves again in the dark, echoey space where we entered this world.  I think about how strange it looked to me when I first arrived, and I realize I've grown used to these new perceptions.  My old world will seem so flat and colorless by comparison. Sprout stands beside me as I spread the magazine out in a patch of sunlight.  There is no joy in me as I contemplate the garish images full of POW and KRUNCH, only a dull sense of obligation.  "It's not too late to change your mind," Sprout says.  "We can make a life together here.""I'm sorry, Sprout.  Our world needs saving."  But even as I say it, I know I'm trying to convince myself as well as him.  I hold out my hand.Without a word, he takes it.I bend down and stare hard at the last page, showing my cartoon avatar falling into the vortex between worlds.  I exert my will, block out all other sensations, focus my powers on the ink-saturated wood pulp.  Somehow, I know, I can use this image of the portal to return myself and Sprout to the world where we were born.It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I concentrate.  I work my power.  I push and pull and strain... this is as hard as the time I used pea vines to temporarily close up the Grand Canyon.  Harder.I strain still more intensely.  The printed vortex begins to whirl...I feel again, just as I did on that first day in the experimental greenhouse, the deep connection between my soul and the green life underlying the page...I feel the warmth of Sprout's hand in mine...And I realize that the connection runs both ways. With an unprecedented effort of will, I reverse my power. Where before the meteor's green energy had flowed into me at my moment of greatest need, now I send the energy flowing from myself into the printed page. I scream in pain as the power drains from me like my life's blood. The image before me springs to life.  Just as the metal claws release, the cartoon me on the page reaches down and tears open his belt.  Seeds of all descriptions pour out in their thousands, most falling into the vortex, but many others sprouting and twining and filling the portal with leaves and stems and branches.  I bounce off the web of vegetable matter, springing right back toward Dr. Diabolus.  WHAM!  My fist connects with the villain's chin.Then all is blackness.Later.  I open my eyes, and the first thing I see is Dr. Diabolus's lab.  Everything is flat, static, in eight garish colors.  But then I blink, and realize I've fallen face-first into the magazine spread on the floor before me.I sit up.  I'm no longer looking at the last page of The Amazing Phyto-Man issue 157.  It's now the first page of issue 158, a single large panel.  In it Dr. Diabolus, threatened by an enormous Venus flytrap, cowers at the controls of his dimensional portal, through which a grinning Sprout steps to take the hand of Phyto-Man.  All's well in Metro City."Michael?"  Richard is just awakening beside me.  "Wha... what just happened?"It takes me a long, reflective moment to find an answer to his question.  "I... I sent the power back where it came from, I think."  I look within myself.  It certainly isn't in there any more.  "It's with him now."  I tap the page. Richard's eyes dart from the page to my face.  "But that's you.""Not any more.  I'm just Michael now."  I stroke the flat, cartoon version of myself with my fingertips.  "Phyto-Man is back where he belongs.  I don't know how much of me went with him, but I hope... I hope he enjoyed his day in this world.  Maybe he can use what I learned here to make Metro City a better place.""But what about... us?  What happens next?"I close the magazine.  "I don't know.  Isn't it amazing?"END“Into the Nth Dimension” was originally published in Human For A Day, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Martin H. Greenberg in 2011.This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.Thanks for listening, and I’ll be back on March 1st with “Je me souviens” by Su J. Sokol.

How can schools use low-cost solutions to help children make healthier food choices? David Just is an expert on that topic. An economist by training, he is a professor at Cornell University and co-director, with Brian Wansink, of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (BEN Center). His research has included dozens of field and lab experiments that identify the subtle […] The post Using behavioral insights to design smarter school lunchrooms: An interview with David Just, Co-Director, Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs – Episode #107 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.